What's new in StarSync

Export

• File > Export Audio does a lot more. Export the mix and stems in one go, in several formats at once, with a MIDI file beside them if you like.
• New formats: MP3 at 320 or 192 kbps and OGG. MP3s are tagged with the project's name, the tempo and the key, and with an artist name if you type one in (leave the Artist box empty for no artist tag; OGG gets the name and artist too). WAV can also be 32-bit float, and everything can be 88.2 or 96 kHz as well as 44.1 and 48 (MP3 goes up to 48 kHz).
• Normalize: bring the mix's peak to -0.3 dB, or its loudness to -14 LUFS for streaming, measured the way Spotify and YouTube measure it. Peaks are never pushed past -1 dB, so a loud master may come out a little under -14 (the toast says so). Stems get the same gain as the mix, so they still add up to it. 16-bit files are dithered, so quiet fades and reverb tails stay smooth.
• Stems: tick which tracks go out (all of them to start with), include muted tracks if you want them, and render each stem through the master's effects. That last one renders every stem on its own, so it takes longer. If none of the stems makes a sound in the range, you're told, and no empty folder is left.
• MIDI: the song as arranged over the range you pick (the same bars as the audio, starting at bar 1 of the file), with each track on its own MIDI track, the tempo (and every tempo change), the key and the markers; or just the open pattern. File > Export > Export MIDI still writes the whole song, now at its real tempo too (it was always 120 BPM, all on one track).
• Range: the loop region, the whole song, or between two markers you pick.
• File names from a template: {project}, {bpm}, {key} and {date}, with a preview as you type ("Beat 140 BPM F# min.wav"). Names keep sharps and other punctuation; only characters no computer allows in a file name are left out. One file still asks for its name; more than one go in a folder you choose, stems in a folder of their own.
• Open the folder when it's done, if you like. Every choice is kept for next time.
• Before a big export starts, StarSync checks there's room for it on the disk and says how much it needs if there isn't. Temporary files left by an export that never finished (StarSync closed or crashed) are cleared from the folder at your next export.
• If MP3s can't be written (the MP3 encoder that comes with StarSync is blocked, say), the other formats are still exported and a box tells you what went wrong.
• Fixed: with no audio output, the first 20 milliseconds of an export could come out at the wrong level (a kick on beat one a little louder or softer than the rest).

Collaboration

• Shared audio takes less room: a WAV or AIFF you use in a shared project (a clip, a Drum Machine pad, a Sampler sound) goes to the server as FLAC, which keeps every sample exactly as it was. Sample-pack WAVs come out about 40% smaller and a mixed-down song about 20 to 30%, so uploads and downloads are quicker and your audio storage (Settings > Account) counts the smaller size. You keep playing your own file. MP3, OGG, FLAC and 32-bit float files go up as they are, and audio shared before 1.1.6 stays as it is and keeps working. Collaborators still on 1.1.5 hear these files too, but when they save the project, the copy in its Audio folder (beside the project file) can be called ".wav" while it's FLAC inside, which other DAWs may not open, so it's worth everyone updating.
• Edit a pad's or a Sampler's sound in another app and save it over the same file, and your collaborators get the new version the next time the project opens.
• Invite links. Collaboration > Copy Invite Link (or the bottom of Invite Collaborators) makes a link to your project you can send anywhere. Pick Can edit, and whoever opens it while signed in to StarSync joins as an editor straight away; or Ask to join, and you get a request to approve or decline. A project has one link of each kind; turn one off when you're done, or make a new one and the old one stops working. Turning off or replacing an Ask to join link closes the requests still waiting, and the people who asked are told.
• Opening a link shows the project and who owns it on a web page, with Open in StarSync. Already in StarSync? Collaboration > Join with a Link takes the link pasted in.
• Requests to join pop up as they come, and wait in Collaboration > Join Requests until you answer. The answers to your own requests show up there too, and in a box when they come, or the next time you open StarSync.
• Whoever joins gets the project from a StarSync that has it open: yours, or an editor's while you're away. It's quickest while you have the project open.
• Your plan's people limit counts for links too: a full project says so, on the page and in StarSync.

The loop, keys and the screen

• Looping is off in a new project, and each project remembers it once saved with 1.1.6. Ctrl+L switches it on and off. That's in StarSync's own keys and the Logic and Reaper keys; with Pro Tools keys it's Ctrl+Shift+L, and with Ableton keys Ctrl+L loops the selected clips, or switches looping when nothing is selected, as in Ableton. Edit > Loop does it in every key mode. The loop key in the transport lights while looping is on, and the loop on the ruler is red while it's on and grey while it's off.
• Drag along the ruler to make a loop: it lands on whole bars (on beats when you're zoomed in a long way), and looping goes on. Hold Alt to put it anywhere. Grab either end of the loop to make it longer or shorter (the pointer turns into a resize arrow over each end), or grab the bar along its top to move it.
• Your collaborators see the loop as you change it, and loop with you.
• Ctrl+D deselects everything: clips, automation points, and notes in the piano roll and the steps. That's in StarSync's own keys and FL Studio's, and Esc still deselects too. In StarSync's own keys, Duplicate is now Ctrl+B (as in FL Studio) and the piano roll's Legato is Ctrl+Shift+L.
• Bigger text: words show at 130% to start with, easier to read at 100% interface size. The Keyboard Shortcuts sheet (F1) widens with the text, so no line is cut short. Settings > General > Text size (or View > Text Size) still changes it, and a size you picked before stays.
• A CPU meter in the transport bar, top right: how much of each audio block StarSync's sound takes. It turns red past 70%, and near 100% the sound breaks up (freeze heavy tracks, or pick a bigger buffer). Hover over it for more, click it for Settings > Audio. The status bar still shows the sample rate and buffer size.
• View > Patterns (Alt+P) hides the pattern list beside the playlist, so the playlist gets the room. StarSync remembers it for next time.
• Scrolling with a middle-button drag shows a closed hand while you drag, so you can see you're scrolling.
• A mixer strip's SEND level changes with the mouse wheel too, 5% a notch (a trackpad moves it 1% at a time).

Your keys

• Settings > Keys lists every command StarSync has and its keys, grouped, with a search box that finds commands and keys. Click a command and press the key you want; the + beside it adds another, so a command can have several keys. If another command already has that key, StarSync says which and asks before moving it. The x on a key takes it off, Reset puts a command back, and Reset all puts back every key.
• Start from the keys you know: StarSync, FL Studio, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic Pro or Reaper, then change any of them. Save as set keeps your keys under a name, Export saves them to a file to use on another computer or share, and Import uses a file someone shared.
• Your keys are yours: they're kept on your computer, not in the project, so each collaborator keeps their own. Changes work straight away, in every window, and are there the next time StarSync starts. The key mode button at the top right shows a * when you've changed something, and lists your sets.
• Ableton keys, rebuilt: A shows automation lanes, B switches draw mode, Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+2 change the grid, Ctrl+L loops the selection, Ctrl+D deselects, Ctrl+E splits the selected clips at the playhead, Ctrl+R renames, M switches the computer keyboard, which goes off when you pick Ableton's keys, as in Live (while it plays notes, letters like B play notes too), Space plays, and more. If you used Ableton keys before: Duplicate is now Ctrl+B there, and the arrow keys move notes without Shift, as in Ableton.
• Split at the playhead: select clips and press Ctrl+E (in StarSync's, Ableton's and Pro Tools' keys), or Edit > Split at the Playhead.
• Double-click editing, as in Ableton: turn it on in Settings > Keys (it comes on with Ableton's keys) and a double-click adds a note or deletes one, switches a step, or adds a clip on the playlist, while a single click selects. A clip's double-click still opens it.

Plugins

• Save as default: open a plugin's window and click MENU on the bar along its top (or right-click the plugin in a track's plugin list, the mixer, or the devices) and pick Save as default. Every new one of that plugin you add starts with those settings, StarSync's own effects and VST3s alike. Your defaults are yours: your collaborators keep their own, but a plugin you add reaches them with your settings, as always.
• Reset to factory default puts a plugin back to the settings it comes with and forgets your default, so new ones start that way again. Or pick Only forget my default to keep this one as it is.
• Name and colour your plugins: Rename and Colour are in the same menus (or double-click the name on a plugin's window or device). "Vox Verb" in blue shows in the track's plugin list, the mixer, the plugin chain window, the plugin's own window and the devices. Names and colours are saved with the project and show for your collaborators straight away.
• Collaborators still on 1.1.5 see the plugins' own names, and a project saved there loses the names and colours, so it's worth everyone updating.
• The devices, Ableton style: View > Devices (Alt+D, or Shift+Tab with Ableton keys) opens a panel along the bottom with the picked track's plugins side by side. Click a track's header or a mixer strip to pick it; the master strip shows the master's effects.
• Each device has its on/off switch, its name and colour, a key for the plugin's full window and its menu. Drag a device's name sideways to move it along the chain, and + at the end adds a plugin.
• StarSync's own effects show their knobs the way their windows lay them out. Other plugins show their parameters as knobs, a page at a time: the arrows under them turn the page. Right-click a knob to automate it, double-click it for its default value.
• Turning a knob in the devices is the same as turning it in the plugin's window: your collaborators see it move, it's saved, and it's recorded into automation. While someone else is editing a plugin, its device says who and waits until they're done.
• Drag the panel's top edge to make it taller or shorter. StarSync remembers its height and whether it's open.

Racks

• Racks, like Ableton's Audio Effect Rack: one plugin slot with chains of plugins side by side, each chain with its own volume, pan, mute and solo, all mixed together. Pick Rack in the plugin menu, or right-click a plugin and pick Group into a Rack to put it (and the effects after it, if you like) in one. Ungroup puts a one-chain rack's plugins back in the track's chain.
• Parallel processing made easy: put a compressor in one chain and leave another empty for the dry sound, and they're mixed at the volumes you set. Chains line up to the sample, even when a plugin in one chain adds delay (a limiter's lookahead), so nothing flams or phases.
• Eight macro knobs: right-click one and pick Map to (or Learn, then turn a knob in the rack) to have it move a parameter inside, or several. Mappings and ranges sets where each parameter goes as the macro goes from 0 to 127. Right-click a knob inside the rack to map it straight to a macro. Rename macros ("Space", "Grit"), automate them like any knob, and right-click > Automate for a clip.
• In the devices along the bottom, a rack shows its macros, its chains (click one to see its plugins) and the picked chain's plugins with their knobs. The arrow beside the macros hides the chains when you only want the knobs. Open the rack's window for the same view, bigger.
• Save a rack you like with Save as rack preset (in the rack's menu): it's in the plugin menu from then on, under Rack presets, and in every rack's Load rack preset. Presets are yours, on your computer; a rack you load reaches your collaborators as it is.
• Racks are saved with the project and work with your collaborators: they see chains, plugins and macros change as you change them, and the knobs move as you turn them. As with any plugin, one person edits a rack at a time; the rack says who.
• Undo takes back changes to a rack's chains and plugins, like any change to a track's plugins.
• Group into a Rack keeps what the plugins' side-chain input heard: the rack hears it, and the plugins inside hear the rack's (two plugins listening to different tracks can't share a rack). Automation lanes of the grouped plugins go, since plugins in a rack are automated through its macros: the message says how many, and Undo brings them back. Lanes of the plugins after them stay with their plugins. Ungroup does the same the other way.
• Collaborators still on 1.1.5 can't hear a rack (to them it's a plugin they don't have; it stays in the project and comes back as it was). Freeze the rack's slot for them and they hear a print of it, or better, have everyone update.

Automation

• The automation view, as in Ableton: press A (Ableton keys) or View > Automation, and every track shows its automation lanes right under it. Each lane has its name and its value at the playhead beside it, and an x to hide it (its automation stays and still plays). Press A again to hide them all.
• Choose which lanes show: click LANES under a track (or its A key > Lanes...). You get the track's mixer (volume, pan) and every plugin on it, rack macros included; tick the parameters you want as lanes. There's a search box for plugins with lots of parameters.
• Automate from anywhere: right-click a knob in one of StarSync's effects, the devices along the bottom, a rack's macro, or a mixer fader or pan knob, and pick Automate. Its lane opens under the track, ready to draw on. Automation clip still makes an FL-style clip if you prefer those.
• Configure, for any plugin: turn it on from the plugin window's menu (or CONFIGURE in the lane manager), then just turn a knob in the plugin's own window, and that knob gets its lane.
• Draw mode: press B (Ableton keys) or Edit > Draw Mode, and drag in a lane or an automation clip to draw automation freehand. The line keeps just the points it needs (a steady ramp is two points), shown as small dots; hold Ctrl to draw in steps of the grid instead.
• Lanes and automation clips work together: where a clip is, it plays; everywhere else, the lane does.
• Everything here reaches your collaborators as you do it and is saved with the project. Collaborators still on 1.1.5 get the lanes and what you draw on them too; they just don't have the automation view.

Colours

• Colour palettes: View > Colour Palette (or Colour > Edit the palette in a track's menu). Pick a palette for the project (Booth, Soft, Earth, Cool, Studio 16 or one of your own), change any swatch, add or remove colours, and save it to use in other projects. Every Colour menu offers the project's palette, and your collaborators get the same one.
• Automation clips are now drawn a few shades darker than the track they automate, so you can tell at a glance what they belong to. Turn it off in the Colour Palette window if you prefer the old look.

Stretched audio

• Stretched clips sound much cleaner. Keys, pads, leads, 808s and vocals stretched to the project's tempo, or pitched, no longer warble or echo: StarSync now stretches them with Signalsmith Stretch, a high-quality stretcher.
• Drum loops, drum stems and one-shots keep the stretcher they had, which plays every hit once and on the beat. A loop with drums and chords gets both: the hits stay sharp and on time, the chords stretch cleanly.
• The clean version is made in the background as soon as you stretch a clip or change the tempo: well under a second for a loop, a few seconds for a whole song. Until it's ready you hear the stretcher from before, and it fades over without a click. A song longer than about 10 minutes keeps the stretcher from before, to spare your computer's memory.
• It costs next to nothing while it plays, so lots of stretched clips hardly move the CPU meter. An export sounds exactly like playback: if a clean version is still being made when you export or freeze, the progress window says "Finishing the stretched clips" and waits for it (Cancel still works).
• Clips at their own tempo, and clips in Resample mode, play exactly as before.

Friends and profile pictures

• Profile pictures are round now, everywhere someone shows: the top bar, the Collaborators panel, the project chat, voice, comments on clips and your friends. Someone without a picture gets their initials in a circle of their colour, and a picture keeps a thin ring in the person's colour, so you can still tell who's who at a glance.
• Invite Collaborators lists your friends while its search box is empty, online ones first, each marked Online or Offline (Online means StarSync is open and signed in). Click one to invite them, or search for anyone else by username or email.
• Collaboration > Friends List shows each friend with their picture or initials and their username, its search box now narrows the list as you type, and the friend requests you've sent show there straight away, marked as not accepted yet.

Feedback

• Help > Report a Problem and Help > Suggest a Feature now have a "Send anonymously" box. Tick it and what you write is kept without your username or account. A problem report sent that way goes without StarSync's log and crash report, since they name your account.
• Your first feedback earns a reward: 10% off one month of StarSync Plus. It's one per account, however much feedback you send (and we're glad of all of it). The box shows your code when you send, and Settings > Account shows it after. There's nothing to type in: it comes off by itself, at checkout when you get Plus, or on your next payment if you already subscribe. Alpha testers who aren't subscribed yet get it on their second payment, on top of the alpha tester discount.
• You can send feedback from the website too, signed in with your StarSync account: server.starsyncstudio.com/account/feedback. It counts toward the same one reward.
• Feedback needs at least 20 characters now, so we can act on it.

Fixed

• Hiding the browser could leave an empty light box at the right of the playlist. The playlist now always reaches the right edge.
• A collaborator's pointer on the playlist showed to the left of where it really was, by the width of the pattern list. It's now right where they point, and it isn't drawn over the pattern list, the track names or the ruler when they're somewhere you've scrolled away from.
• A collaborator's pointer stopped on your screen while it was over a clip, or over a note in the piano roll. It now follows them everywhere, and shows where it comes to rest.
• Accepting an invitation in Collaboration > Project Invitations opened the project at 120 BPM (or at the tempo of the project you had open) instead of its own tempo.
• The status bar's "Collaborators" count stayed at "1 of 3 (1 online)" while others joined the project. It now changes as people join, and as they answer your invitations.
• Someone you invited showed as Online in the Collaborators panel, and in the top bar, before they had accepted. Until they accept, the panel now says "Invited, hasn't accepted yet".
• The invitation box said accepting would replace your current project. It now says what happens: the project opens in place of yours, unsaved work goes to Backups and your file stays as it is.
• Friends you added didn't show in the chat's DIRECT tab until you restarted StarSync. The list now updates as soon as a friend request is accepted (by you or by them) or a friend is removed, and an empty list tells you how to add someone.
• The Accept and Reject keys in Collaboration > Friend Requests, and Cancel on its Sent tab, did nothing when clicked. They work now.
• Turning down a friend request or a project invitation from its pop-up said it had failed, though it hadn't.
• When someone accepted your friend request, the box that told you named you instead of them, and the person who accepted got a second box on top of their own.
• Popping out the window of one of StarSync's own effects (the Saturator, EQ, Compressor and the rest) crashed StarSync. It pops out now, and the effect's window opens again after you close it, every time.
• Playing from the middle of a chord was silent until the next chord. Notes that are already held where playback starts now sound, whether you press Play there, click the ruler while it plays, or the loop goes back to its start, on StarSync's instruments and on VST3 instruments, in the song and in the piano roll. They stop where the notes end, so nothing hangs on.
• Dragging a sound from the browser onto the playlist, a track, a Drum Machine pad or the Sampler now stops its preview, so you don't hear the preview and the project's copy at the same time. Dropping it anywhere else (back on the browser, say) leaves the preview playing.