Faking tape

When no tape emulation plugins are available, you can emulate the characteristic high-end fizz of a rolling tape. Try this simple white noise trick Tape emulators do far more than simply add tape’s characteristic ‘hiss’. They model the behaviour of tape, implanting the tonal and dynamic response of tape alongside adding such artifacts. However, there are times when the thin bright fizz of tape is the primary characteristic you want to bring to a track. And at such times, if you don’t want to buy a tape emulation plugin, or you want to try something more bespoke, the following trick can work nicely. Here, we’re going to create tape hiss using a white noise generator and then, to make it feel more like it belongs with the other elements of the track, we’re going to side-chain its dynamic response from the beats. We start with a programmed kick and snare pattern from Logic’s Ultrabeat drum synth. To this we add a bassline from NI’s Massive and a second hip-hop beat loop. To this we’re going to add a ‘fake tape’ effect, using white noise to emulate the characteristic hiss of tape. We set up Logic’s ES2 with Oscillator 3 being used alone to provide white noise. We create one long sustained note, drop the volume considerably and use a high-pass filter to scoop out all but the highest frequencies. We use a compressor, sidechained from the 808 beats. In this last clip, you can hear the ‘tape free’ mix for the first four bars before it’s introduced for the second four bars. It’s subtle, so you’ll need good monitoring or headphones to hear the treatment. It adds a nice layer of ‘dust’ to the mix overall.