I've recently fallen in love with their API channel strip and wonder what the more seasoned users think of this technology.

 

It's not a technology, it's just a gimmick that only single purpose really is to prevent someone from being able to work on a repetitive basis.

 

Turning it on or off barely makes a difference. If you mix the entire track using only channel strips in all channels you can hear a slight difference by clicking the random all button, but in practice it shouldn't never make any difference since you're going to compensate for those small differences anyway.

Like, for example: if TMT gives me a -1db at 80hz, when I mix I'll boost it by 2db instead of 1db if there was no TMT.

Of course, in practice, the changes are 0.1db at best. It's a gimmick to make you believe it's more "analog" than other strips.

 

I think it's a good thing.

1. A lot like when Waves first introduced added noise floor (electrical hum and whatnot) to their SSL plugins long time ago. It's useless to be fair, and people turn it off but it get the plugin development as step closer, it's considered important early step and it changes the industry. People starting to consider ITB mixing. All their plugin before that is fairly good at the time but these analog emus that put them on the map.

2. Same goes to the anti-aliasing filter (and of course Oversampling), which is probably earlier than that but actually improving the plugin technology to distort correctly like an analog gear does. Game changing, even tho we can't really hear the aliasing and countless of tracks made it out there with it. This is only made possible in mainstream now because the computer tech is improving, CPU, RAM can now support it.

3. That EQ decramping is a revelation too, well analog EQ doesn't cramp but all of us don't care back then, only few that understand brought it up to light. Now Equalizer plugin starting to respond correctly, the "analog phase" filter actually improved.

4. IR, trying to get all the details of the curve as close as possible, not fully optimized, not efficient enough but getting there.

5. The TMT although it's simpler and not as good as anti-aliasing or EQ decramping, it's a necessary step to get closer and closer to the analog sound. The channel to channel difference in analog is real and when translated to plugin, obviously it's just adding some randomizer for the values because that's all it is in coding. It's a necessary step for the development to make plugin react more like an analog gear. Only way to dismiss it for now is when someone came up with better solution to mimic that behavior, as for now, TMT does what it says.

Need to add, that some of these are actually "flaw" of the analog gears, TMT is actually mimicking a flaw. It's understandably tricky to like a flaw when the other option is super consistent, flat, pristine respond. Good news, we get to choose what we like.

 

Last edited: Sep 11, 2024

I sometimes use this feature to create some stereo width when I'm too lazy to do it manually. But I only switch from "digital" to "analog". I don't click through the channels.

Apart from that, the feature is useless.

 

I can tell the difference, but I am indifferent to it. I don't care whether it's there or not. We need a tickbox option for that too

 

I really appreciate these plugin developers thinks different ways to model a plugin. Some may like it and some may not but still it is really a welcoming step.

 

Pro:
- it varies slightly the freq response from channel to channel.

Cons:
- these variations are minimal and for API only up to 0.2dB,
- these variations only make sense for stereo channels, for mono channels no one will be able to notice it, EDIT: well, err, not entirely correct, sorry -> https://audiosex.pro/threads/brainworxs-tmt-yay-or-nay.77045/page-4#post-797903
- TMT does not vary harmonics at all and the variations of the compressor or gate are less than inaudible (almost unmeasurable).

 

Last edited: Sep 18, 2024

Oh I've asked myself the same question for a long time.

Personally i hate TMT.
It all started when my mono vocals were sounding super weird, and then i realized they were not mono anymore. It took me a little while to find out what was screwing with them, it was the TMT on the SSL J channel.
And that's why i hate TMT.

But it also depends on your source material, if you use TMT in a stereo synth, it probably won't sound that bad.

 

i´m just going to leave my brain fart here

i was thinking about modeling a neve preamp...and i´m thinking weather there´s a chance for a modulated sine wave that is separated and routed thru an AI and thru a preamp, to have it "matched" by the AI by routing it to an AI after a preamp part.... or some form of algo by using various forms be it spectrogram and so on and extrapolate the effects, it is really wierd that we cannot do it..

does this makes any sense

have it running those nvidias and giving it 3-4 veiws on a audio signal until it closes the gap sound wise or smthng like that because i dont care about plugins any more at all, 0, if the audio file is good quality old waves plugs can do it so what´s the point besides fiddling with a mouse all day looking at new gui´s and so on ( Soothe excluded )

 

Agree. Hard meh on TNT. It's definitely audible in certain instances, but rarely a game changer in any way.

I tried using it on the Purple MC77 on multiple occasions and with any content with significant low freq, it sounded super odd and a bit off. To my understanding the compression will be different on the L and R channels and I never found that it made anything better, just different, and put the imaging slightly off. (This is different than unlinking L and R I believe).

With EQ TMT I've used it more but never been super impressed. Some of the channel differences are surprisingly significant imo, (like .4 dB diff but 30Hz off *might be misremembering that*) and I never liked that.

 

The lack of TMT impacting harmonics is a huge missed opportunity. That sounds like it would be really interesting.

 

it would be more interesting if the harmonics are happening on mid/side. Paul Third (the youtube dude) once had a beef with SSL because after some tests, he figured that the SSL plugins didn't match Side harmonics, suggesting the channel difference happening on the Side channel as well for stereo unit and the plugin doesnt have it. Interestingly enough it can't be detected on the usual L/R testing. It was an intense fight and I heard the staff that replied to the video (or email) got disciplined for it because he got mad after losing the argument when Paul asked what tool did they used to measure it if they got different result than his.

 

It's about as interesting to me as Waves Non-Linear Summing plugins. Once seen in a Jaycen Joshua video and then to never appear again.

 

API channel is modeled by LSR Audio which have proven to have delivered very high quality emulations, so no surprise you fell among a massive amount of user in love with its sound (especially its "liquid" eq).

TMT in itself is much more a gimmick than anything but a very clever trick to add 3d to pretty anything (And I beg to differ with a precedent poster with mono signals, I love to 3D-ise electronic redundant kicks for example to give them more naturalness and a give them a sense of organic space placement (since a kick is meant to be recorded it could implicitly relieve the ear from the steadiness of a repetitive mono signal for example by the subtle feedback produced by such phase shifts), among a lot other effects like more presence to a bass or pretty anything else actually.

When you know that it's just about subtly altering eq curves for each stereo chanel you can achieve it with any tool you want, so the modularity of choosing a quality EQ and prepare more sauce pre/post opens to you.

SlickEQ GE stole this TMT idea and is my goto for such an effect (with nice intelligently designed bootsy (VoS) exciters integrated btw).

 

Checked out some of the TMT differences in PluginDoctor.

I was way off. The differences between certain channels are way more extreme than I remembered.

8.1dB @ 3893 Hz - Left Channel (27)
7.5 dB @ 5036 Hz - Right Channel (28)

If I'm using the absolute center of a bell as the reference point (as you can see here, but my mouse cursor was removed when I took the screenshot), some channels can be around a .8dB difference and around a 1000Hz difference.

Think about using this on a channel with low frequencies. Do you want the EQ working on the frequency you selected, or did you want to EQ 1000Hz above or below where you thought you were EQing?

This would explain the odd imaging I thought I was hearing when using TMT on certain tracks. These differences can be quite significant and can do as much harm as good. This is a combined Shelf + Bell +Bell, so the differences may be more or less dramatic depending on how much EQing you're doing.

Obviously, mix with your ears. Still, I don't feel like it make my job easier (or the track better) when I'm making EQ moves 1000Hz away from where I think I'm EQing, and then being confused when things don't sound right.

I'd be curious to know what you guys think.

 

Concept is good,
but I don't like the notion of having imperfections on the way of my work..

Also as good as PA plugs are, I find Official releases to be better,
like say official SSL Channelstrip.. Vertigo or Distressor, they tend to beat third party versions.
(never tried UAD tho..)

 

Now that I think of it, TMT would be more fun if you had an L/R offset that you couldn't replicate with an EQ curve.
What if you set 20ms attack time for a compressor and it goes 19.8 for left and 20.2ms for the right channel? Similar to modelling oscillator drift in softsynths. You could obviously do all this with routing multiple instances in your DAW but imagine doubling all your plugins for a slight stereo effect

That SSL spokesman shittalked Paul for being a carpenter, this happened on gearslutz. I think that speaks for itself.

 

Interesting insight, it gave me historical perspective and made me think that someday all these solutions might be implemented in a single device. It also got me wondering: is it possible that we're already making mixes that are more colorful, varied and 'live' than the analog productions we try to mirror? I mean, you can get pretty crazy with subtle yet rich saturation with Saturn 2...

Done!

Reading this, I thought, 'bummer, I wish it made at least a little difference!'

... but then I read this and went 'not that much difference!'

Oh I thought Brainworx was all by the same guys at Fuse Audio Labs. Good to know my ears didn't fool me then. I think it sounds 'as real as' VoostEQ, but I find the EQ and compressor in VoostEQ a tad peculiar. Now I got curious with your take on SlickEQ, what's that all about?

Mr. Dude rightly said TMT is the emulation of a flaw (like crosstalk in tape emulators for instance), but is well serviced analog gear usually this flawed?