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Waves Audio make some great VST plugins. But their catalog is huge and there’s a lot of overlap. Which Waves compressor is the best? What about reverb or EQ? I created this blog post to review what I consider to be the must have Waves plugins. Waves Audio was founded in 1992. Since then they have released tons of VST/AU/AAX plugins.

Although we have all the tools we need to produce extremely clean and precise music without any unwanted artefacts there’s something about the imperfections of analog recording equipment that triggers certain emotions in us.

So if you want to produce lofi music it’s important to pick the right sounds and samples from the start. You could, for example, sample old vinyl records or buy an old drum machine. It would however be easier to just get your hands on a decent LoFi House or Hip Hop sample pack.

Once you have a selection of cool sounds & samples you can further refine your music to sound like it was recorded a few decades ago. Luckily there are plenty of cool lofi plugins available so you don’t have to actually own an old tape machine. Here are some of the best options:

Free LoFi Plugins

I want to start this list with a bunch of free lofi VSTs, because I know that a lot of producers are one a budget, especially when they’re still going to school (or music is their only income lol). That said, you don’t always have to spend money to get some quality software. The freeware in this list can easily compete with some of the paid stuff I’ll mention later on.

BVKER LoFi Rack

The “LoFi Rack” is a free Ableton Rack based on Live’s stock plugins. It comes with 8 macros allowing you to decrease the band width, add vinyl crackles, detune and distort the source sound. Unfortunately it’s only available for Ableton Live users, so if you’re using another DAW you have to pick some of the other options in this list. If you’re using Ableton however, hop on my newsletter and I’ll send you a free download link.

iZotope Vinyl

As the name suggests, iZotope’s “Vinyl” is a plugin emulating the characteristic imperfections of vinyl records. Since the freeware only comes with a handful of parameters it’s easy to use and setting it up won’t take much time. What I love the most is that you can adjust the year of your “recording”. A must have for every lofi producer if you ask me.

Spitfire Audio Labs

Labs is a free software instrument made by the London based sound design company Spitfire Audio. There are several extensions available, including pianos, brass, choirs and synths. Most of these instruments are rather unique and therefore a nice addition to the basic instruments libraries you probably already own. The cool part about Labs is that it comes with only a handful of parameters so you won’t spend 10 years trying to get everything perfect. The sound either fits your production or not.

Tritik Krush

Tritik’s Krush is an effect plugin with 3 different distortion types. A bitcrusher , a downsampler and an analog drive knob. It further comes with 2 filters and an LFO that can be used to modulate every parameter. It’s available for both Windows and Mac in VST, AU and AAX format so really everyone can get their hands on this.

HY-Lofi2

This one is a free bit quantizer, waveshaper & filter plugin made by Tadashi Suginomori from HY-Plugins. It’s meant to process “audio to give it a low fidelity sound”. Just like Krush it combines different distortion modes with high and low-pass filters. More precisely it has one drive knob and a quantizer, which can run in different modes and qualities.

Legowelt Ableton Racks

Legowelt is a dutch producer known for releasing samples from analog hardware units, but you’ll also find some Ableton Racks on his website, including the Smackos Tape Station, the Smackos Lemuria Vintage Sampler Simulator, the Smackos 808 Simulator and the Smackos Amiga 909.

Sound-Base Audio Retro Boy

The Retro Boy is a Windows only VST synth. It comes with one oscillator, 7 waveforms and controls for ADSR, vibrato and decimation, which makes it perfect for Chiptune or 8-bit music. Since there isn’t much processing going on, the synth is quite CPU-friendly.

Best LoFi Plugins

Although you can definitely do some cool stuff with the freeware I mentioned so far there are some paid options no lofi producer should miss out on. A lot of them do more or less the same thing so in the end it’s up to personal preference (and budget), which ones you should get. Luckily most of these plugins aren’t that expensive compared to some of the stuff by other brands.

XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color

Probably the most hyped plugin of this list is the R-c20 Retro Color by XLN Audio. It combines 6 different effect units, including noise, wobble, distort, digital, space and magnetic. Combining these options basically allows you to recreate any lofi characteristic you could possibly think of. If I could only pick one plugin of this list I’d probably go for this one, since it comes with the most features.

Baby Audio Super VHS

Considering that Baby Audio is a rather new plugin company, their products already gained quite much attention. Super VHS again combines multiple effects, including a distortion unit, a retro sounding VST reverb and detune knob labeled “drift”. All knobs sound surprisingly good and I really dig the design.

D16 Group Decimort 2

Decimort 2 is a bitcrusher on steroids. It offers two optional anti-alias filters, adjustable jitter, two quantization methods and controllable dithering. If you’re looking for a cool bitcrusher, this is definitely the one you should get your hands on. With less than 50 bucks it’s also pretty affordable.

AudioThing Vinyl Strip

The Vinyl Strip is just like RC-20 a multi-effect plugin consisting of 6 different modules: Distortion, Compressor, Bit Crusher, Tilt EQ, Vintage Reverb, and something they call Vinylizer. In contrast to most plugins mentioned in this list, you can change the signal flow simply via drag-n-drop. On their website is stated that you can activate your license without an internet connection, which is pretty cool if you still live in a cave 😉

Devious Machines Texture

Texture is a plugin I just recently found out about watching Virtual Riot’s production workshop he did for Cymatics. It allows you to add noise to any kind of source sound. The cool part is that unlike similar effects you can even load your own noise samples and can adjust the exact frequency range, amount, ADSR and stuff like that.

Cableguys ShaperBox

When it comes to beat making, there’s one plugin every FL Studio user slaps on their melodies: Gross Beat (you’ll find plenty of memes about this). The problem is that it can’t be used in other DAWs (at least on Mac). This is where the Cableguys come into play. Their ShaperBox combines different effects that can all be modulated. The Time one is especially interesting for lofi producers, because it allows you to play back your melodies in halftime, add cool pitching effects and mix everything in with the dry signal.

Initial Audio Analog Pro

Analog Pro is once again a plugin meant to bring your digital audio tracks to live by simulating analog hardware. It comes with a variety of adjustable controls, including Noise Level, Noise Type, Impulse Type, Impulse Mix, Emphasis, Stereo, Lowcut, Highcut, Wow, Flutter and Amount. While I’m writing this the plugin is on sale for €26.10 (which is 64% off) so feel free to check out if this offer is still available.

Aberrant DSP SketchCassette

SketchCassette is a VST inspired by 4-track cassette recorders. It comes with most features the other plugins in this list have. Since it’s however available for only $20 it’s particularly interesting for producers on a tight budget.

Goodhertz Wow Control

Wow Control focuses on the weird and random modulations of analog playback devices. According to their website Goodhertz has carefully studied the essence of three different tape machines to make sure their plugin is the most comprehensive tape model they ever heard. I haven’t tried it out to be honest, but there are some videos about it on YouTube so feel free to check them out if you’d like to learn more about it.

PSPaudioware VintageWarmer2

The PSP Vintage Warmer is a tool simulating the saturation of analog compression / limiting. It comes with classic compression controls, such as knee or release time, and since it can run in multiband mode you can further control the individual bands a bit. In contrast to most usual compressors it comes with a big drive knob. Since it also comes with a mix knob you can drive the compression / saturation quite hard and mix it in just a bit to make your drums or vocals or whatever a bit fatter.

Wavesfactory Cassette

According to Wavesfactory’s website “Cassette is an audio plugin that imparts the unique character and sonic imprint of an often maligned recording medium”. You can also get your hands on their free Cassette Transport plugin, which “simulates the sound of tape speeding up and slowing down”. Or with other words: it’s a pretty cool tape stop plugin.

Psychic Modulation EchoMelt

Echomelt is “designed for adding character, texture and warmth to your sounds”. It doesn’t look that stunning, but it comes with an echo and chorus unit, which sets it apart from the other options in this list.

Aphex Vintage Exciter

The Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter by Waves is modeled on a tube-powered hardware unit. It allows you to increase high frequencies without raising the level too much.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are plenty of lofi plugins available that make your productions sound like they were recorded with a toaster (or something like that). The free offers, especially Vinyl and Labs are no brainers, since . well, they’re free, so make sure to download them straight away if you haven’t done so yet 😉

EDITOR’S NOTE: Looking for a summarized version of the article? Check the table below, with our selection of the 3 best rent-to-own vst plugin services

It’s really fascinating when you think how easy it is today to make your own home studio and be able to make solid music with it.

What’s more, you can even set up a mobile studio with your laptop and an audio interface and take it anywhere with you to either record or just make your music.

It’s something that opens up new possibilities and was unimaginable back in the old days.

So everything is about having a solid DAW like Ableton and some quality plugins these days.

What’s also great is that you can even rent different plugins by using some handy services today.

In this brief guide, we will be taking a closer look and explaining how so-called “rent-to-own” plugin services work, as well as some great products that you can get on them.

Rent-to-own plugins

The whole idea is to have a service and a system that will allow you to rent plugins for a certain monthly price.

But, as the name of this concept would suggest, if you rent these plugins long enough to pay for their full price, the product (or, in some cases, a bundle of multiple products) is yours.

It’s the same principle we see on the housing market when you rent a home for a while, see if it fits your needs, and decide if you want to keep paying for it until you pay off the full price. You can just cancel any time you want.

What’s really useful here is that you no longer need to deal with demos and all the annoying features that come with such them.

And you don’t have to buy a full version after 30 days only to realize that you don’t really like this product 3 months after paying the full license price.

Is there a plugin you think will help you in your creative endeavors?

Try and rent it for a few months and see what the full product with all of its features is like.

If you think you’ll need the plugin in the longterm, you can keep renting it until you pay off the full price.

If you need it for some smaller tweaks and adjustments in a few of your songs, then rent it for a month or two.

It really is that simple.

There are usually no extra charges and you pay around the same price in the end as you would for the plugin on the creator’s website.

The plugins you can purchase via these services can be effects, synths, or any other different products, sometimes even entire Digital Audio Workstations.

It’s especially useful if there’s a pricy plugin that you set your eyes on but can’t afford to pay the full price upfront. All of the best vst plugins, the ones used by the pros, are now available for anyone with a few extra dollars per month.

Best Site To Buy Vst Plugins 2019

With all this in mind, we’ll now go into some of the rent-to-own plugin services that you can find online.

Splice Rent-to-own

Splice is one of the most famous services of this kind.

On there, you can also buy royalty-free samples, get your hands on some of the plugins in the rent-to-own section, or even buy DAWs.

Splice can either be used in the browser or via their specialized desktop app.

This desktop app allows you to open project files of a few different DAWs: Logic Pro, Ableton Live, GarageBand, or FL Studio.

It also comes as an extremely useful service for collaborative projects, serving as sort of a GitHub for musicians. The rented plugins can be used in individual DAWs or within the app.

Whether it’s plugins or any other services that they offer, you can purchase them with Splice credits. There are four pricing models for buying these credits, going from $7.99 per month up to $139.99 per year.

At the moment, there are 40 plugins and DAWs to choose from. The list includes Ozone 9 Advanced compressor and EQ, Serum synth, Punchbox distortion and synth, and others. Some of these made our best vst synth list for 2020.

Here are some of the plugins on offer at splice rent-to-own:

Waves Rent-to-own

Waves.com is a service that sells an abundance of different plugins.

There are over 200 plugins for any kind of studio work that you need: effects, synths, distortions, even specialized professional-level guitar plugins.

Check out the full list below:

These plugins and different software can be bought in bundles.

There are three basic subscription models for bundles: Flex that’s $9.99 per month, Platinum that’s $49 per month, and Mercury that’s $149 per month.

The subscription lasts for 24 months and after you pay it off, you basically own permanent licenses for all of the plugins in the bundle.

Of course, you can just cancel any time before the subscription period ends and you’ll be charged for the last payment at the end of the billing cycle.

What’s really great is that there are literally hundreds of plugins to choose from.

Platinum and Mercury have their own specific bundle of products, but with Flex, there are a few modifications that you can do and pick some of the plugins that you like.

You can also buy different product bundles straight away if you don’t feel like taking the rent-to-own deals.

Aside from these, Waves offer different educational courses, digital mixers, racks, and even some specialized hardware products.

Landr Rent-to-own

Best Site To Buy Vst Plugins Free

With Landr, you can try out plugins and other products for 3 days completely free of charge. But the platform is also very well-known for its different trap beats and samples and also allows collaborative projects, kind of similar to the Splice model.

Cheap Vst Plugins

Their main plugin offer is a synth called lethal.

This is a very versatile synthesizer plugin with around 50 GB of different sounds (with all expansions included), presets, and samples.

The monthly rent-to-own price is $9.99 and you can stop it or cancel it at any time.

Although it’s aimed for trap sounds, it comes really in handy for other genres as well. With Lethal, you can get any of the 24 different expansions, each specified for a certain style of music.

These expansions, however, are charged separately.

Best Professional Vst Plugins

Final Thoughts

Investing in a good set of plugins for your music production setup can really have an impact on your sound.

It used to be the case that the premium VSTs such as the ones sold by waves were only available for the professional studios, but fortunately along with technical innovation, plugin companies have been investing in business model innovation.

The results are great for the bedroom producer. You can now go pro for only a few bucks a month.

We hope this article has helped you choose a rent-to-own service.

Good Vst Plugins

If you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comment box below.