Lithuanian-based Bedtime Company has launched a Kickstarter to fund production of tape!, a compact, battery-powered, four-track stereo recorder and asynchronous looper.
tape! is designed to be very compact, but to still offer a lot of useful features for musicians, including asynchronous looping, variable speed playback, built-in microphones, sound-on-sound overdubbing, and more.
Here’s the official video intro:
Features:
- Four track: tape! is capable of asynchronous playback at different speeds and directions per track. Each track can loop over its own section, or overlap with other tracks. It is possible to sync loops for more rhythm-centered composing approach
- Varispeed: inspired by classic tape machines, tape! allows speed adjustments during both recording and playback.
- Loops & tapes: tape! stores data on virtual “tapes” with adjustable length up to 45 minutes long. Record samples, jams or field records and mash, mix or compose them right on tape! Spice up your sound with various tape types, each with its own distinctive sound character. And with 32GB Built-in storage (~23 hours of recording) there is plenty of space for your experiments.
- Sound on sound, overdub & bounce: infinitely record over existing material, adjust feedback amount to emulate delay line (up to 45 min long!) or bounce existing tracks on neighbor tapeheads for classic resampling fun!
- Configurable effects chain: despite its compact size, tape! includes built-in effects like delay, filters and modulation. Tune in your desired tape feel by combining different effects in chain! All processing done in 32-bit floats to allow maximum headroom and clarity.
- Microphones: built-in MEMS microphones provide high SNR audio for everyday recording needs, although it’s not intended to replace high-end field recording equipment. The opposite location of mics allows capturing wide stereo field.
- Connectivity & battery: powered by a Li-Polymer battery, tape! can operate for at least 8 hours on a single charge. Type-C connector simplifies charging, file transfers and software updates.
- User-friendly: tape! features streamlined workflow and the developers say that they are working on full-fledged MIDI implementation to allow seamless integration into live setup, studio process or bedroom noodling.
Pricing and Availability:
Production of tape! is being funded via a crowdfunding project on Kickstarter, and it’s available to project backers for $450 USD.
Note: Crowdfunding projects involve risk. See the project site for details.
If behringer got into reliable affordable 4 or 8 track tapes recorders, sure there would be some fanbois.
I picked up a Tascam 424 at a thrift store for $75. Taught myself recording. Published some results too! Love a good lo fi sampler music concrete tape collage ?
$450? This is a great project for Behringer to do next – They can do it for $100. Can’t wait for Uli’s version!
So you’re openly cheering for a multi billion dollar corporation with massive production plants in China to randomly rip off some Lithuanian indie developers gadget just to save a few bucks on something you weren’t planning to buy to begin with? As a musician and music tech afficionado, I find that a very odd perspective.
That’s the mindset of Behringer fanboys, though.
They think that they guys that actually design original gear are ‘ripoff artists’, and that Uli is their saviour for making cheap copies.
The fanboys actually seem to revel in the idea that Behringer puts smaller companies that do original designs out of business.
The notion that Behringer would even be interested in cloning an obscure kickstarter project with a very modest amount of backers is just invented anger over something that simply isn’t happening.
Not a Behringer fanboy (the only Behringer product I own is an old mixer), but if you’re going to vent the frustrations of the working week on an angry anti-Behringer rant, at least keep it somewhat based in reality.
I get wanting the device to be cheaper (same here) but publicly asking for Goliath to squash David is crass.
Actually, in an historical perspective, Goliath (since you brought it up) and his fellow Philistines were in the position of the Palestinians today, facing basically the same Israel as today. It’s all a matter of perspective. Remember, history is written by the winners. History is always somebody’s advertisement.
Innocently referring to the stealing of the creative work of small innovative companies as “a great project” is more than crass.
A less awful way to put it is, “See, Uli, this is just one example of the kind of clever and creative device you could create from scratch if you weren’t spending all your time and energy ripping off other innovators.”
I have about five products that live in my brain, that will NEVER be made, but would at least have a cult following– Uli team HAS come up with a few original ideas– proving they can. But B-word wants the easy money– and fans of B-word want the cheap, regardless of the consequences.
We now return to our previously schedule program…
“This is a great project for Behringer to do next”
It sounds like you’re not paying attention to what Behringer actually does.
They avoid stuff that’s niche like this, and stuff that requires a lot of original thinking.
Their bread and butter is copying older designs, where there’s no IP to worry about, and then only if it will have mass market appeal.
This looks cool and if I didn’t already have an OP-1 which does a lot of the same things I’d definitely be interested in it.
No matter what way you slice it $450 is a totally ridiculous price for this
Absolutely! This is territory of first-gen Digitakt or first-gen Octatrack and it looks like this looper has no chances.
This is completely different than a first-gen Digitakt or first-gen Octatrack, because it’s designed to do a few things, simply and well.
There’s an audience for well-designed tools that aren’t a completely clusterfuck to use.
I’m a fan of Elektron’s gear (and own an Octatrack & A4), but their designs are definitely usability clusterfucks. Especially the Octatrack. There’s an entire category of Youtubers that are dedicated to trying to explain how the Octatrack works!
This is not that.
…the Octatrack is versatile and can do a lot of stuff, that makes it complicated in a way. But if you wrapped your head around that it can be very flexible and easy to use. Totally other thing than the tape!…which looks interesting.
450$ for that…idk, seems a bit much for what it does regarding that you can use your smartdevicetelephone for such things too.anyway good look and i like approaches like these very much!
I looked at this kickstarter yesterday because I think it’s a cool concept, and the “totally ridiculous” $450 tier is “sold out” so now it is $499. If this was $150-$200 I’d be SUPER interested, but at $500 it’s a no go for me.
It’s absurd
Tell us more about the affordable alternatives for pocket recorder/loopers.
It seems that most people here are fixated on accumulating things and on their decision making ability. When they’re unable to afford something they often compare it to an ipad and focus solely on its price. They either criticize the product or dismiss the target audience as a way to regain control over what feels like an uncomfortable situation.
Zoom R4. It’s $160, does 4 tracks with bounce and has a mic. A zoom L6 is cheaper and that’s a full audio interface, mixer, and recorder. I can keep going.
That’s very relative. It sounds like it’s too expensive for you, but for many people it’s likely an appropriate price. The early bird price is sold out and a number of people have pledged at $500. I can’t think of any other pocket sized field recorder, looper, 4 track with FX on the market. I won’t be buying one but it seems like a decent price for what it does. Not to mention it’s a tiny company.
Yep, but that’s the price people pay for being gullible. I’m guessing people would be prepared to pay about 5 times that price if they put a Teenage Engineering logo on it.
I was all set to back this but then I saw the price 🙁
…which might not be so bad except I’d have to wait until the middle of next year (at the earliest) to even get the product… I’m so done with Kickstarters… I hate waiting (especially being out the 500 bucks in the meantime). Wake me up when the product is ready and maybe I will reconsider!
Don’t get me wrong, looks great and really fun. Something like this probably already exists for my Monome Norns Shield though, as well. Plus I already have an old cheap Tascam 4 track so I am GAS free, for now 🙂
https://b.edti.me/projects/norns/reels/
It has four track stereo. Describes itself just like my cassette recorder.
So what do I have to do (flip over) to get the other stereo track?
this is beautiful and i’m definitely the target audience for this. i also think the price is not so high considering it’s a tiny operation around the same price point as a Chase Bliss Gen Loss. but it’s tough to justify already having many loopers and multiple iterations of the Gen loss already. i think it fantastic and looks like they already have more than their backing. very cool.
I would have thought 160 backers is very small for totally custom hardware and ground-up software. This partly explains the higher price of course. I hope they manage to make it because it looks very nice.
People fantasize about how things like this should be dirt cheap, but this type of thing is a cool idea for a very niche audience.
I’d guess that they can get 300-400 backers at the price, which is a pretty small number. But I’d guess that a lot of gear that’s extremely influential among synthesists – like modules from Mutable Instruments, Make Noise or Erica Synths – probably originally sold in those sort of numbers.
No big company is going to do something like this. So, if people want this sort of thing to exist, they have to support it.
It’s a norns shield with the buttons removed. You can get them pre-assembled for about $200 and the company already released the software on shield for free. Your comment must be paid glaze
it’s a norns shield with fewer buttons
I might not be the brightest at math, but according to the Kickstarter page, I managed to count up to four buttons, which I’m quite sure is slightly more than three. Also, based on the same page, I doubt it’s a Norns Shield at all. Norns is essentially a Raspberry Pi, and this clearly isn’t that.
This looks cool and I’m very pro-hardware but I don’t see much (anything?) to be gained over an ipad mini running Loopy Pro, which is configurable to do whatever you want at any level of complexity.
I will not be backing this, but for me personally I massively prefer hardware to software. I have an iPad pro that I use for music making, but I get much more excited about sitting down with my small collection of hardware devices than I do with sitting down and looking at a screen.
There was some weird noise (aliasing?) in the initial playback of the bell sample.
Zoom has the R4, a 4 track (with an additional bounce track) recorder, 32-float, with built in mic, & FX, for around $200 USD. No playback speed manipulation capability.
The idea of having that independent asynchronous playback makes this kind of unique. Fits in a specific little niche.
Cassette recorder, $20.
Boutique digital cassette recorder, $450. Bragging rights.
For $20 and a little Sam Battle soldering ingenuity, anyone can make an analog looper.
This is a 10 bucks app with a case around it, because apparently all these toy collectors need to click and touch everything or it’s not “real”…
You say all that like they’re bad things… ?
The things may not be bad but the pretense is.
i like the smiley face.
Just a machine surfing on the lo-fi wave.
Not a serious tool but just a toy.
Why not ? A musical toy is always interesting. But at $500… help!