Blog
Notes from making tapespin: how it works, how to use it, where the sound comes from. RSS.
How tapespin works
- Scratching with a spring, and landing on the beat
How a critically damped spring turns hand movement into speed, how the spin-up is arranged to land on the grid, and why a stopped tape would click.
- Shaping the stop
Why pitch falls with speed, what the stop curve does, why a straight ramp sounds crooked, and the platter model behind Auto and Weight.
- The read head cannot read the future
Inside tapespin: a ring buffer, a read head chasing the write head, the debt a slowdown builds, and the two ways to pay it back.
Guides
- Free tape stop plugins, compared
Free tape stop plugins for Mac and Windows compared honestly: Kilohearts, cStop, TapeFi, Sotto, Cassette Transport, iZotope Vinyl, EAS and more, then tapespin at $9.
- How to make a tape stop in Ableton Live
Three ways to make a tape stop in Ableton Live 12: with stock devices, with a free plugin, and with tapespin. Step by step, with what each can and can't do.
- Tape stop, vinyl brake, spindown
What a tape stop, a vinyl brake and a spindown are, why the pitch falls, where each is used, and how to get each one in a DAW.
History
- Where the tape stop comes from
From reel-to-reel varispeed and Schaeffer's turntables to the SL-1200's brake, Grandmaster Flash, the first freeware plugins, Gross Beat and the trap cliché.