Has anyone found a way to apply this kind of effect? I’ve been listening to a lot of lofi hiphop kind of stuff, and much of it has that “watery” tape sound. Not sure if I’m making this clear, but it’s a bit like a chorus pedal on the guitar.
I was also inspired by this plugin here. The difference being that the plugin costs US$129, and maybe there’s a way to approximate that same effect for free in SP!
Hmm. Maybe not possible?
Hi,
well most of the differences on old tape audio was its not so well frequency resolution.
You could try setting a low-pass-filter and a high-pass-filter to simulate that (e.g. 30-15000Hz). Together with a bitcrusher effect and a bit of noise you should be able to create something similar. Haven’t tested it out 
But often a relatively high cutoff for a high-pass-filter already gives a quite good impression of lofi.
Cu.
A small example:
with_fx :hpf, cutoff: 40 do
with_fx :bitcrusher, sample_rate: 15000, bits: 10, cutoff: 100 do
sample :drum_heavy_kick
end
end
You can play with the parameters and put a longer songpart into the effect (instead of the single sample).
Cu.
This gives me some relatively realistic lofi sound:
with_fx :hpf, cutoff: 30 do
with_fx :bitcrusher, sample_rate: 30000, bits: 12, cutoff: 100 do
sample :drum_heavy_kick
end
end
Depending on how strong the “low quality” effect should be you can reduce the basses with a higher cutoff on hpf and distort the signal a bit more with lower sample_rates and bits.
Used some example song to set these parameters 
Cu.
Perhaps a flange/bandpass combo would get closer? Bitcrusher sounds a little “digital” to my ear—lo-fi in a different way.
# approximate tape with a combination of bandpass and flange...
with_fx :bpf, centre: 90 do
with_fx :flanger, depth: 10, phase: 3,
stereo_invert_wave: 1 do
live_loop :guit do
sync :dr
sample [:guit_e_fifths, :guit_em9].choose,
rate: [1/2.0, 2/3.0, 3/4.0, 4/5.0, 1].choose
sleep 1
# ... and a very quiet "tape hiss" synth
n = synth :noise, amp: 0.03, sustain: 8.0, cutoff_slide: 8
control n, cutoff: 90
sleep 7
end
end
end
with_fx :reverb do
live_loop :dr, delay: 0.01 do
# delay makes the loop available for sync right away
sample :bd_ada
sleep 0.5
sample :sn_generic, decay: 0.05, hpf: 70,
amp: 0.1 if (spread 1, 7).tick(offset: 1)
sleep 0.3
sample :bd_ada, amp: 0.5 if (spread 1, 3).look(offset: 2)
sleep 0.2
sample :sn_generic, decay: 0.1, hpf: 70,
amp: 0.3
sleep 1.05 # a touch long, for that sleepy lo-fi sound
end
end
Thanks! I had a feeling someone in this awesome community would have some ideas. Can’t wait to try them out. I was looking at the flange effect as a possibility, but I’m no expert on the params, so thanks again for the ideas!
Played with the suggestions and thought, wait, why not the wobble effect? So I played with that and came up with something interesting. Not exactly what I was going for originally, but perhaps a happy accident:
live_loop :beats do
sample :bd_haus
sleep 0.5
end
live_loop :tune do
with_fx :wobble, mix: 0.8, phase: 0.25, cutoff_min: 40, cutoff_max: 110 do
play 60
sleep 0.25
play 62
sleep 0.5
play 66
sleep 0.5
play 60
sleep 1
end
end
I like it - just jammed over it for a few minutes on guitar. Made for a nice work break and something to explore more later
Throw in an ixi, mess with the synth, and it gets even more interesting.
use_synth :blade
with_fx :wobble, mix: 0.8, phase: 0.25, cutoff_min: 40, cutoff_max: 110 do
with_fx :ixi_techno, mix: 0.8, phase: [2,4,8].choose, cutoff_min: 40, cutoff_max: 110 do
Eli…
Here’s a full example, with a line of my own flair:
use_synth :blade
live_loop :beats do
sample :bd_haus
sleep 0.5
end
live_loop :tune do
with_fx :wobble, mix: 0.8, phase: 0.25, cutoff_min: 40, cutoff_max: 110 do
with_fx :ixi_techno, mix: 0.8, phase: [2,4,8].choose, cutoff_min: 40, cutoff_max: 110 do
play 60
sleep 0.25
play 62
sleep 0.5
play ring(66, 66, 66, 66, 65, 65, 66, 66).tick
sleep 0.5
play 60
sleep 1
end
end
end
EDIT: There’s also some fun to be had with the “detuning” synths (like dpulse) and the fm synths 
Cool! I like the switching of the phase parameter, which gives a nice subtle effect!