Sounds kind of neat, but IMO these guys are kind of milking what is basically just a convolution algorithm. We could trade impulse responses of classic gear for free instead of buying them for hundreds of dollars locked in a plugin.

On a more superficial note, I wonder when people are going to finally get sick of recreating the look of hardware, down to cheesy 3D renders... That screams "1998" to me, trying to sell audio plugins when most users thought of "the real thing" as being a rack in some studio. Nowadays I suspect most users do most work exclusively with plugins. I laugh like when I see a 1980 station wagon with "wood grain" stickers on the side and hub caps with spokes.

 

I know only one application which removes wow and flutter, it's Melodyne's Capstan.
Did Acustica Audio used it for Taupe sampling, and did it introduces some new kind of artifacts ?... Unknowing assumptions...

 

It is not "just a convolution algorithm", it is Volterra Kernel calculations applications.
It can't be done with convolution only, it can't be done with impulse responses only.
If it could, we would know that, but it can't.

It's not the look that matters, it's the sound...

 

They didn't really give technical details for the wow and flutter part.
I think it's a matter of how the post production sampling de noising is done. At least that's what I understood the problem was with the infamous "echo bug" which was fixed with the introduction of core 12 (we are now at core 13)....Or maybe the latest was related to the deconvolved impulses problem( apparently also related to denoising post processing). .
Way too techy for me.

 

I just looked those up, they do sound interesting! But again it seems like a lot of extra fluff around a useful algorithm.

Obviously, "we" don't all know the same things.

That was my point. Since it's the sound that matters, I'd rather pay for a plugin that lacks the added overhead of having paid somebody to make it look silly. But way too many companies do this. I think it also makes for a cluttered UI. YMMV

 

Acustica Audio is currently the one only plugins company in the world that do that (Volterra Kernel applications) ; the sound that it gives is "praised" by many very demanding users, in spite of the CPU hogs issues with these plugins.
If it was easy, many plugins manufacturers would be doing the same, because it sound better, and more alive, than simple "sterile" convolution (if you use a lot the "simple" convolution reverbs, you will finally be disappointed and find them "sterile and lifeless"). But currently there is only one. There is another one who is doing something someway similar : LiquidSonics ("Fusion-IR", also used by Slate with LiquidSonics intellectual property), which reverbs all also praised ("better than simple convolution"). So currently they are two, in the entire world of the plugins manufacturers.
Maybe in the future many others will do similar approaches, but currently they are only two, with one of them specialized on reverbs only with the sampling approach (LiquidSonics). So we can guess that although "better sounding", these are not so easy ways.

...Then, you could be ready for Chris Johnson (a little genius) and his airwindows plugins , those ones also are praised by demanding users, with absolutely no cluttered UI (minimalist working UI) ; take all the plugins, use them as you want, and if pleased support Chris Johnson as you can (Patreon beginning at $1/month). Isn't it nice, and full of hope, for a better world ?...

 

Last edited: Nov 9, 2018

But you know what's even sillier and also uglier? The flat look, the boring, lifeless, minimalist dumb look. As if somebody wasn't paid to make it look beautiful.

 

Thank you for the airwindows tip!

 

Hey, we're not here to talk about my music, this is supposed the software section! >;]P

(Kind of misses my point, since I never said they should look boring or ugly. Making them look good doesn't mean making them look like something they aren't. There's lots of room for graphic design, typography, etc without trying to be fake hardware.)

 

Tape done Acustica style is always special given their mechanics. This looks like my ideal dream marriage of eq/tape/compression however which are things I've spent a lot of time digging through separately. I'll demo, but the drool factor is already strong. Regarding the graphics, if that frequency response window is accurate and variable this design would be a bit different then other tape player plugins. I probably would have named it Kung Pao Tape though

 

I have a real tape formula done with 3 plugins.
And a cassette tape as well.

 

Mind giving us a pointer there?

For quality tape sound I love Cupwise's cassette sets, especially the second one. That's realistic sounding to me and high quality on par with reel to reel due to the fact that he recorded the impulses at a higher speed on his tape machines. Pretty cool.

Gonna test this out though but the whole laser-y thingy doesn't sound too attractive.

 

DAWcassette for cassette type effect

 

Haven't tried it cos I've got the cupwise things for that Plus Ghz Wow Control for extra colour and saturation.

Will take a look though.

Tried Taupe on a mastering project I'm doing, totally convinced. Giancarlo has said they can sort out the laser issue too so that's me sold! Gonna buy it.

 

Yup. Waited so long for this one to come out. The old R2R + bounce everything, etc was too much for my limited amount of mixing time. 35% off intro price plus my 30% customer discount will leave it at a decent price.

Some pointers I've read so far:
- The laser thing can and will be fixed
- Looks like it's not made to work well with EDM sources as "you wouldn't use tap for that stuff and expect good results". Dunno if it's an excuse but I don't do EDM so I don't mind.
- Sand2 is coming. No added emulations "yet", but will be much faster and responsive.
- All plugins will get this "treatment" in the short future.

One thing that I like about Acustica Audio, is that they redesign their own plugins when they get older for free, instead of being abandoned for good. Magenta4 and Pink2 suites are insane now. Now compare that to Scuffham's S-Gear, which hasn't added anything since 2012

 

i could be wrong but wasn't Taupe a tights colour in the 70/80's - do you get a free pair to wear when you mix with it?

 

It's still a rather common color for tights and other clothing! It means mole-skin, and is sort of a brownish-grey color. I looked it up because my eyes are weird and when I see taupe I get confused and cannot tell what color it is. It looks kind of purple to me, but it isn't really.

 

It's an earthy, greyish color. It comes from the common color of the animals the word designates in French (taupe is a French venacular name for several animals that dig underground and are blind)...The generic term and translation in English is mole.

 

that doesn't bode well

 

........colour