ADSR are offering 68% off Reels by AudioThing, now only £18.08 / $19.00, usually £56.17 / $59.00). There are deals on other AudioThing products too. The offers end January 1st.
Reels is a tape emulation plugin with built-in echo section and tape-stop effect, based on an old Japanese portable tape recorder with a very distinct Lo-Fi analog sound, Reels emulates all the imperfections of consumer reel-to-reel recorders.
Reels will add a very rough retro analog sound to your mixes. If you are looking for a Hi-Fi mastering tape emulation, this is not the plugin for you!
Reels is based on a vintage Japanese reel to reel, ironically marked as High Fidelity, found in a distressed state at a local flea market. Most of these consumer tape recorders, also due to their age, produce has a very rough Lo-Fi analog sound.
During recording or playback, the motor noise somehow bleeds in, along with the usual tape hiss, limiting the actual bandwidth available on the tape.
Reels recreates all the imperfection of consumer reel-to-reel vintage recorders, including:
- Harshness, harmonic distortion with loss of clarity (mid-range)
- WOW/Flutter, pitch instabilities due to recording and playback issues
- Ducking, random volume loss due to tape or rec/play head imperfections
- Crosstalk, the leak between left and right channel in a stereo signal
- Hiss, high-frequency noise caused by the magnetic particles in the tape
- Motor, mid-frequency noise caused by the reels motor
When pressing stop on a reel-to-reel player, the tape doesn’t stop immediately. Instead, it slows down creating a pitch down and fade out effect. You can replicate this effect with Reels, and you can also control the speed of the tape stop.
AudioThing have modeled three different tape types, from ruined to NOS (new old stock) state. The tape types are named after the country of origin: JP (Japan), IT (Italy), FR (France). Each tape will affect the sound in different ways, especially at higher feedback settings when using the Echo section. WOW/Flutter, Ducking, and other parameters will also change according to the selected tape, creating different amount of pitch and volume changes.
Features include:
- Vintage Tape Emulation
- Tape Stop Effect
- Echo Section
- 3 Tape types
- Hiss and Motor noise with Envelope
- 50 Presets
- Resizable Window
- Preset system with randomizer
Reels is available to PC and Mac users (VST2, VST3, AU, AAX, and CLAP). There’s also an AUv3 version for those using iOS.
For more information on Reels, the other AudioThing deals and to compare prices, click here:
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