10 Best Lofi Plugins To Make Insane Lofi Hip Hop Beats
The Lofi sound over the last 5 years has taken over the Music Industry as a whole. You’ll hear it in all the latest hits, degraded and warped sounding melodies and samples in not just Trap and hip Hop but Pop music as well. In this blog we will run down the list of the best plugins to give you that vintage and nostalgic Lofi Hip Hop sound. I present the 10 Best Lofi Plugins to Make Incredible Lofi Hip Hop Beats!
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Last Updated 1/2/22
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10. Vinyl Strip by Audio Thing
Vinyl Strip is a multi-effect Lofi plugin that include distortion, a compressor, a sampler, tilt EQ, Reverb, and a Vinyl emulator. The plugin overall uses all of these effects to give your sample and tracks that classic, degraded, old school feel.
The Vinyl module specifically adds dust, noise, and warp to best emulate that vinyl sound. The distortion module adds different types of vintage harmonics. The tilt EQ gives balance to the sound like an old hi-fi system. The sampler module emulates classic samplers with the reverb giving it some warmth as a final touch. You can also drag and drop all modules to make your own unique sound!
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9. Waves Reel ADT
Waves Reel ADT is an amazing Lofi plugin that allows you to emulate the famous Abbey Roads Artificial Double Tracking process. This in turn gives you a genuine tape-sounding ADT plugin. The features include exclusive 2 voice components, manual and automatic control, different tape sounds for sources, and separate drive control for each path.
The classic “ADT” sound was developed in the 1960’s and is essentially the recreation of an artist “doubling” their voice over their own performance to thicken the overall sound. The Abbey Road engineers had t come up with this process because of John Lennon’s dislike for overdubbing vocals. This effect has now become a Lofi weapon of choice. Absolutely one of the top Waves Plugins to choose from.
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8. Decimort 2
Decimort 2 has been a lowkey classic Lofi plugin for quite some time now. The highly sophisticated bit crusher specializes in degrading a sounds’ bit depth, in turn making it sound more vintage like some of your classic samplers used to do natively. In fact, it actually has some presets that aim to accurately emulate classic samplers like the Ensoniq ASR-10 and Akai MPC.
It also gives you added controls for parameters like quantization depth, dithering, and sampling frequency, which allows you to emulate almost every classic AD/DA converter of classic drum machines ever invented. The great thing about this tool is it can be used on just about any sounds to really make it cut through your mix.
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7. Izotope Vinyl
Izotope Vinyl was one of the first Lofi plugins to come out early on in the industry. It offered for what seems like them first time, the ability to give your sounds the warped vinyl effect that is nostalgic to the old school days of the LP record. I think what is also so amazing about this plugin is it has always been and is still currently absolutely free.
The plugin itself comes with a slew of different parameters including mechanical noise, wear, electrical noise, dust, scratch, and warp depth. It also has another incredible feature that allows you to select the year of the record sound of that time period. Overall, this plugin rocks, especially for free.
Checkout Here: Izotope Vinyl
6. Klevgrand DAW Cassette
Klevgrand DAW Cassette is coined as the plugin that brings back the magic era of the 80’s. I can affirm that this Lofi plugin does just that. The plugin allows you to choose between 3 different tape types including normal, chrome, and metal. You can also control the amount of noise with Dolby emulation.
There are also tape head and motor quality that allow you to dial in the sound to your specific liking and taste. On the back side of the plugin there is an onboard EQ, that further allows you to sculpt and craft your sound to taste. Another amazing plugin in the realm of the Lofi Hip Hop sound.
Checkout Prices Here: Klevgrand Cassette
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5. Sketch Cassette
Sketch Cassette is little known Lofi plugin that still packs quite the punch. Inspired by 4 track tape recorders, this plugin has been designed to create a plethora of Lofi effects for your musical compositions. This includes everything from simple pitch warping to complete distortion and annihilation of your sounds in a good way.
Some of the more notable features include age modeling, saturation, adjustable wow and flutter, tape hiss, tape type frequency profiles, and noise-reduction encoding compression. This gives you endless possibilities to crazy and crate very unique sounds. It is also available for both MacOS and Windows computer as well. Definitely one of the most slept on Lofi plugins on the market that is absolutely game changing.
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4. Goodhertz Wow Control
So yes, we have yet another Lofi plugin for Goodhertz and it too is a banger! Wow Control is plugin that is entirely focused on the modulations of analog tape and other analog playback devices. Their aim was to accurately capture the essence of 3 different tape machines that span through 3 decades.
Some of the more notable features include high quality wow and flutter, massive pitch range with expressive shape controls, controllable speeds and beat syncing, an analog tape section with 3 modes, and a random section for more complex modulations. This plugin is absolutely next level because it expands on the Vulf Compressor plugins’ Wow and Flutter section, bringing more tools to the table. All in all, this Lofi is absolutely in the top tier, especially for the wide range of control.
Checkout Prices Here: Goodhertz Wow Control
3. Super VHS
Now Super VHS by Baby Audio has the 80’s written all over it. It has six unique one-knob effects that are inspired all by the 80’s VHS era. These include static, heat, shape, magic, drift, and wash. Static includes adding noise, while the heat feature adds a bit of analog tape saturation. The shape knob is a sample rate reducer inspired by 80’s 8-bit samplers.
The magic knob is a widening effect inspired by the Juno Chorus. The infamous drift feature allows for pitch LFO fluctuation for changes in pitch and time while the wash feature is a reverb inspired by classic 80’s rack units. This is personally for me one of my favorite Lofi plugins.
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2. Retro Fi
One of the newest plugins on the block that everyone is talking about is Waves new Lofi Plugin, Retro Fi! Now I must say this plugin is pretty phenomenal and has the same features as some of the other Lofi plugins but takes things to a whole new level. The plugin itself features four different sections. Device, space, noise and mechanics. While having each section have its own unique features and characteristics.
The Device sections offers you the ability the choose tones from different era's like the 50's,60's,70's, and 80's. It also gives you some ring modulation and compression as well. The Space section simply adds some effects like delay and reverb to take things to the next level. There are also added controls to the types of reverb and the timing of the delay as well. The Noise section allows for you to add classic analog noise found in things like cassette tapes and vinyl for added character. You can even add it pre or post reverb within the plugin itself. Last but not least, we have the Mechanics section that allows you to add wow and flutter to your sounds with added controls to fine tune these parameters. This plugin is, if not the best Lofi plugin out right now, then definitely one of the best available on the market today! Top pick for 2022!
Checkout Prices Here: Waves Retro Fi
1. RC-20 Retro Color
RC-20 Retro Color is definitely the crème of the crop when it comes to Lofi hip hop plugins period. The Plugin come locked and loaded with 6 effects modules that work great by themselves or teamed up together. These effects include a Noise Generator, Wobble & Flutter, Saturation and Distortion, Degrader and Bitcrusher, Reverb, and Volume Drop.
The noise generator adds texture with different noise types while the wobble & flutter add pitch inconsistencies that emulate the unstable playback properties of analog gear. The saturation and distortion does just that, with everything ranging from mild saturation to fuzz. The degrader and bitcrusher helps to reproduce the sounds of vintage sampler and reverb and volume drop speak for themselves. This plugin alone has everything you need to create Lofi Hip Hop period!
Checkout Prices Here: RC20 Retro Color
Conclusion
With the growing demand of the Lofi Hip Hop sound in modern day music, it is becoming more and more popular to use these types of plugins. No matter what plugin you use however, this list of Lofi plugins will definitely take your sound to the next level.
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