YS released Tape Delay Lofi, a freeware tape delay plugin for digital audio workstations on Windows and macOS.
Delays are one of my favorite time-based effects. I have yet to meet a delay I didn’t get on with, and you name the type, and I’m fond of it. I have a certain fondness for tape delays, and I’ve even got jury-rigged cassettes for this express purpose.
If you don’t want to futz with the Portastudio to get that lo-fi tape grunge to your sound, then YS has you covered. Tape Delay LoFi does what it says on the tin and a lot more.
You’ve got five main controls to keep in mind. The input and output knobs let you drive the plugin as needed while also adding some lovely saturation to the signal as a whole. You have a mix knob, which every delay needs.
I don’t typically run mine on sends, so they’re almost always running as an insert on a particular source. The feedback knob works as you’d expect, and can get chaotic when pushed to the maximum value.
Delay time and width round out the controls. You’ve got a time range of 100ms to 1000ms, and I couldn’t seem to find a way to get it to sync to my host. That said, it was easy enough to dial it in to match the tempo of my test project.
Curiously, this seems to take some inspiration from pieces like the Space Echo or Echorec, with up to five individual tape heads present.
YS has also released its take on the Curve Bender EQ from the folks at Chandler. This is a wonderful emulation, with four individual bands and the ability to toggle between left/right and mid/side equalization.
I couldn’t hear any saturation imparted on the signal itself, but it works wonders doing broad strokes with boost and cuts alike.
You’ll need a Windows or Mac computer to run both Curve Bender and Tape Delay Lofi. The Mac binaries run just fine on my machine, but I can’t tell if they’re bridged or not when loading them up in Bitwig. I’m sure one of our more technically savvy readers can better inform curious minds on that fact.
Download: Tape Delay LoFi (Links in the video description)
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