XLN Audio's RC-20 Retro Color is a new plugin that's designed to bring the "warm, cosy feeling" of vintage recording equipment into your DAW. It features six modules, and can replicate the sound of everything from vinyl records to VHS machines.
 
Desirable imperfections such as noise, wobble and dropouts are the order of the day, with distortion and bit reduction promising to add grit to your bass and drums. There are also space, chorus and filtering effects.
 
If you want additional character, you can use the Flux Engine to add subtle or extreme levels of instability and fluctuations to all of the modules, giving you even more of an 'analogue' feel. Presets are provided for drums, keyboards, guitars, bass post production.
Available soon, RC-20 Retro Color will run on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats.
 
Keep your eye on the XLN Audio website for more.

Get 16% off the $79 price at JRR...posted in DEALS

Just go the email from XLN, starting my free 10 day trial today :-)
 
First impressions are that it's quite a 'niche' type effect.  For example, if you wanted the intro of a song to sound like it was recorded through next door's walls from a cheap radio that was underneath a pillow before turning into a more 'normal' type of mix, this is definitely the effect for the job.

mcDSP's FutzBox is great for that kind of stuff as well.  I found it interesting that the first audio example in the video I watched (using a preset called VHS) actually made the track sound worse...like a blanket was over the speakers. It made me think, gee, that's some horrible saturation...all the highs are gone.  It wasn't till I watched a bit more that I could tell this thing was for special effects.  Don't know why you'd want to subtly muffle a perfectly decent sounding track...but that's what makes a horse race.  Pick em.
 

I like XLNs drum shaper a lot but this strikes me as a combination of things I do have in stock already

yorolpal
  Don't know why you'd want to subtly muffle a perfectly decent sounding track...but that's what makes a horse race.  Pick em.
 

The music is kicking in a night club and the most interesting man in the world walks up to the most attractive woman in the world. He whispers in her ear " you are a beautiful women, one of God's most incredible creations like a flower in full bloom." They join hands and head for the door, The door closes behind them and the kicking music becomes muffled as they head off into the night.  Gotta love a story with a happy ending.
 
Rocky

Yup...this wasn't music from another room...although I'm sure it will do that as well.  This was "hey, my tweeter just blew...dern".
 

I've had some time to have a bit more of a play with it now and have to say I've needed to re-evaluate my first impressions.  I guess the rule here is: "never judge a plugin by its presets" :-)
 
I really like this plugin, I've been using it to tweak what I thought were some very nice guitar tones but which sounded rather bland after I'd added a bit of colour to them.

Either you have a drier wit than the Gobi desert ol pal...or you need to rephrase that there post:-)

Is this a poor man's Speakerphone? (Audioease)