Starrypad

A drum pad for iPhone, with a looper, a sampler and USB MIDI in.

Getting help

Common questions

My USB MIDI controller does nothing.

Connect it through a powered adapter — some controllers draw more than the phone will give them. When it is seen, the dot at the top turns green and names it. If the pads are in the wrong order, tap Learn and hit each pad once, bottom left first.

How do I put my own sound on a pad?

Tap Sampler, then record from the microphone or take the audio from a video. Drag on the waveform to choose the part that plays, then assign it to the selected pad. The original is kept, so you can re-trim later.

How do I move a pad?

Hold it. The menu opens; keep dragging and the pad lifts, and dropping it on another pad swaps the two. Everything moves with the sound — level, tuning, trim, name — including anything you have already recorded.

Recording starts on its own.

Rec counts you in for one bar. If a loop is already playing, Rec waits for the bar line so nothing you are hearing shifts; the button reads “Cue” while it waits, and pressing it again cancels.

Undo took away more than I wanted.

Undo removes one pass round the loop, newest first — not the whole take. Press it again for the pass before that.

Where are my recordings?

On your phone, inside the app. They are never uploaded. Deleting the app deletes them, so anything you want to keep should be recorded elsewhere too.

Privacy

Starrypad collects nothing at all. Read the policy.

Credits

The acoustic kit is the Salamander Drumkit by Alexander Holm, licensed CC BY 3.0. The 808 sounds come from Michael Fischer's TR-808 sample set as published by TidalCycles under CC0 1.0. The same credits are in the app, behind the info button.