Reel: 4-Track Recorder

Most recording apps feel like software. Reel feels like hardware.

Reel is a multitrack tape-style field recorder in your pocket. Record your hardware jams, capture ideas in the rehearsal room, a live gig, collect sounds out in the field, digitise your vinyl or catch the moment inspiration hits. Connect your interface, hit record and capture it before it's gone.

The disc spins. The transport clicks. Rewind ramps up the way tape actually does. Every interaction is physical, immediate, satisfying. Less time looking, more time listening.

THE DISC.
The large central reel is the heart of the app. Drag to scrub. Flick it and it spins with real momentum. Scratch it and it sounds like tape pulled across a head, wind and all. Nothing else on the App Store feels like this.

RECORDING.
This is what Reel is for. Record one track or all four at once. Punch in a fix, overdub on top, record in reverse or let a take wait and start at your first sound. Count in with the click or roll free with no grid.

QUICK RECORD.
Inspiration doesn't wait. Press the Action Button, tap the Control Center button or ask Siri and Reel opens already rolling.

FOUR TRACKS. REAL WORKFLOW.
Reel works like tape, not a DAW. Capture your whole setup in one take, up to four tracks at once from a multichannel interface. Then work the tape one track at a time: punch in a fix or overdub a new part without touching the rest. When all four are full, bounce down to one and keep layering. Reel is tape the way it works, not tape the way it sounds: the source lands clean and professional grade, ready for your DAW, sampler or a real tape machine.

THE LOOPER.
Set a length in bars and the take ends itself on the bar and loops. Hit record mid-loop and the next take waits for the top, records one pass and drops in. Build a song one layer at a time.

TEMPO AND BARS.
A metronome with any time signature, count-in, a visual beat and a bars timeline. The click follows the tape, even when you scrub.

CUE POINTS.
Drop a marker anywhere and jump back instantly. Name, reorder and preview them or play them from pads on your controller.

THE MIXER.
The mixer slides up over the reel. Per-track meters, level, pan, mute, solo, monitoring and input gain for record levels. Real fader feel, with haptics. Mixes save per project and print on export.

PITCH AND SPEED.
Speed and pitch move together, like tape. Lock the disc anywhere from quarter speed to four times or snap to real semitones. Record over a sped-up take, bring it back down and your new part plays deep and slow. It plays backwards too.

MASTER RECORD.
Print your performance as you play it. Arm it and it starts at the first sound: every stop, scrub and pitch move goes down live to its own recording. Resample the master straight onto a track and keep building.

MIDI AND ABLETON LINK.
Start, stop and record in sync with drum machines, samplers and grooveboxes. Map any MIDI controller to Reel's controls over USB or Bluetooth. With Ableton Link, Reel shares tempo and downbeat with Live and every Link app on your network.

WORKS WITH YOUR GEAR.
Plug in an OP-1 Field and it maps itself: 8 channels across 4 tracks. Plug in a Focusrite, Zoom, or MOTU and record at native quality up to 96kHz and 32-bit. Each track can flow out its own stereo pair, 10 channels into a real mixer. No drivers, no setup, no laptop.

No interface? No problem. The built-in mic handles voice, acoustic instruments, and room recordings, with Studio Vocal Mode to clean up imperfect spaces.

DJ MODE.
Flip the disc into a turntable. It slows under your touch, and pitch bends like a deck instead of a tape machine. Your recordings become the record.

YOUR FILES. NO LOCK-IN. FULL PRIVACY.
Export WAV, AIFF or M4A to your DAW, AirDrop, social apps or to the cloud. Import audio to any track, even from a video. Shares carry your pitch, loop, and mix, so what you hear is what you send. Organize with color-coded tags. Your sessions stay on your device or iCloud. No account required.

Ready for iOS 27, plus a round of fixes from your reports.

NEW

• Open last reel on launch: a Settings switch that brings back the reel you were working on, with its mix, pitch and loop, instead of a blank deck.

iOS 27

• Recording, monitoring and playback are clean again without crackle. iOS 27 changed how it drives audio and Reel now asks for exactly what it needs on every phone.
• Fast forward and rewind respond the moment you touch them as it was pre iOS 27.
• The Library no longer opens with the keyboard up. The search keyboard drops when you scroll or tap Done.
• Larger text and Display Zoom leave the recorder's layout alone. The timecode always fits.
• Fixed a crash when opening the Library.
• Reel picks up cleanly when you swap an interface while it is in the background.

STABILITY

• Fixed the most common crash in 1.5.1, which hit when iOS put Reel to sleep during an iCloud sync.
• Fixed crashes when a USB interface is unplugged during a rebuild, flaps on connect or is monitored while its route changes.
• Fixed a crash when deleting a cue.
• Recording works again after a multichannel interface is unplugged.

TRANSPORT

• Play, fast forward or rewind pressed during the tape stop respond right away. No freeze, no thud.
• Long reels stay in sync after rewinding to the start.
• Switching the output mid-playback keeps the tape rolling.

RECORDING

• Unplugging an interface keeps your selected track, so the next take never lands on track 1 by mistake.
• Pitch is saved even without locking it, so exports and bounces print what you heard.

CONTROLS

• Channel picker taps in the Inputs sheet register first time.
• Fixed the volume fader jumping from 0 straight to 37 when a MIDI fader starts moving. On-screen faders now track your MIDI faders the whole way.
• The time signature no longer flips on its own and the tempo ramp stops when you scroll away.

LIBRARY

• Sort and search your reels. Every row shows date and time.
• Select All and Delete only touch the rows you can see.
• Restore from Files rebuilds Library entries for recordings that lost theirs.

Launching with AirPods already connected on iOS 27 and hearing nothing? Pick the AirPods again in the output menu. We are on it.

Spot something off, or have an idea for Reel? Write to us at [email protected]. We read and respond to everyone.