IK Multimedia T-Racks 3

The Fairchild and Pultec models take the purist approach of sticking with the control quirks and limitations of the original hardware, so, for example you only get the limited choice of EQ frequencies provided on original Pultec hardware. While this maintains a more authentic recreation of ‘the sound’, it can, of course, be a little frustrating in practice. That said, IK have included the Fairchild’s DC Threshold trimmers, added as a modification to some hardware, which adjust the compression knee.

Mitigating the control limitations of these thoroughbreds are the optical compressor and digital equaliser, which provide a much freer parameter range, and by nature of their sonic unobtrusiveness allow you to take up any slack left when you’ve pushed the Pultec or Fairchild as far as each will pleasantly go. As is becoming the norm in mastering software, the digital EQ now includes a Linear Phase mode, although this does introduce a lot more processing latency and can be switched off if not required.

The original Fairchild 670 hardware is unusual in that it had M/S (middle and sides) processing facilities built in, and this feature is faithfully recreated in IK’s model. What’s more, IK have included this function on the other two analogue processors and the new digital EQ too. The ability to pull the lead vocal or snare forward in a mix with middle-channel EQ is just one of the useful applications for this feature, so it’s great that it’s included, although it’s a shame that IK didn’t also add this feature to the Classic range of processors.

The digital Brickwall Limiter is fairly straightforward in terms of controls, but has nine different peak-management algorithms to choose from. At the one end of the scale is distortion-free limiting for critical applications, while the other eight modes balance different amounts and types of clipping and limiting to suit those more aggressive commercial productions that are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of sonic purity on the altar of raw loudness. If you put this processor into the final slot in the effects matrix, you can also take advantage of a special D-A Distortion Protection routine that intercepts intersample peaks from loudness-maximised masters and makes it less likely that they will overload the output electronics of some domestic playback devices.

Processors within the internal matrix (or Chain, as IK call it) can be bypassed individually or all together, the latter via a useful Compare function that allows you to adjust the level of the unprocessed signal to match the processed one. There are some annoying limitations to the scheme, though. You can view the whole Chain in its own window, but you can’t do sensible things like bypassing or re-ordering the effects from there. Bypassing has to be done via the little series of boxes at the top of the shell window, and there isn’t, in fact, any way you can re-order the effects except by manually removing and reloading each processor in a new slot. Tedious? Oh Death, where is thy sting... (IK did confirm that improvements in this area are projected for a future upgrade.)

The bypass functionality is also less than ideal, with some very odd clicks, stereo anomalies and tempo judders reaching the audio outputs in normal bypassing and comparison tasks, both of whole effects and of individual EQ bands. I found that this made it much trickier to weigh up subtle processing decisions, especially on smoother and less transient-rich classical or acoustic music. IK say these effects are a consequence of the complex delay-compensation routines they’ve put in place, and they could find no way to avoid them without compromising the oversampling and processing quality in multi-processor setups. That doesn’t stop it being a royal pain, though.

The Compare feature is handy, allowing the levels of both the processed and unprocessed files to be matched by ear while refining processing, in order to remove loudness differences from the equation. I could have done with more resolution (and a numeric read-out) on the level control, though, and a facility to compare other reference tracks within the interface in the same way. The set of four buttons labelled ‘A’ though ‘D’ at the bottom of the interface allow you to instantly switch between complete mastering settings, which can also be useful, but are even more prone to audio gremlins than simple bypassing.

I gamely spent some time poring over my own personal collection of reference tracks, but came away scratching my head, because the meter’s read-out often seemed to bear little relation to the loudness as I actually perceived it. In IK Multimedia’s defence, I imagine that this is simply indicating what a freak I am, but if you’re intrigued by the concept of this feature on paper, I’d seriously recommend checking that it actually works for you in practice before parting with any hard-earned cash. Besides this criticism, the rest of the metering is pretty usable, with a good range of tweakable scale, ballistics, and weighting options and that particularly nice vectorscope display.

Playback and audio editing facilities understandably grace only the stand-alone version of the application, and are pretty basic. You load files to be mastered (and referenced against) into a little file-list window, and a waveform display for the selected file appears to the right of the list for playback navigation and fade setting. Again, lack of drag-and-drop re-ordering is a tedious omission from even a no-frills audio playback device, but at least you can have a separate mastering chain per file, and can also add up to nine Snapshots of different controls settings per file, effectively allowing parameter adjustments mid-file. You need to be a bit careful with the A/B/C/D buttons in all of this, though, as their settings aren’t saved as part of the global T-Racks project file. If you move on from one audio file with the wrong setting engaged, that’s what’ll be saved with the project file. I found this approach rather confusing — couldn’t the settings of the A/B/C/D buttons simply be saved per audio file, with some kind of clipboard system for ferrying settings between audio files instead?

If you’re running T-Racks as a plug-in in your sequencer, you don’t get the Snapshot facilities, but instead can choose to automate up to 16 controls from the host. You need to manually assign these parameters from a dialogue box within the T-Racks interface, but once that’s done, everything seems to work slickly enough.

The raison d’être of T-Racks has always been to enhance the file being mastered — to actually make it subtly better in some musical way, rather than simply adjusting the tonality or dynamic range to match other tracks. The existing Classic processors were already good at this, adding something more than ‘just’ compression and EQ and helping to smooth off the less attractive digital edges of primarily in-the-box productions. What’s nice about the new analogue-modelled units is that you now get some new shades of ‘smoother’ and ‘warmer’ to choose from courtesy of the Fairchild and Pultec, both of which will impart an extra sonic dimension even with no processing dialled in.

So are IK’s emulations of these units better than those from other manufacturers? Well, I lined up T-Racks’ Fairchild against Waves’ Puigchild 670 and the Fairchild model in URS’s Console Strip Pro to see what the differences might be. All of them offered closely comparable dynamic control characteristics, but the Puigchild had a bit more aggression, whereas Console Strip Pro seemed to have weightier bass. I wouldn’t have picked out any of them as sounding categorically ‘better’, though, by any means, so I don’t think IK’s particular slant on the modelling process should really be the reason to go for T-Racks if you already have another mainstream Fairchild emulation. Same goes for IK’s Pultec, nice as it undoubtedly is.

Where T-Racks scores best is in bundling together a well-balanced suite of high-quality processors in an all-rounder package, and I can see how the latest version’s combination of analogue processing magic and clinical digital control might appeal amongst home studio owners looking for more than just a touch of class. That said, competition in this area is fierce, and I reckon IK would be unwise to let their software’s control interface remain in its current under-developed state, because musicians with this much money to spend will justifiably feel they have a right to demand better.  0