Super VHS

About

Feel the lofi magic of the VHS era — with six unique effects in one strange plugin.

As kids of the 80s, the Baby Audio team have always been drawn to the sound of slightly out-of-tune synths, warm tape saturation, gritty samples and grainy reverbs.

So they set out on a mission to capture the lofi spirit of our favorite decade — and bring it into a new decade. Meet a complex algorithm with eight simple knobs. They named it ‘Super’ for its powers and ‘VHS’ for its sound.

Baby Audio wanted this plugin to be like sending your sounds back in time, then re-discovering them on a worn-out VHS tape 30 years later. All with the click of a single button, right inside your DAW.

Features

• A chain of six meticulously crafted ‘one-knob’ effects:
• 1. STATIC — Static noise synthesizer
• 2. HEAT — ‘Analog tape’ saturator
• 3. SHAPE — Sample rate reducer
• 4. MAGIC — Dark chorus FX
• 5. DRIFT — Pitch fluctuation LFO
• 6. WASH — ‘Bad hall’ reverb
• + Internal/hidden EQ, bit-crusher and limiter.
• Rewind to the VHS Era
• Baby Audio wanted this plugin to be like sending your sounds back in time, then re-discovering them on a worn-out VHS tape 30 years later. All with the click of a single button, right inside your DAW.
• The result is six unique effects coming together in a versatile signal chain. Super VHS will add some lofi authenticity to whatever clean sound you run through it — from a subtle touch of character to extreme sonic twists that leave your head spinning. Each effect has just a single control, but multiple parameters under the hood, allowing you to find endless combinations to transform your synths, samples, guitars, drums, vocals and beyond.
• Effects Overview
• A synthesized hum, generated by a pink noise oscillator mixed with a digital saw wave.
• A warm sounding saturation algorithm inspired by ‘consumer-grade’ tape machines from the early 1980s.
• A sample rate reducer (with some extras) inspired by 1980s 8-bit samplers.
• A lush “Juno style” chorus — but modeled with a slightly darker and more detuned tone.
• An internal LFO creating unpredictable pitch and time fluctuations, ranging from ‘natural’ to ‘supernatural’.
• A grainy, unnatural sounding, hall reverb, inspired by digital rack effects from the VHS-era.
• Controls the over-all wet/dry balance.
• Controls the global output.
• HIDDEN PROCESSING:
• High shelf EQ attenuation, bit-crusher, limiter.
• Wait, where are the Presets?
• Like the ‘I Heart NY’ parallel compressor, Super VHS isn’t designed for preset browsing. Instead, you have all the controls you need at your fingertips — allowing you to create the right sound for any purpose in a simple and intuitive way (faster and more rewarding than by clicking through presets). The effect algorithms respond very differently to different sounds and instruments — so you never quite know where you’ll end up.
• And a final word of warning: Super VHS is not a ‘one-size fits all’ kind of effect. Its six algorithms can sound heavenly on some things and totally destroy others. More often than not a little goes a long way!