The medium itself might be on the way out, but the sound of analogue tape remains alive and kicking thanks to a healthy category of plugin effects that aim to liven up your sterile digital tracks with faux electromagnetic vibes. Here are six of our faves.
u-he Satin
With its Vintage and Modern tape options, 1.87-30ips tape speed range, tone-shaping Pre-Emphasis control, noise reduction encoding/decoding and multiple instance grouping, Satin is quick and easy to set up and sounds extraordinarily authentic in its emulation. When you want to get creative with your saturation, the mechanics and circuitry of the tape and/or deck can be tweaked in the Service panel, which opens to reveal an array of controls including Hiss, Asperity, Wow & Flutter and Azimuth, and enables independent selection of record and playback EQ curves. And that’s just the Studio mode! Satin also offers dedicated Delay and Flange modes for two- or four-tap delay (with per-head modulation) and configurable modulation effects.
Whether applied to warm up individual tracks or the master bus, Satin is a powerful, flexible, beautiful tape modelling toolbox.
IK Multimedia T-RackS Tape Machine Collection
This four-pack of vintage tape deck emulations models from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s: the Ampex 440B, Studer A80 Mk II, Revox PR99 Mk II and MCI JH24; and four tape types: 3M/Scotch 250, Quantegy GP9 and Ampex 456 and 499. Helpfully, if slightly unrealistically, every module houses the same straightforward control panel, which affords adjustment of tape speed (7.5-15 or 15-30ips, depending on the model), Bias, Record and Play head Levels and EQ, and routing (bypassing the tape or not). Random mechanical fluctuation can be introduced by activating the Transport Modeling function, and True Stereo mode simulates the left/right discrepancies you’d expect to get with a real tape machine.
With so many combinations of tape and deck to explore, Tape Machine Collection is impressive in its diversity, even if the differences between setups are often very subtle. The consistent controls make negotiating the four modules easy, and the quality of the emulation is every bit as good as you’d expect from industry heavyweights IK, although the absence of tape noise is mildly disappointing.
Waves J37 Tape
Made in conjunction with Abbey Road, J37 Tape is an exacting virtual recreation of the Studer tape machine built for that legendary studio in 1965, and used to record many classic artists of the era, most notably The Beatles. Although it doesn’t offer as much in the way of fine control as Satin, Bias, Wow, Flutter and Noise Level parameters allow for a good degree of modification, and the stereo delay circuit provides a choice of Slapback, Feedback and Ping-Pong modes. You also get to select from three EMI-developed tape formulae (increasing in cleanliness from the early ’60s 888, late ’60s 811 and ’70s 815) and run them at 7.5 or 15ips.
With its unique character and comparatively edgy sound, J37 requires careful judgment and a steady hand to apply effectively, but does a great job of imbuing tracks with retro flavour.
Universal Audio Studer A800
Launched in 1978 as the world’s first microprocessor-controlled tape machine, the Studer A800 is a bona fide studio classic, and UA’s emulation of it models the full signal path of the machine itself (specifically, the one installed at Ocean Way Studios), as well as four tape types: 250, 456, 900 and GP9. The Input, Repro and Sync signal path options of the hardware are present and correct, along with tape speeds of 7.5, 15 and 30ips; NAB, CCIR and AES emphasis EQ curves; Sync and Repro EQ filters; HF Driver Bias and EQ; and Hum and Hiss noise levels. These last can be set manually or automatically calibrated according to the selected tape type, speed and emphasis EQ curve.
Sonically, the plugin hasn’t lost any of its appeal in the decade since release, and when used across multiple tracks, the illusion of multitrack tape it creates (aided by the handy Gang option, which mirrors settings across all instances) is wholly convincing. Of course, you need to own a UAD-2 DSP Accelerator or Apollo audio interface to be able to use it, but users of the similarly dependant LUNA DAW can take advantage of the Studer LUNA Extension, which fully integrates the plugin into the LUNA mixer.
AudioThing Reels
Our final two entrants come at tape emulation from a rather grimier angle than the four high-end recreations above, the first modelling an unspecified consumer-grade Japanese quarter-inch reel-to-reel recorder acquired from a flea market.
Reels sets itself apart with a feature set geared up for a broad spectrum of evocatively lo-fi colouration. The noise of the motor bleeds into the record head, which limits the bandwidth, while the choice of 1.87 and 3.75ips tape speeds, and three decidedly grungy tape types keep everything very much on the grainy side. Synthesised tape hiss and sampled motor noise are adjustable and can be made to duck when input is present; and the literal quality of the tape and deck are governed by the Harshness, Wow/Flutter, Crosstalk and Ducking parameters. There’s a Pre-Emphasis knob for dialling in a high-frequency boost, a tape stop effect that winds down over 1-5 seconds, and an Echo section for transforming the plugin into a superb tape delay, complete with a feedback circuit and low-pass filter.
Although obviously of most interest to lo-fi and synthwave producers looking to dirty up their mixes, Reels also has plenty of value as a sound design tool for ambient, techno and other highly textural styles. Just brilliant.
Klevgrand DAW Cassette
The cheap-yet-warm sound of cassette tape has made a quiet comeback in recent years, and Klevgrand’s virtual deck lets you tailor its specifics to suit your nostalgic needs. The Tape, Head and Motor Quality knobs progressively degrade those three element as they’re turned anticlockwise, and Normal, Chrome and Metal tape types are onboard for a variety of frequency response curves, with optional white/pink noise. Meanwhile, the back panel gives access to a four-band graphic EQ, and head skew (Tilt) and channel crosstalk (Bleed) controls, as well as the noise colouration and level knobs.
As cheap and cheerful as the mass-produced hardware it mimics, DAW Cassette is quirky, fun and productive, whether you’re after a subtle analogue patina or that full-on knackered-tape wobble. It’s available for iPad and iPhone, too.
Wavesfactory Cassette
Another cool contender for some retro cassette love is Wavesfactory Cassette.
Wavesfactory declare "This is not a tape machine, this is a time machine." A lot of care and attention to detail gives users of cassette four choices of tape type. For those who grew up with cassettes then who can forget the joy of recording on chrome? For the truly wealthy who had money to burn there was metal and in Cassette there's even a metal option, offering better bass response. Tape choices are just the start because there's plenty of tweakery under the hood to give you anything from a close-to-perfect on cassette to seriously mashed up audio.
If you want some lo-fi love or need to recreate the sound of mixtapes and demos from the 70s and 80s, then Wavesfactory Cassette is well worth taking for a spin... don't forget your pencil.
What’s your favourite tape emulation? Let us know in the comments