Comparison

Tape Death vs Tako Kick

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Tape Death

Features
Read full description

Tape Death is a four-tape looping instrument that falls apart while you play it. Record a loop onto a cassette and it plays forever — but it never holds still. Every second it runs, the tape wears: the highs fray, dropouts bloom, the pitch begins to sag. Nothing you make will ever sound new again. That's the point. This isn't a clean, non-destructive studio — it's a machine for sounds that rot beautifully. Four tapes, each aging on its own. Layer them, warp them, drown them in space, and bottle the decaying mix to share. FOUR TAPES • Record straight from your mic — a voice, an instrument, the whole room. • Overdub to build layers onto a single loop. • Play each tape forward, in reverse, or ping-ponging back and forth. • Every tape keeps its own character and its own state of decay. DECAY IS THE INSTRUMENT • Tapes wear permanently as they play — the heart of the whole app. • Dial each tape from "eternal" to "dying," or age them all together. • Begin the disintegration again whenever you like — your settings stay. CHARACTER, NO NUMBERS Shape each tape by feel, not by figures. Every control is a drag between two words: • WARMTH — clean to melted tape saturation • DUST — quiet to snowy hiss and grit • WOBBLE — steady to seasick wow & flutter • TONE — dark to bright • SPACE — each tape's own echo and reverb (spring, hall, cathedral, shimmer, void; standard, ping-pong, and granular delays) THE ROOM A shared space every tape plays into — one reverb, one echo, one bus compressor to glue the whole mix, and a global decay to age everything at once. BOTTLE IT Capture the living, decaying mix to an audio file and share it anywhere. Save whole setups as sessions and return to them. Tape Death records everything on device. No account, no sign-in, nothing collected, and it works fully offline. It keeps playing in the background, too. Make something. Let it die.

About

Tako Kick

This app is an eight-voice generative drum machine that creates complex polyrhythms. Users can independently shape each voice's rhythm and sound, build evolving grooves, and explore synthesized kits. It offers performance controls and the ability to save and share presets.

Highlights
  • Eight-voice generative drum machine
  • Independent voice shaping
  • Synthesized drum kits
  • Evolving groove creation
  • Performance and mixing controls
  • Preset saving and sharing
  • AUv3 instrument support
Features
Read full description

What if an octopus could play drums? Tako Kick is an eight-voice generative drum machine excelling in musical polyrhythms. Shape each voice independently, tuning its rhythm and sound across a range of synthesized kits. Build evolving grooves with pattern, density, pitch, accents, and feel controls. Explore each kit’s timbre, and add movement with built-in modulation sources. Keep rhythm and sound independent in each voice's left and right columns - change the timbre without affecting the beat, or change both at once. Performance controls allow interactive mixing/soloing/muting, and global control over drum assignments and pitch. Save and share complete presets to recall your rhythm, tuning, modulation, kit, and mix settings. Presets can be dynamically loaded for another element of in-time performance. Play Tako Kick standalone on iPhone and iPad, or load it as an AUv3 instrument in AUM and other compatible hosts. Sync to the host and use it with MIDI. Tako Kick is a tactile rhythm instrument for finding grooves. Use it to practice drums, get ideas, make beats, or just to have fun.

Screenshots

Tape Death4 screens
Tako Kick4 screens

Verdict

The call

Tape Death and Tako Kick are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Tape Death versus Tako Kick: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTape DeathTako Kick
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequency—Daily
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS17.0 — better17.6
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperColton HarkerRadii Research

In-app purchases

None

Tape Death

No in-app purchases

None

Tako Kick

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Tape Death free?
Tape Death is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Tako Kick free?
Tako Kick is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Tape Death or Tako Kick have ads?
Neither Tape Death nor Tako Kick shows ads.

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