Air Music Tech has offered the Tape Double Track plugin for free for a limited time during the Black Friday period. It normally costs $99, so this is a nice little tool to grab and recreate a classic studio effect in your DAW without spending a dime.
Oh, and by the way, this isn’t the only Black Friday freebie we’re getting today. Universal Audio also dropped a huge deal with their pick-any-freebie offer. We’ll see what Waves Audio has in store for us tomorrow…
Until then, let’s focus on AIR Music Tech’s gift.
Tape Double Track recreates the classic double-tracking technique used in the ’60s and beyond, where engineers would record a performance to two tape machines and let the natural pitch drift and timing differences create a doubling effect.
The idea was to save a bit of the time they’d usually spend on recording multiple takes to get a similar type of sound. But the result wasn’t exactly the same and had its own vibe.
I’ve always loved this technique (in its emulated form, since I don’t have a couple of tape machines lying around), especially on vocals and guitars, but anyone who has tried it knows that phasing can creep in.
Modern plugins try to solve that in different ways, and Air’s new tool also has a trick up its sleeve for avoiding phasing issues.
My first encounter with ADT plugins was an old freeware 32-bit tool simply called ADT. I used it constantly until moving on to Waves’ ADT, which has been my go-to for years. If you don’t already have an ADT plugin, Tape Double Track is a fantastic starting point, and not only because it’s free at the moment.
The interface layout is one of my favorite things about this release. It doesn’t try to mimic a specific vintage deck, but it still has that tape vibe.
The main Varispeed control is front and center, and it lets you dial in the movement and delay offset between the two “tapes.” The individual channel controls, like pan, drive, phase, and volume, are there to let you fine-tune the stereo image and the overall thickness of the doubling effect.
But the feature that caught my eye is the Bass Mono option. This keeps your low frequencies centered to avoid the phase issues that we mentioned earlier.
There’s a Warp control to reshape the modulation in real time. You can run it in manual mode for simple delays or switch to auto mode for tape-like pitch drifting and more animated movement.
Tape Double Track runs in VST2, VST3, AU, and AAX formats and also works inside MPC standalone hardware. It’s available for macOS 14+ and Windows 10/11, and you’ll need an internet connection for activation.
Download: Tape Double Track (FREE for a limited time)
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Last Updated on November 27, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.
