Wisconsin AES experienced the Slate Virtual Micrphone System with Voice-over Professional Todd Osborne, Engineered by CTS-D Dustin Boyle. The VMS includes a large diaphragm characterless condensor mic with a fixed cardiod capsule. The ML-1 is designed for accuracy with a wide frequency response and works best in direct format. It comes with the VMS-one, a presumably neutral dual preamp/ADC with PSU, and VMS plug-in software in AAX, AU, VST2, VST3 plug-in formats and requires a quad core i5 Processor with 4GB RAM, Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.7, and an iLok2.
Intensity slider is supposedly there to increase harmonics and add saturation to color the microphone. Realtime compression introduce latency in certain systems. PT 12 seemed to keep up. Pre-amps FG-73 and FG-76 model vintage mics pre's and come with virtual drive, simulating an increase in the input gain while attenuating the output. While it is possible to use your own pre as competitor Townsend sided with, Slate's ML-1 is combined with the VMS-one switch for less coloration.
"There's currently no way to replicate the sound of how the microphone and preamp react to each other. Impedance is a huge factor. If you ever had an impedance modifier circuit plugged in between a mic and pre, you know very well the difference it makes. The dynamic and frequency response can change drastically," Wisconsin-based Kenneth Pearsall commented.
Slate found the Shure SM57 most difficult to emulate:
"To get a model of the microphones I analyzed two sources against the flat VMS files... To model mics with VMS, we usually use about 40-50 sources ranging from voices to noise tests (such as sine and square waves), and we do measurements at many different distances, in different spaces, and at different angles. Then we run special tests with our own tools to measure the exact nonlinear responses from the tube circuits of the mics. Each tube circuit is extremely unique and crucial to the overall depth and tone of the microphone's sound," (from Neil Rogers, Sound on Sound, Nov 2016).
