IK Multimedia T-RackS Tape Machine JH24 (Digital Download)

A Tape Machine with character

Professional analog tape recorders are highly prized tools, valued for the unique character they impart to audio - interesting considering that they were designed to be as transparent as the technology of the time allowed.

One fantastic machine, designed and manufactured in the US, has a unique sound which is carefully recreated in the T-RackS Tape Machine 24.

The MCI JH24 was first produced in 1980 and was a staple in studios across the US throughout the ‘80s. This completely transformerless, high performance op-amp-based design delivers a pristine, phase coherent and remarkably true-to-the-source audio performance.

Re-creating the magic

Analog tape audio recorders are complex systems. They impart magic to the audio material, lifting the art within the music to a higher level. They add musicality to music.

What a tape machine adds to the audio is the result of a number of interactions amongst several interdependent factors. More than just saturation, compression, or EQ alone, these factors work together, one affecting each other with the dynamics of music, adding a “movement” that goes into the soul of what we perceive.

Decades of music produced on these pieces of artful human engineering have tailored the way we think music should sound. It’s imprinted in our DNA.

Trying to recreate this magic in the digital domain has been attempted since the early days of real-time audio plug-ins, with various degrees of success.

The T-RackS Tape Machine collection is the culmination of two years of full-time research and development on real world-class machines. Each machine went through a complete electronic and mechanical restoration to bring them perfectly back “to spec” before the scientific modelling process started.

Then IK’s DSP engineering team took each of the stages apart, studied and analyzed them in-depth, thus producing a model of the entire magnetic tape recording process. This model now works in symbiosis with a powerful dynamic convolution engine that captures the full essence of the real machines, creating what we believe is the only way to faithfully bring the complete picture of these complex analog engineering marvels to the digital realm.

The program coming out a professional tape recorder is very similar to the one coming in, just better. It's subtle but you can feel that it is not. This is the essence, and the T-RackS Tape Machine collection faithfully bring all this magic right to your DAW.