MusicRadar Verdict

Tape Suite is a pretty addictive set of effects, with use that ranges from the more commonplace, to experimental and avant garde. Great sounding and terrific fun to use!

Pros

+
Incredibly versatile plugin suite.
+
Four great individually stylised effects.
+
Tape infiltrates each effect to the degree you dictate.
+
The graphics are beautifully engaging.
+
Incredibly good value for money!

Cons

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Tape-based control elements could be a little more obvious and accessible.

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What is it?
Performance and verdict
Hands-on demos
Specifications

UVI Tape Suite: What is it?

If there’s one thing that our ears like, it’s impurity. We live in an organic world and we simply cannot get enough of that sonic saturation. Thankfully, combining this ideal with modern production is no longer a tricky business. We have all seen the tape simulation plugins with their whirring reels, but what if you could have a suite of mainstream effects, all of which have tape built right into the heart of their processing?

This is where UVI has grabbed the baton, producing a compendium of four different effects, each with tape saturation built-in at source. UVI has a proven track record for production ready tools that are good-to-go, and Tape Suite falls firmly into that category.

UVI Tape Suite: Performance and verdict

This package is a modelled suite comprising Flanger, Delay, Color and Chorus. They are available in all the usual plugin formats, with each wearing their intentions very clearly on their sleeves.

The four plugins do appear very similar in styling, but that only accounts for the graphical element. While they all adopt different forms of tape reel, from a graphical stance, they each sound very different, in line with their effected designs.

Delay is the first plugin we audition; the 4 tape-head provision is immediately accessible from the front panel, through four level controls with accompanying panning, and a feedback amount. Unsurprisingly, Delay will snap to your DAW’s tempo, and be quickly switched to Ping-Pong mode, to take full advantage of a stereo soundstage. One neat feature relates to the feedback control, where you can select which heads you wish to feedback, although you can quickly instruct all to feedback simultaneously, if that’s your usual preference.

Also consider...

• Universal Audio Studer A800 Tape Recorder
This highly regarded plugin provides far more than simple saturation and colour! It’s often ‘on sale’, so keep an eye out for a bargain!

• Softube Tape
This very classy plugin is also highly regarded and useful for a number of production settings, from saturation to mastering.

In common with all of the effects in the suite, there are controls for Gain in and out, as well as a wet-dry seesaw pot, and the all-important drive pot. This latter control is obviously vital to this suite, as this induces the tape-modelled saturation.

Right at the bottom of each plugin, a drop-down reveals additional settings which relate to the tape elements. Here you can control aspects of the simulation itself, alongside filtering and modulation. This latter mode of control is wonderful for creating thick textures, particularly on instruments such as pads. There is also a Compander section, which is specifically designed to mimic forms of old-school tape noise reduction.

The Flanger and Chorus plugins are also very classic affairs, but with the ability to saturate well beyond their usual remit, however the plugin that really caught our attention was Color. The clue is once again in the name, but this only gives us half the story.

Color is a plugin of two halves, with the aforementioned tape element working in conjunction with a series of impulse responses, generated from vintage devices. The process here is derived through a selection of Texture, coupled with a type of Speaker or reproduction device. You can choose anything from a Walkman to a VHS video recorder. It's a little like filtering, but far more fun!

Tape that!

We have to say that we are quite sold on Tape Suite; it’s a terrific sounding suite which we think is a total bargain, not least because you get four great effects, which are all very different in their own way, alongside a ton of tape-based colour. Each plugin is packed full of presets to get you going, but you can't help but enjoy exploring these plugins, and if you like experimentation, they have an awful lot to offer alongside their more common mainstream effect elements.

MusicRadar verdict: Tape Suite is a pretty addictive set of effects, with use that ranges from the more commonplace, to experimental and avant garde. Great sounding and terrific fun to use!