What it does: The best vocoder plugins cost a lot of money, but TAL Vocoder gets the job done pretty well for free. It's specifically designed to produce sounds in line with vintage 1980s vocoders, so it's great if you're going for a retro sound. In addition to TAL Vocoder, Tal also has a bunch of other great VST plugins that you can grab for free. The Superwave P8 is a virtual analog subtractive synthesizer that's considered the go-to emulator of the vintage synth Roland JP8000. This one perhaps one of the few if not only best free VST synth on this list that is more suitable for an advanced user than someone who is just starting out.
Do vintage synth bargains still exist? Most people would say no, but we disagree. Some of the best keyboards and modules of all time are still surprisingly affordable. We choose our ten most underrated classics and explain why you should buy them before everyone else realises just how good they are.
As the prices of most vintage synths continue to rise, we regularly kick ourselves when we realise the bargains we've missed. Those apocryphal tales of people throwing away ‘outdated' TB-303s and TR-909s in the early 90s have become an ingrained part of dance music folklore.
But the remaining bargains continue to disappear. Minimoogs which seemed overpriced at £500 just a few years ago now fetch £2,000. Korg MS20s would have been a a safer investment than the stock market over the last few years, rising in value exponentially. Even the global financial crisis hasn't halted the appreciation of these vintage analogue legends.
It's hard to deny that the chance to find serious bargains has passed. Savvy producers snapped up all the £50 303s and rescued all the abandoned 808s from skips long ago. Gone are the days when Roland Jupiter 8s and Yamaha CS-80s regularly changed hands for under £500, but that doesn't mean all the bargains have disappeared. Even in the age of the eBay bidding war, there are still good deals to be had.
In absolutely any field you'll find unsung heroes. They might have minor flaws, live in the shadow of more highly regarded rivals or simply fly under the radar of most buyers. In this list we'll reveal what we believe to be the top ten most underrated hardware synths in the world right now. Not just the rarest, not just the most expensive, but the ones which simply don't get the credit they deserve.
Most of the synths on this list are easily available, many for little more than the price of a couple of plugins. There are no mega rarities here. You can probably find all of them for sale within a few minutes searching eBay or scanning classified adverts. Keep your eyes open for a few months and you won't have much trouble picking them up for bargain prices. But, just like those Minimoogs and 303s which we never believed would get much more expensive, the prices of these underrated gems will inevitably rise as producers cotton on to the fact that they're seriously, seriously undervalued. Don't say we didn't warn you.
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Lo-fi is the hottest trend in music production right now—for good reason.
The warm, lived-in tones of retro gear will give your mixes a nostalgic and emotional mood.
To get these satisfying textures right you'll need a dedicated lo-fi VST. But there's more lo-fi simulators out there than ever before.
That's why I'm rounding up the 10 best lo-fi plugins for creating study-and-chill worthy tracks.
Let's get started.
1. Goodhertz Vulf
Goodhertz Vulf is a unique compressor plugin that's capable of some serious lo-fi goodness.
Vulf is a collaboration with Jack Stratton of the band Vulfpeck and models the famous 'Vinyl Sim' algorithm from the vintage Boss SP303 sampler.
This oddball compression effect caught the attention of beatmakers like Madlib and J Dilla and inspired a generation of lo-fi beats.
Vulf offers a much more flexible take on the 303 Vinyl Sim that can go from smooth and stylish to squashed and scraggly.
2. XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color
XLN Audio's RC-20 Retro Color is everywhere these days, and it's easy to see why.
This top lo-fi plugin is a six module suite of sonic degradation tools that can take any sound back in time.
Add noise, pitch modulation, overdrive, bit reduction, ambience, and tape artifacts all in the same plugin and control the intensity globally with the magnitude slider.
3. Izotope Vinyl
Izotope Vinyl was one of the first lo-fi plugins around—and it's completely free.
Vinyl recreates all the charm of an old school LP. That means mechanical and electrical noise, dust, scratches and all kinds of wear and tear.
It even has a decade switch that can transport your tracks back to the sound of the earliest commercial recording mediums.
The best part is that you can use Vinyl in your sessions without paying a cent.
4. Waves Reel ADT
Waves Reel ADT wasn't built specifically for lo-fi, but it's a great tool for old school tape textures with that sweet compression and warble.
ADT stands for 'automatic double tracking.' It's a technique developed in the 60s to reproduce the sound of an artist singing over their own performance to thicken the sound.
The legend goes that the Abbey Road engineers had to come up with it because John Lennon didn't like the tedious process of overdubbing vocals.
Reel ADT nails the Abbey Road ADT sound, but it's also a lo-fi secret weapon. ADT is essentially a tape chorus effect.
Its subtle modulation can create impressive wow and flutter and its tape grit is pleasing and warm.
5. Klevgr DAW Cassette
Klevgr DAW Cassette is a simple plugin for bringing the magic of cassette tapes back to your DAW.
If you're feeling nostalgic for that rounded frequency response and characterful noise that only cassettes can offer, this plugin is for you.
DAW Cassette is super simple to use with straightforward controls for the quality of the head, tape and motor of the virtual tape deck.
You can also choose the tape stock type to hear the difference between chrome, metal and plastic tapes.
Vinyl recreates all the charm of an old school LP. That means mechanical and electrical noise, dust, scratches and all kinds of wear and tear.
It even has a decade switch that can transport your tracks back to the sound of the earliest commercial recording mediums.
The best part is that you can use Vinyl in your sessions without paying a cent.
4. Waves Reel ADT
Waves Reel ADT wasn't built specifically for lo-fi, but it's a great tool for old school tape textures with that sweet compression and warble.
ADT stands for 'automatic double tracking.' It's a technique developed in the 60s to reproduce the sound of an artist singing over their own performance to thicken the sound.
The legend goes that the Abbey Road engineers had to come up with it because John Lennon didn't like the tedious process of overdubbing vocals.
Reel ADT nails the Abbey Road ADT sound, but it's also a lo-fi secret weapon. ADT is essentially a tape chorus effect.
Its subtle modulation can create impressive wow and flutter and its tape grit is pleasing and warm.
5. Klevgr DAW Cassette
Klevgr DAW Cassette is a simple plugin for bringing the magic of cassette tapes back to your DAW.
If you're feeling nostalgic for that rounded frequency response and characterful noise that only cassettes can offer, this plugin is for you.
DAW Cassette is super simple to use with straightforward controls for the quality of the head, tape and motor of the virtual tape deck.
You can also choose the tape stock type to hear the difference between chrome, metal and plastic tapes.
Vintage Vst Free
6. D16 Decimort 2
D16 Decimort 2 is a highly advanced bit crusher. It specializes in degrading sounds by reducing their digital information in ways that make a sound pop.
A lot of the character of early hip-hop and electronic music came from the retro samplers artists used to make their tracks.
A lot of the character of early hip-hop and electronic music came from the retro samplers artists used to make their tracks.
These old school tools had limited storage and resolution but imparted their own special sound.
Decimort 2 lets you reach back and access those same digital artifacts in a controlled fashion.
With controls for quantization depth, dithering and resampling frequency you can emulate just about any vintage AD/DA ever with Decimort 2.
7. Baby Audio Super VHS
Sometimes lo-fi doesn't have to be complicated.
Baby Audio Super VHS keeps it simple with direct access to the parameters that matter most for that retro classic coloration.
The three macro controls give you warble, ambience and distortion on a dial and the smaller sliders around the edge let you tweak the finer points.
Like some of the other plugins on this list, Super VHS is designed to emulate a specific medium. In this case it's the good old fashioned sound of VCR tapes.
The audio track on a VHS definitely had a lo-fi flavor that's great to rediscover in 2020…right?
8. AudioThing Vinyl Strip
AudioThing Vinyl Strip is another multi-module lo-fi solution in a single plugin.
Each stage lets you add another layer of processing to your lo-fi texture.
Aggressive compression, harmonic saturation, vinyl effects and downsampling let you get specific with your sonic destruction.
Each of these effects has a unique character and can be toggled in and out of the signal chain.
9. u-he Satin
u-he Satin is another plugin that comes at old school analog textures via tape.
After all, the most desirable lo-fi qualities come from some form of magnetic tape recording or reproduction.
Satin lets you dive right into the tape characteristics themselves to simulate all kinds of magnetic tape behaviour.
Mess with the bias, wow and flutter, cross-talk, asperity and even arcane parameters like the azimuth and gap width of the repro head—wild!
10. Goodhertz Wow Control
Goodhertz Wow Control is a plugin that takes wow and flutter seriously.
As you've seen in many of the other plugins on this list, pitch modulation is a key component of the lo-fi sound.
It originally came from the subtle speeding up and slowing down of analog tape moving through a tape machine.
These fluctuations in the speed of the tape translate into pitch changes in the audio.
But the specific character of tape wow and flutter is tough to emulate. A tape machine is built like a Swiss watch with tons of moving parts.
The way they all interact to create that unpredictable modulation is what makes wow and flutter so magical.
Goodhertz Wow Control is a highly advanced take on the phenomenon of wow and flutter that lets you dial in every detail.
If you've been searching for the perfect pitch warping, Wow Control could be the sound you're looking for.
Best Vintage Synth Vst
Low fidelity
Lo-fi is here to stay.
This woozy, nostalgic production flavor is super satisfying in lots of genres.
Windows 17 download. Getting the right lo-fi texture in your DAW has never been easier.
Vintage Fire Free Vst
Try any of these lo-fi plugins for a retro classic vibe in your next track.