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Getting started

Tape Deck plays music you already have. There are two ways to bring it in, and you can use both.

Copy albums into the app

On an iPhone or iPad, open the Files app and copy album folders into On My iPhone › Tape Deck (or On My iPad), laid out as Artist › Album › tracks. On the Mac, choose File › Show Albums Folder and copy them in there. The app picks them up when you come back to it.

Play from your own music server

If you run a Tape Deck music server, type its address in tape settings › Library › Music server, or on the first screen when there's no music yet. The whole library on it is listed; a track downloads when you play it, and the rest of its album after it.

A music folder on the Mac

File › Choose Music Folder… (⌘O) plays a folder where it is, such as one on an external drive, laid out one folder per artist with one per album inside.

Formats

MP3, AAC (M4A), FLAC and WAV. Ogg and Opus files are left out, and the app says how many.

Playing

An album or an artist

Click the ▶ on its row, or double-click the row, to play it in order. Click a row to open it and see its tracks.

Two sets of keys

Choose in tape settings › Tape › Controls, or right-click the keys. Tape is a portable recorder's: Play, Rewind, Fast forward, ■▲ and Pause. Modern is a player's: shuffle, skip back, one key to play and pause, skip forward, repeat, and ■▲.

Play and Stop

Play latches down while the tape runs, and its arrow points the way the tape is going: ▶ for side A, ◀ for side B. Press it while the tape is running to turn the tape over at the same point. ■▲ stops the tape where it is; pressed again, it ejects.

Pause

Holds a playing tape where it is, with Play still down. Pause again, Play or Space carries on.

Rewind and fast forward

The tape races along the side until you press ■▲ (it stays there) or Play (it plays from there). With the modern keys, tap a skip key for the next or previous track, or hold it to wind.

Wind to a spot

Click the bar in the player, or the track index on the cassette's label, and the reels race there. Click twice on a track to play it from the top. Drag the cassette sideways to wind it by hand.

This Tape

The list button in the player, or Q, shows the album that's playing, whole. Click a track to play it.

A snapped tape

If a track can't be had when the tape reaches it (a lost connection, say), the tape pulls taut and snaps. Press Play to splice it and try again, or pick another track.

A chewed tape

At the Chewed end of the tape condition, the deck now and then eats the tape and a loop falls out over the page. Press Play, or tap the tape, to wind it back in, and the music carries on where it stopped. Turn the condition down if you'd rather it didn't.

With the screen off

Music keeps playing with the screen locked or the app in the background, and the lock screen, Control Centre and headphone controls work. A call or an alarm stops the tape, and it carries on afterwards; taking the headphones out stops it.

AirPlay speakers

The jack plug in the header lists your AirPlay speakers. Choose one and the tape plays there, and the cassette is drawn a little late to keep time with what you hear.

The cassette

Show it

The cassette button, or C. The expand button, or Shift+F, makes it full screen. On an iPhone, turn the phone sideways. The button beside it steps through the shells; hold it to take the cassette apart.

What a side holds

One track, the whole album or the whole queue (tape settings › Tape › Tape holds). Two halves splits it over sides A and B; a C46 to a C120 cuts the sides to that length; Fit to content keeps it all on one side.

Auto-reverse

At the end of side A the deck plays side B backwards without taking the tape out. Off, the tape is turned over between sides. D turns it over at any time.

Track or Tape view

The switch in the player, or T. Track shows the track playing; Tape shows the whole tape, side after side, with the leader and any blank tape at the end.

Tape settings

The gear in the header or on the cassette, or G. Tape: what a side holds, side length, auto-reverse, the keys and the leader. Sound: the tape's condition, its type and Dolby, the cue tone and motor wow. Look: the shell, the label, the handwriting and the tint from the cover. Library: the music server, the audiobook server, the downloads, and Reset, which puts the settings back to their defaults and keeps your favourites and your place.

Your library

Views

Recent, Albums, Artists and Tracks, from the tabs above the list. Recent is the ten albums you listened to last, then the ten newest in your library.

Search

Searches title, artist and album as you type; every word has to match somewhere, and accents don't need typing. Esc, or the cross in the box, clears it.

Favourites

The heart on a track marks it; the heart on an album's row marks the whole album. The heart in the header shows favourites only. They follow you between your iPhone, iPad and Mac through iCloud.

What's on this device

A yellow dot means an album or track is on this device; a ring means part of the album is. The ring-and-dot button in the header shows only what's on this device. When the server can't be reached, everything else is dimmed and skipped.

Downloads

The download button beside an album's ▶ fetches it without playing it, and × removes the downloaded copy (music you copied in yourself is never removed). Tape settings › Library › Downloads sets how much space to keep, 20 GB unless you change it; past that, the albums played longest ago are removed first. Download there, or a long press on the header's heart, fetches every favourite.

Audiobooks and podcasts

Connecting

Put your Audiobookshelf server's address and an API key in tape settings › Library, and a book appears in the header: it swaps the music for your books and podcasts, and back.

Playing a book

A book is a tape and its chapters are the tracks. It downloads whole before it plays, and Play takes it up where you left off, in this app or Audiobookshelf's own. Entering the books puts the one you played last in the deck, ready for Play.

Speed and skips

The menu left of Play reads 0.8× to 1.2× at the same pitch. The lock screen, the headphones and the car skip back 15 seconds and on 30.

Keeping your place

So a stray tap can't lose your place, a book's tape moves only by Rewind and Fast forward, the bar in Track view, and a chapter's row.

On the Mac

Menus

Controls: Play and Stop (Space in the window), Turn Tape Over ⌘D, Next and Previous ⌘→ ⌘←, Eject ⌘E, AirPlay…. View: the tabs ⌘1 to ⌘4, Show Cassette ⌘K, Full-Screen Cassette ⇧⌘F, Mini Player ⌥⌘M, This Tape ⌥⌘U, Downloaded Only ⌘L, Search Library ⌘F. Tape and Look hold the tape settings as menus.

Mini player

A small window that stays above the others and shows just the cassette. Move the mouse over it for the controls.

Right-click

On the keys, the cassette, an album's row or the header's heart, a right-click opens a menu of what can be done there.

Settings

Tape Deck › Settings… (⌘,) opens tape settings in a window of their own.

Keyboard

Questions