Planet of the Cubs: Safari Pedals’ Free Lo-Fi Amp Plugin Is All Vibes
There’s no shortage of amp sims and saturation plugins out there—but most of them are either chasing realism or obsessed with flexibility. Planet of the Cubs, a new free plugin from Safari Pedals, skips all that and dives straight into vibe. It’s dirty, lo-fi, and proudly rough around the edges. If you’ve ever run a clean synth through a broken cassette deck just to see what would happen, this plugin is already speaking your language. What makes it even more intriguing is that it’s free for a limited time, offering an easy entry point into Safari Pedals’ world of colorful, retro-styled audio tools. This isn’t a stripped-down demo or a teaser—it’s a fully formed, creatively twisted multi-FX unit derived from the brand’s vintage amp series. Whether you end up using it on drums, vocals, or synths, Planet of the Cubs is less about accuracy and more about personality—and maybe a little chaos.
Planet of the Cubs: Safari Pedals’ Free Lo-Fi Amp Plugin Is All Vibes
What is Planet of the Cubs?
The Sound: Warm, Grimy, and Proudly Imperfect
Safari Pedals: Boutique Plugins with Character
Who This Free Plugin Is For?
Other Similar Boutique FX Plugins to Check Out
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
What is Planet of the Cubs?
Planet of the Cubs is a lo-fi, multi-FX plugin derived from Safari Pedals’ line of vintage amp emulations, and it’s more about color than control. Rather than aiming to meticulously recreate a specific amp model, this plugin blends saturation, filtering, EQ shaping, and a touch of chaos into one cohesive, preset-style unit. Think of it as a fuzzed-out amp sim that’s been warped through VHS tape, mangled by a thrift store cassette deck, and then carefully wrapped in nostalgic, analog warmth. It’s the kind of plugin that doesn’t beg to be dialed in with surgical precision—it wants to be dropped on a track and left to do its messy magic.
Visually, Planet of the Cubs matches its sonic personality. The interface is compact and straightforward, wrapped in retro-styled branding that feels like it was beamed in from an alternate universe’s version of the 1970s. The aesthetic is playful without being gimmicky, with just enough tactile-style knobs to suggest interaction, but no overwhelming parameters or steep learning curve. It’s designed to get you to a sound fast—and that sound is probably going to be weird, warm, and delightfully broken. For producers working with drums, guitars, synths, or vocals, it’s a quick way to smear on some character without thinking too hard about it.
Planet of the Cubs is a free taste of Safari’s product line, and if you’re craving more control or variation, Safari’s Planet of the Amps offers an expanded version of the same vibe—more amp flavors, deeper settings, and added tonal variety.
The Sound: Warm, Grimy, and Proudly Imperfect
Planet of the Cubs isn’t trying to be your next go-to amp sim for clean tones or accurate modeling. This thing has attitude baked in. It doesn’t care about your signal integrity or matching a famous tone stack. Instead, it reimagines vintage amp flavor through a lens of lo-fi imperfection and character-first sound design. The distortion is thick and sometimes uneven in a good way, and there’s a subtle wobble or warble under the surface that makes everything feel lived-in and slightly unstable. If you’re looking for something clean or transparent, this isn’t it—and that’s exactly the point.
The plugin draws directly from Safari Pedals’ broader library of amp-style effects, condensing their sonic DNA into a single, streamlined experience. You can hear elements of their fuzz, tube-style breakup, and darkened filtering all baked into the presets. Throw it on a snare drum and it smacks with dusty aggression. Drop it on a synth pad and it pulls the edges inward, as if it's been running through a tape deck for too long. Vocals get crusty, guitar tones get darker and more saturated. It’s perfect for lo-fi hip hop, bedroom pop, noise, or any style where fidelity is overrated. You won’t find deep tweakability here—the controls are minimal and meant to encourage a “set it and vibe” approach. That said, the limited interface is a strength in disguise: you spend less time tweaking and more time creating.
Safari Pedals: Boutique Plugins with Character
Safari Pedals has been carving out a niche in the plugin world by embracing imperfection, character, and playful design. Their FX plugins are inspired by vintage amps, tape machines, and analog studio gear—but rather than aiming for faithful emulations, they reimagine these influences through a lens of lo-fi aesthetics and surreal visuals. With colorful, dreamlike interfaces and intentionally limited controls, these plugins are built to inspire rather than replicate.
The lineup includes standout plugins like Fox Echo Chorus, a tape echo unit with woozy, unstable delay and chorus textures, and LadyBug Reverb, which pairs lo-fi space with onboard bit-crushing and compression. There’s also Rabbit Tape, a saturated tape processor with wow and flutter controls, Dragon EQ, a characterful EQ with built-in saturation, and Owl Control, a compressor offering four modes including Pump and LoFi. Across the board, Safari favors bold sonic choices over clinical precision—these aren’t tools for surgical mixing, but rather for coloring outside the lines and chasing unexpected textures.
If you’re the kind of artist who treats FX like instruments, or you’re looking for sonic chaos that’s fun to tame, Safari Pedals is worth checking out. Just be aware that some users find their plugins CPU-hungry, and not everyone vibes with the minimalist, vibe-first approach. But if you value grit, mood, and creativity over control, there’s real magic here.
Who This Free Plugin Is For?
Planet of the Cubs is for the sound design weirdos, tone chasers, and vibe-first producers who want their FX to do more than just “clean things up.” If you gravitate toward plugins that add character, texture, and unpredictability, this one’s an easy yes—especially if you’re working in genres like lo-fi hip hop, ambient, noise pop, or experimental house. It’s also a fun secret weapon for indie musicians who want to smear some grit onto clean guitars, or beatmakers looking for quick, dirty drum saturation without opening a bunch of separate plugins. In short: if your mixes are better when they sound a little worse, this one’s for you.
That said, this isn’t the plugin for everyone. If you’re after high-fidelity amp tones, precise tone shaping, or transparent saturation, Planet of the Cubs will probably feel too limited or too colored for your needs. There’s no deep EQ section, no cabinet modeling, and very little control over gain staging. It’s a plugin that wants to sound weird, and if you’re not into that aesthetic, it may feel more like a novelty than a utility. But for those who embrace its quirks, it offers something a lot of plugins don’t: instant imperfection, on purpose.
Other Similar Boutique FX Plugins to Check Out
If you’re drawn to the amp sim side of things, AudioThing Valves offers a beautifully simple interface for tube-style saturation, perfect for warming up sounds without a full amp stack. For more flexibility, Guitar Rig 7 from Native Instruments and AmpliTube by IK Multimedia both offer massive modular environments where you can craft anything from clean tones to wild, degraded textures. While they’re primarily aimed at guitarists, these platforms shine when used creatively—processing drums, vocals, or synths through amp chains and pedal-style FX can open up unexpected directions. If Planet of the Cubs gave you a taste for grittier textures, these plugins let you dive even deeper.
If you’re more into the lo-fi aesthetic and want a bit more control, there are a few standout plugins that deliver similar vibes in different ways. RC-20 Retro Color by XLN Audio is a modern classic for a reason—it layers vinyl crackle, wobble, distortion, reverb, and bit reduction into one endlessly tweakable interface. SketchCassette II by Aberrant DSP takes a more nostalgic, warbly approach, simulating the charm (and chaos) of beat-up cassette tapes. For something more subtle and tape-authentic, Wavesfactory Cassette nails the texture of real analog tape machines, with detailed controls for wear, stability, and saturation. All three are great tools for adding imperfection and grit without losing musicality.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
This post is not sponsored, and I didn’t receive any payment from Safari Pedals. Just sharing something cool I think is worth checking out!