The Fixers

Nico Baran — The Fixers

An analog tape console built for character, movement and controlled destruction. The Fixers is a unique multi-effects plugin by Nico Baran that combines analog tape coloration, saturation, instability, lo-fi degradation, glitch processing and master bus treatment into one creative processing environment.

Designed around a crew of six specialized processing characters, The Fixers lets you take clean digital audio and give it the kind of warmth, imperfection, movement and personality associated with vintage recording equipment — while also going far beyond traditional tape emulation.

Use it subtly for analog character and cohesion, or push it aggressively to create unstable, degraded and heavily processed textures for modern production, sound design and creative mixing.

What's Included

• The Fixers — complete multi-effects plugin
• 6 specialized Fixers with individual processing personalities
• 4 processing modules active at a time
• 10 modeled tape stocks
• 65 handcrafted factory presets
• Reorderable signal chain
• Tape saturation and analog coloration
• Wow, flutter and analog drift
• Vintage grit and lo-fi degradation
• Glitch and stutter-style processing
• Master bus processing
• Creative stereo and output control

Meet the Six Fixers

Each Fixer represents a different stage of analog-inspired processing, allowing you to build a chain that matches the character you're looking for.

• The Engineer — Tape: Magnetic saturation, tape coloration, high-frequency roll-off, noise and bias controls for authentic analog-style character.
• The Welder — Wow / Flutter: Pitch instability, tape movement and controlled mechanical variation for everything from subtle drift to heavily unstable textures.
• The Alchemist — Grunge: Bit crushing, sample-rate degradation, quantization and foldback processing for gritty, degraded and lo-fi sounds.
• The Scout — Warmth: Harmonic enhancement with control over even and odd harmonics, adding body, color and analog-style saturation.
• The Hacker — Glitch: Probability-based glitch processing, repeat effects, scattering and short audio disruptions for rhythmic and experimental textures.
• The Conductor — Master: Final-stage output processing with stereo width, bus compression and limiting controls for shaping the finished signal.

Four Modules. One Signal Path.

The Fixers uses a flexible signal chain where you can choose which four modules are working together and reorder them however you want. This makes the plugin useful not only as a tape processor, but also as a creative effects chain.

For example, you can start with tape saturation, introduce wow and flutter, add grunge degradation and finish with warmth — or completely change the order to create a different response.

Clean in. Character out.

10 Modeled Tape Stocks

The Fixers includes a library of 10 modeled tape stocks, each with its own tonal character and behavior.

• Vela-456 Oxide — industry-standard character
• Helikon A800 — German-inspired engineering and tone
• Terra MX-50 — smooth and musical
• Vantage GP-9 — vintage character
• Volta M-15 — airy and extended
• Tweed Combo — heavy amp-style coloration
• Stack Crunch — pronounced midrange character
• Chime-30 — bright and chimey
• Oxide Chrome — distinctive chrome formulation
• Burnt Oxide — extreme lo-fi character

65 Factory Presets

The included factory library contains 65 handcrafted presets designed around the different tape stocks and processing possibilities of The Fixers.

Use the presets as starting points for vocals, drums, instruments, samples, synths, buses and full mixes, then customize the processing to fit your track.

Analog Character & Tape Warmth

The Fixers can add the subtle imperfections that make digital recordings feel less sterile. Tape saturation, harmonic coloration, high-frequency shaping, noise and mechanical variation can be combined to create a more organic and vintage-inspired sound.

Keep the processing restrained for gentle warmth and cohesion, or push the controls harder for obvious tape coloration and heavily degraded textures.

Wow, Flutter & Analog Drift

Give your sounds movement with controlled pitch instability and tape-like mechanical variation. The Wow / Flutter section can introduce anything from barely noticeable analog movement to exaggerated pitch wobble and unstable vintage textures.

This is particularly useful for lo-fi production, ambient music, samples, vocals, synths, guitars and experimental sound design.

Vintage Grit & Lo-Fi Degradation

The Grunge processing section takes The Fixers beyond conventional tape emulation. Bit crushing, sample-rate reduction, quantization and foldback-style processing allow you to deliberately damage the signal and create aggressive digital degradation.

Perfect for creating dirty drums, distorted samples, vintage textures, underground production and heavily processed sound design.

Creative Glitch Processing

The Hacker introduces controlled randomness and glitch-style manipulation to the signal. Probability, glitch size, scatter and repeat controls allow you to create rhythmic interruptions, digital artifacts, unexpected repetitions and experimental effects.

Use it on individual sounds for creative transitions and ear candy, or experiment with it on buses and full mixes for more extreme results.

Master Bus Processing

The Conductor provides a dedicated final processing stage with output, stereo width, bus compression and limiting. This allows The Fixers to work not only as an insert effect, but also as a character processor for groups and master buses.

Perfect For

• Hip-Hop and modern beat production
• Trap, Drill and R&B
• Lo-Fi and vintage production
• Ambient and experimental music
• Vocal processing
• Drum and percussion processing
• Synths and electronic instruments
• Sample coloration
• Creative sound design
• Transitions and ear candy
• Bus processing
• Master bus coloration
• Adding analog character to digital recordings

Compatibility

• Windows: Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit
• macOS: macOS 10.15 Catalina or later
• Apple Silicon: Native support
• Intel Mac: Supported
• Formats: VST3, AU and AAX
• Pro Tools: 12.6+
• FL Studio: 20+
• Ableton Live: 10+
• Studio One: 5+
• Cubase / Nuendo: 10+
• Reaper: 6+
• Compatible with major DAWs supporting VST3, AU or AAX