Overloud Gem Comp76 FET Compressor and Limiter Plug-In - Manual (Page 14)

OVERLOUD GEMS TAPEDESK
TAPEDESK SOUND
The original purpose of the tape recorder was to provide a transparent solution to store and re-
produce audio.
But at the time these early tape machines were developed, the latest technology still had speci fi c
limitations which greatly in fl uenced the quality of the sound reproduced while playing it back
from tape. Tape noise and saturation, modulation noise, harmonic distortion, phase shift and
non-linear frequency response are just a few of the examples of how the recorded audio was
quite far from the unchanged playback they intended.
For these reasons analog recording was superseded by digital technology.
But, the over-all tape-based recording and reproduction process, with all its intrinsic limitations,
conferred a pleasing character to the resulting sound.
If we described the way the sound changed using a few simple words (even with some margin of
subjectivity kept in account), we would talk about an increase in the amount and clarity of the
harmonic content, as if those frequencies were brought into better focus.
From this perspective, what here in the digital age is generally taken as a quite limited sound
processing, has turned out to be quite desirable. Digital audio has been described by many as
being cold and wet, while analog processing is considered as sounding warm and musical.
So this is the kind of sound that you can expect from
TAPEDESK processing. And its parameters do
allow ranging from slight sound corrections and trimmings, all the way to dramatic saturation
and tape noise. The initial default preset settings provide an accurate and detailed model of all
the components of the
TAPE DESK signal chain.
TAPEDESK IN THE DAILY WORK
One of the most powerful features of TAPEDESK is that it is very light on the underlying computer
system, so you can feel free to assign it to a sub-mix bus as well as to individual tracks.
Use
TAPEDESK whenever you need a clearer and warmer sound. Use it with single instruments, en-
sembles, drum sets and orchestras. And don’t forget the mastering stage, where TAPEDESK may
quickly become indispensable.
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