Pointless Audio / Plugins / PortaTwin
Cassette Tape · Four-track, 1987
PortaTwin
The preamp clips early. That’s the point.
Cassette channel strip modeled after a 1987 four-track cassette recorder. The preamp clips early. The tape wears out. We kept both.
- Machine
- A 1987 four-track cassette recorder
- Measured
- The mixer, stage by stage, on a real unit
- By ear
- The noise reduction
- Version
- v2.1.2
- Runs on
- VST3 · AU · CLAP — macOS, Windows, Linux
- License
- Pay once. No iLok, no account, no subscription
Or all six for €49, PortaTwin included. Get all six · Money back in 14 days if it doesn’t run on your system.
5.0 from 94 ratings on Gumroad · Bedroom Producers Blog
What people say
Still, I like that PortaTwin doesn’t bury the useful stuff under too many controls.
This is the best sim of it's kind. This is the most complete I've come across where every function brings goodness to the table. The saturation is bananas!
Hear it
The same take twice, level-matched. Switch the plugin off and on while it plays.
Full mix
The whole track on cassette
The whole track on the four-track: the top closes in, held notes waver and the hits lose their edge.
Keys
Rhodes and celesta on tape
Held chords waver and the celesta darkens. When bass and drums come in, the keys sit further back, as on tape.
Guitar
Guitar on hot tape
The guitar on its own: it saturates, loud notes squash and the tail picks up tape dirt.
What it does
A mixer that clips early
New projects run through the four-track’s mixer, modeled stage by stage from measurements of a real unit, each stage clipping on its own curve. From clean analog coloring to full tape destruction: the input colors everything it touches.
Tape that drifts
Wow, flutter, and a BIAS control you can push until the top end gives up. The transport wobbles because the original transport wobbled.
Noise reduction that breathes
Tuned by ear, not modeled from the circuit. It ducks the hiss in quiet passages and breathes back in. Built to tame the hiss, it ends up shaping the sound.
Crosstalk and a head bump
Tracks bleed into each other, more as the tape wears. The low end swells with DRIVE: at half, 0.6 dB past the service manual’s limit.
Where it works
Drum bus, synths, guitars, full mixes when you’re feeling brave. Not the most accurate “studio tape” plugin. The one that makes a demo sound like a record you found in a drawer.
16 parameters, 18 presets
Everything automatable, POWER included. Presets from subtle analog glue to full lo-fi collapse, plus one that sets the machine up the way its service manual does.
The heritage
Introduced in 1979, the Portastudio was the first four-track cassette recorder. It put a recording studio in a bedroom. The machine that started the family gave us Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska in 1982, when a record made at home was still an accident.
By 1987 it was normal. The Tascam Porta Two put a six-channel mixer, an effects send and four tracks on one cassette. It is the generation of machine behind a decade of records that were never supposed to be released.
Elliott Smith’s Roman Candle was recorded on a four-track. Iron & Wine’s The Creek Drank the Cradle was recorded at home on a four-track cassette recorder. Daniel Johnston, R. Stevie Moore, Sebadoh and The Microphones came out of the same home-taping scene. All of it was made on the machines, not with this plugin.
PortaTwin models one machine from that family, the 1987 four-track: its mixer, measured on a real unit, its tape and transport, and a noise reduction tuned by ear.
Tascam, Portastudio and Porta Two are trademarks of TEAC Corporation. Pointless Audio is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by TEAC. Product names are used solely to describe the hardware that inspired this plug-in.
Specs
- Formats
- VST3 + AU + CLAP
- Platforms
- macOS (Universal) + Windows 10+ (VST3 + CLAP) + Linux x86_64 (VST3 + CLAP)
- Version
- v2.1.2
- License
- Perpetual — no account, no iLok, no subscription
- Manual
- Online manual · PDF
What’s new in 2.1
For those who have it
The four-track’s mixer, measured on a real unit, at less than half the CPU of 2.0.
- Mixer
- New instances, factory presets and Init run through a model of the four-track’s mixer: input stage, fader and EQ before the tape, master and output amplifier after it. Each stage clips on its own measured curve, and the mixer’s faint background noise is there at its measured level. The controls are the same sixteen: the right half of the TRIM knob (INPUT in your host) is now the four-track’s TRIM, up to +40.1 dB; EQ LOW and EQ HIGH work at 100 Hz and 10 kHz, about ±10 dB; HOT pushes the channel fader 9.4 dB up and pulls the master down by as much.
- CPU
- 3.74 % of one core in the worst case we measured (Apple Silicon, 48 kHz, 128-sample buffer), against 8.21 % for 2.0.
- Fixed
- A single invalid sample at the input no longer leaves both channels silent until the host re-initialises the plugin. Host Reset now clears filters, delay lines and oversampling. On a mono track with a stereo output, bypass no longer leaves the right channel silent. A project saved with POWER off reopens with it off.
- Logic on Tahoe
- The preset bar in the bottom-left corner keeps responding after the window is moved or resized in Logic, GarageBand and MainStage on macOS Tahoe.
- Interface
- Faceplate and the DRIVE TYPE and AUTO GAIN switches redrawn from the retouched artwork. Knobs and layout unchanged.
- Presets
- Three new factory presets. The fifteen from 2.0 keep their names and character, retuned for the mixer: about the same distortion as before, level-matched to the bypassed signal.
Already have PortaTwin? Same Gumroad link: download it again. Projects saved with 2.0 open with the same settings and keep the preamp they were made with, even when you save them again: they sound as they did.
How to get it
-
01
Get it on Gumroad
Checkout runs on Gumroad, which handles payment and VAT. The download link lands in your inbox.
-
02
Download the zip
Inside: VST3 + AU + CLAP builds and the manual as PDF. macOS builds are signed and notarized. Linux is a separate tar.gz.
-
03
Install, rescan, done
macOS: run the signed installer in the zip and pick your formats. Windows: copy the plugin into your plugin folder. Linux: extract the tar.gz, copy the .vst3 folder to ~/.vst3 and the .clap file to ~/.clap; README.txt inside has the steps. Rescan in your DAW. No account, no activation. The manual has the exact paths for macOS and Windows.
Questions
How do I install it?
On macOS, run the installer inside the zip: it is signed and notarized, and lets you pick the formats. On Windows, copy each format into your plugin folder. On Linux, extract the tar.gz and copy the .vst3 folder to ~/.vst3 and the .clap file to ~/.clap, as README.txt inside the package explains. Then rescan in your DAW. The manual has the exact paths for macOS and Windows; Linux is in README.txt.
Do I need an account, a dongle, or an internet connection?
No account, no iLok, no subscription, no activation. Once installed it runs fully offline.
Does it work in my DAW?
Any host that loads VST3, AU or CLAP: Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Reaper, Bitwig, Cubase, Studio One, FL Studio and friends. No AAX — Pro Tools is not supported.
Does it run on Linux?
Yes: x86_64, VST3 and CLAP, no AU. It needs glibc 2.38 or newer (Ubuntu 24.04+, Debian 13, Fedora 39+); Ubuntu 22.04 and Debian 12 are too old. The CLAP build is experimental. Same sound engine as the macOS and Windows builds. If something doesn’t load or sounds wrong, write to hello@pointlessaudio.studio.
Windows says the file is from an unknown publisher.
Windows builds are not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may warn on first run. The zip you download from Gumroad is the zip we built — choose “Run anyway” or unblock the file in Properties.
Refunds?
If it doesn’t run on your system, you get your money back. 14 days. Write to hello@pointlessaudio.studio — most problems are quick to fix, and if yours isn’t, the refund goes through Gumroad.
Have updates been free?
So far, yes: every update has been free, delivered through the same Gumroad link.
€29
Pay once. No iLok, no account, no subscription. If it doesn’t run on your system, you get your money back. 14 days.
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