I did an incredibly boring comparison test by sticking the same audio loop through every plugin and every hardware box, pedal, 4 track etc in my studio to compare learn and understand how each gives a different flavour to something rather than just my own emotional bias when I’m processing something. I was super surprised by what I learnt. A lot of hardware had the most three dimensional effect on stuff. Plugin wise, my favourites were sketch cassette, but I also liked the free max4live Mecki 1202 desk emulation if you use Ableton.
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Taupe.
I’ve been putting Chow Tape through its paces over the last month and I do think it’s my favorite of these I’ve ever used, if hi-fi realism is what you’re going for. I really love it. Can’t believe it’s free.
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there are so many!
also wavesfactory spectre has some unique features
fabfilter saturn, arturia / uad culture vulture, softube tape, vms-3, etc
I don’t know about “best”, but I’ve been enjoying this freebie for getting some nice dusty tape/lofi sounds. Flexible enough for individual tracks and/or a mix and I like the sounds coming out.
I really like Valhalla Delay – maybe takes a little more tinkering to get into the exact tape flavor you’re looking for, but it can definitely do it plus much, much more. Especially fond of the diffusion capabilities.
Another favorite is D16’s Repeater, some really nice chorusing delays and more modulation heavy stuff in that one.
Can’t say either of these sound like any tape delays I’ve had, but I really like their tone. (Honestly I’m thankful they don’t, real tape delays are a real PITA most of the time, heh)
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I’ve had softube tape for a couple years now. I use it as part of my “tracking” stage then again at the end of my master buss when I’m in the mix down phase. I really like how it tames the edginess of some transients and it creates a really interesting depth of field to tracks I haven’t been able to replicate any other way. I also like how few options there for tweaking it. It’s a color box and one of those sorts of things I don’t want to spend forever tweaking to make it work. It either does or doesn’t, and about 90% of the time it does.
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Lots of great suggestions already. My go to for adding tape warmth is UHE’s Satin. Sounds great and has plenty of depth under the panel.
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I mostly use Softube’s Tape because it can be loaded as a Mix Engine FX in Studio One. The following four options are also in my plugin folder:
- Black Rooster Audio Magnetite
- IK Multimedia T-RackS Tape Machine Collection
- Overloud TapeDesk
- u-he Satin
All of them suffice for my needs and sound decent.
Looking at these now. I’m quite happy with Logic’s on board tape delay, but will go for Softube’s plug next. In the horizon, there’s Console 1, so that’s how I’m thinking about this.
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I see it’s not mentioned in this thread, I got the Klevgrand DAW Cassette for free with some purchase (can’t remember which, I think with Focusrite interface) and I loved it, don’t use it that much these days but imo still worth having in the arsenal, it has lots of features and can be very subtle or very degrading:
I use mostly Saturn 2 for tape saturation and sometimes Volcano 3 to make subtle saturation/chorus/weird filter fx
If you own Reaktor, these two free ensembles are a must. The Mrx90 is an always on on my master bus.
I’m enjoying Air Flavor Pro. It does a stack more than tape emulation though.
I use FabFilter Saturn 2, it has new and old tape, and flutter modes, which are quiete handy for sound design. Its also good for any other distortion, transformers, amps, has oversampling. I had a Akai Tape Machine, but sold it some years ago, i have mild regrets about it, but it needed some small repair, and ofc it needs tape aswell. Soundtoys Decap is another one i use. Both are good.
I just discovered that DAW Cassette available in web version, obviously not all params are available as in the plugin but you can load your own sounds into it… that’s really cool way to try it 
and they have a vinyl sim
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So true. I set up a few macros in Live and haven’t seen the inside of the plugin in years.
It’s pretty subtle altogether, but it definitely does something I like near the end of a mix.
I prefer the Ampex ATR-02 at the end of the mixbus and sometimes also use Softube Tape inside the Console One plugin for stems/busses.
I’m still loving the UAD Studer A-800.
I’ve used Arturia Tape Mello-Fi, and it seemed to get the job done, but I’m rarely looking for that typical tape sound. It’s funny, I got that plugin for free for some reason back in 2021 and now I see it costs $99 – I would definitely not pay that price for it… there are so many easy/cheap/free ways to degrade a sound these days
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It’s a decent plug-in, kinda sounds more like a tape player than tape though.
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