User Manual Version 1.5.00 Introduction Voice Jam Studio combines realtime vocal effect processing taken directly from TCHelicon’s bestselling professional vocal processors, the most innovative four track stereo looper app on the market today, and a music video recorder with directtosocial media sharing capabilities. Quick Start The best way to get familiar with Voice Jam Studio is to attach a pair of headphones, fire up the app, and run through the builtin tutorial.
Contents Introduction Quick Start Contents Making Connections Connection Options Headphones with the builtin Mic Headset (Headphones with integrated mic) Mic/Instrument Adapter Device with ⅛” Connector Lightning Enabled Audio Device TCHelicon Product with USB Audio Support via Camera Connection Kit USB Sound Cards via Apple Camera Connection Kit Setting Levels The Controls Vocal Effects Preset Favorites Vocal Effect List Spatial Simulation Subtle Chromatic Pitch Correction Extreme Pitch Correction Doublin
Loop Sync Modes Beat Sync Loop Sync Serial Free Time and Pitch Manipulation Mixer Sessions The Default Session Performance Recorder Performance Library Managing Past Performances Performance Detail Editing App Settings Slave To External Tempo Overdub Decay Knob Automation Time Record Count In Audio Latency Performance Recording Stop Audio When In the Background MIDI Sync Syncing to an App Syncing to external MIDI AudioBus Basic Connection Routing external apps through the metronome track Loop Transfer: Audi
Making Connections Voice Jam Studio is a realtime vocal effects processor, meaning you hear the results of the effect algorithms applied to your voice as you are singing with almost no perceptible delay (refer to the latency section for more information). This presents an incredibly liberating experience for singers. Singing through live effects in realtime is like playing a new musical instrument.
devices provide an output to a PA system instead of headphones. In this case there is always the possibility of audio feedback if the speakers are pointing at the microphone. Lightning Enabled Audio Device Modern audiointerfaces (external hardware devices) connect directly through the lightning port and can provide multiple input and output channels from the audiointerface to your device. Sound quality with these types of devices is generally much higher than using the ⅛” jack.
The Controls Before we get into detail, take a quick glance at the layout of the user interface. It’s worth skimming through the brief descriptions of each of the controls. Refer back to them when reading through subsequent sections. Vocal Effects The name at the top left (between the left and right arrows) describes the current vocal effect. “Dry” means no effect and is useful in situations where you are speaking to the audience or where you want to rely 100% on the natural sound of your voice.
finger up or down. Double tapping on an effect name selects and collapses the effect list, or you can tap the preset name at the top to collapse the list. Preset Favorites You can instantly recall your favorite 5 presets (A, B, C, D & E) by tapping on the blue circles when the preset list is dropped down. To store a favourite, select it in the list and then hold one of the blue circles for 2 seconds, just as you would store a radio station in your car.
Echos Echo Echo Rockabilly Slap Dotted Eighth Echo Runaway Echo Psychedelic Echoes Echoverb Extreme Shifting Popeye Olive Oil Deep Voice Deeper Voice Deep Detune Female to Male Male to Female Thicker Thinner Deep C Fixed Major Harmony Church Monks Special Effects Cylon Rotary Speaker Falling 4ever Synth Bass Drum 60's Sci Fi Flanger Talkin' Tube Bass Distort Sing Guitar Solo
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 offer an innovative alternative for layering and augmenting the music making process. A looper takes advantage of the cyclical nature of all popular music by first allowing you to record a small chunk of audio (usually 4 to 16 beats) and then plays it back in a repeating loop.
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.
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.
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 first overdub session and add a third above harmony, start a second overdub session and add a fifth above harmony, and finally start a third overdub session and add an octave up harmony.
Reverse Swipe left to play backwards and right to play forwards. Loop Sync Modes Sync modes determine how loops are synchronized to each other. Each loop can be set to a different sync mode and only loops with matching sync modes will synchronize with each other. Beat Sync All loops set to Beat Sync will have all actions quantized to the nearest beat (create, set, start, stop, odub).
Time and Pitch Manipulation If while singing a sustained note you press and hold the clock icon at the top left, your voice will be frozen in time until you release your finger. It’s a great special effect.The musical note control opens up a vertical slider control that can be used for either gender bending or pitch bending depending on the selected vocal effect. Drag the control higher or lower to adjust the pitch.
all dials in the mixer, whether sync is on or off for each loop, the waveform touch mode for each loop, and of course the active vocal effect. The folder icon at the top allows you to load and save sessions. The Default Session Sometimes you want to start from scratch, or create a new blank session. In that case you should load the default session. Use the file menu, select load, and choose “Load Default Session”.
If you want to delete old performances to save space on your device you can select “Edit” from the top right, touch the performances you’d like to remove, and then press “Delete Selected” at the bottom. Performance Detail Editing Once you select a performance from your library for editing, you can view or share it by clicking on one of the sharing icons. App Settings The gear icon at the top right is where you set global app settings (applying to all sessions).
due to limited shared CPU resources. The latest and greatest iOS devices generally have no problem managing several audio processing apps simultaneously. Performance Recording If you are shy and you would rather not record the front facing camera video into your performances, you can disable face recording and select “screen only”. You will still end up with a compelling video as your audience will be able to see all screen activity that went into creating your masterpiece.
Basic Connection Voice Jam Studio should generally be on the output with an internal Mic set as the input. This allows you to add third party effects in between. Routing external apps through the metronome track Voice Jam Studio exposes a “backing track” input to AudioBus. Anything connected to it will be routed through the metronome channel. This means you can applying level, pan, and filtering within the app to an external drum machine or sequencer etc.
Loop Transfer: If a loop is empty, click on the waveform touch mode icon to expose the loop import icon just above it. Once a loop has audio in it, the loop import icon will change to a loop export icon. Audio Copy There are times when you are not using AudioBus but you’d still like to transfer your loops to and from external apps. Audio Copy and Audio Paste is a third party standard which many apps work with. From the file menu select “Loop Transfer”.
