Walters Audio T805: Experience a Studio Tape Reboot – Presets, Tips, and More

Key Takeaways

• The T805 is a real analog tape-saturation unit, built around a patent-pending Tape Element and an MK80-style head bump. The coloration is generated by physical magnetics, not a software model.
• It does three things at once: harmonic saturation, gentle tape-style compression, and a musical low-frequency head bump.
• It is highly level-dependent. Drive the gain for more color and compression. Back it off for transparent glue.
• 16 presets from Karl Barnes give you instant starting points on drums, vocals, guitars, bass, synths, and the mix bus.
• Through Access Analog, you run the physical T805 remotely with full recall, so every preset restores the real box to the exact settings.

What Is the Walters Audio T805?

The Walters Audio T805 is a tape-saturation unit that produces the sound of recording to analog tape using a real magnetic element instead of a digital model. It incorporates an MK80 tape-head design and a patent-pending Tape Element to deliver a full-spectrum magnetization experience of real tape. The point is simple: pure tape character on demand, without the hassle of finding a clean tape.

You feel it first in the low end. The T805's head bump is a recreation of the low-frequency response bump of an 80s MK80 tape machine, the gentle ripple in a tape machine's response that adds rich, musical bottom-end depth. It is what makes bass and kick drums sit perfectly in the pocket. Crank the unit for aggressive, colorful saturation that turns an ordinary vocal into a star or a bus into a polished master. Dial it back for transparent glue that binds the whole mix together.

Here is the part a plugin cannot fully copy: the T805 does its work entirely in the analog domain. The saturation, the compression, and the head bump are all generated in real, responsive hardware built with custom transformers throughout, not modeled in DSP.

It is not a picture of tape. It is the magnetic behavior itself, reacting to your signal in real time.

Watch the T805 in Action

Before we dig into the controls, hear it for yourself. There is no one better than Time Preservation Society to put the T805 through its paces and explain why they fell for these units immediately.

What Makes It Sound Like Real Tape? (For the Audio Nerds)

According to Walters Audio, the heart of the T805 is the Tape Element™, a proprietary low-permeability ferrite toroid transformer engineered to replicate full-spectrum magnetization with authentic magnetic hysteresis (the way a magnetic material's output depends on its magnetic history, which gives tape its smooth, history-dependent saturation) and dynamic saturation.

Walters Audio describes the element as driven by discrete transistor circuitry, a dedicated bias oscillator, and a high-frequency EQ that mirrors real AC-biased tape recording. AC bias is the high-frequency signal (here a 100 kHz tone) that classic machines mix in to linearize the recording. Because all of this is physical, the unit reacts organically to your signal in real time.

This is not simulated warmth. It is source-dependent high-frequency compression that naturally rounds off transients and tames harshness exactly like classic tape, giving you the silky top-end sheen and punchy low-end weight that plugins approximate but rarely nail. Plugins keep getting better. What they still struggle with is a real magnetic element behaving non-linearly, moment to moment, the way physical tape does.

Real hysteresis in a physical element is the difference between a convincing tape sound and the actual thing.

The T805 Controls at a Glance

A few knobs do most of the work. Here is what each one does, drawn from the Walters Audio documentation and Karl's testing.

How to Dial In the T805: Karl's Operational Tips

The following is from Karl Barnes, the mixing and mastering engineer and Access Analog partner who tests gear for the platform, in his own words.

Hey Karl here, as an avid tape enjoyer (most of my mixes are pressed on studers or telefunkens) I have been very excited for the launch of the T805 and now have been using it for quite some time on every mix. I think it is an absolute magic bullet when looking for any kind of saturation mojo in your music.

The effects of the T805 are heavily influenced by your input gain into the box. Something that I like to do first is leave the settings at default and just play with the input and use the automatic L/R balancer on the AA output to make sure the sound is even.

With just the first light flickering you will be getting a nice saturation and subtle lift to your audio. Further input gain will increase the saturation much further and also introduce a beautiful tape compression (think of it like the smoothest and most unique/simple multiband compressor you have heard). Feel free to also overload those LEDS a bit to chop off some peaks, smoothen out dynamics and get a stronger blooming character across your recording. Pinning the meters was common enough in the old tape days as the medium is inherently noisy, pushing into the red was largely to reduce as much noise as possible but it also had a special upfront sound that we associate with a lot of 60's and 70's records. More importantly, it's fun, try it.

From here I would then start to play with the Bias knob, essentially a magic knob created by Spencer (the creator) that to my ears seems to introduce some parallel processing of the high frequencies in the output and affects the signal to noise ratio yada yada yada..dont quote me on that. I find that pushed to the right of centre sounds a lot more modern (80's/90s's) and to the left of centre sounds more vintage (60's and 70's). Listen out to see how your audio is BREATHING as the stereo field on complex material will change quite a bit, this to me is the second most important knob to tweak after your input levels as the compression character and overall tonality will change for the better here. Go back and forth between adjusting input gain/output gain and the bias knob to get the most out of the t805. Lastly fine tune the sound with the HF shelf, more to the left if you really want to taper the treble (it sounds gorgeous) or push more to the right and make up for any treble loss if you want things to be more modern, often I will push the HF shelf to the maximum increase for a really cool exciter sound on a modern vocal production. It shouldn't work but it does, which is a running theme for how I approach this unit.

Now if you were to simply keep the device at default settings and only play with the input and output gains, that would absolutely be a fine idea. The tape saturation effect that you probably normally reach for in plugin form will work right off the bat and with only small gain tweaks needed, sound much more impressive and get the job done faster.

But we could have a lot more fun here so I have made a couple of presets below that show off some unique sounds from the T805, these of course are very level dependent so make sure you always play with the input and output (i know I KEEP SAYING it). I hope it sparks some fun ideas and tweaks in your productions.

Karl's 16 T805 Presets

Karl built 16 starting points across every bus, from subtle glue to fully pushed saturation. Remember his one rule: the T805 reacts to level, so always set the result with the input and output gain. Presets tagged Drive Me are built to be pushed. Turn the gain up until the saturation and tape compression bloom.

Pro Tip: Make the T805 Your Own

Want to build your own sounds? Start with the bias setting. Over-bias (to the right) tends to sound good on everything. Nominal and under-bias (center and left) are a bit more colored and resemble what you would find from the 50s to the 70s.

As you experiment with the bias, you may notice an imbalance between the channels. There is no way to exactly match the unique tape elements on each unit, the same way no two real machines are identical. If you hit an imbalance, set the robotic L/R Linking on the plugin to None, then adjust just one of the channels to better match the other.

And once you have dialed in your own version of the 70s, save it. On Access Analog the T805's settings store with your DAW session, so your custom preset recalls perfectly the next time you open the project.

The best preset is the one you build for your own material. Start from Karl's, then make it yours.

Conclusion: Real Tape, One Click Away

Well… that's my rundown on a few flavors you can get from this fantastic sounding box by Walters Audio. I hope it piqued your interest to dive in yourself and make better presets for yourself, send em my way.

Thanks!!!
Karl

That is the beauty of running the T805 on Access Analog. Every one of Karl's presets is the real box, recalled to the exact settings, ready the moment you open the plugin. No tape to source, no machine to align, no calibration drift. Just load a starting point, push the gain, and listen to your mix start breathing.

Real tape, real magnetics, one click away. Drop the T805 on your next bus and hear what a plugin can only approximate.

About Karl Barnes

These presets come from Karl Barnes, an analog-obsessed mixing and mastering engineer and owner of Loom Sound Studio in Edinburgh, Scotland. We want to recognize Karl, a partner of Access Analog, for his help with testing and feedback.

A fanatic audiophile, Karl has worked in the field for the last ten years wearing many hats as a producer, composer, mastering engineer, and sound designer. He prefers to ditch cold digital processors in favor of old-school analog mixing and mastering tools, and his productions are full of character and vibe.

Karl also sat down with us for a Q&A a while back. Read it here: Q&A Session with Karl Barnes of Loom Sound Studio. Follow him on Instagram at @karlbarnes303.