P821 MDN Tape

The most important control. Low is clean and faithful; raising it adds harmonics, rounds transients and compresses gently, up to the tape's sweet spot. This is solid state, so pushing far past the sweet spot gets harsh, not warmer.

Sets the level leaving the plugin. With LINK on it moves automatically to cancel INPUT's level change, so you judge tone at matched loudness rather than being fooled by louder.

Ties OUTPUT to INPUT so driving harder drops the output to compensate. On by default so you can explore drive without the level running away. Turn it off to gain up into a following limiter.

Runs audio through the modeled Stephens 821 tape path: saturation, compression, size and motion.

The machine's electronics and signal path without tape compression. A second usable color, not a bypass to clean. Good for delicate acoustic material or already controlled busses.

Takes more INPUT to saturate. Higher headroom, lower noise, transparency and air. Suits jazz, classical, acoustic and clean mix-bus work.

Saturates sooner at the same INPUT: richer harmonics, earlier compression. The glue heard on decades of rock, pop and country. Reach for it when you want the tape to be part of the sound.

Fuller bass with a low bump around 20 to 25 Hz, smoother highs, earlier saturation and stronger vintage character.

Tighter lows (the bump moves up to about 40 to 50 Hz), extended highs, lower noise and more headroom before saturation.

Gentle low shelf hinged around 200 to 300 Hz. Broad and musical: plus or minus 10 is roughly plus or minus 5 to 8 dB. In PRE it drives the tape harder in that band; in POST it shapes the result cleanly.

Gentle high shelf hinged around 1 to 2 kHz. In PRE it drives the top of the tape harder so it thickens; in POST it adds clean brightness.

PRE places the shelves before the tape, so a boost saturates and compresses there and changes how the tape behaves. POST places them after, shaping the final tone cleanly with no change to how the tape was driven.

Shapes the low end as a bass shelf hinged around 50 to 100 Hz. Positive fills and lifts the lows; negative thins them. Most audible when the tape is driven hard.

Shapes the top as a treble tilt hinged around 1 to 2 kHz. Positive brightens; negative darkens. It is part of the tape circuit, so it reacts to how hard you drive.

Shows how hard the tape is driven. Calibration: minus 18 dBFS RMS reads about 0 VU. The glass glows brighter as the signal gets hotter. Click the meter to switch Modern (dBFS) and Classic (dBU) themes.

Scales how far the needle swings without changing its ballistics. On bass heavy material, pull it down about minus 5 so the VU reads honestly and you do not under-drive.

Controls the amount of added tape hiss. A little makes reverb and delay tails feel continuous and adds air; a lot becomes an obvious lo-fi effect. 456 hiss is more mid-forward, 900 smoother.

Turns tape motion on or off. On by default at a gentle amount, because a perfectly steady tape does not sound like tape. Flanger, Wow and Flutter all need this on.

Deepens the slow drift, most audible on sustained exposed material such as pads and held notes. Also sets how far the flanger comb sweeps.

Raises the depth of faster pitch movement, and in Fast mode its rate climbs too. A little adds shimmer and life; a lot sounds worn. Also sets how fast the flanger sweeps.

Slow stays gentle and realistic, about one cent even at full. Fast is dramatic, reaching up to plus or minus 124 cents for obvious effects. Default Slow is the believable tape motion most mixes want.

Feeds the Wow, Flutter and Slow/Fast motion into a short comb filter (about 1 ms) instead of into pitch. It has no knobs of its own and only works when Modulation is on.

A modeled tape slapback and echo. Time comes from the delay IPS plus Offset, Feedback sets the number of repeats, Blend sets the wet level.

The delay tape speed sets the base time: 7.5 ips is about 250 ms, 15 ips about 125 ms, 30 ips about 62.5 ms at Offset 0. Faster speed, shorter delay.

Zero gives a single slap; higher gives more repeats with a longer tail. Voiced so that even at maximum it never self-oscillates, so you can push a long dissolving tail safely.

Adds to the base delay time set by the delay IPS. Pick IPS for the ballpark, then move Offset to land the delay in the pocket. Time in ms is 1875 divided by IPS, plus 10 times Offset.

How much delay you hear against the dry signal. Low Blend is a subtle thickening; higher brings the echo forward as an obvious effect.

Thins the delay repeats (up to 2 kHz) so they tuck under the source. Shapes the echoes only, not the dry signal.

Darkens each repeat (down to 500 Hz). Roll it down with high feedback for a dub style fading tail.

Collapses the signal into a narrower, lower fidelity band: the sound of consumer tape, cassette and old broadcast gear. A character effect, independent of the Modulation circuit.

Voiced by ear with lo-fi artist MAS. Minimum is dark and full (worn VHS or reel), centre is the widest voicing (plain cassette), maximum is thin and mid-focused (telephone or broadcast). The presence peak slides up as you raise it.

Fits the Stephens 821's very wide native image to your mix. Full is the original spaciousness; dial toward Half or Off to rein it in on an already balanced mix. Leave on Full for acoustic, jazz and orchestral material.

Anchors the low end and center to mono while the sides stay wide. For bass driven genres where kick and sub must stay solid and translate on big systems and vinyl.

Bypasses the plugin so you hear the unprocessed input.

Flips the polarity of the audio signal.

Browse, load and save presets. A red dot next to the save icon means the preset was altered from its stored state. Use Save As to keep your own names.

Holds two complete settings for instant comparison at a click, the fastest way to judge whether a change is an improvement.

Copies the active side to the inactive side so you can branch from a starting point.

Audio Dimming Transition, Hiss Dim, colorblind and theme options, VU theme (Modern dBFS or Classic dBU), set default size, license status and user guide.