SBTimbre Version 2.00 04-23-92 SBTimbre FM Editor SBTimbre is a Timbre editor -- it lets you create and modify instrument sounds for the Sound Blaster and Adlib FM Cards. You can audition sounds using an MPU401 compatible interface and a MIDI controller (a piano keyboard for instance). The present version of SBTimbre operates only on IBK format bank files, but you can use the SBANK utility to convert between IBK and BNK file formats. Setting up SBTimbre Unzip all the files to a directory (You might want to create another directory for your IBK bank files), change to the directory containing SBTIMBRE.EXE, and type: SBTIMBRE to load and start the program. If your FM Card is properly installed, you should hear a chordal sequence as the About dialog box is displayed (the chordal sequence can be disabled if you'd rather not hear it -- see Configuring SBTimbre). General Information SBTimbre is a text based windowing program. You select options by pulling down menus with a mouse, or by using the cursor movement and function keys. The top line on the screen is known as the menu bar -- it contains drop down menus from which items can be selected. Any option that is followed by three dots indicates that a dialog box will be displayed when this item is chosen. The bottom line is called the status bar and contains options which are generally available. When the text of an item is grayed out it means the item is not currently available. Configuring SBTimbre You may change certain program parameters by selecting the Options/Configure... menu choice. The dialog box presented contains the following items: MIDI OPTIONS None No MIDI interface is installed. MPU401 An MPU401 compatible interface is installed MIDI IRQ The IRQ Number that the MIDI interface is installed on MIDI I/O Port The Hexadecimal based number of the I/O port that the MIDI interface is using FM I/O Port The hexadecimal based number of the I/O port that the FM Card is using MIDI Note The number of the MIDI note for auditioning tones VIDEO OPTIONS 25 Lines Uses a 25 line standard text mode display. 43/50 Lines Will display 43 lines on an EGA monitor or 50 lines on a VGA montor About Box Unchecking this item will prevent the opening chordal sequence. The default setting of the I/O Port should work on all Adlib, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, and any other compatible card. This is because all Adlib compatible cards are addressable at the 380 hex I/O Port setting, regardless of the hardware setting on the card. Note that the Port is entered as 380 hex (NOT 388 hex). All the FM Chips begin at an xx8 address, but the Sound Blaster register set begins on a xx0 (220, 240 ...). All this is just to say: put an xx0 number in this field unless you have some oddball compatible scheme. The program will determine that it can not find a card at startup, but will not alert you to that fact upon changing the I/O Port address: you won't hear any sound though. You can verify this by opening the About box on the system menu -- if a card is found, a brief chordal sequence is sounded. The program supports 43/50 line modes on EGA and VGA graphics cards. The higher resolution allows a much less cluttered view when many IBK files are open at once (I personally like it best). The current settings may be saved to an SBTimbre.INI file by selecting Options/Save Setup. This file may be edited by hand, but is overwritten by selecting the Save option. The INI file is written in the same directory as SBTIMBRE.EXE. The amount of remaining memory is displayed in the About box -- you may want to monitor this if you have very many (60 or more) IBK files open at once. Opening Files IBK files are located via the File/Open... menu. You can double click on one to select and open it (for those without a rodent, you can use the cursor keys -- then press enter). The program prevents you from opening the same file twice -- this is to prevent loss of data involved when modifying two copies of the same file. You can open a copy of the same file, by first saving the file with a different name (using File/Save as...) and then reopening the original file. Once a file is opened, you will see a list of the instrument timbres it contains. Locating Files You can move to a different current directory using the File/Change Dir Menu selection, or you can navigate from the File/Open menu (by double clicking on the "\.." item). A new IBK file may be created by using the File/New option. When you create a new IBK, all the names are blank, and a default Piano instrument is stored in each Timbre slot. Saving Files IBK files can be saved either with the name they were opened with (File/Save), or with a new file name (File/Save as...). When saving New files a name is always requested. Selecting Timbres You can open multiple IBK files at the same time. The current window and the current timbre are highlighted. If an MPU401 compatible MIDI interface is installed you may audition a timbre by simply highlighting its name in the IBK file window. Copying Timbres Timbres may be copied from one IBK to another, or within a single IBK. You can select Timbre/Copy from the Timbre menu, select Copy from the status bar, or press F5. The copy dialog box contains a list of open IBK windows. After selecting one of the IBK's from the list, you can select which position within the IBK to copy the current timbre to. The number displayed in the dialog box is the current timbre position in the target IBK. Editing Timbres You may select timbres to edit by double clicking on the timbre name, or by selecting Timbre/Edit. The Edit dialog box is where all the different parameters that comprise an FM timbre are displayed and edited. All the numbered fields have Spin controls: clicking on the up arrow increases the value -- the down arrow decreases. You may also use the + and - keys to achieve the same effect. You may audition a tone by pressing the Note or Chord buttons (the single letter short-cut keys work on all fields except Timbre Name -- for this field you must use Alt-N or Alt-h as shortcut keys). You can rename the timbre by entering a different name into this field, but it will replace the original timbre when you press OK. If you like a change, but don't wish to overwrite the original timbre, you can press Cancel within the Edit dialog and then Recover the sound to a different IBK and position by using the Timbre/Recover option. You may use any characters to name the Timbre, but imbedding spaces and other illegal DOS filename characters will prevent you from extracting INS and SBI files (Using SBANK or some other extraction utility). To abandon changes press Cancel. You may also rename a timbre by selecting Timbre/Rename... from the menu bar. Final Notes To use your IBK files with Twelve Tones Systems' Cakewalk Sequencer, copy your IBK file to a file named ADLIB.IBK in the Cakewalk program directory -- it will automatically be loaded by the FM card driver when Cakewalk starts up.