(where T stands for “troll”)
I had a part in great discussion about “wider” sound of analogue consoles. Check upcoming AudioTechnology Magazine issue, BTW. During this discussion I developed some kind of proof of concept plugin just to check possible reasons of wider sound. This developed plugin acts very subtle so most people just can’t notice its action! That’s why it’s “troll plugin”. You can use it for this purpose 😉
Add this plugin to each track and bus of your mix and feel analog vibe added!
Technically, the plugin applies very small amount of random EQ to L & R channels, adds very small amount of 2nd harmonic, adds small level of white noise and slightly widens frequencies around 10 kHz. Also it has “Gain” control and thus can be used as smooth gain fader.
Check this out: T Analog Channel (Windows VST 32/64 bit), T Analog Channel (Mac OS X VST 32/64 bit)
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison
PS. Oops, I almost forget! This KVR topic may be interesting for you: “News from the labs”
If you’re too lazy to click the link above, this is the text:
Hi everyone,
I’d like to share with you some great news. It’s official. Vlad Goncharov, well known for his lovely plug-ins such as “Molot” and “Limiter 6” plug-ins, now joined the Tokyo Dawn Labs!
Of course, we’ll each still cultivate our very own style and approach. We’re already in the process of unifying large parts of our development. This greatly improves compatibility, stability and overall quality of our products. Oh, and it should substantially accelerate our development speed.
Right now, we’re developing and testing a common “bed” for our plug-ins. It offers parameter smoothing, preset management, undo/redo, a/b + some other extras t.b.a. We’re planning an open beta of a demonstrator plug-in in a few weeks, so that you guys can play around with the new features. Join our mailing list for instant notifications: http://www.tokyodawn.net/tokyo-dawn-labs/
Last but not least, we’re working on some exciting releases such as “Feedback Compressor II GE”, a new version of Limiter 6 and a few secret projects. Also, we’ll progressively update all our previous plug-ins in order to unify some aspects.
More details soon!
—-
Fabien from Tokyo Dawn Records
Disclaimer. The source of “troll plugins” idea is this YouTube comment about Proximity plugin:
vladg/sound 
wish I had a Pc 😦
I’m going to compile Mac version very soon! No problems here, just some free time needed.
I was reading an old Gearslutz discussion with Bob Katz saying that the wideness in analogue largely comes from the differences in distortion in L/R. The random different eq is a nice touch IMO. Is it static or does it change all the time?
I’d imagine panning prior to this plugin would yield the most obvious result.
The difference in EQ is random for each plugin instance.
You should post this release on gearslutz! Very exciting stuff 🙂
Sent from my iPhone
Thanks! I want to make a couple of mixes using this plugin and adjust it a bit. Also I don’t want to troll people there 🙂
And also I should build Mac version too.
please do built a Mac version vlagsound
Check this out: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18475891/tac1.dmg
I checked it only on Mac OS X 10.8 (Reaper, 64-bit). If it doesn’t work for you, please report.
Thanks vladgsound will report back if I have any issues.
Elementary AB semi bilnd tests shows, that this tiny little thing does some very, very subtle gluing, sitting on beginning on almost each tracks first FX slot.
Спасибо! 🙂
Yeah, you’re right! If inserted on each track, it has some kind of cumulative effect at the end and it sounds very nice!
But for most people it does nothing.
So what will happen to vladg sound? Will all of your plugins now be under the Tokyo Dawn Labs name now?
1. New collaborative plugins will be released under “Tokyo Dawn Labs” label (like Proximity one)
2. My new upcoming “mature” plugins will be released under “Tokyo Dawn Labs, Vladislav Goncharov”. They have very good platform for releasing such stuff.
3. New versions of my current plugins will be released in the same way. It’ll greatly simplify such painful things as AU and AAX support and all GUI related stuff.
4. Experimental or proof of concept modules will be released here. Like “modules” from Limiter6 some time ago. It’s a good place to put this stuff. I think I should create dedicated page for this stuff here.
Thanks for your question, Clint! It seems, I spend too much time with VST/AU/AAX/DAW problems and plugin GUI stuff and too few time for new stuff development. I hope, this “integration” will lead to more creative audio ideas from my side!
Yes! you should definitely have a download page for all these simple but very useful plugins, like 6lim or T analog channel. For example now I’m intrigued: do you have all the separate Limiter 6 modules for download? I didn’t know that. 🙂
Oh, regarding T Analog Channel plugin, wouldn’t it make some sense for it to have a nice little high frequency roll-off and even stronger HPF? That would make it sound more analog indeed, warm. 😉 Since EQ changes slightly all the time randomly, you’ve probably made the phase changes slightly, too? That would be analog. Nothing is static in analog hardware, even the saturation should deviate randomly a little bit. But the difference between high end analog and low end is that high end analog usually sounds cleaner and is more similar to digital. I say “usually” because some gear just sounds nice even when driven hard and all this “analog randomness” goes crazy. 😉
How about a blog about your new “mature” plugins?! That’s the first I’ve heard of that. What improvements or changes are coming to LimiterNo.6? It’s badass as is. Last question…How is the EQ coming? I believe you were doing research on a EQ this Summer. Good luck with everything. I hope you received my donation.
1. Yeah, it’s a good idea to write something about current development status from time to time.
2. First, I limited controls of Limiter6 for a reason (limited limiter :). And next, it could be great mixing tool but it’s very inconvenient on tracks at the current time. I want to “unlock” controls for hidden parameters and to make more mixing friendly edition. Actually I’m thinking about commercial one.
3. With EQ project I stuck with band overlapping and took a little pause. The project is very complex for me and results are expected in the next year only. Also I have pending delay and multi-band vocal compressor projects.
Thanks for donation! No complains here 🙂 It was not easy to put blue GUI into the latest version because there were changes and the GUI became incompatible 🙂
Vlad… I am a huge fan of your work. A rare thing to have the coding skills and great musical taste. Thank you for the gifts you have given us up to this point and I can’t wait to see what stuff you dream up in the future.
Thank you too!
ahahahhh. nice troll plugin! cant hardly wait to try it! keep it up the good work!
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The real big difference is, of course, the absence of quantising on analogue gear.
Here’s a little attempt to explain the difference in amplitude terms only: http://www.solarstudios.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27:analogue-and-digital-compressors&catid=12&Itemid=158
Of course there’s the sampling frequency difference too, which is why so many soft synths and plugins oversample. Anything lower than 96 KHz is simply not worth bothering with.
Analogue gear will always be superior when properly implemented. Sampling is simply another distortion step (analogue->digital->analogue). There even are ways to kill off most analogue distortion, like using fully-silver paths and very high-quality capacitors and resistors. And let’s not forget that microphones (and speakers) are analogue devices too.
Aenn: Your assumptions show a fundamental misunderstanding of the sampling theorem. All your implications are based on a wrong assumption. Pls do yourself a favour and have a closer look at the Nyquist theorem (or just watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM). Digital audio IO is perfectly analogue. Arguably even more “continuous” and smooth than any analogue playback system can deliver.
10 years ago, digital storage was already easily 100x more accurate, more “true” and more reliable than the most expensive analogue storage system on the planet. There are good reasons why space missions and medical equipment uses digital systems since their first days: They are far more precise, their calculations are far more correct and are far more reliable.
Now, you’re saying that a whole generation of highly qualified engineers and scientists was wrong?! Really?! Never forget the Kruger-Dunning effect my friend!
The only problem is that digital audio is VERY difficult to understand and highly unintuitive. Most people, even countless seasoned audio engineers do not understand what Nyquist said… …not even close! That’s the problem of digital audio.
Hi Vlad. I can tell you that your plugin is definitely not a troll. I tried it on only 3 mono tracks transformed to stereo, no mixing, with just the TAC plugin on each track; I did 10 successive random blind tests to see if I was able to recognize the TAC sound from the non-TAC sound, and 10 times out of 10 I succeeded. I definitely hear the wideness you talk about! Subtle, but it’s there. Can’t wait to try it on a whole mix!
Vlad, I love your work and appreciate to get my hands on this troll plug.
Lol, i wonder what this Proximity tester did to come to this impression.
Its like a ‘magic’-filter to me. Maybe he refers to the “Reflection” function.
Lol again. I cannot hear it either because i also hear the reflections of the
room. It IS noticeable when I put on my headphones.
Whatever… funny that you call it that way xD….
Why are people playing the drums with their Drum Pads or variating Notes out of the quantization grid? Probably because the listener likes to feel the humanity. The human imagination could be a gift from the god(s). A link to the (feminine) chaos. Even an average instrument gets much attention when played with human groove and incorrectness. Strictly quantized music sounds kind of boring. Even at 150BPM. Its the same thing with the clean digital mixing process.
We have to find the ‘golden mid’ of cleanness and character.
So I am very excited to test this effect on my actual tracks a bit more.
Thanks Again
Oli
This plugin doesn’t show up in Logic X running on Mac with Maverics.
Thanks Vlad, I missed this one
I tried a phase invert on two identical tracks and with the TAC there wasn’t full cancellation so the plug-in is definitely modifying the sound. The issue I noticed is the the tone and spacial location of the non-cancelled audio changed every time I disabled/enabled the plug-in. At first I thought that maybe the plug-in was adding movement to the sides so I looped a portion of the track to see if anything changed– and it didn’t. As soon as I disabled the plug-in and re-enabled it the spacial location and tone changed. I like the subtle change the plug-in adds to the mix but if it’s changing with every on/off cycle then I’m not too sure if it can provide a consistent effect.
Dude! I promote your plugs every chance I get! One troll to another…psst…it’s our secret!\
Hi,
seems we can’t now DL this vst via dropbox… because of their new policy, I think.
Could you make this vst available again, please ?
The links were updated.
thanks a lot !
It would be supernice to have a 32/64bits AU version ! Thanks for your work, Vlad.
Hello.
Brilliant plugin, man! Thank You very much for all of Your wonderful freebies! May I ask You, is there any chance that You could develop a free emulation of an analogue mixing desk/mixing channel? Or a free emulation of a magnetic tape machine/reel-to-reel recorder? That would be really amazing! 🙂
All the best,
AM
Hello? Anybody there?
I’ve experimented with those feature too when developing AnalogStage, found though that while a well placed whine noise (hiss) that is truly random helps in getting the idea of a slightly wider stage, eq makes almost no difference and taxes the CPU too much for the amount of effect it has on the sound, also crass talk actually reduces the stereo image, but people insisted on having it so i left it in.
Saverio