Beat Magazine #250 bundles Baby Audio Super VHS and Cubase LE 15 for 4.99 euros

By sapi_44530a · · 6 min read

Five euros. That’s the whole pitch. Beat Magazine’s issue #250 ships with Baby Audio Super VHS and Cubase LE 15 on the cover disc, and for anyone who has ever paid full price for a DAW license or a decent plugin, that number looks like a typo. It isn’t, but it does come with the usual magazine-cover caveats, and it’s worth being honest about what you’re actually getting before you hand over the coins.

I’ve bought these cover-mount issues before, and the value swings wildly depending on whether the bundled software is something you’d have bought anyway. So let’s look at both halves separately, because they serve completely different people.

Baby Audio Super VHS: the reason to buy this issue

Super VHS is the draw here. Baby Audio built a reputation on plugins that look simple and sound opinionated, and Super VHS is the lo-fi machine in their lineup: the one you reach for when a clean signal is too polite and you want the wobble, hiss, and smeared high end of a worn VHS tape. It’s not a subtle corrective tool. It’s a character plugin, and character plugins live or die on whether the character is good.

The reason this bundle matters is price context. Baby Audio sells their plugins individually, and even on sale they don’t sit at four or five euros. Getting a full license for the cost of a coffee is the kind of thing that makes a magazine back issue worth hunting down, especially if you’re building out a lofi or tape-flavored palette and don’t want to spend real money experimenting.

Here’s my honest take on where it fits. Super VHS is best used as a send or on individual sources where you want the degradation: drum breaks, synth stabs, sampled keys, anything that needs to sit back in the mix with a bit of grit. On a full mix bus it can get muddy fast if you push it. Treat it as seasoning, not a foundation. That’s true of most tape emulations, and it’s the mistake I see people make constantly when they first load one up.

What it won’t do

Don’t expect a restoration tool or a clean tape saturator. If you want gentle harmonic warmth without the artifacts, something like the tape mode on a proper bus compressor will serve you better. Super VHS leans into the lo-fi, and that’s the point. If you’re after the kind of smooth, glue-y character that a good optical compressor provides (the LA-2A style, slow and forgiving, gluing a mix while flattering each part), this isn’t that plugin. Different job entirely.

The broader lesson: character plugins are cheap now. There’s a whole ecosystem of free and near-free tools that do this. OTT, the multiband upward/downward compressor from Steve Duda, is free and still one of the most aggressive energy-adders out there. Valhalla Supermassive is free and does enormous evolving spaces. So the question with any cheap bundle isn’t “is this good value in isolation” but “does this fill a gap I actually have.” Super VHS does fill a specific gap: lo-fi tape character in one knob-friendly interface. If that gap is empty in your plugin folder, this is close to a no-brainer.

Cubase LE 15: read the fine print

Now the DAW half. Cubase LE 15 is a stripped-down version of Steinberg’s flagship, and the important thing to understand is that LE is a real, working entry point, not a demo. It has track limits and a reduced feature set compared to Pro, but it’s genuinely usable for getting started, learning the Cubase workflow, or running a small project.

Worth knowing what the full version looks like, because it tells you what LE is trimming. Cubase 15’s headline additions include an expanded modulator system with six new modulator types (Random Generator, Sample & Hold, Wavefold LFO, Crossfader, Attack/Decay, and Morph LFO), a new melodic mode for the pattern sequencer, redesigned Expression Maps for orchestral and media composers, stem separation, two new effects, and the Omnivocal vocal synthesis engine currently in open beta. Reviews of the full release note that stem separation quality lags behind dedicated third-party tools, and Omnivocal as a beta can’t match commercial alternatives yet. Those are Pro-version features anyway. LE won’t give you most of them, and that’s fine for what it is.

The one improvement that matters across the board: stock plugin UIs are finally scalable. If you’ve ever squinted at a cramped Cubase plugin window on a high-resolution display, you know why that’s a real quality-of-life fix.

So what’s the actual verdict on the Cubase side? If you already own a DAW you’re happy with, LE is a curiosity. Install it, poke around, and forget it. But if you’ve been meaning to try Cubase without committing to the Pro price, this is the cheapest legitimate route in. LE licenses are also upgradeable, so it’s not a dead end if you later decide you want the full thing.

Who should actually buy this

  • Lo-fi and tape-curious producers who want Super VHS and don’t already own it. This is the clear win, and it’s why the issue is worth grabbing.
  • Total beginners who need a DAW and a character plugin in one purchase for under five euros. Genuinely hard to beat as a starting kit.
  • Collectors of magazine back issues who want the #250 milestone for the shelf. Fair enough.

And who should skip it? Anyone who already owns a tape emulation they like, and anyone who already runs a modern DAW. You’d be paying for software you’ll install, open once, and uninstall. I’ve done that with more cover-mount bundles than I’d like to admit, and the shelf full of dead installers is a small monument to optimism.

The other thing to check before buying: what format the plugin ships in, and whether that matches your system. Magazine cover software sometimes lags on Apple Silicon native builds or arrives VST-only when you need AU. Confirm the installer situation for your setup, because a four-euro bargain that won’t load on your machine is just four euros gone.

The bottom line on the #250 bundle

This is one of the better magazine bundles in recent memory, mostly because Baby Audio Super VHS is a plugin people actually reach for rather than a throwaway lite edition nobody wanted. Cubase LE 15 is the bonus, not the headline, but it’s a legitimate door into Steinberg’s ecosystem.

If you’re already sorted for tape character and DAWs, there’s no reason to chase this. If you’re not, five euros for a character plugin you’ll use plus an entry-level DAW is the kind of deal that doesn’t need a hard sell. Just check the format compatibility, and don’t expect Super VHS to be the subtle, clean saturator it isn’t.