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Show HN: Tape It – iOS recording app for musicians

116 points by earthnail 5y ago

Hello HN, Over the last 15 months, two friends and I developed the music recording app we felt we wanted based on our own needs as musicians. It's called Tape It [1] and has just recently hit the Apple App Store [2]. We put a lot of effort into a good UX to help musicians really focus on playing their instrument instead of pretending to be a recording engineer. The app records in stereo on newer iPhones (although that's a premium feature; the free version only records in standard mono audio quality). I would be really grateful for advice from this community on how to best approach marketing. We had a great TechCrunch article covering our launch [3], and we posted it on various music websites. Turns out advertising on Google or Apple Search is a dark art, though. We have some good ideas for developing a good social media presence, but they will take time. Please hit us with feedback, opinions and advice that you think a young indie company like us can use at this point :). And of course, please go and try the app! Best, Thomas [1] https://tape.it https://tape.it [2] https://get.tape.it https://get.tape.it [3] https://tcrn.ch/3nbODHD https://tcrn.ch/3nbODHD

Malp 5y ago
Going to test this later, I really like the time paragraph feature from a cursory glance. Very intuitive.
- JanNash 5y ago
  Thanks. Have fun taping it :)
- avisser 5y ago
  Is the paragraph width adjustable? I love the idea of "one screen width == 4 bars" or similar. If it could detect and automatically set width to align with measures, even better.
  - earthnail 5y ago
    Thanks for that idea. The paragraph width is currently fixed to three minutes, but a pinch-to-zoom gesture would definitely be very intuitive. Automatic beat, downbeat and onset detection is on our roadmap, too - not just for adjusting the paragraph width, but also for placing markers and dropping the playhead so that it doesn't cut the onset. It's actually not trivial to implement a good beat tracker for these "loose" recording scenarios - you might fluctuate in your tempo, start and stop again without pausing the recording process, etc.. We won't ship it this year, but I promise it's high on our priority list for next year :).
highdevtalk 5y ago
Looks promising! Congrats on the launch. Any plans to incorporate the ability to work with backing tracks?
- earthnail 5y ago
  Absolutely. The next thing we're working on right now is sharing - but not social-media like sharing, but rather sharing with friends and giving feedback. There are many ways of giving feedback, but one way is to record over someone else's track. Which means that at that point, we'll have to introduce multitracking and will automatically also support the ability to work with backing tracks. We're also thinking a lot about how to incorporate this with workflows with existing studio software. Say, for example, that your drummer and your recording engineer are stuck tweaking the snare drum sound for the next five hours (chances are it will sound the same afterwards anyway), then you should just be able to take the track in its current form out of the DAW and use Tape It to play some new ideas over it. Which is probably a very long anser for: yes, we'll definitely incorporate the ability to work with backing tracks. But it might take us a bit of time to find out how to get the UX right :-).
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hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
When I was in a band, we used a simple digital audio recorder to document our sessions. The annotations look helpful for trying to remember what you were working on in the previous session. How did you perform the instrument detection?
- earthnail 5y ago
  We collected existing recording data from musicians (that website is still online: https://tape.it/needsyourhelp https://tape.it/needsyourhelp), annotated it manually with Prodi.gy, and then trained a YAMnet model for the classification. Granted, had we known that Apple would ship a much improved version of their own sound classifier in iOS 15, we probably wouldn't have invested so much work in it - their new pretrained model is truly outstanding (although it only works on iOS >= 15). But I don't regret doing it; we learned a lot about mobile deployment of ML models, which will come in very handy when we deploy our next ML features for audio quality improvements.
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chrisweekly 5y ago
Bug report: iOS 14.8 iPhone X Install from app store, open app, tap red circle to create first recording. Confirm/yes when prompted to allow TapeIt to access mic. Tap red circle again to create first recording. App crash. Relaunch, try again a few times. Every time, red circle record button -> immediate crash. :( UPDATE: Removed TapeIt and reinstalled it: now it works as expected.
- JanNash 5y ago
  Hey Chris, thanks for the quick report. Yeah, I've just seen the crashes appear in Sentry. Glad to hear that it does work as expected after the reinstall (although it's definitely unfortunate that it crashed before, sorry for the inconvenience). Did you experience any other weird behaviour before the crash? Best, Jan (from Tape It :)
  - YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 5y ago
    Very creepy.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - vlovich123 5y ago
      Why? I’m sure the usage is low enough that a user hitting the same issue, likely similar in time to their post, stands out quite well and can be linked to a public report.
      - JanNash 5y ago
        Well put, thanks. Also, (I know I'm possibly jinxing it by writing it out loud) we currently have a pretty decent crash-free rate, thus, there weren't that many (fatal) issues to choose from :)
        vlovich123 5y ago
import 5y ago
Looks great. BPM and key/scale detection would be awesome.
- JanNash 5y ago
  Thanks :) Yes, I also think that BPM detection would be amazing and we are likely going to implement it in a future version. Scale detection does also sound like an interesting feature. However, I can't think of many use cases for key detection since (at least for me) it's quite common to just transpose a lick or some chords as necessary (e.g. joining them together with a different lick or melody or chord progression which I had maybe recorded on another day in another key). So when I'm searching for elements to use in a song, I don't find myself checking the key of each of those elements often or even searching them by key. Still, I'd be interested to know what use cases you see for key detection :)
  - nerdite 5y ago
    Key detection would help me remember what chords I’m using. If it’s in B I’m probably capo 2/A or Capo 4/G for instance.
    - JanNash 5y ago
      That's an interesting point. Currently, you could write that down in the Notes of that recording or take a photo of your Capo position for example.
KuiN 5y ago
Can this record the output of other audio/music creation apps (thinking like synths, instruments or AUM) or is it just the microphone?
- JanNash 5y ago
  Currently, it's just recording the via the built in microphone.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    I'm sad to hear, was thinking of using it with a headset jack adapter splitter (allows you to plug in a microphone/whatever as source) but seems I'll continue using the built in camera for my recordings instead.
dmje 5y ago
Like the look of it, will try later (working on assumption it'll be ok on iPad...?) (if not: any Android version incoming...?!)
- JanNash 5y ago
  Thanks :). Yes, it works on iPad, although currently only using the normal "iPhone App on iPad" compatibility mode. Make sure to start the App while the iPad is in Portrait mode, we have a bug there that might else prevent you from tapping "Next" in the onboarding. This bug is fixed in 1.0.1, of which we're currently, let's say, experiencing [...] the App Store Review process (which is not always an easy one as some of you might know as well :). We hope to release 1.0.1 in a few days, as it includes some other bugfixes as well. At the moment, an Android version is not planned.
comboy 5y ago
It would be great if you stated right away what's advantage of using it over say GarageBand. Is it just about cleaner UI?
- earthnail 5y ago
  Hi Comboy, It's not trying to compete with GarageBand. GarageBand itself is an instrument in a way; it comes with lots of built-in sounds, loops and more. You should rather think of it as a replacement for Voice Memos :-).
  - prionassembly 5y ago
    Why should I use it over Voice Memos?
    - earthnail 5y ago
      - You can actually find things again. I personally have so many recordings that are all named after my home address, and it's almost impossible to find anything older than a week. - You can take notes, both text and photo notes. For example, you can just take a picture of your amp settings to remember them. Many musicians already do that with their camera, but now you can keep it together with your recording - Much, MUCH better handling of long recording sessions with the Time Paragraph (see website for screenshots). Voice Memos becomes practically unusable once your recording is longer than three minutes. - Small things like when you play a recording, it will automatically play the next one after it - like Apple Music or Spotify. It is super handy when you just want to review past ideas. We know a lot of musicians who use Box instead of Dropbox for storing their recordings simply because Box will always play the whole folder, whereas Dropbox just plays a single file. - And of course, much better recording quality by using two microphones on your iPhone instead of one - although that is actually our premium feature. Everything else I listed you get for free :-). If you're using Voice Memos to record music today, I recommend you give the app a try. And please let me know your thoughts here once you tried it!
      - 5y ago
abalaji 5y ago
With how many musicians use voice memos on iOS, this hits the right niche--somewhere between voice memos and garage band.
- JanNash 5y ago
  > somewhere between voice memos and garage band Nicely put :)
- kall 5y ago
  Interestingly, apple at one point made an app just like this called "Music Memos" but dropped it pretty soon. I think it has been partly rolled into garageband.
  - _red 5y ago
    "Music Memos" was the perfect 'recording snippet app' for me. I honestly think they let a diamond in the rough escape them. The tempo detection and ability to overlay basic drum / bass backing was brilliant.
- filmgirlcw 5y ago
  As mentioned, Apple launched an app just for that, Music Memos, and it was a great idea but fairly niche and not updated much over the nearly five years it was out. Apple discontinued it in December 2020. Fun (well, maybe not fun, but interesting) fact: when Apple was doing press briefings for the app, they managed to get me a quote from now-disgraced musical artist Ryan Adams (who was in the middle of a career renaissance of sorts after his acclaimed cover album of Taylor Swift’s acclaimed 1989), in part because they knew I was a big fan of his. It just feels awkward nearly six years later, but at the time, Apple was leaning really hard on the respected establishment community of musicians to push the app. It’s a shame it never seemed to have much life or uptick after its release because as a 1.0/MVP it was really good. And with just a few more features, it could hack been an insanely useful app for lots of musicians who naturally use Voice Memos to capture lyrics or riffs or other content. Alas.
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coldwaraaron 5y ago
This looks great. Sharing it with my musician friends. Will follow up with feedback after putting it through the paces.
- JanNash 5y ago
  Thanks a bunch :)
n_sonic 5y ago
Hello! So I was very excited to hear that this app made stereo recordings. I make field recordings to use in my own compositions, so the idea of an app that does this was intriguing (and there seem to be none currently on the app store, unless I'm missing them?) I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but it's not recording in stereo? I verified by opening the file in Audacity (sent via AirDrop). I tried holding my phone (iPhone 12 Pro) in both portrait and horizontal orientations (because I'm not sure if you needed to do this to make it work?) Is there a way to make the stereo recording work (at least, can I verify it somehow before committing to a purchase?)
- JanNash 5y ago
  High quality stereo recording is only available in our premium subscription (20$/year). The subscription comes with a one month free trial, which should give you some time to try it and see if you like it :)
  - n_sonic 5y ago
    So, I don't mind trials and subscriptions. And I will give this another go, however.. When I went to make my initial recording, the app asked me if I wanted to "try [Stereo HD]". I did this thinking that I could verify that stereo worked. If you're not going to let me try it without committing, you may want to rethink the onboarding flow a bit? But still, personally I'd consider giving users a proper taste of the power of the app, without commitment. Allowing them to try stereo for just the first recording would be a great introduction to the app. You could even time limit it to 10 seconds or something. If you imply that the app is recording in "stereo" / "HD", but then exporting the audio results in a mono audio file, just makes me think it doesn't work. (The app even adds a [HD] label under the recording, which makes it even more confusing when you export it and it's mono.) Apart from the above (hopefully constructive criticism) I'm looking forward to seeing this develop :)
    - earthnail 5y ago
      Interesting. That is actually how the app works today: you actually have to tap try Stereo HD, then make a stereo recording that is at least 10 seconds long before pressing "try Stereo HD" again presents you with the paywall. We got a lot of feedback from users (and from Apple in their App Review -.-) that that was confusing; they wanted to see the paywall straight away. So now we're considering removing that try-it-once-without-starting-a-trial mode. Regarding exporting to mono: no, that shouldn't happen. It should definitely export to stereo. The exporting process doesn't touch the file. Would you mind sending me that audio file to thomas@tape.it if it's not a very private recording (of course we'll treat it privately; just for internal debugging)?
bezieio 5y ago
Nice work! I like the option to annotate with photos and notes! Have you guys checked out Spire? It's a free app, but could be paired with their hardware. It's different in that it's a really simple app for multitrack recording and editing, but I've also been using it for a similar function as Tape It. Not to take away from your work though, I will give the app a go :)
- earthnail 5y ago
  Thanks a lot for your nice words :-). Yeah, we checked out Spire, and I actually have their hardware at home, too - but I rarely ever use it. Spire's sales were significantly below iZotope's expectations, too. I think it's a great attempt, but IMHO they didn't quite get it right - they focused too much on multitracking and sacrificed basic usability. We're hoping that we don't make that same mistake, but of course only time will tell. And as always, different people have different needs - maybe Spire fits your workflow much better! It would be fantastic if you could leave another comment once you tried the app - really looking forward to hearing what you think of it!
FigurativeVoid 5y ago
I have been using voice memos for field recording and recording different ideas. I am excited to give this a try!
subhro 5y ago
I am probably one of the few that use my iPhone more or less like a dumb phone, so pardon my ignorance. Is the iPhone mic able to pick the entire audible spectrum (and then some)? Does this mean companies like Neumann, Shure, Rode should feel someone is coming for their lunch?
- chris_st 5y ago
  Anecdata, but a number of people in the online guitar group I'm in report that their iDevice can't really hear their bass guitar. My iPad Pro can, indeed, hear my bass fairly well, but I don't use it for recording the bass (long story). The microphone is, as I understand it, optimized for voice communication, since its main original job is to be a telephone.
  - earthnail 5y ago
    Apple has fairly strong incentives to improve recording quality overall, including just better audio quality for the videos you shoot. Given the form factor of the iPhones, I'm frankly blown away by the sound quality you get from them. The SPL they can handle is absurd. Admittedly, your comment made me curious - I think I might have to annoy my neighbours with some bass playing this evening. In my experience, recording with my iPhone Xs, the bass frequencies of my synth are picked up extremely well. If the bass is indeed lacking, maybe we can recover some of it algorithmically. I'm not thinking about EQing, more like having a fantastic paper idea for some good academic work :-).
    - chris_st 5y ago
      Very cool! Just tried my bass into my iPhone 11 Pro max, recorded okay, but Tape It identified it as keyboards.
      - earthnail 5y ago
        Ooops :D. I'll take the version 1.0 excuse card if I may :D. All kidding aside, we know our instrument detection has room for improvement. But you gotta start somewhere :).
lux 5y ago
Just downloaded to play with later, but one feature all these apps are missing is an easy import + loop feature. I want to quickly import a clip and loop it seamlessly so I can riff on it. I don't care about overdubbing or having a DAW on my phone, but I want to be able to easily iterate on an idea and struggle to do that on the go with any iOS app I've tried.
- earthnail 5y ago
  Thanks so much for your feedback. Import, looping and overdubbing is definitely something we will support in the future. We're just really mindful about not cluttering the UI, so we're taking it one step at a time. You should try the Capture app by Soundtrap. It basically has exactly that functionality you describe. It's quite limited beyond that, IMHO, but give it a go and let me know what you think.
  - lux 5y ago
    Awesome to hear! And thanks for the suggestion too, will try that today as well. Looping for my use case can be as simple as a toggle button (even in a hamburger menu somewhere :). I also know the challenges of looping mp3s seamlessly and am only thinking of wavs. Cheers!
    - lux 5y ago
      Follow up assessment of Soundtrap Capture (and Soundtrap Studio): - Capture: Import was super easy but I see no way to loop, so that's out. - Studio: Full-blown collaborative DAW (overkill) but importing your own loops is gone (wtf?!). Looks like I'll wait for you guys to hopefully add importing audio files and looping.
      - earthnail 5y ago
        Thanks for your feedback. I'll promise you we'll add it. No promise on the timeline, though (sorry, hope you understand that). But we'll add it. We always planned to. If you sign up to our email newsletter on our website, you will also hear from us when the feature is out. There will likely be a few emails before that I'm afraid, as we have a few other features in the pipeline worth communicating, but I promise that we'll treat your inbox with respect.
jamilbk 5y ago
Nice work! Congrats on hitting the app store. I’m excited to use this for our next hours-long jam session. How does the instrument detection work? Does it do anything else besides change the icon for a tape? It would be so cool to just show up at a jam session, hit record on my iphone, and get all that multitrack goodness without having to mic everything separately. But I realize that’s asking a lot from the AI gods :-).
- earthnail 5y ago
  Yep, you're asking a lot of the AI gods, but then again if you don't have big dreams, how is big change ever going to happen? :D Yes, right now it only changes the icon for a tape, even though we actually track and save it at a per-second level. Obviously there is quite a bit room for more use of this in the future, but the icon is a start :-). Also notice, by the way, that the waveform is black for music and grey for speech - particularly handy in a jam session. You can see exactly when a take started and when it ended. So called "blind source separation" (i.e. get multitracks from just one mic) is possible today, but with fairly audible artifacts. The most popular library in use today is Spleeter [1], which is based on Andreas Jansson et al.'s work at Spotify [2]. There are newer algorithms in academia, a good overview is provided at [3]. If you want to do something today, iZotope's RX is very good, and a great example that demonstrates how good old DSP engineering can dramatically reduce the unwanted artifacts even in new ML-based approaches. Then again, my real question would be: why would you want a multitrack recording from your jam session? Is it to be able to further adjust the mix afterwards? Do you need the individual instrument tracks for practicing? Would be really interested in hearing your use case :-). [1] https://github.com/deezer/spleeter https://github.com/deezer/spleeter [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=0B-hypsAAAAJ&citation_for_view=0B-hypsAAAAJ:9yKSN-GCB0IC https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h... [3] https://sigsep.github.io https://sigsep.github.io
52-6F-62 5y ago
This is cool. I use Voice Memos regularly to jot down ideas and it has its limitations, so work in this space is really welcome! I don't have anything to contribute on the marketing front, so all I can say add is just keep it up! I really enjoy seeing useful cross-sections of music and software. edit: Just downloaded it and gave it a try. Even on my iPhone 8 it's nice and snappy. Love the markers and the ability to set them _while_ recording. Great work! If I ever get around to upgrading my phone I'll definitely consider the stereo HD!
- JanNash 5y ago
  Hey 82-111-98 (:D). Thanks a lot for the feedback and for trying our App. We're happy you like it :)
plainOldText 5y ago
I like the minimalism and thoughtfulness of the interface. Something is not clear however. Where do recordings get stored? On device, iCloud? I think it would be nice to know where your data gets stored, and maybe have a choice or two.
- earthnail 5y ago
  Currently, all recordings are stored on device. If you have iCloud backup enabled, they will also be backed up to iCloud as part of your regular backup. See also our privacy policy (ours is actually readable!): https://tape.it/privacy https://tape.it/privacy We're thinking a lot about how we will do this in the future when we start adding collaboration and sharing. Not FB or insta-like sharing, but rather within a close circle of friends (like your band our your choir). For that, we'll need to introduce accounts, and cloud storage. It's not complicated on a technical level (or at least not rocket science), but we're very aware that not everyone wants their data scattered throughout the internet. We're currently contemplating whether we leave most data on-device and only put shared tapes on our cloud, or whether we just sync everything by default. If we were to add some kind of Dropbox-like storage (on our own servers) that would make it trivial to share your recordings with friends, would that be something you'd welcome or would you rather be put off by having your recordings in yet another cloud?
41209 5y ago
Will this work with a USB audio interface ?
- earthnail 5y ago
  I'm afraid not, no. But you're not the first one asking this question - if it keeps on popping up, we might reconsider that decision.
ronjouch 5y ago
Note: requires iOS 14. I would have liked to give it a try, and pay if it proves superior to Apple's "Music Memos", but I can't, as I run an iPhone 6 / iOS 12 that is still very functional and security-patched by Apple (iOS 12.5.5 shipped last week). As a developer, I can for sure understand you're limiting to the "latest and greatest" for API usage simplicity, but I urge you to reconsider requiring iOS 14. Two arguments for you to consider, one ethical, and one business: 1. I've met plenty of people sensitive ecologically and willing to keep their phone as long as possible. As a result, they run old iOSes. 2. Musicians are rarely making millions, and thus cautious with tech spending. By restricting to iOS 14, you're leaving money on the table.
- earthnail 5y ago
  Thank you very much for your feedback. I very much understand where you're coming from, and I think you make a very good point outlining that in particular musicians are usually quite short on cash and can't afford the latest and greatest iPhone. We need at least iOS 14 for the stereo recording functionality. Even then, not all devices that support iOS 14 also support stereo recording, and we don't even offer the in-app purchase option on those devices that don't support it. We also make heavy use of CoreML, for which we require at least iOS 13. So in theory, we could go one version lower, but since all devices that support iOS 13 also support 14 and 15, we will likely increase the minimum version to iOS 15 once it has reached significant adoption, because of the improvements to CoreML iOS 15 ships with. I know it's not the answer you wanted. I hope you understand that this choice wasn't made out of ignorance, but simply due to hard technical limitations.
  - ronjouch 5y ago
    Okay, thanks for the precise reply; makes sense for CoreML. Bookmarking your site, will give your app a try when my trusty iPhone 6 breaks and I get a newer one. Take care.
  - tigeba 5y ago
    I write and record music and this seems pretty useful as a tool for songwriting. I can think of some cases where the notes and photo notes for gear and the markers are useful. The instrument detection is I guess neat, but I can tell what I'm playing by listening. Stereo is also not really particularly appealing or interesting, especially if it has weird ML processing on it. One pain point I frequently hit when doing actual recording is saving settings from external analog devices if I want to recall them in a future session via notes. This seems like this could be close to covering this scenario as well. Congrats on launching.
sneak 5y ago
I'm in the target market for this app, but I don't download or use apps that transmit my usage data off the device without my consent.
adrianpthomas 5y ago
Looks really nice - simple design, clear focus, looks like a great music memos replacement!
- JanNash 5y ago
  Thanks :)
fagerhult 5y ago
This looks brilliant, I've been recording scraps of music with voice memos for years and I've been missing exactly the features you have. Great work! I'd love a way to import my existing voice memo library into Tape It!
- earthnail 5y ago
  Glad you like it :). Regarding import: Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t provide access to the Voice Memos library. If you have a suggestion on how to overcome that (in a way that passes the App Store review), please let us know. We’d be super grateful.
_red 5y ago
Thanks for entering this space. One thing I would love for you to add is the concept of "Folders" (or projects / songs / whatever you want to call it). Here is the point: Sometimes I will record 14 different versions of a lick, chord progression, etc for a song idea. Typically its over the course of several days. It does me no good to have 14 different files date named XX-YY-ZZZZ, etc. What I want is to group those into "Ideas / Songs / Projects" So should have "Song Idea 1" - 09-27-21 14:24 - 09-25-21 11:24 - 09-23-21 10:42 - 09-23-21 09:17 etc
- earthnail 5y ago
  That is definitely on our todo list. The next update will introduce mixtapes, which are basically playlists (unlike folders, a tape can be in several mixtapes). We‘re also thinking a lot about how we can further group things, like projects/ideas - exactly how you mention it. It‘s gonna take a few design iterations, but it‘ll definitely come :-).
akarma 5y ago
I love this! My one request that would enable me to recommend this to my musician friends is an export feature, along with a promise of adequate notice before a shutdown of the app, to allow people to export their recordings in a worst-case scenario. The one thing that may keep musicians using Apple Voice Memos despite your app seeming much better is that they often make a lot of recordings, and losing them all would be unimaginably tragic.
nomatikco 5y ago
Based on the comments, it looks like you’ve picked a good problem to solve. And as you’ve discovered, building a product is only part of the work, getting it noticed is just as important. I have a few suggestions to consider: - As the musical community is very relationship driven I would prioritize sharing and virality over advertising for discovery. Make it easy to send files to friends and you have a built in promotion. - To get it in their hands and raise awareness, go where your customers are. Open mic nights, music stores, gigs, meetup, reddit. Talk to people, ask questions about how they record themselves. Post a few flyers on bulletin boards. - Try to get featured on some music blogs, podcasts, or youtube channels that have a built in audience. Hope that sparks some ideas. Best of luck!
- earthnail 5y ago
  Thanks a lot for the kind advice. Indeed, sharing is the number one thing we're working on right now. Getting it right will take some time, though. I like the idea of going to where your customers are. We're already trying to do that, but your comment confirms us in this. Music schools and universities etc. are what we have our main eye on right now. Gigs and open mic nights, too, but it scales less well, and it's always a fine line between asking an artist about their workflow and annoying them with self-promotion - in particular on an evening that should be all about them, not us. Reddit we found quite tricky though - the music-related subreddits we found do not allow self-promotion. Apparently they get enough spam already, which I can totally understand. If you have good suggestions for subreddits or other online music forums, I'd greatly appreciate it! Same goes for music blogs etc.
Bud 5y ago
As a professional classical musician for the last 30 years, my first question would be, is this superior to the built-in app on the iPhone for recording, and if so, can you explain how and prove that? Also, as others have said, I would never consider paying until I could try it out in a full-featured way, and I definitely would not pay for yet another subscription service for something that is so dead simple. Especially not $20/yr. If I want to shell out that kind of coin, I can just use a Zoom H4n and own the device myself and have a lot more features, better mics, etc. I do wish you well, though!
- earthnail 5y ago
  Hi Bud, Thanks for your feedback. You can try the entire app for free. In fact, we give away almost the entire app for free, with the exception of the Stereo HD quality. If you are happy with the recording quality that, say, Apple's Voice Memos provides you, our app sounds exactly the same in its free version. As I'm sure you agree, the best way to compare audio quality is just to listen to it. We have a listening example on our website, but you can try it yourself for free in the app for an entire month! The Zoom H4n costs over $200. The sound quality of that device will be much better, but I'd argue that the UX of our product is much nicer. In addition to not having to carry around a dedicated device, there are just so many small UX things we've focused on that make working with audio recording much nicer. Take the Time Paragraph for example - once you start using it, it's really hard to go back to a single line for recordings longer than a few minutes. I get your point about not wanting a subscription for something simple. Truth be told, we're also sceptics when it comes to subscription apps, but as far as we can see it's the lesser of evils. The freemium model allows people to try the entire app for free (and continue using it for free if they're happy with the feature set), and the subscription model allows us to ship major features as they are ready without having to pack them into a paid major upgrade. There's also a psychological component that people are happy to shell out a lot of money for something that looks complex, but not for something that looks simple. Ironically, making a seemingly "simple" app is a lot more work. There's a lot more in this app than just the audio quality. In our team, Jan - who also commented here - is also a professional baritone. I used to do classical singing, too, but not professionally. I feel confident when I say that we fully get your use case for recording. Give the app a try, I think you'll like it :-). It is designed for people like you. Thomas
distartin 5y ago
Love the ui and the color choices on the landing page
deleted 5y ago
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116 points by earthnail 5y ago

Malp 5y ago

Going to test this later, I really like the time paragraph feature from a cursory glance. Very intuitive.

JanNash 5y ago
Thanks. Have fun taping it :)
avisser 5y ago
Is the paragraph width adjustable? I love the idea of "one screen width == 4 bars" or similar. If it could detect and automatically set width to align with measures, even better.
- earthnail 5y ago
  Thanks for that idea. The paragraph width is currently fixed to three minutes, but a pinch-to-zoom gesture would definitely be very intuitive. Automatic beat, downbeat and onset detection is on our roadmap, too - not just for adjusting the paragraph width, but also for placing markers and dropping the playhead so that it doesn't cut the onset. It's actually not trivial to implement a good beat tracker for these "loose" recording scenarios - you might fluctuate in your tempo, start and stop again without pausing the recording process, etc.. We won't ship it this year, but I promise it's high on our priority list for next year :).

highdevtalk 5y ago

Looks promising! Congrats on the launch. Any plans to incorporate the ability to work with backing tracks?

earthnail 5y ago
Absolutely. The next thing we're working on right now is sharing - but not social-media like sharing, but rather sharing with friends and giving feedback. There are many ways of giving feedback, but one way is to record over someone else's track. Which means that at that point, we'll have to introduce multitracking and will automatically also support the ability to work with backing tracks. We're also thinking a lot about how to incorporate this with workflows with existing studio software. Say, for example, that your drummer and your recording engineer are stuck tweaking the snare drum sound for the next five hours (chances are it will sound the same afterwards anyway), then you should just be able to take the track in its current form out of the DAW and use Tape It to play some new ideas over it. Which is probably a very long anser for: yes, we'll definitely incorporate the ability to work with backing tracks. But it might take us a bit of time to find out how to get the UX right :-).
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hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago

When I was in a band, we used a simple digital audio recorder to document our sessions. The annotations look helpful for trying to remember what you were working on in the previous session. How did you perform the instrument detection?

earthnail 5y ago
We collected existing recording data from musicians (that website is still online: https://tape.it/needsyourhelp https://tape.it/needsyourhelp), annotated it manually with Prodi.gy, and then trained a YAMnet model for the classification. Granted, had we known that Apple would ship a much improved version of their own sound classifier in iOS 15, we probably wouldn't have invested so much work in it - their new pretrained model is truly outstanding (although it only works on iOS >= 15). But I don't regret doing it; we learned a lot about mobile deployment of ML models, which will come in very handy when we deploy our next ML features for audio quality improvements.

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chrisweekly 5y ago

Bug report: iOS 14.8 iPhone X Install from app store, open app, tap red circle to create first recording. Confirm/yes when prompted to allow TapeIt to access mic. Tap red circle again to create first recording. App crash. Relaunch, try again a few times. Every time, red circle record button -> immediate crash. :( UPDATE: Removed TapeIt and reinstalled it: now it works as expected.

JanNash 5y ago
Hey Chris, thanks for the quick report. Yeah, I've just seen the crashes appear in Sentry. Glad to hear that it does work as expected after the reinstall (although it's definitely unfortunate that it crashed before, sorry for the inconvenience). Did you experience any other weird behaviour before the crash? Best, Jan (from Tape It :)
- YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 5y ago
  Very creepy.
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  - vlovich123 5y ago
    Why? I’m sure the usage is low enough that a user hitting the same issue, likely similar in time to their post, stands out quite well and can be linked to a public report.
    - JanNash 5y ago
      Well put, thanks. Also, (I know I'm possibly jinxing it by writing it out loud) we currently have a pretty decent crash-free rate, thus, there weren't that many (fatal) issues to choose from :)
      - vlovich123 5y ago

import 5y ago

Looks great. BPM and key/scale detection would be awesome.

JanNash 5y ago
Thanks :) Yes, I also think that BPM detection would be amazing and we are likely going to implement it in a future version. Scale detection does also sound like an interesting feature. However, I can't think of many use cases for key detection since (at least for me) it's quite common to just transpose a lick or some chords as necessary (e.g. joining them together with a different lick or melody or chord progression which I had maybe recorded on another day in another key). So when I'm searching for elements to use in a song, I don't find myself checking the key of each of those elements often or even searching them by key. Still, I'd be interested to know what use cases you see for key detection :)
- nerdite 5y ago
  Key detection would help me remember what chords I’m using. If it’s in B I’m probably capo 2/A or Capo 4/G for instance.
  - JanNash 5y ago
    That's an interesting point. Currently, you could write that down in the Notes of that recording or take a photo of your Capo position for example.

KuiN 5y ago

Can this record the output of other audio/music creation apps (thinking like synths, instruments or AUM) or is it just the microphone?

JanNash 5y ago
Currently, it's just recording the via the built in microphone.
- capableweb 5y ago
  I'm sad to hear, was thinking of using it with a headset jack adapter splitter (allows you to plug in a microphone/whatever as source) but seems I'll continue using the built in camera for my recordings instead.

dmje 5y ago

Like the look of it, will try later (working on assumption it'll be ok on iPad...?) (if not: any Android version incoming...?!)

JanNash 5y ago
Thanks :). Yes, it works on iPad, although currently only using the normal "iPhone App on iPad" compatibility mode. Make sure to start the App while the iPad is in Portrait mode, we have a bug there that might else prevent you from tapping "Next" in the onboarding. This bug is fixed in 1.0.1, of which we're currently, let's say, experiencing [...] the App Store Review process (which is not always an easy one as some of you might know as well :). We hope to release 1.0.1 in a few days, as it includes some other bugfixes as well. At the moment, an Android version is not planned.

comboy 5y ago

It would be great if you stated right away what's advantage of using it over say GarageBand. Is it just about cleaner UI?

earthnail 5y ago
Hi Comboy, It's not trying to compete with GarageBand. GarageBand itself is an instrument in a way; it comes with lots of built-in sounds, loops and more. You should rather think of it as a replacement for Voice Memos :-).
- prionassembly 5y ago
  Why should I use it over Voice Memos?
  - earthnail 5y ago
    - You can actually find things again. I personally have so many recordings that are all named after my home address, and it's almost impossible to find anything older than a week. - You can take notes, both text and photo notes. For example, you can just take a picture of your amp settings to remember them. Many musicians already do that with their camera, but now you can keep it together with your recording - Much, MUCH better handling of long recording sessions with the Time Paragraph (see website for screenshots). Voice Memos becomes practically unusable once your recording is longer than three minutes. - Small things like when you play a recording, it will automatically play the next one after it - like Apple Music or Spotify. It is super handy when you just want to review past ideas. We know a lot of musicians who use Box instead of Dropbox for storing their recordings simply because Box will always play the whole folder, whereas Dropbox just plays a single file. - And of course, much better recording quality by using two microphones on your iPhone instead of one - although that is actually our premium feature. Everything else I listed you get for free :-). If you're using Voice Memos to record music today, I recommend you give the app a try. And please let me know your thoughts here once you tried it!
    - 5y ago

abalaji 5y ago

With how many musicians use voice memos on iOS, this hits the right niche--somewhere between voice memos and garage band.

JanNash 5y ago
> somewhere between voice memos and garage band Nicely put :)
kall 5y ago
Interestingly, apple at one point made an app just like this called "Music Memos" but dropped it pretty soon. I think it has been partly rolled into garageband.
- _red 5y ago
  "Music Memos" was the perfect 'recording snippet app' for me. I honestly think they let a diamond in the rough escape them. The tempo detection and ability to overlay basic drum / bass backing was brilliant.
filmgirlcw 5y ago
As mentioned, Apple launched an app just for that, Music Memos, and it was a great idea but fairly niche and not updated much over the nearly five years it was out. Apple discontinued it in December 2020. Fun (well, maybe not fun, but interesting) fact: when Apple was doing press briefings for the app, they managed to get me a quote from now-disgraced musical artist Ryan Adams (who was in the middle of a career renaissance of sorts after his acclaimed cover album of Taylor Swift’s acclaimed 1989), in part because they knew I was a big fan of his. It just feels awkward nearly six years later, but at the time, Apple was leaning really hard on the respected establishment community of musicians to push the app. It’s a shame it never seemed to have much life or uptick after its release because as a 1.0/MVP it was really good. And with just a few more features, it could hack been an insanely useful app for lots of musicians who naturally use Voice Memos to capture lyrics or riffs or other content. Alas.
- 5y ago

coldwaraaron 5y ago

This looks great. Sharing it with my musician friends. Will follow up with feedback after putting it through the paces.

JanNash 5y ago
Thanks a bunch :)

n_sonic 5y ago

Hello! So I was very excited to hear that this app made stereo recordings. I make field recordings to use in my own compositions, so the idea of an app that does this was intriguing (and there seem to be none currently on the app store, unless I'm missing them?) I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but it's not recording in stereo? I verified by opening the file in Audacity (sent via AirDrop). I tried holding my phone (iPhone 12 Pro) in both portrait and horizontal orientations (because I'm not sure if you needed to do this to make it work?) Is there a way to make the stereo recording work (at least, can I verify it somehow before committing to a purchase?)

JanNash 5y ago
High quality stereo recording is only available in our premium subscription (20$/year). The subscription comes with a one month free trial, which should give you some time to try it and see if you like it :)
- n_sonic 5y ago
  So, I don't mind trials and subscriptions. And I will give this another go, however.. When I went to make my initial recording, the app asked me if I wanted to "try [Stereo HD]". I did this thinking that I could verify that stereo worked. If you're not going to let me try it without committing, you may want to rethink the onboarding flow a bit? But still, personally I'd consider giving users a proper taste of the power of the app, without commitment. Allowing them to try stereo for just the first recording would be a great introduction to the app. You could even time limit it to 10 seconds or something. If you imply that the app is recording in "stereo" / "HD", but then exporting the audio results in a mono audio file, just makes me think it doesn't work. (The app even adds a [HD] label under the recording, which makes it even more confusing when you export it and it's mono.) Apart from the above (hopefully constructive criticism) I'm looking forward to seeing this develop :)
  - earthnail 5y ago
    Interesting. That is actually how the app works today: you actually have to tap try Stereo HD, then make a stereo recording that is at least 10 seconds long before pressing "try Stereo HD" again presents you with the paywall. We got a lot of feedback from users (and from Apple in their App Review -.-) that that was confusing; they wanted to see the paywall straight away. So now we're considering removing that try-it-once-without-starting-a-trial mode. Regarding exporting to mono: no, that shouldn't happen. It should definitely export to stereo. The exporting process doesn't touch the file. Would you mind sending me that audio file to thomas@tape.it if it's not a very private recording (of course we'll treat it privately; just for internal debugging)?

bezieio 5y ago

Nice work! I like the option to annotate with photos and notes! Have you guys checked out Spire? It's a free app, but could be paired with their hardware. It's different in that it's a really simple app for multitrack recording and editing, but I've also been using it for a similar function as Tape It. Not to take away from your work though, I will give the app a go :)

earthnail 5y ago
Thanks a lot for your nice words :-). Yeah, we checked out Spire, and I actually have their hardware at home, too - but I rarely ever use it. Spire's sales were significantly below iZotope's expectations, too. I think it's a great attempt, but IMHO they didn't quite get it right - they focused too much on multitracking and sacrificed basic usability. We're hoping that we don't make that same mistake, but of course only time will tell. And as always, different people have different needs - maybe Spire fits your workflow much better! It would be fantastic if you could leave another comment once you tried the app - really looking forward to hearing what you think of it!

FigurativeVoid 5y ago

I have been using voice memos for field recording and recording different ideas. I am excited to give this a try!

subhro 5y ago

I am probably one of the few that use my iPhone more or less like a dumb phone, so pardon my ignorance. Is the iPhone mic able to pick the entire audible spectrum (and then some)? Does this mean companies like Neumann, Shure, Rode should feel someone is coming for their lunch?

chris_st 5y ago
Anecdata, but a number of people in the online guitar group I'm in report that their iDevice can't really hear their bass guitar. My iPad Pro can, indeed, hear my bass fairly well, but I don't use it for recording the bass (long story). The microphone is, as I understand it, optimized for voice communication, since its main original job is to be a telephone.
- earthnail 5y ago
  Apple has fairly strong incentives to improve recording quality overall, including just better audio quality for the videos you shoot. Given the form factor of the iPhones, I'm frankly blown away by the sound quality you get from them. The SPL they can handle is absurd. Admittedly, your comment made me curious - I think I might have to annoy my neighbours with some bass playing this evening. In my experience, recording with my iPhone Xs, the bass frequencies of my synth are picked up extremely well. If the bass is indeed lacking, maybe we can recover some of it algorithmically. I'm not thinking about EQing, more like having a fantastic paper idea for some good academic work :-).
  - chris_st 5y ago
    Very cool! Just tried my bass into my iPhone 11 Pro max, recorded okay, but Tape It identified it as keyboards.
    - earthnail 5y ago
      Ooops :D. I'll take the version 1.0 excuse card if I may :D. All kidding aside, we know our instrument detection has room for improvement. But you gotta start somewhere :).

lux 5y ago

Just downloaded to play with later, but one feature all these apps are missing is an easy import + loop feature. I want to quickly import a clip and loop it seamlessly so I can riff on it. I don't care about overdubbing or having a DAW on my phone, but I want to be able to easily iterate on an idea and struggle to do that on the go with any iOS app I've tried.

earthnail 5y ago
Thanks so much for your feedback. Import, looping and overdubbing is definitely something we will support in the future. We're just really mindful about not cluttering the UI, so we're taking it one step at a time. You should try the Capture app by Soundtrap. It basically has exactly that functionality you describe. It's quite limited beyond that, IMHO, but give it a go and let me know what you think.
- lux 5y ago
  Awesome to hear! And thanks for the suggestion too, will try that today as well. Looping for my use case can be as simple as a toggle button (even in a hamburger menu somewhere :). I also know the challenges of looping mp3s seamlessly and am only thinking of wavs. Cheers!
  - lux 5y ago
    Follow up assessment of Soundtrap Capture (and Soundtrap Studio): - Capture: Import was super easy but I see no way to loop, so that's out. - Studio: Full-blown collaborative DAW (overkill) but importing your own loops is gone (wtf?!). Looks like I'll wait for you guys to hopefully add importing audio files and looping.
    - earthnail 5y ago
      Thanks for your feedback. I'll promise you we'll add it. No promise on the timeline, though (sorry, hope you understand that). But we'll add it. We always planned to. If you sign up to our email newsletter on our website, you will also hear from us when the feature is out. There will likely be a few emails before that I'm afraid, as we have a few other features in the pipeline worth communicating, but I promise that we'll treat your inbox with respect.

jamilbk 5y ago

Nice work! Congrats on hitting the app store. I’m excited to use this for our next hours-long jam session. How does the instrument detection work? Does it do anything else besides change the icon for a tape? It would be so cool to just show up at a jam session, hit record on my iphone, and get all that multitrack goodness without having to mic everything separately. But I realize that’s asking a lot from the AI gods :-).

earthnail 5y ago
Yep, you're asking a lot of the AI gods, but then again if you don't have big dreams, how is big change ever going to happen? :D Yes, right now it only changes the icon for a tape, even though we actually track and save it at a per-second level. Obviously there is quite a bit room for more use of this in the future, but the icon is a start :-). Also notice, by the way, that the waveform is black for music and grey for speech - particularly handy in a jam session. You can see exactly when a take started and when it ended. So called "blind source separation" (i.e. get multitracks from just one mic) is possible today, but with fairly audible artifacts. The most popular library in use today is Spleeter [1], which is based on Andreas Jansson et al.'s work at Spotify [2]. There are newer algorithms in academia, a good overview is provided at [3]. If you want to do something today, iZotope's RX is very good, and a great example that demonstrates how good old DSP engineering can dramatically reduce the unwanted artifacts even in new ML-based approaches. Then again, my real question would be: why would you want a multitrack recording from your jam session? Is it to be able to further adjust the mix afterwards? Do you need the individual instrument tracks for practicing? Would be really interested in hearing your use case :-). [1] https://github.com/deezer/spleeter https://github.com/deezer/spleeter [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=0B-hypsAAAAJ&citation_for_view=0B-hypsAAAAJ:9yKSN-GCB0IC https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h... [3] https://sigsep.github.io https://sigsep.github.io

52-6F-62 5y ago

This is cool. I use Voice Memos regularly to jot down ideas and it has its limitations, so work in this space is really welcome! I don't have anything to contribute on the marketing front, so all I can say add is just keep it up! I really enjoy seeing useful cross-sections of music and software. edit: Just downloaded it and gave it a try. Even on my iPhone 8 it's nice and snappy. Love the markers and the ability to set them _while_ recording. Great work! If I ever get around to upgrading my phone I'll definitely consider the stereo HD!

JanNash 5y ago
Hey 82-111-98 (:D). Thanks a lot for the feedback and for trying our App. We're happy you like it :)

plainOldText 5y ago

I like the minimalism and thoughtfulness of the interface. Something is not clear however. Where do recordings get stored? On device, iCloud? I think it would be nice to know where your data gets stored, and maybe have a choice or two.

earthnail 5y ago
Currently, all recordings are stored on device. If you have iCloud backup enabled, they will also be backed up to iCloud as part of your regular backup. See also our privacy policy (ours is actually readable!): https://tape.it/privacy https://tape.it/privacy We're thinking a lot about how we will do this in the future when we start adding collaboration and sharing. Not FB or insta-like sharing, but rather within a close circle of friends (like your band our your choir). For that, we'll need to introduce accounts, and cloud storage. It's not complicated on a technical level (or at least not rocket science), but we're very aware that not everyone wants their data scattered throughout the internet. We're currently contemplating whether we leave most data on-device and only put shared tapes on our cloud, or whether we just sync everything by default. If we were to add some kind of Dropbox-like storage (on our own servers) that would make it trivial to share your recordings with friends, would that be something you'd welcome or would you rather be put off by having your recordings in yet another cloud?

41209 5y ago

Will this work with a USB audio interface ?

earthnail 5y ago
I'm afraid not, no. But you're not the first one asking this question - if it keeps on popping up, we might reconsider that decision.

ronjouch 5y ago

Note: requires iOS 14. I would have liked to give it a try, and pay if it proves superior to Apple's "Music Memos", but I can't, as I run an iPhone 6 / iOS 12 that is still very functional and security-patched by Apple (iOS 12.5.5 shipped last week). As a developer, I can for sure understand you're limiting to the "latest and greatest" for API usage simplicity, but I urge you to reconsider requiring iOS 14. Two arguments for you to consider, one ethical, and one business: 1. I've met plenty of people sensitive ecologically and willing to keep their phone as long as possible. As a result, they run old iOSes. 2. Musicians are rarely making millions, and thus cautious with tech spending. By restricting to iOS 14, you're leaving money on the table.

earthnail 5y ago
Thank you very much for your feedback. I very much understand where you're coming from, and I think you make a very good point outlining that in particular musicians are usually quite short on cash and can't afford the latest and greatest iPhone. We need at least iOS 14 for the stereo recording functionality. Even then, not all devices that support iOS 14 also support stereo recording, and we don't even offer the in-app purchase option on those devices that don't support it. We also make heavy use of CoreML, for which we require at least iOS 13. So in theory, we could go one version lower, but since all devices that support iOS 13 also support 14 and 15, we will likely increase the minimum version to iOS 15 once it has reached significant adoption, because of the improvements to CoreML iOS 15 ships with. I know it's not the answer you wanted. I hope you understand that this choice wasn't made out of ignorance, but simply due to hard technical limitations.
- ronjouch 5y ago
  Okay, thanks for the precise reply; makes sense for CoreML. Bookmarking your site, will give your app a try when my trusty iPhone 6 breaks and I get a newer one. Take care.
- tigeba 5y ago
  I write and record music and this seems pretty useful as a tool for songwriting. I can think of some cases where the notes and photo notes for gear and the markers are useful. The instrument detection is I guess neat, but I can tell what I'm playing by listening. Stereo is also not really particularly appealing or interesting, especially if it has weird ML processing on it. One pain point I frequently hit when doing actual recording is saving settings from external analog devices if I want to recall them in a future session via notes. This seems like this could be close to covering this scenario as well. Congrats on launching.

sneak 5y ago

I'm in the target market for this app, but I don't download or use apps that transmit my usage data off the device without my consent.

adrianpthomas 5y ago

Looks really nice - simple design, clear focus, looks like a great music memos replacement!

JanNash 5y ago
Thanks :)

fagerhult 5y ago

This looks brilliant, I've been recording scraps of music with voice memos for years and I've been missing exactly the features you have. Great work! I'd love a way to import my existing voice memo library into Tape It!

earthnail 5y ago
Glad you like it :). Regarding import: Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t provide access to the Voice Memos library. If you have a suggestion on how to overcome that (in a way that passes the App Store review), please let us know. We’d be super grateful.

_red 5y ago

Thanks for entering this space. One thing I would love for you to add is the concept of "Folders" (or projects / songs / whatever you want to call it). Here is the point: Sometimes I will record 14 different versions of a lick, chord progression, etc for a song idea. Typically its over the course of several days. It does me no good to have 14 different files date named XX-YY-ZZZZ, etc. What I want is to group those into "Ideas / Songs / Projects" So should have "Song Idea 1" - 09-27-21 14:24 - 09-25-21 11:24 - 09-23-21 10:42 - 09-23-21 09:17 etc

earthnail 5y ago
That is definitely on our todo list. The next update will introduce mixtapes, which are basically playlists (unlike folders, a tape can be in several mixtapes). We‘re also thinking a lot about how we can further group things, like projects/ideas - exactly how you mention it. It‘s gonna take a few design iterations, but it‘ll definitely come :-).

akarma 5y ago

I love this! My one request that would enable me to recommend this to my musician friends is an export feature, along with a promise of adequate notice before a shutdown of the app, to allow people to export their recordings in a worst-case scenario. The one thing that may keep musicians using Apple Voice Memos despite your app seeming much better is that they often make a lot of recordings, and losing them all would be unimaginably tragic.

nomatikco 5y ago

Based on the comments, it looks like you’ve picked a good problem to solve. And as you’ve discovered, building a product is only part of the work, getting it noticed is just as important. I have a few suggestions to consider: - As the musical community is very relationship driven I would prioritize sharing and virality over advertising for discovery. Make it easy to send files to friends and you have a built in promotion. - To get it in their hands and raise awareness, go where your customers are. Open mic nights, music stores, gigs, meetup, reddit. Talk to people, ask questions about how they record themselves. Post a few flyers on bulletin boards. - Try to get featured on some music blogs, podcasts, or youtube channels that have a built in audience. Hope that sparks some ideas. Best of luck!

earthnail 5y ago
Thanks a lot for the kind advice. Indeed, sharing is the number one thing we're working on right now. Getting it right will take some time, though. I like the idea of going to where your customers are. We're already trying to do that, but your comment confirms us in this. Music schools and universities etc. are what we have our main eye on right now. Gigs and open mic nights, too, but it scales less well, and it's always a fine line between asking an artist about their workflow and annoying them with self-promotion - in particular on an evening that should be all about them, not us. Reddit we found quite tricky though - the music-related subreddits we found do not allow self-promotion. Apparently they get enough spam already, which I can totally understand. If you have good suggestions for subreddits or other online music forums, I'd greatly appreciate it! Same goes for music blogs etc.

Bud 5y ago

As a professional classical musician for the last 30 years, my first question would be, is this superior to the built-in app on the iPhone for recording, and if so, can you explain how and prove that? Also, as others have said, I would never consider paying until I could try it out in a full-featured way, and I definitely would not pay for yet another subscription service for something that is so dead simple. Especially not $20/yr. If I want to shell out that kind of coin, I can just use a Zoom H4n and own the device myself and have a lot more features, better mics, etc. I do wish you well, though!

earthnail 5y ago
Hi Bud, Thanks for your feedback. You can try the entire app for free. In fact, we give away almost the entire app for free, with the exception of the Stereo HD quality. If you are happy with the recording quality that, say, Apple's Voice Memos provides you, our app sounds exactly the same in its free version. As I'm sure you agree, the best way to compare audio quality is just to listen to it. We have a listening example on our website, but you can try it yourself for free in the app for an entire month! The Zoom H4n costs over $200. The sound quality of that device will be much better, but I'd argue that the UX of our product is much nicer. In addition to not having to carry around a dedicated device, there are just so many small UX things we've focused on that make working with audio recording much nicer. Take the Time Paragraph for example - once you start using it, it's really hard to go back to a single line for recordings longer than a few minutes. I get your point about not wanting a subscription for something simple. Truth be told, we're also sceptics when it comes to subscription apps, but as far as we can see it's the lesser of evils. The freemium model allows people to try the entire app for free (and continue using it for free if they're happy with the feature set), and the subscription model allows us to ship major features as they are ready without having to pack them into a paid major upgrade. There's also a psychological component that people are happy to shell out a lot of money for something that looks complex, but not for something that looks simple. Ironically, making a seemingly "simple" app is a lot more work. There's a lot more in this app than just the audio quality. In our team, Jan - who also commented here - is also a professional baritone. I used to do classical singing, too, but not professionally. I feel confident when I say that we fully get your use case for recording. Give the app a try, I think you'll like it :-). It is designed for people like you. Thomas

distartin 5y ago

Love the ui and the color choices on the landing page

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