Following its tradition of a new plugin every Black Friday, Waves Audio is back with another exciting tool for producers. This time, the plugin is Retro Fi — a feature-filled piece of software that lets users add a touch of lo-fi quality to any track. Retro Fi comes packed with features such as a styler, time-based effects, and a noise generator. All together, this seems to be a great fit for any producer in need of a touch of lo-fi. Waves Retro Fi is available on the company’s website, right here, at an introductory price of $29. The plugin’s market price is $199, however using Waves‘ history as precedent, we doubt it will ever hit that price. Here, we’ll dive deeper into this new offering from Waves Audio, and run through everything it has to offer.
Waves Retro Fi
Waves essentially split its Retro Fi Black Friday plugin into four sections: device, space, noise, and mechanics. In the device section, the user can choose between four decade styles of lo-fi to use, from the 50’s to the 80’s. These add individualized EQ curves to the applied track to fit the respective time period. Additionally, the squash, ringer, and tone knobs can be dialed in for some extra effect to the overall sound.
Moving on to the Space section, Waves added both echo and vintage sounding reverb effects to blend into the tone. The echo can be set to a specific note-based time, or manually dialed in, with optional ping-pong effects and feedback as well. Retro Fi’s reverb is pretty simple as well, keeping with the theme of this plugin. The producer can select between either a spring or plate style verb, also adding associated decay time adjustments.
In the Noise area of this new plugin, users can load a preferred preset noise engine such as cassette tapes or vinyl, and adjust the threshold and level amounts for the preferred amount of interference with the source track. Finally, one can head over to the Mechanics section where six knobs can be tweaked, adding the ideal ‘wow,’ ‘wobble,’ and ‘speed’ modulations to the overall settings. To learn more about Retro Fi, or Waves Audio’s large library of other plugins, head over to its website.
