Gold Star Studio

Gold Star Studio is the room in your pocket, from SugarHill Recording Studios - Houston's oldest studio, recording since 1941, where Gold Star was the name on the door.

Eight tools, every one built from scratch at the studio. Nothing is sampled: every sound the app makes, it makes itself.

KEY FINDER - play a song at the phone and it tells you the key, spelled the way a chart spells it.

TUNER - chromatic, or set to guitar, bass, ukulele or violin with their tunings. Lock a string, hold it to hear the note, set the reference pitch, or match the tuning of a recording.

TEMPO TAP - tap along and read the tempo.

METRONOME - a woodblock click with the meters you need, tap tempo, a screen flash and a vibrate that you can feel, and it keeps time with the screen locked.

THEREMIN - play it with the light on the front camera: a hand over the lens bends the note. Filter, echo, tremolo, crush and vibrato on the pad.

PIANO - a piano, a Rhodes, an electric piano and an organ, with sustain and chords.

DRUM MACHINE - an 808 kit with grooves and fills.

AUTO-TUNE - sing into it and it pulls you to the key, hard or natural, with a harmony and a room. Find the key of the track first.

And the SUGARHILL ARCADE, three machines of the studio's own: REELZ, the pinball - five light shows, a golden ticket, Reel G on the head calling the shots, and a gold star ball; STAR SHOOTER, where the studio's gear comes at you in waves; and GOLD STAR GP, a hover racer with eight machines, four tracks, upgrades, rivals, hidden paths and a live synth soundtrack - steer with a tap, swipe up for nitro, and hit it on the beat.

Wear an Apple Watch and it becomes the remote: start the metronome from your wrist and feel the beat there, tap a tempo, see the note the theremin is playing, read the pinball score, and nudge the table.

Discovery signals