how can I simulate tape saturation/hiss?

[jordex]

I love the warmth you get from crackling of tape in recordings. I've noticed that there's a lot of it in hip-hop songs, and other genres as well of course. It could even be the crackling of Vinyl as well, maybe. All I know is that I love it.

I'm wondering what I can do to simulate it in my songs since I make most of my music digitally.

Anyone have any ideas?

Edit*

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1142206/a/Pepper:+Remixes+And+Rare+Tracks.htm

Listen to the song Over and you can sort of hear what I mean. It streams at such bad quality so it's sort of hard to hear, but I think you get the idea.

[Tex]

I am not sure if it can be done by simulation, but I think this is what you are looking for:

http://www.fileupyours.com/view/215432/crackle.wav

[jordex]

ahh yes

definitely something along those lines

thanks! i'll try mixing that in

[Zephyr]

You could also try a VST effect by izotope called vinyl.

[jordex]

Ahhh perfect. A VST is what I was looking for. Ah and it's free too!

I'm downloading it right now.

[avaris]

To make sure you're getting the most realistic tape sound make sure it is attenuating the peaks(attack) transients by -6db. Tape on average cuts 6db from the transients, which gives a compressed sound, along with slightly distorting harmonics to give what appears to the human ear as a very warm and rich sound. Would kinda be a hassle to do this manually all the time, but IMO Izotope is one helluva company and makes some top notch plugins!

[Sole Signal]

You could also try a VST effect by izotope called vinyl.

+1

Been using this for years, very useful. Only problem is that is it has a tendency to remain active and cloud your entire track if you don't automate the effect to turn off when you're done using it in the pattern.

[Zephyr]

Agreed, plus I've noticed that it only has like 2 or 3 different dust samples and you can notice them loop in a pattern after only a few times through, overall I really don't like it.

Sampletanks phonograph effect is really nice actually, too bad it doesn't come as a VST, maybe I'll just sample some of it sometime and run the rest through vinyl's age filter.

[jordex]

Just to clear things up.

Is the crackling/saturation from things peaking on analog tapes?

Or is it some other phenomenon that causes them to saturate?