PC Shareware 1996 December

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ PC Shareware 1996 December / PC_Shareware-1996-12.iso / dos / soundclu / readme.txt < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1996-11-09 | 20.5 KB | 443 lines

S o u n d C l u b - t h e r e a i n ' t n o l i m i t s ! -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The Idea of Sound Club 2. What Is Needed to Run Sound Club? 3. Facts and Technical Specifications 4. Getting Started 4.1 The Menu System 4.2 Setup 4.3 Concepts 4.4 The Main Screen 4.5 Creating a Song 5. Sound Club license policy 6. Our Contact Address 1. THE IDEA OF SOUND CLUB. -------------------------- The idea behind producing SC was to take a giant leap on the area of digital music processing. Since we began developing SC about three years ago, we had to predict the upcoming changes of hardware, i.e. computers and sound cards. We put the limit of simultaneous voices to 32, a task appropriate for a fast 486 only, and all sound wave calculations are done with 16-bit precision to make use of the 16-bit sound cards. In SC we simply put together the features essential for the digital music editor of the future. They are: * User-friendly, simply-point-and-click, well planned and designed interface. All the present digital editors have the problem being so called 'tracker type', forcing the user to learn the hexadecimal system of numeration, giving him strongly limited number of 'channels' to 'fit' the desired notes in, and having no mouse support, to say nothing about nongraphical user interface. In other words, they produce the false impression that the joy of creating digital music is available for hackers only. SC is definitely going to change that! * Converter for wide range of different music file formats, including MOD, CMF and MIDI files of different synthesizers. SC is surely a song editor with the largest support of different file formats on the Earth (the number of them is 8 plus its own song format and growing!). This feature casts the user right into the middle of the world of computer music! Please refer to the "Facts and Technical Specifications" section for the complete list of supported formats. * Easy but effective instrument editor. Most of the music editors have really clumsy instrument editor or do not have one at all. Of course there are good independent instrument editors, but usually they are 'too professional' demanding a lot of dedication while learning them. * Powerful sound synthesizer. This enables you to create well sounding instruments each of which take only several bytes of disk space! Since it is compatible with FM synthesizer used in AdLib and SoundBlaster cards, the sound of converted CMF & ROL songs is adequate. (CMF and ROL are the song formats written for such FM synthesizer). * Fast data compressor. The problem with digital song files is that digitized instruments take a great amount of disk space. That's why the usual routine of maintaining digital music files was: unzip it, change/listen to it, zip it again. SC will change this. Compressing/ decompressing song files is performed automatically when saving/ loading them. The average compression rate exceeds the one achieved when using ordinary archievers. And due to extreme optimation, the time taken by compression routine is almost innoticeable. * Uncompromised sound mixer (sampler). We've spent a lot of time and effort designing and optimizing this part of SC in order to ensure the maximum possible output quality. It is thus possible that you won't even recognize your old sound card if you let SC to preform on it! * A long list of sound card drivers ranging from Disney Sound Source to Gravis UltraSound. This means that actually the only thing Sound Club demands from a card is the presence of digital to analog converter (DAC). * A complete illustrated users guide. 2. WHAT IS NEEDED TO RUN SOUND CLUB? ------------------------------------ Computer type: IBM AT or compatible. Memory: 640k recommended. About 150k of free RAM is needed for the program, but you will need more memory for song data. Graphics: EGA (with 256k video memory) or VGA is required. Sound Club automatically detects the type of your graphics adapter and switches to VGA mode if possible. A command line switch (SCLUB -e) is also provided to force EGA mode even if your computer has a VGA. (Demo version works only with VGA) Sound cards: Sound Club can play music through the PC Speaker without any additional hardware. But for quality sound output, a special sound output device is *GREATLY* recommended. See 'Facts and technical specifications' for details. Mouse: A mouse is also required to use all editing features of the program. Disk space: The registered version of Sound Club takes up about 3Mb of disk space. 3. FACTS AND TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS. -------------------------------------- Sound generation: Digital stereo, using digitized 8-bit instruments. Sampling rate depends on the speed of computer and character of the song. Sound card used Stereo Max sampling rate Bits ----------------------------------------------------- none (PC speaker) No 16000 6 Ad Lib card No 43000 8 Covox Speech Thing No 65000 8 2 Covox Speech Things Yes 65000 8 Covox Sound Master II No 65000 8 Sound Blaster No 22050 8 Sound Blaster 2.0 No 44100 8 Sound Blaster Pro Yes 44100 8 Sound Blaster 16 Yes 44100 16 Pro AudioSpectrum Yes 65000 8 Pro AudioSpectrum 16 Yes 65000 16 Gravis UltraSound Yes 44100 21 Aria chipset soundcards Yes 44100 16 Full stereo: Different instruments can be located anywhere between the right and left stereo channels. In addition, it is possible to change their location at any time. For example, you can create "sliding" effects where the sound source moves freely between stereo channels. Playback: You can playback the whole song or a part of it. You can also playback only one instrument, or a group, to hear how it sounds separately from the others. Trace mode: When in Trace mode, the program displays the current position in song during playback. Song lyrics: You can write lyrics for a song and watch them while playing in Trace mode. Fast forward and rewind during playback. Real time editing: You can playback repeatedly a short part of song and edit it at the same time, hearing the changes you made at once. Keyboard playing: You can play notes with the PC keyboard or external MIDI keyboard before writing, in order to listen how a melody sounds. In addition, you can record your own performance in real-time. Music file formats: Sound Club can load directly song files created by other music editors, such as: Amiga SoundTracker (.MOD) Amiga NoiseTracker (.NST or .MOD) Amiga Oktalyzer (.OKT) Composer 669 (.669) ScreamTracker (.STM) Ad Lib Visual Composer (.ROL) Sound Blaster software (.CMF) MIDI software (.MID) Sound Club has also its own compressed song file format (.SN). Since it is compressed, files converted to Sound Club format take up much less disk space. Sound Club can save songs in SN, 4 channel MOD, 8 channel MOD, and MIDI format. Instruments: An instrument bank file with 500+ instruments is included with the registered version of the program. 4. GETTING STARTED. ------------------- To run Sound Club, type "SCLUB" and press Enter. 4.1 The Menu System. -------------------- Once you have started up Sound Club, you need to know how to move around through the various available options. Main options are selectable from the main menu, a line of buttons at the top of the screen. To select a button, just press either mouse button on it. Alternatively, you may press Alt-'letter', where 'letter' is the highlighted letter on the desired button. For instance, the File submenu may be chosen by pressing Alt-F. To escape from any menu or option, press the Esc key. Certain menu options require you to input text. When Sound Club requires input from you, a small window will be created in which you may type the required input. The standard cursor editing keys apply here (left, right, backspace, delete). Press Enter when you are finished, or Esc to abort the input. Certain menu options (e.g. loading, saving, etc.) require you to input a filename. When Sound Club requires filename input from you, a big file window will be created in which you may select the file you wanted to load, for example. The file window consists of three parts: filename, file list and directory list. When the file window is opened, you will be in the filename part, where you may input the desired filename directly. You may also input a wildcard filename (like "*.sn"). In this case, the file list window is updated to list only files that can be expressed as the wildcard filename. You may also input "*.song". This means "list all songfiles that can be loaded by Sound Club". To move to the next part of file window, press Tab. To move back to the previous part, press Shift-Tab. In the file list part you may select the desired file using standard cursor movement keys (left, right, up, down, home, end, page up, page down) and press Enter if you have found the file. In the directory list part of file window you may change the current disk and directory. In this case, the file list window is updated to list files in new directory. Sometimes some window is too small on screen to display all the data at the same time. In this case it will display only a part of the data and you can "scroll" the window to see more. You can scroll a window using scroll bars. A scroll bar is located on the right (for scrolling up and down) or lower (for scrolling left and right) border of the window. To scroll a window, press buttons located at both ends of the scroll bar. For more flexible scrolling, press and hold down a mouse button on the button located somewhere in the middle of the scroll bar. Then, holding down the button, drag the mouse back and forth to the direction you want to scroll. 4.2 Setup. ---------- Now that you know how to move around in Sound Club, you can configure Sound Club to your particular system and preferences. Select the "Setup" button from the Main Menu. You will be presented with the Setup submenu. Here you may set various options about Sound Club, such as sound cards, directories, etc. The only ones you really need to set right now are the following: - Song directory: this is where Sound Club will look for your songfiles. This option is under the "Directories" button of the Setup submenu. - Sound Card: this is the device to which Sound Club will play music. When you press the "Sound Card" button, a device list is opened. Here you can select your device with up/down arrow keys. If you have found your device, press Enter. When you are done, press "Save configuration" button to save the new settings to a configuration file called SCLUB.CFG. Next time you start up Sound Club, this file will be read and the defaults set according to your specifications. 4.3 Concepts. ------------- To use Sound Club, it is necessary first to understand some general terminology and concepts dealing with song structure. The fundamental piece is a note. It consists of pitch, volume and balance. A voice is a string of notes. An instrument is also associated with a voice. Several voices together form a pattern. A pattern has also tempo information and song lyrics. Each pattern has also a name. The final part of song is called Sequence. It determines the order in which the patterns are played. By arranging patterns into a sequence, you can group musical motives into a song. A given pattern can appear in the sequence more than once, if desired -- this means that for repeated musical passages, you need not create another identical pattern. The sequence can be viewed and edited by pressing the Sequence button in View submenu. A digitized instrument (sometimes called "sample") is a collection of digitized data which mimics a particular instrument (e.g. flute, piano, guitar, etc.). Using digitized instruments make your music sound "real" as opposed to "computerish" (simple square wave beeps of simple synthesizers). A complete song, therefore, consists of a number of PATTERNS, each of which contains several voices. These patterns are SEQUENCED into a particular order, which defines the song the listener will hear. The INSTRUMENT that is associated with each voice determines the timbral quality (sound) that the notes of the voice make as they are played. 4.4 The Main Screen. -------------------- The main screen is divided into three main parts: main menu buttons at the very top of the screen, the note windows, and the Voices window at the bottom of the screen. The name of the current song you are editing is displayed in the upper right corner of the screen. The name of the current pattern you are editing is displayed in the upper right corner of the Notes window. When you start Sound Club, an empty pattern with no voices is created and this pattern is placed in the Sequence. The name of this first pattern is "Pattern I". +------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+------+------------------------+ | File | View | Block | Voice | Play | Setup | Help | *** Song name *** | +------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+------+---+----------------+---+ | Notes | - |* Pattern name *| + | +----+----------------------------------------------+---+------------+-+-+---+ |B -2| | | | |Mouse| |A#-2| | | | | | |A -2| | | | +-----+ |G#-2| | | | |Key- | |G -2| ---- |---- ---- |---- -| |board| |F#-2| | | | +-----+ |F -2| | | | |Port | |E -2| | | | | | |D#-2| | | | +-----+ |D -2| - | | | |Copy | |C#-2| | ================| | | | |C -2| |======== | | +-----+ |B -1| | | =| |Trans| |A#-1| | |======== | | pose| |A -1| ========| | | +-----+ |G#-1| | | | |Load | |G -1| | | -| |Block| |F#-1| | |-------- | +-----+ |F -1| --------| | |@| | | |E -1| | | | +--+--+ |D#-1| | ------ -------- | | | | | |C#-2| | | | +--+--+ |C -2| | | | | | | |B -1| | | | +--+--+ |A#-1| | | | | Ins | +-+--+---------------------------------------------------------------+-+-----+ |-| Volume | All | +-+--+---------------------------------------------------------------+-+-----+ | 30 | |================================|=================|@| | | | =| | | | | | | = | | | | | | | = | | | | | | 26 | = | | | | | +-+--+---------------------------------------------------------------+-+ | |<| @ |>| | +-+------------------------------------------------------------------+-+-----+ | Voices | +------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+-+ | Soft Piano | Bass Guitar | Bass Guitar | Snare |^| | Cymbal | Oboe | | |@| | | | | |v| +------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+-+ When you start Sound Club, you will see only one note window: the main one, called "Notes". In this window, you can see the pitch of notes. Each note is represented by a black or gray bar. Bars that are located higher on the screen are also higher in pitch. This is also represented by a piano keyboard on the left end of this window. Other note windows are Volume, Balance, Tempo and Lyrics. You can open and close them as you wish by pressing the corresponding buttons in View submenu. In Volume window you can see the volume of each note. In Balance window you can see the stereo location of a sound that a note makes when it is played. Notes, Volume and Balance windows work together with the Voices window, which is located at the bottom of the screen. In Voices window you can select which Voice is shown in Notes, Volume and Balance windows. To select a voice, press the left mouse button on the name of instrument whose voice you want to select. The selected voice is shown with white color in Voices window while other voices are gray. In Notes, Volume and Balance windows, notes of the selected voice are black while other notes are gray. All five note windows can be scrolled in left/right direction together using the note scroll bar, which is located between note windows and Voices window. 4.5 Creating a Song. -------------------- So, when you start Sound Club, you find yourself editing an empty pattern called "Pattern I". The first step in creating a song should be adding a voice to the pattern. After all, you need voices in order to hear your music at all. This can be done by pressing the Voice button in main menu. This opens the Voice submenu, from which you should choose the Add option. This opens the 'Add Voice' window. Now you must choose the instrument you want to associate with the new voice. The 'Add Voice' window consists of two parts. The upper part lists instrument types, such as guitars, pianos, etc. The lower part lists all instruments of the selected type. You may move around in the 'Add Voice' window with the arrow keys or mouse. Use the Tab key to select which part of the window is "active". In the lower part you can play each listed instrument without leaving the window by pressing the Play button. When you have found the instrument you wanted to use, press the Ok button (or just press the Enter key). Now you should define some notes on the voice. This can be done by pressing the left mouse button in the Notes window. 5. SOUND CLUB LICENSE POLICY ---------------------------- The Sound Club program is copyright (c) 1994 BlueMoon Software Inc., all rights reserved. The Sound Club software may not be distributed in incomplete or modified form, nor sold for profit, without written permission of the author. All individual users must register Sound Club if they continue to use Sound Club after the 3 week trial period has ended. All commercial distributors that include Sound Club on a disk, CD ROM, or any other media, must have a written permission of the author, unless the product containing Sound Club is sold under US $10.00 or equivalent. 6. OUR CONTACT ADDRESS. ----------------------- BlueMoon Software P.O. Box 3689 Tallinn EE0090 Estonia PHONE: +372 641-00-48 BBS/FAX: +372 641-00-49 E-MAIL: sclub@dc.goodwin.ee