Global Amiga Experience/globalamigaexperience.iso/music/composing/superjam/readme

Text File | 1995-07-10 | 6KB | 117 lines

SuperJAM! Demo
The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks
1605 Chantilly Drive Suite 200
Atlanta, GA 30324
[phone] voice
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[phone] bbs
[e-mail] email
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The SuperJAM! Demo

The SuperJAM! Demo is a full-featured version of SuperJAM!, lacking only
TurboSounds and the ability to save.  (TurboSounds are Amiga internal sounds
that let you play up to sixteen notes simultaneously through the Amiga's 8
bit audio channels. We recommend usage of MIDI or the One-Stop Music Shop
sound card for the best sound quality.)


Creating Music in SuperJAM!

Think of SuperJAM! as your own assemblage of trained musicians who know how
to interpret your every whim in as musical a manner as possible.  You
provide the framework, and they turn it into music.  For example, you might
say, "Play me something in a Funk style in the key of C minor, and chose
your chords by listening to the notes I play with one finger."  They start
to perform, and you like what you hear but it's too low to sing along with.
You suggest, "Raise the pitch, and, while you're at it, slow the tempo down
a bit."  They follow obediently.  As they play, you contine to try different
chords, even change to a different style, "Come to think of it, this really
should be waltz," and they follow along with your every whim, never losing
patience. And, as with human performers, the music your SuperJAM! band
composes is dynamic and alive.  It doesn't have a mechanical feel, unlike
most computer generated music, and it's never the same twice.  But that's
not all.  You can set the volume of each player, change which instruments
they play, even add musical embellishments like breaks and fills.


Using the SuperJAM! Keyboard

When SuperJAM! first runs, it displays the Keyboard window. From the
Keyboard window you can dive directly into interactive music composition
with the SuperJAM! band.

Click on the piano keys to select chords.  Notice that each key has the type
of chord written on it.  For example, a major chord is denoted with an
uppercase 'M', while a minor chord is a lower case 'm'. Change the key pitch
by clicking on the yellow up and down arrows, or change the key from major
to minor my clicking on the happy face. Notice that as you do this, the
chord labels on the piano keys change. SuperJAM! reassigns the chords to fit
properly within the key. This is just one example of how SuperJAM! uses its
knowledge of music to help you compose.  Of course, you can always override
it. Select any chord from the table of chords on the right and drag it onto
any piano key to install it.

Click on the buttons running down the left side to select a style. Click on
the Play button (the blue triangle) to perform.  As SuperJAM! performs, you
may vary the tempo (purple arrows,) style, chords, and add a fill by
clicking on the paint can.


Selecting Instruments and Using MIDI

To switch to MIDI or otherwise control the SuperJAM! band's instruments,
open the Band window by clicking on the band button (the button just
to the left of the Section button.)  Use this window to configure each of
the six band members, Drums, Bass, Piano, Guitar, Strings, and Lead.
Each player is represented by an appropriate instrument icon on the
left side of the window.  To the right of each instrument is a speaker
button.  This indicates that the player is performing with the Amiga's
internal sounds using the TurboSound software.  However, because TurboSounds
are not included with this demo, you will be unable to use this feature.

Switch a player to MIDI by clicking on the speaker button in the Band
window.  It becomes a MIDI button.  Notice that the TurboSound instrument
name is replaced by two buttons - the MIDI patch number and MIDI channel.
Remember, you must have a MIDI interface hooked up to your Amiga to use
this.  Click on the patch number and drag it with the mouse.  Notice how the
instrument changes.  You may also change the MIDI channel by clicking on the
channel number and selecting a different channel from the pop-up menu.

You can also load presets for specific MIDI instruments.
SuperJAM! comes with a set of default Keyboard setups for many
popular MIDI sound modules.  Click once on the Keyboard window,
then select Load from the Keyboard menu.  Choose a synthesizer
from the list in the Defaults directory of the demo.  SuperJAM!
loads the presets for the chosen synthesizer, including patch
names, so you can chose your patches by name, rather than number.

Creating a SuperJAM! Composition

Once you're familiar with the Keyboard window and working with the band,
take it one step further and create your own composition.  Click on the
Section button in the Keyboard window.  This creates a new, blank section.
Enter a name of your choice into the name requester and leave the section
length at eight measures.  The Section window opens with a fresh blank
section.  Notice that the style, tempo, and key are the same as your last
choices in the Keyboard window.  The strip of colored rectangles represent
the muting status of each player.  By default, they are all on.  Later, you
may control their performance by toggling these.  Above the rectangles is
the chord and command strip.   You may enter chord changes across the top
and commands (Intro, Break, Fill, End) below.

Select the mouse edit mode by clicking on one of the top left buttons: Use
the pencil button the enter chords, the wand to change them, the eraser to
remove them, and the hand to drag them. As you edit, you may click on the
play button to hear the result.

When you've finished writing a section, click on the Song button (also
available from the strip of buttons at the top of the screen.)  In the Song
window, you may enter multiple sections, edit, move, and duplicate them.


This is only a taste of what SuperJAM! can do for you.  Feel free to
experiment.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call
us.