I’m looking to pick up an Fx pedal to add some character to my synths. I’m talking about things like vinyl and tape simulators. What are everyone’s favourites?
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Not a pedal but the 404MKII has both and really good!
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Zvex instant lofi junky and chase bliss generation loss come to mind, never tried them though.
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Not strictly a pedal but the Monotron Delay has an input and the dirtiest delay and filter under £50.
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Nothing better than a Portastudio, the gain staging and mechanical variables, not to mention recording to tape and back, are unbeatable for lo-fi.
JHS released their take on the Portastudio preamp that’s meant to be great, the 424 Gainstage.
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I have both and can highly recommend either.
The Zvex is less feature-rich, but has an amazing character with heavy compression and a really dark vibrato. I use it on my guitar pedalboard, where the compressor can really shine. It sounds great on synths, although you’ll probably have to turn the synth volume way down unless you want to overload the compressor (which can sound cool, provided that’s what you want to do).
The Gen Loss mkii is a proper tape emulator, with filtering and saturation profiles, dedicated knobs for wow and flutter, control over the type and amount of noise, stereo operation, and proper support for line-level signals. There’s also a Classic mode with a bitcrusher and a hidden freeze function, which aren’t tape-y but sound really cool!
I would personally recommend the Gen Loss for synths, even though the ILFJ is my favourite pedal of all time.
You might also look at the Death By Audio Echo Dream. It’s not a tape or vinyl emulator, but it gets REALLY dirty and offers extreme modulation. And if you want something completely different, maybe look into the Red Panda Tensor — it’s basically a digital tape loop, and while you don’t get warble or saturation, you can push it in some really interesting directions.
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Yes agree!!!
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Got lofi junky as well and sounds great, just have to watch the level going in to avoid clicking compressor attacks. Also benefits from Eqing before and after. Instant boards of Canada pedal though
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Go for a sampler of the sp-series. But i would not recommened a mk2. Look for og 404 or 808 or 202, etc. Way more lofi character and real lofi recording possibilities (Variable bit depth/sampling rate). Like the Yamaha SU 700 which sounds awesome.
Yeah, or just a tape deck. What’s really great is a vhs recorder.
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I have a cassette deck that a record to sometimes but also have a nice and functional VHS recorder down in the garage that I never thought to record to. Eureka! Trying this immediately 
Edit: dug her out! Has audio in/out so let’s see what she sounds like
Edit 2: got it setup with ins/outs connected to a MOTU Ultralite. Listened to a few decades-old tapes but they all had something on them. I didn’t want to record over anything I may want someday so it will be a few days before 3 new high grade Maxell tapes arrive. I’ll post a new thread next week with comparisons between some raw audio versus to tape and back with a few versions hitting the tape less or more hard since I’ll be doing those experiments and might as well share. New weapon for mastering or a total dud? We’ll see 
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There are a lot of great pedals that can get you into that zone, but my first suggestion in the pedal form would be the Chase Bliss Generation Loss MkII. It’s somewhat versatile, in that you can sculpt a nice variety of lofi sounds out of it. Bonus that it can be used with stereo sources, which some, but not all pedals have that capability.
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I haven’t tried the Source Audio Artifakt yet, but I’ll bet it would be great for what you want to do. The tape delay and lo-fi sounds on the Nemesis delay are stellar.
I thought the Keeley Eccos sounded good, but I couldn’t get used to the UI. That might be worth a look for less money.
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If you can find an older Korg Electribe like the ES-1, you can run audio through them and employ the Decimator effect (plus a non-resonant low-pass and some sync-able delay).
Definitely.
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Please post your results!
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Unsure if this fits, but I consider that the Strymon Deco adds character to my sounds. I use it a lot and actually find it very versatile.
(I also use the zvex lofi junky - I have the eurorack one - and it sounds great too)
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Wished I still had mine!! Such a crazy pedal!! So much going on, but really intuitive!
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For the analog/ tape/ vinyl side of lofi sound (as opposed to the digital lofi sound which i also love) i feel like there are so many great options. At its core its largely about getting the right compression, filtering, distortion, and pitch instability, at least that’s usually how i approach it. A cheap vibrato pedal will go a long way since cheap pedals often compress and distort when being slammed with a line level signal from a synth. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage from the behringer uv300 (boss vibrato clone) and i got it used for like $10. Want stereo? Get two.
For something more on the boutique side, i absolutely love the demedash t60. Also a vibrato but can emulate the jumpiness of a malfunctioning tape machine and sounds wonderful.
Also, there should always be an eq involved in lofi shenanigans, thats where most of the sculpting happens.
Can’t speak to chase bliss stuff, never really interested me. I’m sure they’re lovely.
Most of the time i just use tape for this though. I have a bunch of tape decks in various states of disrepair and a bunch of vcrs too. I’ll use damaged or worn out tape to get different effects or open the housings so i can manually mess with the tape or mechanisms while they’re running. Maybe more work than a pedal but its fun. Gain staging can make a big difference with these too, lots of distortion/ saturation/ compression to play with there.
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