iZotope - Vinyl

At some point during your music production career, you are going to want to make your high-fidelity digital recording sound like a scratchy record from the 1970s – we've all been there! Luckily, iZotope have developed a great little plug-in that will let you do just that, for free.

In fact, using filter responses, 'Vinyl' can model record players from the 1930s through to the modern era, so you can choose the specific sound that you need for your track. You can also choose which format of record you would like to emulate with a switchable control; 33, 45 or 78 rpm. 

There are sliders controlling various other parameters, making it possible to fine-tune the sound. 'Warp' controls how warped the shape of the record is – from pristine to 'totally melted'. 'Dust' simulates the amount of dust that has landed on the surface of the record. 'Wear' simulates the effect of a record that has been played to death, while finally; 'mechanical noise' simulates the turntable rumble and motor noise of the record player itself.

In addition to the slider controls, there is also a button for flipping a stereo source into mono, and there is one that produces a 'spin down' effect too. This simulates the sound of slowly stopping playback of a record, modulating both playback speed and frequency.

Vinyl runs on both PC and Mac, and is available in AU, AAX (64 bit only ), AAX Audiosuite, RTAS, VST and VST 3. You can download it from here.