Groovy Bytes: Behind the Moon

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╓─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╖ ║ ╓ ╖ ╟─── ╓────╖ ╖────╖ ╓────╖ ╖────╖ ╓────║ ╓────╖ ║ ╓────╖ ║ ╓─── ║ ║ ╓─── ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ───╜ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ╜ ╙────╜ ╜ ╙────╜ ╜ ╙ ╙────╙ ╙────╜ ╙ ╙────╜ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ──────══════ COMPOSER ╓ ╥ ║ ─╥─ ╖ ║ ╓──╖ ─╥─ ╓──║ ╥ ╓──╖ ╥ ║ ╓──╖ ║ ║ ╖──╖ ║─ ╥ ╖──╖ ╥ ║ ╖ ╓ ╙──╜ ╨ ╙──║ ╨ ╙ ╙──╙ ╙ ╙ ╜ ╙ ╙ ╨ ╜ ╙ ╨ ╙ ╙──╢ ╜ ╜ 93! ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Composer Coded by Daniel Potter Documentation and Music by Ryan Cramer ABOUT THE FAR COMPOSER ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The Farandole composer is a 16 channel digital composer for the Gravis Ultrasound card (referred to as GUS throughout this documentation). The composer is styled after Tran/Renaissance's "Composer 669". We decided to style after Composer 669 because we felt that it had the most usable environment of all of the composers that we had tried. We also wanted to create a "familiar" environment, so that people would not have a hard time learning the new composer. The Farandole composer uses most of the same commands as Composer 669, but we have added and taken away a few things here and there. If you read the Composer 669 documentation, most of the stuff that applies there also applies to the Far composer. Here are some of the features that we feel make Farandole such a fantastic composer: 1) 16 digital channels (stereo!) with no mixing on the GUS (produces fantastic sound!) 2) A familiar environment (similar to composer 669) which shows all 16 channels on the screen at once! (132 column text mode) 3) Panning of each channel to 16 different positions which are selectable during playtime or during composition. 4) Fine tempo ranges so that you can get the exact tempo that you want. 5) Support for 8 bit and 16 bit samples. 6) Very flexible instrument and order edit screens. 7) Loads FAR, 669, and MOD formats. 8) Can use a special sample format (called FSM) that saves the loop start, loop end, and 32 character name with the sample. Long filenames are fully handled. 9) A HUGE pattern edit screen so that you can see whats going on! (unlike some other composers). REQUiREMENTS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ In order to use the Farandole composer, you must be outfitted with the following hardware: 1) A 386 or better processor 2) A Gravis UltraSound (GUS) sound card with 1 meg of RAM. (note also that a GUS with 256k will also work; however, it's not recommended. 3) A VGA card 4) A high quality stereo!!! :) In addition, you must *NOT* have any network drivers loaded! These have a bad habit of locking things up. The composer SHOULD work with QEMM and other memory managers, even under Windoze (not fully tested) but we make no guarantees. DiSCLAiMER ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The author makes no warranty of any kind, express or implied, including without limitation, any warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. The author will not be liable for any damages, whether direct, indirect, special or consequential arising from a failure of this program to operate in the manner desired by the user. The author will not be liable for any damage to data or property which may be caused directly or indirectly by use of the program. When trying new software, always backup any and all important files on your system. COPYRiGHT ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Farandole Composer is distributed under the Shareware concept. You are granted a limited license to use and share it under the following conditions: o Farandole Composer is not distributed in a modified form. o No fee is charged for Farandole Composer itself. o All references to the copyright and author are retained. There is a small fee for this program. Please read the registration section. This program and ALL FILES included in the archive are: Copyright (C) 1993, Daniel Potter, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. FiLES iNCLUDED iN THE ARCHiVE ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ FAR.EXE - Main executable for the FAR composer FAR.DOC - Documentation for FAR, your reading it! FORMATS.DOC - Complete format specs for the various formats used in FAR SAMPLE1.FSM - a sample instrument used in the tutorial SAMPLE2.FSM - a sample instrument used in the tutorial THUNDDRM.FAR - A song to demonstrate the FAR composer KEYLIST.TXT - Quick reference of all keys (you should print this) README.1ST - Important information that you should have read already! FAR_REG.DOC - Registration form DIF.NFO - Info file about Digital Infinity FARLOAD.CPP - Example C++ code that loads and saves FAR files FAR_UPD.DOC - Registration update info MUSICON.EXE - Ad for Music Connectio BBS - AdLib FM SUPPORT PROGAD2.EXE - Ad for Programmer's Oasis BBS - GUS DIGITAL SUPPOR Note that we will make these k00l BBS ads for you for a price. Call Programmer's Oasis for pricing and availability. If you are missing any of the above files, please download an up to date copy from Programmer's Oasis or Data Connection BBS (numbers are listed at the end of this documentation). HOW TO USE THE COMPOSER ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ (a tutorial for those that have not had experience with trackers). The Farandole composer uses the standard tracker style edit screen seen on most composers today. To use this style of composer, you simply move through the track screen and place the notes where you want them. It may take awhile to understand the concepts at first, but be patient and stay with it! :) iMPORTANT TERMS --------------- Here are some terms used throughout this document that you should understand: Sample - a file that represents an instrument, sample and instrument are used interchangably. A sample is just a bunch of bytes that has data which represents a waveform. Pattern - One of the screens on the Far composer, a group of 16 channels, and 256 notes per channel. Usually these are 64 notes long. As soon as you go into the composer, you will be looking at a pattern, so this one should be pretty obvious. Channel - A digital output on the GUS (the GUS has 32 of them). Each channel is represented by a column in the pattern edit screen. Track - Same as a channel, this is just a single piece of a pattern, there are 16 of these in a pattern. Tempo - the speed at which your pattern is playing. HEXiDECiMAL NOTATiON -------------------- First off, all of the numbers in Farandole composer are represented in hexidecimal notation. This makes the composer much more flexible, you will find that most composers use this notation. It is very easy to understand, but if you don't already know them, take a look at the diagram below: decimal notation: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ------------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ Hexidecimal : 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F So... as you can see, Hex and decimal are the same in numbers 0 through 9, but once you hit 10, hexidecimal starts at A, and then continues on till F which means "15" in decimal. If you have a hard time getting used to this, don't worry, because it comes very fast. You might want to print out this section for reference while your working in the composer if you can't remember hexidecimal notation right away. The advantage of using this notation is that a range of 0 through 15 can be represented by a single digit. 10 takes two digits, while A only takes 1 digit! This makes the composer much more flexible. Its a great way to represent numbers, and you will find that it is the preferred number system used by programmers. There are other cool ways to represent numbers, such as base 36 where numbers range from 0-9 then go from A-Z. 36 digits can be represented with a single digit! Those are called Meganums, but don't worry, we don't use those in the Farandole composer :) It is necessary to understand hexidecimal because all numbers in the Far composer use this notation. When you change the loop start or loop end of a sample, it will be in hexidecimal. Your main volume ranges from 0-F, with F being the loudest. When you use special commands (discussed later) the range will be from 0-F. There are many other examples that I could mention, but I think you get the point. THE SAMPLE EDiT SCREEN ---------------------- The sample edit screen (selected by F1). In this screen, you can: a. load samples b. edit the sample loop start, and sample loop end c. enter the sample editor (not yet complete) d. toggle between 8 bit and 16 bit samples - NOTE that this does NOT convert the samples between the two formats, it merely tells Farandole what type of sample it is. To load samples, you press the spacebar, and then you will be brought up with a directory. Then you just highlight the sample that you want and it will be loaded. If you load something that isn't a sample, it will sound like garbage. You can use any sample that you would for MODs or 669s with the Far composer. Once you have a sample loaded, you can press any key on the keyboard, and you will hear a note corresponding to the key hit (discussed later). If you are not happy with the sample, you can just hit the spacebar again and load another sample. Once your happy with the sample, you can load another by cursoring down (or up) and hitting the spacebar to load a sample into any one of the 256 samples positions. This is kind of hard to explain, but its an easy concept, it is best demonstrated (like most things) by going in the composer and trying it for yourself. It will probably be self-explanatory once you try it :) The sample that is currently highlighted is always the "active" sample, and it will be used when you enter notes into the pattern edit screen. If you want a sample to continue playing, nonstop, you would set the sample loop start and loop end. The loop start is the offset in the sample at which the sample will start looping, and the loop end is the offset in the sample at which it will stop and continue back to the loop start. Please see the example song on how to do this. Most of the time, this loop start and loop end are best found through experimentation. I find that many good samples will have a loop start of zero, and a loop end of the sample length. Here's an example: Lets say that the sample LEADGUIT.SAM was 12345 bytes long. To loop it, I would set the loop start at 0 and the loop end at 12345. Now this may or may not sound perfect to you, if it doesn't, then you can experiment with different numbers for the loop start and loop end until you get it right. This can take a long time to get it perfect, but you have another option. The Far composer also uses a special sample format called FSM (Far sample). You can create FSM samples by loading up another FAR, 669, or MOD into the far composer and hitting ALT-F on the sample that you want to save. Far composer will save this sample to disk, and it remembers the loop start and loop end so that you don't have to set them next time. I often load up different MODs and 669s, and rip looped samples out of those so that I don't have to worry about loop start and loop end later. You can also hit ALT-S which will save the sample in a "raw" format which can be used by other composers. This raw format does not save the sample loop start and loop end though. Samples saved in this format end with the extension "USM". Another way that you may set the loop start and end is through the graphical sample editor. This is currently the only thing it's useful for unless you want to look at the pretty sound wave :). Once you have approximate values set in the graphical editor, you can then experiment. To UNset the looping (make it NOT loop anymore) you would simply enter a value of FFFFF for the loop end. This tells Farandole that you don't want it to be looped. Okay, now that you know what loop start and loop end are, here is how you set them in the sample edit screen: "[" - Sets the loop start "]" - Sets the loop end Once you hit those keys on a sample, you will be prompted to enter a number (in hex notation). You can abort by just hitting ESC and it will bring up the previous number. Here are some other keys available in the sample edit screen: DEL - Deletes the current sample, and moves all samples below it up. INS - Inserts a blank sample in the current position. This moves all samples below it down one. . - On the number pad - Deletes current sample without moving other samples and advances to the next sample. Be very careful with these commands because this adjusts the positions of the samples, and by adjusting these positions, the notes in your song could be pointing to the wrong samples! If this ever happens to you, its nothing to be concerned about because you can fix it just by repositioning the samples with INS and DEL. If you want to delete one sample, it's recommended that you use the . on the number pad. ENTER - Edit the current sample name. You can change the name of a sample to a filename if you want to save the sample to disk, or you can put text in there or whatever you want! :) Remember that if you save an FSM file, you may use names greater than 12 characters; the composer's file routines take care of it for you. TAB - Toggle between 8 bit and 16 bit samples. Most of the time you'll want this set to 8 bit samples. If you are lucky enough to get your hands on some 16 bit samples (CD quality) then you would toggle this to switch it to 16. Note that you cannot load the MIDI patch set files, they are 16 bit but they are in a different format. If you want to load a patch from the MIDI patch set, a utility called PAT2FSM is included (by CodeMan/Damage Inc.). However, this feature will most likely be built in to the next version. ALT-E - This loads up the graphical sample editor. You set the loop start and loop end in here and this shows you a waveform of the sample. We are planning on adding more functions to the sample editor in the future so that you can modify your samples. Currently you may set the Repeat Start and End with your mouse on this screen. However, since it is not completed, no exact documentation is provided yet. - - Sets 'sticky volume' - use 0 on this to cancel sticky volume. A sticky volume is one that stays with the instrument during the current edit session (when you load another song, etc it's cancelled). This makes it easier to make drum patterns, etc. To cancel the sticky volume effect and use the 'Current Volume' setting, use a value of 0 when you set this. THE ORDER EDiT SCREEN --------------------- You get to the order edit screen by hitting F3. The order edit screen is a small box in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Here's sort of what it looks like: 00 00 01 00 02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 │ │ │ │ │ pattern │ position The numbers in the first column are constant, they are just labels and they correspond to the "position number". This is the order that the patterns play in, and so naturally position 00 plays before position 01! So, in the next column (2), the numbers can be changed, and they correspond to the "pattern" number to be played for the corresponding position. The above diagram just shows an "empty" order edit screen, but here is one as it might appear in a song: 00 01 01 00 02 02 03 02 04 03 05 04 As you can see here, the song starts with pattern number 1, and then plays pattern 0 after that. Next, it plays pattern 2 twice, then pattern 3, and then pattern 4. You can move through the order edit screen with your up and down keys to select the position. You change the corresponding pattern number with the "]" key. Well.. that covers the order edit screen, now we move onto the pattern edit screen: THE PATTERN EDiT SCREEN ----------------------- Hmm.. well I can't give you an example of what the pattern edit screen looks like since it is 132 columns, and this is only 80 columns, so we're going to try something different. Print out this part of the documentation (or better yet, print out the whole thing), load up the Far composer, and read this as your looking at the composer screen. Okay, your in the composer right now ...right? Beautiful isn't it :) If when you tried to load the composer, it prompted you for the mode number, then Far could not detect which mode is 132x43x16 mode. In this case, your going to have to open up the documentation for your video card and see which mode number to use. You should find a table in the documentation that has a bunch of resolutions and mode numbers beside them. You will want to find the mode number corresponding to 132x43x16 or 132x44x16 and type that in. If you type in the correct mode number and it still does not work, please get in contact with Daniel Potter on his BBS (number is listed later in the dox). Make sure that you enter the number in DECIMAL (not hexidecimal, as it's usually listed). If your video card does not have a 132x43x16 mode, then you will not be able to use the FAR composer with your current hardware. Remember also, that any mode that is 132 columns wide will work, although it will look rather interesting :) Another way you can use the program is to override the detect options, or enter a mode number on the command line like so: FAR /mXX (where XX is the mode number. /m MUST BE LOWERCASE!) FAR /cCARD (where CARD is your video card) Here's a list of the video card names supported (note that there is not a built in detect routine for some of these). These MUST be typed in the same case as they are shown here: TRIDENT - Trident 8800 or greater - mode 85 PARADISE- Paradise/Western Digital Compatible - mode 84 ATI - ATI SVGA - mode 51 CHIPS - Chips and Tech SVGA - mode 97 GENOA - Genoa SVGA - mode 99 TSENG - TSeng Labs ET4000 - mode 34 VIDEO7 - Video7/compatible - mode 66 CIRRUS - Cirrus logic SVGA or compatible - mode 84 ORCHID - Orchid Faranheight SVGA - mode 84 S3 - MOST S3 chipsets - mode 84 AST - AST/Paradise SVGA - mode 84 Most of the screen is taken up by the pattern edit screen. It consists of numbers on the left side (corresponding to the note number) and then 16 columns of tracks. The tracks are colored: light, dark, light, dark... so that you can distinguish them from one another. Right off the bat, you probably notice that there is really a lot on the screen at once, and perhaps its even hard to read. Well, that is true, but its easy to get used to. Make sure that you've got your glasses on! Now... although this seems like a lot to have on the screen at once, its a great advantage because you can see ALL of the channels at once. I feel that this advantage far outweighs the disadvantage of having such small characters. Okay, lets start figuring out what all of this stuff is. In the upper left hand corner of the screen, you'll see the sample edit screen. You can get to that by pressing F1. In the upper right hand corner of the screen, you'll see the order edit screen. You can get to that by pressing F3. To get back to the pattern edit screen, just hit F2. So, remember that F1, F2, F3 correspond to your main editing screens. Try that a few times to get the hang of it. Note that a bar of a lighter color appears next to the area you are currently working with. Now, go back to the pattern edit screen. Note that the numbers on the left side of the pattern edit screen are the note positions. The pattern edit screen is bigger then what can fit on the screen, so hit your down arrow key until it starts scrolling. You will notice that it goes all the way to FF (255 decimal) lines. You can fit approximatly 20 (32 decimal) lines in the screen at a time. Scroll down to position 3F and look at the far left of the screen, you should see a "B". This is the "breakpoint". This breakpoint is where the pattern ends. You can adjust the breakpoint to whereever you want it, but most of the time it will probably be at 3F. Most composers limit you to 3F notes per pattern, but Farandole can go up to FF, although I haven't actually tried it yet! :) You can set your breakpoint whereever you want it in the pattern. I'm not going to tell you how to do that quite yet, because its not very important for you to know if you are just learning how to use the composer. I just want to make sure that you know what a breakpoint is. All of the keys will be explained in the KEYLIST.TXT file. Okay, now scroll back up to the top of the pattern (position 00). Then hit F1 to goto the sample edit screen. Once there, hit the space bar to load up a sample. Select the example sample file SAMPLE1.FSM. Once you've got that loaded, jump back down to the pattern edit screen (F2) and we're going to experiment a bit. Look at the status line on the bottom of the screen, you'll notice that it has something which says "EDIT = ON". To toggle edit mode on or off, hit the TAB key. When edit mode is off, you will not be able to enter any notes into the pattern edit screen (for melody experimentation purposes). Note that sometimes it is easier to experiment with the entire instrument set when in the sample edit area. Okay, now is a good time for me to tell you how the keyboard is setup. Here's a quick diagram: C# D# F# G# A# C# D# F# G# A# ┌─┬─┬─┬─┬──┬──┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬──┬──┬─┬─┬─┬──┬──┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │S│ │D│ │ │G│ │H│ │J│ │ │2│ │3│ │ │5│ │6│ │7│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Z │ X │ C │ V │ B │ N │ M │ Q │ W │ E │ R │ T │ Y │ U│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴──┘ C D E F G A B C D E F G A B btw: this diagram is from Tran's composer 669 docs. Well, thats how its setup, this may or may not be of much help, but to explain: you have 2 octaves on the keyboard. The first takes up the top half of the screen, the second takes the lower half of the screen. Farandole actually has 5 octaves, but I will tell you how to change to them a little later. Okay, since you're now in the pattern edit screen, try hitting a few keys, and you should get hear notes. Well, turn up your stereo a bit first so that you can hear it. note: F8 will stop the sound, you'll probably want to use this a bit as you're experimenting. Hit a bunch of random notes, and watch them appear on the pattern screen. Use your left and right arrow keys to get into other channels so that you can fill up a bunch of channels with different notes. You will hear that the keys on your keyboard correspond to different notes as shown in the above diagram. Pretty cool eh? Let me explain what these notes actually mean and what you can do with them. Here is an example note: the sample number (from your sample edit screen) │ │ special command (probably is blank on your screen right now) │ │ C-2 00 F c1 │ │ │ │ │ the volume of this note │ │ │ the octave │ the note to play! Here's another example: D#3 01 A This would be playing D sharp, octave 3, with sample number 01 at volume A. You can edit a lot of things with the samples. To change the sample number of an already existing note, you can hit "[" and it will let you enter a new sample number. You can adjust the volume of the note by hitting "]" and it will let you enter a new number. To add a special command, hit "backspace" and it will prompt you for a command. Don't worry about the commands quite yet though, I will discuss those later. Now that you see how the notes work, let me show you a few things about volume. Look on the status line of the screen (the bottom line) and look for the "volume" indicator. Right now it should say "Volume = F". We're going to adjust this a bit. Hit the "=" key, this will reduce the main volume. Keep pressing it till it gets down to "5". Once its at 5, enter some more notes into the pattern edit screen. You will see and hear that all of the new notes play softer then the previous ones. Notice that the volume parameter of the note is now set at "5" instead of "F". Lets bring your main volume back up to "A", so hit the "\" key until your main volume is at volume "A". Enter a few more notes and notice the volume difference. Okay so... "=" decreases the main volume "\" increases the main volume Notice that these keys are right next to your backspace key in a convenient position so that you can adjust the volume easily. Its very important to understand how the volume commands work because you will find yourself using them a lot in the future. In the pattern edit screen, position your cursor over a note thats already there. Press the "]" key and change the volume. Understand? :) Notice that when you adjust the volume there, that also changes the main volume. Remember: Main Volume = the volume at which notes you enter on the screen will use. Now that you've got volume down, go back to the sample edit screen (F1), and position your cursor to sample number "01" which should currently be blank. (sample "00" should be SAMPLE1.FSM). Load the sample "SAMPLE2.FSM". Go back to your pattern edit screen and enter a few notes. Now you're using a different instrument, but I bet you figured that one out for yourself (I hope!) :) You probably have a pattern filled up with a bunch of notes now, let me show you how to play the pattern... Hit F6 and your pattern should start playing. Probably sounds a little weird? but don't worry, thats how you start. Once its done playing the pattern, it will jump back up to the top and play it again. At this point, you might want to experiment trying to make a small one pattern tune. While you're doing this, here's a few keys which may be helpful to you: --- spacebar = delete the note that the cursor is positioned on. DEL = delete the note that the cursor is positioned on, and move all notes below it (in the current channel) up one. INS = insert a blank note in the current position, and move all notes in the current channel down one. ? = get an extensive list of the available keys F8 = stop playback F7 = play from current row in pattern (differs from Composer 669) PGUP = Move up in the pattern a bunch, just like hitting the up arrow key about 20 times :) PGDN = Move down in the pattern a bunch. "/" = DOWN octave (use the numeric keypad for convenience) "*" = UP octave │ │ experiment with these if you don't know what they are. Try them, enter a few notes, and notice the difference! :) HOME,END = move to the first/last channel in the current row. --- Well there's some keys to get you started with working in a single pattern. Most of them should be pretty much easy to understand, but if you haven't experimented with a tracker (or music in general) before, then "octave" might not make sense to you. Here's an explanation: Octave : "the interval made up of the first and eighth tones (in rising order of pitch) in a major or minor scale". So basicly, C-1 and C-2 are going to sound the same, except that C-2 is a much higher frequency, but still the same note. In fact, the frequency of C-2 is exactly twice as great as the frequency of C-1. Experiment with "/" and "*" and you will see what I mean. You've got 5 whole octaves to work with, so you can get quite a variety of frequencies. Normally, 8 bit samples really only sound good through 3 different octaves, and its best to base them whereever they sound best. So, you probably won't be using all of the octaves for a single sample, but in case you need them, they're there, although the extrememly high octaves such as 3 and 4 tend to sound out of tune because of math errors involved in generating them. So far, you've just been working with one pattern, but now I'm going to show you how to work with other patterns. Make sure your in the pattern edit screen, and then hit the "+" key. Now you will have a screen with no notes in it. You were on pattern 00, but now your on pattern 01. Look at the status line on the bottom of the screen, you should see "Pattern = 01". What the hell, press "+" again, and get to pattern "02"! Well, lets go back to pattern 01, so hit "-" and you should be back at pattern "01". Pattern "01" should be blank, but fill it up with a bunch of notes, or a little tune or something. Once you've got pattern "01" with some notes in it ...umm, press F3 and we're going to make our first song! You pressed F3 and your in the order edit screen ...right? Make sure you're on position "00" in the order edit screen, press "]". Now press "00". Press your down arrow and highlight position "01". Once again, press "]" but this time put in "01". Move down one more to position "02" and "]" then "01" again. So, now your order edit should look like: 00 00 01 01 02 01 03 04 05 You now have a song that is 3 patterns long! Press F5 and the whole song will play. ahhh.... beautiful! Well, you've now got the basics of pattern editing, there's a lot more to it, but this should be enough to get you started. Make sure you read the rest of the documentation to understand the other stuff, but understand pattern editing before anything else. Don't worry if you need to read this part over a few times, it takes practice to learn to use a composing software as powerful as Farandole composer. I remember when I was first learning Composer 669, I had to read the docs quite a few times to understand. Just be patient!!! Hey wait... before you exit, lets save your song: Press "ALT-F12" and at the bottom of the screen you'll get a prompt asking for a song name. Type whatever you want, but I'd just call it "TESTING". Okay, after you've typed that in and pressed enter, press "F12" and your song will be saved to disk. Now you can exit, press "ALT-X" and answer "Y" to the "are you sure". When you want to load that song again, press "F11" and highlight your song in the directory window. At this point, you may want to take a break and grab something to eat, but when you come back, load up the demo song and play with it: 1) Load up FAR.EXE 2) Press "F11" and highlight THUNDDRM.FAR 3) Press "F5" to listen to the whole song. You may want to navigate through the song and look at how I did a lot of the stuff in that song. Its not a great song or anything, but I hope that you can learn some stuff from it. You can rip the samples from the song so that you have a few samples to work with. MiSC STUFF ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ There are a few nuts and bolts laying around in the composer that have not been explained above. The little '=' or double tilde in the bottom right corner tells you whether or not your song has been modified. If it is a double tilde, then it is a broken file :). In other words, it's not saved. The help screen saves your current position so that you don't have to find it again when you come back later for more help. If you have any additional questions or anything, I am more then happy to help. You can contact me (Ryan Cramer) at: Data Connection BBS - (703) 506-8598 - 16.8k HST Dual Standard Programmer's Oasis - (214) 328-6142 - 14.4k v.32bis The Sound Barrier - (718) 979-6629 - 14.4k HST Dual Standard You can contact Daniel Potter at the Programmer's Oasis. EXTENSiVE LiST OF ALL KEYS AVAiLABLE IN FAR - THIS LIST AVAILABLE WITH '?' ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Global Keys (Apply to all areas except graphical editor and CFG screen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- / octave down (use keypad) * octave up (use keypad) UP (on keypad) current sample up DOWN (on keypad) current sample down 6 (on keypad) order up 3 (on keypad) order down 4 tempo down 1 tempo up = edit volume down \ edit volume up F1 Move to sample edit F2 Move to pattern edit F3 Move to order edit F4 Play from current order F5 Play from beginning of song F6 Play from top current pattern F7 Play from current position in current pattern F8 Stop playback of song ALT-F11 Change name of song ALT-F12 Change DOS filename of song F10 Edit or view song text! F11 Load song F12 Save song CTRL-0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7, 8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F Toggle corresponding channel on/off CTRL-SHIFT-0,1,2,3,4, etc, etc. Turn off all channels except the one specified. ALT-T Turn ON all channels. ALT-F8 Edit song loop position ALT-F10 Save configuration ALT-ESC Shell to DOS (not 100% reliable) ScrollLock Decrease volume Pause Increase volume ? Get a list of keys (like this) Keys specific to pattern editing -------------------------------- SPACE erase note under edit bar UP,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT move edit bar around PGUP,PGDN moves to top or bottom of page - if you are already at one of those, it flips pages HOME,END Moves to the first, last channel in current row DELETE,INSERT delete/insert current note under edit bar and move entire set of notes under it up or down ALT-B,E Mark begin,end of a block ALT-C,O copy into/out of buffer ALT-Q,A Transpose block up/down one octave ALT-W,S Transpose block up/down one halfstep ALT-V Set volume of block ALT-I Set instrument of block ALT-U Unmark block ALT-Z Clear block ALT-R,N Copy/paste current row-note that this function CAN be used to rotate the music ALT-L Mark entire channel ALT-M Copy entire pattern over another one ALT-P Place break location [ Edit instrument field of note under edit bar This changes the current edit instrument. ] Edit volume field of note under edit bar This changes the current edit volume. BACKSPACE Edit effect field of note under edit bar SHIFT-BACKSPACE Erase effect field of note under edit bar ALT-F1 Erase all instruments/samples ALT-F2 Erase current pattern ALT-F3 Erase all order info -,+ Change patterns ALT-J Jump to another pattern ` Pick up volume,instrument under edit bar Keys specific to sample editing ------------------------------- INSERT,DELETE Insert or delete sample at this position, moving all others under it up or down . (number pad) Delete current sample, without moving others CURSUP,CURSDN Change samples [ ] Edit Sample RepStart,RepEnd ENTER Edit Sample name (saved with sample with saved to disk in FSM format, along with RepStart/RepEnd Info) SPACE Load a new sample ALT-F Save a sample in FSM format ALT-S Save a sample in USM format (unsigned raw) ALT-F1 Erase all Samples - Set sticky volume (0 to cancel) Keys specific to order editing ------------------------------ CURSUP,CURSDN Change order up,down ] Edit order value under cursor INSERT,DELETE Insert,delete an order at cursor, moves all orders under this one up or down Keys specific to graphical sample editing ----------------------------------------- Keypad CURSUP,CURSDN Change sample up/down ESC Exit editor F8,SPACE Stop currently playing music/sample SPECiAL COMMANDS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Here is a list of the special commands available in the FAR composer. You can set a special command for each note pattern edit screen by pressing "backspace" on the note and then putting in the letter (or number) of the special command and a value argument. Here's an example: C-2 01 F f4 ││ this is the special command As you can see, a special command consists of a command character, and then a variable argument. CHANGiNG THE TEMPO ------------------ The main special command that you will probably use is the "tempo" command. This is the "f" command (just like in Composer 669). The example above is setting the tempo to tempo 4. Tempo 4 is the default tempo for the FAR composer. Tempo 4 corresponds to tempo 6 in MODs. MODs use a default tempo of 6, if you wanted to use that default tempo for FAR, you would use the special command "f5" at the beginning of your pattern. Remember that FAR tempos correspond to MOD tempos by taking: (far tempo/32.0)*50.0. Tempos can range from 0 through F with 0 being the fastest. Experiment with the tempos to find out which one is best for the song your working on. The default tempo of 4 is usually a good starting place. FiNE TEMPOS ----------- As you found out in the previous paragraph, the "f" command changes the main tempo, however you can also set tempo ranges inbetween the main tempo by using the fine tempo commands. The fine tempo commands are: e - fine tempo up d - fine tempo down This way you can have 0 through F tempo ranges in between each main tempo range! This is a very useful feature, and you'll find that I make use of it quite a bit in the example song. Unless you want an additive effect, make sure you cancel out the previous fine tempo command with F0 OR E0. CHANNEL BALANCE --------------- Another really cool feature about FAR is that you can position a channel to wherever you want it! FAR lets you pan each channel through 16 different positions. The command to adjust the balance of a channel is the: "b" command. Here's a couple examples: b0 - sets the channel balance all the way to the left bF - sets the channel balance all the way to the right b8 - sets the channel balance in the middle As you can see, the lower the number, the farther to the left it is. The higher the number, the further to the right it is. Experiment with this in the composer and you will hear some really neat stuff! FUTURE COMMANDS --------------- In this beta version, there are not many commands. In the release version, we will probably have note ports, port commands, vibrato, and all sorts of other stuff. I personally can't wait for 'em! :) BLOCK COMMANDS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ When you are composing a song, you will have to use the block commands all of the time, otherwise you'd be repeating yourself a lot. Block commands copy between channels or patterns. Using the block commands you can duplicate the contents of an individual channel or a pattern. Here is the entire list of block commands: ALT-B,E Mark begin,end of a block ALT-C,O copy into/out of buffer ALT-Q,A Transpose block up/down one octave ALT-W,S Transpose block up/down one halfstep ALT-V Set volume of block ALT-I Set instrument of block ALT-U Unmark block ALT-Z Clear block ALT-R,N Copy/paste current row-note that this function CAN be used to rotate the music ALT-L Mark entire channel ALT-M Copy entire pattern over another one Here's a couple examples on how to use them: Lets say you wanted to duplicate pattern 00 to pattern 01. You would hit ALT-M. Once you hit that, you would be prompted (at the bottom of the screen) to enter the pattern to copy to. So you would enter 01 and the pattern would be copied! Next, lets say that you wanted to copy everything in channel 1 to channel 7. You would hit ALT-L to mark the entire channel (notice the highlighted channel marker on the left side of the pattern edit screen). Once the channel is marked, you would hit ALT-C to copy the channel to the buffer. Now, move your cursor over to the top of channel 7 and hit ALT-O. This empties the contents of the buffer into the channel and now its duplicated! To unmark channel 1, hit ALT-U and that deallocates the buffer. Note that you don't have to mark the entire channel with ALT-L. You can also just mark only as much of the channel you want by using ALT-B and ALT-E (begin and end). You don't have to use channel marking just for copying, you can also manipulate the marked channel. Notice that ALT-Q and ALT-A transpose the notes in the block up or down an octave. ALT-W and ALT-S transpose the marked block up or down one halfstep. ALT-V sets the volume of all notes in the block to the current editing volume, and ALT-I sets the samples of the block to the current sample. HOW NOTES ARE REPRESENTED ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Here is a quick description of how the notes are represented in the FAR composer: the sample number (from your sample edit screen) │ │ special command │ │ C-2 00 F c1 │ │ │ │ │ the volume of this note │ │ │ the octave │ the note to play! For information how on how to adjust the values in the note, see the "pattern edit" section earlier in the documentation. KEYBOARD LAYOUT ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Thanks to Tran of Renaissace for the kewl diagram: C# D# F# G# A# C# D# F# G# A# ┌─┬─┬─┬─┬──┬──┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬──┬──┬─┬─┬─┬──┬──┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │S│ │D│ │ │G│ │H│ │J│ │ │2│ │3│ │ │5│ │6│ │7│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ └┬┘ └┬┘ └┬┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Z │ X │ C │ V │ B │ N │ M │ Q │ W │ E │ R │ T │ Y │ U│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴──┘ C D E F G A B C D E F G A B (The piano also works in graphical editing mode) Two octaves are available on the keyboard at any given time. The top octave is controlled by the top numbers and the top row of letter keys. The bottom octave is controlled by the middle row of letter keys, and the bottom row of letter keys. VOLUME COMMANDS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The Farandole composer uses a main volume range of 0 through F (0 through 15 decimal). You can adjust the main volume by pressing "=" to decrease the main volume, and "\" to increase it. The main volume is the current editing volume at which any notes you place will be given that volume value. You can adjust the volume of an already exiting note by pressing "]" while your cursor is positioned above the note. From here, you can type "0" through "F" as your new volume. Volume commands can also appear where there is not a note. In fact, you will find yourself using this feature a lot. Example 1: Lets say we want to fade out a sample: D#3 01 F ... .. E ... .. D ... .. C ... .. B - Notice how we are slowly decreasing the volume ... .. A ... .. 9 ... .. 8 ... .. 7 ... .. 6 ... .. 5 ... .. 4 ... .. 3 ... .. 2 ... .. 1 ... .. 0 So now you see how powerful volume commands can be. You can also stop playing a sample. ie: F-1 03 C ... .. ... .. ... .. 0 <-Stops playing! (sets volume to zero) ... .. This probably seems pretty obvious... but its an important concept for beginners! :) THE SONG TEXT EDiTOR ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ We noticed that in MODs and 669s (and S3Ms! :), a lot of people are using the sample names to give us a message, greets, or anything like that. Well, thats cool, but we figured that there should be a special screen setup just for that so that composer's can give lots of info about the particular song. We've included a songtext editor which you can have up to 64k of text (thats ALOT of text!). You can get to this songtext editor by hitting F10. Once you hit that, you will be brought up with a giant blank screen. You can fill this up with text or whatever you want.. You've got 64k to work with. Of course, FAR only saves as many bytes as you use, it doesn't actually tack on an extra 64k to every song! :) Also you are limited to this one screenful for actual text, but you can feel free to make an external util to import texts into your songs, or graphics data, or whatever else you want to store in there. Keep in mind that this songtext will be scrolled across the screen while playing with the command line player. So in other words, a big fancy screen with boxes and formatted text wouldn't look so hot (although I've already seen a few people do this...) TOGGLiNG CHANNELS ON AND OFF ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ You may want to toggle certain channels on or off so that you can focus on them more. I use this feature all of the time when composing. To turn them on or off, you simple hit CTRL+Channel Number. So, if you wanted to toggle channel 0, you would hit "CTRL-0", or if you wanted to toggle channel F, you would hit "CTRL-F". Sometimes you may want to turn off all channels except a single one so that you can focus on that one without hearing anything from the other 15 channels. It is a very useful feature, and I suggest using it when composing or studying music. You can do this using the CTRL-SHIFT-channel combination. Also to turn them all back on, you can use ALT-T HOW TO REGiSTER ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ To register, please fill out the form FAR_REG.DOC, print it out, and mail it to Daniel Potter. All information is given in the REGISTER.DOC file, but in the event that the file is missing, here is another copy: ---- Cut Here -------------------------------------------------------- FAR_REG.DOC - Registration form Please fill out this form and print it out and mail to Daniel Potter (address is listed below). Farandole Composer 0.8ß Copyright (c) 1993 by Daniel Potter All Rights Reserved Thanks for deciding to register Farandole, I really appreciate it. Here is all of the legal info, and the registration form is below. Thanks, Daniel Potter Disclaimer ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ In no way is Daniel Potter to be held responsible for damages, including the inability of the program to function as designed. No warranty of this product is expressed nor implied, and it is expected that you will have determined the usefulness of Farandole prior to remitting the registration fee. The Registration Fee ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The registration fee for the Farandole composer is $15.00 USD. If you would like the registered version delivered to you by mail on a disk, please also add $2.00 in the US or $4.00 outside the US to cover shipping, handling and disks. If you do not include the shipping and handling fee, you have to get your registered copy on The Programmer's Oasis BBS. Please indicate your choice on the registration form below. The number for Programmer's Oasis BBS is: Programmer's Oasis BBS, Sysop Daniel Potter, Digital Infinity Hdqtrs. (214) 328-6142 14.4k v.32bis NOTE!! If you decide to get the registered copy off of the BBS, and not through the mail, you CANNOT receive a copy of the printed manual (I wonder why :). You CAN decide to get a copy of the sample library, however, this is not an advisable option with LD, since it is over 1.2 megs compressed. You may pay by check or money order. You may also pay with cash, but if you do, we cannot be responsible if it is stolen in the mail. It is safest to pay by check or money order, but cash is an option if you cannot use check or money order. Payment should be made out to: Daniel Potter You should mail your registration to: Daniel Potter 2828 Tolosa Dr. Dallas, TX, 75228 USA Once you receive your registered copy of Farandole composer, you may not distribute it. It is for your personal use only. Print out this form and mail it to the address above. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Please answer the following questions: Today's Date: __/__/__ Payment by (check one): ____ check, ____ money order, ____ cash #__ copies of the Farandole composer for $15 each $______ plus $2.00 shipping & handling USA $______ plus $4.00 shipping & handling Outside of USA $______ T O T A L $______ Your real name: __________________________________________ Your alias & demogroup (if not applicable, just type N/A): __________________________________________ Mailing Address: __________________________________________ __________________________________________ __________________________________________ Phone Number: __________________________________________ Where would you like to get your registered copy of FAR (check one): ______ Mail it to me, I've included the shipping cost ______ I'll download it from your BBS If your getting it in the mail, what type disk do you want (check one): ______ 3.5" disk ______ 5.25" disk Leave any additional comments below: THANKS FOR SUPPORTING SHAREWARE!! ---- Cut Here ----------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO GET iN CONTACT WiTH DiGITAL iNFiNiTY ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The Digital Infinity Headquarters board is Programmer's oasis. There are conferences and file areas dedicated to Digital Infinity there. Programmer's Oasis also has large demo, music, and programming related conferences/file areas. Call today! Programmer's Oasis - Dallas, Texas USA - Sysop Daniel Potter 14.4k v.32bis - (214) 328-6142 You can also get in contact with us at our East Coast distribution site which also has lots of demo, music, and programming related conferences and file areas: Data Connection BBS - McLean, Virginia USA - Sysop Ryan Cramer 16.8k HST Dual Standard (703) 506-8598 FUTURE PLANS FOR THE FAR COMPOSER ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ This version of the composer is just a ßeta version, and probably many things will change in the release version. If any changes are made in the file format, we will include a conversion program so that you won't lose any music that you have composed. The main things that will be in the future version are: 1. fine volume commands 2. more special commands such as porting, vibrato, etc. 3. bug fixes 4. a sample EDITor 5. more file format support (send 'em in! :) 6. more stuff that we haven't thought of yet! :) We are very open to your suggestions and bug reports, so if you discover anything, PLEASE contact Daniel Potter on his BBS (number listed above in the previous section). SPECiAL THANKS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Special thanks to Josh Jensen for his fantastic UltraDox and the GusMod source code which has helped GREATLY in the production of the FAR composer. Special thanks also goto Tran for Composer 669 which we feel is the best composing environment available, which is why we tried to duplicate it! :) Many many special thanks go to John Smith at Gravis for all the cool support! There's not many companies that would go to the trouble/expense of helping its developers like you guys do. Thanks also goto Advanced Gravis for making the GUS! Thanks go to Ryan Cramer (from Daniel Potter (me)) for really helping me make the composer something that MUSICIANS could use too! :) and for the awesome example song. GREETiNGS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Digital Infinity sends greetings to the following groups/people (not in any specific order): Toxic Zombies Triton Renaissance Paranoids End of Time New Age Psychedelic! Extreme Imphobia The Code Blasters EMF Ultraforce Twilight Zone Hysteria Cascada Epical Sonic-PC Silents-PC The Phoney Coders Surprise Productions DCE The Space Pigs Paranoids VLA Skull Anarchy-PC Onyx Access Denied The Brain Slayer Vibrants Majic 12-PC XOGraphy Dark Zone VangeliSTeam/Iguana ETR Dust Doomsday Productions Legend Design Black Rain Witan Synergy Design Black Design Virtual Visions Sebastian Dwornik ID Software Apogee Epic Megagames And Daniel Potter greets all his favorite friends on IRC: Kkat, Luvmuffin, Treblig, Skimbles :) ...and all other people that we forgot to mention here. T H E E N D :)