QUICK START
Before doing anything with Digital Tracker, we strongly advise you to read the following indications.
To "click" means to click with the left mouse button, unless a different way is specified.
BASIC FUNCTIONS
White text zone : click on it to change its value. Hit Enter to valid, or Escape to undo.
Here, you see the BPM, it is the tempo (BPM= Beat per Minute). 
The higher is the BPM value, the faster the music is playing.
Green number zone
- Click with the left mouse button to increase.
- Click with the right mouse button to decrease.
Knob slider
Potentiometer (SLIDER or KNOB (Knob = round button)) : 
Click and maintain left mouse button, then move mouse to change its position.
For a knob, move the mouse left/right.
Tips: you can reset any slider/knob to its default value by clicking on it with the right mouse button.
Round button : ON/OFF button, click on to enable or disable.
Here, loop playing mode is enabled, but Edit mode isn't.
Squared button : Action button, click once to execute its function.
Here is the unmute button, if you click, every track will be activated.
LED : Little light that can be switched on/off by clicking on.
Here is the Sample mute led, when lighted, sample is audible.
some LED activate special functions.
Here, on the 3rd track, the green led shows that this track is not mute (audible), click on it if you want this track to be mute.
click on the black led beside to see the  TRACK MIX (mix table of the track number 3).
click on the little red curve to display the  TRACK AUTOMATION (automation settings of track 3).
To display again the pattern editor (when needed), click again on these leds.
Mute : click with the left mouse button
Solo : click with the right mouse button
Window slider : If you see it, it means that not all of what Digital Tracker has to display is so.
Click on its central part, maintain and move the mouse to show what is hidden out of the window.
Chronometer (at the top, in the sequencer) : click with the left/right mouse button to increase/decrease its value.
List : Click and chosse an item.
You can recognize lists with the little triangle in the right bottom part of the button.
WORK AREA
SAMPLER : instrument settings (also called sample or sound).

Note : Viewing the sampler depends on you monitor, if you don't see it, use the window's slider to move down, or press the END key of your keyboard (the end key is just above the arrow keys).

- Inst : Number of the sound named VIOLONS3.AVR.
- Yellow led is lighted if this sound is activated
- Fine Tune . The higher is the Fine tune, the higher is the sound.
- Vol : volume of sample VIOLONS3, le slider on the right allows you to change this value.
- It len : Lenght in OCTET of the sample (the memory needed in you computer for this sample).

Global

Zoom/ Edit
SAMPLER : Curve display window.

The up curve displays the whole sample.
The down curve displays the zoomed part (the blue part of the up curve). This is in the down curve where you can use the sampler tools (cut/copy etc..). Use the right and left button of the mouse to fix the start and end of the block you want to work on.
 

SAMPLER : Recording a sample

- First, set the audio SOURCE from which you want to record a sample. You 've got two possibilities, either the microphone of your audiochipset (here a soundblaster AWE64), or from the MUSIC played by Digital Tracker.
- Set the destination of the sampled sound : either in RAM (in the memory of your computer), or on your hard drive. If you choose the hard drive, you should define the file name which will contains the sampled sound by clicking on "D2D File" (in a ".WAV" format only).
Click on  MONitor to listen the source (if you wish to) and see the INPUT level.
If needed, change the record level.
Choose a record  QUALITY then click on  RECORD.
Then, click on STOP to stop recording.
Click on PLAY (below the sample curve) to listen, or play the new sound on any track  (ensure that they are not mute).
Note : The good working of recording depends on your own settings of BeOs, if you've no sound, ensure that AUDIO AUX is well activated in the MEDIA pannel of BeOs menu. 

TRACK MIX (part of the mix table).

To see/hide the track mix, click on the Mix/efx led.
- Mute/solo : click to  Mute/unmute, right mouse button to Solo.
- Black led shows if an EFFECT (EFX) is activated on the track.
Here no, otherwise it would be RED lighted.
- 2 efx can be activated on each track. 
Click on green zones to set the number of Efx you want to apply to the track. Then click on each LED to activate them. Use the knob to change efx volume.
Here, efx1 and efx2 leds are not lighted, this means that the 00 efx is not activated on track 7.
Note : On a filter, the knob doesn't change the volume of the effect, but changes the frequencies to be cut.
Note : Knobs have no effect with the StéréoSpace.
- Pan : Position in space (left/right) of the sound of the track.
- 2 sliders : masters volumes Left & Right. To move them independently, uncheck the LOCK button.

Advice : Use PAN for mono sounds and masters for stereo sounds.
The 128 value is the volume of the masters.

TRACK AUTOMATION

To see/hide this part, click on the little red curve beside the track number.

if the leds beside EFX1, EFX2, PAN, or MASTER V are ligthed, then there is an automatisation of the knob/sliders movment.

The value beside ENV witch curve is applied to the knob/slider. To see the curve of each slider/knob, click on the respective led then look at the automation pannel (se below).

When an automation is activated on a track, the little red curve flashes.


Click on the curve to move points.
Click in the green zone to change the curve to edit.
Click on  ADD to create a new curve.
AUTOMATION PANNEL

(to see this pannel click as shown below)

You can see the curve which number is displayed in the green zone.

You can record the moving of the knobs in the track mix by clicking on RECORD (Round button in the sequencer)

DISK PANNEL
To see this pannel, click on the floppy icon a the top right corner of the screen.

The path indicate which part (directory/folder) of your hard drive (or CD/floppy) you are viewing. To go up in the disk tree, click on the BACK button. (Doing so in this exemple will change de the path from  home to boot).
LOAD & SAVE save either the entire current music, or the current  SAMPLE. Music files extend with ".DTM", while sample files extend with ".AVR" (there are a lot of different extensions for samples, but we're not going to explain them here). To save your music, check the MUS button, choose if needed a path,, type in a name in the  "filename" zone (or click in the file list to replace an existing file), then click on SAVE. To reload your music next time, you'll have to access the same path  (it's done automatically when clicking on MUS if you haven't changed anything), then choose your file in the list and click on LOAD.
For a sample, it's the same way, but click on SMP instead of  MUS.
The GO button allows you memory your favorite paths, this is a menu list where you can ADD or REMOVE paths to access them directly by clicking on them in the menu list.
The MUS, SMP and SNG work also as the GO button, and allow you to access easily to your Music or Sample paths by clicking on them. When you click on them, you set automatically the path where you were last time you used these buttons.

SEQUENCER

Here you'll define the order the pattern will be played.
Green zones :
-Position indicates the current position of the music. here we are in position 2.
-Pattern indicates which pattern is affected to the current position. Here, the pattern number 7 is affected to the position number 2.
-Repeat indicates which position the player will jump to when the end of the music is reached (when the player reaches the last position). It will work only if the LOOP button is checked.
-Nb Pos indicates the total number of positions the muysic contains. here there is 11 positions, when the player reaches position number 10, it jumps to position number 01.
-Tracks indicates the number of active tracks. You can increase it to 64. Don't increase the number of tracks if you don't really need so, because the greater is the number of tracks, the higher is the CPU need (power required by DT to play your music).
-Master indicate the global audio volume of the player.
-CPU indicate the processor power Digital Tracker uses to play the music. If the level reaches the red, it means that your computer is not strong enough to play the current music. In this case, big audio mistakes can happen. Try to decrease the tracks number or remove efx on certain tracks.
GREEN display window :
=1st number  (here  2) : current position
=2nd number (here 7) : current pattern
=3rd number  (here 08) : current line played in the current pattern
=Chronometer indicates the elapsed time since the start of the music at the current line of the current position. You can click on it with the left/right mouse button to increase/decrease it.
 

COMPOSITION / PATTERN EDITOR
Digital tracker uses the english notation for the  notes (see also the  keyboard) :
Notation :
C : Do
D : Ré
E : Mi
F : Fa
G : Sol
A : La
B : Si

C# : Do dièse
D# : Ré dièse (Mi bémol)
F# : Fa dièse
G# : Sol dièse
A# : La dièse (Si bémol)

- A pattern is made of many tracks (number of tracks is set in the tracks zone in the sequencer, (by default there is 8).
- Here we can see the 16 first lines of the pattern. Each line corresponds by default to a semiquaver. (use the keyboard arrow keys to move in the pattern).
- The cursor indicates which line of which track we are going to modify (here the cursor is on track 2 line 08, it's the yellow circle). Each time you enter a note, the cursor move down to next line, unless you've changed the JUMP value.
In the next example, the jump is set to 08, so that the cursor will move down of 8 lines (quantize) :

- Look at the fisrt line of track 1, we see the value C  401 - it is the note that is put on this line. Here is its detail :
--C 4 = C (Do) octave 4 . For a sharp C (Do dièse/C#) octave 6 we would put : C#6
--01 = Instrument/sample number 1 (see the sampler above for more info). For a G# (SOL dièse) octave 4 sample number 12 we would put : G#412
--The point following the instrument number means that there is no command associated to the note. But on track 5, line 00,  we see, after the instrument number, the command Y11. It means that when the player play this line, the effect 1 knob of track 5 will move up to the hexa value 11. (see the command list for more info).
-Each line with a RED background correspond to a Crotchet, it is on these lines where we should put a bass drum (for example).
-We see the bass drum on track 1, each four lines, we have a  C 401, assuming that the bass drum is the sample number 1, the player plays a bass drum each crotchet.
- On track 2, we have sample number 3 that is a charley, when music plays, charley will alternate with the bass drum.
- On track  3 we have a clear drum (or a clap), it is each 8 lines. so, we'll here a clear drum each two bass drum.
- On track  4 & 5 we see that the  MIX/EFX led is red lighted, it means that there is an activated effect on these tracks. (see TRACKMIX)
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At the top left hand corner of the screen (beside the sequencer and the chronometer), you must check the ED button to be in the EDIT mode. If you're not in EDIT mode, you can play and hear notes , but you don't put them on the tracks.
When you are in edit mode, the cursor becomes a circle and everything you type on you r keyboard is put on the current track of the current pattern.

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Put note on tracks

The pattern you're editing has a number, to know its number, look at the one displayed in the séquencer.
Use the sequencer to change the pattern you want to edit.

Use the computer keyboard (see below) to play notes. The base note (C octave 4 / Do octave 4) is on the key ";" (azerty keyboard).

See below the keyboard description.


 

PIANO KEYBOARD

To know if your keyboard is an AZERTY or a QWERTY one, read the first row of letters on you PC keyboard (under the numbers).


 AZERTY keyboard, default config

Here is the computer keyboard affectation of notes. you have 3 octaves.
Exemples : W=C3 (Do3)    ;=C4 (Do4) T=C5 (do 5)    ^=B5 (Si 5). To play a C#, press S.



QWERTY keyboard, default config

Here is the computer keyboard affectation of notes. you have 3 octaves.
Exemples : Z=C3 (Do3)    , =C4 (Do4) T=C5 (do 5)    [ =B5 (Si 5). To play a C#, press S.

To shift the keyboard of one octave, press the following computer key (at the bottom right hand corner of your PC keyboard) :
to shift down of one octave

  to shift up of one octave.
On certain keyboard, the  "arrow" is named SHIFT, or CAPS


BRAVO

You are now ready to start to work with Digital-Tracker. When you launch Digital Tracker, demo musics are presents in the DISK menu, load one and listen.
Don't hesitate to have a look at  www.digital-tracker.com where you may find some new informations or demonstrations.
To be kept informed of any news or any new free features and demos, join for free the DT news list by clicking here (then simply click on SEND in your messenger).
You may also find some useful informations at  www.softjee.com .

It's up to you !