Description; ConEmu (ConEmu-Maximus5) is an advanced console window or local terminal emulator, if you prefer. The app allows you to run two different types of applications; “console” such as cmd.exe, and powershell.exe and also “graphical” such as Notepad, PuTTY, KiTTY and mintty. Key Features Include: Smooth window resizing. Tabs for editors, viewers, panels and consoles. Run simple GUI apps in…
With the current issue of the Computer Music magazine (available with all the downloads from Apple's Newstand for $4 US), you get SatsonCM, a slightly feature-reduced version of Sonimus' Satson plugin.
The full version of Satson costs $36 US, and includes a mix bus plugin that emulates channel crosstalk - something you don't get in Computer Music's reduction. But does Sonitus CM live up to expectations of a console channel emulator?
No. And I don't mean this subjectively. The coloration this plugin provides is extremely subtle, but that's beside the point. There's a bigger issue at hand: because no two wires, transistors, or any other electrical components are identical molecule-for-molecule, each channel on a console will sound just a touch different, even when the same signal is sent through two channels. This point is not lost on Waves, whose NLS plugin models 100 individual channels among the three emulated consoles.
SonimusCM? Not so much. It models only one channel that effects all the signal sent through all the instances in exactly the same way. You can verify this assertion by checking if two identical tracks with the emulator applied to both will cancel out if the phase of one is inverted. The step-by-step instructions for performing this test are at the end of this post.
Look, at $4, the Computer Music is a great buy because of all the great articles, videos, and downloadable content it includes. But don't expect a cheap little plugin like SatsonCM to play in the same league as the big boys. Waves NLS is currently on sale for $140 US, and even less from select authorized dealers. Let's not cheat ourselves with cheap toys, shall we?
Other paths to analog: You don't need a console emulator to add a tinge of analog coloration to your tracks. Try sticking a Pultec EQP-1a emulator on your tracks and not turning up any settings. I found it adds a wonderful extra tinge of warmth. Interestingly, by default, Waves' implementation even adds a very slight bit of line noise. If you repeat the experiment below with Waves' PuigTech PEQ-1A at default settings in place of SonimusCM, the resulting channels will not cancel out. That said, you'll need to boost the gain on the master bus by about 30 DB to see the uncancelled noise on the peak meter.
The Test
1. Drop the same bit of audio on two tracks in your DAW.
2. Invert the phase of the second track. Some DAWs have a phase invert button right on the channel strip in the mixer or the track strip in the track/arrangement view. In StudioOne, you can invert the phase of a track by dropping a MixTool plugin onto the second track and checking the "Invert Left" and "Invert Right" checkboxes:
And if neither of these options works for you, grab the free MUtility plugin form MeldaProductions, drop it on the second track, and check the "Invert Left Channel" and "Invert Right Channel" boxes there.
At this point, if you play your project, you will not hear hear any sound and the peak meter on the master channel will show no signs of life. This is to be expected as the two tracks cancel each other out.
3. Add an instance of SatsonCM to both tracks. On the second track, make sure it sits before the phase inversion plugin, if you used one. Play the project again.
Result: I've seen corpses that were less silent. Well, no, I haven't, but you get the point. Go ahead, boost the gain on it all the way to the stop. Stick a plugin on the master to boost the gain even further. Nothing... If the two tracks were treated even slightly differently, there would have been some activity on the master bus. This "console emulator" treats two signals identically, something that is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to accomplish on a real analogue console.
