What is Softube Tape?
Softube Tape is an impressive saturation and “gluing” plugin created to deliver pleasing nonlinearities and speed-of-tape characteristics with ease. Tape emulates the sound of analog tape machines — the warmth, saturation, and subtle compression that reel-to-reel recorders impart to recordings. Softube Tape is designed to be an easy-to-use “glue” effect — rather than deeply modeling a specific machine with dozens of parameters. Throughout this in-depth Softube Tape review, we’ll see that it provides plenty of control without unnecessary complexity.
At a glance Softube Tape offers:
- Speed — simulating different tape speeds (IPS), which affects the tonal character; higher speeds give more fidelity and top end, lower speeds sound warmer and rounder
- Bias — adjusting head calibration, which changes how saturation behaves (wrong bias settings were historically used creatively for a “bloomier,” more distorted sound)
- Saturation/Amount — controlling the amount of tape drive and harmonics added