Wow, flutter, noise, bandwidth and bit depth explained
Answer in brief
Wow is slow pitch drift and flutter is fast pitch wobble. Noise adds hiss and crackle, bandwidth filters take away the lows and highs, and bit depth and sample rate add digital grit. Saturation rounds the peaks underneath all of it.
Wow
Wow is a slow, wide rise and fall in pitch, the sound of a warped record or a tape that speeds up and slows down. It moves a few times a second at most. A little makes chords feel pleasantly seasick. Too much makes a melody sound out of tune. On held keys and pads it is the most recognizable part of lofi.
Flutter
Flutter is the same pitch movement, only faster and shallower. It sounds less like the pitch changing and more like a rough, watery shimmer on the tone. Cassette decks and portable tape machines have plenty of it. Arturia Tape MELLO-FI gives wow and flutter a knob each, which helps because the two do different jobs.
Noise, hiss and crackle
Hiss is the steady high noise of tape. Crackle and pops are the clicks of dust and scratches on vinyl. Motor noise and hum come from the machine itself. Noise fills the gaps between notes and makes a track feel like a recording of a recording. Keep it lower than you think, and prefer a plugin that lets it follow or duck under the music. RC-20 lets you place its noise before or after its other effects.
Bandwidth
Old media could not hold the full range of hearing. Cassettes dulled the top, small speakers lost the bottom and AM radio lost both. A low-pass filter at a few kHz is often the fastest way to make something sound old, and a gentle high-pass takes away the modern weight. Be careful with the high-pass on a whole beat, because it takes the kick and bass first.
Bit depth and sample rate
Bit depth sets how many steps each sample can take, and fewer bits add a grainy noise that rises and falls with the music. Sample rate sets how often the sound is measured. A lower rate removes the top and adds metallic tones that ignore the key, the sound of early samplers. Baby Audio says the Shape knob in Super VHS is inspired by 1980s 8-bit samplers. For harsher bitcrushing used as distortion, see Best Distortion Plugin.
Saturation and squeeze
Tape and cheap electronics round off loud peaks, which thickens the sound and squeezes it a little. In lofi this sits under the other effects and ties them together. Keep it gentle on a full beat. Goodhertz based Vulf Compressor on the Vinyl Sim effect of the Boss SP-303 sampler. For warmth on its own, with no wobble or noise, Best Saturation Plugin is the better guide.
Wear and dropouts
Old tape also loses level for a moment where its coating is worn. AudioThing’s Reels adds random volume drops, and Wavesfactory’s Cassette has a Random Snap that imitates the tape catching for a moment. Used rarely, these sound real. Used often, they sound like a broken file.
Sources for this page
- Studio 56: Studio 56’s official website, the publisher of this reference.
- Arturia Tape MELLO-FI: Arturia Tape MELLO-FI’s official page, the source of its description here.
The practical advice here is our own. A maker's description of its product is not a test of how it performs.
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Cite this page
Best Lofi Plugin. “Wow, flutter, noise, bandwidth and bit depth explained.” Studio 56 Reference. Content reviewed November 8, 2026.
https://bestlofiplugin.com/lofi-sound-explained/