did they also replace their marketing department with an ai? WTF was that 2012 Machinima music with TTS voice over shitty annimations video lol...

Neural network processing genuinely has been a revolution in audio processing and analog emulation, the open source NAM and Proteus are amazing. Calling Machine Learning 'AI' still makes me cringe

The thing is I don’t think we know WHAT tape does. It’s frequency dependent, velocity, amplitude with harmonic character. All the devices I have tried are static.

That plugin really isn’t it 😂 It sounded so shrill compared to your tape machine. It does something nasty to the hi mids - almost sounds like a high Q EQ boost. Thanks for another great video.

Dude, as soon as you put on the "real" tape machine , the kick become fat, nice rounded and puffy 😌amazing...

The plugin seemed to lose the center image, or push the sides more, and comes across as harsher. The real tape keeps the mid channel up front and the top end stays smooth and pleasant.

yea make a video of you calibrating the tape machine dope video

Yeah as you said in 13:50.... the tape machine sounds so much better than the plugin. Especially the lows. And the hights too, because they are not so harsh. Great video and comparison!!

to me it sounds like if the real thing had way more impact on lower frequencies adding the pleasant warmth and some like 3D feeling? while the vst resembled something like ozone sound giving it that digital signature feeling which isn't quite polished due to the harshness

Yes, please do make the alignment video. Would come in very handy, as I have the exact same machine here :) I'm planning on recapping the PSU's soon.

"a lot of aliasing" - aliasing doesn't even start above -110 dbs. Its fine in terms of aliasing.

That tambourine sounded harsh AF. Keep up the good work!

They didn't mention the tape machines they were training it on. Who knows, if the devices were already in a bad state to begin with and then AI just has to deal with SISO data (shit in, shit out).

where is the bottom end gone on the plugin, for my it sound like a cassette with chrome tape in it

The term "AI" is enormously misused, for example there were server/PC cabinet manufacturers at Computex in Taiwan and AI was also widely advertised there. When they asked, what does that cupboard have to do with AI? They replied, yes, you can put an AI system in that cupboard. Blah lol. We also still have 2 Otari tape machines in the tracking studio. Much better than plugins. But indeed quite a lot of ssssssssssssssssssssssss that's what we filter out with Reaper's ReaFIR.

So when using any sort of tape plugin, should you not insert one at the bottom of your FX rack (recording to tape, assuming all analog plugins/pedals/boxes) and ALSO on your master track (printing of master tape to the stereo tape)?

so if you leave the noise on and the denoise the plugin it would sound more realistic right?

Now they have a real reference with your actual machine. I think they will be very thankful for your test and be able to fix! 👍😉

I really like the low mid width & punch that the real tape adds. It reminds me of the 495 hardware vs plugin comparison where the plugin also lacked the low mid width & punch that the hardware provided.

Love the sound of the real tape. The plugin is cool for saturation and high boost and some crack.

Just to let you know, the tape M is completely broken when used in 48k. If that's what you're mixing in the results will sound terrible compared to what the plugins actually is meant to sound like.

Isn't that Sandworm by Ja Rule? Your tape machine has much more presence in the lows and mids. It sounds way better.

your tape machine sounded fuller to my ears. listening through a quality set of headphones on my laptop through youtube and you could still feel the difference in that the real machine wins.

Yeah the AI one is slightly brighter imo but it may be due to say the tapehead being cleaner or just the actual unit they used to test to is different by a slight margin as electronic components have +/- ratings on components usually like 1% 5% or 10% etc.. these values can make a difference in audio filter applications. Are these at the same gain levels or is the AI one slightly higher? You should snapshot eq to compare the outputs. Also I am wondering if the plugin runs at 32 bit float and what hz ratings it processes at? Analog is generally going to be as good as the ADA converter and its own SNR while the plugin in the box is going to be based upon the CPU or dsp engine running it.

Would love to see a Tape Machine alignment video

im in my 50's, grew up listening to vinyl and tape. This sounds like a early consumer 1/4 inch 2 track reel from the 70's . which its perfect if you are trying to mimic that aged, old tech sound for period piece. i had a old akai reel and i used radio shack reels in it which sounded similar to that.

Only tape does tape, however, I just purchased the Victor-Custom 456 & it's staying on my mixbus! The craftsmanship is great & it sounds much better than plugins. His units are built for each customer & very affordable.

Not sure if you have Logic but have you tried out Chromaglow yet?

cana san martin plugins?

Just sounds like crunch

What kind of tape do you use on your tape machine?

nothing pisses me off more than developers who build noise into their emulations without the ability to turn it off. it's all because of fetishization of analog equipment which is way more important to some people than a good sound. drives me nuts.

any opinions on the UAD Ampex? its probably the best tape emulation i heard so far

SSL E series with noise gate on every channel. Whoot Whoot!

Please do the tape realignment vid pls

There is that classic soft but thumpy, large yet fitting low end of real tape - aswell as the overall smoothing of the audio, aswell as that dulled high end that needs to be boosted after. I'm not sure what was happening with the plugin, if you was using it at 48khz, there is a known bug

I use tape emulation plugins to simply add some "analog" color - not make my mixes sound as if they were recorded on a reel-to-reel. I find this to be a much reasonable, practical and honest way to look at "this whole thing." :)

Hi! It would you mind running the training signal through your tape machine so i can run train Neural amp modeler with it? There is just one Studer available now and it sounds good but it was done in a rush i think. Let me know if youd like to set it up, it would be really cool!!!

I’ll hang on to my neve 542’s a little longer…

Interesting. You can definitely hear the real tape rolling off some high end. The VST sounds brighter.

Thanks for the Video! I would still like you to try the UA studer plugin and the Kalifornia Dynamic Alkaline Saturation plugin. Keep pushing 🎉

When I trialed it I couldn’t stand how the GUI worked. I don’t think there was a way to manually type in values which drove me nuts.

You going to make a video on kraftur by soundtheory soon? (The gullfoss makers)

Apple uses a Neural Engine, correct. It’s the same thing as a Neural Network how it’s normally called by other chipsets from Intel, AMD, NVIDIA and so on. If we take a look at Mac computers with an M1 chip or higher, they can utilize the Neural Engine by using the Audio Unit (AU) plug-in format. The latest update for Logic Pro (Mac and iPad) is using AI for the Stem Splitter (really good stuff) and also the Chroma plugin and the virtual players. This is an example that developers can use a Neural Engine for plugins utilizing AI powered functions.

for some reason the real tape machine seems to be making the stereo image wider as well

seems like they put in a smile shaped EQ curve as well.

yes it comes accross youtube, can hear the difference.

i wonder what the machine they modelled sounds like because i feel like this just didnt sound great in the first place without even comparing it to the real one

The noise is part of the analog sound.

I in fact do think it'd be cool to see a video about calibration/alignment of a tape machine. I never got to work with them, so I'm always intrigued.

They're good in both ways, the real tape sounds darker and fuller in lows while still gives that tape power

It seems that with normal tape machine the sound effects ower all and the plug in only effect the high sound

My tape machine is only a tascam-tsr 8 (12 inch 8 track 7.5/15 ips) however it sounds amazing especially for dub and lo-fi. The problem is each tape is £100 (i wont use new/old stock, too much sticky shed on 456) and i need to spend money periodically maintaining the machine ( needs new roller tyres just now, and probably a capstan belt replacement) Also its a pain messing around degaussing it etc. mostly it just sits under a dust cover as it s a dog hair magnet !

Man, that smooth, lovely sound of the Sony 😍

KZfaq only lowpasses to 16kHz if the person watching the video doesn't have a good internet connection or their device/web browser doesn't support the audio KZfaq is sending out. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hcubhKWEmLyae5c.html (Dan Worrall's video on KZfaq audio quality)

The tape machine brings a really nice punch to the snare and kick with a smoother overall top end, while the plugin has none of that punch in the snare and kick with a fizzy sounding top end.

You can hear the compression on the real tape and there's nothing on the plgun. I use Slates VTM most of the time and I think it sounds pretty good. 😎

Great video, thanks! It's wacky how in 2024 companies still sweep the aliasing problem under an ever-more-crowded carpet when making new products, especially when companies like Three Body, UAD and Neold have already made great strides in this direction year(s) ago -- for my vote, since I work entirely in the box, I'd find more value in having AI-esq processes directed toward minimizing the aliasing problems rather than making super-accurate emulations of the hardware... that I have to oversample a lot to use... gently... because they alias like it's '08...😂too harsh? Happy mixing!

The plugin was so freaking harsh while also removing depth and punch. ^^

I always hear how snare drums are really alive on tape vs the digital whatever version. Tape is unbeatable

Having a better tape machine is such a oxymoron if i ever heard one 😂

I could hear the difference between the two even over KZfaq on my iPhone speakers with my eyes closed. But then again, every tape machine Sounds different, what Unit did they use to train the ai? What tape did they use? So many variables…

WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU REVIEW THE GOLD CLIP PLUGIN

I thought the Low Pass Filter thing only occurs, when you rip something off YT. But in the App the Audio is fine. 🤔

painful highs even through telephone speakers... I'm very sensitive to these frequencies tho, but man, the sound changes too much and the vibe as well.

youtube codec only lowpasses at 17 KHz in certain circumstances but in normal circumstances you get full 256 kbps opus audio low passed only at 20K

They probably used a Tascam tape machine running at 7.5ips😮

an imitation will never be as good as the real thing

theres a stray peak on the tambo poking out thats getting driven. needs a little fabfilter notch

Talking as a data scientist with master degree, their machine learning department really don’t know what they are talking about, it requires a lot of cpu or gpu (gpu mainly actually) to train your hundreds of parameters, even millions, based on training and test data. But when trained, these neural networks weights are actually not gonna retrain anymore, they know their weight and won’t readjust afterwards. I actually think tape emulation with neural network is a thing and can work, but the issue is not the model itself, but what parameter you allowed to the model and if you have too much of them, then it can be RAM and Cpu intensive, this is why you then penalize your model to have less freedom and still behave as a tape

Real tape 4life, yo

On emulation plug-ins, I often don’t choose “Noise ON” (because I just don’t like THAT noise) but I have a hard time agreeing with automatic “NO NOISE” approach. Because it’s part of analog…& we hate how digital never sounds like analog, while we laugh at ourselves for previously trying to make real-analog sound less noisy. Well let’s get rid of dither 🤷‍♂️ My point is the analog noise was doing something pleasing, even if we were gating it, etc.

It's not tape machine emulation but a really good subtle saturation (the stereo version) 'cuz I can'not able to don't overdrive the 808 in my beats but maybe is could help!

I love my tape machines, but the noise can be left out as far as I'm concerned. The noise part is not something the actual model learned to do I think. Something about neural networks in audio processing. What's usually done is that you have an audio file you feed through the device you want to capture, this means there's a before and after. When training the network learns what to do to the 'before' to produce something similar to the target. Now we get to running the network on your plugin. We put in an audio sample and we get out a new audio sample. Just time domain processing and no FFT's. A network like this doesn't know anything but the data it's fed. This does fall within AI, and is usually referred to as Narrow Artificial Intelligence. This means it's good at a single task. The content of audio you feed to a network to train is greatly affecting the result, the type of network plays a large part as well. WAY more to talk about but this should uncover a little bit of the mystery Edit: not sure what they're doing with their APU's tbh

The plugin’s hi-mids are like sandpaper in my headphones, your tape was butter. If the devs did any AB testing, putting this out for people to purchase is deceptive. With that output and the weird promo video, I get the vibe that this one might go beyond the typical overhyped startup snake oil into a full blown scam of a development. I’d put money that there isn’t even any machine learning involved 😅😅😅

MCI sound very well with solid low end and smooth on top, but I think it makes no sense to compare it. The vst is not based on your tape machine with your tape and your calibration.

The website says “trAIL versions available” 😅 Interesting plugs….definitely a decent price

I guess they have a three body problem with their calculations. ✋🎤💥

Analog will always contain real soul, inherit to natural imperfections and real non aliased waveform curvature. Got a reel to reel a few months ago and never going back for final prints.

The free Cubase tape machine vst sounds better than that. I understand the power of NN for complex dynamic variable problems like effective noise reduction, but for a deterministic process like tape saturation? I think is better and CPU-friendlier to just model the proper transfer function and add some noise.

In my experience, 0’s and 1’s can’t compete with sending audio through actual circuits. It all adds up when tracking all parts through analog and then printing the final mix. If you record everything digital and then AB the finished product, the difference is not subtle to my ears.

The JH-24 sounds better than the plugin, but the original (bypassed) sounds better than either. It seems to me that they are 'Turning-Off' more than just the noise alone, when you turn off the 'Noise', they can fool people into thinking that it's the Noise making it sound better, when it's really just anti-aliasing being turned ON.

Almost sounds like bitcrushing. I feel the plugin developers went as close as they could without thinking about aliasing and put the noise there as a quick fix instead of fixing the root cause problem. Honestly this shows that using AI still means you have to understand signal processing on a high level to implement things. These developers did not. I guess they basically have to redo the whole tech considering any regard to aliasing is missing, so this is almost like a way to get something out of a failed experiment instead of an actual product.

Hiss is an integral part of tape. Perhaps a Dolby emulator might be more authentic? I just prefer to use tape..... even despite the extra work, because the result is predictably rich.

There is a known bug if using 48k. Used it at 44.1k without these issues. The developers are looking to sort the bug. Definitely a plugin to watch.

Listening purely to the plugins and ignoring true characteristics of tape, my ears prefer the sound of the Tape M AI vs the Tape S AI. But I agree with you that it's waaaaay to hot. For me this would be fixed by either adding a mix option or just having the drive range be from -10 to 3 ;)

The UAD Ampex tape emulation is similar to this plug-in. It doesn't do anything to the bass, but it really pushes the treble, totally unlike your tape machine. The Studer does the opposite, more or less, and sounds a lot closer to your real take machine. But doesn't have the treble of this plug-in, unless you really push it. The plug-in needs over sampling. UAD process audio at 192 khz.

The real tape machine seems to be mellower. The AI sounds like it's saturating a lot more of the highs, but not in a good way. Almost just sounds like a light distortion plugin.

I should have thought that tech based on impulse responses and extrapolations between them would have been more promising for catching the qualities of tape in digital. I know that Acustica Audio and I think Overloud have taken that sort of approach. There would still be aliasing, so some anti-aliasing approach would still be necessary. Perhaps machine learning could have some application in developing impulse response-based technology. But this approach of merely trying to reproduce the output with different inputs over many hours might be a little bit of a blunt use of an otherwise sophisticated approach.

The original sounds warm and lively. The plugin is cold and dead and distorts the highs.

The AI tape sounds a little thin on the room tone under the bass. The real Tape warms that tone better almost giving the bottom end a bit more low end boost..

I rarely see on the spot tape sim and real tape A/B comparisons. Thank you for doing that 😉👍 I had to concentrate really hard to hear a difference in the top end, and it wasn't really noticeable to my ears on my mons. The low-end was more apparent. At first I thought the tape machine was a little more extended, but maybe it was just fuller?, or more defined?. I think this plugin sounds good, nothing wrong with it really.....but the AI bit is getting old, already. So the noise "feature" is trying to mask the aliasing ??. Maybe they should redesign this one?

Never mind the plugin, they already hit snake oil territory when that promo video listed self driving cars as one of the things machine learning could already do. Jokes aside, my completely unverifiable gut feeling is that this is conventional tape emulation using EQ/waveshaping/etc. and the "AI" element is that they used machine learning to adjust the parameters of their algorithm to match a real tape machine until they felt it was close enough. So more of an "AI calibrated tape emulation." A totally legitimate, potentially really good use of machine learning - that's pretty much what the Sonnox plugins are doing, and I use a couple of them a lot (especially Smart:Limit). The difference there is that they're transparent about what's actually happening.

Your tape machine just sounds like it has that EQ bump in the low end.

It sounds like the AI tape has some phase issues?

The TAPE M AI sounds fake AF when compared to the real tape machine shown in this video.

It sounds tinny and crunchy... ill stick with my UA Struder

Here’s the thing about neural networks. They’re capable of expressing some really gnarly functions. And they’re hard to train well. It’s hard for a lot of inexperienced ML scientists to even know whether they’ve trained them well. These audio processing modules (APU’s) - i don’t know they even really know how to train these well. The -70db error - i want to know more. I wonder about what data they evaluated it on. People mess this up all the time. Is this on the training set? the teat set? You never know with ML scientists because mediocre ones mess this stuff up all the time. I think it’s possible to do this well, but it’s difficult. I’d be concerned that it would do weird, unsmooth things to my audio; feed in simple waveforms and get out very weird, subtle deformations / distortion that weren’t trained or regularized out. If it’s just a bunch of APU’s - then it sounds like rather than leveraging the amazing power of real NN’s it’s more like approximating NN’s via a smaller number of potentially crappy but probably basic plugins over and over in series. Interesting ideas, skeptical about execution.

I would like to see a callibration video actually

I missed the original joke - why is everything Sandstorm by Darude?