Review: Tape Fiasco 2 by Phase Fiasco

We’re in a golden age for music production plugins. From snazzy synths to exotic effects to mental modulators, the sheer number and variety of tools available is staggering.

To stand out from the crowd, some developers aim for a specific niche. One strategy is to release plugins with wide-stretching functionality, covering all bases, kitchen sink included. These plugins tend toward dense interfaces, oodles of controls, and manuals in novella form. But holy bovine, can they ever make some unique and creative noises.

Another tack is to adopt a specific and consistent visual style, remove any “real gear” lookalike expectations, and stylize controls to optimize workflow and user experience. These are often simpler in functionality, sometimes even one-trick pony plugins. But when one does a job well, it’s a revelation and a joy to use.

A few developers, including the one behind today’s plugin, consider these choices and ask, as a precociously wise little girl in a taco advert once did:

¿Por qué no los dos?

Why not both, indeed? That’s the aim of Tape Fiasco 2 by Phase Fiasco, a multi-effect plugin with broad capabilities, loads of flexibility, and a uniquely abstract interface. Does Tape Fiasco 2 pull off the two-fer? Is this Fiasco a fiesta in disguise? Vamos, let’s find out.

Fiasco Things First

The musical mangling methods of Tape Fiasco 2 are clever, intriguing, responsive, and – obviously – the actual point of an effects plugin. I’ll spend the bulk of words on those below. But I have to start with Tape Fiasco 2’s look and feel. Because other multi-effect plugins exist. But they don’t usually look like this:

Whatever your initial reaction to the interface may be, it’s fair to say it takes some getting used to. It’s also (once you’re used to it) well organized, versatile, consistent, and clear. (With small exceptions. More about those later.)

But enough about the looks, for now. What can this baby actually do?

Four Fi Fo Fiasco

Conceptually, Tape Fiasco 2 is a four-tab effects toolkit. The main tab, Time, includes three tape-inspired temporal effects: Stretch, Stutter, and Varispeed. These allow, in order, slowing and freezing, slicing and repeating, and respeeding and wow-and-fluttering of input audio. For all, pitch is tied to speed, mimicking physical tape effects.

Let’s use the Stutter module to explore Tape Fiasco 2’s layout and workflow:

Like the other Time modules, a header strip includes the name and other handy toggles. The far-right square is an info window that displays the name and value of the parameter under the mouse cursor. Next to it are a die icon to Randomize parameters and a Random Setup gear icon. Click the latter to view and adjust randomization probabilities (including icons to randomize each randomization percentage, inception much?) for all parameters in the module.

On the left side is an On/Off toggle, while Stretch and Stutter have Sequencer On/Off toggles that we’ll revisit in a bit. Stutter includes a further Bend It button that toggles Tape Fiasco 2’s circuit-bent mode for extreme glitchy mangling.

Under each module’s header are the available parameters. All modules have Mix and Mode (forward or reverse) controls on the right, with module-specific controls below Mode, including Stop for Varispeed or Freeze for Stretch.

Despite the varying shapes of the Time tab parameters, they’re nearly all adjusted by dragging up and down. This behaviour is consistent across Tape Fiasco’s tabs, which helps tremendously with acclimation. The Time modules include plenty of parameters to experiment with, including Tempo, Pitch, Grain (rate), and Scatter for Stretch; Capture (length), Gate, Smooth, and Decay for Stutter; and Speed, Tempo, Scratch, and Heat (saturation) for Varispeed.

More Than a Fiasco-ing

The Time tab includes some additional nifty tricks, like the Stutter Link option to tie Rate and Capture tempos into interesting rhythms, custom “Bend It” mode params, and module ordering in the top header. Right-click any Time tab parameter for a list of assignable modulators, which live on the plugin’s third and fourth tabs, Animate and Perform. Let’s start with Perform:

The main feature of the Perform tab is the X-Y grid at centre. Up to five parameters can be assigned to each axis on the right. The triangular icon beside an assigned parameter opens a graph to adjust Start / End and Min / Max values to define the ranges of axis movement and parameter values, respectively, under modulation control. A Skew parameter is also available to shape the modulation curve.

At left are four macros, each with another five assignable slots. Clicking an empty macro or axis slot displays a list of modulatable parameters from the Time and FX tabs. The X-Y axes and macros are also host-automatable, allowing you to record patterns or gestures in your DAW for all sorts of sound-scrambling shenanigans.

The remaining modulators are in the Animate tab, which has three sections; here’s a view of the bottom two:

At the top of the screenshot above are the four Animate “columns”, each configurable as an LFO, Random movement, or E(nvelope) Follower. Parameters below each graph like Rate, Smooth, and Tone are adjusted by dragging up and down, with changes reflected in the graph.

At the bottom is one of three Animate graphs, each with tools to specify graph points, plot complex patterns, and set pattern length, speed, and direction. Each Animate modulator has six assignable target slots, with Min and Max parameters dictating the depth of modulation.

The top of the Animate tab is dedicated to the sequencers mentioned on the Time tab, one for Stretch and one for Stutter. Each has a Seq Length up to 64 steps, with individual steps activated with a click. Active steps can be dragged to set percent Speed (for Stretch) or Rate (for Stutter). Various tools to randomise, clear, toggle, and fill patterns are included in a header above each sequencer.

Is that enough sonic mangling prowess? Don’t answer yet, as there remains Tape Fiasco 2’s impressive FX tab to consider:

Available effects are listed at left – twenty-five in all. Click to add an effect; click again to remove it from the active stack. As on other tabs, drag up and down on parameters to adjust and right-click to modulate. Here and on the Time tab, parameters with modulator assignments show an indicator (like “ENV” or “LFO”) at top right; click the text to remove modulation or switch to the appropriate modulator tab to fine-tune.

Tape Fiasco 2’s effects include three resonators, six distortion modes, multiple reverbs and filters, a delay, a compressor, and modulations including chorus, ring mod and tremolo. (Partridge in a pear tree sold separately.) Familiar Randomize and Random Setup buttons line the headers of each active effect, along with Mute and Delete buttons and arrows to reorder effects in the processing chain. (Dragging the effect title squares works, too.)

The Tale of the Tape

There is a lot going on in Tape Fiasco 2 and I won’t try to claim that there’s no learning curve at all. I also won’t deny that the user manual is somewhat hefty at nearly sixty pages.

(In fairness, half the manual is dedicated to listing parameters for the two dozen-plus onboard effects. It’s not especially complex. There’s just a ton of knobs.)

Does Tape Fiasco 2 pull off combining immense sound-shaping capabilities with a uniquely minimal interface? Once you acclimate to its inputs and layout, absolutely.

When you’re in a groove using Tape Fiasco 2, it feels like you’re producing music by rearranging art in a (monochromatic) Rothko gallery. As the shapes and control schemes become familiar, adjustments feel more visceral and connected than in many plugins. It helps that all effects are zero-latency and the plugin is built to support live performance. Set up a loop and experiment away with instant feedback.

Using Tape Fiasco 2 also made me realise that I rarely particularly care whether grain rate is precisely 18% or the stereo width exactly 58.2% — but that’s the feedback you get in most plugins. You still see those values in Tape Fiasco 2, but the primary tape effect parameter feedback is the density of a grid or stretching of parallel lines as the sound morphs accordingly. You still listen for the results you want, of course. But the visually communicative controls feel more engaging than dragging simple sliders or clicking on virtual buttons.

(Perhaps traditionalist virtual analog fans feel similarly about interfaces designed after wood-‘n’-metal physical gear, if they used to twiddle – or daydream about twiddling – the knobs and buttons on those boxes. Tape Fiasco 2 allows those of us whose youths weren’t spent around analog gear to experience something similar. If you like art. And geometric shapes. And the colour blue.)

Speaking of which, there are a few minor tweaks that might improve the overall experience. A function to customise the colour scheme and font size would assist old, tired, or squinty eyes. Modulated parameters on the Time tab show nothing in the info panel; showing the name and param value (as in the FX tab) instead would be helpful. Conversely, parameter values in the FX tab replace the param name when adjusting; it would feel more consistent if the name and value showed up in the header (the far left square seemed empty and available for the purpose).

These are trivial asks of Tape Fiasco 2, which otherwise manages to cram an incredible arsenal of sound-mangling machinery into a highly usable, attractive, coherent, and downright fun package. Beyond the tabs, style, and workflow, here are three final points in its favour:

First, kudos for the extensive and instructive factory presets, categorised to highlight “Stutter”, “Glitch”, “Sequence”, “Ambient”, and more. Second, the developer has been furiously quick in releasing (free) updates with bug fixes, adjustments, and new features. By the time you read this, roadmapped features including modulator modulation, a noise gate, granular Time tab module, and more may be implemented or soon released.

Finally, a word about price. I don’t generally mention plugin cost, since prices change, sales come and go, and each person determines for themselves how they value a plugin. But as Tape Fiasco 2 is aiming (and succeeding) to be a capital-M Multi-effect with myriad modes, modules, and modulators, it’s inevitable to compare it to the handful of flagship sound mangling plugin behemoths in the wild.

I’ve used most of those flagships. Many are fantastically capable. Some are also a lot of fun. And a few have their own unique style that enhances the experience. Tape Fiasco 2 certainly ticks all of those boxes. But no comparable all-in-one multi-effect that I can think of, other than Kilohearts Snap Heap, has a list price as low as $29. As a “bang for buck” audio-mangling playground (that’s still being expanded), Tape Fiasco 2 is definitely a fiesta. Ole!

Learn more about Tape Fiasco 2 at the Phase Fiasco website.