Copyright: Les Player


Techno Maker Demo

The Techno Maker gives all Techno fans the possibility to realise their own musical ideas. No musical knowledge is required. The Techno Maker has been designed and developed so that everyone can produce music in the shortest possible time. The Techno Maker is a complete studio. On 8 sound tracks you can assemble more than 140 sound samples from the sound library. Additional libraries and sounds can be added later allowing the system to be constantly expanded.

In defiance of its very ease of use, Techno Maker offers you the  qualities of a much larger and more expensive professional system using hard disk recording.

Depending upon the source of this demo, you may find some audio tracks on your CD which you can play on your audio CD player. This is really what Techno Maker is about. To easily create CD quality Techno Music. These tracks really have to be heard to be believed.

The full version of Techno Maker contains over 140 16 bit stereo sound sample sthat you too can put together and create your own stere CD quality Techno hits.

Look out for our hit parade on the Internet, where we will be awarding a prize each month for the best UK Techno hit.

Basic program functions

Techno Maker Features Overview

Wow. How do I get this product


Techno Maker Features Overview

8 Tracks:	8 audio tracks in which you can arrange over 140 included sound samples.

Remixing: 	Give your hits that individual and unmistakable expression. Each pro knows that the right mix makes all the difference. All sound samples can be mixed immediately and directly. There are now memory swaps are other delays.

Volume Control: 	Each channel level adjustment is recorded, stored and can then be retrieved.

Automatic Quantisizeing:	Everything fits together, and sounds like a professionally composed piece.

Import Own Sounds: 	You can expand the sound library of TECHNO MAKER with your own WAV format sounds. You must of course consider the copyright of any sound material that you import.

16 bit stereo: 	Store the 16 bit stereo format at 44.1 kHz, which is hi-fi CD quality. Whether you store your final piece on cassette or CD, the quality is correct!

This demonstration version has several of these features removed. These are indicated by NOT IN DEMO throughout the following text.

The demo version will allow you to play the demo.mix file, but you will not be able to create the CD quality file. Depending upon the source of the demo you may also have an example of this CD quality file as Demo.wav. This wav file can be played through your sound card with CD quality.

Other differences:

Full version	Demo version

Sound samples	140+	30

Length of song	depends on disk/memory	30 seconds

No mix file saving

No CD quality file creation

Technical requirements:

To be able to use Techno Maker without problems, your system should have the following specification:

PC compatible with 8 MB RAM (the more the better) with minimum 486 66 mHz processor.

Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 3.11

VGA graphic card with 256 colours.

16 bit soundcard (SoundBlaster compatible)

CD ROM drive minimum x2 Speed, the faster the better.

Techno Maker can be installed to use minimal hard disk space and can be run direct from CD, however Techno Maker will temporarily require approximately 10 Mb of hard disk space per minute of session time.

A CD quality file will also use up 10 Mb per minute of play time. It therefore is best to save all your sessions as MIX files. A stored MIX file requires only a few Kb.

You will not need any musical knowledge to use Techno Maker.


Basic program functions

Click on the start button on the intro panel and you will then be presented with the main control panel:

Within this chapter you should make your self aware of all the controls on this panel, before attempting to compose any music of your own.

The Main Control panel is made up of 3 main groups of controls:

The Arrangement Window

Transport  Controls

Mixing Desk Controls


The Arrangement Window

The Arrangement Window is the main control for the creation of your music. The music is created very easily. Just drag and drop the various sound samples from the sound library into the Arrangement Window. Techno Maker is supplied with over 140 different sound samples and these can be found in the sound library.

The Arrangement Window consists of 8 horizontal tracks. Each of these tracks is controlled by the corresponding Channel Mix control slider and Play/mute button.

The Arrangement Window is divided up horizontally by a ruler to indicate your position within the piece.

You will also see a vertical cursor through the height of the Arrangement Window. This indicates the current position, of the current sound playing.

At the bottom of the Edit panel are three additional controls:

Position

When the Position button is depressed the scroll bar will move the visible portion of the Edit panel. You can then scroll through the entire length of the Edit panel.

Zoom

When the Zoom button is depressed the scroll bar will change the time frame. This will allow you to zoom in to precisely place a sound block, or to zoom out and view your entire piece of work.

Scroll

The scroll bar will either determine the portion of your work that the Edit panel views or allows you to change the timing frames, depending whether the Position button or the Zoom button is depressed.

Sound blocks

Each sound is represented by a block. The different sound types are represented by different colours for easy identification.

To move a sound block select it with the left mouse button depressed and drag it to a new location.

To copy a sound block select it with the left mouse button and the Ctrl key depressed and drag the copy to a new location.

Several sound blocks can be selected by dragging a window around the desired blocks. You can also select several blocks by holding down the shift key during selection.

Multiple Sound Block Move

When multiple blocks have been selected you can move all the selected blocks together.

Multiple Sound Block Copy

You may also copy a set of selected blocks, by holding down the Ctrl key while dragging the blocks to a new position. Using this method is one way of quickly reproducing an established pattern.

Select any sound block with the right mouse button pressed and a sound block menu will appear with four entries:

 	Sound block menu

Listen

Play the selected sound block. This will play the sound for this individual sound block.

Delete

Delete the selected sound block

Copy

A copy of the selected sound block is created which you can now place within the Arrangement window.

Move

You may move the selected sound block within the Arrangement window.

Delete Sound Blocks

To delete a selected block, simply drag the block out of the arrangement windows.

Overlapping Sound Blocks: You can overlay a sound block onto an existing sound block. This has the effect of cutting off the first sound block at the place of overlap.

and now with the same blocks overlapping:


Transport Controls

The buttons on this control panel will be familiar to anyone that has used a video player or cassette recorder.

Timer

The timer displays the actual time from the start in minutes and seconds. Note that the vertical grid in the Arrangement window is not measured in seconds.

Fast Rewind

This will rewind the cursor to the start of your musical piece.

Rewind

This will rewind the play cursor back to an earlier position.

Play

This will play your music, starting from where the cursor is located. as the various sounds play, the cursor will move across the screen.

Stop

This will stop the music being played. You can restart again by pressing Play.

Forward

This will rewind the play cursor back to a later position.

Fast Forward

This will fast forward the play cursor to the end of the file.

Status display

The small display indicates the current activity of Techno Maker.

Import (NOT IN DEMO)

The Import function will allow you to import your own sounds and place these sounds into new or existing groups.

You can create your own new groups in which to place new sounds into the sound library. Click on the Import button and the resulting dialog is displayed:

Create a new group (NOT IN DEMO)

Delete a group (NOT IN DEMO)

New Sound (NOT IN DEMO)


Create a new group (NOT IN DEMO)

To create a new  group click on the New Group button and enter the new group name in the Group Name field. You should now also determine the colour by which the sound blocks from this group are identified, by selecting the Colour button. The standard Windows colour selector is displayed from which you can choose a colour. The Preview field will indicate the colour selected for this new group. You can have a maximum of 24 groups in Techno Maker.

The next time you select the sound library you will see this new group name appear in the menu.

The Group name details will be added to the Srcdeco.PRJ file that is kept in the TMAKER folder on the hard disk.


Delete a group (NOT IN DEMO)

The deletion of a sound group is also performed from the Sound Library dialog. Selecting the Delete button will result in Techno Maker enquiring if you want just the selected group to be deleted complete with contents and then requests again confirmation that you want the contained sounds also to be deleted.

Please note that if you are running from CD then you can not obviously delete the groups contained on the CD, but you can delete any group that you have created or copied to the hard disk. Be very careful here, so that you don’t delete any new sounds that you may have created.


New Sound (NOT IN DEMO)

Selecting the New Sound button will then produce a dialog that will prompt you for a descriptive name for the new sound. This information wil appear in the sound library load from the Samples button.

Only sounds of WAV format stereo 16 bit 44.1 kHz can be imported. Techno Maker creates a working copy of the sound in 8 bit mono format. Both these files are saved, the 16 bit format will be saved in the Hqsound folder and the 8 bit equivalent will be saved in the Arrsound folder.

You can also use the Play feature in the import dialog to quickly listen to all the sound samples. Select the sound sample in the dialog box and then press the Play  button. You can quickly review and become familiar with all the sounds in the sound library using this feature.

Samples

The Samples button will display the Sound library menu, which is divided up into several sections:

Each library sections contains a further submenu, for example the Bonus library section contains the following sub menu:

From this menu, you can select the sound that you wish to drag to the arrangement window.

New mix

This will erase any Techno Maker mix currently loaded in the Arrangement window. You must confirm this delete action before continuing. If you wish to save the work that already exists in the Arrangement Window the use the Save mix button, before you use New mix.

Load mix

You cam load the sample mix files and any mix files that you have saved with the Save mix option. Selecting the Load mix button will result in a standard Open file dialog which will look for files with the suffix .mix.

Save mix (NOT IN DEMO)

This will save the current mix in the Arrangement window. You will be prompted for a file name and path with a standard Save file dialog.  All Techno Maker mix files should be saved with the suffix .mix.

Save HQ (NOT IN DEMO)

You can save your mix as a High Quality mix. Select Save HQ and Techno Maker will translate the 8 bit WAV files that you have used into high quality 16 bit WAV from a set of higher quality sound samples. For example the normal crowd sound sample is 285K Bytes long which produces a reasonable sound for the purpose of editing, but a higher quality sample of 2279K Bytes is used to create the higher quality sound file.

Depending upon the number of sound samples used and the speed of your CD-ROM, this process of creating a high quality file may take some while. A progress bar will indicate this process.

On completion, Techno Maker will automatically load your Media Player program to play the resulting High Quality mix. You can also save this file to a DAT Recorder or CD, providing that you have the equipment, and hear the superb quality.

Exit

This will exit Techno Maker, but will confirm the action before the exit is completed. You should at this point ensure that you have saved your work before you exit, otherwise you may lose it.


Mixing Desk

The left half of the main control panel consists of the mixing desk, which provides 9 volume controls and several buttons.

Each volume control is associated with one of the eight tracks.. The volume can be adjusted by sliding the control slider up and down. There is also a master volume control slide on the right side, which will override all individual volume controls. You adjust these volume controls while the music is playing. The actual position of each channel volume control can also be recorded with the sound mix if you press the Record mix button.

Play / Mute

Each track can be switched on or off by pressing the Play/mute button at the bottom of each channel.

Record mix

This will record the channel volume controls set while the music is playing. Any changes to the volumes of the 8 channels are recorded.

Play mix

When you play the music, this will use the channel volume controls that were last recorded using the Record mix button.

Now that you have read through the description of each control, we suggest that you now load some of the demo songs. Also on the CD are some audio tracks that are CD quality, which you can listen to with a standard CD audio player or with your Windows audio CD player. Do not select track 1 on the CD as this contains computer data which a standard audio CD can not process. From track 2 you will find audio CD which you can play.

The difference between audio, WAV files and a mix file:

Audio and WAV files store sound information. A mix file stores the condition of the song in that it remembers which sound sample is used at which position, and the volume control settings at each position. A mix file therefore makes it easy to process and reprocess a song or a mixture. Enough of the introduction, start the demo mix and see for yourself

If you select the load mix button the following dialog box appears:

In the demo version you can only load the file demo.mix.

If you now select one of the demo songs, DEMO1-4.MIX, and then confirm the selection with a click on the OK button with the left mouse button. The time to load depends upon the length of the arrangement and may take some time. You do however have a visual presentation of the mix as it loads in the Arrangement Window.

You start the arrangement playing by clicking on the Play button.

Tip: Click on the Play mix button and the volume control settings actually recorded with the sample will also be reproduced for full effect.

Well? Convinced? And that was not CD quality! You can obtain CD quality if you store a completed piece as a 16 bit WAV file using the HQ button. (Imagine how long it would take to put together a high quality 16 bit arrangement. Techno Maker provides you with a great speed advantage.). Techno Maker then transforms your hit into a CD capable WAV file.


Wow. How do I get this product

Contact us at DATA BECKER:

Tel:	01420 22707

Fax:	01420 22807

Email:	databeckeruk@dial.pipex.com

Internet:	http:www.data-becker.com.uk

or Write:

DATA BECKER UK

Unit 4 Bentley Industrial centre

Bentley, Farnham

Surrey

GU10 5NJ

Techno Maker costs only £24.95 inc VAT + £2.50 post and packing.

Please make cheques payable to DATA BECKER

VISA / MASTERCARD / SWITCH accepted.