Deadtapes vs Live Music Archive
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Deadtapes
Identify the Grateful Dead concert your music tape originated from. Input a sequence of up to three songs, and the app will find shows from 1972-1995 that feature that exact song order.
- Song sequence search
- Grateful Dead show identification
- 1972-1995 show coverage
- Tape origin discovery
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Finds which Grateful Dead show your dead tape was created from. You enter up to three songs, in sequence, that you hear on your tape. It reports which shows have that sequence played at the show. For all shows from 1972 through 1995.
Live Music Archive
Stream a vast collection of live concert recordings from the Internet Archive and Phish.in. Discover music by artist, venue, or date, and enjoy features like offline playback, cross-device syncing, and a visualizer.
- Massive live music library
- Search by artist, venue, date
- Offline playback
- Cross-device syncing
- CarPlay integration
- Concert visualizer
- Lossless audio support
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The world's live music, in your pocket. Stream the Internet Archive's massive collection of concert recordings, plus a huge archive of live Phish shows from Phish.in. Thousands of artists from the 1960s to today: Grateful Dead, Billy Strings, Goose, String Cheese Incident, and so many more. Discover. Search by artist, taper, venue, festival, date, or song. Browse recent shows or dive deep into decades of music. Listen your way. Let Infinite Shuffle keep the music going, queue up what's next with Play Next and Add to Queue, or hand off playback between your devices. Stream over Bluetooth and AirPlay, in lossless FLAC if you like. Set a sleep timer to drift off. Scrobble to Last.fm or Libre.fm. Take it on the road. CarPlay puts your shows right on the dash, and Siri starts them hands-free: just say "Play a show on Live Music Archive." See the music. The visualizer turns any concert into a live light show that reacts to every note. And the whole app comes in Light or Dark. Always have something to listen to. Download shows for offline play. Offline Refresh automatically swaps out finished shows for new ones, so your library stays fresh, even without a connection. Make it yours. Favorite artists, shows, tapers, and venues sync across your devices and your archive.org account. Track your listening history. Share concerts with friends. Terms and Conditions: https://livemusicarchive.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://livemusicarchive.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Live Music Archive at 95% against Deadtapes's 0%. Live Music Archive also leads on rating (4.9 vs 3.0) and update cadence (every 9 days vs every 46 months). Deadtapes's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5). On price, ads, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Live Music Archive sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Deadtapes asks for nothing beyond the download.
Live Music Archive holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Live Music Archive has 1.8K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of Deadtapes's written reviews are positive against 95% of Live Music Archive's.
Deadtapes ships an update every 46 months, Live Music Archive every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Deadtapes | Live Music Archive |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (1 ratings) | 4.9 (1.8K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 94.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1.8K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 46 months | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.2 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 93 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Thomas Maher | Astral Engineering LLC |
Customer experience
Deadtapes
Live Music Archive
Bugs and requests
Deadtapes
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Live Music Archive
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes on launch for some users
- Buggy offline download feature
- Incompatibility with older devices
Requested features
4 requests- Add Carplay support
- Implement an equalizer
- Allow playlist creation
- Add login and review functionality
In-app purchases
Deadtapes
No in-app purchases
Live Music Archive
- Nice Tip$0.99
- Generous Tip$2.99
- Amazing Tip$4.99
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- Wonderful Tip$9.99
- Astronomical Tip$19.99
