Five controls over four processes. The character picks which medium is doing the damage, and the sliders decide how much of each fault you hear.
The four stages
The order matches the order the damage happens in a real chain:
- Bitcrusher. Quantises the samples to a coarser grid and holds each one for several frames, the way an early sampler stored audio.
- Tape. Soft saturation, a low-frequency head bump, slow wow, faster flutter, and hiss.
- Vinyl. Surface crackle and the once-per-revolution wobble of an off-centre record.
- EQ. A high-pass and a low-pass that narrow the band, plus a low shelf for weight.
The EQ comes last on purpose. Placed first, it would darken the music and leave the hiss and crackle bright on top, which sounds like noise added to a filtered track rather than an old recording.
Characters
| Character | Grit | Wobble | Noise | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cassette | none | wow 45%, flutter 35% | hiss 22% | 60 Hz to 8.5 kHz |
| Vinyl | none | record wobble 40% | crackle 45% | 45 Hz to 11 kHz |
| 12-bit sampler | 12-bit, half rate | slight wow | none | 50 Hz to 12 kHz |
| Dusty | 12-bit at 55% mix | wow, flutter, record wobble | hiss and crackle | 90 Hz to 6.5 kHz |
Tone
Tone moves the low-pass corner up to 1.5 octaves either way from the character’s own value. At -100% a cassette closes down to about 3 kHz, which reads as a dictaphone. At +100% the corner opens to the top of the band and the character keeps its wobble and noise with less of the muffling.
Noise is set against full scale
Hiss and crackle stay at the same level whatever the music does, the way a real tape’s noise floor does not get quieter in a quiet passage. A soft acoustic recording therefore sounds noisier than a loud mastered track at the same setting. Lower Noise for quiet material rather than raising the file’s level afterwards, which would raise the hiss with it.
Example: a clean piano loop
Start with Cassette at 100% and play the loop. Bring Wobble to 70% if the pitch drift should be obvious, or 30% to keep it as a feeling. Pull Tone to -30% to take the edge off the hammers. For a hip-hop sample feel, switch to 12-bit sampler and add a reverb from the workflow.