About Dr. Tape

Dr. Tape brings instruments, composition, automation and mixing into one browser studio. Write your parts, shape the sound, and bring the whole track together.

Built from thirty years of making music

Dr. Tape grew out of thirty years of making music with recording software. Trackers and racks came first, then every major desktop studio and most of the browser ones. That is long enough to learn what makes a session flow, and where the tools get in the way.

The aim is a studio that feels familiar and keeps musical decisions close at hand. A mixer where you can see your tracks and effects together. Instruments you can shape. Automation that turns a sound into a moving part. Simple on the surface, with the depth of a desktop studio one click further in.

Keep the controls that matter. Make them easier to find and use. Leave room for the music.

Tools that help, but don't do it for you

The groove engine, the chord track, ChordPad, the beat editor, the arpeggiator and the strummer make writing faster. None of them write the music for you. Dr. Tape is not built around loops or generated parts, because the point is the pleasure of finding your own sound, and of being able to say you made this yourself.

The story behind it is on the blog, in Why I'm making Dr. Tape.

Your studio, your projects

Audio is processed on your device. Projects are files you keep. Prepare the studio and download the sounds you need, and you can keep working offline.

Where it stands

The studio is in active development. It is free to use while that is the case, no account is needed, and the changelog records what changes. Instruments, effects and formats may still change between releases.

Credits

The instruments, effects and interface are original work. The sample library, the convolution impulses, the headphone measurements, the fonts and the FLAC decoder come from open sources, each credited on the licences and credits page.

Made in Sweden

Dr. Tape is made by Renki Solutions AB, a company registered in Sweden.