Zlosynth Instruments - Kaseta

Kaseta by Zlosynth: Enjoy comfortably warm tape delay effects with great simulation of magnetic hysteresis.

Zlosynth’s Kaseta provides an imitation of 4 free-moving reading heads that impart 4 independent delays for rhythms and feedback loops. This grants variations of ping-pong delays, the Haas effect, and even some simple reverb, all together with a warm tape saturation.

Each delay line has time, volume, feedback, and pan controls to expand your mono input into the stereo world. The top LEDs displays attributes, warnings, and configurations. The pre-amp can boost the input signal to +28 dB or enable the internal oscillator of two detuned sub-octave sine waves.

To successfully simulate the characteristic sound of tape the Jiles-Atherton model was implemented. This highly complex and mathematical physical model was placed inside the saturation of Kaseta. You can control this saturation with the Drive and Bias parameters. A peek inside the manual will reveal a nifty trick to get extreme sounds! It is a joy to strike the right blend of tape saturation by tweaking the Drive, Bias, and Dry/Wet knobs.

To achieve the beloved pitch/time-shifting of tape machines, Kaseta incorporates a Wow and Flutter parameter. This mimics fluctuations in playback speed, resulting in pitch changes. You can shift between smooth and slow changes to quick and abrupt. This effect is well-known from actual tape machines which show imperfections in playback caused by a loose belt, old motor, broken cassette, or a fly stuck in the player.
To further shape your sound the Tone knob packs a DJ-style low- and high-pass filter. This filter can be put on the input signal, feedback, or both simultaneously.

With Speed, you can adjust the overall length of the delay. By default, it operates from 10 ms to 5 minutes. This can be changed to a shorter time below 8 seconds or up to 14Hz to 1.8kHz into audio range. Another option is to tap in the tempo or to connect a clock signal to one of the control inputs. The Speed knob will then act as a multiplier/divider.

The hysteresis of tape is what Kaseta is capturing and greatly expanding on. You can carefully dial in the exact amounts of tape-hiss, distortion, wow, flutter and other oddities of magnetic tape. And the module goes even further, by supplying 4 freely assignable(!) CV inputs for full Eurorack-craziness!

Once it’s all patched up, Kaseta imparts the character of reel-to-reel tape machines to your final mix or individual sounds. And if we believe Brian Eno:
"Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable, and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit – all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided."

Features:

• 4 Delay Lines with individual volume, feedback, and pan parameters
• Great sounding Pre-Amp
• Warm tape saturation (Jiles-Atherton model)
• Wow and Flutter
• Up to 5 minutes of audio recording in 24-bit, 48 kHz
• Low-High Pass-Filter combination (Tone)
• Speed adjusts overall Delay Time
• Stereo output
• Internal oscillator
• Hackable Daisy Patch Submodule

Firmware 1.3 is out!

Changes

• Display the current position within the loop.
• Allow reset of the loop position through a control input.
• Pause/resume the delay line using a control input.
• Allow configuration of the ratio between the tap interval and delay length.
• Visualize progress of the buffer reset.
• Improve position response to control input.
• Make clearing of the tape 2x faster.
• Prevent wobble noises produced by short feedback with wow/flutter.

Firmware-Update:

Kaseta's firmware can be upgraded to obtain new features and bug-fixes. To do so, download the binary from attachments below (firmware link above), navigate to Electro-Smith's web programmer and follow the guide described under the "Display Help" button.