*********************************** AM/FM ***********************************     PROTRACKER STUDIO; PART 3!       THIS ISSUE'S LESSONS:       NOTE-CUT (ECx) and STEP-LOOP (E6x)    (Plus some additional notes to EDx) NOTE: THERE ARE TWO EXAMPLE PROTRACKER MODULES THAT GO WITH THIS ARTICLE!! THE MODULES ARE BOTH STORED IN THE "Music" DIRECTORY ON THIS DISK, AND THEY'RE CALLED "MOD.NOTECUT-EXAMPLE" AND "MOD.STEP-LOOP-EXAMPLE". *** Welcome once again my friends, to another lesson in the "how to squeeze the best results out of Protracker" tutorial series. This time I have been joined by an eager reader (and now contributor) with a lesson; and I have also written one lesson myself, so today you're going to learn about TWO of those special Protracker effects! Thanks to Anthony Oetzmann for contributing with the Step-loop lesson! But first today, we're going to take a look at the "Note-cut" effect. What this effect does is to simply STOP a note from playing, after a certain number of Vertical-Blanks (very very short units of time; read an explanation of Vertical Blanks in either of the previous lessons). Now, if you play a note in Protracker that you only want to play for an extremely short period of time, you should use the Note-cut command, ECx, where x is the number of Vertical-Blanks the note plays before it is brutally cut off by Protracker. Sure, you could just wait for the next step in your song, and set the volume to zero with C00, but in some cases, that might be too long to wait before stopping the note. If you do it with C00 on the next step, then the length of the note will also depend on the tempo you have set in your song. But if you use the Note-cut command, you may switch the note off already after 1 Vertical-Blank (1/50th of a second), and this amount of time is independent of the tempo you're using. One Vertical-Blank is one Vertical-blank, no matter what the tempo is. Believe me, this is an extremely short period of time when it comes to playing a note! The Note-cut effect can be used to create quite a nice effect by placing a new note, which is brutally cut off after a very short period of time, on each step throughout your pattern. If you can imagine a strobolight, only with sound instead of light, this is approximately what you can achieve with clever use of this effect. (A strobolight is the very very fast blinking light you sometimes see in discoes, etc.). For those of you who have heard the module "Bud Peculiar" composed by yours truly (Featured on Crusaders' "Bass-o-matic" 2-disk music demo), you will perhaps notice some clever use of this effect towards the end of the song. For those of you who often use the A0F command to create the well known quickly- on-and-off effect used in about half of all the Noise/Protracker modules ever made, then the Note-cut effect might be a nice little twist; if you use EC1 instead of A0F on each step, the effect will be quite like the well-known A0F- effect, only more powerful. C-3 01A0F C-3 01EC1 C-3 01A0F C-3 01EC1 C-3 01A0F C-3 01EC1 C-3 01A0F could turn into: C-3 01EC1 C-3 01A0F C-3 01EC1 C-3 01A0F C-3 01EC1 C-3 01A0F C-3 01EC1 C-3 01A0F C-3 01EC1 The method on the left is used ALL the time in Protracker modules; whereas the one on the right is very rarely used, even though it's just as good and even more evil! Take a look at the example-module "mod.note-cut-example" in the "Music" directory of this disk. Now, I will let Anthony Oetzmann have the word throughout the rest of today's Protracker Studio article. See you next time! Bjørn A. Lynne The step-loop command: E6x (By Anthony Oetzmann) This command offers a particulary useful way of extending your pattern (or block, as some put it). Each track (voice) can have its own loopstart point. This loop start is set (for that particular voice) with the command E60. Let's say you've got a drum track that runs from 0-15 in that pattern and you'd want this part to play FOUR times. Ok, first you set your loop starting point in position 0 of that pattern by putting E60 in one of the command parts of the line.This might look like this: 00 C-3 1E60 --- 0000 --- 0000 --- 0000 or 00 C-3 1000 --- 0E60 --- 0000 --- 0000 Then you have to determine the end and the number (we want 4) of loops. You do this by putting the command E63 in the last line of the looping part of your pattern. The number '3' means that the looping part is played an ADDITIONAL three times, effectivly playing it four times in all. As I said before, you can have a loopstart point for each voice. I suggest you take a look at the example module. Pattern 0 will demonstrate the simple loops. Pattern 1 shows you a loop inside the loop. The INSIDE loop however, must be set in a different track. You see,if you set the loopstart point in the same track/voice again, the last loop marker will jump to the last loop point of this voice. But because the second loopstart point (E60) changed the loopstart of this voice, Protracker will jump to the second loopstart. To create a loop within a loop, you have to put the second loop into another voice. Pattern 1 works this way. Pattern 2 shows some special effects. If loops however overlap, things hardly ever work out the way you planned them. Some additional comments to the Note-Delay lesson in issue #14: (By Anthony Oetzmann) The pattern starts off with a synth ( C-3 1C10 ). The C10 is important. Later on you use an ED3 (speed 6) for a big drum stop or something: F-3 5ED3. The default volume for instrument five though is $40. Protracker doesn't wait for tick three to trigger the note AND the volume of instrument five ($40). The volume is triggered at tick ZERO! And this is the problem. I wrote some patterns to demonstrate some of the possible special effects using EDx ,too. (By the way, you made a little mistake in line 105 & 106 of your first lesson. You said 6 VB BETWEEN each step,but the correct thing to say would've been EVERY 6th VB. Same in line 106 with four VBs.) I stand corrected -[Ed] *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************