Nicely said, i feel exactly the same way, everything you said was the truth and my same sentiment; only one thing i don't agree about. Slate Digital had multiple top-tier mastering engineers and mixing engineers do blind listening tests for his plugins like the VCC, 'all' of these audio pros could not perceive the difference! His plugins are the only ones IMO that actually emulate hardware 99%.
I own Slates's new VMR (Virtual Mix Rack) plugins, and from what i can tell they are the real-deal, unbelievably good. Waves and UAD do not equal these, you are right about those other emulations, they are not exactly the same as the real-world counterpart, but i do believe Steven Slate has achieved this. For example, view this vid at Youtube... "Slate Digital Making Of: Virtual Tape Machines VTM". It shows the unreserved endorsement of Howie Weinberg the famed mastering engineer, and i don't think any plugin maker has achieved such an endorsement... Howie Weinberg has replaced his 'real' mastering tapedeck for Slate's VTM, so you gotta admit, that's saying something for sure...
I'm like you, tired of hunting, sick of looking, years and years of all the **** and the hype and the claims and the same old buzzwords etc etc, they just want our money, but after using Slate's plugins i happily paid for them, worth every penny, and much cheaper than Waves and UAD and Softube etc.
Slate gave us cheap prices and the real deal, what more could you want? I'm serious, if you haven't tried them i can tell you they are the real thing, so do yourself a favour, come over to the dark side LOL.
All jokes aside, i'm like you, i ain't got money to waste on **** and wannabe garbage and tryhards, i need the real deal. I am content in my heart now, truly, believing/knowing i've got the real thing now. Audio bliss, the results are fantastic. When i pull-up a Slate compressor for example, i know it's giving me realworld reality, truly my friend, you will not be sorry. And actually, to add weight to my argument, if you read the sound-on-sound review of the "UAD Studer® A800 Multichannel Tape Recorder Plug-In", you will see (just like you said) that it is now a proper match of Tape, variables in the result were not like the real-world counterpart, it was just basically another plugin having a go but not giving the true result, but, if you read the sound-on-sound review of Slate's VTM you will see the difference. Paul White (and we know that he knows his stuff) toward the business end of his review says this... "Inevitably, questions will be asked as to how VTM compares with the Universal Audio and Waves offerings, as these are currently the main players in the software tape emulation market. There isn't a simple answer though, as all three model different tape machines set up by different engineers. I think that when it comes to dogged persistence in modelling the true detail of a tape machine, Slate probably get as close to the real thing as is practical."
Then he goes on to say... "I could make this section really short by saying that, to my ears, Slate's VTM sounds just like tape."
And, to endorse his own observations, Paul White says in relation to the Slate VTM... "The fact that you feel a profound sense of disappointment when you bypass the Slate VTM plug-in, says it all really!"
And he goes on to say... "I've used the "UAD Studer A800" plug-in on several mixes and have been really happy with the results, but to my ears VTM sounds a little more realistic — very musical, but also less obvious. It adds just a hint of weight, density and smoothness to the sound without veering off into excess. There are some convincing videos on the Slate web site comparing how waveforms are distorted when passing through a real tape machine and then through the VTM plug-in, as against their (unnamed) competitors."
And again he says... "In some cases, a less faithful emulation may produce an appropriate musical result, but if accurate tape emulation is what you're after, I think you'd be hard pushed to get closer than VTM."
And if you're still not convinced, he goes on to say at the end of his review... "Overall, I really love this plug-in and can't really find anything negative to say about it, other than that some users may be surprised at just how low-key the effect of a real tape recorder can be. On the other hand, if you're going to insert multiple instances in a mix, you don't want the effect to be overblown, as it is cumulative. For me, VTM supplies the essential magic of analogue tape in a manageable and utterly convincing manner, without the cost of maintaining a tape machine, buying tape, spending time aligning the thing and then having the tape run out just before the end of the only perfect take of the day! Having used it, I'd find it very hard to go back to mixing without it."
So there you go; but i can tell you as an owner of all Slate's plugins, the same level of expertise has gone into every one of his plugins, and i can definitely hear the result, 'real world' bliss! Do i need to say more? Save your money, save yourself the cost of those other overpriced amateur plugins, and go get the real thing dude, Slate has handed us heaven on a stick.
post edited by Drone7 - 2015/01/18 10:30:48