Four steps: download, install, activate, make a groove. It takes about five minutes. Your licence key is in the Gumroad receipt, in the box above the download button.
Two files are attached to your receipt: TAP-Windows.zip and TAP-macOS.dmg. Take the one for your computer.
There is no installer. Copy one file into a folder, then restart your DAW.
Paste your key once. It needs the internet for that one step, then works offline.
Press play in your DAW and click the dancer.
one file, one folder.
Rather not copy into Program Files? Put the TAP.vst3 folder anywhere you like and point your DAW at it. In Ableton that is Plug-Ins, VST3 Plug-In Custom Folder. TAP.exe is the same instrument as a program of its own.
To open a folder, press Shift-Command-G in Finder, paste the path and press Return. If Finder jumps somewhere else, that folder does not exist yet: make it (right-click, New Folder, name it VST3). Do not use the folder called VST without the 3: Live will not find TAP there. The first time you open TAP.app, macOS says it was downloaded from the internet. TAP is signed and notarised by Apple, so click Open.
Then find TAP in the browser under Plug-Ins. TAP is an instrument: drag it onto a MIDI track, not an audio track.
paste your key once.
To activate, click ACTIVATE at the bottom right of TAP's window, or click the TAP logo and press ACTIVATE.
Press PASTE, then ACTIVATE. Your key is in the Gumroad receipt. TAP needs the internet for this one step and works offline after it. The same key works on your other computers.
You have 30 days to use TAP before you activate. After that, an unactivated TAP goes quiet for two seconds every half minute until you do.
a first look, two and a half minutes.
the short tour.
He is the button. Each click writes a new groove, and he dances to it.
Twelve styles, each with its own sound, swing and colours. On ALL, every click picks a different style.
Click a row's name to keep that part. Right click it to reroll just that row. Star a groove to keep it.
Add or remove hits. Drag a hit up or down to change its level. Choose a 1/8, 1/16 or 1/32 grid, and one, two or four bars.
Switch the grid to MIX for a fader per row. TUNE moves the whole kit up or down, as much as an octave.
Drop a loop on TAP, or send it MIDI with LISTEN on. TAP finds where the hits are and writes around them.
Keep one groove in A and another in B. SONG plays A once, then B, and round again.
Drag a chip onto a track. WAV is one loop, STEMS is each part on its own, MIDI is the notes. Drop a TAP WAV back on TAP and that groove returns.
With STAB. Put STAB on its own MIDI track in the same set. There is nothing to route. This needs STAB 1.1.0 or newer.
TAP takes STAB's key (the top of its window reads STAB and the key) and its pitched sounds move into it, so TUNE steps aside. TAP also writes its groove around STAB's hits. The lighter columns in its grid are STAB's hits, and a couple of seconds after STAB's pattern changes TAP fits itself to the new one and says so at the bottom. That is TAP working as designed, not a glitch.
Your own groove is not overwritten: close STAB or switch LISTEN off and TAP goes back to what you had. Locked rows never change. To keep a groove exactly as it is while STAB moves, switch LISTEN off, or star the groove to keep it.
if something is off.
Restart the DAW first. In Ableton Live, open Preferences, Plug-Ins, turn on "Use VST3 Plug-In System Folders", then Rescan. Check you copied the TAP.vst3 folder and not a loose file from inside it.
TAP is an instrument. Put it on a MIDI track, not an audio track.
Copy it again from the receipt and use the PASTE button, since typing does not always reach a plug-in in every host. TAP needs the internet for this step.
The 30 days are up and TAP is not activated. Activate it and it stops.
Use the same download link and the same key. Gumroad may ask for the email you bought with: that is it checking it is you, not a broken link.
The download link always serves the current files, so an update costs nothing. Swap the file and restart your DAW.
stuck? write to me.
Reply to your Gumroad receipt, or write to obsidiansaints@gmail.com from the address you bought with.
What TAP makes is yours, royalty free, in any release. Your key is for you, so please do not share it.
More from the studio: STAB and BASS, stabs and basslines that lock together. Both work with TAP.
Made by Diego Ramirez · Isthmus Sound Collective · Obsidian Saints. Panama to Madrid.