Audio 4.94 - Over 11,000 Files/audio-11000.iso/atari/midi/alchemjr.arc/QUICK.DOC

Text File | 1990-04-06 | 15KB | 463 lines

                                  PREFACE
                                  *******

   First,  authors  of  this shareware would like to thank you of having
   downloaded Alchimie Jr. Anyone you are and anywhere you live, you are
   wellcome  in  the world of Alchimie Junior. The authors hope that you
   will  enjoy working with your new sequencer especially made for ATARI
   1040  and  Mega  ST/STE.  They hope so that you will appreciate 2 1/2
   years   of   development.   (please   understand  the  sometime  poor
   translation, french is our mother tongue, but we shall do better next
   time if...)

   Note  : for french people a complete french version is available. (la
   version  française  est disponible dans un conditionnement commercial
   classique  que  vous pouvez obtenir pour 100 US$ ou l'équivalent dans
   votre monnaie nationale).

   When  sending us your support, you will get (among several documents)
   a  complete  information  about  Alchimie Senior, the cheaper and the
   most  powerfull  sequencer  you  will  never see. (we know, it's just
   words  but try the Junior, understand its logic and just imagine what
   could be the Senior version...)

   If you like to join us for questions, criticals or for anything else,
   you can write to :    Prosoft informatique
                 Dominique Canevesi
                 Redoute 18
                 CH-1260 NYON (SWITZERLAND)

   You can also join us in :
                 COMPUSERVE     ID 100016,156
                 BIX            ID DCANEVESI
                 DELPHY         ID DCANEVESI
                 GENIE          soon available

   You can also send a Fax : [phone]

   If and when you send your support, please do not forget :

   First  name,  name,  your complete address and state, your payment or
   with  a  credit  card : pay to the order of PROSOFT informatique, the
   kind of CC, CC number and date of issue. Thank you again.

                     DISTRIBUTION LICENSING AGREEMENT

   Anyone  wishing  to  charge  people  a  fee for giving a copy of this
   shareware  must have the writen authorization of the authors. Without
   which,  the  distributor is guilty of copyright violation. To receive
   such   authorization,   send   this   completed  form  to  :  PROSOFT
   informatique,  D.  Canevesi,  Redoute 18, CH-1260 NYON (SWITZERLAND).
   Please  include  5  US$  to  cover the cost of processing and receive
   terms of distribution.

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   Your signature :______________________________


                                   - 1 -





                      1 - INTRODUCTION TO ALCHIMIE Jr

   You have now in your hand one of the most powerfull musical sequencer
   of  Atari's  world.  At the date of issue (1989), this was one of the
   first  real-time,  multi-windows and multi-task sequencer. (maybe the
   first one)

   1.1 What you see
   ----------------
   When  you  run  Alchimie  Jr,  you  can  see  many differents objects
   displayed on the screen. They are three open windows (Songs, Patterns
   and  Tracks),  at  the bottom right four icons, (Printer, Disk, Trash
   and  Stack),  at  the  bottom  left  a  rectangular part (the control
   pannel)  and  on  the  top  at  the right position of the menu bar, a
   counter showing you the current time/position.

   The  control  pannel contains three parts, which are from the left to
   the right:

   Left  part  contains six buttons and a white bar. They are (from left
   to  right and up to down) : RECORD, PLAY, STOP, BACKWARD, FORWARD and
   RESET. The white bar represents the MIDI INPUT BUFFER.

   Middle part contains four values indicating the START, STOP, PUNCH-IN
   and PUNCH-OUT times.

   Right  part  contains the tempo value, the time signature and various
   control buttons.

   On  the  bottom  you can see an horizontal slider which allows you to
   modify  times  values or the tempo, modifications depends on which of
   them is selected.

   1.2 Using mouse
   ---------------
   The mouse is used to :

   * Select : click brievly on the left button of the mouse.

   * Get Info : double click on the left button

   *  Move  :  point  and  hold  left  button down, move to destination,
   release the mouse button.

   1.3 Musical time notation
   -------------------------
   Alchimie  Jr  print  the  musical  time  in  a  three parts number as
   BBBB/TT/CCC  where  BBBB indicates the count of bars, TT the count of
   time  in  the  bar  and  CCC  the count of internal tops. For example
   0008/01/048  means  8  beat  time, 1 beat and 48 internal clocks. The
   internal clock counter is on the right top of the screen, on the menu
   bar.

   Note : they are 96 internal clock for a quarter note.






                                   - 2 -





                              2 - QUICK GUIDE

   In this section, we explain step by step "how to do that".

   2.1 Play the demo song
   ----------------------
   - Run ALCHIMIE.PRG
   - Click on the "OK" button after you have read the Info Box.
   - Choose a song in the files selector

   At  this  step,  you have load one song. It appears on the top of the
   song window.

   Drag  the  first  line  of  the Song window to the PLAY button on the
   control panel.

   2.2 Record a new pattern
   ------------------------
   Before  recording  a  track,  you  must  create  a new song and a new
   pattern.

   -  Create  a new song by double clicking on an empty line in the song
   window and filling up the dialog box with correct values. Select it.

   -  Create  a new pattern by double clicking on the Pattern window and
   filling up the dialog box.

   -  Drag  the new pattern to the STOP button. This operation indicates
   to  Alchimie  Jr  of using this pattern as the current one. Note that
   the  START  and  STOP time on the control panel are adapted to follow
   the pattern duration.

   Now you can start recording :

   - Push on RECORD and then on PLAY

   -  Wait  2 beats time of clicks and play what you want on your synth.
   When  you  are playing, first you can see the INPUT BUFFER turning to
   grey then appears a black rectangle which grows from left to right.

   - Click on the STOP button when you stop playing

   -  Drag the input buffer to the desired position on the Track window.
   This  operation  actually records data on a track. You can obtain the
   same result by pressing the "/" key on the numeric pad. Note that the
   input buffer will not be erase until you click on the RESET button or
   you  drag  a  song  or a pattern to the PLAY or RECORD buttons. This,
   gives  you  the  opportunity  of doing records on many others tracks.
   (perhaps in others patterns).

   Now,  you can hear Alchimie Jr playing what you have just recorded by
   clicking on RESET and then on PLAY.

   Press F6 to show on the GRID what you have just recorded.

   Note  :  to  record an other track, you only need to repeat the three
   last steps.



                                   - 3 -





   2.3 Some usefull operations
   ---------------------------
   Copy a track:
       -  Drag  a  track to the destination track number and fill up the
   dialog.

   Erase a track:
       -  Drag  the  track  to the TRASH icon then confirm in the dialog
   box.

   Change the midi Channel of a track:
       -  Click  on  the Ch column. Move the mouse up and down until you
   reach  the  correct  value  you  are  expecting for. Click on stop or
   double click on the track's name and fill up the dialog.

   Quantize a track:
       - Choose the correct track. In the menu FUNCTION choose QUANTIZE.
   Input the quantum value and confirm.

   Note : the same logic is applied to all of the others windows.

   Save a pattern or a song :
        -As you guess, drag the pattern to the DISK icon.


                              3 - STRUCTURES

   As  you  have remark, there is a great dependency between the various
   windows.  For  example when you select an other song, you can see the
   content of all others windows changing.

   At  the  top of the hierarchical structure, there is the SONG. At the
   same  level,  we  have  the  MASTER, witch explains to the Alchimie's
   sequencer how to order the patterns when playing in song mode.

   At  the next level are the PATTERNS. They are the basic material used
   to  compose  a  song.  Each  of  those  is  a set of 256 TRACKS witch
   contains the various MIDI informations such as Notes etc...

   Each  part  of this structure has its own window. Windows can be open
   by  selecting  the  desired  title  in  the  menu VIEW or by pressing
   functions keys F1 to F6.

   They are two more windows (GRID and LIST), offering great flexibility
   on editing notes and Midi Events.


                          4 - THE CONTROL PANNEL

   4.1 Sequencer control buttons
   -----------------------------
   RECORD : Toggle capture of midi messages.

   PLAY : Start/continue to play a song if in song mode else a pattern

   STOP : Stop the sequencer

   Back/forward: Control the current position of the sequencer


                                   - 4 -






   Reset : Cleanup the Input Buffer and set position to zero

   Beep : Enable, disable click on the loudspeaker of the monitor

   Countdown : When recording, countdown two beats time

   Cycle  :  Select cycle mode. In this mode, when the sequencer hit the
   stop  time,  it  rewinds to the start time and continue to play. What
   you  have  made  an entry on your keyboard during the loop, this last
   entry  will  be played in the next loop, as long as no midi datas are
   coming  on. To make record effective, simply drag the input buffer to
   a track.

   Synchro : Enable/disable midi synchro

   Punch  :  Enable/disable  punching.  The P.IN/P.OUT times are used do
   define the punching part.

   Autorec  :  Enable  autoRec.  In this mode, the contents of the Input
   Buffer  is  recorded  to  the  current  track  when  the sequencer is
   stopped.

   Solo : If selected, plays only Tracks with flag in S column set.

   Auto << : If selected, rewinds as soon as stopped.


                           5 - MOUSE OPERATIONS

   5.1 ...on Tracks
   ----------------
   Select  :  Choose  the  current  track.  The current track is used by
   default  for  all of the operations in the FUNCTION menu. If the THRU
   option  is specified in the CONFIG/MIDI OUT box, the Ch column of the
   current track is used as current thru channel.

   Dclick  : Show info on this track. You can change, in the dialog box,
   the values of all columns of the window.

   Drag  :  Drag  to  Trash  to  Erase/Delete,  drag to another track to
   Move/Copy, drag to Stack to Cut.

   5.2 ...on Patterns
   ------------------
   Select  :  Choose  the  current  pattern.  The current pattern is the
   default  one for all operations in the FUNCTION menu. The contents of
   the Track, Grid and Events window is depending on this selection.

   Dclick  : Get info about a pattern. In the dialog box, you may change
   its name, length and time signature.

   Drag   to  :  an  other  pattern  to  Move/Copy,  to  TRASH  icon  to
   Erase/Delete,  to  STACK  icon  to Cut, to DISK icon to Save pattern.
   Drag  to  the PLAY button to set the "pattern mode" and start playing
   or  to  the  STOP  button  to just set mode. Drag to master window to
   insert a pattern in the song.



                                   - 5 -





   5.3 ...on Songs
   ---------------
   Select : Choose the current song. The contents of all windows depends
   on this selection.

   Dclick  :  Get  song info. In the box you may change the name and the
   length of this song.

   Drag  to : DISK icon to save, TRASH icon to erase, PLAY button to set
   song mode and play, STOP button to set mode.

   5.4 ...on Events list
   ---------------------
   Click : Choose an event and shows the events menu.
   Dclick : Edit an event.
   Drag  to  : TRASH to delete, an other event to Move. If the SHIFT key
   on the keyboard is pressed while draging, the event will be copied.

   5.5 ...on Grid
   --------------
   Click on a note : Shows note parameters
   Click elsewhere : Deselect zone if already defined

   Dclick on a note: Edit note parameters

   Drag  a  note  : Drag to the grid to Move/Copy note, to TRASH icon to
   Erase a note.

   Drag  a  zone  :  Drag  to the grid to Copy/Move all the notes in the
   zone, drag to the TRASH icon to Erase/Delete notes.

   Drag elsewhere : Start to define a zone.

   5.6 ...on other parts
   ---------------------
   Dclick  on  :  DISK icon to show disk free space, on STACK icon shows
   the  stack  contents, on PLAY button to see Sequencing mode, on Input
   Buffer to see infos on captured events...

   Drag  :  DISK  to Song or Pattern window to load, STACK to Pattern or
   Track window to paste.

   Note  :  To  customize  your  desk,  you  may move your icons and the
   control panel elsewhere on Alchimie's desk.



                               6. THE MENUS

   6.1 View
   --------
   Song, Pattern, Tracks, Master, Grid and List :
    To open and show the corresponding window. A checkmark indicates the
   opened windows, visibles or not.

   Option : To change display mode.
   Quit : To leave Allchimie Jr.



                                   - 6 -





   6.2 Function
   ------------
   Insert : To insert a blank space in a Track or in a Pattern
   Repeat : To repeat a part of Track or Pattern
   Strech : To ajust events positions
   Double : To play twice the part
   Reverse: To reverse order of events
   Rotate : To rotate order of events in a track or pattern part

   Import : To read midifile.
   Export : To write a midifile from a pattern
   Execute: To run a programm without leaving Alchimie Jr

   6.3 Events
   ----------
   Channel : to change the midi channel of events on track or pattern
   Controler : to change controler number
   Position : to quantize/humanize note position
   Velocity : operations on note velocity
   Length : operations on note length
   Compress : data reduction

   6.4 Config
   ----------
   MIDI IN : the Midi Input Filter
   MIDI OUT : various output options
   Filter : the data filter
   Save : save Windows and Icon positions for the next use
































                                   - 7 -