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Update #4: The iTar project is alive and well and getting a new home

Backer_white For backers only, Posted on December 6
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Update #3: incredibly busy week

Posted on November 11, 2011

wow! Kickstarter, thanks for the awesome experience! I've had a lot of unusual and vry interesting calls in the last few weeks regarding this project. It seems to have really touched a chord (1/8note-icon here) with some visionary people in the music and mobile bizesses. They see this as a new platform. So I'm going back and forth with people who want to invest in this as an enterprise and I think we can put together a really good team. An awesome team. It's a lesson in building relationships, in a hurry. You learn to trust people or not, based on subtle impressions. The network of the universal mind.

We've landed a video game developer, Machineworks who just released DukeNukem for Android, and they've got a GH-style game they can tweak for the iTar input. I'm pushing them to add support for music styles, country, jazz, and things that weren't covered by the GH/RB genre before they bit it. Lots of cool territory yet to cover.

Also, a top iPad music education developer, MisoMedia, is going to modify their learn-to-play Guitar/Banjo/Mandolin/Bass software to work with the iTar.

I'm getting factory quotes and getting the software finished even though it looks like we're not going to make our Kickstarter goal based on the numbers. Here's my pitch ladies and germs...

I need to make this happen somehow. I'm willing to offer now to provide to everyone a new iTar complete dock and fingerboard, software and performance interface to the iPad and access to many music apps out of the box... for ... $150!! Tell me , "Harvey, thanks for your offer and that's just what I needed to hear to jump on this awesome opportunity to participate in the birth of a new artform", and as God is my witness, I will honor that. 

I am not able to edit the text for our $200 reward level due to Kickstarter's well-thought-out interface, but if it can help us reach our goal, I'll try to figure out how to break even and drop the price. For people who have already pledged, God bless you and I think you're wonderful and I will throw in something extra that's cool like a neckstrip.

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      Derik White on November 12, 2011

      yeah, I'm in...I was waiting for another paycheck before I fully pledged.

      what do we need to do?

      -Derik

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      David Fraser on November 12, 2011

      HI Harvey,
      I am not at all clear on what you are asking exactly???

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      Derik White on November 15, 2011

      I find it very strange that your post doesn't even make sense, and when people ask you to elaborate you don't come on here for days...

      Way to instill confidence in your project!

      dw

Update #2: Android support added

Posted on November 6, 2011

No pix or other media to show yet, but we've started to work out plans to implement our fingerboard interface for Android tablets.

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      Scott Adair on November 6, 2011

      Titanium is a platform that allows javascript code to be used for both IOS and Android development.

      Great news about this. My open source Toshiba Thrive tablet rocks! Beta tester and developer volunteer. Neck me!

      32 GB internal
      128 GB SD card
      500 GB USB disk
      keyboard & trackball

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      Scott Adair on November 6, 2011

      If all $200 pledges bumped theirs up to $500, we could top $30k and have a chance for this last month to make this happen.

      I bumped mine. Anyone else see the value of this?

      Regards,
      Skyman Scott

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      Christopher Currell on November 7, 2011

      I will up mine to $500.00 :-)

Update #1: First apps for the iTar

Posted on October 12, 2011

We're working on some basic apps to support the iTar. First is a screen that creates six virtual strings for strumming and an array of re-configurable knobs and pads that become the performance surface. This will serve as a means to route the iTar output to other apps in the iPad. We are also working with a 3rd party game developer who has offered to create a GuitarHero-like game for the iTar.

We happily invite any and all iPad developers to create new ways to interact with the iTar. For instance, we haven't considered ways for the iTar to use the accelerometer in the iPad.

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      Kenneth Wieschhoff on October 12, 2011

      Will there be an SDK available?

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      Harvey Starr on October 12, 2011

      We are interested in making the app development process as easy as possible. An SDK is something we are looking into. Please feel free to email us with your app development questions.

101
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Funding Unsuccessful

This project reached the deadline without achieving its funding goal on December 6.

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13 Backers

We will love you forever. Seriously, FOREVER. All you have to do is give us money... sweet deal, huh?

Estimated Delivery: Jan 2012

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2 Backers

First and foremost will we love you forever, that goes without saying but it's worth saying anyway. So far no one was interested in one of our awesome Starr Labs posters featuring original artwork. Everyone has enough posters even though this one is a layout of our hot part-time bookeeper holding a ztar and little else. Very artistic. I had a cool idea to take all of your names and work them into a special piece of awesome art that we can post on the website for making this dream a reality, and... we would happily receive concepts from visionary artists reading this with the winner having their art posted and their name listed and linked if they so wish! Ok, forget that. Not interesting. Instead, I will send to you one of our touch-sensitive drum sensors, a 1" round pressure-sensitive membrane switch that you can connect to your own MIDI circuit creation. I will include the schematic for the part, lest there be any confustion regarding the connections. Ok, forget that. No one wants a responsive sensor for their project that would cost $20 somewhere else. Rather than offering plans for an anti-gravity machine, a solar-powered brewery, or an herbal extract that eliminates tooth decay, instead I'd like to offer our thanks for your helping to bring something musical to the world.

Estimated Delivery: Jan 2012

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4 Backers

At this level we can offer a smaller version of the iTar. The fingerboard is just 6 frets, about 6 inches long! The ultimate in portability, the little neck un-docks and fits easily in a backpack or laptop case. Our BOM says that this should cost $149 at retail, but we can Kickstart this at $100.

Estimated Delivery: Mar 2012

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76 Backers

For a mere 200 bucks you'll get a first-run edition of the iTar. Imagine, your very own MIDI controller/ fingerboard that transforms your iPad into a truly amazing instrument. Yes, we will also love you forever and send you the above gifts as well.

Estimated Delivery: Mar 2012

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4 Backers

At this level we add a pressure sensing strip on the neck and a MIDI wireless transmitter system for a complete professional performance rig.

Estimated Delivery: Mar 2012

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0 Backers

Rather than a custom paint job I think you're more interested in some new technology. We have developed a high-end version of our fingerboard with an RGB LED under each key. The command interface is MIDI so it's easy to use. In order to run it from the iPad we need to add a separate power supply. We're thinking of adding some high-quality speakers to the power supply module to enhance the audio output. Comments welcome. Apps in the iPad will be able to light the LEDs to create educational software, games, or awesome lighting effects. The LED fingerboard has been developed already but we will need an extra month to integrate the extra components. You can learn more about this on our website. http://www.starrlabs.com

Estimated Delivery: Mar 2012

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0 Backers • Limited Reward (20 of 20 remaining)

Music Education Charitable Contribution: The iTar represents a union of a programmable keyboard with a portable graphic interface. On such a small "music machine", the full breadth of musical concepts can be conveyed for relatively little cost. It's known that musical training enhances math skills and organization of complex thought. At this level we offer 40 iTars to seed a pilot school music education program and help create the next generation of innovators. Music education has nearly disappeared from our nation's schools for lack of funds and private individuals who are able to do so, are now making a difference in their communities. The iTar can be re-programmed to emulate other traditional musical instruments. We can't give every child a grand piano but we can provide a little keyboard/fingerboard that's easy for a beginner using a variety of special interactive iPad software. Next, the iTar can be re-programmed to emulate and teach the principles of every other traditional musical instrument which broadens one's understanding of some basic physics (resonating strings, membranes, columns of air). Not lastly, the iTar becomes a tool for creative expression. People who use these instruments now find them to be great for composition. Kids love it usually make some kind of music the first time they put their hands on one!

Estimated Delivery: Mar 2012

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0 Backers • Limited Reward (5 of 5 remaining)

The Benefactor: If you consider yourself a high-end electronic musician, all of the tools can be at your fingertips in one portable, playable package. Touch surfaces for both hands, strings, pads, pots, breath, d-beam, ableton control, wireless, embedded sounds, USB, MIDI, lighting. You will be one of ONLY five people on the planet to have an iTar and a blown-out Starr Labs Z6-SPX Ztar with LED Ableton-enabled fingerboard with matching custom paint-jobs. Take a look at our gallery and see some of our past creations, built to order. www.starrlabs.com Note: The Ztar is hand built and will take 8-10 weeks after funding before it will be ready.

Estimated Delivery: Apr 2012

Project By

Harvey and the z-xpa pros.large

Harvey Starr

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Harvey Starr is an inventor, musician and electronics engineer operating out of San Diego, California. He holds patents in various fields including three for electronic guitars. Harvey was educated at UCLA (Physics, 1972), ETI (Electronics, 1975), and GIT (Music, 1978). While in school Harvey pursued the dream by playing in various jazz and rock bands and singing in smoky, dimly-lit dives.

Mr. Starr's background in electronics manufacturing began in the early days of microcomputers during the late 1970's in the greater Los Angeles area. He designed, built and supported hardware for optical fiber communications, computer disk drives and printers, AI Lisp Machine minicomputers, Landsat satellite, high speed optical scanners, and motion picture special EFX, among others. Harvey opened a full-service electronics prototyping shop in 1986 to serve the electronics industry of Los Angeles, including a small machine shop for producing mechanical components and enclosures. Over the next few years he added capacity for in-house plastic and rubber molding, casting, silk screening, as well as sensor design and fabrication.

Since 1993 Harvey has been designing, building and selling electronic guitars under the company Starr Labs with the mission of providing guitarists with a high-quality performance instrument for creating music on a familiar guitar-like platform, now known as the Ztar. Along the way there have been numerous instruments and electronic music systems custom built for various applications including multi-rank keyboards, percussion systems, performance suits, custom museum installations, a MIDI harp, breath-based wind controllers and guitar-related effects circuitry.

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