Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/394b.lha/CZL230/CZL230.DOC

Text File | 1990-06-28 | 8.6 KB | 258 lines

  1.0 Introduction

  CZL230  is  an  Instrument  Librarian for the CZ-230S synthesizer from
  Casio.   It  was  built based on CZL (v1.0) which is used with most of
  the  other  CZ  keyboards.  It was customized for the CZ-230S based on
  information  (and  requests) from CZ-230S owners. Since I don't have a
  CZ-230S,  I  hope that all that information was correct. If you find a
  problem with CZL230, *PLEASE* let me know so I can correct it.

  If  you  have  never  seen  CZL (versions 1.0 or 0.8), you may want to
  get   the  full  set of documents, which should be in another ARC file
  where  you  got  this  one. However, this document should be enough to
  get  you  started  without  requiring the full up docs, which are long
  and specific for the non-CZ230 version of CZL.

  CZL230  is  SHAREWARE.  Some of you CZ-230 owner's have managed to get
  some  use  out  of CZL already and have sent me a contribution. If you
  have   contributed then thanks, and consider CZL230 as my gift to you.
  If  you  haven't  contributed, try out this customized version of CZL.
  If  you  use   it  beyond  that  test drive, I ask that you send me 10
  dollars   (is  that  going to break anyone?). If you don't like CZL230
  (enough  that  you  won't use it), drop me a note and make suggestions
  for  improvements.  CZL230  has  come  a  long  way  since  its  first
  release,   and  with  more  encouragement  I  will  probably make more
  improvements. Send your contribution or suggestions to:

                    Steve Anderson
                    3913 W. 184th Street
                    Torrance, CA  90504




  2.0 Compatibility With Other Versions

  From  a Librarian standpoint, CZL230 is completely compatible with the
  other  versions  of  CZL.  That is, all instrument data files that you
  find  on  the  PLink, CIS, GEnie, or your local BBS that work with CZL
  will  work  with  CZL230.  There  are  getting  to  be  alot  of those
  instruments around, and I would suggest you download some of them.


  3.0 CZL and the CZ-230S

  The  CZ-230S  has  a  total  of  100  instruments. These are addressed
  across  the MIDI as voices 0 through 99. Of these 100 instruments, the
  first  96 are read-only, and cannot be modified. These can be selected
  across  the  MIDI,  but  you can't load new instrument data into them.
  The  last  four  voices  (96-99)  are  read/write, so that they can be
  modified.  Unfortunately  for most CZ-230 owners, Casio didn't provide
  a  way on the keyboard to make such changes. The good news is that you
  can  load these voices across the MIDI, in the same format used by the
  other CZ keyboards.










  Enter  CZL230. CZL230 is a full-featured librarian that allows  you to
  maintain  and  edit  instrument  data  files  for voices 96-99 on your
  CZ-230S.  It  also   provides  a  useful graphical interface to select
  (all  100), name, load, save, delete, and edit  instrument data on the
  CZ-230S.  CZL230  has  been  designed  with  an  effort  to  make  the
  interface   between   the  Amiga  and  the  CZ  transparent,  in  that
  everything  you  do  with  the  program  has  immediate  effect on the
  keyboard.



  3.0 Files

  There  are  four  types of files used by CZL230.  The four file types,
  their  functions, and how they are different from earlier versions are
  described in the following paragraphs:

     o Defaults  File  -  CZL  must  find this file in order to operate.
       Some  key things to keep in mind about the defaults file are: (1)
       It  would  normally  be  named  "CZ.defaults"  but  can  be named
       anything  and  specified  on  the  CLI  command line (e.g. typing
       "CZL230  myCZ230.config"  at  the  CLI prompt would load the file
       "myCZ230.cofig"  as  the  defaults  file).  If  no  command  line
       argument   is   provided,   CZL   will   try  to  open  the  file
       CZL:CZ.defaults,  in  which  case  you  will need to have done an
       "assign"  of  CZL:  to  the correct path where you keep the file;
       (2)  The first entry in the defaults file is path and name of the
       current  environment  file  (to be described later) which also is
       necessary  for  CZL  to  run.   (3)  The  remaining  lines of the
       defaults  file  specify  the  default  path  names where you want
       CZL230  to  normally  look  for  instruments,  environments,  and
       banks,   respectively   (these   are  all  specific  file  types,
       descriptions  to  follow).  The  entries  must  be in that order,
       start  in  the first column, and no blank lines are allowed.  (4)
       Comment  fields are now allowed - CZL will read each line until a
       "white  space"  (space,  tab,  etc.)  then  ignore the rest. This
       means  that  you  can't  have  imbedded  spaces  in  any  of your
       entries,  else  the  part  after  the  space will be ignored as a
       comment.

       This  all probably makes more sense with an example. Here is what
       a defaults file might look like (remeber, the comments are OK):






















                 CZL:current.env        <- My current environment file
                 CZL:env                <- My default path for environments
                 CZL:inst               <- My default instrument path
                 CZL:banks              <- My default path for bank files

     o Environment  files  -  These  files are just text files that tell
       CZL230  the names and paths of instrument data files that you use
       together.  Each  environment  file  will  contain four instrument
       names,  one per line.  A special version of environment file, the
       current  environment  file,  is  used  by  CZL230 to remeber what
       voices  (instruments)  you  have in the CZ between sessions. When
       you  load  one  of  the  writable  voices  on  your  CZ-230S, the
       keyboard  will  retain  it until you change it again, even though
       you  turn  off  the  power.  CZL230  retains  the  names  of  the
       instruments  you have in your CZ in the current environment file,
       so   that  each  time  you  start  up  CZL230  it  remebers  what
       instruments  you  have. If you do a "Save Env" or "Open Env" only
       the  names  are  read from / written to the environment file; the
       actual instrument data is not manipulated.

     o Instrument  Files  -  These  files  contain  the  binary data for
       individual  instruments. The files are 128-byte packed voice data
       from the CZ, one voice per file.

     o Bank  Files  -  These  files  are  binary  files  containing  the
       instrument  data  for  all  four  writable  instruments. They are
       simply  sets  of  multiple  128-byte  voice blocks. The important
       thing  to  remember  is  that  Bank  files don't have  instrument
       names  in  them,  so that when you load a bank file you don't get
       an  updated  display  on the instrument window. This is dangerous
       because  suddenly  the  voice  names shown on the screen may have
       nothing  to  do  with the data you just loaded. Doing a "Save All
       Instruments"    would    be    disastrous,   writing   over   the
       correctly-named  instrument  files  with the just-loaded data. If
       the  right  order  of  things  are done, this can be avoided. The
       intent   here  is  that  you   would  load  an  environment  file
       (containing  only  names),  then  after verifying  that it is the
       set  of  voices  you want, load the corresponding bank for  those
       instruments.  To help in doing this, when you load an environment
       file,  CZL copies the environment file name into the default bank
       file  name.  Thus  if  you  load an environment then go to load a
       bank  file,  you  could load the corresponding bank file. Anyway,
       'til I come up with a good fail-safe, just *BE CAREFUL*.


  4.0 Operation

  CZL230  is  relatively  self-explanatory  in operation, so that rather
  than  give  a lengthy explanation I would encourage you to simply take
  it  for a test drive. There are two windows, the Instrument Window and
  the  Edit  Window.  The Instrument Window is the main window where you
  can  do  instrument selection (go ahead, click on a name!), and all of
  the  Librarian  functions.  The Edit window is only available when you
  have  selected  one of the writable voices (96, 97, 98, or 99), and is
  opened  when  you select "Modify..." from the Edit menu. It allows you









  to  create  new  instruments (even random ones), modify existing ones,
  or enter data from one of the Casio CZ Pro-Tone books.