I don't think any piece of technology can replace tape. I'll preface this review with the following, I have a 2'' 16-track at my studio, and I love it. Now here I am reviewing the new Crane Song Phoenix, a TDM plug-in for Pro Tools that simulates the characteristics of analog tape. Luster starts more gently than the other four processes, but becomes asaggressive as Dark Essence when the process is at full scale.In the last several weeks while I was writing this review, Quantegy closed its doors for financial restructuring, Studer 24-tracks were listed on eBay for $7000 with Dolby SR, and the tape-using community began a frenzied quest to stockpile what remained of the dwindling tape supply.(The effect is a color with a wider frequency range-when used on a vocal Dark Essence can reduce sibilance problems by increasing the apparent loudness of the rest of the signal.) Radiant is characterized by a more aggressive compression curve.

(This plug-in is the most similar to the tape knob on HEDD-192.) Iridescent has a similar magnetic character, but with a fatter bottom and midrange.Luminescent is the most neutral sounding process of the five.The Phoenix II contains five separate flavors:

Phoenix II is a ground-up application derived from HEDD technology, and specifically engineered and optimized for Avid's PT 10 architecture. The Phoenix II process not only incorporates the nonlinear saturation characteristics created by magnetic tape itself, but also includes the interrelation of an analog tape recorder's record/reproduce electronics and equalization curves. His intimate knowledge of analog electronics, as well as decades of experience as a recording engineer has spawned a very useful, musical suite of plug-ins. Phoenix II uses 32 bit floating point math and has a lower noise floor than the original release.ĭesigner Dave Hill has crafted this software with the same attention to detail he used to create the electronics for ATR Service's much heralded Aria discrete tape recorders. Phoenix II runs both NATIVE and DSP on Avid's PT 10 AAX format. Phoenix II is an update of Crane Song's suite of TDM plug-ins designed to emulate the unique properties of a magnetic tape machine.

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