Fizzy Bacon vs TapeMan Recorder

Some tracks are perfect and still sound like a computer. Fizzy Bacon is the box that fixes that. A tape deck and its compressor, together, on your channel strip. Turn up Dirt. Keep going. You'll know when. PUT IT ON THE DRUM BUS Drive it until the kit stops being a grid and starts being a room. The compressor catches the whole thing on the way past, and the low end arrives on its own, without you touching an EQ. PUT IT ON A VOCAL A little Dirt for body, a little Age to take the glare off a bright mic, and the loud words sit down without you drawing a single automation line. PUT IT ON THE MIX Ease it in and everything moves a little closer together. Nothing sounds processed. It just sounds finished. PUT IT ON EVERYTHING Full wet, slow tape, wow and flutter up — and now you're listening to a cassette that's been in somebody's glovebox since 1982. FIVE KNOBS AND NO HOMEWORK Dirt is how hard you're hitting the tape. Age is how many miles are on the machine. Noise is the hiss and the hum, and it only shows up while the music does. Wow and Flutter are the drift and the shimmer — let them wander, or sync their rates to your tempo. Synced Wow lands on the beat; Flutter remains random. And Mix is hiding a flanger you didn't pay for: pull it back with the wobble running and the two sides sweep past each other. Real flanging, the two-tape-machines kind, free. A COMPRESSOR WITH NOTHING TO HUNT FOR No threshold to find. You just drive it harder until it's doing what you want. Four ratios, plus an All-buttons setting for when the whole track should be breathing rather than politely controlled. Two VU meters swing the way meters should — flip them to watch the gain reduction, or to check your width survives a mono fold-down. 51 PRESETS, ALL AT THE SAME LEVEL From a barely-there print to a completely melted reel, plus mastering and mixing banks. They all sit within a decibel of each other, so you can walk the whole bank without riding the fader and hear the difference instead of the volume. Save your own and they follow you to your other devices. NOTHING TO WATCH OUT FOR Latency never changes, your DAW compensates, bypass vanishes completely. Any hardware knob drives any control. Everything automates. An AUv3 plug-in in your DAW, or a standalone app on Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro. Same engine either way. There's a full manual inside the window, if you're the type. Most people just turn Dirt up.

TapeMan turns your iPhone, iPad, or Mac into a tactile cassette recorder and performance instrument. Connect a class-compliant USB audio device or use the built-in microphone. Record WAV or M4A, then slow, stop, reverse, and scratch the interactive tape while recording, monitoring, or playing a saved take. THE CASSETTE IS THE INTERFACE • Scratch and manipulate the tape directly • Choose Hold, Follow, Sync, and Mix behavior • Add tape start, stop, wear, wobble, and recording color • Perform stackable Color, Motion, Space, Raw, and Direct effects • Control effects directly or through selectable XY mappings • Bounce a performance into a new non-destructive version BEAT-SYNCED LIVE TAPE • Capture seamless half- to eight-bar loops from live input • Quantize loop starts and releases, choose pre- or post-FX capture, and perform at half, normal, or double speed • Follow a selected MIDI clock source, detected audio beats, or a tapped/manual tempo • Keep a captured loop moving through MIDI Stop or temporary clock loss, then relock smoothly when clock returns ALL YOUR TAKES, TOGETHER • Search, sort, filter, loop, rename, trim, share, and delete • Keep originals, processed versions, stems, notes, and tempo metadata together • Record from the built-in microphone or compatible USB audio interfaces • Select input and output channel pairs • Use signal-activated recording and optional live monitoring LIVE MONITORING Monitor processed USB input through a separate stereo USB return when available. With a compatible 2-in/2-out device, TapeMan can also use the iPhone or iPad speaker when iOS routes USB input there. Keep the level low and stop if you hear feedback. OPTIONAL ON-DEVICE STEMS Separate vocals, drums, bass, and other with an optional model download. After installation, processing runs locally through Core ML. Mix, mute, solo, share, or save stems and bounces back into the take library. MAKE IT YOUR TAPE Choose from ten tuned 90s-inspired themes in light or dark mode. Import local video environments, apply a pixel treatment, and arrange clips behind the cassette. Video audio is never used. LOCAL-FIRST TapeMan has no account system, advertising, tracking, or automatic cloud upload. Recordings and imported media stay on your device unless you choose to export or share them. TapeMan is independent software and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any audio-hardware manufacturer.