ACCOMPANIST - A 16 Voice Sequencer ---------------------------------- Contents 1. Introduction 2. Features 3. The Desktop 4. Menus 5. Dialogues 6. Glossary 1. Introduction --------------- This manual describes how to use this 16 Voice Sequencer. Key concepts, such as the Map, start with a capital letter, and are explained in the glossary at the end. Numbers such as tempo, time signature, channels etc are all changed by Rolling the mouse. Read the glossary section on Rolling first. In Dialogues, all shadowed boxes are text, i.e. not selectable. All other boxes may be selected to change values, make choices etc. 2. Features ----------- 1. Multi-Voice recording using seperate MIDI channels or programs, split MIDI keyboards and/or velocity ranges. 2. Variable resolution Map of 8 Voices on Desktop contin- uously, the Mouse is used for most movement around music. 3. Mouse click sampling of any music in the Map. 4. Simple editing using mouse and MIDI keyboard on blocks down to hemi-demi-semi-quavers, with no MIDI event lists! 5. Sections for naming passages plus setting Time signature, tempo, and local quantization. 6. Variable resolution metronome on any MIDI channel, program, note, velocity. May be driven by external MIDI clock. 7. Full Voice/Block copy, move, quantize, randomize, transpose, velocity update. 8. Filtering of controllers, note ranges and velocity ranges on input, output or by direct manipulation. 9. Undo/Redo on all operations that change the music. 10. Through channel specification for each voice. 11. All MIDI notes/channels/programs may be input from a MIDI keyboard. 12. MIDI channels and progam numbers base may be selected to be 0 or 1. 3. The DeskTop -------------- The Desktop has 7 main areas:- 1. The Menu bar (top). 2. The Voice box (top left). 3. The Map box (top right). 4. The Commit box (bottom left). 5. The Conductor box (bottom mid-left). 6. The Play/Record box (bottom mid-right). 7. The Punch-In box (bottom right). 8. The Title box (under Play/Record box) 3.1. The Menu Bar This drives the program in the normal GEM manner. See below how to use these menus. 3.2. The Voice Box This contains information about 8 of the 16 Voices. Each Voice has a number and a name. A Voice is selected for recording and most other manipulation by clicking on its name, which will then appear inverted. If the Voice has no name, then you are prompted for one. Normally only one Voice may be selected for Recording etc. This may be overridden by selecting the MV (Multi-Voice) Icon at the bottom of the Voice-box. Whilst this is selected, i.e. appears inverted, any number of Voices may be selected simultaneously, e.g for Multi-Voice recording, or for Multi-Voice copying. The only, or most recently selected, Voice may have its properties such as MIDI Channel and MIDI Program, updated by selecting Change in the Voices menu, see below. The Voice number of the most recently selected Voice appears inverted. Clicking directly on the Voice number changes it to light grey ,or back to black. Black indicates that voice will play, grey that it is silent. This may be changed while the music is playing. Other Voices can be displayed in the Voice-box either by clicking on the arrows at the bottom left of the Voice-box, or by selecting the number on the left of the arrows and Rolling it to a new value (1-9). The Percentage figure at the bottom right of the Voice-box shows what percentage of the Voice memory has been used so far. The /** in the top right of the Voice-box shows the resolution of the Map, see below. The CONDUCTOR Voice represents the commands set up with the Conductor in the Voice-menu. The CHORUS Voice represents the contents of all Voices, including those not currently showing in the map. Selecting CHORUS immediately selects all Voices. This is useful when using AUTO.AUD (See Punch box). 3.3. The Map box This shows the contents of each Voice to the resolution shown in the top right of the Voice-box. The default resolution, /** is one bar per '-'. i.e. any bar with at leat one Midi event in it will be represented by a '-' , otherwise a space. The resolution can be Rolled(see Glossary) up to /96. If the Map-box is not wide enough to show the whole song at a particular resolution, then the slide-bar at the top of the Map-box shows which part of the song is showing on the Map. This slide-bar may be used to move between different parts of the song. Whenever the Marker is changed(see below), the Map is adjusted to ensure that the Marker is showing. The vertical position of each '-' in a Voice can vary. At higher resolutions this gives an indication of how the notes go up and down. Bar numbers are shown under the slider. At the bottom of the Map-box are two further boxes. The upper shows the position of the Marker,see below, and the lower shows the position of the Sections defined so far. The Map box shows the current Fragment (see below) as an inverted box. 3.4. The Commit box. Various operations such as Record, Quantize, Clear can be UnDone if the result does not sound right. When such an operation has been selected, the Commit-box shows the current state of the operation. This is indicated by DONE or UNDONE. The box showing REDO or UNDO may be selected any number of times, followed by PLAY to listen to the result. When you have decided on whether to keep the result, or not, select COMMIT to finish the operation. If you forget to select COMMIT, before selecting another operation, then a Dialogue box will appear asking you to complete the previous operation. 3.5. The Conductor box. This shows the current Music-Time while playing. It also shows the current Time-signature, Tempo, and Metronome resolution. Selecting either of the two arrows under the Tempo, while playing, causes the Tempo to be changed accordingly. The Tempo of the current Section is updated automatically. 3.6. The Play/Record box. Selecting PLAY causes music to be played from the current Marker Music-Time, which is shown under PLAY. Selecting RECORD causes recording to take place from the Marker, for those Voices selected in the Voice-box. When recording, a Count-In is given of a number of bars, as specified in the current Section. If the Marker is not at the start of a bar, the Count-In always starts from the beginning of a bar. There is no limit to the number of Voices that may be recorded together, subject to the overall limit of 32 notes being input simultaneously. It is human nature to be inaccurate in playing a MIDI keyboard, particularly in playing the first note, which sometimes gets pressed a few beats before the Marker time. To allow for this, a recording tolerance may be defined in each Section, e.g. /32, which opens the recording window a few beats earlier, avoiding the loss of the first note. RECORD should be used for the initial input phase as it wipes out all previous contents of the Voices after the Marker. RECORD is confirmed or undone by using the Commit box. There are three Icons in the Play/Record box that may be selected to set the Marker. The three right-hand arrows move the current Music-Time showing in the Conductor box to the Marker. This is very useful when reveiwing and editing. The three left- hand arrows set the Marker to the start of the first bar. The two left-hand arrows move the current Punch-In time to the Marker. When recording more than one Voice simultaneously, each input MIDI note and subsequent event is allocated to a particular Voice, by examining each selected Voice in numerical order. The Voice chosen is the first to satisfy one of the following criteria, which are also applied in order. a. Both the Voice input Channel and the Voice output Channel are **. b. The Voice input Channel is **, and the Voice output Channel equals the note Channel, and the Voice program is either ** or equals the the current program for the note Channel. This allows Multi-Voice recording from a single MIDI Channel by using Program Changes while playing. c. The note Channel equals the Voice input channel , and the note pitch/velocity is within the Voice range. This allows Multi-Voice recording from a single MIDI channel with split keyboards. 3.7. The Punch-In box. This is used to sample/edit a Fragment of previously recorded Voices. The Fragment is defined by the Punch-In(above) and Punch-Out(below) Music-Times shown in this box. The Fragment may also be specified by dragging a box in the Map with the mouse. This causes an inverted box to appear, and sets the times accordingly. It also selects the Voice chosen. Simply clicking in this area produces a single width Fragment. Selecting PUNCH causes music to play with Count-In as for RECORD. Recording takes place in the selected Voices only between the Punch-In and Punch-Out times, allowing for the recording tolerance (see RECORD). PUNCH is confirmed or undone by using the Commit box. AUDIT plays only the selected Voices from the Punch- In time, with Count-In if previous Punch-In has just taken place. AUD.CHORUS plays all voices from the Punch-In time with Count-In as for AUDIT. Selecting AUTO.AUD switches Auto-Audition on and off, (on when inverted). When Auto-Audition is on, any new Fragment created by dragging or clicking in the Map-Box, is immediately played as though AUDIT had been selected. This is a very useful way of reviewing, then editing a song. Selecting AUTO.PUN allows very simple editing of a single note or chord. The Fragment must have been previously defined to cover a single note or chord, for a particular Voice. The Map resolution will need to have been increased to crotchets(/4), or quavers(/8), etc. After selecting AUTO.PUN, play a note or chord on the MIDI keyboard. This will automatically be punched into the start of the Fragment, with duration the length of the Fragment. AUTO.PUN times out after about 10 seconds, if a note has not been played. Selecting the two right-hand arrows sets Punch-In from the Marker. Selecting the three right-hand arrows sets Punch-In from the current Music-Time showing in the Conductor box. Selecting the left-hand arrow sets Punch-In and Punch-Out to the start of first bar. Selecting the two downward arrows sets Punch-Out to the next bar after Punch-In. 3.8. The Title box Selecting the Title box opens a text field for editing a title for the current song. This should be terminated by RETURN. 4. The Menus ------------ There are 5 menus:- 1. File menu. 2. Voice menu. 3. Block menu. 4. Option menu. 5. Section menu. 4.1 File Menu This provides various operations for manipulating files of music. LOAD copies a whole piece from a disk file. MERGE merges the MIDI events of a file with existing Voice data. SAVE saves to a file that has been previously LOADed. SAVE AS saves to a file with a new file name. CLEAR clears ACCOMPANIST back to its initial state. 4.2 Voice Menu. This provides various operations to change the properties and contents of each Voice. CHANGE displays a dialogue-box showing the properties of the most recently selected Voice. CONDUCTOR allows Time-signature, Tempo etc to be set at arbitrary bars (see Conuctor-Dialogue below). MOVE moves all details and MIDI events of a particular Voice number to a different Voice Number. COPY copies the MIDI events of one or more Voices, or part thereof, to a different Voice (overwriting, or merging). FILTER-IN/OUT specifies filters to be used on a MIDI event during recording or playing. These filters are switched on and off in the CHANGE dialogue. CLEAR reinitialises Voices. 4.3 Block Menu This provides various operations for manipulating the MIDI events for each Voice. For each such operation, All Voices, currently selected Voices (i.e. with inverted names), or a single numbered Voice, can be selected for manipulation. Also ,the whole Voice, or a selected Block, may be specified to be operated on. Selecting the upward arrow Icon, causes this region to be set to the current Fragment times. All operations in this menu are confirmed or undone by using the Commit box. QUANTIZE allows the start times and/or durations of selected Voices/regions to be quantized to specified resolution. The /1 is a divisor, which may be changed to quantize 3rd's, 5th's etc. RANDOMIZE does the inverse of QUANTIZE. COPY copies the selected Block in each Voice to another Time in the same Voice. The receiving area must be empty, and have the same time signature. MOVE moves the selected Block in each Voice to another Time in the same Voice. This serves for both deleting and inserting Time. CLEAR clears the selected Block in each Voice. TRANSPOSE transposes the notes in the selected Block in each Voice. VELOCITY changes the velocity of notes in the selected Block in each Voice FILTER causes the selected Block in each Voice to be filtered according to the current output filter of each Voice, irrespective of whether the output filter is switched on. 4.4 Options Menu METRONOME displays a Dialogue box for defining the MIDI charactistics of the Metronome. The Metronome can be assigned to any MIDI Channel/Program/Note/Velocity. (The default channel is 13 which is one of the ATARI channels, the others being 14 & 15) So, by default, the Metronome sounds from the ATARI sound system. An external clock can be selected, in which case the tempo is set by the driving clock in your rhythm generator. When the internal clock is being used, appropriate MIDI real time messages are sent to other devices which can be driven by an external clock. MIDI BASE 0 specifies how MIDI channel and program numbers appear. If it appears with a small tick sign on the left then the Midi Base is 0, otherwise it is 1. AUTO COMMIT may be selected when an operation such as AUTO.PUN is being used repeatedly. When selected, AUTO COMMIT appears with a small tick sign on the left. When an operation is used again, the previous operation is committed automatically if AUTO COMMIT has been selected. Once selected AUTO COMMIT stays on until selected again or a different operation, using commitment, is begun. 4.5 Sections Menu This provides for creation,change, and deletion of Sections. OPEN displays a dialogue box to define a new Section. Typically Sections are used for some bars of music with a paticular Time signature and/or Tempo. The name of each Section appears at the bottom of the Map box. CHANGE displays the data for the current selected Section, chosen by clicking on the Section name in the Map box. All except the first Section may be moved to a different time. DELETE removes the currently selected Section. 5. Dialogues ------------ 5.1 Conductor Dialogue This is entered by selecting Conductor in the Voice Menu, It is used to specify Time-Signature, Tempo, Pause, and Synchronize. At the moment, Repeat is not implemented. The Conductor is typically used for specifying changes of short duration, which dont merit a Section being defined. Each time this dialogue is used it will carry out one operation, e.g. insert, change, delete, if OK is selected. To insert a new conductor operation, select the operation you require, e.g. TIME SIGNATURE, or TEMPO, then specify the particulars of that operation. Then, specify the time range in which the operation is to take place, by changing the two Music- Times at the top. Finally, select INSERT followed by OK. Time signature ranges should not cross Section boundaries. Selecting SCAN allows the scanning of the already defined Conductor operations, by selecting NEXT or PREVIOUS. The left Music-Time may be Rolled to set the start time for scanning. The currently displayed operation may be changed or erased by selecting CHANGE or ERASE, followed by OK. 5.2 Voice Dialogue This is entered by selecting Change in the Voice Menu, or by double clicking on a Voice name. Various MIDI parameters such as input and THRU channels, program numbers etc, may be specified. LOCK ON prevents subsequent inadvertant changes to a Voice. Multi-Voice recording allocates MIDI events to Voices from the values defined by this Dialogue. 5.3 Metronome Dialogue This is entered by selecting Metronome in the Options Menu. It defines the MIDI Channel, program and note to be used. The MIDI clock can be set to external. This allows ACCOMPANIST to be driven by a MIDI rhythm unit. Alternatively, your rhythm unit may have the feature that allows it to be driven by ACCOMPANIST's clock. 5.4 Section Dialogue This is entered by selecting Change in the Sections Menu, or by double clicking on a Section name under the Map. Most of the attributes are self explanatory. Sync On specifies that during this Section, Playing wont start until a MIDI note is played. Quantization specifies the steps when Rolling a Music-Time Beat. 6. Glossary ----------- Block. A Block is a time-range. It may be as short as 1/24 of a crotchet, or as long as a whole piece of music. Blocks are used for copying, quantizing, filtering etc. Cursor. A vertical line drawn in the Map to show the current Music-Time, during playing and Rolling. When the cursor is off the Map, it appears as dash-dot line. Filter. A Filter specifies what MIDI events may pass at record/play/Block filter time. Pitch Bend, After pressure, and Channel pressure, and each of the 32 continuous controllers can be set, as well as note and velocity ranges. Fragment. The Fragment is defined by the Punch-In(above) and Punch-Out(below) Music-Times shown in the Punch-In box. The Fragment may also be specified by dragging a box in the Map, or just clicking, which gives a single width Fragment. It is used for reveiwing and editing a song. Map. The Map appears in the Map-box in the top right hand of the DeskTop. It shows a Music-Time range, which may be changed by sliding the box above the Map in the normal manner. The Map indicates which of the Voices shown in the Voice-box have Midi- events for each of the time intervals. The resolution of the Map may be altered by Rolling the Map-Resolution Indicator in the top right hand corner of the Voice-box. A resolution of '**' indicates that each interval represents a bar, whatever the Time Signature. Marker. The Marker is the Music-Time displayed in the Play/Record box. It is also indicated by a small Marker-box under the Map, and above the Section names. The Marker can be changed by standard time-editing, or by dragging the Marker-box to the left or right, or by selecting one of the arrow Icons in the Play/Record box. After changing the Marker, the Map may be adjusted to ensure that the Marker is showing. When the Marker is off the Map, it appears as a hollow (i.e.not coloured) box. MIDI Channel/Programs. These may be specified by playing a note on a MIDI keyboard, They may based at 0 or 1. ** is a dont care value. Channels 13 to 15 are allocated to the ATARI sound channels. Music-Time. This represents a position in the song. It consists of three numbers, i.e. bar,note & beat. Bar numbers range from 0 to 9999. The number of notes per bar is set by the current Time-Signature. There are 96 beats in one crotchet. Music-Time starts at bar 0, note 1, beat 1, but conventionally, recording starts at bar 1. Each of the bar,note,beat may selected and Rolled (see Rolling below). When Rolling the beat, the increment by which the beat changes, is defined by the Quantization set in the Section to which the bar belongs. Punch-In. The Music-Time to start recording when PUNCH is selected Quantization. This is a unit of time that may be one of the following:- a Minim,'/2', a Crotchet, '/4', a Quaver, '/8', a Semi-Quaver, '/16', a Demi-Semi-Quaver, '/32', a Hemi-Demi-Semi- Quaver, '/64'. /3 is triplet Minim, /6 a triplet crotchet and so on. Rolling. Numeric quantities, such as bar numbers, note numbers, Quantization, are changed using the mouse. First, select the object you want to change(e.g. the Marker bar number), then roll the mouse while keeping the left button pressed down, and release it when you reach the value you want. Rolling up or right increases the value, and rolling left or down decreases the value. Rolling in the vertical direction gives a slow rate of change, and in the horizontal direction gives a faster rate of change. For large changes, you can make many sweeps with the mouse. After the first sweep, while keeping the left mouse button pressed, press on the right button as well. Now release the left button and reposition the mouse, keeping the right button pressed. The value does NOT change as you you do this. Each subsequent sweep is started by pressing the left mouse button, rolling then releasing the left button and repositioning, keeping the right button pressed all the time. At any point, releasing both buttons terminates the roll. Section. A Section is a named time-range with several attributes. These include Time-Signature, Tempo, Metronome beat, Count-In, Beat quantization, Recording tolerance. Section names appear under the Map on the Desktop. A ** Tempo means use the tempo of the previous Section. Up to 20 Sections may be specified. The first Section cannot be moved from the bar 1. Tempo. A Tempo consists of a number of Metronome beats per minute, plus a Tempo type. If the Tempo type is changed from, say, /4(crotchet) to /8(quaver), then Tempo beats are updated appropriately (in this case doubled). Time Signature. This is the normal musical time signature, containing a Quantization unit on the right (e.g /4 = Crotchets), and the number of notes on the left. Normal time appears as 4/4. This is set for each Section, and by the Conductor-Dialogue. Voice. A Voice is used to record Midi notes, with up to 32 note polyphony. It also records certain controller events. A Voice must be given a name before use (no anonymous Voices here!). The default is "V" followed by the Voice number. A Voice may be allocated to a specific MIDI output and/or input channel, and MIDI Program (** is a dont care value). It may also be restricted (for recording purposes on a split MIDI keyboard) to a subrange of notes and/or velocities. If seperate input and output channels are specified, e.g. for use with a master keyboard, then a THRU switch may be set to cause input MIDI events to be sent immediately through to the output channel. A Voice may be shifted by a number of beats, so that each note is played before or after the actual note time. This allows adjustment for different Voice envelopes. There are also two switches for controlling whether MIDI events are to be filtered on input or output. A Voice may be locked to prevent further changes.