I previously reported on one of a new breed of iPhone music performance Apps, called Star6. Along with it’s peers, it’s breathing new life in to an App genre that I would call ‘casual productivity’ – that is, you are not gaming, but doing something (for fun) that could end up with a useful or productive ending!
Well Star6 has had a version upgrade, to 1.1, with a stack of new features:
- Quantization, which keeps you on-beat when jumping between samples. You control when the jump occurs, anything from 1/16th of a beat to 4 full beats. Given that Star6 is all about jumping around among a set of samples, this makes a huge difference.
- The BPM control is right out front now, and includes a scrubbing interface a bit like the iTunes app for rapid BPM up/down changes.
- You now have the option for BPM changes to either vary or maintain pitch. So if you want James Brown to sound like a fast chipmunk, it’s very easy now 😉
- Reset / un-reset toggling, which allows you to jump back and forth between the original sample and your all-munged-up version
- Major UI & usability improvements everywhere
- Many smaller tweaks like tap-to-BPM, the ability to download and automatically install sample packs, and better sounding distortion effects.
The best news (for the moment) though is that it’s only $6.99 for the moment – on Jan 18th, it goes up to $9.99 – so best get your skates on if you want to get your hands on a very kewl App for reduced moolah!
Search the iTunes App store for ‘star6’ to find the App.