Generator

Vinyl

The sound of a record: crackle, clicks, surface, rumble and wow.

Vinyl window
Vinyl, the main screen.

Overview

Vinyl plays a turning record’s noise over your sound, with or without input. The clicks are modelled on a real worn record: short spikes in bursts, mostly on one side or in opposite phase.

Getting started

  1. Choose the speed, raise Crackle and Clicks to taste; Surface and Rumble add the bed under them.

Controls

Speed33, 45 or 78 rpm: the wow’s rate.
CrackleMany small clicks.
ClicksLouder single clicks in bursts.
SurfaceThe soft hiss of the groove.
RumbleThe low noise of the turntable.
WowThe pitch swaying once per turn, up to 25 cents.
ToneA high cut on the music, for an old record’s top.

Settings

The gear in the header opens the settings panel; it covers the lower panel until the gear is clicked again.

WidthHow different the noise is on the two sides.
Vinyl: Vinyl, the settings panel.
Vinyl, the settings panel.

What the screen shows

A turning record with its tonearm, and the pitch over the last four seconds.

Tips

  • It plays even in silence: put it on a group to age a whole mix.

Technical notes

  • The sound is delayed 8 ms for the wow; the DAW is told.

Common to every plugin

The headerEvery window opens with the same header. On the left a dot-matrix display shows the main reading large and the details under it; text that does not fit scrolls. Next to it a hint with a coloured dot says what the plugin is doing or what to do next. On the right: Undo and Redo arrows (up to 100 steps of everything done in the window), the Bypass button, and the gear, which opens the plugin's settings panel when it has one.
BypassWith Bypass lit, the plugin lets the sound through untouched. It is the same switch as your DAW's own bypass for the plugin, so either can be used and automated. The input is held back by exactly the plugin's latency, so the timing stays right, and switching fades over 10 ms, so it never clicks. Bypass is not part of Undo.
Input and OutputMost plugins have a column on the right with a pair of VU meters for the input and the output, each with its own gain knob (plus or minus 24 dB). Analog shows the classic VU scale, dBFS the digital one. A click on a meter opens a large view of it. The CLIP lamp lights when a sample reaches 0 dBFS.
KnobsDrag a knob up or down to turn it. Knobs that go both ways, or that have a natural middle, catch briefly at their centre. A double-click returns a knob to its default.
About and the demoA click on the xsidfx logo in the footer opens About. In the demo version the plugin's name ends in (demo), its settings are not saved with your project, and About opens each time the window does.