Manual

18 VOICE JAM STUDIO User Manual 19 VOICE JAM STUDIO User Manual
Looping
What is Looping?
All music is layered. For example, a band has various members, each adding something to the fabric of their music,
while a solo artist often relies on a guitar or keyboard to accompany their singing. Loopers oer an innovative alternative
for layering and augmenting the music making process. A looper takes advantage of the cyclical nature of all popular music
by rst allowing you to record a small chunk of audio (usually 4 to 16 beats) and then plays it back in a repeating loop.
As the loop repeats, you can overdub and continuously layer new sound on top of it each pass. The real time and nonstop
nature of loopers make them instruments in their own right and have become essential in today’s music industry.
Every ber of the design of Voice Jam Studio is based on the notion that to loop is to perform. Voice Jam Studio
is an instrument. Through an innovative set of industry rst looping features, Voice Jam Studio allows you to break through
the boundaries of monotonous single bar looping to create compelling fully expressed performances.
Metronome
The easiest way to create great loops is to construct them around an existing groove. Before you record your rst loop, you’ll
want to establish your session tempo. The metronome lets you specify a tempo by either tapping a rhythm directly on the
BPM indicator text, or by tapping the left and right metronome arrows to increment or decrement the tempo by 0.5 BPM in
either direction. Optionally you can sync to an external MIDI tempo by using Apple’s Virtual MIDI system. Refer to the Virtual
MIDI section for more details.
Voice Jam Studio has several built in Metronome Sounds, as well as a muted mode where the metronome beats can be seen
visually by a ashing light bulb icon. Touch the pulsating metronome icon to select from the various metronome sounds.
Note: it’s possible to use an external drum machine via AudioBus to replace the built in metronome sound. Refer to the
AudioBus section for more details.
Note: Once you’ve recorded at least one loop at a given tempo, the tempo of the session becomes locked so that loops
can be synchronized to each other for the remainder of the session. To select a new tempo simply erase all of the loops.
Besides selecting the Mute mode for the metronome sound, the metronome is also temporarily muted when you touch
All Stop. Keep pressing All Stop and you can toggle the metronome On and O. The metronome also unmutes when
you touch All Start.
The level and stereo panning of the metronome can be edited from the Mixer controls. It can also be ltered through
a lowpass lter. Refer to the Mixer section for more details.
Loop Action Synchronization
Once a metronome beat is established, it’s important to understand how all looping actions including creating, starting,
and stopping loops are synchronized/quantized to the beats. Any time you initiate an action, Voice Jam Studio determines
whether you are closer to the beat that just happened (if you press slightly late), or if a beat is about to occur (you press
slightly early). If you press early, the event won’t take place until the imminent beat occurs. If you press just slightly late,
Voice Jam Studio will make an intelligent decision based on the situation. In general it’s better to be slightly early as if you are
slightly late the looper may have to fade in the beginning of your loop to keep it on time missing any transient you might have
had to start the loop. Also if you are too late, Voice Jam Studio may decide that you are intending to start on the next beat
which might throw your entire loop o by one beat (of course this could lead to an interesting musical eect!)
Creating Loops
Voice Jam Studio doesn’t place limits on when you can start recording a loop. The process of creating a new loop requires
two touches. The rst touch to the record icon begins the loop recording (synchronized to the closest beat), and the second
touch to the record icon “closes the loop”. The time between the two touches dictates the length of the loop. If you capture
four complete beats the loop will be exactly four beats long. After pressing the record button the second time the loop will
begin to repeat until you stop it.
Note: the most common loop is a multiple of 4 beats. If you want to record a 4 beat loop you would touch record at the
beginning of beat 1 and at the end of beat 4 (actually the start of beat 5). You want to capture four complete beats. If you
pressed the record for the second time at the beginning of beat four you would have only captured three complete beats.
There are two alternate methods of closing, or “setting” a loop. Instead of pressing the record icon for the second time,
you can set the loop by pressing the play button or the stop button.The stop button will set the loop and stop it from playing
back until you again press the play button. The play button will set the loop but keep it in “record mode” or overdubbing,
such that you can immediately begin to layer on top of it as it repeats.
Note: once you create at least one loop you will see a lock icon appear beside the metronome BPM. This indicates
that the tempo is locked. See the metronome section for more details.
Destroying Loops
To prevent accidentally erasing a loop, you simply have to hold your nger on any of the ‘X’ icons for a short time. You’ll see
an orange halo shrink to nothing before the erase occurs. This gives you a split second to change your mind. Destroying loops
is nal, unless you’ve saved your session in which case as long as you don’t save again, you can always reload the current
session. See the Sessions section for more information.
Starting and Stopping Loops
Each loop has an individual stop and play button. At the bottom there is also “All Start” and “All Stop”. They start and stop
all existing loops simultaneously, as well as mute and unmute the metronome.
Note: If you want to unmute the metronome without starting all loops you can tap the metronome icon.
Overdubbing Loops
To overdub means to layer on top of a loop track. While Voice Jam Studio allows you to record and play loops on 4 separate
tracks simultaneously, it also allows you to add unlimited layers onto each loop. For example you could record a loop
of a simple melody, then on each progressive cycle through the loop you could overdub a new vocal harmony part. You can
add as many layers as you want without taking up the other loop tracks. To toggle overdubbing, simply press the record icon
on an existing loop.
Overdub Sessions
Each time you start overdubbing you start a new overdub session. You might notice a grey box containing the old audio data
shows up on the left side of the loop waveform. This represents the sound of the loop just prior to starting your new overdub
session. You can continue to overdub as long as you want for as many cycles around the loop as you choose during an overdub
session. Once you end the overdub session by pressing the record icon again, you can then create a new overdub session,
or you can go back into the past by undoing the last overdub session (and everything you layered over however many cycles
long your last overdub session was). Voice Jam Studio remembers the last 4 overdub sessions you recorded and you can swipe
back and forth between them at will. See Undo/Redo from Waveform Touch Modes below.
Waveform Touch Modes
There is a control to the right of each loop waveform showing a nger pointing at an icon. This determines the current
waveform touch mode for the track. Waveform touch modes can be changed at anytime during your performance. To switch
waveform touch modes you hold your nger on the control until a three segment overlay pops up, and you slide your nger
towards one of three icons depicting the available modes:
Undo/Redo
Every time you create a new overdub session, the state of the loop just prior to your new session is frozen in time.
Much like an image editor or word processor lets you undo/redo through historical changes, Voice Jam Studio lets
you swipe between the last four overdub sessions. You can only swipe through the previous overdub sessions
when the Waveform Touch Mode “Undo/Redo” has been selected. Swiping to the right will bring back past overdub sessions
and swiping left will move back into the present. For example, you might create an initial loop with a simple melody, start
a rst overdub session and add a third above harmony, start a second overdub session and add a fth above harmony, and
nally start a third overdub session and add an octave up harmony. At that point you would see 3 grey boxes to the left of the
waveform. If you swiped to the right once, the most recent overdub would go away (the octave harmony would be gone) and
you would now see one grey box to the right of the waveform and two to the left of it. Swipe to the right again and you would
only have the original melody and the 3
rd
above harmony. Swipe to the left and the 5th harmony returns.
Note: You cannot swipe to undo/redo while overdubbing. You must end the current overdub session rst.
Note: Voice Jam Studio only remembers four sessions, so if you start new overdub session with four existing, the oldest one
will fall out of existence.
Note: If you swipe to the right to move to older overdub sessions such that grey boxes are showing to the right of the
waveform, starting a new overdub session will start a new branch of history and any of the more recent sessions to the right
will be lost. From the example above, if you swiped left so that you were only hearing the original melody and the 3
rd
above,
you could start a new overdub session with an octave down and the 5th and octave up sessions would be lost forever.
Scrub (Tape Stretch)
In scrub mode you can tap or drag your nger directly across the waveform to alter the playback position
as if scratching a record. When you let go the groove will be restored because Voice Jam Studio calculates where
playback would have been if you hadn’t started to scrub in the rst place.
Stutter
Stutter triggers a rapid re pattern at the next beat mimicking what you might have heard on several
top 40 billboard recordings.