Tutorial
Congratulations and thank you for buying MTV Music Generator. You don't need to try and digest the whole manual now - we suggest that you read through this Tutorial section where you'll find details of the on-line help and the menu system. Together, these features should allow you to navigate through MTV Music Generator with ease.

Getting Started

Loading and playing a demo song.
MTV Music Generator comes with several demonstration songs. These give you an example of the diverse range of music you can make, and also allow you to edit, remix and examine tracks written by a number of different musicians. All these songs also contain a full video, which you can edit and examine.

First, a quick guideline - as a general rule the left mouse button carries out actions and the right mouse button brings up help menus. There is also a shortcut menu across the top right of every screen - each icon represents a different action which can be accessed by left clicking or by pressing the respective function key. Pressing Esc takes you back to the previous screen or menu.

Once you have started MTV Music Generator, you will find yourself on the main track screen. The main menu icons across the top left allow you to choose between the different modes. Click on the 'Load and Save' icon to see all the songs/videos that are supplied with MTV Music Generator within the directory called 'Songs'. Move over one of the songs and click to select the track. Click on the load icon and the track will load up. By default, all the elements of a track will load so if a track has both music and video, they will be both be loaded. If you want to load just the music, or even just particular riffs, right click and toggle the track's individual components on or off before loading.

Once the song is loaded, click OK and then select the 'Song Track' option. You will now see the song on the screen. Press the spacebar to start and stop the song. To watch the video as well, go back to the main menu icons, choose 'Video Track' and play the song from there. You will see the video playing in a box on the screen - you can make it fill the whole screen by right clicking and selecting 'Play Full Screen'.

Repeat this process to play any of the demonstration songs.

Creating your own new song
Firstly you need to make sure that you don't have a song or video loaded in. If you have just loaded MTV Music Generator, you will be alright, but if you have loaded in any of the demonstration songs, you will need to clear the music and video. To do this, go to the main menu icons and select the 'Options' menu.
Then select 'Clear All' to delete all music and video so we can start from a blank canvas. Go back to the top menu, and select the main 'Song Track' option.

Making a song is very simple. Right click for a menu to appear. Choose the 'Riff library' option (note that there is a shortcut to this option displayed on screen, which you can use later to save you time. The particular shortcut is F6). Use the scroll bars to move up and down each list of riffs or change the instrument section you are in. If you keep scrolling right you will see there are lots of different sections, split into Beat, Drum n Bass, House, Rock, Techno and Trance.

Press F1 to listen to any of these riffs. Once you've found a riff you like, click on it and you'll be taken back into the main track screen.
Click again to lay down the riff - you're best off putting your new riff onto track 1 (at the top left hand side of the screen). Note that you can put it down as many times as you want. If you make a mistake, press Delete to delete it.

To play the riff, go back to the left hand edge of your song and press Space. When the timer reaches your riffs you will hear them play. Press Space again to stop the track. You can now repeat this process, pressing F6 as a shortcut to go into the library. Try putting a bass-line down first, and then a drumloop underneath it, and then a melody. You're making music!

riff editor

Music Jam
Music Jam is an almost immediately accessible and fun way of making music that up to 4 players can use at once over a network / via the Internet. You can also play Music Jam on your own - just choose 'Single Player Jam' and Music Jam will start. To loop sounds, simply press Shift and the Function keys. Hold down the number pad keys to play non-looping samples and use the keyboard to play the two pianos provided. To change any sounds, right click. A full explanation is available in the Music Jam section later in this manual.

If you want to jam on-line with other players, go to www.codemastersusa.com/mtvjam where you can meet up with like-minded musicians.

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