Agile Partners has partnered with professional sample-based musician Jason Forrest to create a mobile application that turns any music lover into an electronic musician. Star6 (www.star6app.com) is the world’s first fully featured, performance-grade sample instrument for the iPhone and iPod touch. Star6 not only lets novice musicians experiment and play with an infinite variety of sound – whether it’s their own uploaded samples or presets provided for free, but also gives professional musicians and DJs a new tool for live performance and music production. Star6 is now available through the iTunes App Store at an introductory price of $6.99.
“From hip hop to rock bands to solo vocalists or improvisers, today’s music world sees almost every style of music using computers to provide soundtracks, ambient textures and synthetic beats to accentuate their performance,” said Forrest. “This isn’t just a ‘DJ app’ – it’s a fun, dynamic and powerful tool that helps musicians like me produce these same sounds on-the-go and perform them in front of a live audience. Star6 gives musicians of every level a pro-quality, performance-ready sample instrument in their pocket.”
Eleven months in the making, Star6 is made expressly for the iPhone and iPod touch, taking advantage of all the unique properties the device has to offer, and makes creating and manipulating sound more flexible and portable than ever before. The application features a powerful real-time granular synthesis audio engine that enables the user to change the pitch, speed, gate, sample order, sample size and randomness of samples by using the iPhone’s accelerometer. Users can also add traditional audio effects like delay, filter, and distortion to control music samples in real time. Star6 users can easily upload their own samples and everything can be recorded and downloaded with simple web browser-based file transfers.
Star6 includes the following features:
- Granular synthesis audio engine: The key to Star6’s power is an amazing audio processing engine based on granular synthesis, where sound is broken into tiny “grains,” manipulated, and then reassembled, with incredible results.
- Six sample pads: Users can select preset sounds or easily upload their own AIFF or WAV loops.
- Built-in sample packs (and additional free samples online): Users can select from seven awesome built-in sample packs with six samples each or download additional free samples packs from the Star6app.com website.
- Accelerometer-based sound control: Star6 leverages the iPhone’s accelerometer as a fun and intuitive means of controlling audio processing. Users can even change multiple synthesis settings at once by placing fingers on multiple pads and moving the device.
- Dual audio modes: Use “Sync Mode” to keep samples on the beat and “Grain Mode” for bizarre continuous tones and random effects.
- BPM/Tempo: Star6 uses granular synthesis to adjust the playback speed for all samples from 1 – 303 BPM while preserving pitch.
- Real-time Process Display: Star6 dynamically displays the state of your sound synthesis settings.
- Session-based Sample Management: Samples can be organized in any configuration, saved in any state, and added or deleted easily.
- BPM Indicator: Flashes on the beat to provide a visual indicator of playback speed.
- Play, Pause, Reset, Reverse, and Save: With a single touch, users can turn audio on and off, reset the process back to the original, or play your sample backwards. All creations are saved automatically.
Star6 is now available at the Apple App Store (http://itunes.com/app/Star6) and is being released at an introductory price of $6.99 (U.S. iTunes App Store price). You can also check out more on the Star 6 website: www.star6app.com.