Super VHS $49 (on n sale at $29)
Web babyaud.io
Format Mac/PC, VST/VST3/AU/AAX
It’s pretty obvious when you look at the demand and for plugins that distort and add dirt to your sound, that maybe computer music-making has made everything too clean and pristine. (Some me crazies even say that computers have made all music sound the same, but let’s not go there.) .) The popularity of the analogue synth could also be a by-product of this cleanliness, but now the plugin world is certainly responding with a raft aft of noise, distortion and general mayhem for your muck-spreading needs.
Baby Audio’s Super VHS is not just about that, but a big factor in its approach to bending ng your audio is doing it in an out-of-kilter and often unpredictable way. The ‘Super VHS’ title, e, then, is a homage to an era when things weren’t en’t as pitch perfect and noiseless as they are today, day, although we’d have perhaps opted for ‘Chrome’ me’ or ‘Ferric’ as more suitable audio-based names.
The plugin comprises half a dozen parameters, that are adjusted by slider, dial or switch, that chain various effects together. They are capable of bringing in not-so-subtle noise and tuning issues (via the Static slider and Drift dial), or distortion and saturation (via the Heat Dial). There’s hall reverb (the Wash dial) and bitcrushing (the Shape slider) and then the theMagic Magic button imparts huge amounts of chorus, in an instant. This is a highlight, as is Heat, which certainly offers impact: anything from subtle compression to out-of-control distortion, which is easily tamed by the Mix and Output sliders.
There is little subtlety, as you get into the finer effect parameters, but then for $29 $ 29 (usually $49) you shouldn’t expect to. Sure you could ask for presets and more control, control but really this is about adding multiple layers of dirt, bluster and fun, and very quickly. In that respect Super VHS delivers great results if you’re after something a little leftfield and lo-field. What craziness might a ‘Betamax’ version deliver? n9/ 10n