Tape emulation explained? – Page 2 – DSP and Plugin Development Forum

Tape emulation can be achieved very nicely through granular synthesis with the following parameters:

Window Function: trapezoid
Duration Range of Individual ‘Grains’/Particles of Sound: 200-300ms
Interval between grains (implying an overlap-factor): 2-5ms
Randomization of pitch:
– this is what creates the tape distortion, we are essentially altering the playback speed of each grain around a certain ratio. So with zero tape distortion, the playback speed is 1:1. Max tape distortion (basically, each grain plays its microscopic excerpt of the sample at a slightly different rate).