U-he Satin – Vintage Wonderland
This time we’re looking at a nifty tape machine emulator from U-He, which as it turns out packs a surprising amount of flexibility.
UPDATED SEPTEMBER, 2017
Though U-he has an impressive track record for professional quality effects and virtual instruments, can Satin shine in such an oversaturated (pun intended) marketplace? Let’s check it out.
Overview
Satin is a VST effect plugin that is designed to emulate classic analogue tape machines. While it’s a simple-to-operate VST effect on the surface, if you’re brave enough to travel down into the rabbit hole a little deeper you will be rewarded with a plethora of sweet options to play with.
U-he Satin is a VST effect designed to replicate the sonic characteristics of analogue tape machines. The plugin allows users to process audio signals by emulating the warmth, colouration, and saturation typically associated with recording on analogue tape.
Featuring a cool, skeuomorphic GUI design and what looks to be a fairly straightforward workflow, this attractive-looking plugin joins the already impressive catalogue of U-he devices and instruments that deliver both great looks and quality.
Road Test
When using Satin, audio signals are passed through the plugin and can be controlled using input and output dials. The input dial adjusts the signal entering the virtual tape, in turn affecting the intensity of the tape saturation effect.
Satin offers different tape modes, including studio, delay, and flange, each simulating the behaviour of distinct tape machines and providing options for emulating the sonic qualities of older tape machines or achieving a cleaner, more contemporary tape sound.
The makeup switch helps balance the output signal with the input, maintaining a consistent audio level. Additionally, Satin includes a soft clip feature that gently limits excessive peaks in the audio, preventing unwanted clipping and ensuring a smoother output.
By adjusting these parameters, users can tailor the tape saturation effect to suit their preferences, adding a vintage touch and enriching their audio with a distinctive tape-inspired vibe.
With a surprisingly simple workflow, you could insert it on your master BUS, and adjust the input dial until things sound better and that will get you great results 90% of the time.
The Makeup switch should be on, as it balances the output with the input, and the soft clip will help reduce any stray peeks from clipping your output bus. You will need to make a decision between modern or vintage tones, but essentially, that’s enough to infuse some genuinely cool mojo saturation vibe into your mix.
Clever Workflow
Satin offers three modes of operation: studio, delay, and flange. Each of these is directly affected by the three main controls always present at the top of the screen: Input, Output, and Tape (vintage or modern).
In its default ‘studio’ mode, eight groups are available, presenting a clever way to use Satin over a group of tracks from your DAW. Simply add an instance of Satin to each track in your BUS mix, assigning each to a unique group. You could, for instance, add all the guitar tracks in your mix to group 1, drums group 2 etc.
Once set you use just a single instance of Satin to apply the same effect across units all in that group. A handy-dandy way to emulate the large multitrack tape machines and give your BUS tracks some analogue glue.
Using ‘highest quality’ settings tends to create more modern, high-fidelity results. It’s not until you start reverse engineering the machine, so to speak, do you begin to achieve the famed saturation effect in all its glory. By reducing the IPS, then adding hiss and crosstalk effect I found it surprisingly easy to add a good amount of ‘retro vibe’ to your tracks, just be careful not to overcook the signal.
IPS, or Inch per second, refers to how fast the tape is being dragged across the play heads. The faster the tape rolls, the higher the overall fidelity, mainly at higher frequencies.
Pre-emphasis is a clever trick that adds high-frequency EQ to the recording, and then the opposite amount during playback, in essence reverting the audio back to its original state, but with any high-end hiss removed. This won’t affect any low-end noise and rumble, but it was a pretty good idea back in the day for removing recording artefacts. Satin allows you to virtually increase or decrease the EQ curve, creating specific tones using both IPS and pre-emphasis.
I don’t have any professional test equipment on hand, but simple oscilloscopes show Satin applying a decent amount of even harmonics, even in thru mode.
This leads me to think the effect is better used as a BUS or individual track sweetener, rather than a final mix bus enhancer.
Conclusions
The clever interface doesn’t necessarily force you to be a guru tape machine operator but does allow plenty of tweaking for achieving the right level of saturation with minimal technology getting in the way, largely allowing you to just use your ears until things sound about right.
Satins’ workflow is logical enough to allow users to apply the tape saturation effect with more calculated consideration, or as sometimes required – just to turn things up loud till it starts rattling the windows. In my experience, both approaches sound equally as good as this truly is an effect that both can’t sound bad, and
At $200 NZD Satin is not a casual purchase, but I think reflects pretty good value considering all the advanced features.
Satin’s tape-focused saturation effect is unique on the market now and includes a lot of competition in the saturation genre. The funky vintage interface, simple controls and plenty of flexibility for fine-tuning follow the great designs currently available from U-He.
Download the trial version today and see how much mojo can be injected into your master mix for yourself.
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