Owner's 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 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. As the loop repeats, you can overdub and continuously layer new sound on top of it each

pass. The real-time and non-stop nature of loopers make them instruments in their own right

and have become essential in today’s music industry.

Every fiber of the design of Voice Jam Studio is based on the notion that to loop is to perform.

VoiceJam Studio is an instrument. Through an innovative set of industry-first 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 first 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.

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.

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 flashing 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.

Besides selecting the Mute mode for the metronome sound, the metronome is also temporarily

muted when you touch All Stop, and similarly 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 filtered

through a low-pass filter. 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