Vacuum Tube Amplifier Equalization/Settings

[earnhardtfan4life]

I have Audacity 2.0 for Windows Vista and I’m trying to find a good combination. I want my music and voice files to sound as though they are coming from a vacuum tube amplifier. What I’m hunting for is a warm, crisp, hi-fi sound. I’m trying to figure out what equalization curves, compressors, filters to use on my files to make the sound warm as if it were coming out of a tube amplifier or radio console from the 1950s. Here are two you tube videos that demonstrate the kind of sound I‘m looking for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq9tIBX4OMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvOItgzupQ0

Any help would much be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

[El Heggunte]

I don't use Audacity, but I'm afraid you'll have to use some VST plugin anyway.

There is one freeware from Voxengo, and various payware ones
(Enhance Audio, Studio Devil, Diamond Cut).

[aedipuss]

There are many nice plugs. Fet, 670, black 76, cl1b, vc2a, etc...

[Hoser Rob]

I haven't tried that but I think it's probably not a bad idea with a lot of modern overcooked recordings. There are a lot of vst plugins out there.

Tubes may not be more accurate than solid state but they do sound good. The vast majority of recordings aren't all great anyway so there's a decent argument for sweetening them. However, tube sound is definitely not 'crisp'.

Largely, what tube amps do is add noise and even order harmonics. It's not necessarily accurate but a lot of people like the way it sounds.

Also, any amp, tube or solid state, will deviate from flat frequency response when plugged into a speaker (which has a complex impedance) rather than a power resistor that they use for standard measurements. That's because of the interaction of the output impedance of the amp and the speaker impedance, which is pretty low. Tube amps have output transformers so their output impedance is much higher, and the change in frequency response is usually big enough t hear.

You could simulate all that stuff manually but I think a plugin would be a hell of a lot easier.