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*************************************************************************** ** ** ** MED - music editor, by Teijo Kinnunen 1989, 1990 ** ** ** ** Instructions for version 2.1x 14.7.1990 ** ** ** *************************************************************************** Welcome to use MED-music editor!!! MED is basically just one SoundTracker- clone, but there are many features that SoundTracker lacks (e.g. MIDI-support). First few words about editing. If you've used SoundTracker, you probably know these things. MED doesn't use standard notation (like DMCS, for example). Instead the music is represented by note names and numbers. Example: 01 C-2 1000 --- 0000 E-5 K210 --- 0F20 02 D-2 1000 E#1 4000 --- 0000 --- 0000 03 --- 0000 --- 0000 --- 0000 --- 0000 etc. There are both advantages and disadvantages. A disadvantage is that you can't print notes that anybody could play. The advantages are for example faster and more powerful editing and the possibility to control the sound more powerfully. The song consists of blocks, every block contains 1 - 256 lines. There can be up to 100 blocks and they can be played in any order and any number of times. Then about the program itself: The user interface of MED is divided in ten "panels", each one containing different gadgets. Only one of these panels is visible on the screen. You can select the displayed panel with ten gadgets which are always visible. There are lots of keyboard shortcuts. After you've learned the use of the program, you probably want to learn these shortcuts because they make the program much more powerful to use. There are also some things which are available only using the keyboard, so you should read the list of keyboard shortcuts at the end of this file. Entering the notes ================== Notes are entered with Amiga's keyboard (entering with MIDI-keyboard is also possible). The keys are ordered in piano style: 2 3 5 6 7 9 0 ´ \ Q W E R T Y U I O P Å ] S D G H J L Ö Z X C V B N M , . / This way you can enter about 2,5 octaves of the 5,2 octaves available. Keys F1 - F4 can be used to switch the octaves. The lower row of keys (Z - /) is the lower octave, Q - U is the higher octave and keys I - \ are part of even higher octave. If you have an instrument loaded, you can hear the sound when you press the keys. If you want to enter notes to the block, you must turn on editing (Esc). DEL-key is used to enter the pause (---). The cursor can be moved with the cursor keys. Blocks and the playing sequence =============================== When you compose a song, you do it block-by-block. Fill a block with notes, create new block, fill it with notes... To get the blocks played in correct order, you must create also the playing sequence list. It is just a list of block numbers, which are then played in that order, from beginning to end. This way you can play the same block many times in your song. When the last block from the list has been played, the song will start again from the beginning. It's also possible to stop the playing. The maximum length of the playing sequence is 256 numbers. This should be enough for any use (if not, write me and I may fix that in a future version). Status bar ========== Between the panel and the block display is the status bar, which displays some "strategic" information which is always good to be visible. +-------+-----+--+-+--+--------+--+------------------------+ |001/003|00/02|12|E|2×|::::::::|01|AnalogString | +-------+-----+--+-+--+--------+--+------------------------+ | | | | | | | | Playseq-ptr | | | | Tracks Instr # Instrument name | | | | Block # | | Insert empty note between notes | | Keyboard octaves Editing on Playseq-ptr: The first number is the current playing sequence number (starting from 1) and the second is the number of playing sequence numbers in the song. The 1st number is meaningful when you're playing the song or editing the playseq list. Block #: The first number is the number of the current block (starting from 0) and the 2nd is the number of the last block. It does not tell how many blocks there are, but if you add 1 to it, it does. In the example there are 3 blocks, and the first is currently displayed. Keyboard octaves: This number tells you which octaves are currently in use when you play the Amiga keyboard. The first number is the octave number of the lower row of keys and the 2nd is the higher. It can be changed with F1 - F4. Editing on: This is a quite important option. When the editing is off, you can't insert notes or numbers to the song. To turn it on/off press Esc or click the "E" with mouse. When the "E" is highlighted, editing is on. 2×: This switch activates the double space between the notes you enter. It is useful when you're entering slow pieces of music. You don't have to hit DEL so much. Tracks: It's possible to switch tracks on/off during editing. The 16 points represent the 16 possible tracks. When the point is red (default) the track is turned on. When it's white, then this track is turned off. Instr #: The number of the current instrument. The maximum number of instruments is 63. The instruments are "numbered" 01 - 1V. Instrument name: The name of the current instrument. You can change the instrument number, current block and current playseq ptr by clicking on the number you want to change with the mouse. Left button increases, right button decreases. This is the fastest way to advance playseq ptr for example by 100: click the 100's number with LMB. Instruments =========== As noted above, there can be up to 63 instruments in one song. There are currently two types of instruments: samples and MIDI instruments. Samples: These are the instruments which are played through four Amiga audio channels. They can be played only within tracks 0 - 3. MED can load raw samples and IFF 8SVX 1, 3 and 5-octave samples. It means that you can load practically any sample to MED and use it in your songs. Note that raw samples and 1-octave 8SVX samples can use only octaves 1 - 3. Octaves 4 and 5 play from octave 3. MIDI instruments: These are not actually instruments. They are just few settings which cause the notes played with that instrument to be sent through MIDI-interface. They don't take memory like the samples. When you want some instrument to be a MIDI-instrument, you must set the MIDI channel which is used when playing notes/effects. You can also set the preset value for the instrument. Then the instrument is automatically played using that preset number of your MIDI-device (synthesizer, keyboard...). You can also set the preset number to 0. Then the preset which is already set in that channel is used. Sample loading ============== Because many people have hundreds/thousands of samples, spread over many different disks/directories, they have to be organized some way. MED handles the organization using a file "MED_paths" (path file). It contains the name of the directory, names of the samples in that directory, name of another directory...and so on. This way MED knows what samples each of your sample disks/directories contain and can load samples from correct disks. The path file is loaded when starting up MED and it must be located in the current directory or S:-directory. This file can be produced with text editor, but it is easier to do it with MED. Detailed instructions later in this file. Note ==== The note and the numbers: command | D # 3 5 1 0 F | | \ | note | \| instrument # data byte (more information about command) "note" is the note to be played (or "---" for no note) "instrument #" is the number of the instrument (01 - 1V). The leading zero is displayed as a space. The number can also be 0. It means that the note is played with same instrument number and with same volume as previous note in that track. "command" is the number of command/effect to play. If there are no effect or commands, command nibble and data byte are zero. "data byte" gives more information about command/effect to the player. Effects/commands are documented later... The numbers can be changed simply with positioning the cursor over the number to be changed and typing the new number. If you have to change the 5th number (between the note and the other numbers: C-212000), which means that sample 10 - 1V is used, position the cursor over the first number that's always visible, hold Shift and enter the 1st number. This is a bit hard to explain, but try it. Because Shift-0 - 9 have other use, press Amiga-Shift-0 - 9. This is not very handy, but because there won't probably be a lot of songs which have over 31 instruments, it doesn't matter very much. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= That was some introduction...now is coming complete reference for all features of MED (at least those I remember...). Maybe I should design a bigger headline here: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= *************************************************************************** * * * +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ * * | MED V2.1x reference | * * +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ * * * *************************************************************************** =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= All right, that was nice...and now to the reference: +----------------------------+ | Files | +----------------------------+ This panel contains the tools you need when handling files. You can save and load with many different formats and also delete them. First of all, there's a file requester. There should be no difficulties with using it. It is simple, but it works. Directory names are printed in white and files in black. There are gadgets for fast selection of drives DF0:, DF1:, DF2:, DH0: and DH1:. If you want to use e.g. Ram Disk, activate the Dir-gadget, clear it (if not already clean), type the name ("ram:") and hit (I think I'll just press) Return. When you have started up MED, you can load the current directory by just activating the gadget and then pressing Return. The File-gadget contains the filename. If you know already the filename, you can ignore the file requester and type the filename (with/without path). This gadget is cleared after file operations, so that you wouldn't accidentaly load anything (and delete the current song). You can easily revert the text with Ctrl-R. There are two set of gadgets for file operations. The 1st set contains gadgets for loading, and the 2nd contains them for saving/deleting. "Load"-gadget displays the 1st set and "Save" the 2nd one. ------- Load Load Song: This is the gadget used to load songs. Loads songs with following formats: MED V1.12, MED V2.00, MED V2.1x, MMD0 (MED modules), SoundFX/old SoundTrackers. The samples are automatically loaded after the song. WARNING: Don't try to load anything as a song!!! If MED can not identify the file, it is loaded as an old SoundTracker file. If it is an old SoundTracker file, it should load well, but if it isn't, you may meet the GURU!!!! MED can't load packed SoundTracker/NoiseTracker files. To import songs, save them as modules, then load to MED with "ST MOD". Sample: Loads the sample. The title bar will display the length of the sample if it loaded ok. ST MOD: With this gadget you can load 31-instrument SoundTracker and NoiseTracker modules. Because there are some differences between MED's and Tracker's commands, they're converted automatically. ------- Save Save Song: When you choose this one, a requester appears and asks you to select the save format. The save formats are described few lines later. There's also "Icon" gadget. When it is selected, MED will create an icon file when saving Song or Sng+samples. If you don't need the icon, turn it off to save some disk space. Sample: Saves the current sample as a raw data. Delete: Deletes the file. MED requests if you really want to delete it. ======= Save formats There are several different file formats available: Song This is the normal song, which you will probably use most often. The song is packed to save disk space. The samples are not saved. They are loaded from your instrument disk(s) using the path list (or absolute paths if instrument names are e.g. ST-01:Ringpiano). Sng+samples Saves the song like the previous one, but also attaches the samples to the end of the file. The result is one clean (but big) file which contains everything needed. This is a good selection if you want to create a demo disk using the music and MEDPlayer. The files load faster and there's no need to hassle with copying the samples to the disk. Module (MMD0) If you're a programmer and want to include songs in your programs, then you need this format. It saves both the song and the samples in one file. It differs from "Sng+samples" many ways. First, the file is not packed. Second, the file will contain ONLY the information which is needed by the player. It doesn't contain for example instrument names. There are also other differences in the structure of the file. These files can be loaded back to MED (they load very fast, because no unpacking is needed). I have included routines to load modules in MED V2.12 distribution disk (see directory "Programmers"). ST-Module If you want to export the music to SoundTracker 2.x or NoiseTracker, you can use this gadget to save it as a module. NOTE: Because there are many things in MED that are not supported by Trackers, some information may be lost: - samples 10 - 1V won't work - only 4 tracks saved, no MIDI support - blocks longer than 64 lines will be truncated to 64 lines - no color or pointer jump information - no relative volume settings, no play/instrument transpose Obj1, Obj2 These are needed only by programmers. The song is saved in MMD0 format, but it is saved directly as Amiga Object File. Obj1 and Obj2 have small differences - see the docs for programmers. Don't include ".o"-suffix to the filename, it'll be automatically added. Also, MED cannot load object files so if you don't want to meet the meditating guru, don't try it. +----------------------------+ | Play | +----------------------------+ This is a very important panel. Here you can control the playing, set the playback speed (tempo), handle the playseq list... Beginning from the left, there is a tall box which contains numbers "00" if there's no song in memory. This is a window to the playseq list. As I said above, the playseq list is the list of blocks to be played. This window show 5 numbers of the list at a time. There are gadgets on the right side of the box which scroll the list up/down/beginning/end. The keyboard equivalent is to hold down the Ctrl-key and then press number 8 from numeric keypad to scroll up, 2 to scroll down, 7 (home) to the beginning, 1 (end) to the end. On the right side of the scroll gadgets are the following gadgets: + - Ins Del Ins (with small arrow pointing down) + increases the current playseq number (Ctrl - keypad 6) - decreases the playseq number (Ctrl - keypad 4) Ins inserts a new sequence number (zero) under the cursor (Ctrl - keypad 0 (Ins)) Del deletes the current sequence number (Ctrl - keypad . (Del)) Ins (w/arrow) inserts a new sequence number, the new number will be the number of current block (Ctrl - keypad 5) ------- Controlling the playing Play song starts playing the song from the beginning of it. Continue song starts playing from the current playseq entry and cursor pos Play block plays the current block (starts from beginning) Continue block starts playing the current block from the cursor Stop playing stops playing the song. You can also use it to kill the notes played from the Amiga-keyboard/MIDI. The spacebar is used in the shortcuts of these commands: Stop playing press just Space Play song press Space with Alt+Shift held down Continue song press Space with Shift down Continue block press Space with Alt held down Play block no shortcut, sorry. There's a big proportional gadget that controls the playback tempo. 240 is the highest, 11 the slowest. Tempos 1 - 10 are compatible with Trackers' tempos. LP-Filter with this gadget you can turn on/off the audio filter built into your Amiga. When this gadget is selected and the power-LED is bright, the filter is on. If the LED is dim, the filter is off. You probably want to keep it off. NOTE: With Amiga 1000s, it's not possible to turn off the filter without modifications to the computer. Please keep the filter off. The state of this switch will be saved with songs. E1, E2, E3 If you've played something with MED, you have found the three "equalizers". E1 turns off/on the red bars at the bottom of the screen (PAL machines). If you have a NTSC- machine, a window appears to the front of the panel (and disappears when you do something). E2 turns off/on the four colorful sprites. E3 turns off/on the signal displays. These all are turned off to save processor time when you click the right mouse button to show the title bar, but if you want to disable something, it probably is E3. The signal display eats about 40 - 50 % of the processor time (on standard 68000). Because of that, the display is turned off during disk access to speed loading/saving. SLD: MED/ST Sound/NoiseTracker has a different timing system from MED (It usually uses VBlank while MED uses CIA A timer A). Because of the difference, playback speed affects the amount of some effects (slides) on Trackers. Because this is not the case with MED, I have included a SoundTracker compability mode in MED. When you make music with MED, you should select MED (default). When playing back Sound/NoiseTracker-modules, ST is automatically selected. The state of this switch will be saved with songs. V: Hex/Dec This is another compability switch. While the data bytes of the commands are usually hex numbers, it's possible to use the volume-command with hex or decimal argument. When Hex is selected, the acceptable volumes are 00 - 40. When Dec is selected, the volume can be 00 - 64. If you are not a programmer (and even if you are), it may be easier to think the numbers in decimal. It is the default. The state of this switch will be saved with songs. ------- Panic stop It's possible to make a song, which takes all of the processor time. It will therefore be impossible to stop it. This shouldn't happen accidentaly, but if you fill a block with notes and command FF3 and set tempo to 240, you'll get the idea. To stop playing in this case, hold both mouse buttons down about 5 - 6 seconds. +----------------------------+ | Sample | +----------------------------+ Here you can load samples and alter some characteristics (what a difficult word!!) of them. First I should note out few very important actions which are available with keyboard: Shift-Cursor Left/Right = previous/next sample Shift-Alt-Cursor L/R = 16 samples forward/backward Amiga-I = activate sample name gadget Shift-Amiga-I = clear and activate sample name gadget Amiga-R = activate repeat gadget Amiga-J = jump on/off At the top left corner of this panel is the sample number (01 - 1V) followed by the sample name gadget followed by the length of current sample in bytes ("-" if no sample loaded). To load a sample, you can write the name of it in the string gadget, then click "^ Load Sample ^" (or just press Return). Above the Load Sample gadget are gadgets that select first, previous, next or last sample. On the left side of them are two gadget ("Jump", "Kill"). "Jump" causes jumping when this instrument is played. "Kill" removes this instrument. It frees the memory used by it (handy when you're very low on memory) and clears all the values. Jumpings will be saved with songs. "Transpose" is one of the new features of V2.10. It works like "Play transpose" but only for this instrument. So, if "Transpose" is -2, for example, then this instrument is played two halfsteps lower. Repeat means that when you play a note with some instrument, the note will play forever, until you play a new note. A picture tells more than 1000 words: the beginning repeat start offset the end v v v Sample: | This part is played only once | This part is looped forever | | \__________repeat_______________/ \________repeat length______/ "Repeat" is the length of the part which is played only once (in bytes). "Repeat length" is the length of the part which is played forever (also in bytes). When you load IFF-instruments, these values are automatically loaded. They can be also set in path file, so that when you load a sample, you will also get the repeat values. Gadget R/S is the repeat start offset, R/L is the length. If the repeat length is lower than 4, no repeat will happen. Finally there's a big proportional gadget. It can be used to set the default volume of this instrument: 64 = maximum, 0 = silent. +----------------------------+ | Block | +----------------------------+ This panel contains most of the block handling things and the copy operations. Track: Cut Copy Paste Swap These gadgets are used to cut/copy/paste tracks. Swap swaps the contents of the copy buffer and current track. The keyboard shortcuts for Cut/Copy/Paste are: Amiga-X, Amiga-C, Amiga-V Block: Cut Copy Paste Swap These work just like the previous, they just affect the entire block. The keyboard shortcuts are also just like the previous except hold down the Shift key too (Amiga-Shift-X...). Free: Mark Cut Copy Paste This is probably the most powerful of the copy operations. You can cut/copy a rectangular area. First you must mark the area: move the cursor to the track/line where you want to begin the area, click "Mark" (or Ctrl-M), then move the cursor to the end of the rectangular area and click "Cut" or "Copy" (or Ctrl-X or Ctrl-C). Now the area is in the buffer and you can paste it by moving the cursor to the point where you want to paste the buffer and press "Paste" (or Ctrl-V). Del buff When you don't need the contents of the buffer any more, you can click this gadget to free the memory allocated for the buffer. It's useful when you're very low on memory. The buffer is freed automatically when you exit MED, so you may not need this gadget at all. Note that all these operations use the same buffer, so you can copy a track with Amiga-C, for example and then use Ctrl-V to paste it starting from the line where the cursor is. Then there are the block commands. Trks: 4 8 12 16 You can select how many tracks you want this block to have. Note that tracks 4 - F can be used only with MIDI devices. Note also that when you decrease the number of tracks, the higher tracks will be lost (no Are you sure? requesters). Lines: « < 64 > » These gadgets are used for selecting the number of lines in this block. « » gadgets increase/decrease the number by 10, < > gadget by 1. The preferred way is to write the number directly into the string gadget (less memory fragmentation). 1 2 3 4 8 16 C It may be helpful for easier positioning of notes to be able to "mark" lines some way (especially if the block is long). You can make some lines appear with reversed colors, if you want. 1 highlight every line, 2 highlights every other line, 3 high- lights every third line and so on. C clears all highlighting from this block. You can also mark individual lines with TAB-key. The highlighting can be removed by highlighting the line(s) again. The highlightings are saved with songs. New block This gadget creates a new block after the last block. New here Creates a new block here, shifts all following blocks forward. The playseq numbers are corrected so that the song won't change. Del last Deletes the last block (no warning messages, be careful). Del this Deletes the current block. Playseq numbers corrected. Split Splits the current block so that the current line will be the first line of the next block. Join Joins this block and the following block together. +----------------------------+ | Edit | +----------------------------+ Edit-panel contains functions that help editing. "Tracks on" These are the switches that allow you to switch temporarily any track off and back on. The 16 lights in the status bar show you which tracks are on, when you're not using the Edit panel. Keyboard equivalents: numeric keypad 1 - 9 for tracks 0 - 8, Shift + numeric keypad 1 - 9 for tracks 8 - 15 "Edit" and "2×SPC" on the right corner are the bigger equivalents of "E" and "2×" in the status bar. "Edit" turns editing on/off and 2×SPC turns on/off double spacing between notes. Keyboard: Edit on/off = Esc, 2×SPC = ~ (below ESC) 1+2, 2+3, 3+4, 4+5 on the left corner select the keyboard octaves which are used. This can be done also with F1 - F4 keys. "Auto advance" helps you when typing commands and chords. When you type a note, MED normally advances to next line. This gadget turns it off/on. Keyboard: Ctrl-A S1, S2 These gadgets can perform the quite tedious task of creating slides. Here's how it works (example): You want to make a slide from C-2 to G-2: 000 C-2 1000 001 --- 0000 002 --- 0000 003 --- 0000 004 --- 0000 005 G-2 1000 006 --- 0000 Move the cursor to the line where you want the slide to begin (in this example, line 002). Then click S1 or S2. Result: If you click S1 If you click S2 000 C-2 1000 000 C-2 1000 001 --- 0000 001 --- 0000 002 G-2 1306 002 --- 0108 003 --- 0306 003 --- 0108 004 --- 0306 004 --- 0108 005 --- 0306 005 G-2 1000 006 --- 0000 006 --- 0000 The better result is usually achieved using S1. S1 and S2 use the different sliding commands (that's the difference). With S2, the second note is also replayed. The commands itself are documented later. Keyboard: S1 = Amiga-T, S2 = Shift-Amiga-T VOL Creates a volume slide. With this option, it's possible to create easily fadings etc. Example: 009 --- 0C50 <-start volume \ 009 --- 0C50 010 --- 0000 =================\ 010 --- 0C47 011 --- 0000 | Click "VOL" \ 011 --- 0C44 012 --- 0000 | / 012 --- 0C40 013 --- 0000 =================/ 013 --- 0C37 014 --- 0C34 <-end volume / 014 --- 0C34 The cursor must be positioned somewhere between the C- commands (on lines 10 - 13 in this example). ------- Programmable keys It's possible to assign 10 different notes/commands to number 0 - 9. Then you can insert the note/command with Shift- 0 - 9. You can also assign commands to Left and Right Alt. When you then enter notes, holding down the Alt, command is inserted to the note. The programmable keys are especially useful when entering drum-rhythms etc. "Edit"-panel contains gadgets, which you can use to edit the notes/cmds. Only one note/cmd of the 12 is displayed at a time. SH0-9 Shows the current Shift-number key definition, the number is shown between the arrows (above R.Alt) and the number can be changed using the arrows. L.Alt Shows the definition of Left Alt R.Alt Shows the definition of Right Alt Here's the explanation of note change gadgets: 12 halfsteps up C- 3 | 2 0 0 0 +--+-+ | +-+-+-+-+-+ Halfstep up -> |^ |^|/ |^|^|^|^|^| <- Increase number +--+-+ + +-+-+-+-+ Halfstep down-> |v |v|\ |v|v|v|v|v| <- Decrease number +--+-+ | +-+-+-+-+-+ Clear note (---) |o | | |o|o|o|o| <- Clear (set to 0) +--+ | +-+-+-+-+ 12 halfsteps down If the number between arrow were 3, and you would press Shift-3, the note C-3 2000 would be entered, understand?? Any of the numbers can also be "x". It means that this number is left as it is (not changed) when you insert this definition with Shift-0 - 9. When the number is 0 and you decrease it, it will become "x". For example, if you wanted to clear all commands from this track (but leave the notes) you could make a following definition: xxx xx000 Because the note is "xxx" and instrument number is "xx", they won't be changed, and only the command is cleared. Then you can just hold down the Shift and the number key and let the key-repeat do the job. R.Alt and L.Alt are a bit different: the note number is always "xxx" and the instrument number by default is "xx". "Pick" copies the note currently under the cursor to this key. You can also pick, for example #7 by pressing Shift-Ctrl-7. "Clr" clears the definitions of this key. "Save" saves the definitions to file "S:med.defprgkeys", this file is loaded during start-up, and you quickly get the old definitions. There's also a fast way to change these numbers/note (don't have to click the arrow keys thousands of times...): Point the number with the mouse, press (and hold down) the left mouse button, type in the number (with keyboard) point another number (don't release mouse button) and enter the number and so on, until you have entered all numbers. Then release the mouse button. +----------------------------+ | Misc. | +----------------------------+ Some miscellaneous and not very important things and a VERY important thing (quitting). On the left there are gadgets for changing the screen colors. No need to explain?? All right, I won't. But only remember that the colors are saved when you save your song (they can give some expression). Jumping: Off 8th Sample When you don't want the mousepointer to jump, select Off. When you want him to jump every 8th notes, select 8th. When you want him to jump when some sample is played, select Sample. The samples which cause him to jump are selected from "Sample"-panel (gadget name: Jump). The name of the pointer is Topi (according to my cousin). Clear All, Clr song only, Exit MED These are very dangerous functions, in fact they're so dangerous that you must click OK! after you've selected one of them: "Clear All" does just as it says. Clears the song, removes all instruments from memory. In two words: clears everything. "Clr song only" is not as destructive. While it destroys the song, it leaves the instruments (if you want to create a new song without reloading the instruments). "Exit MED" is the most destructive. It does everything "Clear All" does, but even worse, it quits MED!!!!!! This function was made for program testing and it probably doesn't have any real use ;-) Add paths, Rem paths These affect the sample names when loading songs/samples. "Add paths" adds the complete path of the sample when you load e.g. if you load sample "PopSnare2" from "ST-01:", the sample name will be "ST-01:PopSnare2". "Rem paths" usually songs made with Trackers have sample names like "ST-02:AhhVox". If you want that the samples load using the path list instead of absolute names (if your samples are in hard disk, for example) you can remove "ST-xx:" from sample names and reload them, but when you "Rem paths" is selected, any paths before the sample names are removed quickly and easily during loading. Both of these can be active at the same time. +----------------------------+ | Volumes | +----------------------------+ Many people have requested that I add "some kind of proportional track on/off". Here it is!!! You can select the relative volume for each track. When it's 64, the track is played with full volume, when it's 32, it's played with half volume. You can set it freely from 1 to 64. Finally there's a master volume, which affects all the tracks e.g. if the track volume is 32 and the master volume is also 32, and the sample volume is 64, the "real" volume of the note played in that track will be 16. There are two sets of « < 64 > » gadgets. The one on the right is the master volume. The left one changes the volume of the selected track. You can select which track, by clicking the numbers above the gadgets. The number which will be currently changed is highlighted with red. This is quite easy, so no problems should appear. The track volumes and master volume is saved with songs. +----------------------------+ | MIDI | +----------------------------+ MED can output notes and some commands to external MIDI-devices (keyboards, synthesizers...). The MIDI-panel contains the MIDI-stuff which is needed for that. When you decide that some instrument is a MIDI-instrument, you select the MIDI channel for it. "MIDI channel"-gadgets are used for that. If you select e.g. MIDI channel 2, the notes of this instrument are sent in MIDI channel 2 (simple, isn't?). Also, you need to activate MIDI (click "MIDI active"). If the serial port is used by some other program, you can't use MIDI. Then you must terminate the other program and try again. After you have activated MIDI, MED starts sending "active sensing" messages ($FE). Now you can try to play with this instrument and you should hear the sound from you MIDI-device (remember to set the default volume of the sample [Sample-panel]). MED uses now the default preset of that channel (which you have set on your MIDI-device). If you want to use other presets, you can select them using the "MIDI preset #"-gadgets. Preset number 0 means that the default preset is used (the preset is never changed for this instrument). You can have instruments with differents preset numbers, but which will use the same MIDI channel. In that case, MED will automatically send the "preset change"-command ($Cx $yy) whenever the instrument with different preset number is used. You can use MIDI-instruments with all 16 tracks (if there are 16 tracks on the current block). You can also freely mix samples and MIDI-instruments on the same track. One helpful keyboard command is Ctrl-Space. This command resets pitch- benders and modulation wheels on all channels. Also, if you have changed presets on your MIDI-device, MED can't detect that and thinks that the preset is not changed. Ctrl-Space causes MED to resend "preset change" for all channels, when playing. There are commands which control the pitchbender, modulation wheel etc. Detailed documetation later (again??). ------- Entering notes with MIDI You can use your keyboard, synthesizer or whatever, to insert notes (you don't need to use your Amiga's keyboard to entering). You must activate the "Input active"-gadget. If editing is on and your MIDI-device is sending notes, they will be entered. You can also enter Amiga-samples with MIDI. "Read volume" gadget may be sometimes quite useful. If you have a velocity- sensitive keyboard, the volume will be entered in the command-part when you enter notes and this gadget is selected. You may have noticed that you can't directly use all the octaves which are available on the MIDI-device. "Instrument transpose" helps this. You can have two instruments with identical settings except different instrument transpose. With instrument transpose you can reach nearly the full range of notes. NOTE: When you have a MIDI-instrument, its name doesn't really have any use. However it's good practice to type in the names of the presets. This way you can easily see the presets, and, if you give the song to somebody else who may have different MIDI-equipment, he/she can easily change the preset numbers to use the correct presets on his/her MIDI-device. +----------------------------+ | Transpose | +----------------------------+ This is the only panel which has not changed at all from MED V2.00. It contains functions that transpose some part of the song, and two block functions (expand/shrink). Song, Block, Track: Octave up/down, halfstep up/down Song transposes the whole song, Block transposes this block, Track transposes this track. Play Transpose Play transpose doesn't affect the notes at all. Instead it only changes the playing. S: All Only this If you want to transpose only one instrument, select Only this. Now only the current instrument will be transposed. "All" transposes everything. Expand When you have created a nice-sounding block, but you would like to include e.g. some fast rhythm patterns, but you notice that the block plays too slowly for the patterns. "Expand" doubles the size of the block and creates empty lines between notes. Now you can double the tempo and insert the rhythm patterns. NOTE: When you expand, the block must not be more than 128 lines long. If you want to make fast rhythm patterns, see first instructions for commands FF1, FF2, FF3. They may be an easier way. Shrink When you have expanded the block, you can return it to the original state by pressing shrink. This function exists for symmetry. It has not much real use. +----------------------------+ | Samplelist | +----------------------------+ Finally a last panel...I'm a bit fed up with writing these instructions.. And now back to the point...this panel lists the MED_paths file. If you don't have the file MED_paths, then this display is empty. ------- How to create MED_paths?? Using the filerequester, load the directory of your sample disk/dir. Then go to the "Samplelist"-panel. Now click "Add: Dir". You should see the filenames of the directory to appear. You can now examine the list, and if there are files which are not samples, destroy them from the list with "Del: Name". Repeat this procedure for each sampledisk/dir you have. You can select the displayed directory with <- -> (big arrows). When you have made the MED_paths, you probably want to save it. L->CD S: does the job. If you click CD, the path file will be saved to the current directory (be sure that it is the same where you started MED). If you click "S:", the file will be saved to the S:-directory. I prefer placing the file in S:, because then it doesn't matter which is the current directory when starting MED. If you later want to add entries to the directory, you can delete the whole directory from the list with "Del: Dir". Then you can reload the directory. You can also add entries one at a time. If you click "Add: Name", the name of the current sample is added to the list. Also the repeat/rep.length values are then added to the list (form: Asia::480/5362). Note that the previous entry with same name is not deleted, so you must delete it by hand (if you want to add rep./rep.len values to the list). If the current instrument is a MIDI-instrument when you add the name, the name will be a form E.Piano::M6/4 . The 1st number is the channel, the 2nd is the preset. When you later load instrument of that name, the MIDI-channel/preset will be set. Note that the instrument with this name doesn't really have to exist in that directory, it's like a "dummy" entry. You may want to create a "dummy" directory for these dummy MIDI entries (empty dir). On the top right corner is the box displaying the directory name. In fact it displays only the name of the last directory in the path, because it's the most meaningful. For example some of my instruments are located in directory: dh0:music/sampledinstr/ST-01/ Then the box would only show "dh0:music/" for every directory, but because it shows only the last dir, there's "ST-01/", which is much more helpful, I think. <- and -> move you to next/previous directory. Directory number is shown in a little box. Finally there's a gadget: "Load". This is used to load the instrument, which name has a white background. More finally, I reveal the keyboard shortcuts... Alt-numeric keypad-8 = scroll the list up (very useful) Alt-numeric keypad-2 = scroll the list down (very too) Alt-numeric keypad-4 = previous dir Alt-numeric keypad-6 = next dir Alt-keypad-9 (PgUp) = scroll the list 1 page (5 entries) up Alt-keypad-3 (PgDn) = scroll the list 1 page down Alt-keypad-7 (Home) = to the beginning of the list Alt-keypad-1 (End) = to the end of the list Alt-keypad-5 = load sample +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |+-----------------------------------------------------------------+| || MED V2.1x player commands/effects || |+-----------------------------------------------------------------+| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ This section gives information about commands/effects. They are events which affect the playing and they are handled by the MED player routine. C - 2 1 2 3 4 | \ | command number \| data byte You insert the commands usually by hand (turn editing on, move cursor on the command numbers and type the numbers). It may be a bit easier if you turn off automatic-advance with Ctrl-A. Currently recognized commands are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, A, B, C, D, E and F. Here are the descriptions of each one: +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command 0: ARPEGGIO MIDI: no action | +---------------------------------------------------+ This command changes the pitch of the note quickly (6 times during 1 note). It can be used to create "chords" or special effects. If you've listened to music made with the C-64, you MUST have heard arpeggios. The pitch is changed between 3 different pitches during one note: the 1st pitch is the pitch of the original note the 2nd pitch is the pitch of the original note + the 1st number of databyte halfsteps up the 3rd pitch is the pitch of the original note + the 2nd number of databyte halfsteps up Note: 3rd pitch | 2nd pitch | 1st pitch | 3rd pitch | 2nd pitch | 1st pitch changed 6 times during note It may be a bit difficult to understand, so here's an example: You want to make an arpeggio which sounds like C-major chord. The lowest pitch is C (C-2 in this example). The second is E-2 (4 halfsteps higher than C-2). The third is G-2 (7 halfsteps higher than C-2). 4 halfsteps from C-2 -+ 7 halfsteps from C-2 |/ That produces: C-2 1047 --- 0047 --- 0047 and so on... Data byte for a minor chord would be 37. The arpeggios sound better with some instruments than others. +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command 1: SLIDE UP MIDI: pitchbender up | +---------------------------------------------------+ This command slides up the pitch of the current track. With Amiga samples: Decreases the period of the note 6 * databyte during one note. Sounds rather technical?? Yes... The instructions for previous versions of MED contained detailed instructions for making good-sounding slides with this command. Because of this version now contains the easy automatic slide making (Amiga-T), I felt that these instructions are not necessary any more. If you use this function for special effects (not real slides) then you can experiment with the values for the databyte. Example: A-1 1000 --- 0000 --- 010F <- slide up a bit With MIDI: This commands works very differently with MIDI. It actually "turns" the pitchbender 48 * databyte steps up. Because the actual range of the pitchbender may be different with different MIDI-devices, you must find the right value by experimenting. There's also one thing you should know: when a new note is played, the pitchbender is not resetted automatically. To reset the pitchbender, you use this command with databyte zero. Example: G-2 L1FF <-turn it up very quick --- 0000 --- 0100 <- then reset the pitchbender +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command 2: SLIDE DOWN MIDI: pitchbender down | +---------------------------------------------------+ Not much about this command. It's just like command 1 except it slides down. +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command 3: PORTAMENTO MIDI: no action | +---------------------------------------------------+ This is another slide command (if you've used the previous versions of MED and think that this is vibrato, see command 5). It can be used to make perfect slides more easily. First an example: C-2 5000 <- played note C --- 0000 E-2 5305 <- this note is not played!! Instead, slide target is set --- 0300 to G-2 and slide speed is 5 --- 0300 <- when speed is zero, use the previous speed --- 0306 <- the speed can be changed, of course This example would slide from C-2 to E-2, but the slide stops EXACTLY when E-2 is reached. The remaining 3's have no effect. This command is easier to handle with automatic slide making (see Edit/S1 above). +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command 4: VIBRATO MIDI: modulation wheel | +---------------------------------------------------+ This is the new vibrato command (compatible with NoiseTracker). This is far better than the poor vibrato from previous MEDs. The first number of the data byte is vibrato speed, the second is vibrato depth. If the numbers are zeros, the previous speed and depth is used. Example: F-215000 --- 0000 --- 0433 <- slow, not much depth --- 0437 <- more depth --- 043F <- full depth --- 0482 <- fast, not very deep MIDI: This command affects the modulation wheel of the current channel. The data byte can be 00 - 7F. 00 = no modulation, 7F = maximum. Values 80 - FF are reserved for future expansion (and won't work). +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command 5: OLD VIBRATO MIDI: no action | +---------------------------------------------------+ This is the old vibrato command (previously it was 3). The command 3 is automatically converted to 5 when loading old MED songs. The pitch of the note is changed between two values, databyte is the depth. Example: A#1 J502 --- 0507 increasing depth --- 0517 v --- 0527 --- 0537 +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command A: VOLUME SLIDE MIDI: no action | +---------------------------------------------------+ This command exists for Tracker compability. Please use command D (if I run out of free command numbers some day, I'll use number A!!). +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command B: POSITION JUMP MIDI: position jump | +---------------------------------------------------+ This command lets you make songs that have beginning which is played only once and then some part which is looped forever. Position jump causes the jump to playsequence number pointed by the data byte. If the data byte is e.g. 0, then the playseq jumps to the first entry. Example: --- 0B02 <- start playing from playsequence number 3 +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command C: SET VOLUME MIDI: set volume | +---------------------------------------------------+ You can override the default volume of the instrument with this command. Example: A-3 4C20 <- played with volume 20 There are 65 volume levels (0 - 64), 0 = no sound, 64 = maximum. The data byte of command C can be 00 - 64 or 00 - 40 (decimal or hex). Non-programmers will probably want to use the decimal numbers. See (Play/[Dec/Hex]). It is also possible to change the volume of already played note. Note that it doesn't work with MIDI-instruments. Example: A-3 4000 --- 0000 --- 0C10 <- volume to 10 +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command D: VOLUME SLIDE MIDI: no action | +---------------------------------------------------+ You can increase/decrease volume smoothly with this command. The data byte is divided in two parts: C-3 3D01 || |+- Amount of decresdendo +-- Amount of crescendo If crescendo is zero, then the decrescendo is performed. Otherwise only crescendo is performed. Example: C-2 3C40 --- 0D01 <- a bit more quiet --- 0D01 <- even more --- 0D20 <- and crescendo back to original One unit in these commands means six actual volume units, so this example would look like this, when using the C-command (except that it doesn't sound so smooth): C-2 3C40 (volumes are decimal in this example) --- 0C34 <- -6 --- 0C28 <- -6 --- 0C40 <- +12 +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command E: no action MIDI: pan control | +---------------------------------------------------+ With MIDI-instruments, this command controls the stereo location of the sound. The data byte can be 00 - 7F. left mid right | | | 00 3F 7F If you've used MED V2.00/V2.01 or Noise/SoundTracker, you may remember that this command controlled the low-pass filter. I think that it was unnecessary to spend the command E only for controlling only a single switch. See command F. +---------------------------------------------------+ | Command F: TEMPO/MISC. MIDI: tempo/misc. | +---------------------------------------------------+ Command F has many different actions depending on the data byte. If the data byte is zero (00), this command causes the immediate jumping to the next block on the playing sequence (or to the beginning of this block if you're only playing the block). This function is better to implement by making the block shorter (takes less memory). Example: C-2 4F00 <- this is the last note of this block When the data byte if 01 - F0, the command changes the tempo. If the new tempo is 01 - 0A, it is Tracker-compatible. Example: E-3 6FF0 <- highest tempo --- 0000 --- 0F0B <- slowest Data bytes FF1 - FFF are reserved for special actions, some of them are currently used: FF1 causes the same note played actually twice. This way it's possible to create fast rhythms. C-3 2FF1 is same as C-3 2000 C-3 2000 with double tempo FF2 plays the note only once, but it is not started immediately: C-3 2FF2 is same as --- 0000 C-3 2000 with double tempo FF3 works like FF1 except the note is played three times (very fast). FF8 turns off the low-pass filter (power-LED will dim). FF9 turns the low-pass filter on (bright LED). FFA sends MIDI "hold pedal on"-command (works only with MIDI-instruments). FFB sends MIDI "hold pedal off"-command (works only with MIDI-instruments). FFD works only with Amiga-samples. It causes the pitch of the channel to be set to the pitch of the new note, but the new note is not replayed. C-1 2000 <- play note --- 0000 C-2 2FFD <- don't replay the note, just set the pitch to C-2 FFE stops playing immediately. If you want to make a song which plays only once, put this command to the end of the song. This command can be easily entered: Click "Stop playing" while holding the Shift-key. FFF Stops the note on the current track. Works with both Amiga- and MIDI- instruments. Nearly identical to "C00" on Amiga-samples, but because "C00" doesn't work with MIDI, I made this command. +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |+-----------------------------------------------------------------+| || MED V2.1x keyboard equivalents/functions || |+-----------------------------------------------------------------+| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ Cursor up Cursor up Cursor down Cursor down Cursor right Cursor right Cursor left Cursor left -- then a bit more complex ones DEL Delete note or number under cursor Shift-DEL Delete the note and the command numbers Shift-Cursor up Previous block Shift-Cursor down Next block Shift-Cursor left Previous sample Shift-Cursor right Next sample Alt-Cursor up First block Alt-Cursor down Last block Alt-Cursor left Cursor over previous track Alt-Cursor right Cursor over next track Alt-Shift-Cursor right 16 samples forward Alt-Shift-Cursor left 16 samples backward Ctrl-Cursor left Previous screenful of tracks Ctrl-Cursor right Next screenful of tracks Space bar Stop playing Alt-Space Continue block Ctrl-Space Reset MIDI pitchbenders/mod. wheels/presets Shift-Space Continue song Shift-Alt-Space Play song Esc Editing on/off ~ Double space on/off F1 - F4 Select keyboard octaves 1+2 - 4+5. F6 Cursor to the first line of the block F7 Cursor to the second quarter of the block F8 Cursor to the middle of the block F9 Cursor to the last quarter of the block F10 Cursor to the last line of the block Ctrl-F1 - F10 Select displayed panel Ctrl-Shift-0 - 9 Pick note 0 - 9 Ctrl-5, Ctrl-6 Sliding ST or MED Ctrl-A Automatic advance on/off Ctrl-F Display free memory (chip, fast, largest chip) Ctrl-M Set mark for copying/cutting regions Ctrl-R Revert filename Amiga-F Low-pass filter on/off Amiga-I Activate sample name gadget. Shift-Amiga-I Clear and activate sample name gadget Amiga-J Jumping on/off for this sample Amiga-L Load song Amiga-P Play song (Shift-Alt-Space) Amiga-R Activate repeat gadget (in Sample-panel) Amiga-T Create slide using command 3 (transform) Amiga-Shift-T Create slide using command 1 and 2 Amiga-X/C/V Cut/copy/paste current track Amiga-Shift-X/C/V Cut/copy/paste current block Shift-0 - 9 Enter note 0 - 9 TAB Highlight this line Numeric keypad: 1 - 9, Shift-1 - 8 Tracks on/off Ctrl-8 Scroll the playing sequence list up Ctrl-2 Scroll the playing sequence list down Ctrl-4 Decrease the block number of the psl Ctrl-6 Increase the block number of the psl Ctrl-7 Move to the beginning of the psl (psl = the Ctrl-1 Move to the end of the psl playing Ctrl-5 Insert this block to the psl sequence Ctrl-0 Insert number 0 to the psl list) Ctrl-. Delete the block number from the psl Alt-8 Scroll samplelist up Alt-2 Scroll samplelist down Alt-4 Previous sample dir Alt-6 Next sample dir Alt-9 Scroll samplelist one page up Alt-3 Scroll samplelist one page down Alt-7 Beginning of the samplelist Alt-1 End of the samplelist Alt-5 Load selected sample *************************************************************************** I'm sorry if these instructions are difficult to understand, confusing or something like that. It's just difficult for me to write instructions for beginners, tutorials, etc... Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Also if you think you could write a good tutorial about writing songs, please write!! I could add it to the documents of the next version. !!! ICON ARTISTS !!! -- I know that there are guys (or girls???) who could design much more beautiful icons (especially MEDPlayer has very ugly icon). If you've designed better-looking icon(s), please send them to me!!!! All right, I won't beg anything any more. For © information and my address, see the "Read me"-file. Bye!!! See you in the next release of MED!!! ***************************************************************************