Tascam's Portastudios laid the foundation for affordable multi-tracking for novice and professional musicians alike. Before digital audio workstations such as Pro Tools became the norm and affordable by average consumers, a four or eight track cassette-based Portastudio was a breakthrough product. Musicians were able to produce quality demos and in some cases entire albums on this analog device.
Flash forward to 2010 and the increasing footprint of Apple's iPad has signaled a return to nostalgic hardware wrapped in a software interface. The $10 Tascam Portastudio app has the classic interface and simplicity of the hardware recorders.
* Cassette tape-style transport. (Linear transport, I might add. Seriously. You have to rewind and fast forward to get around.)
* Routing to four inputs.
* Mixdown to stereo (via a dialog box, so that’s the point where you break the illusion).
* Simple EQ.
* File sharing, via iTunes or Soundcloud. (This last item is what makes this a useful tool and not just a novelty.)
* Support for “a few” class-compliant audio interfaces, though your mileage may vary.
Unfortunately the "bouncing" feature is missing but updates could fix that. Get more info HERE
Thanks to ENGADGET for the original post.
