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*************************************************************************** /**** /*** /* /* /**** /*** /*** /**** /**** /*** /* /* * /** ** /* /* /* * /* /* /* * /* * /* /* * /* * */* /**** /* * /*** /*** /**** * /* /* * /* /* /* /* /* * /* /* /* /* * /**** /*** /* /* /* /*** /**** /**** /* /* /***** *************************************************************************** Composer two user manual Section Contents 1 NOTICE 2 HISTORY 3 INTRODUCING COMPOSER 2 4 HELP! THE INTERNAL CLOCK 5 TERMS USED IN THIS GUIDE 6 THE SCREENS OF COMPOSER 7 HOW A SONG IS CONSTRUCTED IN COMPOSER 2 8 PRODUCING A SIMPLE SEQUENCE 9 CHANGING THE MIDI CHANNEL 10 MOVING A SEGMENT AROUND THE SEQUENCE TABLE 11 EDITING THE MUSICAL NOTES 12 HOW COMPOSER 2 DISPLAYS MUSICAL NOTES & MIDI CONTROL DATA 13 MOVING & COPYING NOTES 14 ADDING & EDITING NOTES 15 THE LIBRARY BOX 16 COPYING SEGMENTS & SEQUENCES 17 THE PREFERENCES BOX 18 SAVING & LOADING YOUR WORK 19 MERGING SEGMENTS FROM DISK 20 EXPORTING MIDI STANDARD FORMAT FILES 21 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES TRANSPOSING TRANSPOSING NOTES CHANGING VELOCITY VALUES REPLACING MIXING 22 SETTING UP VOICES 23 QUANTISING 24 WEEDING OUT USED SEGS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 NOTICE If you like the program and use it please registe with the author. I only ask for a £5 register fee which includes: * A disk full of sample files, * a large memory version of Composer two for use with 1 meg ST's and * an exporting version of Composer 1 so you don't have to reprogram your old compositions If a magazine is considering publishing this software I would appreciate prior notice and for them to at least register before publishing. Thank you. (c) David Dickens 1992 7 Granary Close Horley Surrey RH6 8JF ........................................................................... 2 HISTORY In 1989 I released Composer 1 to the Public Domain. Composer 1 was originally intended to be a drum sequencer using the ST's internal sound chip to generate the sounds. If you have a copy of Composer 1 you will know how it developed into a fairly sophisticated MIDI sequencer. However, Composer 1 has serious limitations one of which being that it could not record MIDI data polyphonically (more than one note at a time). Composer 1 also only has a resolution of 16 clock pulses per bar. I learnt from developing and using Composer 1 the importance of the structured approach to making and composing music. Almost all modern 'pop' songs have a similar structure eg: intro verse chorus verse end A sequencer should allow you to 'design' your compositions in this way - as you will see as you read on this is how Composer 2 works. ........................................................................... 3 INTRODUCING COMPOSER 2 Here at last is the latest version of Composer, not only updated, but totally re-written. Composer 2 uses the features of GEM to provide a powerful music recording, editing system and play back system. * Some of the features include: * 96 beats per bar resolution * 16 polyphonic tracks * Full note and MIDI data entry and editing * Transpose & replace functions * Handles velocity data * Internal or external MIDI clock signal * Import Composer 1 exported files(An export version of Composer 1 is available from the Author) * Merge music data files * Mix multiple tracks onto one channel * Structured approach to building up songs As with Composer 1 (which was featured in ST Format magazine in July 1990) I hope to be developing Composer 2 as I get feedback from users. Programming and music are my hobbies and I therefore have very little budget to spend on equipment. Composer 2 has been tested on both Casio CZ101 and Yamaha PSS 795 keyboards and works fine. If you are using a Yamaha PSS 780 or PSS 790 keyboard you may need to get an upgrade to the operating system of the keyboard to enable you to hear music and record at the same time. .......................................................................... 4 HELP! Before I launch into the manual I would be grateful of some help with the program: THE INTERNAL CLOCK. I need to be able to measure a time delay in milliseconds and so far I have been unable to get this accuracy. For example a speed of 96 beats per minute will require a 16 millisecond delay between each beat. Currently I am using the 200hz system clock every count of which takes 5 milliseconds so I am unable to get an accurate 120 bpm speed. The GEM event_timer function also seems totally useless and although I have not managed to work out what resolution it works to it is certainly not milliseconds. There must be a way of measuring milliseconds. I would appreciate any help that you could give me. ........................................................................... 5 TERMS USED IN THIS GUIDE Where I have remembered these terms appear in capital letters in the text. General SYNTH A musical keyboard. KEYBOARD The computer keyboard. BAR A bar of music which can be divided into any number of clock pulses from 1 to 96. The default is 96 which means a crotchet has a resolution of 24 clocks. SEGMENT A piece of music either recorded from the SYNTH or entered via the KEYBOARD which can consist of 1 to 32 bars. SEQUENCE A collection of segments built up in a table consisting of 16 tracks by 32 steps. Each step represents a bar of music. SONG A list of sequences which are played back in the order in which they appear. LIBRARY BOX Holds names of SEGMENTS, SEQUENCES & SONGS. SEQUENCE TABLE Table used for building up sequences. Segments are DRAGGED (see note on mouse terms) on to this table. NOTE TABLE Table used to edit individual notes and MIDI control data. SONG TABLE Table used for building sequences into songs. The table lists a number of sequences in the order of play back. Mouse CLICK Press & release left mouse button DOUBLE CLICK Press & release mouse button twice SHIFT+CLICK Hold down the SHIFT key & CLICK CNTRL+SHIFT+CLICK Hold CONTROL & SHIFT & CLICK CNTRL+ALT+CLICK Hold CONTROL & ALT & CLICK DRAG Hold down the left mouse button & move the mouse SHIFT+DRAG Hold SHIFT & DRAG CNTRL+DRAG Hold CONTROL & DRAG ........................................................................... 6 THE SCREENS OF COMPOSER To load Composer 2 DOUBLE CLICK on the COMP2.PRG icon. Composer 2 will work in both high resolution and medium resolution although high resolution is best. In medium resolution the number of Segment names displayed in the Library box is more than halved the significance of this will be seen later. The first screen to be displayed is the Sequence editing screen. Apart from the standard GEM menu bar across the top of the screen there are two boxes. The upper box is called the LIBRARY BOX it lists the names of all the components of your song. When you run Composer the LIBRARY BOX contains two names - SCRATCH PAD and MAIN SONG -I will explain these later. The lower box is called the SEQUENCE TABLE. This table is used to build sequences of music. The SEQUENCE TABLE consists of two parts, on the left the track names. The track names are there so that you can label each track with the name of the voice you are using on that track. The main SEQUENCE TABLE is a grid consisting of 32 columns by 16 rows. From the WORK ON... menu select 'Build sequences into a song'. This will display the SONG TABLE (the box on the right). This table is used to build your sequences into a song. The box on the left is the LIBRARY BOX displayed in a different format. I will explain how these tables are used to build your piece of music later. There is another editing table called the NOTE TABLE which can only be seen when there is some music loaded in memory. Composer 2 menus FILE Handles saving and loading Composer 2 music data files. There are also MERGE and IMPORT functions (the latter being used to read Composer 1 exported files). The PREFERENCES option allows global editing of track names. The DRUM NAMES options is not yet available. EDIT Includes options to either DELETE or INSERT a new bar in a segment of music. These are only available when editing a bar of music in the NOTE TABLE. FUNCTIONS Includes RECORD, PLAY BACK and STOP functions. The KEEP option lets you store the latest recording made from the SYNTH and the NEW SEQ option lets you create a new sequence. The INTERNAL CLOCK option lets you toggle between using the internal clock and an external MIDI clock pulse. When switched to external clock Composer will sync recording or play back to an other sequencer. WORK ON... There are two main modes of operation - you are either building up a sequence or building up a song. This menu lets you swap between the two modes. (This is not the only way to switch modes as you will see later). PAGE Includes options to let you page forwards and backwards in the NOTE TABLE, LIBRARY BOX and SONG TABLE. Note that the options available depend on whether you are working on a sequence or song. UTILITIES This is a menu I hope to expand in the future but for the moment it includes MIX and TRANSPOSE two extremely powerful facilities which are explained in ADVANCED TECHNIQUES ........................................................................... 7 HOW A SONG IS CONSTRUCTED IN COMPOSER 2 If you have used Composer 1 you will be familiar with my way of working, but if this is your first program this is how it works. A song consists of a number of sequences eg intro } verse } these are chorus } the sequences verse } end } A Sequence consists of 16 of 32 steps, each step is a bar of music. In the SEQUENCE TABLE each square on the table represents one of these steps. Rather than dealing with the music in single bars I group them together in Segments. A Segment can consist of between 1 and 32 bars of music. In turn, each bar can consist of between 1 and 96 clock beats. Normal 4/4 timing (I should say at this point that I am not a music theory expert) is represented by 96 beats per bar (24 beats or clocks per crotchet). If you wanted 3/4 timing then you could set the beats per bar to 64. You could work with just one beat per bar which is extremely useful when setting up your MIDI SYNTH'S voices (explained in ADVANCED TECHNIQUES) In practice you can record up to 32 bars of music at any one time. The music you record is stored in a Segment, which you have to name. The Segment's name appears in the LIBRARY BOX and can be DRAGGED onto the Sequence table when building up a Sequence. It sounds a little confusing but is really very simple once you get started. .......................................................................... 8 PRODUCING A SIMPLE SEQUENCE Composer 2 has a built in metronome using the internal sound chip so turn up the volume on your monitor. Make sure that your SYNTH is plugged into the correct MIDI ports on the ST. Select RECORD from the FUNCTIONS menu (or press 'R'). The metronome will provide a beep every crotchet (4 times per bar). Play your party piece and then press S to stop the recording. A dialogue appears and asks for a name for the piece - type in MY MUSIC and CLICK OKAY. The name MY MUSIC will now appear in the library box. DRAG MY MUSIC on to the Sequence table and a block appears whose length represents the number of bars in your piece of music. If the block does not start in the first column of the top row of the table DRAG it to this position (ie top left hand corner of the Sequence table). Select PLAY from the FUNCTIONS menu. The music will play back through your keyboard. ........................................................................... 9 CHANGING THE MIDI CHANNEL When Composer 2 records music from the SYNTH it strips the channel number out of the incoming MIDI data. When Composer plays the Sequence back it puts the appropriate channel number back into the MIDI data which is then sent to your SYNTH. Each track of the Sequence table can be set to any MIDI channel although the default values are TRACK 1 CHANNEL 1, TRACK 2 CHANNEL 2 and so on. The drawback of this approach is that the MIDI data has to be recompiled before it can be played and so there is a short delay while this happens. The advantage is that you have flexibility in deciding on which channel you want your music played back, in fact you can play the same Segment of music simultaneously on any number of channels. To change the channel number associated with a particular track or tracks (ie if you want tracks 1, 2, 3 all to go to channel 1) DOUBLE CLICK on the SEQUENCE name (in this case SCRATCH PAD) in the Library box. Then using the middle section of the SEQUENCE dialogue box change the channel number to 1. Repeat this process with all the tracks you which to change using the left and right arrows (> ) to get to the appropriate track. ........................................................................... 10 MOVING A SEGMENT AROUND THE SEQUENCE TABLE DRAG to move SEGMENTS. SHIFT+DRAG to copy SEGMENTS. CNTRL+SHIFT+CLICK to fill to end of the track with the SEGMENT under the mouse pointer. ALT+CLICK to delete a SEGMENT from the SEQUENCE table. CNTRL+ALT+CLICK to delete from the current mouse pointer position to end of the track. Note that the mouse pointer must be on the first bar of a SEGMENT. DOUBLE CLICK displays the note editing table for the bar under the mouse pointer. ........................................................................... 11 EDITING THE MUSICAL NOTES To display the NOTE TABLE either: DOUBLE CLICK on a bar in the SEQUENCE TABLE or CLICK on the SEGMENT name in the LIBRARY BOX. The NOTE TABLE displays one bar of music. All the notes which appear in the bar are listed down the left hand side in ascending order. The bottom entry in the list is NEW. There is nothing special about the NEW line except that if a bar has no notes in it then the NEW line provides an area to CLICK in to add notes (more about this later). ........................................................................... 12 HOW COMPOSER 2 DISPLAYS MUSICAL NOTES & MIDI CONTROL DATA Musical notes are displayed as two black blocks separated by grey blocks. The first block is the NOTE ON code and the last black block is the NOTE OFF code. The length of time the key was held down can be see clearly. This should not be confused with the length of the note which is the time between one note being pressed and then another being pressed (if this makes sense). In other words you may have played four crotchets but the actual duration each note was held down may only have been four clocks. This is sometimes called the gate length. If a note starts on a previous bar then there will be no starting black block, grey block will start in the far left column and end at the note off. If the note starts in the previous bar and ends in the next bar ( a very long sustain) then the note will not appear at all in the current bar. Finally if the note starts and ends on the same beat (ie a drum beat) then Composer gets confused and assumes that it is a NOTE ON. As it can not find the NOTE OFF it draws grey blocks until it either meets another NOTE ON/OFF or the far right hand side of the table. (I hope to correct this bug in the future - but it does not affect the music). ........................................................................... 13 MOVING & COPYING NOTES DRAG to move notes. SHIFT+DRAG to copy notes. CNTRL+DRAG to move either NOTE ON or NOTE OFF position (ie altering the gate length). ALT+DRAG to delete a complete note. (NOTE: the mouse must actually move to delete.) CONTROL+ALT+CLICK to delete either NOTE ON or NOTE OFF code. * * * * UPDATE moving, copying and deleting chords * * * * If you use the keys listed above while the mouse cursor is in the NEW line at the bottom of the table then you affect all the notes in that column. This means that chords can be moved, copied or delete. DOUBLE CLICK to edit the note or create a note if one does not already exist. .......................................................................... 14 ADDING & EDITING NOTES If you DOUBLE click on either the NOTE ON block or NOTE OFF block then a dialogue box is displayed showing the note as text (See examples below). If you wish to add a new note then DOUBLE CLICK on the NEW line at the point you want the note to start. In the dialogue box notes are displayed and entered as: OCTAVE NOTE ie 3A# ON or 3A# OFF There are two ways to enter a note: Type 3A# ON CLICK OK move to off position and DOUBLE CLICK type 3A# OFF. or type 3A# CLICK one of the length button. It is possible to alter a complete note as follows: DOUBLE CLICK on NOTE ON block edit text of note CLICK on a note length button the same length as original note length Composer 2 also supports editing of MIDI control messages. The following messages are currently supported: VOICE 34 changes voice to number 34 PITCH 0 64 sends a pitch bend value CONTROL 64 127 sends a control value Your keyboard manual should explain what the midi control codes are on your keyboard. These commands must be typed in full as shown above and according to MIDI standards ie PITCH and CONTROL must have two data values, VOICE must have only one data value. The valid range for any data value is 0-127. You can enter as many notes or control codes as will fit on the note input line so that chords can be entered in one go for example. ........................................................................... 15 THE LIBRARY BOX This box contains the names of all the Segments, Sequences and Songs currently in the memory. Segment names are displayed in normal text, Sequence names are displayed in italic text and song names in bold text. The following functions are available within the LIBRARY BOX if you are editing SONGS or SEQUENCES. SEGMENT NAMES If you DOUBLE CLICK on a segment name a dialogue box is displayed so that you can change the name of the segment. This is particularly useful if you want to keep the names of your segments meaningful (ie BASS LINE or PIANO CHORDS etc). While I am on segment names, here is a tip for high resolution monochrome screen users. If you have sequences which consist of one bar then only the first two characters of the segment name will appear on the block in the sequence table. If you are using a number of one bar segments it pays to use a two character code at the beginning of the name (eg D1 DRUM BEAT 1 or P1 PIANO CHORD 1). This makes it easy to identify a particular segment. If you have a colour screen and wonder how you can find out the names of the segments in the sequence table all you have to do is DOUBLE CLICK on any of the blocks and the segment name will appear in the top window bar. Back to the Library box. If you CLICK on a segment name in the Library box then the note editing table is displayed for that segment. THE SEQUENCE NAMES DOUBLE CLICKING on a Sequence name will display the Sequence dialogue box. In this box you can alter MIDI channel number associated with each track and the track labels. The number of beats per bar and the speed of recording can also be altered here. (See section THE SEQUENCE HEADER). If you CLICK on a Sequence name then that sequence will be displayed in the SEQUENCE EDITING TABLE. If you are currently in SONG editing mode (ie the SONG TABLE is on the right hand side of the screen) then there is a short delay before the SEQUENCE TABLE is displayed. This is because Composer has to recompile MIDI data for the SEQUENCE you have selected. ******************************************************************** TECHNICAL NOTE - SKIP IF YOU LIKE Composer 2 has two ways on storing the MIDI data depending on whether you are editing a SEGMENT, SEQUENCE or SONG. If you are editing a SEGMENT or SEQUENCE each block of MIDI data (ie a note on instruction and values) is preceded with a beat number and a bar number. This helps in editing the notes as the bar and beat number is displayed in the menu bar (top right of screen). However, if you are editing a song then Composer joins the beat and bar variables together as a single beat counter. This is to enable a song to include sequences which have different beats per bar. So when you change from editing a SONG to editing a SEGMENT or SEQUENCE Composer recompiles the data to the correct format. ******************************************************************** SONG NAMES If you DOUBLE CLICK you can change the song name, a CLICK will let you edit that song. .......................................................................... 16 COPYING SEGMENTS & SEQUENCES COPYING SEGMENTS SHIFT+DRAG the SEGMENT name you wish to copy. You don't have to drag it anywhere in particular just as long it is not in the same position as it started. A copy dialogue box appears which shows the segment name you are copying and the current bar number in the TO & FROM fields. WARNING - Changing the name of the segment to copy from will have no effect - I have just include the name so you can check that it is the correct segment. You can either copy a whole segment or just a range of bars from it. This latter facility is very useful if you are working on a bass riff for example. You may have recorded about 5 bars of your riff - you can then play back the segment and decide which bar sounded best and then just copy that bar. COPYING SEQUENCES This is a very powerful facility and there's more too it than meets the eye. To copy a sequence SHIFT+DRAG its name in the library box. A dialogue then appears which is similar to the segment copy dialogue. You can copy the whole sequence or a range of tracks. Once you press OKAY you are given another option: COPY ALL SEGMENTS [YES] [NO] If you CLICK YES a copy is made of all the segments in the sequence, these new segments are given new names which are built up from their existing name and the new sequence name. For example a sequence contains two segments: DRUM BASS LINE after copying the sequence to a sequence called SEQ2 there will be two new segments: SEQ2 DRUM SEQ2 BASS LINE The new sequence table contains these new segments. This all sounds good (and took a fair amount of coding) but is it any use? Yes - it provides you with a easy way to copy a complete sequence and then change the key of of that sequence without having to individually copy all the segments in a sequence. If you don't want to copy all the segments then when the message COPY ALL SEGMENTS [YES] [NO] is displayed CLICK NO. You will end up with a copy of the original sequence using all the same segments as your original sequence. THE SEQUENCE HEADER The sequence header provides the following information: The MIDI channels associated with each track. Each track can be played through any MIDI channel -you could have all tracks set to channel one if you like!. A short label for each track. This is for your use only (see the section on ADVANCED TECHNIQUES). The recording speed in beats per minute (not play back speed). Currently this is not as accurate as I would like. The actual play back speed is set in the preferences dialogue box. The idea is that you can record at a different speed to play back - particularly useful for someone like me who can't play very fast. The number of beats per bar (default is 96 ie each crotchet is 24 beats or clock pulses). This can be set from 1 to 96. Realistically you would probably use 64 (for Waltz's or 96 4/4 timing). WARNING - if you try to edit a segment which has been recorded at 96 bpb with a sequence set to 64 bpb the notes between 65-96 will disappear. ........................................................................... 17 THE PREFERENCES BOX This is in fact a sequence header box which is not attached to any sequence. It holds the default values for all the fields and it olds the play back speed. When you start a new sequence by selecting NEW SEQUENCE from the FUNCTIONS menu the new sequence will take a copy of the preference box. It is possible to SAVE & LOAD preferences so that you can set up a preferences box for your needs. When you change the track names in the preferences dialogue box you are given the opportunity to apply these track names to all the sequences in memory. To do this after you have CLICKed OKAY in the preferences box, CLICK YES in the message box which appears. ........................................................................... 18 SAVING & LOADING YOUR WORK It pays to save your work at regular intervals (Composer 2 has been known to crash once in a while). To SAVE select SAVE MUSIC DATA from the FILE menu. To LOAD a file select LOAD MUSIC DATA from the FILE menu. WARNING - Composer 2 always saves data with the extension .C2 and will only allow these file to be loaded. It does not do any checks on the file so if you rename a non Composer file and add the extension .C2, Composer 2 will crash when you try to load it. A Composer 2 file is not a standard MIDI file, it has a fairly complex data structure which holds the segments, sequences and songs. ........................................................................... 19 MERGING SEGMENTS FROM DISK It is possible to merge sequences from any Composer 2 disk file into your current composition. The function merges complete sequences into the current file bringing in all the associated segments. This facility allows you to work on small sections of your song and then bring them all together. It also means that you can keep a library of useful segments such as drum beats or voice settings and merge them with you current song. Select MERGE from the FILE menu. A dialogue box is displayed: if you select ALL then all the segs in the file will be merged with your current song. I would recommendd that you click SELECTED - this displays all the sequences in the file in turn and asks you if you wish to LOAD, SKIP or STOP the merge. Note that each sequence read in will bring its own copy of the segs it uses. This means that if you have two sequences both using the same drum seg there will be two copies of the drum seg loaded in with the same name. This isperfectly legal in that Composer 2 uses a special index number to link a segment with a sequence and not the name of segment. ........................................................................... 20 EXPORTING MIDI STANDARD FORMAT FILES It is possible to export your Composer 2 music files in standard MIDI format. Composer 2 exports in MIDI format 1 type files which means track information is stored. In practice Composer exports each MIDI channel as a separate track. The track names set up in preferences are also saved. To export a file select Export from the File menu, make sure that you have a disk in your drive (A:, B: or C: if you're lucky enough to have a hard disk) type in the file name and hit okay. Note that Composer will always add the .MID extension to the file name. It is probably worth mentioning Composer 1 here as it is possible to export Composer 1 files to MIDI format using Composer 2. Composer 1 does in fact export as MIDI format 0 files but only a sequence at at time. When you export from Composer 1 it generates a file for every sequence in the song (eg DEMO.01, DEMO.02 ... DEMO.99). Composer 2 can read in all these files and rebuild the sequences, all you have to do is put them back in the song. You could read one of these files into any MIDI standard sequencer by renaming the file to .MID (eg DEMO.01 becomes DEMO.MID). If you want a copy of the exporting version of Composer 1 please register with me (see section 1 for info on registering). .......................................................................... 21 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES TRANSPOSING Select TRANSPOSE/REPLACE form the UTILITIES menu. This function works in two ways: Transposes musical notes Changes velocity values TRANSPOSING NOTES In the top field type in the current note eg 3A In the bottom field type in the new note eg 4A You should not specify note on or note off. CLICK TRANSPOSE, then select either SEG (SEGMENT) SEQ (SEQUENCE) SNG (SONG) - these are indicate the extent of the area you which to transpose. Obviously SONG will transpose the whole song - but be careful - this function will also transpose your drum notes and you will end up with different drum sounds. (I will address this problem in a future update). I usually transpose either a segment or sequence. If I transpose a sequence I will delete the drum track before transposing then put it back. CHANGING VELOCITY VALUES In the top field type in the old velocity value eg 65 In the bottom field type in the new velocity value eg 127 CLICK TRANSPOSE and then select the area to be affected. This will alter all the velocity values by the difference of NEW - OLD unless the change would cause the new velocity value to go outside the valid range (0-127). If this is the case then the new value becomes either 0 or 127 depending which end of the scale was exceeded. REPLACING Replacing changes selected notes or MIDI control codes unlike Transpose which affects all notes. In the top filed type in the note or control code you wish to change eg 3A or VOICE 45 In the bottom field type in the note or control code you which to change to eg 4A or VOICE 50 Note: if you are changing MIDI control codes (VOICE, PITCH, CONTROL) you must change like with like. Valid changes: VOICE 34 to VOICE 64 CONTROL 64 127 to CONTROL 91 50 PITCH 0 64 to PITCH 0 100 Invalid changes: VOICE 40 to PITCH 0 64 CONTROL 65 0 to VOICE 45 3A to VOICE 30 MIXING You may want to build up a single segment of music from a number of smaller segments. ie you could record the left and right parts to a piano solo in separate segments and then mix them together in one segment. DRAG the two segments to be mixed into an empty sequence table - make sure that they start at step 1 (ie far left column). They can be in any tracks - I usually use tracks 1 & 2. You can mix up to 16 tracks - the only constraint is the amount of memory available to hold the mixed segment. Select MIX from the UTILITIES menu - you are asked for a name to keep your new segment. .......................................................................... 22 SETTING UP VOICES I use both a Casio CZ101 (4 note polyphonic with one voice or 4 note monophonic multi-timbral) and a Yamaha PSS795 (28 note polyphonic and mutli-timbral). The approach you need to adopt for changing voices is different for the two keyboards. The Casio is very limited in multi-timbre mode, it uses 4 consecutive midi channels and so to get a voice change on one of the channels in the middle of a piece you need to place the voice change code at the point you want it to change. For example you have a song with a verse and chorus, in the verse channel 1 uses a piano sound and in the chorus channel 1 uses a flute voice. The voice change codes must be placed on the beginning of the verse and chorus. The Yamaha is more flexible in that it can use all 16 midi channels and it is possible to set up each channel to a different voice and then throughout the song change channels to change the voice. Composer 2 is flexible and allows both these methods to be used. I would always recommend the second method if you have a mutli-channel multi-timbral keyboard like the PSS795 as you can label the tracks with the name of the voice. I set a sequence up called VOICES along with 16 1 bar segments labelled X1 to XG corresponding to each of the 16 MIDI channels. The sequence is set up to have bar lengths of 1 beat so that when you play the piece the voices are set up and the music starts to play instantly. If you load in the sample file OPAL.C2 supplied on the disk and CLICK on VOICES you will see how the voices are set up. By labelling 1 bar segments with an X it puts them at the end of your list of segments and out of the way. .......................................................................... 23 QUANTISING I have added a simple quantising function to Composer. The function works on the currently selected segment and locks all notes on to semi quavers, or every 6 beats. The function has a bias towards the semi quaver before the actual note. Unless the note is more than two thirds towards a following semi quaver the note will be attracted to the first. This is because I have found that I am more likely to be late hitting a note than early. Note that this cannot be undone (as with all Composer 2 functions) so copy segment first. .......................................................................... 24 WEEDING OUT SEGS NOT USED IN CURRENT SONG This function clears out all those segs which are not required once you completed your song. I added this function because I ran out of segment slots when creating a long piece of music (over 15 minutes long with few repeating sequences). Make sure that you have select the current song then press D. Compser will delete all those segs not found in that song. It will not delete any redundant sequences you will need to do that. .