Why You Might Want to Put a 4-Track Tape Machine Inside Ableton Live

2023-03-15 17:19:17 By : Mr. Jack Zhang

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Using a four-track tape machine emulator inside the all-powerful Ableton Live music suite might seem backward, but its tight constraints are the whole point. 

Creativity thrives on limitations, but modern software is so full-featured and capable that it can create option paralysis, so we have to create those limitations ourselves deliberately. Inner Ocean's 4Trak Tape Loop lets you go back to basics, turning Live into a cassette-era tape-looper without all the pesky cutting and sticking of real tape.

"Modern audio workstations like Ableton Live offer unlimited recording tracks, effects, and tools, but having so many choices can get us stuck during the creative process. Having too many options can be overwhelming, especially during the creative phase of music production," Tomislav Zlatic, music producer, musician, and chief editor at Bedroom Producers Blog, told Lifewire via email. 

4Trak Tape Loop is a Max for Live device that gives you four tape tracks. It's a tape machine emulator based on old Portastudios, machines that let bedroom producers record up to four separate tracks onto a single audio cassette. These let bands produce demo tapes but also introduced some (at the time) unwanted artifacts like tape saturation and 'wow and flutter,' which is the sound of the mechanism slowing down and speeding up as you play. 

These days, those artifacts are desirable, and the 4Trak plugin emulates some of them. But it also works as a tape looper. In the analog world, you could make a tape loop by dismantling the cassette, chopping out a short length of tape, and looping it through the mechanism. This lets you add echo and delay effects or overdub onto the same loop of tape. 

4Trak goes even further, letting you set a different loop length for each track and also playing them at different speeds or even backward. The result is something both simple and deep, which means you can get lost in it for days, pushing those boundaries and inspiring new ideas. 

It's like the perfect melding of old techniques with modern convenience. 

"Older engineers who really worked with tape machines in the 80s know what a pain in the ass it was to work with them compared to modern DAWs [digital audio workstations]—you actually had to cut the tape if you wanted to take out a word of the vocal track, for example. So they really appreciate the convenience of DAWs, and most of them wouldn't consider going back to the old way of working," music journalist and musician Eloy Caudet told Lifewire via email. 

Option paralysis—having too much creative possibility—can set in for any creative field. A blank sheet of paper or the blinking cursor in a text editor app can be more of a barrier to creativity than having too few tools. If I ask you to take your phone camera and create a photo essay, it's an impossible task. Where do you even begin?

But if I tell you to take five extreme close-ups of only the red objects in your home, then the task is suddenly way more appealing. Try it. You'll probably get deep into it and start to come up with some interesting images as you push against the boundaries. 

"Limitations and constraints can be beneficial for musicians in several ways. Firstly, they can force musicians to be more creative and think outside the box to achieve their desired sound or arrangement," Grammy- and Latin Grammy-considered artist Anand Bhatt told Lifewire via email. "Having unlimited options and possibilities can sometimes lead to decision paralysis and make it harder for musicians to make intentional choices. Limitations can also help to establish a unique aesthetic or sound that is distinct to a particular artist." 

The funny thing is, before the availability of amazing tools like Ableton, we may not even have thought about limitations. Plenty of musicians have made lifelong careers only playing one instrument. A blues guitarist might play only three chords and one scale for their entire life. A drummer doesn't agonize over which kick sounds best for each song. They just use the drum kit they have. 

"Young producers want limitations because they grew up in the digital world, so they never really had limitations. They think it's cool and kind of 'challenging' to work the old-school way. I know this because I had this attitude four years ago and worked completely analog until I switched to digital for convenience," says Caudet.

Option paralysis is a real thing with music tech and can easily be overwhelming. Tools like 4Trak's tape machine plugin can help make it fun again.

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