In this episode, I show examples of how I used my Studer J37 tape machine on Grace Potter's cover of "I'd Rather Go Blind" and compare it to the Waves plugin. There is also a nice example of recording and mixing a 1 mic drum recording!
Eric. I just discovered your channel today... and I am totally gobsmacked by the content you produce. I've already learned so much from the 3 videos I have watched so far: Tuning speakers and room acoustics, Sie Q plugin vs the real thing, and now the J37 comparison. But it's not just the comparisons that are enlightening - it's everything else you talk about along the way too. Love your channel. Thank you.
This was awesome Eric. The one thing I found is exactly what your saying, its there, almost but not glued or smooth, missing lows and the sizzle at top end. My fix is creating the missing parts. My chain is J37, EQ, SSl Comp, EQ, SSL comp. First EQ brings in the lows and highs, 1st compressor glues like in mastering, slowest attack, fastest release, lowest comp, analog in, just touching the needle. 2nd EQ fixes the mid range, 2nd comp same, just to glue it all. In some cases (extreme) will use 2 of the J37's. One picks up the sound, think dark, then the second picks up the saturation and detail. This proved to me my ears wasn't tricking me. Thanks. Braven
Hey man, I´m kinda starting out and would love to hear an example of what you described above. Of course, I´m going to try it myself regardless but still, being able to hear it from someone who already does it makes my life easier. Have you tried messing around with the plugin Saturn ? I´m obsessed about this thing. Thank. My email is sejives@gmail.com just in case.
A bit off topic but I just had a nice 15min cry listening to Grace's version on repeat! Lost both my parents in the last two years, both unexpectedly and couldn't help feeling like I'd rather be blind than to have watched them leave. She did an awesome job! I hope I get to record something so powerful someday!
Hey kids, listen to this guy... he knows where of he speaks :) High Fidelity is still an ideal for some of us. In a world of distorted, mangled vocals, horrid digital fakeness and noise for the sake of noise, it's refreshing to listen to sweet music from a bygone era-it's like from another planet, really. My friends, Eric is a living saint among us...
Eric, just a suggestion but would love to see your Altec 1567 against the Soundtoys Radiator. You're one of the only guys I know who's got the hardware. Been looking to pick one because I enjoy radiator so much. Thanks for the great vid's!
I use both fairly frequently and can say that while radiator is great, it seems to shine best when you just need a little extra bump. The actual altec goes off into a world of its own. Its a beautiful dirty piece of shit and is much more heavy-handed with the sound it imparts. Push it hard and it turns sounds into a trashcan of noise that somehow manages to still work in the mix with some eq after the fact. As with any piece more on the extreme side, its not gonna fit every mix and especially with older tube gear theres quite a variance between units. I know im two years late here but if youre still debating picking one up, id say go for it. Theyre tons of fun to have on hand.
That arrangement is absolutely killer. Tones and panning too. Voice (obviously) is crazy good. Also, Thanks so much for doing these video's! Every engineer/producer/mixer/musician that gets great results has a unique way of getting there and it's really cool when top tier dudes such as yourself are open to sharing the techniques you've created and accumulated over the years.
The guitar and vocal was way more apparent to me the difference between the real thing vs plug-in. That grainy bloom the machine gives to vocal and guitar was amazing. Thank you!
Hi Eric. Love the video, you have always been a great source of inspiration for me. I would love to hear more in depht about the track! Also I love running things thru tape machines myself! I have a Studer A80 24 track 2". I heard you mention a little bit about how you do it in an interview, I would love to see a video about that process! How you measure the delay and how you snap it back so it plays tight with the rest of the song. :-)
would love to see the full rundown of this song! I was in Nashville a few years ago and drove down w my wife to tour Fame and go see Muscle Shoals (was being reno'd at the time). Such a great vibe in the fame room. Love the iso "sheds" they built in there...so funny, but effective. The workers let me peek my head in to the Muscle Shoals building. Surprised the ceilings were as low as they were. Anyway...getting excited walking down memory lane. Great album and would love to hear the session broken down if you have time. Thanks Eric.
Thanks Eric. Great demo and real world example of tape vs plugin. Love to hear full breakdown of the song. Learning so much from this series. Really appreciate your time
Man, your videos are fantastic! I love your production, and your musicianship! Thank you for sharing your professional and artistic knowledge! Much more success your way!!
Fantastic video, thanks for sharing. I’ve replaced the J37 plugin with Slate’s virtual tape machine and it’s made a world of difference. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that plugin as well.
yeah, an EV vid comparing different tape sim plugins would be amazing. like a J37/Studer/Ampex/Slate/Softube tape vid with EV's thoughts about all of them and how they compare
All the knowledge you share with us is always more than appreciated. This channel is incredible. Premium content. Keep on the good (and very inspiring) work!
Now I understand exactly why I end up spending so much time in the mids on guitars all the time to get them to sound real. Thanks for this, Eric. Great vids!
Anybody in their right mind these wouldn’t record a kit with just one mic. The thought would be backing yourself into a cord, BUT Eric Valentine is not anybody. He is a genius!! Absolutely floored every time one of these videos pops up. Thank you so much Eric for constantly pushing the envelope, and putting modern day approaches on old school techniques. I’m inspired
Hey Eric, Fantastic video and thank you for this valuable information. I met you in 2012 at the first pensados fest in LARS at Hollywood and boy o boy it was a joy learning from you. Fast forward some years and now being able to follow your youtube channel is just a delight, appreciate your work so much. Knowing your love for tape machines, have you heard or try HANDSOME AUDIO'S ZULU? If you haven't, you are in for a real treat. God bless man
Thank you so much, Eric!! This was such a great experience.👌 I love the sound of the 60s and 70s so much, and it's so cool to hear all these excellent recordings/performances. And Grace's voice is awesome-I got goosebumps. And, yeah, the J37 brings it all together in a very nice musical way-what an ear candy... Waves did a great job again, I'm very surprised how close the plugin version comes to the real thing... I'm totally interested in knowing how the entire track was recorded and mixed!! 😀 I'm looking forward to watching your next video.🙏 Thanks again, and warm greetings from Berlin!
Hi Eric, thanx for the video, it's always a pleasure to watch it. I love the idea of sending the signal through an amp again and recording the room sound, this is as simple as it is ingenious. It would only interest me if you did that afterwards or at the same time. Thank you for the insights and that you share your knowledge with us...
Good question! I sent the signal to the amp after the drums were recorded into the computer. I have done it the other way on other projects but this one was after.
@@mrwev Hi Eric, thanx for your quick response. I've also sent the drum signal through an active speaker into another room and recorded the room sound there via a microphone. But in this case with one mic it probably makes more sense to record the same space again... I have another question about the j37 plugin? I use it regularly but it's always after eq and compression in my plugin chain and then maybe delay, modulation, etc. Is there a certain reason that you probably always use the j37 plugin in your plugin chain first? Thanks in advance and have a nice day, Frank
hi eric thanks so much for these videos. there's a couple of new tape emulations out that you might be interested in trying - acustica taupe, and IK Tape Machines. both are excellent.
Absolutely "So MUCH" insight, thanks so much... I'm really glad that you can hear that difference in hardware also, I had an album of mine mixed and mastered at studio by a top Sony mixing and mastering engineer and when I started to learn recording and do things myself, I always heard that "indescribable" thickness, clarity and gloss that hardware has to it... I have never been able to mimic it 100% I thought I was going mad or had ears that didn't hear properly, but now I know "it's the hardware" imparting that sonic character that only hardware can, and it's absolutely incredible... But for this mere mortal I will have to settle for plugins haha... But there's always access analog and access analog which I guess gives us access to the hardware if we're up for it... All in all, I've learnt so much from your video, thanks for sharing and being so generous with your time and knowledge, greatly appreciated!
what a great dissection and comparison - thanks! I know it is veering off into esoterica to want to hear a shootout between one of the great tape machines and the Anamod ATS-1 tape device, but a Studer J37 is pretty esoteric to begin with... so maybe not a crazy request? We're going to shoot out between a real Ampex 351 and the Anamod M-351 emulation at some point in the next few months... would be pretty amazing to hear you have a whack at that comparision!
Plugin is close! I love the slap delay effect for vocals. Thank you Eric, you're a living legend! Love the Good Charlotte records and All American Rejects to name a few!
Great video as always. I believe the m160 is hypercardioid rare for a ribbon though, but that’s making better sense for the positioning. Keep up the great work and keep providing us great albums!
Didn't the vocals got the unfairchild in mixing the track of the real j37? The plugin version only got EQ, no compression, maybe some fairchild like plugin would bring it closer. Tks once again, great comparison, and coming from someone really knowledgeable. A huge tks
Another perfect example of how plugins don't do the same thing in the 'real world'. He's being polite about the quality of the Waves J37. Anyone else pick that up ?
Are your monitors broken? The drums sound almost exactly the same, easily within 90% range. The only difference I heard was in the guitar. He even said the drums were close
I've been messing with a 1 mic drum kit, but its from an iPhone recoding. I ended up triggering samples for the kick and snare and toms, and blend it together with the original. now i need to find a way for everything else to vibe with it
I use the J37 plugin from Waves all the time, but in this case, the actual machine sounded snappier and more saturated to me. I think if I were trying to get close to the original I'd also add some subtle saturation in addition, but not from the J37 itself. Something simple and clean like the Reviver from Fielding DSP.
What to do with the clipping signals? The plug in shelves and discards them. The tape machine distributed them outward to include a boost to neighboring frequencies. So the tape handles clips better. It at least tries.
It would be super useful/interesting to be able to do some blind listening with the real J37 and the plus-in! Much like what you talked about in a more recent video about how you what your told about sound will bias your listing experience
Very nice comparison. It’s unbelievable how plugins are sounding so good. Although The real tape machine is unbeatable in terms of sound (specially on higher frequencies), you can get super interesting colors with the plugin. Eric, please break up the full song. It’s an amazing sounding song. Cheers!
Yo Eric! You are killing it. I love the j37. But have you ever tried cassette tape? I have a tascam 424 that can have some cool sounds pop outta it. You should try it. Thanks for the free education!
I JUST got the J37 plugin a few days ago, and I was pretty excited about it, used it on a voiceover track already and loved it, but now I'm seeing this and hearing it compared to the real thing... and... :[ mehhhh lol I still think what it does is sort of fairy dust that I'll use whenever possible, but now I'll always have the original in my mind's ear... and hating you a little bit :P lol Thanks anyway ;) lol I echo the statement that getting content from you for free is pretty mindblowing! Thanks again!
it would be cool to hear some of these A/B moments in loop using solo, then selecting both channels, then muting one and holding shift while pressing M to toggle back and forth and truly A/B the signal that would help us close our eyes and hear the difference between the plugin and the hardware.
Yeah goos suggestion! When I am getting into some really intense critical A/B listening I always try to do it blind. I came up with a somewhat crude technique that allows me to do a blind listen in the moment in pro tools and not have to get derailed from working on music. I'll do an episode about that!
Thank you for this very interesting "workshop" video. The J37 plugin is too transparent for me. I tried it out on some material but I think it's clean and the saturation isn't so musical, maybe it's a lack of internal oversampling. I am missing the gluing rounding off character. I see this plugin more than a sound design tool when abusing it. I get great results with uhe Satin and Hornet Tape. I really like the dirty little room you created for the drum set. Sounds awesome. Reminded me on older Tom Waits records. I often process the send - return reverb with all kinds of distortion or saturation. I enjoyed the video and liked foremost your calm and differentiated approach in comparing real tape and the plugin. Looking forward for new videos. Cheers. PS. Beautiful song indeed. I think you totally nailed it in the final mix.
What a great channel and what a lovely community you have fostered through your content Eric! I would love to see a rundown on the entire recording/mix session for this song, its a beautiful song played and engineered with heaps and heaps of musicality that provided a fresh yet familiar take on a classic 60s recording. I have a very small question on your time adjuster delay moves in relation to the noise gates, how do you reach those sample delay values? Is it a "fiddle" with the timing slider until it feels right kind of move? Or is there a precise way you are calculating that delay?. It seems to be such a vital move in to maximizing your drum sound coherency and so its made me infinitely curious after seeing this mix session and your last Greg Holden gated room drum sound! Anyways, thanks in advance for sharing all of this knowledge with all of us. This is such a gem of a channel, so inspirational!
What I find is that there a periods in which the low frequencies are either cancelling more or adding more. I check each period for the one that sounds the best. I start by setting the phase so it sounds like it is cancelling then slide later until it sounds like the low end it adding up. Then I flip phase so it is cancelling again and slide to the next spot that sounds like it is adding up. This way you hear every possible delay point that could work instead of only half of them. I'll make note of the ones the feel good and then chose the best of those. Ultimately it is done by ear.
The biggest difference I hear (on pretty decent headphones) between the real thing and the plugin a slight bit more density/weight overall (especially the lowend) on the real J37. But like you said,...pretty close. Great stuff.
Nice recordings and more power to you! It was a great day and age. Up until several years ago, it was the only way to get "that sound"-- although it got hard to justify the tape costs for most people. The last time I used my old ATR-124 was like 8 years ago. Anyway, you sound like you are totally into analog still...want to it one cheap? I'd sell it for around $19K, complete with 50 pounds of tape that is all well kept and less than 10 years old. Ran fine, although would obviously need to be cleaned, as it has been covered since it was last serviced about 2014 (had a AMPEX MM1000 that I got rid of last year for $11K with 8 boxes of 2", so this is the last of my old style analog gear).
Great video, some tape parts are louder, I suggest wievers to level match for proper comparison. Getting some good saturation and tone from plug ins is possible, my problem is getting the size, the dimension of the sound
Feels like the real tape machine actually adds some lower energy, almost like undertones of some sort. Reminds me of a MiniMoog when you drive the output back through the mixer and at some point it generates more low energy
I always appreciate a good A/B comparison but one must get levels under wrap and have a reference. Both tracks then need to be measured and matched exactly in order to make a real assessment. It can be seen fairly easily just by meter activity alone the plugin track was lower. Also, I'd try some of the other offerings of tape over the Waves.
Yes Definitely interested in hearing more about this track. like all of it! also where can we go to listen to the track itself?? maybe if you make another video about it could you see what turning that Sat knob up would do in comparison to the real thing I'm just curious to get that comparison either way
You can find the song on Spotify if you search for Small Town Big Sound Muscle Shoals. Yes others have mentioned the saturation knob. I wish I had tried that... damn it!! haha!
So if you’re running these to tape and back in various instances and speeds, how are you locking the time together to account for the slight variances in tape speed? Beat detecting a guide metronome, or??? Thanks for cranking out these great videos!
I had documented what the timing differences were based on tape machine/ips/sample frequency. At a certain point a very clever assistant (Cian Riordan) put it all in a google spread sheet. In the spread sheet you could select the tape machine, ips and sample frequency and it would calculate the offset. I would then simply enter that value in the "nudge" value in pro tools and select the tape traks and nudge them back with one key stroke.
Hi Eric, I recorded multiple guitar tracks to a two track machine. Monitored off of the machine electronics then recorded the takes off of tape back into the DAW. I lined up the tape tracks with the "electronics" tracks and noticed a drift between the two sections of music. A vamp that was harmonized for a few minutes. That being said the time alignment for the seperate sections get wonky! Phase to Chorus to Slap Back to a Short Delay as it progresses. Is this because of the program material? Or did you really have to chop things up in your DAW to compensate for phase and polarity issues?
Hey I had a question.Im assuming that there is a good amount of tape saturation happening on the tracks that you ran to the hardware j37. From what I can gather driving the input on the plug in is only saturation from the tubes. and the saturation knob on the plug-in should really probably be turned up to get an accurate comparison. idk just my thought. I could be wrong and please tell me if I am! but this is such. cool video and what a incredible sounding song.and those vocals! I can't believe how good one freaking mic sounds on the kit. haha way cool. thanks for the video
Thats a really good point! I think you're probably onto something.But then how would you do a comparison? i guess you'd just have to bring up the Saturation knob until it sounds closer?
To me the plug in sounds a little darker, maybe even fatter lows. The real tape machine has more open high end. Also the plug in sounds a bit more squashed. Both really cool.
Have you tried using the VST version of J37 hosted within Metaplugin by DDMF and oversampling it? I wonder if that would get you closer to the real thing because it'd remove most of the aliasing / inter modular distortion caused in digital.
Amazing stuff - thanks for doing this! One small correction if I may: The Beyer M160 has a hypercardioid response pattern, it's not "figure 8-ish". So you weren't nulling snare :)
Hey! yes others have mentioned this :) I think you're right I probably should have just said hypcardioid but I think figure 8-ish is not totally inappropriate. The hypercardioid pattern is created by combining the omni signal and the fig 8 signal together with the fig 8 signal typically twice the volume as the omni signal. So, hypercardioid is mostly figure 8 signal. I may be wrong here, but every graphic I've seen of hypercardioid clearly shows two null points that are 90 degrees from the front of the pattern. That seems to indicate that there would be a cancellation of some sort where those null points are facing and I wanted to emphasis that in my comment. Still, I think you're right... I should have just said "hypercardioid". "Figure 8-ish" is not a thing haha! Thank you for the comment! You all will keep me on my toes :)
Great song and what a performance! About the hdw vs plugin, I should say the latter has a globally more "acid" and brighter sound. The tape provides a warm and thick mojo and a more balanced and homogeneous sound. I own a J37 myself, a very low hours item. I have to say listening to all your examples featuring "the beast" makes something I can hardly describe, it's deep inside the sound, maybe in the mids, don't know. To say it simple, it provides a huge and charming ear pleasure, but that's me ;-) That said, I was wondering what kind of tape you're using on the machine. I had an interesting experience here, starting with RMG SM900. Switching to SM911 has been a reveal then. Thanks for this great video! Alain
I'm using Qunatagy GP9. I have a bunch of it because I bought up as much as I could when heard quantagy was going out of business. I would like to hear 911 on it. I bet the machine loves that tape.
Thanks for this Eric!!! I spend some time today trying this out. Had a minimal drum setup in a isobooth with a beyer 160 setup in a similar way. Although the kick was short and and thuddy there were still to much overtones from kick and toms. If I listen to your source track again, the kick has a very specific sound, I would love to learn if you tuned/dressed it a specific way at all :-) I cranked the api 1608 hard since I don't have tape and was hoping to get some of that breakup from the preamp.. Any hacks to get similar breakup ? Thanks again! Keep inspiring us man!
