Recording

PianoStudio includes a recorder so you can capture your songs, add to them, and play back the saved recordings. You can record multiple passes, so that you can overdub onto the same recording, building up layers and layers of notes. And you can change the tempo at any time, so that you can record at one tempo and then speed it up or slow it down without having to re-record. This can be very useful if you are trying to record a difficult passage, or change your mind about the song's tempo after you have recorded it.

tap to zoom in & out

You access the Recorder by holding a finger (or thumb) on the Record Menu icon (which looks like a cassette tape) in the upper right of the screen. As you do, the Record Menu slides into view from the left edge of the screen. This menu includes (from top to bottom):

• Location display, showing bars : beats
• Go To Start and Go To End buttons
• Previous Bar and Next Bar buttons
• Play and Record buttons
• Click on/off button
• Erase and Undo-Redo buttons
• Recorder Settings button

The location display shows the current record/play location in bars and beats. The same information is also shown on the left end of the Status Bar of the main screen. These displays are shown in red while recording, in green when playing, and in gray when stopped. When you start recording or playing, it is always from the current location, meaning that you can start recording even in the middle of a song.

Tap the Go To Start and Go To End to simply go to the start (1:1) or end of the current recording. The Previous and Next Bar buttons move you through the song a bar at a time. If you hold these buttons down, the location will move through the song at a faster and faster rate the longer you hold the button.

Touch Play or Record to begin playback or recording from the current location. When you do this, the Play and Record buttons in the Record menu will be replaced with a Pause button. Similarly, the cassette icon at the upper right of the screen is replaced with a Pause button. Tap Pause to stop playback or recording.

While you're recording, any previously recorded notes are also played so you can hear the sounds with which you are recording. Remember that when you record, all aspects of your performance are captured. So if you slide between buttons, or change banks while recording, those actions will be remembered and played back later.

The Click button toggles the metronome on and off. If "Click" appears in yellow the metronome is on, and you will hear a click at the beginning of every beat while playing or recording. An animated bar next to the location display on the Status Bar will also animate back and forth at the current tempo.

The Erase button is used to erase the entire recording associated with the current song. Pressing it will pop up an Alert that will ask you to confirm that you really want to erase the entire recording. The Erase button's color indicates the status of the recording. If there is no recording for the song, the Erase button is grayed out. As soon as a recording is made, the button is active and shown in white.

The Undo-Redo button lets you undo and redo one level of recording. This way if you are adding to an existing recording but make a mistake, just hit Pause and Undo to remove the last record pass and try again.

PianoStudio doesn't have a "Stop" button. Hitting Pause stops all playback and recording right in place, and turns off any buttons held by Hold/Sustain. To hear what you just recorded, go to the location where you started recording using either the Go To Start or Previous Bar buttons, then hit Play. After you Undo a record pass, you can Redo it (as long as you haven't done any more recording).

tap to zoom in & out

The final button on the Record Menu is Settings, which takes you to the Record tab of the Settings screen. On this screen you can adjust two song settings that are especially important when recording: the number of beats per bar and the tempo (in beats per minute). You can adjust the tempo on this screen at any time, even after the recording is made.

tap to zoom in & out

During playback, you always hear the notes that were recorded, but you can also optionally show which buttons were pressed during recording. This can be useful in learning how to play a song that you didn't record. To shown the button presses during playback enable the "Animate Button Playback" switch on the "Global" tab of the Settings screen.

When button playback animation is enabled, the buttons are shown in one of three states:

1. Normal - the button was off during the recording
2. Transluscent Dot - the button was held by Hold/Sustain
3. Blue Dot - the button was pressed by a finger

Bank buttons also may show activity during playback. Any time a button was pressed, a small blue dot flashes on its bank button. If you hear notes playing but don't see any button being pressed, look for activity on a different bank button. Also if a bank button itself was pushed during recording you will see that whole bank button briefly flash in blue.