Tube sound digital emulation - is there such thing out there?

[EB1000]

Hi

I was wondering if are there any DSPs out there that can emulate the sound characteristics of a Tube amp by means of DSP processing, like adding even harmonics? This could be a nice feature for a DAC/Preamp. I wasn't even able to find such filter for Foobar2000.

 

[fieldcar]

https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/tube-preamp-simulator

There are some free ones out there. You should be able to load a few of these vst's into foobar or equalizer apo. I'm not sure what does the best job, but maybe someone else can recommend a specific one.

 

[Matias]

Izotope Ozone has, among a million other features, a tube simulator as well.

https://www.izotope.com/en/products/ozone/features/exciter.html

 

[fieldcar]

Found a vid with a bunch of free ones. The last two seemed promising for coloring your audio.

 

[DHT 845]

Smsl D1 dac has some "tube" settings.
From pro gear TC Electronic Finalizer 96K.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Not exactly a tube emulator, but Paul's free software is a VST plug in where you can choose levels of harmonics to add.

https://distortaudio.org/pkharmonic.html

I do think the tube sound is much more than just even harmonic or 2nd harmonic content.

 

[DHT 845]

That is true.

 

[Daverz]

I don't believe the stereotypical "tube sound" is caused by higher even harmonics, except perhaps in the extreme case of single-ended flea-watt amps with really high distortion. I believe it is mostly to do with a higher output impedance so that the frequency response is more effected by the speaker impedance curve. It doesn't take much; even 0.5 dB gain over a wide enough frequency range can sound audibly "warmer" compared to a solid state amp. But a PEQ or two at the right places will also do the trick.

 

[ZolaIII]

My personal favorite, it emulates famous vintage 1950s passive program EQ (faithfully) with tube stage and you have four tubes to choose from.
It's favourite of mine as it's very good written, is passive (no volume charge) if you don't want otherwise and every element can be switched on or off (including tube stage) and of course its free. VTS of course.
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/pteq-x-by-ignite-amps

 

[curiouspeter]

Anything that can be used with Roon? VST won't.

 

[ZolaIII]

Not that I know of, even with VTS and loads of plugin's made during the time only about 3% of them are really wort it. JRiver has a VTS/Winamp plugin's support, Foobar2000 has third party plugin's which support it but it's a bit messy like that.
Edit:
On OSx people did menage to use VTS with Roon true Menubus app bat it's discontinued now (the app) and I don't know is it possible with similar one's.
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/vst-plugins-in-roon-dsp/71531/22
Read, first comment is hilarious.

 

[decoRyder]

Korg NuTube

 

[Sal1950]

I was wondering if are there any DSPs out there that can emulate the sound characteristics of a Tube amp by means of DSP processing, like adding even harmonics? This could be a nice feature for a DAC/Preamp. I wasn't even able to find such filter for Foobar2000.

Why would you want to purposely distort a clean signal ?

 

[Richard G]

Ar you not aware that many people like the sound of a small amount of 2nd harmonic distortion

How many? Most of the people who bought a tube amp

So it isn’t exactly a rare phenomenon. Or odd.

 

[Keith_W]

Why would you want to purposely distort a clean signal ?

Why would you want to purposely dig up this old, dead thread from the grave? Let it rest in peace!

 

[Philbo King]

You could capture a sine sweep from a tube amp output, convolve it into an impulse, and use it as a convolution file, but convolving doesn't capture dynamics changes (has to be done at some fixed level). Wirth a try though.

 

[Daverz]

Ar you not aware that many people like the sound of a small amount of 2nd harmonic distortion

How many? Most of the people who bought a tube amp

So it isn’t exactly a rare phenomenon. Or odd.

How loud does the distortion need to be compared to the fundamental to be audible? Decent amps have all distortion components under -80 dB. I don't think that's audible.

The gentler clipping of tubes is sometimes mentioned in this connection, but I don't think I've ever driven any amp into clipping even when I get bold with the volume control after a couple beers.

However, the response of a tube amp into a variable speaker load is usually quite audible, often as extra warmth (bumped up mid-bass). That's easy to dial in with EQ, and you can get exactly the response you want that way rather than taking your chances with the speaker's impedance curve.

 

[Sal1950]

Why would you want to purposely dig up this old, dead thread from the grave? Let it rest in peace!

I just seen it at the bottom in "Similar Threads" not realizing it was 5 years old, sorry Keith.