I will readily admit to loving the trashy sound that came from listening to my tapes on a budget cassette player as a kid. If you’re looking to return to the sounds of yesterday, then you’re in luck!
Web Cassette isn’t a plugin, nor is it something you can readily use in your productions. But if you’d like to hear your own tracks emulated on a cheap cassette, then this is the thing for you.
Web Cassette is most similar to DAW Cassette, which has been a personal favourite of mine since its release. It can load audio files of your choosing and get to listen to them with some rather exaggerated tape characteristics.
You can of course dial the lo-fi vibe down to a minimum, but where is the fun in that?
You get access to multiple different tape types, the age of the tape, as well as introducing noise where you feel appropriate. There is a certain charm to the playback of your files on it, as I have numerous acoustic guitar pieces which got coated in nostalgia in relatively short order.
While you’re over visiting with the fine folks at Klevgrand, you might as well take a look at FreeAMP, which BPB covered a while back. It is still a great saturator and overall dirt distributor to your sounds.
If you’ve got a rather heavy wallet, you could always take a look at DAW LP and DAW Cassette for implementing the grungy lo-fi aesthetic to your own music. They compete directly with tools like Wavesfactory Cassette and XLN Audio’s RC-20 but have their own unique charm.
While Web Cassette isn’t going to revolutionize anything, it is a fun toy. If you’re tired of the clean and pristine sounds of modern audio production, it is a wonderful diversion. Who knows, it might even serve as a source of inspiration for your next production.
I suppose you could do some funky audio routing to get the output on your computer, but you might as well just buy the plugin and save yourself the hassle.
Web Cassette is a web-based utility, so it runs on everything.
Download: Web Cassette (requires creating a Klevgrand account)
Last Updated on June 16, 2023 by Tomislav Zlatic.
