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polar sky · Post by **polar sky** » Thu May 12, 2011 2:40 pm

We use this at my friends Studio:

Sadsic · Post by **Sadsic** » Thu May 12, 2011 8:38 pm

nsputnik wrote:
Sadsic wrote:True BoC sound maker:

http://www.toneprojects.com/products/pl ... -stx-1260/

if you want anything grainy/wavy/wiggly/or generally weird sounding you can do it with this vst.
Can anyone make an demo of this?

http://www.4shared.com/audio/xMJxllnQ/H ... ntain.html

there's like 8 kinds of lo-fi in this from the Sonitex plug-in, I made this just now

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Fri May 13, 2011 12:45 am

Cryabetes wrote:actually you can. Signal chain should be a Boss PS-2 [on pitch shift mode] or PS-3 [on pitch shift + detune mode] or a DOD IPS33. set the shift for -1 semitone. place a vibrato or chorus afterwards [on a rather slow LFO]. blend in dry signal around the entire chain. For best results, use a chorus/vibr that has some sort of randomisation feature, or use multiple ones set to different depths and rates, then put the effected signal into a slight overdrive [tubescreamer springs to mind], then a limiter or non-dynacomp-y compressor. then blend in the dry signal.

if you'd want the dips to be more occasional, use the Morley volume pedal that has an effects loop as your blender and putz with it during the performance.

I tried this: dry signal mixed with the signal pitched down -1 semitone with vibrato or chorus at a slow rate. This does not sound like the classic BoC/Bibio tape warble. The trick is finding a vibrato with random depth LFO depth control and/or soft sample and hold waveform, and this is all you need. Mixing in the original signal will give you chorus. That is all chorus is: vibrato with 50% wet/dry.

I really like what I hear on the Audio Ease Speakerphone 2 demo. It could make me switch from all hardware to all software. I already have Pro Tools running on OSX but mainly use it for paid mixing gigs, not my own productions. But $495 is pretty steep, slightly more than ZVex Lo-Fi Loop Junky at $369, not to mention you would need to bounce everything to and from it. $74 for Sonitex STX-1260 is more reasonable but it is only for Windows.

The number of good and free VSTs for Windows is slowly putting Mac at a disadvantage for music production. It also seems Mac RTSA/AU plugins are more expensive than VSTs.

esselfortium · Post by **esselfortium** » Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am

I built an effects setup in Reason a while back to simulate really bad analog tape setups. Here's a demo I did of a half-finished version of it: http://essel.spork-chan.net/music/wips/tape-piano.mp3

After recording this I pretty quickly removed the stereo detuning and replaced it with a setup that detunes both channels equally, as how it is currently creates a chorusing effect if you listen on pretty much anything other than headphones. I could rerecord the demo with that fixed, but I'm lazy

Anyway, the finished patch has a bunch of options I set up that control various EQs, compressors, and other parameters going in and out of tape saturation, to get a lot of control over the way the input sound gets colored and distorted, without creating resonance in the resulting signal.

Ended up using the completed effect in a couple songs on Seventeen More Times. It worked nicely in "Invis" to make a sequenced melody played on a Turkish saz sound like a shoddily-recorded sample of an actual performance, which is vastly preferable over sounding fake and digital

GeometricPish · Post by **GeometricPish** » Fri May 13, 2011 12:21 pm

I find I can emulate the wow and flutter effect on my DSI Mopho Keyboard by using the LFO set to sample and hold to modulate both oscillator pitches slightly. The random element of sample and hold means that the pitch drift isn't as uniform as what you would get with a standard waveform LFO.

I also have a Roland SP-404 sampler which has a vinyl emulator with wow and flutter, crackle and saturation effects.

I could probably combine the two to create a fairly authentic BoC synth sound, but at the end of the day, it's only emulating an effect than can be created quite cheaply using old tape decks as BoC themselves use.

Incidently, is anyone aware of the bocpages 'equipment' page? I have read pretty much every page on the site in some detail and have never seen another page that links to it. I have only ever found it by using the search bar. It'd probably be a good idea to have it as a main section or under 'Misc'.

http://bocpages.org/wiki/Equipment

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Fri May 13, 2011 2:44 pm

If you really want to get the authentic sound you have to do what Bibio did: buy dozens tape machines until you find one that has the sound you like.

One time I came across someone selling a Grundig TK-5 and he said the pitch was not consistent. The seller was overseas so it was very expensive. This could be another way to find a machine with the sound, but it costs a lot more and you might waste a lot of money.

Seeya_Later · Post by **Seeya_Later** » Sat May 14, 2011 4:01 pm

Kinski wrote:you can't reproduce such things digitaly. it's a rookie mistake. if it was so easy, people would ditch amps and analog in general and just use guitar rig and emulators. buy yourself a tape delay, you can find used ones for about the same price, and have the real deal. cheers.

I can't agree here. And I definitely wouldn't call it a rookie mistake, in fact it's probably more often experienced producers who attempt it. You forget that many producers like to hoard their secrets and techniques, and I'll bet there's more than a few who've discovered their own secret ways to achieve close effects digitally.
Trying to mimic analog warmth and instability is fun and a good exercise for "rookies" and professionals alike.
Personally i'd love to see the day when everyone can agree that any and all analog quirks can be achieved digitally, it certainly would be good for creative people and I think it's a worthwhile pursuit.
Obviously if you listen to BoC's music uncompressed on a computer, you can still hear it's analog warmth. If you can digitally play back something analog and feel it's warmth, then it follows that someday we could achieve those effects entirely within the digital domain.
I think it would have to do with having a very powerful computer and going about it in a crazy roundabout way. For instance, instead of writing a simple chorus effect algorithm, you could model each of the analog components digitally and make the signal path of a famous chorus circuit etc.
Digital component modeling could very well be the answer. Digitally recreating the quirks of real capacitors and resistors and potentiometers or any other analog components. It would be very CPU intensive. I honestly think the fundamental reason we don't have good enough analog emulations is because computers need to become even more powerful.
I've had this conversation many times regarding virtual analog synthesizers. I'm an analog purist, but I firmly believe that one day computers WILL be perfect at emulating analog synthesizers, or tape, or effects. It's inevitable.

Pantheon · Post by **Pantheon** » Sat May 14, 2011 6:45 pm

Seeya_Later wrote:
Kinski wrote:you can't reproduce such things digitaly. it's a rookie mistake. if it was so easy, people would ditch amps and analog in general and just use guitar rig and emulators. buy yourself a tape delay, you can find used ones for about the same price, and have the real deal. cheers.
I can't agree here. And I definitely wouldn't call it a rookie mistake, in fact it's probably more often experienced producers who attempt it. You forget that many producers like to hoard their secrets and techniques, and I'll bet there's more than a few who've discovered their own secret ways to achieve close effects digitally.
Trying to mimic analog warmth and instability is fun and a good exercise for "rookies" and professionals alike.
Personally i'd love to see the day when everyone can agree that any and all analog quirks can be achieved digitally, it certainly would be good for creative people and I think it's a worthwhile pursuit.
Obviously if you listen to BoC's music uncompressed on a computer, you can still hear it's analog warmth. If you can digitally play back something analog and feel it's warmth, then it follows that someday we could achieve those effects entirely within the digital domain.
I think it would have to do with having a very powerful computer and going about it in a crazy roundabout way. For instance, instead of writing a simple chorus effect algorithm, you could model each of the analog components digitally and make the signal path of a famous chorus circuit etc.
Digital component modeling could very well be the answer. Digitally recreating the quirks of real capacitors and resistors and potentiometers or any other analog components. It would be very CPU intensive. I honestly think the fundamental reason we don't have good enough analog emulations is because computers need to become even more powerful.
I've had this conversation many times regarding virtual analog synthesizers. I'm an analog purist, but I firmly believe that one day computers WILL be perfect at emulating analog synthesizers, or tape, or effects. It's inevitable.

You can actualy do this right now with the most powerfull form of electronic simulators, spice modeling. LTSpice lets you layout a circuit and you can input a wave file at any point and it will calulate a output wave file from another point. Some drawbacks, its not a real time effect, it cant take many minuits/hours to calculate the result. You also have to know something about electronics, but you can get a very simmilar analogue warmth to the real thing. One drawback is that all of the parts simulated are generaly perfect examples of their kind, so there is no variation beween components. There is no temprature/noise/rf effect either.

I have designed synth nearly a full analogue synthisiser in spice and used the wave output feature to physicaly tweak the sound to the way I want it. Once computers are fast enough to do big simulations in real time, then things will get interesting like you say.

Some tube vst modeling simulators are already calculating the output using simplified versions of the laws of electronics. These give quite accurate results and sound plesant to my ears, but its not quite as magical as having a little glowing vaccume tube doing hard work.

Seeya_Later · Post by **Seeya_Later** » Sat May 14, 2011 7:28 pm

Yeah, if you could design a circuit and have the individual "components" have random imperfections, then you could have something more accurate.
No doubt computers will be able to do this perfectly someday.

machinea · Post by **machinea** » Mon May 23, 2011 6:20 pm

I have both the zvex and strymon pedals, both are great and chained together are pretty fantastic. I don't think one replaces the other.

There are some decent BoC effects in Reaktor. sometimes taking the digital signals and running them out of the box into an analog chain of some sort add artifacts and degradation that are musical or pleasant.

That said I love tape but it is a hassle.

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Tue May 24, 2011 7:46 pm

machinea wrote:I have both the zvex and strymon pedals, both are great and chained together are pretty fantastic. I don't think one replaces the other.

There are some decent BoC effects in Reaktor. sometimes taking the digital signals and running them out of the box into an analog chain of some sort add artifacts and degradation that are musical or pleasant.

That said I love tape but it is a hassle.

Hi machinea.
Would be be possible for you to make a demo of the El Capistan with out the delays, 100% wet mix, and only with varying degrees of the Age and Wow and Flutter settings?

machinea · Post by **machinea** » Tue May 24, 2011 9:20 pm

Sure thing, I should have some time tomorrow or possibly tonight. Would you like guitar, some particular type of synth sound, Electric Piano? Or both guitar and synth?

I had someone ask me to do this a while ago and I've been remiss so I need to do it anyway.

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:05 am

machinea wrote:Sure thing, I should have some time tomorrow or possibly tonight. Would you like guitar, some particular type of synth sound, Electric Piano? Or both guitar and synth?

I had someone ask me to do this a while ago and I've been remiss so I need to do it anyway.

Thanks

Guitar, synth, or electric piano are all fine with me.

machinea · Post by **machinea** » Thu May 26, 2011 1:30 pm

The Demo is coming along, the synth demo isn't showing the variables as greatly as the guitar. I'm going to tweak it a bit more. I have both examples dry but may add some reverb to the synth demo so it holds the notes longer and thusly you can hear the results a little better.

The settings are basically

Tape Age 0, 50, 100%
Wow & Flutter 0, 50, 100%
Together 50, 100%

Are you sure you wouldn't like Tape Crinkle thrown from the secondary functions?

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Fri May 27, 2011 6:05 am

machinea wrote:The Demo is coming along, the synth demo isn't showing the variables as greatly as the guitar. I'm going to tweak it a bit more. I have both examples dry but may add some reverb to the synth demo so it holds the notes longer and thusly you can hear the results a little better.

The settings are basically

Tape Age 0, 50, 100%
Wow & Flutter 0, 50, 100%
Together 50, 100%

Are you sure you wouldn't like Tape Crinkle thrown from the secondary functions?

Anything that will show the sonic artifact simulations minus delay. Tape Crinkle is a different setting than Tape Age?

machinea · Post by **machinea** » Fri May 27, 2011 6:21 am

yes its the secondary function of the wow and flutter dial when both bypass and tap are simultaneously held down. This is a pita on the pedal but still glad to have it. If you download the pdf manual from their website you can see what I mean. All the dials have secondary functions.

this a very cool demo of sound on sound looping function with sound degradation

also check out the last video in this demo series.

ETA: Sorry if any one has been checking here for the demos I said I'd do. I've had the week from hell my cat went to the emergency room last sunday morning at 3 am suddenly unable to walk, I thought she'd had a stroke and I was going to have to put her down. Turns out $1000 dollars later we don't know what happened but I have her at home and that is the best gift (at least for a little while longer, she is 19 yrs old) that I could ask for and then I came down with a very bad flu/cold on wed.

I'll get these up soon.

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 3:27 pm

Sorry to hear about you and cat, machinea. I hope you two well soon

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:59 pm

FYI, Waves has a new tape emulation plugin, MPX Master Tape.

It has a wow and flutter control but according to the demo it will not at all approach the percentage of wow we are looking for. The input/output, bias, and flux controls can make it can sound crunchy but not aged.

machinea · Post by **machinea** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 5:30 pm

El Capistan with Delay Settings at zero.

The settings are mentioned in the description.

nsputnik · Post by **nsputnik** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:22 am

machinea wrote:El Capistan with Delay Settings at zero.

The settings are mentioned in the description.

Thanks Corrine. I did not realize you where machinea this whole time! This petal sounds beautiful, thanks so much for posting this! I definitely need to consider this one now.