Aurora Sound Studio HD User Manual page 2

About Aurora Sound Studio HD
Welcome to Aurora Sound Studio HD for the iPad, the fun way to create musical
compositions.
Whether you're a complete musical novice or a seasoned musician Aurora is an
inspirational tool for creative live music.
Complete with real-time effects and the ability to sample and create your own
instruments you are limited only by your imagination.
By default Aurora runs in BASIC mode which helps you get accustomed to Aurora
before getting too complex, it means that some abilities and functions are not available
for example the ability to edit and create your own instruments. However you can change
to ADVANCED mode at any time by selecting 'Switch to Advanced Mode' from the 'File'
menu.
Aurora uses 3 custom synthesizer engines which have been optimized to achieve
maximum polyphony on the iPad. The program ships with approx 100 preset instruments
but unlike most other music software you have complete freedom to create your own
unique sounds whilst learning the fundamentals of synthesizer programming.
Each instrument has up to 12 notes of polyphony, and you can have up to 14 instruments
playing at the same time. That's a lot of processing so some compromises had to be made
during development regarding sound quality. After all you wouldn't want the most
amazing sounding instruments but only be limited to 8 notes for instance!
Aurora's synth engines generate sounds in real time, so they aren't just pre-recorded
samples. Adding effects such as echo, reverb, chorus etc. makes a big difference to
perceived quality of an instrument so experiment with adding effects.
If you create your own instruments for the Sampler using custom samples, try and keep
samples as small as possible and use the looping feature (under 250K is recommended).
The bigger the samples, the more CPU intensive it is to play.
If you push the processor too hard it is likely that this will result in audio stuttering or
breakups. In these situations we recommend you turn off HQ Mode or reduce the sample
rate to 22KHz. These options can be found in the 'Program Settings' from the 'File' menu.
You can also try reducing the number of effects in use at any one time.
Have fun!
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