Recorder

iShred has a built-in recorder that lets you capture and refine your best performances. Use the recorder to play your songs for friends, or to create tracks that you can jam along with live.

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The iShred recorder lets you undo and redo what you've recorded, lets you change the tempo (even after you've made your recording), and saves your recording with your song, even when you backup or retrieve your song over the web. The rest of this help chapter describes the iShred song recorder in detail.

Recorder Controls and Their Use

The recorder controls are hidden when you start iShred. To see these controls, tap the Song Menu button in the lower right and select "Recorder" from the pop-up menu. The song name and previous/next song arrows at the bottom of the screen disappear and are replaced with the recorder controls. These controls are grouped together and include:

Record

Tap this button to begin recording. When you do, the recorder controls will shrink down to a single line at the bottom of the screen to take up less space.

Play

Tap the Play button to hear any recording you have made. Similarly to Record, the controls will shrink to a single line at the bottom of the screen.

Stop

This button is only visible when you are recording or playing back, and appears at the bottom middle of the screen. The small square on this button will be red during recording or green during playback. When you tap Stop, recording or playback stops, the stop button disappears, and the hidden recorder controls reappear.

REW and FFWD

These buttons rewind or fast-forward your song 1 bar per tap. However, if you continue to hold either button for more than a second, auto-repeat begins and the bar number will continue to move in the selected direction. This is handy for locating to another part of your song.

Return To Zero

A tap of this button quickly positions the recorder to the beginning of your song.

Metronome

The button in the lower-left labeled "M" toggles the metronome on and off. When it is on (the "M" button is bright), a click is played on each beat at the current tempo when you are recording or playing back.

Tempo

The button in the lower right labeled "T". If you want to change the speed of the song, tap this button at least twice at the tempo you want. (The most recent four taps are used to set the tempo.) This can be done before, during, or after recording. For example, you can record a difficult passage at a slow tempo, and then speed it up during playback. The current tempo is displayed in BPM (Beats Per Minute) to the left of the Tempo button.

Erase

This button at the upper left of the screen allows you to delete the recording for the current song. The Erase button will be enabled ("Erase" text in white) when there is a recording present, or grayed out to indicate that no recording exists. When you tap the Erase button, a dialog will pop-up asking you to confirm the Erase command. Note that an Erase can NOT be undone.

Undo

iShred has a single level Undo/Redo feature. After recording a take, the "Undo" text becomes white in the upper right. Tap "Undo" to undo that take. If there was a previous take, it can now be played, and the button changes to "Redo." Tapping "Redo" lets you play (and save) the most recent take again. This feature lets you compare 2 takes and choose the one you like best, or make small fixes to longer takes. Currently you cannot listen to the previous take while recording a new take.

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While playing or recording there is also a Bar:Beat display to the right of the Metronome button. When the Recorder is stopped the Bar:Beat display will be centered at the top of the recorder controls. Your recording always starts at bar 1 and beat 1, shown as "1:1" on the screen. Whenever you record or play back, this display indicates the current position of the recorder. You can use FFWD or REW to quickly locate specific points within your song. If the metronome is on, this display updates with every beat of the metronome.

When you have finished recording, you can hide the recorder controls and show the song name again by tapping the Song Menu button in the lower right of the screen and selecting "Song."

Once you returned to the song name view you will see a new icon to the right of the song name. The small "tape reel" icon lets you know that this song now has a recorded performance associated with it. This recording will be saved and backed up just like all other song data so you can share your iShred performances with your friends and neighbors.