Gauss Field Looper app for iPhone and iPad

Co-designed with Berlin-based electronic musician Hainbach, Gauss brings the oldschool tape-looping art form to mobile devices. This creative field looper works both standalone and as an Audio Unit effect plugin and puts the possibilities of using looped tapes in your hands. Without the need for scissors.

Like real tape loops Gauss takes you off the grid of your DAW: you can adjust tape speed and direction, even during recording. The flow of your loops will drift organically as the tape follows its own cyclical timeline. 

Use overdub, or even multiple instances of the Audio Unit plugin, to create multi-layered ever changing sonic palettes.

We want this app to be a celebration of digital audio technology, so when audio quality is degraded it will do so in a pleasingly crunchy digital way. For example, recording on low tape speeds will give you longer recording time, but at the cost (or pleasure) of a distinctively lower recording quality. So Gauss mimics the behaviour - not the sound - of magnetic tape.

Set the length of the tape, record and overdub your audio, play around with tape speeds; Gauss captures the essence of two ends of tape stuck together in all its unsynchronised, free-running glory. Theres even a unique built-in 4-step polyrhythmic sequencer for sequencing tape-speed changes.

- designed as a standalone field recorder and an Audio Unit effect plugin (AUv3) in one package
- universal app: plugin and standalone work on all iDevices, iOS11 and higher
- variable tape speed; seamlessly change direction and speed during playback or recording
- 4-step sequencer lets you trigger (polyrhythmic) tape-speed changes in sync with your host tempo
- variable inertia for the tape drive motors (from instant to very slow speed changes)
- built-in multi-mode filter with LFO modulation
- delay effect with optional host-sync mode
- “1989” mode uses a special 8 bit/11KHz tape head for a last-century vintage digital sound
- 45 seconds maximum loop size at 1x speed, proportionally longer at lower speeds (.e.g 90 seconds at half speed, etc.)
- overdub at any speed or tape direction
- plugin supports global cross-host preset handling (requires iOS13+, compatible AUv3 host)

Find the user manual at ruismaker.com