Although we have all the tools we need to produce extremely clean and precise music without any unwanted artefacts there’s something about the imperfections of analog recording equipment that triggers certain emotions in us.

So if you want to produce lofi music it’s important to pick the right sounds and samples from the start. You could, for example, sample old vinyl records or buy an old drum machine. It would however be easier to just get your hands on a decent LoFi House or Hip Hop sample pack.

Once you have a selection of cool sounds & samples you can further refine your music to sound like it was recorded a few decades ago. Luckily there are plenty of cool lofi plugins available so you don’t have to actually own an old tape machine. Here are some of the best options:

Free LoFi Plugins

1. Download free VST plugins, free synth VST, autotune VST, Drum sound VST, choir VST, Orchestra VST, and much more free VST plugins. Great place to download free VST plugins for music production, updated each week with new VST plugins check back frequently.
2. Here is our list of 5 must-have free VST plugins for producers in 2020. Some of these are instrument VST's (ex. Guitar, Piano, Synth, etc) and some are FX plugins used for adding filters and unique effects to your drum & melody tracks when making beats. So many producers think they have to rush to purchasing expensive VST plugins like Omnisphere and NeXus 3 before downloading all of the free.
3. Available for Download. Utility 10 Analog 8 Imaging 6 Modulators 6 Delay 5 Distortion 5 Filter 5 Chorus 4 Dynamics 4 EQ 4 Mid-Side 4 Stereo-Field 4 Synthesizer 4 Vintage 4 Algorithmic 3 Amp-Simulator 3 Bitcrusher 3 Mastering 3 Reverb 3 Subtractive 3.

I want to start this list with a bunch of free lofi VSTs, because I know that a lot of producers are one a budget, especially when they’re still going to school (or music is their only income lol). That said, you don’t always have to spend money to get some quality software. The freeware in this list can easily compete with some of the paid stuff I’ll mention later on.

If you've ever used a large number of DirectX Audio plugins, you've probably discovered one of the major shortcomings, which is most plugins have slightly different latencies. 348 Kb 3 DXMan v.1.11. Download antares autotune VST plugin for free. Multimedia tools downloads - Antares Autotune VST by Antares Audio Technologies and many more programs are available for instant and free download. Antares Auto-Tune 3 DirectX. 3.3 on 149 votes. Auto-Tune is a multi-platform plug-in for Macintosh (TDM, VST MOTU MAS, RTAS, or Stand.

BVKER LoFi Rack

The “LoFi Rack” is a free Ableton Rack based on Live’s stock plugins. It comes with 8 macros allowing you to decrease the band width, add vinyl crackles, detune and distort the source sound. Unfortunately it’s only available for Ableton Live users, so if you’re using another DAW you have to pick some of the other options in this list. If you’re using Ableton however, hop on my newsletter and I’ll send you a free download link.

iZotope Vinyl

As the name suggests, iZotope’s “Vinyl” is a plugin emulating the characteristic imperfections of vinyl records. Since the freeware only comes with a handful of parameters it’s easy to use and setting it up won’t take much time. What I love the most is that you can adjust the year of your “recording”. A must have for every lofi producer if you ask me.

Spitfire Audio Labs

Labs is a free software instrument made by the London based sound design company Spitfire Audio. There are several extensions available, including pianos, brass, choirs and synths. Most of these instruments are rather unique and therefore a nice addition to the basic instruments libraries you probably already own. The cool part about Labs is that it comes with only a handful of parameters so you won’t spend 10 years trying to get everything perfect. The sound either fits your production or not.

Tritik Krush

Tritik’s Krush is an effect plugin with 3 different distortion types. A bitcrusher , a downsampler and an analog drive knob. It further comes with 2 filters and an LFO that can be used to modulate every parameter. It’s available for both Windows and Mac in VST, AU and AAX format so really everyone can get their hands on this.

HY-Lofi2

This one is a free bit quantizer, waveshaper & filter plugin made by Tadashi Suginomori from HY-Plugins. It’s meant to process “audio to give it a low fidelity sound”. Just like Krush it combines different distortion modes with high and low-pass filters. More precisely it has one drive knob and a quantizer, which can run in different modes and qualities.

Legowelt Ableton Racks

Legowelt is a dutch producer known for releasing samples from analog hardware units, but you’ll also find some Ableton Racks on his website, including the Smackos Tape Station, the Smackos Lemuria Vintage Sampler Simulator, the Smackos 808 Simulator and the Smackos Amiga 909.

Sound-Base Audio Retro Boy

The Retro Boy is a Windows only VST synth. It comes with one oscillator, 7 waveforms and controls for ADSR, vibrato and decimation, which makes it perfect for Chiptune or 8-bit music. Since there isn’t much processing going on, the synth is quite CPU-friendly.

Best LoFi Plugins

Although you can definitely do some cool stuff with the freeware I mentioned so far there are some paid options no lofi producer should miss out on. A lot of them do more or less the same thing so in the end it’s up to personal preference (and budget), which ones you should get. Luckily most of these plugins aren’t that expensive compared to some of the stuff by other brands.

XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color

Probably the most hyped plugin of this list is the R-c20 Retro Color by XLN Audio. It combines 6 different effect units, including noise, wobble, distort, digital, space and magnetic. Combining these options basically allows you to recreate any lofi characteristic you could possibly think of. If I could only pick one plugin of this list I’d probably go for this one, since it comes with the most features.

Baby Audio Super VHS

Considering that Baby Audio is a rather new plugin company, their products already gained quite much attention. Super VHS again combines multiple effects, including a distortion unit, a retro sounding VST reverb and detune knob labeled “drift”. All knobs sound surprisingly good and I really dig the design.

D16 Group Decimort 2

Decimort 2 is a bitcrusher on steroids. It offers two optional anti-alias filters, adjustable jitter, two quantization methods and controllable dithering. If you’re looking for a cool bitcrusher, this is definitely the one you should get your hands on. With less than 50 bucks it’s also pretty affordable.

AudioThing Vinyl Strip

The Vinyl Strip is just like RC-20 a multi-effect plugin consisting of 6 different modules: Distortion, Compressor, Bit Crusher, Tilt EQ, Vintage Reverb, and something they call Vinylizer. In contrast to most plugins mentioned in this list, you can change the signal flow simply via drag-n-drop. On their website is stated that you can activate your license without an internet connection, which is pretty cool if you still live in a cave 😉

Devious Machines Texture

Texture is a plugin I just recently found out about watching Virtual Riot’s production workshop he did for Cymatics. It allows you to add noise to any kind of source sound. The cool part is that unlike similar effects you can even load your own noise samples and can adjust the exact frequency range, amount, ADSR and stuff like that.

Cableguys ShaperBox

When it comes to beat making, there’s one plugin every FL Studio user slaps on their melodies: Gross Beat (you’ll find plenty of memes about this). The problem is that it can’t be used in other DAWs (at least on Mac). This is where the Cableguys come into play. Their ShaperBox combines different effects that can all be modulated. The Time one is especially interesting for lofi producers, because it allows you to play back your melodies in halftime, add cool pitching effects and mix everything in with the dry signal.

Initial Audio Analog Pro

Analog Pro is once again a plugin meant to bring your digital audio tracks to live by simulating analog hardware. It comes with a variety of adjustable controls, including Noise Level, Noise Type, Impulse Type, Impulse Mix, Emphasis, Stereo, Lowcut, Highcut, Wow, Flutter and Amount. While I’m writing this the plugin is on sale for €26.10 (which is 64% off) so feel free to check out if this offer is still available.

Aberrant DSP SketchCassette

SketchCassette is a VST inspired by 4-track cassette recorders. It comes with most features the other plugins in this list have. Since it’s however available for only $20 it’s particularly interesting for producers on a tight budget.

Goodhertz Wow Control

Wow Control focuses on the weird and random modulations of analog playback devices. According to their website Goodhertz has carefully studied the essence of three different tape machines to make sure their plugin is the most comprehensive tape model they ever heard. I haven’t tried it out to be honest, but there are some videos about it on YouTube so feel free to check them out if you’d like to learn more about it.

PSPaudioware VintageWarmer2

The PSP Vintage Warmer is a tool simulating the saturation of analog compression / limiting. It comes with classic compression controls, such as knee or release time, and since it can run in multiband mode you can further control the individual bands a bit. In contrast to most usual compressors it comes with a big drive knob. Since it also comes with a mix knob you can drive the compression / saturation quite hard and mix it in just a bit to make your drums or vocals or whatever a bit fatter.

Wavesfactory Cassette

According to Wavesfactory’s website “Cassette is an audio plugin that imparts the unique character and sonic imprint of an often maligned recording medium”. You can also get your hands on their free Cassette Transport plugin, which “simulates the sound of tape speeding up and slowing down”. Or with other words: it’s a pretty cool tape stop plugin.

Psychic Modulation EchoMelt

Echomelt is “designed for adding character, texture and warmth to your sounds”. It doesn’t look that stunning, but it comes with an echo and chorus unit, which sets it apart from the other options in this list.

Aphex Vintage Exciter

The Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter by Waves is modeled on a tube-powered hardware unit. It allows you to increase high frequencies without raising the level too much.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are plenty of lofi plugins available that make your productions sound like they were recorded with a toaster (or something like that). The free offers, especially Vinyl and Labs are no brainers, since . well, they’re free, so make sure to download them straight away if you haven’t done so yet 😉

Directx Audio Plugins

Cockos Reaper is one of the most advanced music production software in the studio and at home. The main “feature” of the program is that it has pattern, keyboard and audio editing. You can set an unlimited number of audio or midi tracks, not counting how many VST format virtual instruments you can add.

Reaper does not take up as much hard disk space and does not load the processor as programs from the FL Studio, Cubase, Reason or Sonar series. With this program you can work even on low-power computers with sound cards that do not support Full duplex operating modes. Although, if the sound card supports this mode, you will get unlimited opportunities to create your compositions with professional sounding even in formats such as 5 + 1, and with additional plug-ins, and 7 + 1.

A huge plus of the program is that it supports VST / VST3, not counting support for DirectX plugins. You can use both the built-in editing tools for audio or midi tracks, and third-party plugins. The program also supports the ReWire virtual instrument connection system. Thanks to the harmonious interface, you can always see what you are editing at the moment. The virtual multichannel remote control is always in front of your eyes – with its help you can instantly perform operations with changing the volume, editing effects both on a single track and on the Master track.

Media explorer

add actions to increase / decrease preview volume
add action to reset columns to default order and width, re-initialize view when new fields are added in a REAPER update
add option to group folders at top
add scrollbars to zoom / scroll preview display and increase / decrease waveform height, option to show / hide scrollbars
if options enabled, apply volume / pitch / rate adjustments when adding media to ReaSamploMatic5000 •
by default, pick up beat-synced preview immediately, add option to wait for next measure to start
display sample rate, channel count, bit depth / bitrate
display media length
display media source preferred position (BWF start offset or any other available reference metadata)
display preview position / length in milliseconds
faster metadata reading for .ogg files
fix action to go to parent folder when persistent search is active •
fix duplicate metadata potentially being written to files
fix actions to scan all databases •
fix synchronized previews being off by a buffer block
preserve unrecognized ID3 tag elements when editing metadata
set media offline before rewriting metadata, in case the file is already in use in the arrange view
snap cursor to media cues / regions / transients / chapters
support customizing file last-modified date display format
preserve user -edited (but not yet written) metadata when re-reading metadata from media •
support temporary marks for files, to track what has been previewed or other uses
support updating metadata for multi-stream files where the vorbis stream is not first
support writing edited source preferred position back to media files
add refresh button, add theme images for back / forward / up / refresh

Metadata

Free Directx Plugin Vst Flight Simulator

support time reference (start offset) in mp3, flac, ogg, opus, wavpack in addition to wav
support iXML metadata in flac, mp3 files
display mp3 event markers in media explorer and arrange view
list AXML metadata separately from BWF (they had been combined for legacy reasons)
list render metadata schemes in alphabetical order
compatibility when editing metadata for OGG files with large page sizes Garageband vst plugin 10.3.

ReaScript

add B_RECMON_IN_EFFECT to GetMediaTrackInfo_Value ()
add GetMediaFileMetadata
support UTF-8 font names on Windows •
do not run deferred scripts during project load •

Accessibility

option to allow space key for navigation now improve track / marker managers, track routing window, envelope window, fade editor
add option in preferences / fades to display accessible (but cryptic) fade names instead of images in menus

Media items

preserve manual fade shape when clearing auto-crossfade •
support applying media source BWF start offset to item ruler •
support section / reverse parameters in item ruler •

Render

activate “apply” button after browsing to new output folder •
respect option to embed project name in BWF when other BWF metadata is provided

Subprojects

embed subproject metadata in rendered .rpp-prox file •
support embedding source preferred position (BWF start offset)

VST

decrease latency of VST3 channel context notifications
support “REAPER record monitor in effect” attribute for VST3 channel contexts

Control surfaces

do not send duplicate CSURF_EXT_SETFXPARAM notifications in response to automation

EDL

fix importing media item fade shapes

Elastique

update to v3.3.3

Localization

support UTF-8 localization of wav render formats

MIDI

fix adjusting imported MIDI length to match project tempo map (6.17 regression) •

Peaks

warn if peaks are not buildable because alternate peaks path is configured but invalid

Project save

improve behavior when copying symlinked media on macOS / Linux

Recording

fix potentially incorrect fadeout created when recording in item autopunch mode

Takes

fix potential crash when replacing multiple occurrences of the same source media •

Track manager

fix reordering tracks when using various sort modes •

Video processors

support UTF-8 font names on Windows •

Wavpack

improve interaction between render metadata and BWF settings

Wildcards

add $ dayname and $ datetime wildcards

API

add PCM_SOURCE_EXT_GETBITRATE
PCM_SOURCE_EXT_ENUMCUES_EX distinguishes between cues and chapter markers