User Manual Version 1.0.00 Introduction Voice Jam Studio combines real-time vocal effect processing taken directly from TC-Helicon’s best-selling professional vocal processors, the most innovative four track stereo looper app on the market today, and a music video recorder with direct-to-social media sharing capabilities. Quick Start The best way to get familiar with Voice Jam Studio is to attach a pair of headphones to your iPad, fire up the app, and run through the built-in tutorial.
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 1 QUICK START 1 MAKING CONNECTIONS 4 CONNECTION OPTIONS HEADPHONES WITH IPAD’S BUILT-‐IN MIC HEADSET (HEADPHONES WITH INTEGRATED MIC) MIC/INSTRUMENT ADAPTER DEVICE WITH ⅛” CONNECTOR LIGHTNING ENABLED AUDIO DEVICE TC-‐HELICON PRODUCT WITH USB AUDIO SUPPORT VIA CAMERA CONNECTION KIT USB SOUND CARDS VIA APPLE CAMERA
TIME AND PITCH MANIPULATION 13 MIXER 14 SESSIONS 14 THE DEFAULT SESSION 14 PERFORMANCE RECORDER 15 TAKES 15 PERFORMANCE LIBRARY 15 SAVING TAKES TO THE LIBRARY MANAGING PAST PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE DETAIL EDITING YOUTUBE EXPORT CAMERA ROLL EXPORT SOUNDCLOUD EXPORT 15 15 16 16 16 16 APP SETTINGS 16 SLAVE TO EXTERNAL
Making Connections Voice Jam Studio is a real-time 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 real-time is like playing a new musical instrument.
Lightning Enabled Audio Device Modern audio-interfaces (external hardware devices) connect directly through the lightning port (at the bottom of the iPad) and can provide multiple input and output channels from the device to your iPad. 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.
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.
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 8
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.
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.
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.
waveform and two to the left of it. Swipe to the right again and you would only have the original melody and the 3rd 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 first. 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.
Sync Lock Most of the time you’ll want all loops to be synchronized with the metronome. The Lock icon to the top right of each loop track designates whether the loop is paying any attention to your tempo. Tap the icon to toggle sync lock on and off. The reason you might want to unlock tempo synchronization for a loop is if you'd like to play it rapidly like a sampler, or scrub it, or record a loop that loops to the beat of its own drum.
Mixer The mixer lets you set level, pan, and filter for each track and for the metronome independently. It's very useful to independently control these parameters during your performance. Turn the filter down to get that electronic low-pass cut-off effect. Increase the “q” to increase resonance in the low-pass filter which accentuates the classic electronic filter effect. You can control the various knobs by holding your finger on them and either moving up and down, or left to right.
Performance Recorder One of the most exciting things about Voice Jam Studio is that you can record the audio result of everything you do, whether it be singing through live vocal effects, creating, destroying, triggering and retriggering loops, mixing, remixing, filtering and panning playback; the video result of everything the front facing camera captures; and the video screen-capture of all the activity you create on the Voice Jam Studio interface.
Performance Detail Editing Once you select a performance from your library for editing, you can edit its details. Touch in any of the text boxes to edit the Title, Author, or Description. You can preview the final result by pressing the play button at the bottom. To share the selected performance, select the desired option (YouTube, Camera Roll, or Soundcloud). YouTube Export By swiping left and right you can chose to upload Screen + Face Camera or Screen Only.
out all four knobs at once. The Knob Automation Time specifies how long it takes a knob to automate between the two values. Audio Latency Low latency is perfect for any performance and is fully compatible when using AudioBus. If you have an older iPad and you are using lots of CPU intensive 3rd party apps in the background, you may need to set audio latency to High (Slow Devices) to avoid audio clicks due to limited shared CPU resources.
AudioBus Voice Jam Studio can receive and send audio from and to other apps using AudioBus. For information on how to use AudioBus, visit the AudioBus webpage at www.audiobus.us A third party app may be necessary to get the most out of AudioBus. 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.
In the diagram below, you can control the level, pan, and even filter the drum machine with using the metronome track mixer controls, and the sounds of the external app will be recorder into your performance for social media sharing. Note: iPad currently terminates video recording when an app moves into the background. This means that while you are recording a performance take, you must not leave the app to visit other AudioBus apps.
Audio Paste You can only paste to an empty loop. Select the Audio Paste icon and then “AudioPaste From Pasteboard”. Note: if the external loop tempo is not compatible with the current session tempo Voice Jam Studio will do its best to accommodate the conflicting tempo assuming it’s in 4/4 time. Voice Jam Studio will not attempt to time stretch your external loops. Send to Documents Using iTunes you can access an app’s document folder.
