On Musical Loops

Making music with loops is not a new process. However, after thinking about it, I was surprised at how many different ways there are to loop samples to make music. I’ll add to this as I discover more, but the list is long right now.

Last updated: 26-December-2020

How to Make Convincing Disintegrating Tape Loops in a DAW (no tape)

For the aspiring tape loopers out there, I’m sure I speak for us all when I say that we’d all like to have the time to play around with splicing tape into loops and recording through a four-track. But when this is not possible, here’s an easy alternative right in your DAW.

U-he Satin Presets for Tape Delay Effects

Tape delay is a great way to get chorus and reverb effects and U-he Satin is a great tape machine emulation. Here are some presets to achieve great tape delay effects.

U-he Satin Preset for Giving Air to Synths

Air is a term used to describe that high and lofty feel to a mix. Sometimes your mix may get muddy or you just want to get a bit more high frequency into it. “Air it out” so to speak.

The U-he Satin plugin is based on tape and there is an old trick that studios did to air out a mix using tape. It was to record at a high speed and playback at a lower one. I’ve made a preset for it and you can download it. Here is what I did to replicate it and how I use it.

U-he Satin Preset for Simulating Cassette Tape Recordings

Cassette tape is a medium that many bands recorded their sound on before mastering them. I wanted to reproduce this effect using U-h Satin so I made a preset that approximates that.

The U-he Satin plugin does not come with a preset for this, but I can choose the cassette speed of 1 and 7/8 inches per second (i.p.s.). I’ve made a preset for it and you can download it. Here is what I did to replicate it and how I use it.

U-he Satin Preset for Simulating VHS Tape

VHS tape is a sound that groups like Boards of Canada have been compared with. It is that glitchy, old tape sound with plenty of dropouts and fluctuations.

The U-he Satin plugin does not come with a preset for this, but it can be somewhat replicated by choosing a slow tape speed. I’ve made a preset for it and you can download it. Here is what I did to replicate it and how I use it.

U-he Satin Preset for Simulating Dolby HX Pro

Dolby HX Pro Headroom Expansion was a method used in tape recordings in the 80’s to give an improved signal-to-noise ratio. As a result, the recordings were much more powerful-sounding with clarity and presence as well as low-end strength. It did this by introducing a bias signal at the high frequency to push the recording out of the inherent non-linearities of tape.

I had one of the tape decks that could record in HX Pro and it made every recording just shine. I wanted to achieve this with today’s vst plugins and I believe I finally have with the U-he Satin tape simulating plugin.