TapeIt 2

TapeIt 2 appears to be a very good tool. Its price is also attractive, given the drag and drop, sync recording, trigger options.

As I agree with Sahul, instead of restating the same info, I will rarther focus on the options, which in my opinion would make TapeIt 2 free from any competition.


1.
in play-triggered option, the recording starts only after the first pressing play. to get back to recording after a pause (resulting from host's stopping) you have to click TI's record again. quite good as an option, but allowing a possibility to resume recording whenever playback occurs without confirmation would vastly increase functionality. a setup-and-forget kind, until really needed.

2.
in-sync punch out here would be a miracle. in case of looped material you could easily divide it into parts after such a session. also, reverb tails could be recorded.

3.
in my opinion midi triggering should be combined, as an option, with sync

4. further developed, TapeIt2 might allow midi commands for basic file management, as overwriting the previous recording.

That all said, I admit TapeIt is even now very useful and it's price more than attractive. Only downside is interface, which although looks good and functional, makes me look for the triggering method key over and over each time I use it. But this might be just personal.

Stability - before, Tape It used to stop recording in Cubase SX3 without any apparent symptom (so you ended up with a spoiled session), but 2.3 is finally o'kay.Read Review

From a long time I've been looking for a convincent freeze/rendering solution. My host is Cubase SX, but its freeze features aren't specially powerful, as everybody knows. I also tested FX-Freeze, but didn't find it intuitive enough. TapeIt 2, however, suited perfectly my needs, I'll explain why.

TapeIt 2, as its predecessor TapeIt, is basically a VST plugin that records streams of audio in realtime inside of a sequencer. Depending where you put it, it can be useful to save to disk the output of an specific VSTi or audio channel, a group or even an entire mix. But changes between v1 and v2 are extensive, and they put TapeIt 2 in a different level.

The GUI is very clear and functional. It has different bars, which can be hidden or showed individually, making it completely customizable:
- Main bar, which has the record buttons, level and peak indicator, file folder selection, etc.
- Waveform bar: it shows a graphical representation of the signal that is entering the plugin, useful for seeing what's going on in the recording, but also can be used, for example, to see how a compressor or eq affects the signal.
- History list: a complete list of all the files that have been recorded in the sessions. Including details like time stamp, frequency, size in MB, length.
- Sync bar: TapeIt 2 features four different synchronization modes: playback, midi, locator and measure. For example, you can make it record automaticaly between left and right locators (if your host supports this kind of cycle mode), excellent for creating exact loops; or record a precise number of bars in sync with the tempo of your host; or trigger the record start from your midi keyboard...

But there's more... drag'n'drop. Once you have the different .wavs, you can drag them from the TapeIt 2 GUI directly into a track in your sequencer. I can't imagine of a more intuitive and fastest way to render VSTi's to .wav and work with the different parts. It's really a dream for the workflow.

Documentation is also very complete and well written. It comes in the form of a help file, accesable from the GUI itself. The document explains in detail the different plugin features, and also includes pics of every part of the GUI.

Customer support: I've had the opportunity to test it, and I must say it's outstading. I reported a bug that made Cubase SX 2.02 crash and Thomas, the developer, sent me a fixed file 3 hours later! He also showed interest in implementing some suggestions I made about possible new features.

Value for the money: considering the usefulness, extensive features, support and low price ($19), I just can consider it as an absolute bargain, totally recommended for any user working in a VST environment. IMHO, this is the best option available for VSTi rendering.

Stability: as I said before, I found a little bug that made the plugin crash in SX when its GUI was put in "always on top" mode. It has been fixed. Apart from that, TapeIt 2 has been always rock solid.Read Review