STAR6 - USER MANUAL Welcome to the Star6 User Manual! You'll find info on every aspect of the app explained in this doc. If you have any problems, take a look at our website (www.star6app.com) and if problems persist, hit us up on our support page (www.agilepartners.com/support). If you're up for helping out, please feel free to report any bugs or send any comments via the Contact screen within the app! Ok, let's get to it... SESSION SCREEN A Session is a way for you to organize your samples and data. It's a way for you to keep everything nice and tidy. You can manage the contents of your sessions by tapping the folder icon to the right of the session name. The Session Screen is the first screen you'll see after the application loads. From the Session Screen you can choose to open a session to play, edit a session, upload/download samples and get info about Star6. MAKING A NEW SESSION You can make a new session by pressing the Add New Folder icon at the top right of the screen. This opens a blank session where you can name your new session and load samples from the sample library. DELETING A SESSION Just swipe a session to the left and the delete button appears. The delete button will delete the session but not the samples associated with the session. EDITING SESSION SCREEN RENAMING SESSIONS To rename a session just tap on the name of the session or info text below it. The keyboard will pop up and you can make your changes. LOADING SAMPLES The Edit Session Screen displays the six sample slots for the current session. Touch the speaker icon to play the audio file in that slot. Swipe to the left to bring up the delete button. Press the sample name to browse your sample folder and select samples from your sample library. The sample library includes any files you upload, presets and any recordings you might make. DELETING SAMPLES In the sample load window just swipe left to bring up the delete button. You can also back-up and delete samples from your phone from the upload window via your computer's web browser. WHAT'S UP WITH THE DIFFERENT COLORS? The preset samples that come with Star6 are purple, Your user generated samples are blueish, and your recordings are army green, cool? UPLOADING SAMPLES Getting samples on to your iPhone has never been easier! Tap the Upload Button from the Session Screen and up pops a screen that displays a numerical URL address. Then, on your PC or Mac, open a new web browser window and enter this address. BOOM - that opens the Upload screen. From here you can upload samples to your device by clicking the upload button. Clicking on the file name downloads it to your computer and the "X" icon deletes the file. NOTE: Your device and your computer must be on the same wireless network in order to transfer samples. ABOUT SAMPLE SIZE AND FORMATS Star6 currently will only load samples that are 2MB or smaller. You can load 44.1 kHz or 22.05 kHz sample rates, 24 or 16 Bit, Mono or Stereo. Because of how the audio engine for Star6 is set up, if you want your samples to be cut on the beat, then samples need to be 4/4 time signature and 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 bars in length. Star6 automatically detects the sample length between 90 - 180 BPM. Samples slower or faster than this will be replayed in double or half speed. DOWNLOAD MORE FREE SAMPLES FROM OUR WEBSITE Ok we're really making this easy. You want more free samples? Just go to our website (www.Star6app.com) and look in the Free Audio section. Take a look around and grab what you want! All samples are downloaded to your computer and you can upload via the upload window. THE PROCESS SCREEN This is where the magic happens. The Process Screen is the main window for all the music stuff. Here you'll find the six sample slots and below them are the six colored process effects buttons. RESET PROCESS BUTTON This resets the process settings but it does not turn your effects off. PLAY/PAUSE BUTTON This turns off the process audio. Effects continue to process until the sound fades out. FORWARD/REVERSE BUTTON Yep, pretty much what you'd expect. EFFECTS ON/OFF BUTTON This button is the master control for the effects and it turns on and off the effects as a whole. When you start a session, pushing the Effect Button will turn on all effects at once. But if you slide up the effects tab then you can turn on effects one at a time as well. Because Star6 saves all session data, any changes you make will be right where you left them if you leave and return (or get a call). MODE BUTTON This button switches between the 2 modes (more on this in the next section). LOAD BUTTON This opens up your sample library similar to the Edit Session Screen. Here you can replace the sample in the currently selected sample slot - or add a sample if the current slot is empty. RECORD BUTTON What's the fun of making all these cool noises if you can't record them? The record button is designed to record the main audio output. The recording is saved in the main sample library when you stop recording. Recordings must be smaller than 2MB to be loaded into a sample slot for reprocessing, but otherwise Star6 can record longer sessions up to the limit of storage available on your device. A FEW WORDS ABOUT MODE: Star6 has two main modes: Sync and Grain. Sync Mode is especially good for doing tempo-based effects and usually keeps your samples on the beat. Grain mode is less linear and has a more randomized sound built into its parameters. Explore the differences between the two and you'll find a wealth of sounds can be made in each! ABOUT THE PROCESS (OR HOW I QUIT WORRYING AND LEARNED TO LOVE GRANULAR SYNTHESIS) Star6 works mainly with granular synthesis. What's that? Well imagine your audio sample is being cut up into tiny slices (or grains). Each process effect determines how each of those tiny slices/grains is played back and organized. To find out more on the topic, check these links: http://www.granularsynthesis.com/guide.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granular PROCESS EFFECTS IN SYNC MODE The two process modes in Star6 are actually different audio engines and are structured differently from the ground-up. Sync Mode is based on a design for time stretching, which helps to lock everything to the beat a bit more. Pitch (Sync): This controls the pitch of the sample without adjusting the tempo of the sample. 0 ->1 pitch 50% -> 200% Gate (Sync): This turns the audio on and off at different intervals. At the minimum value it goes: whole note, half note, and quarter note. In the center position it is effectively turned off again (or all samples played). Then advancing toward the maximum setting it starts making combinations of each for more syncopated and rhythms. GATE 0 -> 0.1 whole beat gate 0.1 -> 0.25 half beat gate 0.25 -> 0.4 quarter beat gate 0.4 -> 0.5 slide from quarter beat gate to gate off 0.5 -> 0.6 gate off 0.6 -> 1 random gate Speed (Sync): Speed does two things at once. In the default middle position it plays the sample like normal. But for values below the default, it changes the speed of the sample without changing the pitch from near 0 to 100%. Above the default state, it will repeat a section of the sample in small increments, causing it to stutter. SPEED 0 -> 0.5 scan speed from 0 -> 100% 0.5 -> 1 stutter (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x) Jitter (Sync): Jitter controls the order of the sample being played. The default position plays the sample order normally. Values above default randomize sample position. Values below default repeat sample order so that only the beginning of each sample is played on the beat. The minimum value repeats only 1 beat of the sample. 0 -> .05 repeat sample section from 1 to 4 beats 0.5 -> 1 randomizes sample playpack position Size (Sync): This is the most subtle and powerful of the effects as Size controls the length of each sample slice being played. Size is also linked with random and speed, so if you think it's "broken" play around with those first. (One awesome effect is to set Speed to minimum and Size to maximum then play around with that. Whoa!) 0 -> 1 short-grain -> long-grain Random (Sync): This effect plays your sample slices at different pitches. The length of the sample - as controlled by the size parameter - determines the rate at which the pitch is changed. RANDOM 0 -> 1 no pitch randomization -> maximum pitch randomization PROCESS EFFECTS IN GRAIN MODE: Like we said above, the two process modes work very differently. The Grain Mode actually uses a more "pure" granular synthesis model and therefore is capable of generating a "cloud" of sample slices. It's designed to be more random and delivers some really extreme sounds, so don't be shy! Pitch (Grain): Is basically the same as in sync mode but it sounds quite different because of the differences in the two audio engines. 0 ->1 pitch 50% -> 200% Gate (Grain): In grain mode gate works completely differently. Now gate controls the sample slice density. This controls how frequently samples are being played. Or, in other words, it's sort of like a rainstorm, do you want a lot of raindrops, or just a few? Same idea here. 0->1 grain density high->low Speed (Grain): Is also similar to sync mode but it sounds quite different because of the differences in the two audio engines. In this mode you can hear how the samples are a bit more smooth at slower speeds, plus it's great for drones. 0 freeze 0 -> 0.1 sync off, slow sweep through sample 0.1 -> 0.5 scan speed slow->normal 0.5 -> 1 scan speed normal, add stutter Jitter(Grain): Jitter controls the order of the sample being played. The minimum position plays all samples normally in order, and randomization increases as the value goes up. Play around with jitter in relation to the other parameters here as well, esp. with Size and Speed 0 -> 1 normal sample order -> random sample order Size (Grain): Size controls how large of a sample slice size you are using for all your Grain process parameters. The default value for this is set to playback the sample at the maximun time for each slice in order to obtain a more smooth tone. Often using the Size parameter on it's own will lead to very slight changes, but you'll see after you play with it a while that it can really make a massive difference in your sounds! Size can speed up and fragment samples, and it can slow, elongate, and even overlap sample slices depending on how it's used 0 -> 1 short-grain -> long-grain Random (Grain): This controls the randomized pitch of each sample slice being played. The default setting is that each sample slice is played in its correct order and pitch. But as you increase the value you also increase the randomization of the individual pitch of each slice being played. 0 -> 1 no pitch randomization -> maximum pitch randomization The Effects Tab Star6 has 3 audio effects that are added to the end of the audio chain, Delay, Filter and Distortion. Each effect has individual on/off switches and are all controlled by the Master Effect Button on the Process Screen. DELAY: Adjusting the TIME slider will give you the crazy dubbed out effects you know and love, and the AMT (amount) slider, controls the effect volume. FILTER: The Filter effect can be used a variety of ways, and can result in some great sounds. The two controls have a relation to each other as the CUT (cutoff) slider sets the cutoff frequency of the filter, and the RES (resolution) slider sets the steepness/sharpness of the filter. If you want to read more about the science of how it all works, get your thinkin cap on and head over too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_factor DISTORTION: We all love distortion and we'd be lost without it! The FUZZ slider basically adds noise to the original sound THE OPTIONS TAB The Options Tab contains controls that you might need to change once per session, but probably not more than that. TEMPO This controls the BPM (beats per minute) or tempo of the audio. It goes from 1 to 303. Set it to very slow or very fast speeds to use it as an effect! PITCH STEPS We offer you a few options for Pitch. By setting this control you change the depth of the Pitch parameter such as: 3 intervals - pitch is stopped at three values: -1, 0, or 1 5 intervals - pitch is stopped at three values: -1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1 7 intervals - pitch is stopped at three values: 1 -0.666 -0.333 0 0.333 0.666 1 INF. - pitch can slide between -1 and 1 at all values. "1" is up one octave, and "-1" is down an octave. The fractionalized steps do not currently match to a traditional scale, but we made it like this because it allows you to play more tone-oriented samples a bit like a Theremin. GRAIN SLIDE TIME This controls how long it takes the grain size to change. The shortest setting will change grain size almost instantly. The optimal setting for normal use is between 20-100 ms (milliseconds). This creates minimal effects when changing the size. However, longer settings will create more noticeable 'doppler' effects; and at the maximum, the grain slide can be set to a full minute (60,000ms) to create long, strange sounds. We highly recommend you give it a try! ACCELEROMETER RANGE The accelerometer is one of your main controls for Star6, so we want you to have control over that too. This slider controls the range of motion it takes to go from effect full strength to effect minimum strength. A high setting will mean that moving your phone a very small range of motion can get the full range of sound, while a low setting will mean you might have to turn your phone all the way 180 degrees to get the full range. STORE PROCESS GLOBAL / LOCAL If set to Local then each sample slot uses their own set of process values. If this button is set to Global then all of the sample slots will use the same process values. Think of it like a blanket. Do you want all your samples to have 1 big blanket that covers them all, or do you want them to have individual blankets? Well the "blanket" in this case are the process effects. This option allows for some very cool and artistic possibilities, especially for improvisation. STORE EFFECTS GLOBAL / LOCAL Functions exactly like the above, but for the effects. Set to Local, it allows for each sample bank to have its own independent effects. Turned to Global, all audio is routed to the same effect configuration. THE INFO SCREENS This series of screens helps keep you in the know, up to date, and also provides you with an easy way to get in touch with us. NEWS We're excited about Star6 and maybe you are too. This screen uploads all the news that's fit to print (in Star6 land at least). Whenever we post up a new story the Info button will pulsate on start-up so you know we have somethin for you. HELP If you have a quick question then maybe you already found the answer in this section? It's basically a condensed version of what you're reading now. CONTACT Here's where you can go to our website or you can give us a hand by sending in a suggestion, sign up for our newsletter or report a bug. OH, AND SOME ADVICE: CALL YOU BACK If you're performing with Star6 you might want to disable the phone function by turning on "airplane mode" in your iPhone's settings. That will keep pesky interruptions to a minimum. TURN IT UP! Headphones are definitely recommended and try Star6 through your Dj mixer or PA! It really cranks!! BIG GESTURE LITTLE GESTURE And lastly, you might want to play around the with Accelerometer Range settings to customize the range of motion you find most comfortable. Like an Antonioni film, Star6 can be surprisingly sensitive!