Amiga Plus 1995 #2

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Text File | 1995-04-11 | 22KB | 620 lines

This file describes just SOME of the features in OctaMED Pro V4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The file requester ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The new file requester is much better than the one that has appeared on the previous versions of the program. The upper part of the requester contains all the gadgets, and the lower one all the file and device names. The save format gadgets replace the save format requester of OctaMED V2.0. MOD1(+instr) is the new MMD1 module format, including the instruments. MOD1(no inst) replaces the song format of OctaMED V2.0. This is basically a MMD1 module with no instruments (they are loaded by OctaMED). The files of this format can usually be powerpacked very effectively. MOD0 (old) is the MMD0 format, which is compatible with all versions of OctaMED, and MED starting from V2.1. ST-MODULE is the ST/NT/PT module format. Automatic conversion of commands is made. The INFO gadget allows you to select, if you want to save only the data required for playing, or also "extra" information e.g. instrument names, screen colours. When INFO is active, all information is saved. The resulting files are slightly shorter when it isn't. When the ICON gadget is selected, a Workbench icon file is saved. The icon is now saved for all module types. There's a new cassette icon image (designed by Izrael Similä, thanks!). LOAD/SAVE SONG/INSTR -gadgets are self-explaining, as well as DEL FILE. LOAD/SAVE MSG/MAP -gadgets are used for saving MIDI dump files, and keyboard input maps. These are described below. The vertical note editor screen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In order to make room for the extra command digit, the display looks a bit different. The borders on the left/right side have been removed. Also, the spaces between tracks have been replaced with thin separator bars (if this looks strange, don't worry, you'll get used to it quickly). Below the note data, there's another status line. On the left, there's a memory display, which displays the available chip and fast memory. Next to it, there's a gadget for block name. You can enter a name for each block, the names will be saved (if INFO is active) to MOD1 modules. Then there's a gadget for song name. Each song of a multi-module can have a name of its own, but you can use this gadget for non-multi-modules as well. The PLAY panel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This panel has not many changes. First, there's the HQ-gadget (High Quality). Turning this gadget on significantly increases the audio quality on splitted (8-channel) tracks. Unfortunately, it will also double the processor load, so a 68020 or higher processor is required to use the HQ in seven and eight channel modes. Due to a technical reason, the HQ-gadget slows down the playing speed a bit, but this can be compensated with the tempo settings. In 8-channel mode, you can control the playing speed more accurately (to techies: by changing the size of the mix buffer). This can be done with the left tempo gadget (values 1-10; the lower, the faster). Values 11-240 are equivalent to 10. Finally, it's possible to use BPM timing in 4-channel songs. Be sure that the right tempo gadget has the value of 6 (normal default value), then click the SPD text, which will change to BPM. Now, the left tempo gadget will control the BPM value (e.g. 60 = 1 beat/second). The right gadget controls the length of a beat in lines, e.g. if you want eight lines to be considered as one beat, set this gadget to eight. For example, if the tempo values were 060/08, Octa- MED would play exactly eight lines in a second. Due to technical reasons, very low speeds don't work correctly (this should not be a problem). The INSTR panel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The order of the gadgets has been slightly modified. The JUMP gadget has been removed. The instrument scanning gadgets look like this: |< first instrument < previous instrument > next instrument >| last instrument >|< last used instrument The FINETUNE gadget(s) allow you to set the finetune value of the current sample. Also works for synth/hybrid sounds. Acceptable values are -8 to 7. Useful for tuning incorrectly sampled instruments. The EDIT panel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The octave selection gadgets have been changed, as the octave range has been extended. The numbers on the gadgets indicate the lower octave. E.g. '1' selects octaves 1+2, '9' selects 9+A. The leftmost advance gadget looks like a small loudspeaker. When activated, you can hear the notes, when moving the cursor up/down. When editing the programmable keys, the 'x'-key no longer enters an 'x' (it would be impossible to enter D-1), now use Return instead. MAP2 selects an alternative keypad mapping. Many users may prefer the new maps to the old ones. Below are the keypad functions in MAP2 mode: Track on/off: Keys 0 - 9 Turn on/off tracks 0 - 9 '.' Turns off all tracks 'Enter' Turns on all tracks Select Instrument: Keys 0 - 9 select instruments 0 - 9 '.' Changes the first instr. number (e.g. from 05 to 15 or 15 -> 05) 'Enter' activates "alpha-enter", after pressing Enter, the user can press the alpha-key ('A'-'V') to select the instrument. '+' next instrument '-' prev. instrument '{' decrease volume of the current instrument by one '}' increase volume of the current instrument by one '/' select last used instrument '*' pick instrument number nearest to the cursor The MISC panel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The MISC panel has two new gadgets: LOADGFX removes the synth/note/sample/MIDI editor graphics from the memory. The graphics files will be loaded when required. Saves some memory. MOUSE2 allows you to set the cursor position with the left mouse button, instead of turning on/off tracks. The RANGE panel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Inside the CHORD gadget, there's a small RST (reset) gadget. When it is selected (default), the cursor returns to the initial track after entering a chord. The NOTE ECHO produces echoes automatically with the C-command, e.g: C-1 10000 ;the initial note --- 00000 C-1 10C32 ;half volume --- 00000 C-1 10C16 ;1/4 volume --- 00000 C-1 10C08 ;1/8 volume ... Echo notes will be placed only on empty note slots. To use this feature, first select the range to affect. Then just click NOTE ECHO (editing must be on). The number in the DIST gadget is the distance between the echoes, e.g. value four places echoes every fourth line. MIN is the minimum volume of an echo, echoes with volume smaller than this will not be generated. The synthsound editor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The hex number of the current waveform is now displayed next to the string gadget containing the decimal equivalent. The G.TRN gadget creates transitions. For example, consider the following waveform sequence list: line 00 00 01 0F 02 END Now position the cursor to line 01 (be sure that editing is on), click G.TRN, and a smooth transition from 00 to 0F is magically generated. The sample editor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The most useful new feature of the sample editor is probably the Freehand option. Just click FREEHAND, and you can edit the waveform with the mouse. In freehand mode, the maximum display size is 640 bytes. You can zoom closer if you want. Another new button is D.PIXELS, when this is activated, the sample is displayed as pixels, not lines. The pixel display is much faster than the line display. One new, but not visible, change is that the echo rate is now specified as bytes instead steps of 8 bytes, this gives greater control over the effect. The SLIST editor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are three new gadgets: SAVE INST saves the current instrument to the currently selected directory. SAVE ALL saves all instruments of the song to the currently selected directory. DELETE deletes the instrument from the directory. Not only removes the instrument name, but actually deletes the instrument from the disk. The other gadgets are the same as in previous versions, although a bit squeezed to make room for the new gadgets. The MIDI panel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The MIDI panel of OctaMED has changed a lot from the previous versions. It is now one of the big panels, and divided into three sections. The upper right section contains the normal MIDI functions, carried over from the previous versions. Next to them, there's the input map editor, which allows you to change the meaning of an input key. The lower section contains the new MIDI message editor. ----- Normal MIDI functions There are a couple of new gadgets; SEND OUT, when selected, causes OctaMED to replay input MIDI notes. This is useful, if you have a separate sound module and keyboard. ALL OFF: gadgets select the method to turn off all the notes (after pressing the space bar). N.OFF:s sends standard MIDI note off messages for each track $Bx7B00 sends MIDI All Notes Off messages for each MIDI channel. The latter is recommended, if your MIDI devices support it. It will kill all notes, not just those triggered by OctaMED. ----- Input map editor You can remap all the input keys. You can assign each key to: * enter any note/command you want (similar to programmable keys) * perform some action This also works for keys input from the keyboard of your Amiga. So, MIDI keyboard is not required. By default, there's no input map. Click NEW to create one (DEL will delete it when you're finished with it). For each note there's an entry like this: C-1xxxxxx This means, that the key C-1 will enter just C-1, with the current instrument number, and leave the command numbers untouched. You can edit an entry just like the programmable keys on the EDIT panel. First select an entry by clicking on it. Hold down the mouse button, point the number you want to change, and press a key on the keyboard to change it. The RESET gadget will reset the current entry to its default. Now comes the exciting part: you can perform most editing tasks without touching the keyboard of your Amiga or the mouse! It's possible to assign a key on your MIDI keyboard to e.g. move the cursor up/down. The set of FUNCT gadgets will be used for this. First select the note you want to assign to control editing functions. Then just use the FUNCT: < and > gadgets to scan through the available functions. Currently the available functions are: Play song/blk (block) Cont song/blk Stop play Curs up/down/left/right (cursor up/down/left/right) Prev/Next trk (previous/next track) Prev/Next blk Edit (turns editing on/off) Spc (turns SPC on/off) DEL (equivalent to pressing DEL) -|- (equivalent to pressing Return) Prev/Next inst Chord (turns chord mode on/off) 1st/last line (equivalent to pressing F6 and F10) Click the FUNCT: N to restore the note. The ACTIVE gadget can be used to turn off input mapping temporarily. You can save and load input maps, the FILE panel contains Load MAP and Save MAP gadgets for doing this. ----- MIDI message editor MIDI message editor offers the tools to capture/send/store MIDI data, and perform hex-level editing. It's well suited for storing SysEx data, but not limited to SysEx messages. When you enter the MIDI message editor after booting OctaMED, there are no messages. To create one, click NEW or N.HERE. NEW adds a new message to the end of the list (usually preferred), N.HERE inserts the new message at the current point on the list. DEL deletes the current message. CLEAR clears the current message (sets all bytes to zero). The newly created message is 8 bytes long. To capture a SysEx, for example, the buffer needs to be _much_ longer, depending on the SysEx. Before you can capture a SysEx, you'll have to set the message size high enough (the max. size OctaMED can handle is 65536 bytes). Set it to 60000, for example. To capture, press CAPT., then initiate SysEx send from your MIDI device. Provided that AUTO-TERMINATE is active, OctaMED will automatically report when the transfer is complete, and set the message size. If AUTO-TERMINATE is not active, OctaMED will capture all incoming bytes until the CAPT. button is released or the end of the buffer is reached. AUTO-TERMINATE causes OctaMED to stop capturing when a SysEx end byte ($F7) is received. OctaMED will also remove all unused bytes at the end of the buffer. You shouldn't leave any unused 00-bytes after the actual MIDI data. These 00's are also MIDI data, which will be sent, and this is likely to cause problems. So, using AUTO-TERMINATE is usually preferred. The SEND gadget sends out the current MIDI message. There's also a player command which allows you to send MIDI messages within a song. (See below.) The NAME gadget allows you to give a mnemonic name for the MIDI message. (It's usually difficult to recognize a MIDI message by looking at the hex dump :) You can edit the hex data. Hit Esc to turn on editing, if it already isn't. Now just use the cursor keys to move around the data and the number keys (0-9, A-F) to modify the hex data. Use DEL to delete a byte, and Shift-DEL to insert a new one. Suppose, for example, that you want to send the rare Tune Request message ($F6). Create a message, set size to one byte. Then enter F6, then just click SEND to send it. Using the command 10, you can send Tune Request at the beginning of the song automatically, if you want. The FILE panel has Load/Save MSG gadgets for loading/saving messages. All MIDI messages are automatically saved to modules (both MOD0 and MOD1). New commands recognized by the player ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Command 5 slide and fade This command is the combination of commands 0300 and 0Dxx. The data byte is the fade speed. The slide will continue during this command. C-1 10000 D-3 10303 ;slide at speed of 3 --- 00300 ;continue slide --- 00502 ;continue slide + fade speed 2 --- 00502 Command 6 vibrato and fade Combines commands 0400 and 0Dxx. The data byte is the fade speed. The vibrato will continue during this command. C-1 104A3 ;vibrato --- 00400 ;cont. vibrato --- 00603 ;cont. vibrato + fade speed 3 --- 00603 Command 7 tremolo This command is a kind of "volume vibrato". The left number is the speed of the tremolo, and the right one is the depth. The depth must be quite high before the effect is audible. D-2 107DF ;tremolo --- 00700 ;continue.. --- 00700 ... Command 10 send MIDI message Sends a MIDI message. The data byte is the message number. Note that the first message has number 0, so you must subtract one to convert the message number from the message editor for use with this command. --- 01000 ;send the first message Note that the MIDI message data has priority over the MIDI note data. MIDI timing pulses are sent immediately even if a message dump is going on. Command 11 slide pitch up once Allows you to control the pitch at the highest possible accuracy. When the command 1 "slides" the pitch smoothly, this command only changes it once per note. C-2 11105 ;slightly above the C-2 To techies: with this command, you can play a note at any period value you wish. E.g. C-2 is 428. To play at period 431, just enter C-2 11103. Command 12 slide pitch down once Equivalent to cmd 11, except that it slides down. Command 14 PT compatible vibrato In Protracker, the vibrato command was changed from NoiseTracker. The maximum depth was halved, to give greater accuracy. This command is compatible with the new Protracker vibrato. Command 15 set finetune Allows you to set a finetune value for a note, overrides the default finetune value of the instrument. C#3 21503 ;finetune +3 D-2 315F8 ;finetune -8 Since these are hex numbers, negative numbers must be expressed as: -1 = FF -5 = FB -2 = FE -6 = FA -3 = FD -7 = F9 -4 = FC -8 = F8 Command 16 loop This interesting command enables you to construct a loop within a block. Example: ... 004 C-3 11600 ;data byte = 00 -> mark loop begin 005 D#2 10000 006 --- 11603 ;data byte = 03 -> loop three times ... This example would loop lines 004 - 006 three times before going on. You can't nest loops! Command 18 cut note Command 18 will mute the sound at the given timing pulse. This is done by setting the volume to zero (unlike command 8, which actually turns off the note by turning off DMA, and also works with MIDI). C-2 11801 ;very short D-2 11802 ;slightly longer E-2 11804 ;even more longer Command 19 sample start offset When playing a sample, this command sets the starting offset (at steps of $100 = 256 bytes). Useful for speech samples. C-2 11904 ;play the sample starting at offset $400 = 1024 Command 1A slide volume up once Allows you to make slow volume slides, the volume is slided only once per line. D-2 11A01 ;a looped string, perhaps, default volume 0 --- 01A01 (and so on..) Command 1B slide volume down once Equivalent to 1A, except that it slides down. Command 1C change MIDI preset Changes the MIDI preset number of the current instrument. As with all commands which modify the song parameters, you should be very careful when using this command in multi-modules (perhaps it's better not to use it at all in multi-modules). Command 1D jump to next playseq block This command is like F00, except that you can specify the line number of the first line to be played. The line number is specified as HEX, you have to do the conversion. ... --- 01D03 ;next block, start at line 3 (skip the first 3 lines) Command 1E delay line Plays the commands of the current line the specified number of times. Doesn't replay the notes. C-2 10000--- 00000 --- 00101--- 01E06 ;delay this line six times Command 1F note delay and retrigger Gives you accurate control over note playing. You can delay the note any number of timing pulses, and initiate fast retrigger. The left data byte number is the note delay value, the right one is the retrig value. Examples: C-2 11F20 ;delay 2 timing pulses => pulse 0 --- 1 --- 2 C-2 3 --- ... C-2 11F02 ;retrig every second pulse => pulse 0 C-2 1 --- 2 C-2 3 --- 4 C-2 ... C-2 11F22 ;delay 2 pulses AND retrig every second pulse => pulse 0 --- 1 --- 2 C-2 3 --- 4 C-2 ... The command 0FF1 is equivalent to 1F03, and 0FF2 to 1F30. New keyboard features ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are some new keyboard shortcuts, to make lives of advanced users easier... A Now inserts hold symbol -|- (like Return). Amiga-O Creates volume slide. Amiga-Space Play block (FINALLY!!) Shift-Return Inserts hold symbols to all tracks of the previous chord. When entering commands, hold down the Alt key to set the left command number to 1. E.g. press Alt-9 to enter command 19. When the Caps Lock is down, you can enter the programmable keys without holding Alt (and emulate a drum-machine, for example). Also, the keypad can be used to edit the play sequence, without holding Ctrl. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ***************************************************************************** * * * OctaMED ProAlterations to manual * * * ***************************************************************************** Sorry about this,but due to Tiejo being the perfectionist that he is, alterations to the prog are inevitable and as we must have the manual printed well in advance,any alterations have to be put on the disk. Below are some slight alterations to the program. +--------+-------+ +----+ +----+ | Filter | Boost | | 16 | | 1 | +--------+-------+ +----+ +----+ | Noise | DEPTH PHASE LENGTH +--------+ Sound Quality Controls There are two parameters for both the FILTER & BOOST funtions, they are as follows: DEPTH allows you to adjust the amount by which a sample is filtered or boosted, the default value is 16, to change this simply enter a new value in the depth integer string gadget and click either FILTER or BOOST. PHASE LENGTH affects the frequency of the sample being filtered or boosted, the default value is 1, again to change this just enter a new value in the phase length integer string gadget and click either FILTER or BOOST. It is possible to create some special effects with this option and is probably best to experiment, so remember to copy your sample to the copy buffer before you start filtering or boosting. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= SONG AND SAMPLED INSTRUMENT COMMANDS: ===================================== FF4 Delay note 1/3 of a line FF5 Delay note 2/3 of a line These commands can be used to create triplets as shown: C-2 10000 D-2 30000 D-2 10FF4 --- 00000 E-2 10FF5 D-2 30000 Both these commands only work accurately when the secondary tempo is divisible by three, e.g. 3, 6, 9.... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= MIDI COMMANDS: ============== SET PITCH BENDER II 13 well, thats what I, ( Dean ), have called it) This is equivalent to command 3 (set pitch-bender), but has the added advantage of being able to be used when there's a note next to it. This file addition has very kindly been written and supplied by Dean Murray thanks Dean.