Baby Audio TAIP: Tape fuelled by AI

AI for plugins: a gimmick?

In another smooth move by Smooth Operator maker Baby Audio, the young software team trained an AI (Artificial Intelligence) system to create a new Tape plugin called TAIP*.

There are more tape emulations on the market than I have fingers, toes and hair. Well, maybe not the latter, but where Baby Audio TAIP* tries to set itself apart is authenticity. The team tried to get closer to the magic sound that tape can imbue by training an AI algorithm to help them decipher the nuances of complex analog circuits.

How did the AI help Baby Audio? By feeding the AI neural network with hours of processed audio recorded from a real tape machine, as well as the dry signal fed into it, Baby Audio claims to identify more closely the complex characteristics that make up the difference with TAIP. Once the AI has learnt these differences, the team was able to code what the AI discovered into the final algorithm.

Baby Audio have added a suite of suitable parameters that help shape your tape sound from subtle to super heavy:

• DRIVE: Traditionally, tape machines were designed to colour the sound as little as possible. TAIP is not. You can use the DRIVE knob to add just as much colour as you need - from a subtle touch of heat to heavy distortion.
• MIX: Let's run your tape in parallel. If WEAR is engaged, you can use MIX to get a classic ‘tape flanging’ effect. This is caused by the wow and flutter of WEAR, which runs parallel to the dry track when MIX is below 100.
• MODEL: While SINGLE is a regular tape emulation, DUAL creates a series of two tape emulations chained together under the hood, each applying half of the DRIVE value. This will add slightly more weight to your signal.
• LO-SHAPE / HI-SHAPE: These sliders let you saturate the low/high end more or less than the rest of the frequency spectrum. (Example: you want to warm up a drum buss without adding too much distortion to the low frequencies).
• GLUE: Tape machines are known to introduce a pleasing compression-like effect due to their low dynamic range. TAIP lets you add this effect – or even exaggerate it. Use GLUE for subtle cohesion or as an actual compressor.
• NOISE: Lets you add tape noise to taste – or avoid it altogether.
• WEAR: Combines wow, flutter and an altered frequency response curve to emulate a malfunctioning tape machine.
• PRESENCE: Part of the tape warmth comes from an attenuated high-end. PRESENCE allows you to decide how much of that attenuation you want. It can bring back the sharpness and brightness that is sometimes lost on tape.
• INPUT: Choose between NORMAL or HOT (more distorted) input levels without affecting the output volume.
• AUTO GAIN: Allows you to add more DRIVE while maintaining a consistent plugin output level.

If you want to get started straight away, Baby Audio included 135 presets, some of which were created by artists the company collaborated with, including:

• Mark Needham (Fleetwood Mac, The Killers,Bloc Party, Elton John)
• Max Jaeger (Ariana Grande, Kanye West, Drake, Calvin Harris)
• Eestbound (Travis Scott, Young Thug, JazzCartier)
• Rob Kleiner (Sia, Britney Spears, DavidGuetta, Cee Lo)
• Cesar Sogbe (Prince, David Byrne, Jennifer Lopez)

Baby Audio TAIP* is available now in VST, VST3, AU, AAX formats, and Mac M1 native compatible.