The 7 Best Plugins to Achieve That Lo-Fi Sound

What makes lo-fi music so relatable? Maybe it’s its D.I.Y. charm, maybe it’s all about those nostalgic tones and worn-in textures. In a digital age where a lot of the music we hear around us is over-compressed and optimized, it feels good to listen to something that feels new, and yet sound old. If you’re a music producer, you might wonder how to recreate that characteristic sound, that’s why I’ve compiled a few of my favorite plugins to help you achieve the level of degradation you’re looking for.

RC-20 Retro Color | XLN Audio

If you’ve watched any music tutorial or live session on the web, you’ve definitely seen this one. RC-20 is not to be confused with a bunch of other gear with the same name, from a classic dynamic mic to a famous delay unit.

RC-20 Retro Color is the multi-effect plugin to rule them all (or some of them, at the very least). Just circling through the excellent presets, you can get an idea of what this guy can do, from tape emulation to weird phase and bitcrusher effects.

The thing that’s great about RC-20 is that it’s not subtle - or even realistic - when it comes to reproducing the crackles and warbles associated with lo-fi music. Instead, you get a cartoony rendition of a bad tape or a degraded vinyl, which might often be what you want.

You see, as I sit in my rocking chair holding a hand-carved pipe, I’d like to tell you about the distant time when I started producing music. A lot of the plugins that were available were reproductions of analog gear in digital form. At the time, it was really exciting to go H.A.M. with Waves or UAD plugins and experience what it would feel like to be in a super pro studio with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of outboard gear…

Those plugins are great and I still use them daily, but I still hope the RC-20 interface is indicative of what we're moving towards. The XLN plugin feels less like a faithful version of what already exists, and more like some kind of iPad app hybrid coming straight from heaven. It’s really a joy to play with and automate, and you don’t need years of sound engineering school to get the most out of it. A few clicks and you’re there.

Buy RC-20 here.

Cassette | Wavesfactory

Cassette is a little more faithful to real tape machines than RC-20, but it’s still very much out there. Focusing on all the crazy quirks that make it such a fun medium, it’s a great tool to add all the fuzziness you need to your sad piano chords and your booming drum breaks. Once again, some great presets are provided, although I do hope there will be a more exhaustive list down the line.

My favorite features of this machine are all the random tape skips and dropouts you can achieve. No, you don’t need to beat the shit out of your mom’s old boombox to meet all your wow and flutter needs. It’s right in there.

Cassette also offers different flavors of tape and deck quality, plus, with a simple click on that gear icon, you can access the back panel and fine-tune all your settings. There is a very small learning curve with this plugin, but no one said life was gonna be easy.

Buy Cassette here.

SketchCassette II | Aberrant DSP

SketchCassette II is the new kid on the block of weird tape emulation. And it’s kind of the bad boy on that block, too. And like most bad boys, it might steal your lover’s heart with its mix of brash unapologetic edge, and its sweet, loveable core.

While most other VSTs of its ilk try to capture the richness of studio-quality tape, Aberrant DSP’s plugin runs in the other direction and captures that distorted magic most kids of the 90s will recognize instantly. You know that mix of saturation and flutter that “enhanced” your Weezer mix, that one you taped and re-taped a hundred times until it was just right?

SketchCassette gives you that magic, and then some.

That classic mixtape aesthetic is reflected in the twee-as-fuck UI, proving once and for all that you don’t need to have some fancy interface to make a digital that’s easy and fun to use.

This is the lo-fi VST I use when I’m producing a bedroom pop track, but I’ve also seen some big-name producers on YouTube use it for trap, and of course, lo-fi beats.

Check out the video below to see what SketchCassette in action, and - P.S. - Aberrant, if you ever read this… Please put that demo song on Spotify, will ya?!

Buy SketchCassette II here.

Super VHS | Baby Audio

If you’re more of a “beating the shit out of your mom’s VHS deck” type of girl or guy, we got you covered. You need Super VHS to give your vintage synths this old-school tone that just screams chillwave. The plugin is very simple, with only a few parameters, mainly distortion, warble, and ambiance. 

Simple can sometimes mean limited, and it does take a bit of trial and error to find the perfect place for this plugin in your session. It either works or it doesn’t, but when it does… Ooh, Dougy. It works. Especially when you push the button simply marked “Magic”, which gives this classic creamy coloration that is only matched by your most overplayed video cartridges.

Buy Super VHS here.

Bad Tape | Denise

If Cassette sounds too crazy for you, and RC-20 isn’t exactly what you need, check out Bad Tape by Denise. I don’t know who this Denise is, but she makes tape emulation sound good. The plugin’s skin isn’t much to look at, but all the essential parameters are there to give your track all the character, movement, warmth, and fluctuations it needs.

I got Bad Tape in a plugin bundle, and I wasn’t sure I was going to use it, but slowly it has become my go-to when I need something pronounced and kinda wild. Or for when I’m tired of the Vinyl 1 preset on RC-20.

Buy Bad Tape here.

Vinyl | Izotope

Along with Goodhertz’ Vulf, I think Vinyl is the OG lo-fi plugin. I won’t include Vulf in this post because I don’t have it and my financial advisory - which just happens to be my mom, total coincidence, ok? - strongly advised against dropping money on another lo-fi plugin. Luckily, Vinyl is totally free and totally cool, which makes it our broke guy’s pick for this month.

Vinyl has all the basic settings you need to add that touch of underlying noise that will tie your mix together and make your listeners wonder if there’s something wrong with their headphones, or what. There are also pretty lifelike warp and degradation plugins, as well as the classic motor drop that’s just cool.

DAW Cassette | Klevgr

If all the other plugins on this list are too crazy for you, check out DAW Cassette. It can help you access this subtle hint of character and saturation, without all the bells and whistles. Its interface is super simple, minimal, and, frankly, beautiful. That’s right, I said it.

You won’t get the classic lo-fi sauce out of this one, but for sure, you’ll get a bit of that nostalgic feeling you used to get from listening to a mixtape over and over again.

For more lofi and chill plugins, check out my new & updated post about all the VST plugins you need. There’s some really cool stuff in there!

All products featured in this post are independently selected by myself. However, when you buy something through my retail links, I may earn an affiliate commission.