[mortenjorck]

The video makes a good comparison in the frequency domain between the original and processed audio, but the high and low frequency attenuation is only half the story.

The other key part of the VHS sound is the pitch modulation caused by slight inconsistencies in the speed of the tape going past the heads. In a synthesizer, this can be mimicked (and often is, in "lo-fi" presets) with a sine wave modulating the oscillator frequencies.

Still, if you want to get that full, dreamy VHS shimmer, you don't necessarily have to dub your audio onto an actual machine. There are software emulations out there, my favorite of which is a user-created Reaktor effect called VHS Audio Degradation Suite: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reak... It gives you full control over an exhaustive set of VHS attributes, from flutter and wow to distortion and noise.

[52-6F-62]

There are many shades of plugins for the effect (and related media), but you lose that edge of chaos—most of the sounds that are so popular are the result of happy accidents because of that chaos and randomness. If you play around with these plugins enough you'll find them pretty deterministic. That said, they're pretty great, and highly portable. And I'm going right out to get the one you linked!

And for posterity there's also XLN's Retro Color and Abberant DSP's Sketch Cassette (which is pretty genius), also Waves' Abbey Road Vinyl is pretty good.

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/addictive_fx/effect/rc-20_...

https://aberrantdsp.com/plugins/sketchcassette/

https://www.waves.com/plugins/abbey-road-vinyl

[mortenjorck]

Arturia makes a tape plugin modeled after the Mellotron tape system. It's my go-to for less gnarly tape sounds:

https://www.arturia.com/products/software-effects/tape-mello...

ChowDSP has an open-source tape plugin. I haven't used it too much (I use the iOS version), but it has a lot of parameters:

https://chowdsp.com/products.html#tape

[NickC25]

Retro Color is straight-up amazing. Not only can it simulate the VHS sound, it can also do vinyl, a whole host of different types of speakers, and overall it's really user-friendly. I use it on everything. Synths, drums, drones, FX, even vocals on occasion. Highly recommend it.

Haven't tried Sketch Cassette but have seen videos of it in action, sounds pretty awesome.