CAELUM AUDIO TAPE PRO

Tape saturation can be an excellent flavour-enhancing tool. Let’s see if this new affordable plugin from Caelum Audio tingles the taste buds

Fledgling developer Caelum Audio have already impressed with their free cassette tape plugin (now Tape Cassette 2). Their latest endeavour, Tape Pro (VST3, AU), takes the tape concept to the next level, expanding the IR and saturation-based plugin into a fully flexible tape emulation with delay.

Tape Pro is arranged in seven sections – Saturation, Response, Wow, Flutter, Delay, Noise and Output – and has stereo VU-style meters plus an animated open reel tape deck graphic. Two further displays provide feedback for both the saturation curve and tape impulse response, and the latter also shows in real time the effects of the accompanied High Loss setting.

Tape Pro has two fundamental settings: Saturation Type, for which there are six choices, and tape Response Type, where you’ll find up to 12 options as well as Bypass. The six saturation types (Tape, Digital, Rectify, Half-Rectify, Sine and Smooth) can be modified considerably using the Asymmetry, Hysteresis and Remanence parameters, with overall distortion set with the Drive amount. Nevertheless, the core types all sound different: from the reasonably-subtle Tape and Smooth options with their predominantly third odd harmonics, via more edgy options (Sine and Digital), to the harmonically-rich Rectify and Half-Rectify.

There’s plenty here to add some gentle edge to sounds – we particularly like the Tape setting for bass sounds. If you want to dirty things up, the Rectify options are particularly edgy. The additional parameters take these various shapes to further extremes, but for the most part these create saturations rather than gritty distortions. This works particularly well with the two Rectify settings, rounding off the harmonics to deliver some lovely buzzy effects.

Tape Effects

So what about the tape impulse responses? These come in two sets: a Standard set and a second modified Minimum Phase set. The second set allows you to blend the dry and effected signal with minimal phase issues, and to that end you’ll find the dry/wet Mix blend only works with the minimum phase impulses.

The impulses include Micro Cassette, Cassette, Semi Professional and Professional Tape, as well as a few tape delay types (these are not minimum phase) and there’s matching tape hiss options in the Noise section. The impulses cover a lot of ground, making Tape Pro great for both vintage effects and more subtle tape emulation tasks. We particularly like the accompanying high frequency loss setting for taming transients. The Wow and Flutter effects further enhance the tape emulation layer, although they’re only really obvious with lower distortion levels. Finally, the inclusion of the Delay section means you can use all these processes to create a massive selection of very authentic tape delays.

So, are there any gripes? First up, there’s no way to bypass each module. This would be very handy to help determine what each section is adding to the whole. Secondly, looking at the analyser, it’s clear the process chain has a builtin high cut, even when no tape impulse is selected. Finally, we found the tape noise is audible when your DAW is stopped; a ‘mute in stationary’ option would be handy. Still, overall, Tape Pro is a very funky plugin with plenty of sonic flavour and an affordable price tag. caelumaudio.com