Introduction

RigAstra turns your phone or tablet into a MIDI and OSC control surface that you design yourself. It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. RigAstra doesn't make sound: it sends MIDI to your synths, drum machines, virtual instruments or DAW, and OSC over the network to video software, digital mixers or any OSC receiver.

Instead of adapting to a controller with a fixed number of knobs, you build your own pages with the controls you need, in the order and size you prefer, and play them live.

Scenes, pages and controls

Everything in RigAstra is organized in three levels:

Level	What it is
Scene	The main container: a song, a set or a studio setup. Each scene has its own pages, its own grid and its own tempo list.
Page	A screen inside the scene, with its own grid of controls, its own background and its own default channel and color. A scene can have up to 48 pages.
Control	Each element you place on a page: faders, knobs, pads, keyboards, engines, macros.

A practical way to work is one scene per song, using pages to separate sections (intro, verse, chorus) or instruments. This is covered in detail in Scenes and pages.

The three modes: MIDI, MACRO and OSC

Controls are grouped by where what you play goes:

Mode	Sends to
MIDI	A MIDI device or app, using a channel and a CC or note number.
MACRO	Other controls in the same scene: one gesture moves several controls at once, each within its own range.
OSC	An app or device on the network, using an IP address, a port and a path.

The Fader, the Knob and the Toggle can work in all three modes; the XY Pad works in MIDI and OSC. Other controls have a single mode: the Pad, the Keyboard, the Pitch Bend and the musical engines are MIDI only, and the macro modules are MACRO only. See MIDI · MACRO · OSC modes.

RigAstra's screens

Screen	What it's for
Scene list	The start screen. It shows your scenes from most recent to oldest. From here you create, open and manage scenes, and open Settings with the gear.
Perform	The screen where you play. When you open a scene you go straight here, to the last page you used.
Editor	Where you build each page: you add controls from the palette, place them on the grid and configure them.

Settings holds everything that is global to the app: MIDI outputs and inputs, OSC outputs, how middle C is named, the app's color and background, and backups.

Engines and macros

Besides the controls you move with your finger, RigAstra includes engines that play on their own, all locked to the same clock: the Arpeggiator, the Drum Player, the Drone Pad and the LFO.

Macros control other controls: a State recalls saved values with one tap, Macro Tempo changes the scene's tempo, Macro Memories switches the memory of several engines at once, and Macro Play runs several engines from a single module.

Before you start

RigAstra doesn't produce audio. You need a device or an app that receives MIDI or OSC.
OSC is send-only: RigAstra sends OSC messages but doesn't receive them.
RigAstra doesn't keep running in the background. When you switch to another app, it stops the engines and turns off all notes as a safety measure.

Documentation map

Start here

Getting started: a first session with the Quick Start scene and your first control.
MIDI and OSC connections: MIDI outputs and inputs, and OSC outputs.

Build your rig

Controls