Tube Warmers - specifically freebies?

everyone always raves about the PSP Vintage Warmer - it's not cheap, though you can try a demo.
re the free ones - this thread may help!

MPX MASTER TAPE


http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=11702


none of the freebies or cheapies that i've heard, sounded good to me.
just distorted.

Have you tried the TL-64? Forget the tape or tube emulation claims (I have a tower of old tape machines here I could invoke should I want to). Does it not do something nice to your ears? It does something to mine that I like.

Saturation... I dig good old Camel Audio's Camel Crusher. I rarely use it to do anything too drastic, but a little touch here and there goes a long way. 

Oh yeah... And it's free. :)

I do it on the way in with real tubes.

bitflipper


Give me cold, hard pure digital under a bare lightbulb any time. If you can't make it sound good without smudging the edges, you're not trying hard enough.

Just kidding. But I do have to chuckle at the supposed magic and mojo attributed to tape/tube/saturation sims in general.

+1! Well said bit. Here's my problem with these things. None of them simulates the warmth of tubes...period. Tube warmth to me means "non-abrasive". All these things add synthetic distortion that just clips in a bad way. It does NOT saturate. There are 2 types of tube sound.
 
1. The warm one I spoke of that is non-abrasive, smooth, without harshness or accessive "sizzly" high end.
 
2. The colder one with more high end "air" frequencies in it...kinda like the sound of a Brit tube amp. It's not harsh, but it's not super warm like the Yank models which are warmer.
 
There are only 3 plugs out of all the plugs that I've used that can do this, and they do it well. If you've ever used a REAL tube front end for real, you know just how bad these other plugs that claim they are "tube warmers" fail miserably. However, these 3 simulate the saturation *I* have experienced using analog hardware pre's and tape machines.
 
UAD Studer 800: By far the closest thing to tape saturation ever made in a plug. It does both kinds...the warm one and the colder one with upper air frequencies and everything in between. This is one of the best plugs ever made for what it does. Having used many different tape decks as well as owning both a 16 track 1 inch and a 24 track 2 inch machine in my studio right now, I'm fully aware of tape saturation and the warmth/effects they have. This thing has it nailed. Unfortunately it's pricey and you have to own a UAD-2 card for it.
 
Antares Tube VST: This one is pretty cool. You get two different tubes to choose from. Angel and Devil...and you can use them both at the same time if need be. Though this plug can get a bit raspy, while it does it, it actually warms things up.
 
Crow Pre-amp Emulator: This one is free and I still find it absolutely amazing. Nice dirt when you need it, and again, it literally warms things up like tubes. The 3 presets it comes with are great right out of the box. The 3rd which is real gainy, will need to be tweaked a bit...but the 2 others, you'll think you recorded on an anlog deck of sorts. Did I mention it's free? :)
 
*Honorable mention* Wave Arts Tube Saturator: This is an interesting plug. It gives you nice dirt and allows you to tweak the frequencies of the dirt with a built-in eq. The problem with this plug is, it uses so much cpu, it's not even worth running it. I've not seen a regular VST consume this much power ever in my life other than guitar sims. What the heck it could be doing to suck up that much cpu, I have no idea. But though the cpu thing is its downfall, it's a fairly useful tube sim if you have a strong enough pc.
 
All of the above said, reverting back to bit's comment where he mentioned "if you can't make it good without smudging" followed by "just kidding" after to ease the blow, he's absolutely correct! All of these plugs could be simulated with the right know-how and other plugs combined together. You could achieve the same results just as easy running the saturator of your choice along with a compressor, eq and just eq the nastiness out of it while comping the saturator.
 
BUT....and a huge BUT at that....you'll never cop what the Studer 800 does. That thing is in a class all by itself. :) 
 
-Danny
 
 

Would we finally be recovering from that Charles Dye/MILAR syndrome?

(I'm as guilty as anyone on that one ;) )

An idea that keeps coming back recently - you know what would be cool? Something like MILAR, but done exclusively with bundled plug-ins - not $100 000 worth of Waves/McDSP plugs. 

Like: here's a digital recording, here's a digital/clean EQ and a Compressor, and here's how good it can get without adding all sort of artifacts. 

That'll never happen, I know... :s  There'd be nothing to sell, no magic tool you can lust after to magically fix your mixes...

Country uses a lot of saturation (with vocs and guitars).

FearfulSym: Please make sure you don't mix saturations on top of one another on the same track.  Vocs and guitars may have different exciters I'd suppose.  A lot of guitars can sound quite lush with their lower mids sweetly warmed, tubed, or taped.  So let us know what is working for you (so I can emulate).

Today, I've had some luck warming the lower and middle mids with Ozone4's tape ... which I've become increasingly generous with (after reading your thread and listening to pro-artists)

 
+1 on Camel Crusher....also I have used the 'Modern Black Dragon' and 'Modern Analoguer' by Antress.   They're not 'tube warmers' but they can make the sound swell or saturate.
http://antress.blogspot.com/

All these are free and worth a peak.