KVR Audio

Bump1 · Post by **Bump1** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:03 pm

I use Sonitex STX-1260 ...it sounds much more realistic to my ears.

W23 · Post by **W23** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 7:32 pm

TheProBeats wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:00 am Will it be on sale again soon?

I’m going out on a limb and saying yes. I’ve passed on the sale a couple of times. I already have a bunch of other “retro-vibe” plugins but, I will probably take another look at it when it goes on sale again

Obsolete236871 · Post by **Obsolete236871** » Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:55 am

It's on sale right now!

foosnark · Post by **foosnark** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:22 am

Izak Synthiemental wrote: ↑Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:55 am It's on sale right now!

Bleh, I missed the sale. I'm demoing it now and I like it more than Sonitex STX-1260 (which is getting pretty long in the tooth at this point).

Russell Grand · Post by **Russell Grand** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:34 am

Bump1 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:03 pm I use Sonitex STX-1260 ...it sounds much more realistic to my ears.

Sonitex is great! I love RC-20 as well. I think it's good to have both in one's arsenal.

Lotuz2019 · Post by **Lotuz2019** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:58 am

They both have their strengths and their weaknesses. Too bad Sonitex isn't updated anymore.

Russell Grand · Post by **Russell Grand** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:07 am

Agreed, Tone Projects simply stopped developing. It's a shame as Sonitex, Compadre and Basslane are all excellent plugs.

Obsolete236871 · Post by **Obsolete236871** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:22 pm

foosnark wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:22 am
Izak Synthiemental wrote: ↑Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:55 am It's on sale right now!
Bleh, I missed the sale. I'm demoing it now and I like it more than Sonitex STX-1260 (which is getting pretty long in the tooth at this point).

In the past XLN Audio had sales twice a year: end of February and end of August / early September. Maybe they also have a Black Friday Deal. So chances are that it might go on sale again.

It's really one of those plugins that are worth having in the arsenal. It's nice to have all these various lo-fi modules in one neat package with nice effect modulation on top. Of course you could achieve similar effects with other plugins, probably even free ones, but that would be much more cumbersome.

If you are in Ableton Live, there are some nice Ableton lo-fi devices that do similar stuff.

Regarding free VSTs you can in the meantime check Izotope Vinyl (for lo-fi sound), Flutterbird Tesselode (for additional pitch and volume modulation, tape like wow and flutter) and maybe add some nice impulse response of some old radio speakers or other devices loaded into a convolution reverb. I think the free convolution reverb by Melda, as well as Convology XT, have a nice selection of such impulses included.

Lotuz2019 · Post by **Lotuz2019** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:59 pm

Izak Synthiemental wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:22 pm It's really one of those plugins that are worth having in the arsenal. It's nice to have all these various lo-fi modules in one neat package with nice effect modulation on top. Of course you could achieve similar effects with other plugins, probably even free ones, but that would be much more cumbersome.

Indeed. You can find better, more advanced VST plugins for most of the RC-20 FX modules, but using them together won't be as convenient and coherent as the RC-20. And they probably won't feature something like the Flux engine.

foosnark wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:22 am
Izak Synthiemental wrote: ↑Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:55 am It's on sale right now!
Bleh, I missed the sale. I'm demoing it now and I like it more than Sonitex STX-1260 (which is getting pretty long in the tooth at this point).

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=529952&hilit=RC+20

foosnark · Post by **foosnark** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:08 pm

Sonitex's pitch warble is pretty great IMHO. Its digital section is still unmatched, and its tone/EQ section is excellent. I'd really love an update and a resizable GUI

I found RC-20 could really beef up the sound as well as degrade it -- it has a lot more character options in general than most lo-fi plugins. The combination of adding low-end weight while adding some gunk to the sound works really well. (But I wish the pitch and "magnetic" LFOs weren't plain sines and could go slower; there are a few places where I feel like the control ranges could have gone either more subtle or more extreme.)

As for other options, I've got Echomelt, Decimort, Chipcrusher, Speaker, Megaphone, and DAW LP, as well as a whole bunch of IRs for FogConvolver. And also dubby delays, spring reverbs, techniques with filters/EQ, saturation etc. contribute to the whole lo-fi / hauntology vibe

At the extreme end, I've been known to stick a microcasette dictaphone between my headphones, wrap it in a towel and record the full mix, then bring it back in... the motor is pretty shot on my unit though so trying to keep it more or less in sync for longer than a few seconds is out of the question. So I sometimes crossfade in smaller bits and sync them individually. Kinda tedious

Lotuz2019 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:59 pmviewtopic.php?f=43&t=529952&hilit=RC+20

Thanks for the heads up

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:40 pm

foosnark wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:08 pmI found RC-20 could really beef up the sound as well as degrade it -- it has a lot more character options in general than most lo-fi plugins. ...

haven't used it in a while, forgot all about that. the 'Cut' slider is really nice on this with the low frequency bump.

neverbeeninariot · Post by **neverbeeninariot** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:06 pm

foosnark wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:08 pm At the extreme end, I've been known to stick a microcasette dictaphone between my headphones, wrap it in a towel and record the full mix, then bring it back in... the motor is pretty shot on my unit though so trying to keep it more or less in sync for longer than a few seconds is out of the question. So I sometimes crossfade in smaller bits and sync them individually. Kinda tedious

It's a fine line between madness and genius, but IMO this is genius

You could always record the output of the dictaphone into the DAW and warp-marker the sh*t out of it. Not sure it would help with the tedium side of things, though

foosnark · Post by **foosnark** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:46 pm

neverbeeninariot wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:06 pm It's a fine line between madness and genius, but IMO this is genius

You could always record the output of the dictaphone into the DAW and warp-marker the sh*t out of it. Not sure it would help with the tedium side of things, though

I got the idea from Hainbach, who uses a lot of lo-fi tape among other things. Dictaphones are fun because not only are they bandpassed like whoa, super noisy and warbly (and that's when they're new), they often have extra controls for half/double speed.

I was using Maschine before, but yeah, with Bitwig I could definitely slap warp markers all over it and tug it into shape. I'll probably still look for a slightly less terrible tape deck though... something with 3 heads so I can use it as a delay would be nice.

Bump1 · Post by **Bump1** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 4:12 pm

Russell Grand wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:34 am
Bump1 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12, 2019 1:03 pm I use Sonitex STX-1260 ...it sounds much more realistic to my ears.
Sonitex is great! I love RC-20 as well. I think it's good to have both in one's arsenal.

I think RC-20 has a nice feature set. I just had a hard time getting the right wet/dry sweet spot with any effect. It's either too subtle or too much where it gives a superimposed feel. Sonitex seems to fight me less.

Obsolete236871 · Post by **Obsolete236871** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:04 pm

foosnark wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:08 pm
At the extreme end, I've been known to stick a microcasette dictaphone between my headphones, wrap it in a towel and record the full mix, then bring it back in... the motor is pretty shot on my unit though so trying to keep it more or less in sync for longer than a few seconds is out of the question. So I sometimes crossfade in smaller bits and sync them individually. Kinda tedious

Sounds great! What comes to my mind: load the recorded audio from the dictaphone into a sampler, slice it up and re-arrange. Then you don't have to worry about sync / coherence too much...

XLN RC-20 Retro Color