Denis Audio – Bad Tape (Lofi Saturation)

How bad can it be?

Go out of tune and of the grid with the Bad Tape from Denise.

The Bad Tape is the next plugin from Denise audio. Denise likes to describe it as a tape harming (#tapeharm) effect plugin. Its focus is on creating extreme tape artifacts… and man does it sound bad. The inspiration for the Bad Tape came from Denise team member Enrico ‘nrec’ Tiberi: “I was using a lot of my old Akai 4000 DS MK2 reel to reel tape recorder pressing the tape to slow it down as an effect and that made me want a plugin that could control how to break the sound without having to use my fingers each time and without all the cables and fuss that analog hardware inevitably brings”.

Combining a good old vintage tape sound with harmful features makes the Bad Tape a very creative and versatile tool. Want an “out of tune and off the grid” beat or a wonky drum groove? Just keep the detune button pressed and it will create a tape-stop in real-time. Press it shortly for slight slow-downs and speed-ups, or use wow and shake to make it go in and out of tune and go off-grid periodically. Use the mix knob to create tracks that are heavily saturated and detuned, with additional interesting tape artifacts like hiss, squeal and harm. The Bad Tape can be used to color and detune your whole track, or it can be applied to just one bar at the end of a section to help introduce some variation and lead in the next section of your song.

Features

• Mix: Smoothly mix in different extreme tape artifacts with great precision.
• Detune (Tape stop): Slow down the tape in real-time, as if you would press your finger on the tape reel.
• Wobble & Shake: Randomly detune the pitch of your track like your tape machine has an inconsistent playback speed.
• Harm: Introduce failing tape artifacts with subtle bitcrushing.
• Squeal & Noize: Add old tape machine noises for character and vibe.
• Colour & Speed: Adjust the colour and speed of the tape for a unique flavour.
• Saturate your tracks for that good old vintage tape sound. Warm and smooth character due to hysteresis emulation.
• Comes with presets for synth, drums, bass and classic tape-style effects.
• Low CPU usage & works offline without dongles or complex licence managers.
• System Requirements
  • Mac:
    • OS X 10.7 or newer (64-bit only) – Big Sur (M1) include
    • VST, VST3, AU, AAX
  • ​Windows:
    • Windows 7 or newer
    • VST, VST3, AAX