R–4 · Recorder Beta testing

Pull it
out and
press REC.

A recorder that opens as fast as a voice memo and lets you play over what is already playing — then keeps going, all the way to a mastered mix. Four tracks in your hand — six when the TX-6 docks — one reel, and no step where the idea has to wait for you to set something up.

Follow the build Why it exists
00:00 STOPPED
DRUMS HATS BASS KEYS GTR VOX

PRESS PLAY — THE TAPE IS REAL. REW WINDS IT BACK.

FERRIC R–4
01Why it exists

The idea shows up before the studio is ready

  • You have a beat playing and you want to sing over it. Hit record on the phone and the beat stops. The one thing you wanted to do is the one thing it will not do.
  • The riff is right now and nothing opens fast enough. So it goes into the voice memo app, because that is the only thing that opens in one press.
  • And there it stays, as MEMO 0082. A good drum idea, filed under a number, next to four hundred others. Findable by nobody, including you.

R–4 is the machine that takes all three. Pull it out, press REC — one key and you are on tape. Drop any audio you like onto a track first and play along with it while it records; that is the whole point.

What you catch does not vanish into a numbered list. It lands in the crate the rest of the kit reads, so the sampler can chop it and the library can find it again by what it sounds like.

And the one key you actually reach for is safe. A reel comes up armed on its next open track, so a single press of REC gets you to tape — and because it only ever arms an EMPTY track, that press can never erase a take you already have. Every track full is the one honest refusal left.

Everything else is built to keep you playing. The console is live, so what you hear is exactly what prints. Nothing quantizes what you played. Every strip can take at once off the patchbay, so the whole kit can go down in one pass — and the other Ferric instruments mount as their own tracks, clean and digital, no mic, no bleed.

Then it finishes properly. Every mixdown leaves this machine streaming-ready — the vibe printed in, −14 LUFS integrated, peaks under −1 dB, the BPM in the filename. Not a rough bounce you have to take somewhere else to be made loud. Ideas become demos here, and demos become masters.

And when a demo outgrows the tape, EXPORT STEMS — every track from bar 1, aligned, with the tempo and the song's shape beside them, ready to open in Ableton or Logic.

“Three become one; you have three again. The generation you print is the mix you hear.”

— the R–4 field manual, on bouncing
02Heritage

In the spirit of the Portastudio

INSPIRED BYTEAC 144 Portastudio1979 — THE FIRST CASSETTE MULTITRACKER

Bedroom records came off the 144 — a machine that made committing a feature. R–4 keeps the feel and loses the fights: the limits stay where they make songs, and go where they fought the phone.

WHAT STAYS
  • The reel, the head, the spool — and the honest erase
  • Cream-faced VU meters riding directly above their tracks
  • Bounce culture: commit the mix you hear, get your tracks back
  • The console is live — what you hear is what prints
WHAT THE PHONE ADDS
  • Tape that grows as you record, and a razor that edits
  • Forms that cut the tape to the shape of your song
  • Six sources printing at once off the patchbay — the whole band
  • Every mixdown a streaming-ready master, −14 LUFS

Not a re-creation — a continuation. If you love the hardware, you'll feel at home here; learn here, and the hardware will feel like home too.

03The field manual

Form. Arm. Roll. Punch. Mix.

The tape window

The head is pinned to the center, in red — playing, the tape rolls past it; scrubbing, you drag the tape itself. The lanes of waveforms on oxide, the bar grid bolted underneath, the razor a double-tap away. A take being recorded draws itself in red, live, from the punch — proof the machine hears you. Press a lane's number and it takes the window; the others stay slivers, so the reel still reads as all its tracks.

The meters

Cream-faced VU meters, one per strip, ride directly above the tracks they meter — the 144's proudest feature. Real ballistics: the needle integrates toward the signal instead of chasing it. Past 0 VU the face goes red. That's the print running hot.

The console

Arm any number — each track prints its own input off the patchbay, so every strip can take at once. The LED tells the truth: dark at rest, half-lit armed, full when the tape is taking. The console is live — what you hear is exactly what bounce and mixdown print. On a phone with one input there is nothing to choose, so the bay isn't drawn; plug an interface in or install a sibling and it comes back on its own.

The vibe

The master preset: hiss, lows, top and wow worn by the whole song, printed only on mixdown. The tape itself stays clean — switch vibes and the same reel comes back different. From FRESH REEL, the truth, to AM GOLD, narrow and honeyed.

The whole manual ships inside the app — tap the wordmark. No quantize, no edit page: the counter and your hands.

04How it's used

Track, mix, bounce, live with it

  1. FORMLoad a song shape and the tape cuts itself to it — named pins at every boundary. A 7-bar chorus is your business.
  2. ARMYou mostly don't. A reel lands armed on its next open track — arm by hand only when you want a different one. Every strip can print at once, each off its own patchbay input.
  3. ROLLThe transport keys are held, not tapped — the tape winds while your thumb is down, picking up speed.
  4. PUNCHREC while playing punches in on the fly; again punches out and the tape keeps rolling.
  5. MIXFader, pan, ±9 dB shelves — live. Then bounce down to make room, commit, move on.
  6. MASTEREvery mixdown leaves streaming-ready: the vibe printed in, −14 LUFS, peaks under −1 dB, the BPM in the filename.
05In the kit

The kit records into this

THE PATCHBAY

J–17 and P–16 mount as instruments on their own tracks — play their apps and the tape prints the clean digital out, no mic, no bleed. The two input jacks each run through their own D–65.

THE CRATE

Every sound the family ever printed, stacked beside the deck. FROM J–17, FROM P–16, FROM D–65 — the shelves fill themselves, and the crate is a record source you can punch like riding a fader.

THE CLOCK

SYNC: R–4 leads and the kit starts with the tape. EXT: it follows P–16's transport. One machine leads, the others fall in.

THE ROAD OUT

Export stems — every track from bar 1, aligned, tempo in the names — when a demo earns the deep desk. The form format is the family's own; L–1 keeps the shapes.

Also an Audio Unit — aufx · r4tp — the tape sound on a bus: drive, wow & flutter, hiss, three factory reels.

$9.99. Bought once, yours for good.

One purchase covers the deck on iPhone and iPad. No subscription, no unlocks, and it works with the plane in airplane mode. What you pay builds the next machine.

$9.99 ON THE APP STORE
IPHONE IPAD
Bought once. No subscription, no unlocks, nothing expires.
$29.99 ON THE DESK
MAC APPAUv3
A separate build, not an upgrade fee — priced against the desktop plugins it sits next to. All four in the Rack for $79. The desk counter →

Free to test right now — the beta is just below.

06The bench notes · free

Follow the build.

A short note from the bench when something ships, breaks, or gets fixed — and release day when it comes. The regulars also get every TestFlight beta first, free. Nothing else, ever.

The bench is the desk these are made on. The regulars hear what comes off it first — what got built, what broke, and what ships next.

Beta invites included · double opt-in · unsubscribe any time

Keep exploring Next on the bench T–2 Tuner Free The needle gets you in tune. That takes twenty seconds. The rest is why T-2 exists. See what it does Or look over the whole line — 6 machines, and how they play together