FYI the IK multimedia was planned to be included but its only allowing me to demo IK t-racks as a whole so as I demo'd the Dynamu it basically acted as my entire demo and I've tried but I can't demo any t-racks related IK plugs 🤔

I chose A. I was surprised that the actual Studer didnt sound as good to me. I have the UAD tape plugins and Ill probably use them a lot more now. Its funny that we're always looking for better when what we already have is more than good enough to do the job well. Great shoot out Paul. Thanks.

TBH I just discovered your channel and I really like it! This is the second video I watched so far and I can really relate to what you have to say! Keep going!

Paul (see previous comments) - your videos are amazing because we can truly hear each plugin individually and see what its doing - so we can judge what to use in different circumstances - no one else really does this in a shoot out . Im excited about this mix project because we can see how all the elements from the individual tracks then feed into the MB - and we'll see how the choices hold up ... when its done, we can see about dropping the UAD (or real Studer) on the finished mix and see if its truly the icing ... onward and upwards ...

Nice video as ever. I've noticed you like a lot of polished, tickly, high end in your mix, I'm actually the opposite way inclined and for that reason i love Taupe!!

Thanks mate...great stuff

Nice discussion! Thanks Paul!!

Glad u pointed out the thing about slate auto gain, it used to be my fav tape plugin until one day I properly gain matched it and compared it with other tape plugins XD

Hi Paul, big respect for explaining the effect each tape emulation plugin are doing to the input source. I have a 16track tascam at home for tracking and Softube Tape on my MBuss. Works a treat. Great vids keep up the good work bro.

I liked the UAD and the dry most of the time. In the final test, I again preferred the UAD and dry. The Studer did add a nice snap to the snare but there was a slight loss in overall energy. But for pretty much all the tests, I preferred the dry. I've done tests like this and what I've found is that once you take something already mixed in the digital domain and then pass the tracks (or busses) through console channels, or something, there are things gained but also things lost. To me (and to at least one of my clients) there's an immediacy to a digital mix that gets lost when simply summing it through analog. The top and bottom does get sweeter, but everything in between seems to get softened a little too much. Vocals become less intense and some of the intelligibility of the bass goes away. But this does depend on the program material. A better test would be to mix something from scratch through analog and then compare. Of course, these won't be one to one comparisons because you'll be making different decisions based on how you're hearing things, but it will show a truer difference between what analog does vs what digital does.

GREAT stuff Paul keep goin love all your videos! The snake oil impression had me on the ground laughing ahahaha

Interesting comparison. I found the Studer to have a rather subtle effect overall in the final comparison, but if you can push the levels and get it to saturate and compress a bit more, it might be worth using mix:analog to put drums or bass through real tape as it might equal or surpass even the best tape plugins.

Always with great quality videos bro ! You gonna blow up bro !

100% agree about the UAD Studer in the second blind test. I had the same reaction you did.

Great video! Thanks for taking the time to test all this out! I’ve had various tape plugins over the years and my favourite so far is magnetite by black rooster audio, would love know how close it sounds to the real deal tho.

Dope Video.. Since i sold my UAD i sometimes feel i miss out of the Tape Sims and this video was great to show me otherwise. Ive used Softube for years now and the shaping is great, especially the Crosstalk knob is pretty magical. Interestingly i preferred Softube over UAD in the shootout, but probably its a sound im used to now. The end results was most interesting, i played over 3 times with PMC monitors with eyes closed and all 3 times i preferred C, B close second and A i lost the vibe. Additionally when i had UAD i did prefer the ATR every-time over Struder. Thanks for your hard work.

blind: I liked A>C>B. knowing what they were I like A>B>C. A just sounded more vintage to me, less separated. But I was only listening on laptop speakers. Thank you for the shootout!

Great videos!

Hi Paul, great video. I have to admit all the way through I kept choosing the Dry version! Then on the final showdown I picked the real Studer. It just sounded fuller and dare I say it...warmer.

A for sure. C had weird bass phasing issues and B sounded like it moved behind my head, probably also related to phase. Gotta pickup that UAD Studer plugin!

Well that was unexpected. I have the UAD system, but not the Studer plugin. I have ended up preferring the UAD version over all of the others. Thank you for making this video!

Is the softube generally regarded more highly than U-he's Satin? My current only tape plug is Airwindows, which is decent, but not exactly feature rich, and Softube is on sale for like 30 squid right now. :P

Hey Paul ! 😃If I don't have UAD . What tape plugin is the best and closest to the real thing ?

man I'd love to see a part 2 with Satin, airwindows ToTape4, TAIP, possibly the tape saturtion in Harrison Mixbus as well

I picked UAD, on the last and every shootout. It's an unbelivable plugin, and the ATR is astonishing as well, nothing can beat it on the stereo buss.

I only just saw this I picked the Studer - and you know why - I felt the elements were just cleared - specially noticeable on the hats which seem to disappear without the real tape. I think the plugins are fine as you could adjust mix elements for this to some degree, but the real tape doesn’t smudge as much. Great video Paul!

I graded the same 1.UAD, 2dry, 3TAUPE. I think it's because, like with Pultec, the UADs sound has the most weigh. It just sounds massive like adding a bit of the Decapitator on parallel ch. But is it the most accurate emulation? I don't know I've never listened to an actual Pultec outside the of hi end studio with a lot of preamps and sound going trough an SSL E and what have you. I would have to bring it home and even then if I use different sounding amps it will perform differently in terms of nuances we are trying to distinguish here. For example - Is the electrical grounding in your house or a building done like it's done in professional music studios?? Tape should round up and smooth outh al the Hi Fq and Lo Dist. transients made by analogue gear make the whole track a bit more raw but more natural like.. You can only feel it, I can't explain it especially to these generations that had never listened to a tape cassettes. Some nicely produced and mastered album on some high quality gear, like they used to be, with components in a row: record player, preamp with eq, amp, cassette player and later also cd. Even on tape cassettes with 45db dynamic span you could hear the depth and the clearness of a sound even with hf tape noise underneath. They improved it later with Dolby and different iron emulsions for tape. So my opinion Is go with what feels the best to you, more accurate emulation can sound worst than some other emulation in your particular situation. It even rhymes.

What I really need is mixing Sunday to Saturdays. 😄

The UAD is so good ! :) Thanks for the video !

Do you have any experience with U-he Satin? That's another one I'd love to hear in this kind of shootout.

UAD FTW again! You've got great ears, Paul. And I'm not just saying that because we usually pick the same thing 😆 Great content. Have you tried UAD's Ampex ATR-102 master tape?

Interesting. Definitely don't miss the tape hiss of the old analog tape.

I think the magic of taupe is all the possible tape choices.

I liked the final (A) the best. What was that one? Where do I find the poll? Thanks man, that was a ton of work

you should check toneboosters reelbus 4, if you haven't yet.

If you're missing the top end in Acustica Taupe, well, it comes with a channel strip to tweak it up.

Hey Paul, really love your videos.. I was extremely surprised, almost felt wrong, but I basically preferred the DRY mix almost all the way. I really love tape, but I think in this case it was such a subtlety, I probably unconsciously went for the less expensive scenario ahah. No but really, with tape I look for sonic realness/three-dimensionality/thickness, the real Studer tape definitely added that. but I think It was too subtle for me, especially given the fact you utilised real good productions/samples, which brings me to a serious point: in my experience, you get the most out of tape when you record straight on it at the beginning. (duh?!) Nothing will ever defeat tape, we kinda all know that, cause that's not about binary digits. Also a truthful tracking (here's comes analog) of a sound source matters the most in my opinion. All the rest is just as you said more than once: all subjective. Cheers

I chose C. Thanks Paul. That was fun.

wow. so i picked the final test correctly, even over blue tooth phones. thanx ... i have the uad and almost bought taupe due to it being on ridiculous sale .... i still wonder about all the other tape machines emulated though (in taupe) ... curious about the 1 ich 8 trk machines compared to the uad studer .... as well is there any truth to the "laser" artifact in taupe? (read on GS)?

I liked A the best. Something about that bass guitar in particular sounded really satisfying on that one.

First all of dude you are the real MVP!! From the last test I could definitely tell which one was the dry and much preferred the other two. When it came to UAD vs the real Studer I think the difference wasn't night and day. Perhaps there'd be a bigger difference if you really pushed them hard into clipping but in this context I think UAD really came through, though there's definitely a bit extra special sauce from the real Studer, like in the low mids and width, but definitely not the kind of difference that would make the price of admission and maintenance worth it in my opinion. Would be really interested in hearing how UAD vs the real Studer compare in more heavy handed scenarios like driving the heck out of some drums or really distorting a vocal track, that's kinda thing! Also we need to get one of these two companies to add some analog tape or tape-esque emulation (fatso, mas, rnd 542, etc) to their roster!

have you tried timp's j37? thanks for all these vids they're great and i appreciate your anti-sales-mania view. cheers

I know this is an old video but if you ever think about revisiting the topic I would be fascinated to hear a comparison of hardware tape emulations vs the uad studer. In particular the neve 542’s

If you would like to compare U-He Satin, I could possibly help with that. I own a copy and don't see the harm in sending you my serial for quick testing.

*PLEASE HELP* I have Audiothing Reels and Waves J37, but don't feel super satisfied with them. Softube Tape is on sale right now and I was hoping you guys could help me make this decision as to whether or not I should pull the trigger. Thank you! Sorry I'm a dummy in advance.

The AX102 N4 library from Cupwise is amazing.

Also songs bounced to daw then to tape will sound more like songs solely bounced to digital then something that was bounced to tape in the first place then to the daw or all the way through. Also I ended up picking dry in all of them. Was dry tape or just unprocessed ?

What about phoenix 2? Looking an alternative for that luxury mid highs

I also did a shootout on plugins to the mix analog studer. None of them seem to get that vibe the real tape machine has. The closest one out of my plugins was the "reelbus" from TB. Set it to 30ips professional and it sounds pretty close but still not the same. The harmonic distortion from the real tape machine is so smooth in comparison to the plugins. Really silky smooth. It immediately gives me that polished classic 80s 90s vibe on the actual tape machine. I know they can do this with plugins but I haven't heard it yet from the tape machine plugins that exist at this moment.

I have the Slate VTM and I love it!

I’m just getting into using tape saturation, got the Waves Abbey Road, I’m liking it so far, and it’s cheap

As I'm a certified "audio geek" I downloaded the audio and null tested the UAD, Studer and RAW tracks. What I'd like to know is how you synchronized the analog tape stems to get them sample accurate with your ITB mix? The null between the RAW mix and Studer is so close it makes me wonder if mix:analog is actually using a tape machine (and not just a tape plugin). I suppose what I'm asking is... were all your "tape" stems from mix:analog higgledy piggledy - and they you manually-automatically synced them with pips (beep)? It's just I was expecting to hear phasing (among other things!) when nulling the Studer mix to the RAW mix.

If I'm honest, all I'm hearing is 'Santa baby, hurry down the chimney tonight' 😄

A sounds most compressed and warm. B sounds a bit fresher and C is most dynamic and alive. I was between B and C, liking the glue of B but also liking the dynamics of C. So I bet it depends on the taste and vibe in the end whether I choose one or another tape plugin or not at all. Tape on individual instruments is nice tho. UAD is indeed very nice. Which setting did you use? And also which one on Taupe did you use? nice video!

Hi Paul - A. UAD, Sounded the best to my ears on the entire mix, by far. However, we have no way of knowing what tape stock or how the actual Studer was maintained etc. If you had the actual tape deck in your studio and could fool around with settings, bias, tape, speed, levels etc.(my knowledge of tape is limited) it might have sounded better than the plugin, who knows. On a side note the other one that sounds very good to my ears is HEAT, on tape setting (turn knob to left), which is a proprietary ad on for Pro Tools HDX. It was developed by the guy from Crane Song Dave Hill and like the UAD ads some space, width and presence on a mix. Thanks for doing the shootout.

Little bit late to this video, enjoyed nevertheless! I picked B in the final shootout, whilst listening in BD 770 pros 250ohm. After you pointed out the guitar & cymbals width and clarity, it seemed B had the best stereo spread, whilst balancing depth and warmth in the low end. Tape just seems to make things more ‘natural’ sounding, which is kind of bizarre. A) was definitely more balanced sounding than C, but had to listen a couple of times to make sure. Thank you for the video, very insightful. Cheers 🍻

I use USD’s LUNA DAW, they have a Studer extension that’s not a plug-in but integrated into the mixer, I think I’m going to buy it based what your saying👍 love your vids! Keep It Up! I don’t have access to my head phones right now so I can’t make fair comparison.

A definitely wins. Something about the clarity, separation, and transient punch. Very surprised that B was the Studer. I was sure that B was the dry since it lost that "forward-ness" that the other examples had. I'm listening on 16" MBP '19 speakers though, so anything in the low mid/bass range is probably not translating well. Great shootout, very informative!

In the final test, I liked A&B most, C least. C sounded heavier in the low mids than the other two to me, and I usually prefer clarity over weight in such styles as this. Strangely, perhaps, in the first three tests, I preferred 1. Slate 2. UAD 3. Dry. These inconsistencies undoubtedly disqualify me. I'm listening on Sonarworks IDReference corrected Dynaudio Core 59s.

"Heeeellllo!" v. "I hope you're doing marvelously well!" 😄

You inspired me to AB a guitar track in one of my songs for the UAD to the MixAnalog Studer. And wow I'm glad. I tweaked the UAD to match the MixAnalog best I could. I did 6 tests: 0-500Hz solo, 500-1k solo, 1k-5k solo, 5k-20k solo, Full EQ Guitar Solo, Full Band Mix. 0-500 I preferred the Tape because it was denser and richer. I was 3/3 in correctly identifying the Tape. 500-1k I preferred UAD because it was thicker and more present. I was 2/4 in my guesses. 1k-5k I preferred UAD because it was smoother. Tape sounded rougher, more like a "toy", but also more present. So I wondered how it'd sit in context. I guessed wrong first time and then I was 3/3 in guessing. 5k-20k I preferred UAD because it had more sparkle, more "magic", but I wondered if it might sound cheap in context. Tape sounded duller. I guessed wrong first time and then I was 4/4 in these guesses. Guitar solo full EQ I felt both sounded good but I preferred the Tape (after I volume compensated the Tape to be 1.3db quieter) because the UAD sounded muddier. I was fairly surprised by this. I described the UAD as "woodier", sturdy, but also duller. I guessed 3/3 once I figured out which was which. I was clueless on my first guess. In the full mix I hands down preferred the Tape because it felt more alive, more present. More of that "tape vibe" that I'm used to. The Highs seem to jump out of the speakers with that tape. So all in all, a very surprising and valuable AB experiment. I'm stoked to do more of these! Thanks for the inspiration!

I preferred the dry at the end hahaha... interestingly enough.

Picked the Studer at the end, because I liked it overall, but it actually made some elements too bright for my tastes.

UAD it's pretty awesome, second place Taupe from AA, softube it's a bit flat to my ears, now I need to find some great nebula tape emulation 📼📼

it's actually a lil bit off from what i imagine... the single printed track using studer all sound more steady, stable and weighty compared to the original tracks, i feel like it's draging the original sound downwards. But in the final test, the most "weighty" sound, in my opnion, is C, the studer actually opens up the whole mix, makes the side information more perceivable and of course, more musical. the UAD opens the sound as well but more likely upwards, maybe like a firework into the sky.. appreciate your work Paul!

Are you oversampling the tape emus?

This was once again glorious to listen too. B won for me though it took a couple goes to decide why I preffered it. Overall each instrument sounded more in its own space whereas C was nearly the same but it had a slight smear to it. Saying that, the Uad was damn close and way cheaper since I own it. Good job dude

I use the softube religiously for faking univibe sounds with the pitch stability and crosstalk. When you threw in the actual Studer it sounded like someone went in and switched the whole input list to ribbon mics, such a pleasant darkness to it. I have all the uad tape's and I've tried acustica/slate etc, but (don't laugh) I actually found the Aberrant sketch cassette plug is the only thing that does the high freq thing right, although it can be over the top. Would love to see you do something with the UAD Oceanway plug, that thing has alot of .... stealthy capabilities.

Hi Paul can you include u-he satin in the test. It is the best now.

I had picked B but I thought that was the dry one. It sounded the clearest and most under control to me

Ouch that hurts..I use Slate VTM on everything. Gonna have to go back and check it all.

Santa baby... Hurry down the chimney tonight 😉

i really like the slate VTM, it does compress a bit, but i don't think it makes stuff feel small at all i use it on the master bus most of the time. i used it once in every channel with the console emulation on every channel and didnt like it, i might have over done it.

Are you supposed to use tape on every channel, every buss or just the2 buss?

Have you ever tried the Ax102 from Cupwise???? (it's a Nebula plugin). Much better than Taupe. It would be so interesting to compare it with the UAD and Studer A812 Mk.1 from Mix Analog!!!! (The real tape machine). Your videos are incredible Paul, really helpful :D THANKS AND CHEERS FROM BRAZIL

There's something about the Softube Tape that's so 70s and evocative. A lot like being in a posh uncle's front room at chrimbo and getting your greasy little fingers all over his HiFi while all the adults are getting pissed up in the back room. Type B for me at 15/30 ips for instruments and busses. Might stick a project through that Analog Works if I've got some pennies and fafteen mannats spare soon.

do you mean with dry the studer? If no, why do you not compare the plugins with the studer instead of the dry signal?

Whats really amazing about the Softube is that its zero latency and has an incredibly low CPU hit. For my system its about 8 instances of Tape = 1% CPU.

Blind C was my favorite (wasn't trying to guess which was which, just which I preferred). Maybe I don't need my tape plugins after all!

LOL, I did the same with the Slate, Sounded to muddy and dirty. Stopped using it about 6 years ago, Just Bought Taupe cause the Summer sale is on. It has its uses and combined with the Eq and Comp. Its a nice tool set. You really have to know where all these curves are. I wish they organized them from transparent to creative.

I grabbed the Softube yesterday for 50% off. I've got no reason to renew my Slate subscription now lol.

I love my Waves J37 Studer. Just like you said, i drive the input rather hot - for saturation, too. I have Softube Tape, too. It doesn't work for me at all

I've got the Studer and use it a lot! For my 2 buss though I use the Ampex more! Try that one if you don't have it! It's excellent! The UAD tape plugins are the ONLY reason I bought into their ecosystem! I could not get that TAPE sound from anything else. I only bought a Solo card as well for $200 back in the day. Still have it. I just use it for those few plugins. Although I do have a few more plugs that it came with, and some I've gotten over the years. So I should update to a larger one, but the prices are too ridiculous for me to do that! The Quad has not changed since it came out with the 2nd iteration sometime before 2008ish. It was $499 and that was a lot for me back then. Now it's $800. That's just crazy when the only thing that's changed is the brand new one's outer shell, and the Thunderbolt 3 input/output port. I've never been a Mac user so I use the PCIE cards which are the fastest and best way IMO, as it plugs right into the motherboard! It's very sad that we've gotten away from that and all interfaces nowadays use external things like ub2 and ub3 for Windows(which is inferior to Thunderbolt) and Thunderbolt for Mac. Sadly Windows-those people who make it are all communist asshats just like Apple which sucks, will not update their drivers/software for professional use so it's always a pain in the ass to use it for audio or video work over Apple! But you can get way better hardware for 1/4 of the price. For instance the $10,000 Apple computer for Video editing will cost you just over $2500 to build it yourself on Windows. Or it used to until this past year or so with Covid and the prices now are from the companies gouging us and blaming it on Covid which is false btw! Especially MSI...those guys are crooks to the 10th degree!

Check the IK Tapes please! They are heavy on CPU but have very strong saturation. I never quite know what that meant until demoing them. Just got the collection on ebay at a good price, after eyeballing a lot of tape sims for months... and a day before Nebula got on sale :P

Paul please compare new t-racks tascam tape collection !

The real Studer tape sounded like it had a slight bump in the low mids. The UAD was by far the best sounding all-around. I actually use it all the time in LUNA. Very interesting comparison, thanks.

I chose A! Some UAD plugin are for me worth every single penny as they bring something to the table that very few other plugins does. Even if other 3rd party plugins may sounds good, there is just something about using a tape emulator that has official STUDER A800 name printed on it(gives me confidence) . I also think Ampex ATR-102 is very special and offers me something no other piece of equipment (except perharps a real Ampex tape machine) can give me.

You can hit red with a tape machine and it will compress your tracks but if your going in clean make sure you where hitting it15 ips. 30 is too clean and doesn’t sound like tape but it also doesn’t sound digital.

ive buyed and tried lots of tape plugins, the one ive liked the most for now (nobody has mentioned it) is the recently released Tone Empire's Reelight Pro, i just loved the sound, i was using taupe and its cool, but dude, this new one i mentioned is great, i think its less subtle than taupe but i enjoy the effect, with the input knob you can really change the effect and density of sound, you should check it out also

I Picked A first, C second and B Third which surprised me a bit. I also picked softube out of the blind test over UAD which is good considering I don't have UAD haha

Also Honrable mention to BeatSkillz Reelight PRO...sounds just as good as these wayy...more dsp freindly and open sounding

I straight up cannot hear the difference between a lot of these. They all sound great...so it would ultimately come down to price and I can get the Softube Tape for $50 USD which is a bargain compared some of these.

picked C inthe last blind test, sounded more natural to me

Is there any Nebula tape that you rate?

I can’t go for days on this comment but I have the Luxury to choose between tape and emulation on a daily basis and I always choose to print mix stems through actual tape. The main thing to remember is to set and Match the tape inputs and Source inputs to catch the VU sweet spot. That is the true way of getting “that sound”. It’s entirely different on every song since the mix bus can either be In the box Hybrid or 80/20 Analogue/Box, thus needing adjustments verses a template. 25+years in studio (6 years on Producers Engineers Wing Board of The Recording Academy, Grammy, Platinum Plaques, Gold, Tele Award, 75+ Billboards. I’m not trying to say your wrong but if I really truly wanted to I could find a session where the final sounded identical to tape but over all after all the years of artists, producers, Tv and Movie sessions Tape wins every time. This is very informative and I’ll be doing some more experiments and comparisons of my own, I’ve seen how you total obliterate anyone who doesn’t put their money where there mouth is but, I feel confident with all my Accolades I have a good handle on what gear does and doesn’t do. Keep up the good work. These videos are very very well put together.

I wish I hadn't picked B. There still seems to be a gap between real tape and plugins. May I add: I watched that video on TV with its built-in speakers.

Hej! Great!

It's really subtle. I picked A and B as better. Didn't have a huge pref between those two, maybe A by a hair. I was thinking about getting Taupe so this was helpful for me to not get it, as I already own UAD Studer, Softube Tape, and VTM (from subscription). Your description with your hands is actually probably the best one I've seen for tracking tape lol. Now that I hear it, it's almost like the transients are extended a bit longer so they have the space to hit harder, even though overall level is probably down. It's a specific kind of compression that emphasizes the transient by extending it. At least that's how it sounds. Mastering tape I feel is more obvious. UAD's Ampex ATR just makes every track knock harder. It's one of the few plugins on master bus that I consider "auto-better".

just thought I should mention, that Slate defaults with a preset calibration...especially the low end, so that's most likely what you were hearing with the increase in level, so you need to go into the settings first and zero it out in order to get a fairer comparison.

Cdsoundmaster nebula library kills all these I have it and man my mix shines and sound so full 3d fat and rich