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Musician Tries Tesla's In-Dash Music-Making App "Trax," Says It's Garbage

Elon Musk thought he could write music, although his greatest hit, "Don't Doubt ur Vibe," failed to make waves outside the Tesla community. This is probably why Tesla introduced a music-making app in its cars with the 2019 Holiday update. The app seems to be no better than Musk's music, as musician Benn Jordan found out.
Tesla music app Trax is garbage 12 photos
Photo: Benn Jordan via YouTube | Edited
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One of the most striking pictures of 2020 was that of Elon Musk sitting in his music studio on January 31. Musk just released his second song, "Don't Doubt ur Vibe," a follow-up to the "RIP Harambe" from a year before. Between these two songs, which now constitute Elon's music legacy, Tesla introduced a music-making app in its vehicles with the 2019 Holiday update. Trax, as it was called, offered basic tools for creating music without impressing anyone.

Trax was supposed to turn your Tesla into a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), albeit a very expensive one. It's even worse when you consider you cannot make "real" music using the software, and it's merely good for killing time while the car charges. Trax allows users to create instrument channels and play them with an on-screen MIDI keyboard. Based on the release notes, owners can also adjust the tempo and record multiple tracks. But it's still basic software and doesn't always work, as people have discovered.

Early reviews by actual musicians weren't flattering, although you'd expect some rough edges from a software version written as "v0.1." We're more than two years past the first release, and things didn't seem to improve a bit. American musician Benn Jordan tried the software recently on his brand-new Tesla Model Y and found it buggy to the point that he doesn't want to open the app ever again.

During the few minutes he spends with the software, Jordan learns that creating a beat is pretty simple when it works. He finds the instrument sounds appalling, comparing them to the low-quality General MIDI sounds offered with cheap keyboards and computer soundcards from the 1980s and 1990s. There is a selection of instruments to play with, but the app crashes when Jordan tries a piano roll. After fiddling with the software for a while, he managed to create a track, but he still couldn't understand why Tesla would put such an unnecessary gimmick inside its vehicles.

To be in the clear, Jordan says from the start that he is not one of those Tesla evangelists, and the only reason he bought an electric vehicle is that he wants to move away from ICE. He is no Elon Musk fan either, but his like for not driving an internal combustion engine is higher than his dislike for Elon Musk. Going further, Jordan puts Trax next to other useless features in a Tesla, like the fart sounds or the Romantic Mode.

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About the author: Cristian Agatie
Cristian Agatie profile photo

After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.
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