Denise has released its new audio effect plugin Bad Tape, a ‘tape harming’ effect that lets you go out of tune and off the grid.

The creative and versatile tool combines a good old vintage tape sound and artefacts with subtle bit-crushing.

Its focus is on creating extreme tape artefacts… and man does it sound bad.

Inspiration for the Bad Tape came from denise team member Enrico ‘nrec’ Tiberi: “I was using a lot of my old Akai 4000 DS MK2 reel to reel tape recorder pressing the tape to slow it down as an effect and that made me want a plugin that could control how to break the sound without having to use my fingers each time and without all the cables and fuss that analogue hardware inevitably brings”.

Bad Tape features

  • Smoothly mix in different extreme tape artefacts with great precision.
  • Slow down the tape in real-time, as if you would press your finger on the tape reel.
  • Randomly detune the pitch of your track like your tape machine has an inconsistent playback speed.
  • Introduce failing tape artefacts with subtle bit-crushing.
  • Add old tape machine noises for character and vibe.
  • Adjust the colour and speed of the tape for a unique flavour.
  • Saturate your tracks for that good old vintage tape sound. Warm and smooth character due to hysteresis emulation.
  • Comes with presets for synth, drums, bass and classic tape-style effects.
  • Low CPU usage & works offline without dongles or complex licence managers.

Bad Tape is on sale at Plugin Boutique for the intro price of 14.99 EUR / $16 USD (regular 48.90 EUR / $55 USD). It comes in VST/VST3, AU and AAX formats.

A limited time bundle comprising Bad Tape, Noize 2 and Space Invader is over 60% off regular, priced at $42 USD. The offer expires October 13th, 2019.

More information: Denise