Nothing else quite sounds like tape. Satin puts the legacy of tape recording in your hands: from top-of-the-line multi-track consoles to humble cassette decks. All the good (saturation, transient smoothing, compression) as well as the bad (noise modulation, flutter, hiss) qualities are under your control. Construct your (im)perfect tape machine.
Once reserved for major studios, digital recording has become widespread. It offers pristine sound and comfortable editing at a fraction of the cost of multitrack tape. Despite all the advantages, however, digital audio can easily sound too clean and impersonal. So musicians, producers and audio engineers have turned to traditional analogue tools to bring some life back into overly clinical recordings. A world of non-linear behaviours, distortion, saturation and much more arises during tape recording and playback. Bringing these coveted characteristics of magnetic tape into the digital realm, in unprecedented quality—this is what Satin is all about.
That tape sound depends on interaction between the various parts of a tape machine. Each contributes in one way or another—enhancing, reducing, combining—to generate the final sound.
Satin models individual components and lets them interact in the same way. For maximum flexibility in sound shaping, Satin is a toolkit of alternative parts, not an emulation of a single machine. Build your own custom tape unit. The perfect final sheen for your mixdown, or “glue” multiple drum tracks together, decode old NR-encoded cassette tape, or misuse Satin for extreme effects.
Imagine opening up a tape machine, peeking “under the hood” and tinkering with the parts. That is what service technicians used to do, and it is what the Service Panel in Satin is for. It gives you detailed control over some of the more esoteric and characterful elements.
In the Tape section are perhaps the more readily identifiable attributes of tape recording: hiss, asperity, wow & flutter, crosstalk and bias. Dial in a little of each for a retro vibe or “glue”. Dial in the extreme settings and you can end up with the sound of poor quality tape left in someone’s basement far too long.
Delay mode lets you construct your own tape delay machine rather than emulate any specific model. A few clicks and you will be deep in echo in no time. Choose between two or four “tape heads”, adjust tape speed, select tape material, turn up the feedback, select signal routing, add some filtering. You can add motion to each individual “tape head” for a more organic feel. Tweak the Service Panel options and give your sound the characteristic shimmer of a classic tape echo.
Satin 1.3.3 (revision 15721)
Improvements:
Support for CLAP
Support for native Silicon AAX
Support for latest macOS Sonoma
Updated VST3 SDK to 3.7.8
Improved GUI performance
Improved dialog handling
Browser: New option to show/hide folders in the context menu
Browser: Saving search results now works via drag&drop as well
Browser: Description and usage fields now scroll during text input in preset save dialog
Browser: Folders can now be dragged & dropped onto tag smart folders
Improved parameter automation in Pro Tools
Registration dialog now purges unsupported characters (e.g. accidental spaces)
Ctrl A/B “Set as Default” option added to MIDI Table page
Windows installer now includes uninstaller
Windows installer now remembers last used options
Windows installer blocks installation to “C:\ProgramData” location
u-he menu Twitter link replaced with link to Mastodon
VST2 > VST3 migration support for hosts using the IPluginCompatibility interface
Fixed Bugs:
Fixed: Sound and analyser differences when switching to different sample rate (see notes in user guide)
Fixed: Problem with parameter automation of a few parameters (Pro Tools only)
Fixed: Group setting wasn’t always remembered on project reload (Pro Tools only)
Fixed: Adding new instance was deleting the group labeling (Pro Tools only)
Fixed: Some parameter changes were not recorded in the undo/redo chain (Pro Tools only)
Fixed: GUI glitch when switching to smaller GUI size (Pro Tools only)
Fixed: Preset search input field did not receive mouse input (Pro Tools only)
Fixed: Using Cmd+A in dialogs could lead to GUI disappearing (Logic only)
Fixed: Plugin stayed mono when using “Mono > Stereo” option in Logic (native Silicon only)
Fixed: Aborted preset save operation could lead to displaying wrong meta data in inspector
Fixed: Using “duplicate” option in browser could crash if user permissions were missing
Fixed: Renoise no longer needs “enable keyboard” option for menus to work
Fixed: Plugin focus no longer needed for dropdown menus to work (Mac only)
Fixed: Problem when loading init preset immediately after loading plugin (Mac only)
Fixed: Scroll wheel not working on second display under some conditions (Windows only)
Fixed: Installer now scaled correctly on high-resolution displays (Windows only)
Fixed: Preset overwrite dialog was not showing up (Linux only)
Fixed: Default Author was set to preset name (Linux only)
Fixed: Auto versioning feature wasn’t working (Linux only)
Fixed: Right-click preset selection frame wasn’t disappearing (Linux only)
Fixed: Input field was empty when editing preset search result (Linux only)
Fixed: Double-clicking menus could lead to crash (Linux only)
Fixed: Dialogs always opened at left edge of the screen (Linux only)
Fixed: Dialogs could be opened multiple times (Linux only)
Other small fixes and improvements
Known Issues:
CLAP: plugin bypass button not always reacting in Reaper (workaround: use Reaper’s bypass)
Parameter automation issue with a few parameters in Ableton Live when using AU (use VST instead)
Special Notes:
AAX and CLAP are 64-bit only
