1. Acceptance of these Terms
These Terms and Conditions govern your access to and use of Tape DSP, including the downloadable plug-ins, the website, account features, the optional online processing tools, the credit system, and related services. By creating an account, installing a plug-in, uploading audio, buying credits, or using the service, you agree to these Terms.
If you use Tape DSP on behalf of a company, client, studio, label, or other organization, you confirm that you have authority to accept these Terms for that organization.
2. The Tape DSP service and plug-ins
Tape DSP offers downloadable audio plug-ins in formats such as VST3, Audio Unit, and LV2 that run inside your own digital audio workstation. The released plug-ins can be downloaded and used free of charge for a set of included controls. Remaining controls are unlocked by a one-time purchase (an "Expansion") or by the Collection bundle that covers all of them. Your use of the downloadable plug-ins is additionally governed by the End User License Agreement in Section 17 and by the license text presented during installation.
Tape DSP also offers an online audio processing service for tape saturation, tape machine emulation, mastering-style workflows, sample processing, and multitrack stem processing. The online service renders audio through digital signal processing models and returns processed audio files for you to review, compare, and download.
Tape DSP is a creative and technical tool. It does not guarantee any specific artistic, mastering, loudness, commercial, distribution, or platform-acceptance result.
3. Accounts and eligibility
You are responsible for keeping your account credentials secure and for all activity under your account. Use accurate account information and keep your email address available so we can send account, verification, security, and service notices.
You must be legally able to enter these Terms. If you are under the legal age required in your location, you may use Tape DSP only with permission and supervision from a parent, guardian, or authorized organization.
4. Terms acceptance records
When you create an account — with email or Google — you accept the current Terms and Conditions by continuing. We may record the Terms version and acceptance timestamp with your account for audit, security, and legal compliance purposes.
If these Terms materially change, we may ask you to accept the updated Terms before continuing to use account or processing features.
5. Cookies and local storage
Tape DSP uses essential cookies to keep you signed in, protect account sessions, prevent abuse, and operate core service features. These cookies are necessary for the service and are always active.
With your consent, Tape DSP also uses analytics and advertising cookies (including Google Analytics and Google Ads) to measure how the service is used and to measure and promote the service through advertising campaigns, such as tracking sign-ups that result from an ad. These non-essential cookies stay disabled until you accept the cookie notice shown on the site; you can decline by not accepting it.
Tape DSP also uses browser local storage to remember interface preferences and whether you have acknowledged the cookie notice. Creating an account does not by itself enable analytics or advertising cookies — you must accept the cookie notice for those to activate.
6. Your audio and rights
You keep ownership of the audio, stems, samples, mixes, metadata, and other material you upload, and you keep ownership of the processed output generated from your material. Tape DSP does not claim ownership of your music or recordings.
You grant Tape DSP a limited, non-exclusive license to receive, transmit, analyze, process, render, store temporarily, and deliver your uploaded audio and processed output solely as needed to operate, secure, support, and improve the service.
You confirm that you have all rights, permissions, licenses, and clearances needed to upload, process, transform, download, and use the audio you submit. Do not upload material that infringes copyright, privacy, publicity, contractual, or other rights.
7. Audio processing and file handling
Processing may require temporary copies of uploaded and rendered audio in memory, transient server storage, logs, queues, backups, or diagnostic systems. Processing time and availability can vary based on file size, settings, server load, browser behavior, and network conditions.
You are responsible for keeping your own backups of original and processed files. Tape DSP is not an archive, storage locker, or long-term backup service.
8. Expansions, credits, billing, and refunds
Plug-in Expansions and the Collection bundle are one-time purchases, not subscriptions. An Expansion unlocks the remaining controls of a specific plug-in for your Tape DSP account and can be re-activated on machines you own or control, subject to the machine-seat limit in Sections 17 and 18. Prices, bundle discounts, upgrade credit toward the Collection, and which controls are included may change for future purchases; a purchase you already completed keeps the unlock it granted.
Online mastering renders use processing credits, which are separate from Expansions. The plug-ins do not consume credits. Credits are charged based on the length of audio processed, including full renders and selected sections. Credit rates, free starter credits, pack sizes, pricing, and promotions may change over time.
Credits are not cash, are not a stored-value account, are non-transferable unless we expressly allow it, and are not redeemable for money. Credits currently do not expire, but they may be lost if an account is closed for breach, fraud, abuse, chargeback, or legal compliance reasons.
If a paid processing request fails before the processed audio is delivered, Tape DSP may automatically refund the reserved credits to your account. Because Expansions are digital unlocks delivered immediately, cash refunds for Expansions, the Collection, and purchased credits are discretionary unless required by applicable law.
Paid Expansions, the Collection, and credit packs are checked out through Lemon Squeezy. Lemon Squeezy may act as merchant of record for the payment, collect applicable taxes, and apply its own checkout terms to the transaction. After a successful payment, Tape DSP grants the matching Expansion, Collection unlock, or credits to your account. Chargebacks, payment disputes, and card data are handled by Lemon Squeezy; Tape DSP receives payment confirmation such as your account email, the product purchased, and the amount.
9. Acceptable use
You may not use Tape DSP to violate the law, infringe rights, distribute malware, attack or overload the service, bypass limits, scrape private systems, reverse engineer protected parts of the service, resell unauthorized access, or interfere with other users.
You may not upload audio or data that you do not have permission to process, or use Tape DSP to create or distribute unlawful, deceptive, defamatory, harassing, or privacy-invasive material.
10. Tape DSP intellectual property
Tape DSP, including its software, interface, DSP models, presets, branding, graphics, documentation, measurements, and other service materials, is owned by Tape DSP or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws.
These Terms give you permission to use the service, not ownership of the service. You may use your processed audio output according to your rights in the source material, but you may not copy, modify, redistribute, or create competing services from Tape DSP software or protected service materials.
11. Service changes and availability
We may update, improve, suspend, remove, or change parts of Tape DSP, including processing settings, presets, credit rates, limits, file formats, account features, and infrastructure. We try to keep the service reliable, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation.
We may limit, suspend, or terminate access if we believe an account is creating risk, violating these Terms, abusing resources, causing security issues, or exposing Tape DSP or others to legal liability.
12. Disclaimers
Tape DSP is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, uninterrupted availability, data preservation, compatibility, and error-free operation.
Audio results are subjective and depend on source material, settings, browser capabilities, playback environment, monitoring chain, and user decisions. You are responsible for reviewing output before release, distribution, broadcast, mastering delivery, or commercial use.
13. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Tape DSP will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost recordings, lost data, business interruption, reputational harm, or replacement service costs.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Tape DSP's total liability for claims relating to the service or the downloadable plug-ins will be limited to the greater of USD $100 or the amount you paid to Tape DSP (including Expansions, the Collection, and credits) in the three months before the claim. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limits, so those limits apply only where permitted.
14. Indemnity
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Tape DSP harmless from claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses arising from your uploaded audio, your processed output, your use of the service, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of another person's rights.
15. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the country in which Tape DSP is established, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, and excluding the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. You may bring a dispute in the courts of that country, except where mandatory consumer law lets you use the courts of your home country. Nothing in these Terms limits mandatory consumer rights that cannot be waived by contract.
Before starting a formal dispute, contact contact@tapedsp.com so we can try to resolve the issue directly.
16. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms as the service changes. If changes are material, we will take reasonable steps to notify users, such as updating this page, showing an in-product notice, or sending an email. Your continued use of Tape DSP after updated Terms become effective means you accept the updated Terms.
17. Downloadable plug-ins — End User License Agreement (EULA)
The Tape DSP plug-ins (VST3, Audio Unit, and LV2) are licensed, not sold. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use the plug-ins on computers you own or control, for both personal and commercial audio production. The included controls of every plug-in are licensed at no charge. Purchasing an Expansion or the Collection extends the same license to that plug-in's remaining controls for your account and does not transfer ownership. The plug-ins do not consume processing credits. The same license text is shown during installation on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and must be accepted to install or use the plug-ins.
You may not sell, rent, lease, lend, sublicense, or redistribute the plug-ins as a standalone product; reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble them except to the extent applicable law expressly permits; modify or create derivative works of them; circumvent or interfere with license activation, Expansion unlocks, seat limits, security, or update mechanisms; or remove or alter any proprietary notices. All title and intellectual property rights in the plug-ins, including their DSP models, code, presets, interface, and branding, remain with Tape DSP and its licensors.
The plug-ins are built with the JUCE framework and may include other third-party components (including Signalsmith libraries), each governed by its own license. VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. Audio Units and AU are trademarks of Apple Inc. LV2 is an open plug-in standard. If a plug-in is provided as a beta or pre-release version, it may contain defects, may change, and may be discontinued at any time; do not rely on beta software for critical work and always keep backups. This license continues until terminated and ends automatically if you breach it, at which point you must stop using and delete all copies of the plug-ins, including any Expansion or Collection unlocks.
18. Plug-in activation and data
The plug-ins may require one-time online activation with a Tape DSP account and may periodically connect to our servers to validate the license and any Expansion or Collection you own, check for updates, and display occasional product notices. During these connections a plug-in may transmit a randomly generated installation identifier, the product name and version, and basic operating-system information, which we use to operate activation, deliver updates and notices, and understand aggregate usage.
An account may keep the plug-ins unlocked on a limited number of machines at the same time (currently three). You can free a seat from your Tape DSP account; a freed machine locks again when its current lease expires.
The plug-ins do not transmit, upload, or store the audio you process; audio processing happens locally inside your digital audio workstation. If you activate a plug-in against your Tape DSP account, activation and notice-acknowledgement records may be associated with that account as described in these Terms and in the Privacy Notice at https://tapedsp.com/privacy.
19. Privacy
How Tape DSP handles account, payment, cookie, and plug-in activation data is described in the Privacy Notice at https://tapedsp.com/privacy. That notice is part of how we operate the service described in these Terms.
20. Contact
Questions about these Terms can be sent to contact@tapedsp.com.