Hello Forum!

I am looking for a Lofi Plugin that emulates cassette tapes. As there are tons out there, I cant really decide which one to purchase.
It should be able of doing hiss, wow&flutter and warmth to the track.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thank you!

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2022

This one can go worse than an actual bad cassette recorder

https://www.wavesfactory.com/audio-plugins/cassette/

 

XLN RC-20 is pretty nice. Others are Baby Audio - Taip, Klevgrand - DAW Cassette, Fabfilter - Saturn. Another is IK T-Racks; it has a decent amount of machines.

But you are right, there are probably a hundred of them.

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2022

sketch cassette 2 by abberant dsp is very cool

 

RC-20 and Wavesfactory Cassette are my go to's and have many preset packs, but it depends on what Sounds good (Or in that Case Bad ) to your ears and which GUI you like the most.

And not Cassette but Vinyl Emulation perfect for Lo-Fi and Freeware

https://www.izotope.com/en/products/vinyl.html

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2022

XLN Audio RC-20 for production with all sort of crazy modulation wobbling flutter and whatnot. For mixing, Fuse Audio Labs TSC-68 preamp/channel strip on the channels it has some good X-talk and hiss and IK Multimedia Tascam Porta One on the bus should give you all the cassette goodness.

 

Bro. RC20 with Goodhertz bundle has everything you need.

 

I think everyone has "Their magic". I personally really like Aberrant DSP

 

sketch cassette 2. One and only.

 

If you have Reaktor get VHS Audio Degradation Suite, it's not a cassette emulation but it's really good for similar results.

 

Yes, Sketch Cassette 2 is the one you would want, if you are really after the lofi tape cassette sound.

 

What makes RC-20 useless to me is that everything is gated, so even tape hiss or vinyl noise just doesn't play unless there is active input, which seems a really bone-headed decision for a lo-fi tape/vinyl plugin

 

Its useful, actually i hate isotope vinyl doesn't have it

 

There are some really nice plugins in ToneBoosters legacy bundle and they're free. Just download any portable version installer from here: https://www.toneboosters.com/changelog.html I would download the latest [1.6.2]. Try Ferox, ReelBus, Time Machine [exactly what you're looking for] and Module. Really nice hi-fi lo-fi plugins.
Cheers!

 

Lifeline Console - has even more options than RC20 and those other tape emulations (although I love Sketch Casette) and sounds great. It's also on sale at Plugin Boutique

 

sorry for the late reply and thank you very much for your input!

 

You know, I was actually thinking about this when I went to the thrift store last week. They had a few old cassette player/recorders in the back next to framed pictures of farm animals and ethernet routers that had seen better days. The smaller units lacked aux inputs, so they weren't useful. The bigger ones did but I wouldn't have been able to carry them on my bike.

tl:dr - I like Waves' Retro-Fi.

 

Here is my take on it

SketchCassette II is the BEST for TAPE only : very realistic
Wavesfactory Cassette : very limited options wise (no drop out settings ...) so less realistic than SCII AND less options than RC-20
RC-20 : a classic, with more options (bitcrusher,space ...) BUT less realistic than SCII for tape only
Baby Audio VHS : too limited (very nice for VHS retrowave BTW)
izotope Vinyl : vinyl only you will never get anything close to SCII, even RC-20
Waves Retro Fi : more "RC-20 like" BUT less tape options (no drop outs ...) very nice noises


So basically : VHS, tape ... go for SCII
As general purpose lofi go RC-20

They are totally different beasts

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2022

SC II for sure. I have Wavesfactory's Cassette and even after a lot of tweaking it sounds more like a shit white van stereo than a lo-fi cassette dub imho.

 

Why would anyone want that old cassette sound? Do you know how much we hated it back in the day?
Shit, I had to blow elderly people for an entire summer just so I could save enough to buy myself a DAC player, and even then six of them died from heart attacks so I used most of my money to keep their families hush. Good times.