Home › Plugins › Magician Tape

  • Formats Mac: AU and VST3 · Windows: VST3
  • Perpetual licence 3 computers, offline after activation
  • 14-day trial every control working, no card

Tape machine plugin

Magician Tape

Tape saturation at three speeds, wear on one knob

DRIVE sets how hard the tape is hit, from a clean pass to crunch, and the output stays at the loudness of the bypass. SPEED picks the machine: 30 ips for a clean master, 15 for the classic low-end bump, 7.5 for soft, dark and loose. WEAR ages it in one move, with hiss, wow, darker highs and the odd dropout.

USD 49.90 until 31 December 2026, then USD 79.90

Buy · USD 49.90 Try free for 14 days
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What it does

Simple and under control. The basics outside the box, the advanced controls inside.

On the front

Three knobs and a speed selector, enough to get the sound without reading a manual. DRIVE does most of the work and SPEED picks the machine.

  • DRIVE how hard the tape is hit
  • WEAR the age of the machine: hiss, wow, darker highs, dropouts
  • LEVEL output volume, unity at noon
  • SPEED 30, 15 or 7.5 ips
  • POWER bypass; the reels coast to a stop
  • VU METERS the level going onto the tape, 0 VU at -18 dBFS

Behind the hatches

Click either hatch and both open on ten more controls. ALIGNMENT is the technician's side, CONDITION the wear, one kind at a time. Every control works at every speed, so the same front settings can go many ways, and opening the hatches doesn't change the sound.

  • BIAS under-biased crackle to over-biased softness
  • BUMP the size of the head bump
  • TOP the playback highs, from 2.5 kHz to an air shelf
  • BLEND parallel mix, dry against tape
  • VOLTAGE the mains, 120 V down to 90 V
  • HISS, WOW, FLUTTER, DROPOUTS each kind of wear on its own; at noon, as much as WEAR sets
  • HUM off, 50 or 60 Hz
  • IN and OUT TRIM gain staging before and after the machine, beside the meters

Where the analog feel comes from

Magician Tape in a session

presentation video for Magician Tape

Overview

DRIVE sets how hard the tape is hit. At 0 the signal passes through the machine's electronics with a faint glow. At noon the tape is working: the peaks round off and the lows thicken. At 10 it's crunch, and a drum loop loses 10 dB of its peaks. The output stays at the loudness of the bypass, so what changes as you turn is the tape.

SPEED picks the machine. 30 ips is clean mastering tape, with a small bump high in the lows and an open top. 15 is the classic, with a bump around 50 Hz and a rounded top. 7.5 is soft and dark, with more hiss and nearly twice the wobble. The two VU meters show the level going onto the tape.

WEAR ages the machine. At 0 it's freshly serviced and silent. At 10 it's a forgotten reel: hiss, a slow pitch drift, the highs 9 dB down and a dropout a second.

Click either hatch and both open. ALIGNMENT holds BIAS, BUMP, TOP, BLEND and VOLTAGE. CONDITION holds HISS, WOW, FLUTTER, DROPOUTS and HUM, each kind of wear on its own. Every control is set to sound like too much at 10, so you hear what it does and then back off.

What it isn't for. The Magician has no tape echo and no menu of tape types. For echoes, use the Juggler Echo.

Measured before release

On our test loops, loudness stays within 0.3 dB of bypass across DRIVE at every speed, and the output is silent when the input stops at WEAR 0. Every one of the 51 presets sits within 0.1 dB of the dry signal.

Presets

51 factory presets in folders: Mix, Vocals, Drums (kit, kick and snare), Bass, Guitar (acoustic, clean and driven), Keys and Lo-Fi. Each is level-matched to the dry signal. The trims, bypass and HUM stay out of presets, so your gain staging survives a preset change.

Specs

  • Formats Mac: AU and VST3 · Windows: VST3
  • Systems macOS and Windows versions
  • CPU and latency About 3 % of one core on an M-series Mac. 20 ms of latency, reported to your DAW.
  • Also in the window preset browser, A/B compare, loudness-matched bypass, short-term LUFS meter

How to install

  1. Buy or start a trial. Pay at checkout, or make a free account for the trial. The receipt arrives by email. payment methods Moonbase offers
  2. Download. Sign in to your Circus Audio account. One download has every plugin; your licence decides which ones open. Mac: run the installer. Windows: unzip the download and copy the .vst3 files to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, then rescan plugins in your DAW.
  3. Open it in your DAW. Load Magician Tape on a track and sign in, or paste your licence key. It works on 3 computers, offline after the first activation.

Stuck? Write to [email protected]. reply-time promise we can keep

Reviews

Reviews from people who bought Magician Tape show here. review tool, and the first verified reviews after launch

Magician Tape

Tape saturation at three speeds, wear on one knob

USD 49.90 until 31 December 2026, then USD 79.90

Buy · USD 49.90 Try free for 14 days

Mac: AU and VST3 · Windows: VST3 · perpetual licence · 3 computers

Questions

Do I need internet to use it?

Only to activate. After that it works offline.

How many computers?

3 at once, Mac or Windows. You can free a seat from inside the plugin.

Which DAWs?

Any that loads AU or VST3: Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, Bitwig Studio. list of DAWs we tested Pro Tools needs AAX, which comes later.

How does the trial work?

Every control works for 14 days, one trial per computer, and you don't need a card. You start it from inside Magician Tape with a free Circus Audio account.

What happens when the trial ends?

decide in step 21 of setup.md, for example: the plugin passes the sound through untouched and asks you to buy or sign in, and your sessions keep their settings

I own a plugin already. What does the bundle cost me?

The Circus Bundle is USD 109.90 until 31 December 2026, then USD 199.90, minus what you paid for the plugins you own. Sign in before checkout and the price adjusts.

Can I get a refund?

Yes, see the refund policy.

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