TapeDesk: 4-Track Tape Studio

iOS Universel / Musique

Open it, hit rec, and the idea's on tape before you've thought about it.

TapeDesk is a 4-track tape recorder for iPhone — an instrument, not a studio. No arming, no project setup, no menus to learn. There's a tape, a playhead, and a record button. Press it and the take is just there.

— DRAG THE SPEED, THE PITCH GOES WITH IT —
Real varispeed from 0.25× to 2×, across the whole tape. Slow it and the voice sinks; speed it and it climbs, the way the cassette decks this grew out of did. There's no "keep pitch" switch — that's the point. Record at the bent speed and it's printed into the take. Scratch and scrub the tape like vinyl.

— LOOP ON, AND IT'S A LIVE LOOPER —
Turn loop on, play a part, play another over it. It stacks while you listen — sound-on-sound, live. Hear the layers build, commit when it's right.

— FOUR TRACKS, ONE MACHINE —
Record, overdub, bounce. Cut at the playhead, join (it heals the cut), trim, move, duplicate, undo — non-destructive, and it all survives a relaunch. A real mixer underneath: fader, meter, pan, input trim, two effect sends and mute per track. Merge two tracks into one to free a lane.

— THREE TAPE EFFECTS, BUILT BY HAND —
Not licensed plugins. Three effects written in C++ from scratch, in the engine:
• TapeSat — magnetic-tape saturation by Jiles-Atherton hysteresis (drive, tone, bias, age)
• Delay — a tape delay that wavers because real tape wavered (time, feedback, tone, wow)
• Reverb — an 8-line feedback room, not a sample of someone else's hall (decay, tone, drip, damp)
They print into the take. Bounce, and what you heard is what's on the tape — there's no render step where it comes out different.

— EJECT A FINISHED MIX —
Export the master or per-track stems, WAV or M4A, the whole tape or one loop cycle, straight to the share sheet. Press eject and it's done.

— IT LOCKS TO THE ROOM —
Ableton Link or MIDI Clock. Start your gear and TapeDesk falls into step, riding the tempo. Tap tempo, time signature, metronome, count-in.

— BOUGHT, NOT RENTED —
No subscription. No accounts, no sign-ups, no email wall. No ads, no analytics, no tracking — Data Not Collected, and we mean it literally. Your recordings never leave the phone.

Built and tested on a real iPhone by one person. Native Swift and a hand-written C++ audio engine, so it feels solid — zero latency you can feel, no hitches, no dropouts. Haptic transport, lock-screen and Control Center control, crash recovery. Localized in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Japanese, with four app icons.

That's the deck. Then it's out of your way.

iPhone, iOS 17+. iPad runs as a companion.