First out is a real classic that have been heavily used in pro studios. The first thing we’ll have to make clear here is that we’re talking about the full version, not the LE. Analog Channel LE contains the Tape Head control from the AC2 configuration of the full Analog Channel plug-in. The other thing is that both channels aren’t tape emulators, only the AC2 is and that’s the one we will be talking about. The full version AC2, OK? AC1 is really good at what it does so it alone is a worthy argument for getting this plug-in. It should also be mentioned that the native version is only available in bundles and pretty much all the other plug-ins in there are also good arguments for getting it. We’ll leave it at that.

Now to AC2. One thing that McDSP is very good at in general is presets. Included presets are very underestimated in my opinion, McDSP always has plenty of them with every product and Analog Channel is no different. It’s so helpful, especially for beginners, to pick a preset that sounds something like the result one wants to achieve and learn the plug-in by tweaking from there. Included in these presets are plenty of emulations of old and new tape machines like, Studer, Otari, Sony, Tascam and so on. The manual is very honest in it’s presentation of these emulations as it pictures graphs of the original machines next to graphs of the emulations.

Among the controls that make up these emulations (and that you can tweak to your liking of course) are ‘Roll off’ and ‘Bump’, ‘Bias’ and ‘Release’, ‘Vintage’ and ‘Modern’ as well as all professional playback speeds, IEC1 and IEC2 standards and of course ‘Head type’. With that said, this is the most flexible emulator mentioned here. You can easily make it sound bright, dark, driven, subtle and everything in between.

A very nice addition is the graphical EQ line, you can’t change the values directly in it but it changes with the various settings you make so you really see what happens when you apply 15ips speed instead of 30ips - brilliant! Another huge plus is that it’s easy on the CPU which makes it a good choice for anyone out there running an older computer.

www.McDSP.com

Massey Tape-Head

The Massey Tape-Head can be used for some really nice distortion but it’s not the same type of tape simulator as some of the other plug-ins. With that I mean it doesn’t try to emulate several old tape machines out there, it has one sound that you either like or don’t like. With that said, have you ever came across someone who don’t like the sound? I haven’t.

In a way it’s the opposite of the highly flexible Analog Channel because it only features three controls: ‘drive’, ‘trim’ knobs and a ‘normal-bright’ switch. They are self-explanatory, the two knobs of course controlling distortion and volume and the switch basically giving you to different characters. It’s so easy to dial up sounds with Tape-Head because of the few parameters, this is of course both it strengths and it’s weaknesses.The other strength being of course that it’s cheap as hell.

So what does it sound like? As mentioned the Massey Tape-Head has two settings: normal and bright. While the control says ‘normal’ I think of it as dark and brighter because it sounds dark compared to other tape emulators out there. The Massey also muddies up the sound more in my opinion than some of it competitors, not in an ugly way, it’s just it’s sound.

A funny thing I should mention. When I first got the Tape-Head I almost used it on everything with very subtle settings, now I do the opposite, I use it on a few tracks with rather extreme settings for distortion FX. It works good for both, but now I treat it more like a general distortion plug-in. It’s very light on the CPU and very cheap, it also comes in a never expiring demo version so go try it out.

www.masseyplugins.com

DUY DaD Tape

The DaD Tape doesn’t have as much controllable values as McDSP Analogue Channel but a few more than Massey Tape-Head. You can choose ‘machine’, ’speed’ and ‘noise reduction’. The noise feature on DaD Tape is just a drop-down menu with four settings which makes it less flexible than the Reel Tape Saturation (which has a knob). To sort of compensate for this lacking feature DaD Tape features the most extensive amount of machines.

When I first tried the DaD Tape for this test I compared it to the Reel Tape Saturation, with roughly the same settings (it’s impossible to copy exactly since they have different parameters) the DaD Tape sounded punchier, I tried to change the outputs on the plug-ins to have the same levels when I noticed on the meters that it seemed like DaD Tape was killing the dynamics, some tweaking changed that, the input and output simply behaved differently.

Keep this in mind when I say that the DaD Tape doesn’t have to be driven as hard as the other. To be honest it kind of fools you a bit with the volumes. Anyway, it can make material sound very punchy and in your face which of course is nice.

www.duy.com

Conclusion

Which of these you prefer is of course a matter of taste and nothing else. They each have their own sounds and I would go as far as saying that the one that is right for you really depends on what person you are. DaD Tape is very aggressive, Massey has a gritty specific sound while Analog Channel can be very transparent as well as heavily driven. I see the charm in the hard DUY DaD Tape as well as the Massey Tape-Head but I mostly reach for McDSP Analog Channel nowadays, it’s simply more flexible and I like that. Try them all out and see which one fits you best.

For a more complete picture of tape emulators, be sure to check out the Digidesign Reel Tape Suite review as well.