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- Scream Tracker
-
-
- <<<<< USERS MANUAL >>>>>
-
-
- (C) 1990 Sami Tammilehto
-
-
- ==============================================================================
-
-
- Contents by reference number:
-
- 1 The Scream Tracker enviroment
- 1.1 The directory structure
- 1.2 Using the program
- 1.3 The piano keyboard
- 1.4 The display
- 1.5 Machine requirements
- 1.6 Global commands
- 1.7 Color setup
- 2 Instruments
- 2.1 What are they?
- 2.2 Instrument disks
- 2.2.1 What are they?
- 2.2.2 Creating instrument disks
- 2.2.3 The instrument disk 99
- 2.3 Different parameters describing the instrument
- 3 Setup
- 3.1 Playing mode and speeds
- 3.2 EditSound, Enable Timer and Instrument Disk Drive
- 3.3 Directories
- 4 Instrument Library
- 4.1 What is it?
- 4.2 Moving around in the instrument library
- 4.3 The fields in the upper section.
- 4.4 Commands specific to the Edit Library mode.
- 4.5 Creating the instrument library
- 4.5.1 Creating a library manually
- 4.5.2 Easier creation way
- 4.5.3 Adding separate samples easily
- 5 Orders
- 5.1 What are they?
- 5.2 Editing orders
- 5.3 Commands specific to Edit Orders
- 6 Patterns
- 6.1 What are they?
- 6.2 Editing patterns
- 6.3 Commands specific to Edit Patterns
- 6.4 Special commands
- 6.4.1 What are they?
- 6.4.2 List of special commands
- 7 Sample list
- 7.1 What is it?
- 7.2 Test fields and beat testing.
- 7.3 List of commands
- 8 Loading, saving and playing songs
- 8.1 Loading a song/module
- 8.2 Saving song/module
- 8.3 Playing songs
- 8.4 Infopage and status line info
- 8.5 Scope
- 8.6 Tracking and Recording
- 8.7 Loading amiga modules
-
-
- ==============================================================================
-
-
- 1 The Scream Tracker enviroment
-
- 1.1 The directory structure
-
- The Scream Tracker is situated in it's own directory,
- normally C:\ST. Under this parent directory you can
- find files and directories used by Scream Tracker.
- The SONG diretory contains the songs and modules
- for the Scream Tracker. The STINS99 directory
- acts as an instrument disk, which contains
- the instruments stored on hard disk. The INS directory
- is used for caching the instrument disks and
- the ADD directory is used for adding new samples.
-
- 1.2 Using the program
-
- When you load the Scream Tracker (by executing ST.EXE)
- you'll see the startup-screen. From this screen you
- can go to the main menus by pressing left arrow key.
- You can toggle menus fast with their hotkeys (the
- capital letters) or move between them with cursor keys.
- By pressing enter you can select the menu choice highlighted.
- The three rightmost menus contain commands specific to
- Edit Patterns, Edit Samples and Edit Library functions,
- and the hotkeys shown in them apply only in each of
- these edit modes, respectively. The other hotkeys can be
- executed anytime (except in Dos Shell of course).
-
- 1.3 The piano keyboard
-
- The computers keyboard is divided into 2+ octaves and used
- to emulate the common piano style keyboard. The octaves are
- the following:
-
- 2 3 5 6 7 9 0
- octave 2+: q w e r t y u i o p
- s d g h j
- octave 1: z x c v b n m
-
- The keyboard is used when testing instruments or entering notes
- to a pattern. Remark that the letters are small, not capital ones.
- There's also a special beat entering keyboard:
-
- Q W E R T Y U I O P - Uppercase (with SHIFT)
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 - These letters will play the sample shown
- here in C1. It's easy to make drum beats
- by putting the drums in the beginning of
- the sample list (<11 in number) and set
- their C2SPD:s so that C1 sounds good.
- Then you can enter the drums with
- the beat keyboard. The beat keyboard only
- functions in pattern editing. (you can
- use beat testing in Edit Samples)
-
- 1.4 The display
-
- The display is divided into four parts, of which the first one
- tells the Scream Tracker version number and username (if ST is
- registered).
- The second part of the display is reserved for some often used
- values, which define the lower pinao keyboard octave, default
- sample, default volume, songs start tempo, songs name, current
- pattern, Current channel, Global volume for the song, and finally
- channel on/off status.
- The third part, whose background is brown, is the editing area,
- where all editing of the song is performed. It has several edit
- screens, of which more is told later.
- The last part is the bottomline, which acts as a statusline,
- and displays things like loading, saving, and, while the music
- is being played, the current position in song.
-
- 1.5 Machine requirements
-
- The Scream Tracker requires a fast machine. In this caes this
- means at least an 8Mhz AT. 12Mhz at is suggested, for with
- slower machines the PC-Speaker will function poorly. Although
- Covox & SoundBlaster will work with 8Mhz machines with good
- guality. The machine should NOT be slowed down by 386 specific
- memory enhancement utilities using the VM86 mode. These include
- QEMM, 386^MAX and Windows 3. If the sound seems to be too low
- and it's pitch varies rapidly, the machine has not enough power.
- The VM86 products should be removed while using ST. Scream Tracker
- also requires at least CGA to use scope. All other functions use
- text screens.
-
-
- 1.6 Global commands
-
- CTRL-D..This command shells to DOS. Remeber that if you leave the
- music playing when shelling to dos, it might interfere with
- programs run there
- CTRL-W..Save (write) song
- CTRL-L..Load song
- CTLR-R..Load (retrieve) module
- CTRL-A..Load amiga module
- ALT-F1..Toggle channel 1 on/off
- ALT-F2..Toggle channel 2 on/off
- ALT-F3..Toggle channel 3 on/off
- ALT-F4..Toggle channel 4 on/off
- SH-F5...Play song. This (as all play commands)
- also views the infopage
- SH-F6...Play from current order. The current
- order is the one the cursor is on in the
- Edit order mode.
- F6......Play current patter. The pattern will
- be looped.
- CTRL-Z..Play with scope. The scope requires CGA
- or compatible display and also faster
- machine than normal playing.
- CTRL-T..Track song
- CTRL-X..Record song
- F5......Show infopage
- F8......Stop playing
- F7......Load instruments from disk. This function
- is needed if the samples contained in
- the Edit Samples list are modified. It's
- not needed if only parameters are changed,
- only when samples are removed or inserted.
- F1......Edit Order
- F2......Edit Patterns
- F3......Edit Samples
- F4......Edit Library
- {.......Decrease global volume by 3
- }.......Increase global volume by 3
-
- 1.7 Color setup
-
- You can find the color setup in the 'Other' menu. When it's selected,
- a window with colornames pops up and on the right side a hexadecimal
- value for each color is shown. You can edit this value for quick
- changes or press SPACE to select the color the cursor is on from
- a palette. If you want your changes to take effect, exit color
- setup with ENTER, otherwise press ESC.
-
-
- 2 Instruments
-
- 2.1 What are they?
-
- The instruments are samples, which might be considered to
- be sort of a record of a real instrument. To play the instrument
- at different notes, it's speed is altered. Also a few other
- values can be changed for an instrument. These include possible
- looping and volume. Also vibrato and other special effects
- can be used. The instruments are often quite long, about 10K
- average, so it's best to store most of them on disks. Remark
- that within this document and the program, the words sample
- and instrument are both used interchangeably.
-
- 2.2 Instrument disks
-
- 2.2.1 What are they?
-
- The Scream Tracker supports 99 instrument disks, of which
- number 99 is the harddisk (and 00 undefined). The instrument disks
- are used to store the samples (and ONLY the actual data, not
- the parameters). In both the library and edit samples screen
- you can specify the disk where a particular instrument can
- be found. When loading an instrument, the ST first looks
- for it in the cache directory, and if it's not found there,
- ST will prompt for the correct disk (if it's defined). After
- you have insterted the correct disk and pressed a key, the ST
- will also transfer the sample to the cache directory, for faster
- access.
-
- 2.2.2 Creating instrument disks
-
- Creating an instrument disk is a straightforward procedure.
- You simple format a disk and make a following directory into
- it's root: STINSxx where xx should be replaced with the instrument
- disk number you are creating. (The samples stored to the disk will
- then lie in the directory) Do not make several disks with the
- same number, and remember that disks 00 and 99 should not be
- made, for the numbers are used for different purposes in ST.
-
- 2.2.3 The instrument disk 99
-
- Instrument disk 99 differs from other instrument disk because
- it's situated in the harddisk. It works just as a normal
- disk, but it's instruments are NOT cached. It's automatically
- created when ST is installed.
-
- 2.3 Different parameters describing the instrument
-
- Instrument parameters are shown in fields inside the ST. The fields
- are named: File, C2SPD, Ds, Vl, LpBeg, LpEnd.
- The first field descripbes the filename for the sample. The next
- one is the speed (in Hz) at which the sample should be played so
- that it would sound like C2 (mid C). The next field specifies the
- instrument disk in which the sample can be found. The next value
- is the default volume, the volume used when not otherwise specified.
- The last two next fields describe the possible looping of the sample.
- When the first value is 0 and the last 65535, no looping should be
- performed. When the values differ from those, the last value defines
- the byte at which the sample should be halted, and restarted at
- byte defined by the first value. Inside ST these fields are often
- followed by Test fields, which can be used for testing the instrument
- with the piano keyboard.
-
-
- 3 Setup
-
- 3.1 Playing mode and speeds
-
- You have currently four choises of hardware to play songs.
- The one everyone has, is the PC-Speaker. The other options
- include SoundBlaster, a PC sound card from Creative Lab's inc.
- and Covox in LPT1/2. The term Covox means a device simply
- acting as DA converter in printer port datalines.
- The other important selection is machine speed. It theoretically
- specifies how fast your machine is, so that the program can know
- how good guality sound it can output. Generally 12Mhz is sufficient,
- so in practice even if you have 33Mhz machine, it's better to keep
- speed in 12Mhz, for there is practically no quality difference with
- it and higher speeds. In addition when running sound at lower speed,
- the machine will work faster while editing songs the same time they
- are being played.
- The current version of ST also supports very slow speeds, down to
- 5Mhz, which may enable ordinary PC's to play songs. Although the
- quality is quite low, and these low speeds are only availible for
- Covox and SoundBlaster.
- Note that you can select different speed for both the Scope and
- normal Playing. It is strongly suggested that you use lower speed
- for scope, for it needs more power.
-
- 3.2 EditSound, Enable Timer and Instrument Disk Drive
-
- If timer is not enabled, dos timer interrupt 8 will be masked off while
- playing. It generally produces better sounds, especially with PC-
- Speaker, but makes little difference with Covox or SoundBlaster.
- The main advantage from keeping the Timer on is the fact DOS clock
- will run in DOS shell (the machine keeps the time right when playing)
- and disk drive motors will be stopped in time. (When timer is off,
- the floppy disk drive motors run on forever after started)
- The EditSound option tells the program whether or not play a note
- when it's written to a pattern. It's generally easier to make music
- when the option is on, but playing notes slow the machine down a bit.
- The Instrument Disk Drive specifies the drive into which you'll
- insert the instrument disks when requested.
-
- 3.3 Directories
-
- You can specify five directories:
- System directory contains the exe, help and libray files.
- Instrument directory is used for instrument caching from disks.
- Song directory is used to store songs and modules
- Instrument disk 99 directory specifies the path for idisk 99,
- which should lie on the harddisk.
- Add directory is the directory used for quick adding of samples
- to the library.
-
- 4 Instrument Library
-
- 4.1 What is it?
-
- The instrument library is used to store the parameters of
- instruments. It contains 99 usable sublibraries with 100
- instruments each. In practice it means you can define 9900
- instruments into the library. The library also provides
- an easy way to select instruments when making a song. You
- can write descriptions for each instrument, and then choose
- the instruments for the song by descriptions. You can also
- test instruments within the library, but it's often not
- practical, for most instruments are probably on disks, so you'll
- have to dig the correct instrument disks for testing...
- The instrument library also contains a sublibrary called
- clipboard (#99). Don't mix this clipboard with the one used
- for copying stuff in the edit patterns mode. The clipboard
- can be used for transferring and adding instruments to the
- library. Remark that the clipboard is NOT saved to disk, so
- it's emptied when you exit the program.
-
- 4.2 Moving around in the instrument library
-
- To get to the instrument library one must either press F4 or
- select it from the edit menu. In the menu, the bright block
- is your cursor, which can be moved with the cursor keys.
- The screen is also divided into two parts. The lower displaying
- the sublibraries, and the upper one contents of the current
- sublibrary (one with grey background on the lower side). You
- can toggle the sides with TAB key. In the lower side you can
- edit the names of the sublibraries, and in the upper one, the
- instruments contained in the instrument library.
-
- 4.3 The fields in the upper section.
-
- The upper section is divided into multiple fields, containing
- the information about a sample. The first field from the left
- is the description field. It (as all text fields in ST) can
- be edited with only BackSpace. The other fields are same
- as in edit samples. (see 2.3)
-
- 4.4 Commands specific to the Edit Library mode.
-
- TAB.....Used for toggling the upper/lower side. The current side
- is displayed with triangles in the middle left side screen.
- <,>.....Select previous/next sublibrary.
- DEL.....Delete current instrument from the library
- INS.....Make room for a new instrument
- ALT-M...Move instrument to different disk. The disk will be prompted
- after selecting this command. The sample will be deleted form
- the old disk.
- ALT-C...Copy current sub-library to clipboard.
- ALT-F...Fill clipboards disk values with the disk value in the first
- instrument in the clipboard (the one on row 0)
- ALT-P...Begin place function. Place can only be started in the
- clipboard. When ALT-P is pressed, the instrument under cursor
- appears to the middle of the screen. Then the cursor can be
- moved to a library this instrument should be situated. When
- pressing enter the instrument will be inserted to cursor.
- After the instrument is placed, a next instrument in the
- clipboard will appear to the middle of the screen and can
- be placed. ALT-P also terminates the place function. When
- place is in effect, all TEST fields will play the sample
- which is to be placed.
- ALT-S...Will skip the instrument currently being placed and selects
- the next instrument for placing.
- SPACE...When pressed on the filename field, pops up a filepad which
- displays instruments in cache, and from where you can quickly
- select an instrument on the harddisk.
-
- 4.5 Creating the instrument library
-
- 4.5.1 Creating a library manually
-
- To simple but hard way to create the library is to copy
- instruments as you gather them to instrument disks, and
- then add them to the library by writing their name, description
- and other parameters.
-
- 4.5.2 Easier creation way
-
- If you have many modules already, you can exstract the instruments
- and their parameters from the modules. This can be accomplished
- by loading a module at a time, and then executing ALT-T from
- the edit samples mode to copy the instrument information to
- the clipboard. The ALT-T also saves all the samples in the module
- to instrument disk 99 (hard disk). After ALT-T has been pressed,
- one must go to the clipboard in edit library mode, and move,
- if he want's to, the instruments to other instrument disk, and
- thus freeing space on the harddisk. This can be accomplished with
- ALT-M. Then the instruments must be moved to their correct
- directories with the ALT-P (place) function.
-
- 4.5.3 Adding separate samples easily
-
- To add a group of samples easily, copy them to the ADD directory.
- Then execute ALT-A, which will transfer them to instrument disk 99
- and copy their names to the clipboard, from where you'll only have
- to place (move) them.
-
-
- 5 Orders
-
- 5.1 What are they?
-
- The orders are used to define the order in which the patterns are
- played.
-
- 5.2 Editing orders
-
- The get to the diting mode, you must either press F1, or select
- Orders from Edit menu. The edit orders display is divided into
- two coluns, the left one specifying the order number, and the
- right one specifying which pattern to play at that order.
-
- 5.3 Commands specific to Edit Orders
-
- DEL.....Deletes the order the cursor is on
- INS.....Makes room for order to the cursor
- ALT-C...Clears the song/samples. When ALT-C is selected, the
- program will ask whether samples should be preserved,
- so you can save the instruments, but clear only the
- patterns in addition to clearing the entire song.
-
-
- 6 Patterns
-
- 6.1 What are they?
-
- The patterns describe the actual notes to be played. The music
- is divided into patterns mainly to make it easier to repeat
- some parts of it. This can be accomplished by simply playing
- patterns many times.
-
- 6.2 Editing patterns
-
- The edit patterns mode can be netered with either F2 or with
- menus. The screen is divided into 5 main columns, of which
- the first one specifies the row, and tha last four ones each
- represent channels (leftmost is number 1, rightmost number 4).
- Each channel consists of 6 subfields:
- C#1 02 ∙∙ H08
- │ │ │ │ │└Info byte
- │ │ │ │ └Special command
- │ │ │ └Volume (∙∙ = default)
- │ │ └Instrument (∙∙ = last one)
- │ └Octave (0-4)
- └Note
- The note field, as it's name suggests, specifies the note to be
- played, and the octave field at which octave the note is to be
- played. The instrument field specifies the instrument used
- for this sample. It has no effect is note is not specified.
- It can also be omitted. If so, the last instrument for that
- channel is used. The next field specifies the volume for
- an instrument. It can be changed while a note is being
- played to create volume slide effects. If it's omitted, the
- default volume for the current instrument is used. The last two
- fields specify a possible special command.
- There are also defaults for some values. They are shown on the
- screens upper section. Defaults include octave (for the keyboards
- bottom row), volume and sample. Defaults can be changed with
- approriate keys or by writing a new value to volume/sample/octave
- field. Last value written to any of the previously mentioned fields
- will make it a default one for future operations.
-
- 6.3 Commands specific to Edit Orders
-
- +,-....Change pattern
- /,*....Change default octave
- <,>....Change default sample
- INS....Insert row. This command inserts an empty row to the cursor.
- Notes beginning from the one the cursor is on are moved one
- row downwards and the last note in the pattern is deleted.
- DEL....Delete row. This command deletes the row the cursor is on
- and moves all the rows below one row upwards. It empties
- also the new last note in the pattern.
- .(dot).Deletes the note currently on writing empty on top of it
- ALT-B..Mark area begin. The area is displayed with blue background.
- ALT-E..Mark area end.
- ALT-T..Mark entire pattern to pattern. Handy for copying entire
- patterns!
- ALT-L..Mark entire channel to area.
- ALT-U..Unmark area. This removes the blue background.
- ALT-C..Copy marked area to clipboard. This command copies the
- area with the blue background for later copying.
- ALT-P..Insert clipboard to cursor. Inserts the clipboard to
- the current cursor position moving notes under it
- downwards in the pattern.
- ALT-O..Overwrite clipboard to cursor. This command copies
- the clipboard to cursor and deletes any notes it is
- placed upon.
- ALT-S..Set sample in area. Sets every sample number on the
- area selected to current sample.
- ALT-V..Set volume in area. Sets the default volume to entire
- area.
- ALT-A..Substract halfnote from area. This command decreases
- every notes value by a halfnote on the selected area.
- For example C#2 becomes C-2 and C-3 becomes B-2.
- ALT-Q..Add halfnote to area. Same as substract, but adds
- instead of substracting.
- ALT-M..Toggle polymode for channel. With this command you can
- include/exclude channels from polymode note-entering.
- in polymode entering, the cursor is moved to the next
- channel having the polymode set whenever a note is entered.
- Thus in polymode notes pressed will be divided between
- selected channels. This allows notes to play longer;
- a new note can start while the old one is being played.
- Of course this takes more channels. Polymode is disabled
- if no channels are selected. The selected status is shown
- on the bottomrow.
- ALT-Z..Erase marked area. This command clears the area selected
- to empty note values. Use it with care!
-
- 6.4 Special commands
-
- 6.4.1 What are they?
-
- The special commands can be used to change the way a note is played
- and also alter songs order and other things. They consist of a letter
- secifying the command, and an hexadecimal infobyte. (volume and
- instrument are decimal). There is one important (and complex) thing
- one should know about special codes. That is WHEN they are processed.
- It matters only with codes altering pitch, volume or other things
- which will be changed softly. For every row, these commands will
- be run by TEMPO/10-1 times. For example if tempo is 60, the volume
- slide will be run 5 times, which means that command D02 slides
- the volume down 5*2=10 units every row.
-
- 6.4.2 List of special commands
-
- A - Tempo. This command sets the tempo for the song. The tempo
- can be changed anytime, and effects all four channels. The
- default tempo is 60.
- B - Jump. This command breaks the current pattern, and jumps
- to order row specified by the infobyte. It can be used
- to create a beginning for a song, which is not repeated
- when the song ends. i.e. it can be jumped over.
- C - Break. This command breaks the current pattern, and
- plays the next one in orderlist.
- D - Slide volume. This command slides volume up/down.
- If the hi nibble (the left hex digit) is specified, the
- volume is increased by the amout the digit specifies.
- If the lo nibble is set, the volume will be decreased.
- E - Portamento up. This command slides the notes pitch
- up by a specified amount.
- F - Portamento down.
- G - Note Portamento. This command slides to a note. It's
- most easily clarified by an example:
- C-2 01 .. .00 On this line, instrument 1 starts playing
- .. .. .. .00 note C2.
- E-2 .. .. G05 On this line, note E2 is NOT played, but
- ... .. .. G05 the pitch is slided by amount of 5 towards
- ... .. .. G1F the E2 note. Remark that the amount must again
- be multiplied with the TEMPO/10-1 told about in the previous
- chapter. When the pitch reaches the note specified when it was
- started, the command has no effect.
- H - Vibrato. This command vibrates the sample, at a speed specified
- by the hi-nibble (bigger is faster). The lo-nibble specifies
- the vibrato size. (bigger is more vibrating).
- I - Tremor. This command rapidly turns the sound on/off.
- the hi-nibble specifies the time the sample is to be on
- (subrows, speified by the TEMPO/10-1) and the lo-nibble
- the time it should be off. The sound is tremored as long as
- the tremor commands are set.
- J - Arpeggio. Play chords. Alters the notes pitch fast. Three
- stages: Note, Note+lo nibble halfnotes, Note+hi nibble halfnotes
- (NOTE: Arpeggio hasn't been tested with Amiga musics using it
- (note found) so it probably differs with amiga.
- K - Volume portamento. Not yet operative.
- L - Volume vibrato. Not yet operative.
-
-
- 7 Sample list
-
- 7.1 What is it?
-
- The sample list, as it's name suggests, lists all samples used
- in the song. It also contains different parameters for all
- samples (parameters have been described earlier in this document).
- When instruments are added or deleted from the list, the samples
- should be reloaded by pressing F7. The fields are same as in
- Edit Library, with two exceptions. First the description field is
- not availible, and second, there are two 'Test' fields. You
- can also edit the song name from sample list by pressing ALT-E.
-
- 7.2 Test fields and beat testing.
-
- There are two test field after each sample name. By pressing
- the pianokeyboard keys while in this filed, the sample will
- be played. The 'Test1' field test the sample in one channel,
- thus each keypress starting a new note stops the previous
- note. The 'Test4' field enables you to play multiple notes
- so that they all play together. This is accomplished by
- playing the instument in each of the four availible channels,
- so if first note goes to channel 2, the next one goes to channel 3
- and so on. When all channels are used (4 notes played simultaneusly)
- the next note goes to the first channel and removes the oldest
- of the 4 notes from playing.
- There is also an Beat Test (ALT-B) option. In this mode you
- can easily play multiple instruments and test rythms etc. When
- in this mode, a text will be displayed and numbers '1'..'9'
- play samples 1..9 and keys 'A'..'V' samples 10..31. The samples
- are played at C2. To alter height in beat testing, change the
- C2SPD field from sample list.
-
- 7.3 List of commands
-
- <.......Substract 10h from tempo
- >.......Add 10h to tempo
- /.......Substract 1 from tempo
- *.......Add 1 to tempo
- ALT-E...Edit song name (on upper screen)
- ALT-S...Save samples to disk(s). Every sample will be saved to
- the disk named in 'Ds' field. Disk 00 means to cache
- directory (INS).
- ALT-O...Save one sample. The sample the cursor is on.
- ALT-L...Load one sample from disk. As F7, but for the one cursor is on.
- ALT-B...Beat testing
- ALT-C...Copy all instrument to library clipboard.
- ALT-M...Move instrument to different disk
- ALT-T...Same as ALT-C + moves all instruments to disk 99.
- ENTER...Pick instrument from library.
- SPACE...When pressed on the filename field, pops up a filepad which
- displays instruments in cache, and from where you can quickly
- select an instrument on the harddisk.
-
-
- 8 Loading, saving and playing songs
-
- 8.1 Loading a song/module
-
- To load a song/module, select Load form main menu, or press
- either CTRL-R (for module), CTRL-L (for song) or CTRL-A
- (for amiga module). The use the file selection pad to
- select the correct file.
-
- 8.2 Saving song/module
-
- Saving is similar to loading, with one exception. Amiga modules
- can not be saved. They must be saved as ST modules.
-
- 8.3 Playing songs
-
- There are many ways to play a song. The simpliest one is
- pressing F5, which starts song in memory and displays infopage.
- If song is already being played, the infopage is only redisplayed.
- To restart song, press SHIFT-F5. There are also two playmodes
- useful when composing a song. First one is play pattern (F6).
- It will play the current pattern (the one the cursor is in in the
- Edit Patterns window) over and over again, until stopped with F8,
- which will always stop whatever is being played. The another
- playmode is Play from order (SHIFT-F6) which starts playing from
- order row the cursor is in in the Edit Order screen.
-
- 8.4 Infopage and status line info
-
- The infopage is displayed when the song is being played.
- Infopage can be exited with ESC and recalled with F5. It shows
- current instrument for each channel and a sort of volume meter
- for each channel. The meter is not realistic, but paractically
- works and shows when notes are struck, and at which volume.
- The statusline will also give information about the music
- while it's being played. From there you can see the current
- order row, pattern, row and loops, which tells how many times the
- song has been played (It doesn't always work, if jump to order
- command is used.) The statusline also displays the percentage telling
- how much of the song is played. All information is not displayed
- when palying patterns.
-
- 8.5 Scope
-
- There is also alternate 'infopage'. It is a scope display, and
- you can view it with CTRL-Z (or from menu). It displays the actual
- (and realistic) curve displaying the data values ouputted to the
- speaker. It is in fact songs 'waveform' in a way. Mainly the use
- from scope is purely entertaining. The scoop display requires CGA
- or compatible graphics display.
-
- 8.6 Tracking and Recording
-
- There are two quite similar playing modes which can also be used
- for easy song entering and sort of song debugging. The Trace Song
- function starts from the beginning unless the song is already being
- played. In this case it acts like Scope, and continues from the
- current song position. It shows the patterns as they are played.
- The cyan bar in the middle of the screen shows the current position
- in song. The screen is updated while the song is being played.
- The record option is otherwise similar to Tracking but you can
- select the current channel with arrows, and all notes you play,
- will be put to the current song position, on the channel you are
- on. Thus you can play a song from keyboard directly to memory.
- The tracking is not yet very exact, so you'll probably have to
- modify the pauses between notes afterwards. It's also suggested
- that you use faster tempo than normally. For example with tempo
- 30 the recording works quite well.
-
- 8.7 Loading amiga modules
-
- The load amiga module command (CTRL-A) prompts for filenames as normal
- load. It converts amiga modules from MasterSoundTracker, SoundTracker
- (..V2.4) and NoiseTracker (..V2.0). It requires modules to be unpacked.
- After the conversion is started, you can see the number of patterns
- converted in the right hand corner of the screen. On the screens
- right side will also be dislayed all commands used in the song.
- The left side will view the amigas 20 char filenames, which sometimes
- contain a message rather than instrument names. The amiga names
- will be truncated in the conversion. In the middle of the
- screen possible errors are shown. Errors mean that something in
- the module is not recognized by the converter, and doesn't
- always mean the song won't work. Most often the song works fine,
- but sometimes little differently than in amiga. It's also
- possible that the conversion totally failes resulting in something
- no one can call a song. If you plan to use the instruments
- in the amiga module, check that the filenames are legal for
- MS-DOS, before saving them. (The converter removes most illegal
- names). Especially remember to fill 'empty' names. Normally
- you can recognize whether or not a sample in sample list is
- empty by looking at the volume. Amiga files normally have volume
- 0 in samples not used.
-
-
- ===============================================================================
-
-
- This document, the help file and the Scream Tracker are constantly
- being enhanced, so it's possible they differ a bit from each other.
- The help files quickhelps should always be accurate. Some recently
- added commands might only be found on quickhelps! But as always:
- try everything, and something may work out!
-
-
-