Tape It Up! Get Ready for 80s-Style Synthwave with Baby Audio AI Tape Plug-In

Tutorial | Jan 18, 2023

This video discussed the use of the Baby Audio Tape plug-in, which can be used to give a track a 1980s feel with saturation, compression, pitch modulation, flanging, distortion, and noise. It also discussed the various knobs and features of the plug-in, and how it can be used to add texture and harmonics to instruments, buses and the master.

You can watch the Video on Youtube and Trial & Buy of TAIP here.

What can you do with the plug in? #

The plug-in can be used to add saturation, compression, pitch modulation, flanging and distortion to audio. It can also be used to create texture, add pitch wobble, and create an 80s style of track.

What is the benefit of the plug-in? #

The benefit of the plug-in is that it provides saturation, compression and pitch modulation, flanging and distortion to create a unique texture, add pitch wobble, and create an 80s feel on certain sounds. It also has an input drive knob, noise, wear, output knob, glue, input models, presence, high shape and low shape, mix knob, auto gain, color, and pitch modulation.

How to use it? #

The Baby Audio Tape plug-in is designed to give you the sound of tape saturation, compression, pitch modulation, flanging and distortion. Start by adjusting the input drive and model (normal/hot) knobs to get the desired amount of distortion. Then, adjust the noise and wear knobs to add texture and pitch wobble to the sound. Set the output knob to control the volume and use the glue knob to add compression. For a flanger effect, activate the wear knob and mix in some dry signal. Use the high and low shape knobs to add additional distortion to the highs and lows. Finally, adjust the presence knob to bring back some of the high end.

Why do you need tape saturation & compression in your productions? #

Tape saturation and compression are essential tools for adding warmth and texture to your productions. Tape saturation adds harmonics to your sound, adding a subtle color to your mix, while compression helps smooth out the dynamics of your mix and create a more consistent sound. Tape saturation and compression can also be used to give your production a vintage or retro sound, or to bring out certain elements in your mix.

How to get TAIP? #

It can be purchased from the Baby Audio website. There is also a free trial version available for those who want to try it out.Trial & Buy of TAIP here

Transcription #

If you don't want to watch the Video, or search for a specific topic, here is the transcription of the video with links to video markers:

[00:00.000] Hey folks, welcome back to another video.
[00:04.080] Today it's about tape by Baby Audio here.
[00:13.520] And as the name says tape, or mixture of tape and AI tape, it's a tape emulation plug-in
[00:20.320] and it gives saturation, compression and pitch modulation, flanging and distortion.
[00:43.280] So I use this plug-in kind of on and off on certain instrument buses or on the master
[00:49.440] when I need some texture, when I need some pitch wobble, when I need to, you know,
[00:55.600] create some texture on top to get this 80s feel on certain sounds.
[01:00.960] Here I try to create some kind of lawn style of track, the stark synth wavy stuff,
[01:07.680] highly textured type of genre. And I want to give you here a difference between
[01:15.280] the tape version and the dry version without tape. I'm using also DP meter to match the
[01:22.560] loudness so you can hear what's going on. And you can see me here switch between tape and dry
[01:28.400] and you can hear what's going on. So maybe you need to use an headphone to hear actually the
[01:33.760] effect spot. You can hear this version here is pretty much very dynamic
[01:59.120] and this is highly compressed, over driven, reduced in dynamic
[02:11.200] and you have a lot of overtones and saturation happening.
[02:14.640] It's maybe a bit too much but I increased here a bit the drive to
[02:28.880] emphasize what's happening with the plug-in right. So with this plug-in here you get an
[02:35.920] input drive knob where you can basically drive the input signal onto the tape and create distortion
[02:42.960] if you want to. There's also this input model, normal and hot, where you can already distort
[02:50.080] on the input level here. So it gives you additional distortion if you want to. We have noise, we can
[02:57.840] bring in some noise texture.
[02:59.600] I will do it a bit if you want to. Then we have here wear, which is kind of a pitch modulation.
[03:13.840] So it brings in pitch wobble over time and then you mix it here with a dry signal, you get a flanger.
[03:32.320] If you have it at zero, nothing happens. You actually mix the dry and the wet signal but
[03:36.320] when you bring in wear you get a flanger effect because one signal is pitch modulated.
[03:48.560] Okay, so then you have here an output knob so you can change the output level and if you activate
[03:54.960] here Auto Gain then the output level changes when you change the input level. So when you increase
[04:02.480] the level on the input side then you decrease the output level at the same time to basically
[04:11.520] balance the output volume. So then we have glue here which is kind of the slider for the compression
[04:19.280] effect. So when you put a signal onto tape you get some kind of compression happening. So transients
[04:27.840] are pushed down, stuff between transients are brought up and you can kind of influence this
[04:36.400] here with the slider. And then we have the model here, single and dual which kind of applies the
[04:42.800] model twice if you put it to dual mode here. So it's I guess kind of something like oversampling
[04:51.120] but it has some effect so you can try it out if you like it actually. Then presence which brings
[04:56.000] up the high end a bit because sometimes when you record a tape you lose a lot of high end in the
[05:02.640] process which makes the sound warmer which is maybe what you want but here you can bring back
[05:09.760] the high end a bit more. Then you have high shape and low shape which I think is just a
[05:16.000] wave shaper for the high end and the low end so you can distort there a bit more if you want to.
[05:23.520] Then we have the mix knob like I showed you here you can bring in the dry signal
[05:27.440] together with the wet signal and when we are on you have pitch modulation on the wet signal and
[05:33.040] which creates here a flanger effect and we have auto gain I think I also explained this. And you
[05:40.080] can change the color of this one here if you want to and you can resize it. Hey look at that
[05:46.400] which is nice too. So I have to splug any usually on instruments, on single instruments,
[05:56.960] on basses and also on the master sometimes but on the master you have to be a bit careful
[06:03.760] right with the drive knob because you can distort and we can distort the signal pretty fast so you
[06:11.120] have to be pretty cautious with this and I usually like to use it more on buses and single sounds.
[06:19.280] So in this track here I have it actually let's switch this here to dry without the tape on the
[06:26.080] master. I have it here on the drums I think no not on the drums I have it on the bass
[06:32.640] so this is the bass line here I recorded this with an analog synth with a Poly D so it switches
[06:41.840] off here you can clearly hear it brings in a lot of different harmonics and I dialed also in a bit
[07:00.880] of wear so we get a slightly amount of pitch modulation there on the bass which I really like
[07:12.560] and I also have it here on the synth so I have here pretty normal Polysynth playing a solid
[07:19.360] and reverb super VHS also by Baby Elder which is kind of chorus or phaser also and then after that
[07:27.520] after the reverb I'm using the tape so this is usually also how you record in the studio right
[07:35.120] to tape you have all your instruments you put all your effects on it and then in the end you record
[07:40.400] to tape to get this nice tape sound so this is also how I use it here in the chain at the end
[07:48.400] of the chain basically after all these effects to bring to bring out the harmonics and add some
[07:54.480] texture and then there's my auto level here which changes the volume to constant level okay
[08:03.680] so I want to show you this on a separate track here maybe close this down mute this and to use
[08:10.320] your Polysynth something like this and it's a soft synth right and all these soft synths are pretty
[08:20.240] digital and static and all that stuff you probably don't want to have in a synthwave 80s track you
[08:29.040] want to have this tape feel this cassette tape feel a lo-fi feel so I'm using here also
[08:36.240] a supermassive for the reverb let me see a large delay
[08:52.160] and normally you bring in here some modulators to change the pitch to bring in this pitch wobble
[09:06.400] but you can also just do this with the tape so I'm putting a tape on here
[09:11.840] so let me play here just one note
[09:29.840] let me play here I don't think you need to actually have to transport running it's just
[09:35.280] showing here that the tape is running but I think it's just a visual it also works when
[09:40.320] the transport is stopped and you can hear the pitch wobble right this is more static
[09:51.520] and then you can bring in some noise from the tape
[09:53.840] it's maybe too much but and then use the overdrive to bring in some harmonics some distortion
[10:15.280] if you remember back in the 19s when you recorded something to your cassette tape
[10:20.080] or I used to record stuff to my cassette tape and sometimes way too loud
[10:26.080] and it sounds exactly like that when you have this walkman running and
[10:31.520] batteries are dying out and you recorded your favorite song way too loud onto the cassette
[10:38.000] I can see here with heart we get more distortion
[10:50.240] so we have we are on here Dalden maybe bring in the mix so it's so we have a flanger on there
[11:21.040] it's really fun to play around with this
[11:27.600] very too much noise but the cassette is really old right
[11:47.840] so tomorrow
[12:00.080] so
[12:16.800] when I'm going for this type of lawn dark wave or synth wave sound I really like to have this
[12:25.360] tape on there I think it adds really the essence or the texture I need for that
[12:34.160] I tried out here also satan by uhe but satan is kind of I think it's a bit more CPU hungry
[12:45.760] you can see we already maxed out everything and it's more like I would say it's a serious
[12:54.720] precise tape emulation if you are going for real simulation or emulation satan is maybe more for
[13:02.800] you but you also have to pay with CPU load with that and the tape is more like a bolt easy to use
[13:12.400] nice sounding quick plug-in that you can use when you are going for that sound
[13:19.760] something crashed here and it's also nice like I said you're on single lead sounds
[13:25.920] on pad sounds on basses drum drum bass buses or just drum bus or the bass bus or the master
[13:34.400] so I use it in all kinds of different combinations to get the sound I want
[13:41.520] maybe listen here to something on the drums so here we have the dry signal
[13:46.240] let's listen to the to the drums here
[14:16.240] so
[14:26.240] it's it's really easy to use and um yeah I like it a lot actually I bought this I'm maybe two
[14:52.240] or three months ago and I never really used it because usually I do these kind of chill out
[15:00.080] tracks and I like to have them pretty clean and um yeah not overdriven and without all these
[15:06.640] harmonics but here um I wanted to go for kind of darker synth wave sound with a lot of distorted
[15:14.480] synth leads bass sounds and atmospherics and so on so I thought maybe give it a try and uh yeah
[15:23.520] it's really working actually too much just a tad
[15:46.240] the loudness here again
[16:03.440] so yeah there's also a try version on the website from baby audio
[16:08.720] they can try it out maybe it fits your style I don't know
[16:11.920] I just want to share this video and um
[16:19.760] I think that's it for this video thanks for watching leave a like if you like the video
[16:23.840] and ask me some questions in the comments of course subscribe to the channel
[16:28.160] and thanks for watching see you next time bye