Find creative ways to degrade sounds

When aping the sonic characteristics of other eras, don’t just concentrate on the synths – the recording technology available to synth pioneers of the 1970s was multi-track tape based, with a slow and steady evolution from four- to eight- to sixteen-track tape. We take crystal-clear, digital signals for granted these days so perfecting the sounds of yesterday will require some creative degradation. In particular, experiment with tape simulators, gain plugins whose topology is based on classic ’70s consoles and try out bitreduction and working at lower sample rates.