Old Tape Piano: Lo-Fi Tape-Recorded Piano for Kontakt

Old Tape Piano is built around a noticeably lo-fi sound. Wavesfactory says the piano was recorded into a cassette recorder, and the result is closer to a dusty, saturated tape memory than a clean concert recording. Expect a soft, hazy tone rather than a crisp, pristine one.

The interface is kept simple. You can adjust background noise through volume and color, change tape speed and tune, and use the transport controls. These controls shape the tape character without requiring a complicated setup.

The instrument includes an effect script with eight slots. You can place EQ, several compressor types, modulation effects such as chorus, flanger and phaser, distortion, saturation and tape effects, algorithmic and convolutional reverb, and amp simulators in any slot. The reverb section includes more than 40 custom impulse responses.

The settings page covers round robin, dynamic range, velocity curve and envelope. Round robin is handled with neighbour borrowing, which offers up to three repetitions. Dynamic range sets the gap between the loudest and quietest notes, the velocity curve controls how the instrument responds to incoming MIDI, and the envelope sets attack and release times.