gswitz
Sound. You might like the sound you can create with it. Really, that is the point of all plugins.

Not disagreeing. When and where, is all. Just trying to avoid what I call "duck hunting."
 
Many moons ago, I went duck hunting with a friend and his father on the Mississippi River, south of La Crosse, WI. The weather was terrible, but that's duck hunting. We got our boat out and set up a few decoys. A little later, about a 1/4 mile upstream, 6 guys in 3 boats showed up and set out way over 100 decoys. We could see them using a book and building their decoy pattern out of it. Real pros, those guys! Much rain and time later, a flock of blue bills finally showed up, coming in from the north. Those 6 guys stood up and fired off every round they had loaded. And hit nothing! The flock climbed straight out of there, and by the time they reach us downstream, they were out of range of my and my friend's shotguns. But his dad had a goose gun. He stood up, fired off two rounds, and dropped two worthless, inedible blue bills. The 6 guys upstream packed up their decoys and hauled a$$. Very funny.
 
So anytime I see anything that resembles a bunch of stuff being thrown at the wall, I call it "duck hunting."
 
Nothing like a
 

 

I have Magnetic II and it's great. They have many different tape emulations on there and I usually find that one of them stands out against all the others for a particular track.

However I use it for contrast and color on select tracks. I'm not trying to recreate the sound of an "all tape" mix, I don't really see the point of that - for me it's just nice as a way of taking the edge off certain harsh sounding tracks which I don't want to stick out of the mix too much. It makes the other tracks sound brighter and closer in contrast.

So, in the drums, I often want the crack on the snare to be plenty loud enough. I also want it to sound like I'm trying to make it loud. When I put tape emulator on the drum bus, I get some compression and limiting that keeps the kick and snare plenty loud, but I also get a little distortion which says to the ear, this is loud! This gets more intense as the drums are played harder and less intense when softer, but the volume doesn't change as much as it does naturally.

It's like making cymbals softer to make a band sound louder. In a bar, the cymbals aren't often Mic'd. So the louder the band, the softer the cymbals in relation. You can do something similar to your recording. If you want your band to sound quiet, reduce the velocity on your midi drum loops but keep the cymbals up in the mix. Or do the reverse for loud.

With the tape emulator, you intentionally create light distortion to advertise the heat of the moment, the passion of the song.

I only use the hiss for amusement, but hiss can be truly amusing in the right settings.

gswitz
So, in the drums, I often want the crack on the snare to be plenty loud enough. I also want it to sound like I'm trying to make it loud. When I put tape emulator on the drum bus, I get some compression and limiting that keeps the kick and snare plenty loud, but I also get a little distortion which says to the ear, this is loud! This gets more intense as the drums are played harder and less intense when softer, but the volume doesn't change as much as it does naturally.

It's like making cymbals softer to make a band sound louder. In a bar, the cymbals aren't often Mic'd. So the louder the band, the softer the cymbals in relation. You can do something similar to your recording. If you want your band to sound quiet, reduce the velocity on your midi drum loops but keep the cymbals up in the mix. Or do the reverse for loud.

With the tape emulator, you intentionally create light distortion to advertise the heat of the moment, the passion of the song.

Huh...   I'm currently working on a project where I have the Kick and Snare tracks with sends to a bus with the SONAR Tape Sim cranked pretty hard, but just a little bit of that on the cymbals.   IOW, a tape sim version of parallel compression.    Works pretty well! 

I was heavy tested the last ik those last dayz .... And this against all my usual suspects , vsm3 , ssl x sat, brainworx , vtm , vcc , waves saphira, Nls , even the waves ssl cranked up .... And came to the conclusion that we have some really great options here , the ik is fast in each style , but i ve found that in each style if have better soundung options ....

I also differentiate saturation with what it does to the transient (with that analog style clipping) and harmonic distortion ....

I second the magnetic 2 , this were the best nomad factory in the bundle and certainly the only one i would consider to buy ...since i m cover in all other areas ....magnetic is fast and sounding right to my ears ...

Zo
I second the magnetic 2 , this were the best nomad factory in the bundle and certainly the only one i would consider to buy

Well, some of us, even those of us who are fans of Magnetic II, would still choose the Pulsetec EQ as the best of breed.  But why quibble?  NF has a number of gems and those of us who were lucky/prudent enough to pick up the Integral Studio Pack for 99 bucks can all just pat each other on the pack and engage in mutual congratulations for our shopping acumen. 

True  ... i really wished their magma was stable , it's a beast also .... specialy for sound design ...

Kinda prefer their P&M Chainer to NF Magma. But PulseTec EQ, Manetic II, Cosmos, Echoes and even that old Blue Trackbox are keepers.

If I mix in Harrison Mixbus...I prefer it to all other Tape or console sims. $79

clintmartin
If I mix in Harrison Mixbus...I prefer it to all other Tape or console sims. $79

+++ ^^^ THIS ^^^ +++