Die Multimedia Power-CD

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Die Multimedia Power-CD / MULTIMEDIA.bin / rol_play / admuse30 / admuse3.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1990-02-13 | 98KB | 2,116 lines

___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ AdMuse AdMuse Version 3.0 by Bob Calbridge December 26, 1989 Foreword ======== The executable and source code for AdMuse is copyrighted by the author. The right to distribute this program is granted to all. This does not grant anyone but the author the right to collect any monies for the product other than a fair price for copying costs. ("Fair", to the author, means the cost of a diskette, a label, mailing cost, and a dollar worth of labor. It only takes about 50 seconds to copy a diskette. At this rate, you could earn over 60 dollars an hour by copying this program.) The accompanying documentation is also considered to be part of the package and is not to be modified, or deleted from, any distributed form of the package, including compressed and/or library (archived) type files. Permission is granted to end users to modify it for their own use as long as the modified form is not passed on to others. Under no circumstance is permission granted to remove any mention of the author's name or address where it might appear in either documentation or in the executable code. Please pass on the original files to friends, co-workers, enemies and strangers who have AdLib cards. This package is distributed under the Shareware concept. This means that the author would really appreciate being compensated for his efforts in producing this product. Response of this nature urges the author to improve the product or to develop other products of similar usefulness. A price of $10.00 is asked, though greater amounts will not be refused. The money will be used to restore the health I lost staying up 'til three AM making this thing work. The test period for AdMuse is one week. After this time you need to decide if AdMuse is worth the asking price. If so, use the registraion form at the end of the documentation to help me keep track of the who has this version. You will be notified of updates to AdMuse. Local users will be given the name of any local bulletin boards that contain the update. Users outside the immediate Dallas area will be asked to send a self-addressed diskette mailer along with a diskette. Notification will include a list of all added features along with an explanation of how they work, so you can decide if it is .*.. worth the effort. At any rate, I (the aforementioned author) welcome any comments and suggestions any users of AdMuse might have concerning improvements for this program. I am especially uneager, but AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 1 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ willing, to hear about any bugs you may find in this code. I will try to respond promptly to bugs in the program. If you have any suggestions for improvements I ask that you make your suggestion with some detail. By this I mean that if you have a feature you would like to have added to the program, explain the feature along with how you would like to see it coded. For example, if you would like to see a feature that would let you specify a smooth increase or decrease in volume of any single or multiple voice selection, explain how you think it should be expressed in the code (i.e. how to say you want a continuous volume change, what voice(s) is(are) involved, the step rate, the maximum volume, etc.) Some things may not be practical to implement. The program, in its present form, doesn't like to look ahead more than one character. Therefore, as in the preceding example, if you wanted to try something like 1) begin a volume increase beginning at the current volume, 2) increase the volume to a maximum of .85 at the point you find an _end_volume_increase_ marker, it would be difficult to look ahead and calculate the step rate and the step spacing. Now for the disclaimers. Great care has been put into this program. However, it has been said that nothing is foolproof (no aspersions intended). This program has been tested for all foreseeable problems. How far I can see to the fore is up for debate. All that I can say is that there are no intentionally destructive code segments in this package. Having made the user aware of these facts, I further state that I accept no responsibility for any problems that may arise from the use of this program, be it harm to hardware or software, unless it can be proven that a deliberate effort was made on my part to cause such. The above mentioned comments, suggestions, criticism, et al. can be sent to the me via my hard copy address: Bob Calbridge 12904 Elam Road, Apt. 101 Balch Springs, TX 75180 <--- Dallas is a suburb If sending to me at home, don't forget the apartment number. The mailman has a habit of returning mail without it. Oh, and you can send checks there too. .*.. I've also been known to haunt the User-to-User bulletin board system in the Dallas area. I regularly read the AdLib conference. I can generally be reached via e-mail at The Unix Connection. My user id on this system is "bobc". The node name is "attctc". AdMuse Copyright (C) 1990, Robert A. Calbridge, Jr. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 2 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Introduction ============ Some history ------------ This is version 3.0 of AdMuse. Versions 1.0 through 2.X are obscure because they were distributed to just a few people. They were also developed for different type systems. Version 1 was written for an S-100 system using a digital-to-analog converter card manufactured by a company called NewTech. Version 2 was written for a C-128 running CP/M and used the SID chip for output. Version 2.0 was written in Z-80 assembler and contained within its mere 12K of program space a screen editor, a code compiler, a song player, an instrument selection menu, and an instrument designer and banking program. Version 3.0 is a large leap from the previous two. This is mainly due to the capabilities of the AdLib card. Now seemed to be the time to release it as there is now a large contingent of PC owners out there that possess either AdLib cards or compatible cards of another make. For the record, AdMuse was developed using Turbo C 2.0, using the large memory model. What this is ------------ Back in the dark ages when a personal computer was something that you had to put together by yourself, there was a company that produced peripherals for the S-100 bus machines. One of these peripherals was a very simple board that would take the condition of the interrupt flip-flop and pass it on to an external amplifier. The board came with a program that could produce music in three voices through this board. The main problem with the board was that the sound was quite raspy. .*.. Despite this, it was quite an accomplishment for its time considering the nature of the equipment. Today's PC world has a number of good cards that produce better sound and more voices. Chief among these is the AdLib card. The AdLib card has an eleven voice capability in percussive mode and nine in melodic mode. The AdLib is supported by an impressive number of PC games that use it for sound effects and music. The primary storage format of stand-alone songs for the AdLib card is usually contained in files with a .ROL extension. The primary method of entering songs is by way of a program provided by AdLib called The Visual Composer. The Visual Composer does a good job of providing a means of entering songs. In a way, the screen looks something like a roll of music for a player piano. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 3 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Using a mouse with The Visual Composer helps with the process. However, there have been people for whom even this method of transcribing doesn't work well. That is the reason for AdMuse. AdMuse attempts to take the coding system employed on the old S-100 bus system and use it to produce a ROL file. This first release of the program may not address all the needs of someone transcribing music. The program attempts to conform to the original coding method with some extensions added for the purpose of The Visual Composer. In a later revision there will be some modifications to allow for chords, glissendoes, arpegiation and accentuation (if I can find an appropriate way of reducing it to text notation). AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 4 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Where this program shines ------------------------- (1) One of the major complaints that I've heard concerning The Visual Composer is that it doesn't address the problem of triplets. A triplet is a series of three notes that is played in the space of two. The Visual Composer doesn't restrict this type of notation but it does complicate it. It is necessary to scan your music and determine in advance if a triplet is required. You must then determine how many ticks per beat you must define and this value must be a multiple of three. AdMuse will do the necessary calculations and set the ticks per beat as necessary. .*.. (2) AdMuse uses a text code rather than a graphic method. There are several advantages to this. First, if you are an accomplished typist, you can keep the sheet music off to the side and perform eye to hand transcribing with very little need to watch the screen. Secondly, changes are easier to locate in the code and modifications in the code are handled through your own preferred ASCII editor. Thirdly, the ASCII nature of the text makes it easy to use e-mail systems to pass code to others. Finally, text code is easier to print out. It is more concise than the graphics oriented output of the VCPRINT program and prints faster. (3) AdMuse provides for articulation. This means that you can declare individual notes as staccato. There are three types of articulation - short, long and extended. I intend that future versions of the program will permit automatic articulation of ranges of individual voices or the entire piece. (4) AdMuse permits you to declare a key up front and allows you to change it in the middle of a piece. The key declaration will automatically provide sharps and flats for a given note if the key demands it. You may individually make a note natural for the duration of a measure to cancel a sharp or flat or you may temporarily change a note to a sharp or flat for a measure. (5) The coding method allows you to place markers at the beginning of parts. The beginning of another part marks the end of the preceding part. These markers permit the program to repeat the part at other points in the program without having to re-enter the code. Under the Visual Composer this requires finding the beginning and end of a part and duplicating it through a cut and paste process. This is tedious when trying to keep track of your measure numbers. (6) AdMuse provides the facility for the user to define his own ASCII editor and an option for the user to call that editor from within the program. This feature reduces the need to enter the editor, exit the editor, enter AdMuse, compile the code, find an error, exit AdMuse, enter the editor, ....... etc. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 5 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ (7) AdMuse provides a similar option for the user to define a stand-alone player program for testing his code. Possible problems with AdMuse ----------------------------- .*.. (1) AdMuse is pretty free form in what it demands of the code. The original coding method was a bit more free form than I made this version. This version demands that modifiers immediately follow the code segment it is meant to modify. Otherwise, you are free to sprinkle white space where you please. In some cases a blank is demanded such as demarcating the end of a measure declaration. (2) The free form nature of the code makes no restrictions on the definition of a measure. This makes it possible to enter notes within a measure that exceed the total number of beats per measure. The nature of the program is such that if a mistake is made for a single voice, the error is not propagated beyond the measure. However, the error can be carried into the next measure if looked at through The Visual Composer. I have added a special function to the program that allows you to define the number of beats per measure. This, combined with the definition of a beat allows the program to alert you if a measure comes out long or short. (3) Use of articulation demands that the number of ticks per beat be some multiple of three. More precisely, a short articulation is equivalent to 1/3 of a sixty-fourth note. This requires that a sixty-fourth note be split into three parts. If a measure is a total of a whole note it requires 192 ticks to define the measure. The integers used in a ROL file are signed. This limits the total number of ticks that a voice can use to about 32K. This means that the total number of measures that can be contained in a piece is 32K / 192 or approximately 166. This is still a pretty large number and I have seen only one piece of music that I have done to this point that came close. And it was still short by about fifty measures. (4) Several parts of the coding system use hexadecimal notation. In general this is not a problem since the system doesn't go beyond a hex 'F'. In terms of translation of the notes this is the simplest method. Believe me, it's not that difficult. (5) AdMuse allocates 10K of buffer space to each of the eleven voices. This was considered to be large enough to contain a large song. Since the ROL storage conventions require four bytes per note this means that a song can contain 2.5K notes before it starts to overlap into another buffer. There are no checks made to prevent this. See the section near the end of this documentation concerning future features for considerations in further releases of the program that will address this AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 6 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ limitation. .*.. AdMuse was not written to take advantage of any special color or graphics capability. It is rather Plain_Jane in looks. In fact, there was no attempt to make the program look busy when it is chugging along. Besides the menu and error reporting there is very little screen display. Despite the simplicity of the display it does quite a lot. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 7 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Installation ============ AdMuse is a single program that only uses one support file. The executable file is named ADMUSE.EXE. The support file is called MUSE.CFG. This file will be provided when the program is first executed. Installation is as simple as copying the file either into a working directory from which you will use it or into a directory that falls within the environment's PATH variable. When you execute the program the configuration file will be created. Be aware that anytime you execute the program, if MUSE.CFG is not in the current directory and the append command has been used to specify a directory in which a file MUSE.CFG exists, the program will draw its information from this file but create a new file in the current directory. The program is invoked by entering "ADMUSE" <RETURN>. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 8 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The Menu ======== Once AdMuse is invoked, the following menu is displayed Available options are: 1.) Set file name 2.) Edit file 3.) Build .ROL file 4.) Change defaults 5.) Play song 6.) Unused 7.) Unused .*.. 8.) Shell to DOS 9.) Exit program Enter option: All options are single key. That is, you don't need to press RETURN to initiate the option. The options are discussed in detail in the following section. The coding system is discussed after that. Set file name ------------- AdMuse maintains the name of a working file in the configuration file. The name of this file is passed to the editor and the player. When this option is chosen you see a screen similar to the following. --------------------------------------------------------------- Current source filename is more.mus Enter new name of source file [RETURN for no change] -------------------------------------------------------------- If a file has been previously defined it is displayed in the upper left corner of the screen. If you don't want to change this, just press the RETURN key. (That would be the ENTER key to a lot of you. I'm hard line on what I first called it). If you want to change the name of the file, type in the new file name and press RETURN. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 9 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The precise name of a file doesn't matter, as long you use standard DOS naming conventions. The extension may be anything you choose except "ROL". When you build a ".ROL" file with option 3, the file name is stripped of any extension and the ".ROL" is appended. If you enter the source file with an extension of "ROL" your source will be overwritten when the output file is created. Edit file .*.. --------- Option 2 is used to invoke the user defined editor. The editor is defined in option 4 below. When the editor is called, it is passed the name of the source file by the simple convention editor source.nam where "editor" is the name of the user defined editor specified in the configuration file. "source.nam" is the name of the source file. See the explanation under option 4 for a fuller discussion on the nature of the source file name. If the editor hasn't been defined an error message will appear stating so. The user is then prompted to press any key to continue. Otherwise, the editor is called. Should some problem occur that prevents the editor from being run, another error message will be displayed saying that the program failed in its execution. Once you've finished editing your source, exit your editor and you will be returned to the menu. Build .ROL file --------------- This option begins the process of building the .ROL file. The filename for the output file is taken from the name of the source file. The file extension is replaced by ".ROL". The directory into which the output file is placed is determined by the appropriate entry in the configuration file (see option 4). AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 10 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Two things can happen during the build process. The more desirable is that no errors will be encountered and all you get is a statement to that effect. If this message appears the .ROL file will have been generated. Hit any key at this point to return to the menu. The other possibility is that an error was discovered. In this case the offending line is displayed near the bottom of the screen with a marker pointing to the error. In most cases the marker points directly to the character that was responsible for the error. In the case of special functions (those that are enclosed in parentheses) the pointer will generally appear at the closing (right hand) parenthesis. When an error is generated the compile process is stopped. There is no attempt to recover from an error. Errors prevent .*.. the generation of the output file. You will then need to press a key to return to the menu then edit the file to correct the error. When a valid .ROL file is generated you may then use option 5 to listen to the song, if you have a stand-along player available, for testing. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 11 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Change defaults --------------- Option for allows the user to define a number of defaults for the program to use. The screen will look something like this. ------------------------------------------------------------ Input directory is \muse Default directory for input file Default directory for output file Default editor name Default player ------------------------------------------------------------ The user is prompted for each entry in turn. The currently set value for the option is displayed in the upper left corner. Unlike with the entry of the name of the source file, you must enter each of these in turn. Merely pressing RETURN does not keep the previous defaults. Default directory for input file -------------------------------- This entry is used in conjunction with the name of the source file to generate the full name to be passed to the editor. Default directory for output file --------------------------------- When a .ROL file is being created, AdMuse first gets the name of the source file and replaces the extension with .*.. the string ".ROL". The resulting name is then combined with the string from this entry to determine where the output file will be placed. The same process is used to create the name of the file that will be passed to the stand-alone player. The allowable length of this field is 127 characters. NOTE: In both directory entries a RETURN causes the program to use the current directory. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 12 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Default editor name ------------------- This is where the user places the name of his ASCII editor of preference. This field can accept up to 127 characters so you may specify a fully qualified path to the editor. Otherwise, the editor must reside in your default directory or else fall within the range of the environment's PATH variable. The editor specified should generate pure ASCII. The program attempts to ignore all characters that fall in the IBM extended character range and all control characters other than carriage returns. This may let some editors that embed such characters in their files qualify for use. Default player -------------- This field accepts the name of any stand-alone player program such as Tracy Harton's PLAYROL. The player program must accept the name of the ROL file as its argument Play song --------- This option triggers the default player defined in option 4 above. If the player program has not been specified, an error message is displayed with a prompt to press any key to continue. Otherwise, the player program is invoked and passed the name of the output file generated by option 3. If for any reason the system cannot run the player program (lack of memory, cannot find the program) a different message will be generated prompting the user to check the defaults. The player program is invoked using the name of the player program followed by the name of the .ROL file to play. The name of the song to play is .*.. built up of the default output directory and the name of the file that was created in option 3. Depending on the circumstances, one of three things can happen. Ideally, the song will play. The second possibility is that a message will be displayed stating that the player could not be invoked. This could come from a number of causes. One is that there was not enough memory to load the program. Another is that the program was not found. If the player program depends on the sound driver being loaded and is hasn't been, the player program will likely abort without playing anything. In this case, exit AdMuse and load the sound driver. Then re-enter AdMuse. The third possibility is that the program will execute but AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 13 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ return some sort of error. AdMuse cannot catch errorlevel codes so the program may just flash by. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 14 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Unused ------ Options 6 and 7 are reserved for possible future use. Shell to DOS ------------ Option 8 allows you to shell to DOS. This is provided in lieu of currently un-implemented options for directory searches. This option will create another DOS shell above the AdMuse program. You can move around in the directories while in this shell and modify files. To return to AdMuse, type "EXIT" followed by the RETURN (ENTER) key. Keep in mind that any directory changes made in the shell will be maintained when you return to AdMuse. Any changes to the environment are not kept. DO NOT use a DOS shell to load the sound driver. This will louse up the memory management system and there will be no way to allocate memory from AdMuse. Furthermore, doing this will lock up the memory being used to run AdMuse and prevent it from being used further until the system is reset. .*.. Exit program ------------ As it says. This options gets you out of AdMuse. How it works ------------ The general procedure with AdMuse is to edit a file using the coding system described below. Save the file before exiting the editor. Use the build option to look for coding errors and generate the .ROL file if no errors are found. Use option 5 to test the output. The player name defined in option 4 may be a stand-alone player program such as PLAYROL or you may specify the Visual Composer or Jukebox. However, with the latter two options you're limited to their methods of obtaining and playing the song which may take time and/or take more effort than you wish to exert. Also remember that AdMuse remains in memory when the player option is invoked which may take up too much memory for larger songs to be played. AdMuse takes up less than 60K of program space so there should be plenty of room for most files. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 15 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Now About the Music =================== Some of the following discussion will be difficult to include in a textual manner. I'll do my best to describe various musical symbols. Nothing will replace a basic familiarity with music notation. However, a very basic knowledge is all that is needed to use this system to transcribe from sheet music to code. Some music basics ----------------- Music notation makes use of a series of five horizontal lines and the intervening spaces. This is known as the staff. Each line or space represents a note on the scale. The staff can be marked as either treble or bass. The treble staff has a symbol that resembles the ampersand (&) character with a spiral in the bottom. The bass staff is denoted by a symbol that looks like a backward lower-case 'c' with a drooping bottom. Each of these symbols is referred to as a clef. Notes on a staff with a treble clef fall above middle C (a term referring to one of a periodic set of notes. More on this .*.. later). Other symbols are placed on the staff to denote what note is to be played. The shape and form of these symbols indicate how long the note is to be played relative to the duration of the other notes and the location on the staff specifies what note is to be played. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 16 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ NOTE: The following figure represents the normal placement of notes on a staff. It is NOT the notation that is used in the coding system. -A- G ---------------------------------------F----------------------- E ---------------------------------D----------------------------- C ---------------------------B----------------------------------- A ---------------------G----------------------------------------- F ---------------E----------------------------------------------- D middle -C- B The above is the treble staff. Notes may extend above it and below it. To handle notes below middle C a bass staff is used. The following is a representation of the bass staff. D middle -C- B --------------A------------------------------------------------ G --------------------F------------------------------------------ E --------------------------D------------------------------------ C --------------------------------B------------------------------ A --------------------------------------G------------------------ F -E- Notice the correlation of the location of middle C. This is a common point for both staffs. The same holds true for the coding system. However, where in the normal notation system the designation for the notes maintains the same progression, the coding system reverses at middle C. .*.. To relate this to the keys on a piano, if you look at the two black keys in the middle of the keyboard, the white key to the left of this pair is middle C. The white key to the right of middle C is D, the next white key to the right is E and so forth. The white keys are called naturals. The black keys are either sharps or flats. Not all naturals have corresponding sharps or flats. Naturals only go as high as G before they begin over again at A. This is why the notes are grouped in octaves. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 17 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ If you wanted to indicate that the note "G above middle C" should be played, you would place a note on the second line up of the treble staff. What symbol we place on the line determines how long we hold the note. A whole note is represented by a symbol that is an open circle. A whole note is the longest single note that is represented by a single character (longer notes can be held when a whole note is dotted. Again, more of this later). A half note is designated by an open circle with a vertical line extending either up or down, depending on how high up the staff it is placed. A half note is held for half the length of time that a whole note is held. Quarter notes are the same as half notes except that the circle is filled in. Not surprisingly it is held for one quarter the time that a whole note is held. Progressively we further have eighth notes, sixteenths, thirty-secondths and sixty-fourth notes. Each of these is represented by the same note as a quarter note except for a flag dangling from the vertical line for each division by two. That is, an eighth note has a single flag, a sixteenth has two, a thirty-secondth has three and a sixty-fourth has four. Using the code -------------- Discussion beginning here will dwell on getting notes and their durations into the code. It should be noted that there is a certain degree of preamble required in the code before notes should be entered but discussing the use of notes will make clearer some of the other topics which will be discussed later. Duration -------- The following characters determine the duration of notes. .*.. W Whole note H Half note Q Quarter note I Eighth note S Sixteenth note T Thirty-secondth note X Sixty-fourth note When one of these characters appears in the code it means that all notes following will be held for that duration until such time as a new duration is declared. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 18 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The notes --------- What notes are played are specified in a hexadecimal notation. This means that single digit numbers are used that range from 0 to 'F'. In hexadecimal notation the regular digits 0 through 9 are what they look like. The letters 'A' through 'F' represent the numbers 10 through 15. This notation makes it easy to represent notes with a single character. At the same time, restricting it to single characters like this does limit the top-most note that can be represented. There are other methods of reaching higher notes that will be discussed later. For the moment it will be enough to present the following figure. F -E- D -C- B ---------------------------------A------------------------------ 9 ---------------------------8------------------------------------ 7 ---------------------6------------------------------------------ 5 ---------------4----------------------------------------------- 3 ---------2----------------------------------------------------- 1 -0- This is the treble clef. Whenever the character '0' is encountered the note middle C is played (with the provision that the key signature doesn't say otherwise). If you enter the character '4' it will cause a 'G' above middle C to be played. .*.. The following code would play the scale. I01234567 The character 'I' says play all following notes as eighth notes. Each of the numbers play the notes 'CDEFGABC' where the note D is represented by '1', the note E is represented by '2' and so forth until C 1 above middle C is represented by '7'. If we had entered I0123Q4567 the first four notes would have been played as eighth notes and the last four would have been played as quarter notes. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 19 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The bass clef is a sort of inverted treble clef. -0- 1 ---------2----------------------------------------------------- 3 ---------------4----------------------------------------------- 5 ---------------------6----------------------------------------- 7 ---------------------------8----------------------------------- 9 ---------------------------------A----------------------------- B -C- D -E- F Changing the clef ----------------- The problem here is that we need a way to tell the program that we want to use the bass clef. For this we introduce two new symbols. When the program encounters the character '*' it means that all the following notes are assumed to be on the treble staff. The character '@' switches all following characters to the bass staff. Notes posted to the bass staff are considered to be negative. Treble notes are considered positive. For this reason we use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs to force notes to take values outside of their clef. Often, in music notation, you will find a note that is written relative to its staff but .*.. it falls outside of the five lines and four spaces. If this is above the treble staff or even one line below it there is no problem if the treble clef has been specified with the '*' symbol. However, if the note we wish to play is below middle C we can force it to act as if it were part of the bass staff by placing a '-' in front of the note. The reverse can be done when the bass clef has been declared by placing a '+' in front of the note, forcing it to be considered as if it were on the treble staff. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 20 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Examine the code *Q01 @01 will cause four notes to be played at a quarter note duration each. The first note played would be middle C. The second would be D. The third would be middle C again and the fourth would be B below middle C. If we wanted to do this without changing the clef declaration we would enter *Q010-1 Voices ------ So far this discussion has assumed only one voice. The program is designed to handle up to nine voices. Although the AdLib card is capable of handling eleven voices this is in percussive mode. Since the original coding system did not account for percussive voices, I have elected to default all voices to melodic. There is a way to declare percussive mode but this will be deferred until the section on special functions. To determine what voice is being referenced we will use the character 'V' followed by the voice number. V1*Q4834 V2*IFDC85463 V3@H1Q23 says that both voices 1 and 2 will be played in the treble staff and voice 3 will be played in the bass staff. Specifying the treble clef in voice 2 is not necessary. Clef declarations, like durations, remain in effect until otherwise change. Notice that the total time for each voice is the same. If we consider this to be the content of an entire measure it means that a measure has a total duration of a whole note. It could be 4/4 (common time) or 8/8 or some such. If the piece we were transcribing was more like 3/4 time we would have to be careful to limit our total time to the equivalent of three quarter .*.. notes. Let's look at line above with some changes. V1*Q4834 V2*IFDC854 V3@H1Q23 What we have done is remove the last two notes in voice 2. This does not create any major problems as long as the longest duration of any voice represented does not exceed our intended number of beats. Any voice that falls short of completing a measure (i.e. is shorter than the longest voice) is padded with rests to fill out the measure. The padding is done at the end of the measure, never at the first. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 21 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ One note of caution. The program does not really care how long you make a measure. The duration of one measure can vary from the duration of the following measure. In terms of how the song would play it makes little difference. However, if you were to read the .ROL file into The Visual Composer , it could create some imbalance. Measures might not begin where they are supposed to. There are provisions discussed later on that help to prevent this from happening. Measures -------- All right, we've talked about notes within measures and total duration in a measure. Let's see how we delimit what a measure is. We now present the character 'M'. When the program sees this character it recognizes it as the beginning of a new measure. The 'M' character may be followed by any number of other characters up to a blank. M23a V1*Q4834 V2*IFDC85463 V3@H1Q23 All the characters up to the blank are ignored by the program. The purpose of this is simply to provide a point of reference in the event that a change needs to be made. I generally use numbers exclusively. My use of the letter 'a' occurs when there are variations in the repeat of a measure. I mark my sheet music with successive numbers on each measure. In some songs a part is repeated later in the piece. It is not uncommon for a few of the notes to vary (usually indicated by smaller notes). In order not to assign a new number to the measure I will use additional letters as qualifiers. Again, this is for reference only. It has no effect on the code. When a measure is invoked several things take place. All .*.. processing of any preceding measures is complete. Padding takes place, if necessary, on voices in the preceding measure that were not as long as the longest voice. The current key is re-initialized. The voice is automatically reset to voice 1. This is done as a convenience. The clef is not reset. The above code could just as easily have been entered as M23a *Q4834 V2*IFDC85463 V3@H1Q23 with the V1 removed. There are other codes that force the same processing. Anytime there is a change in the permanent key, a change in the tempo, a new part is invoked or a repeat of a previous part is called up the program will act as though it has begun a new measure as this is the same thing as if it had reached the end of a measure. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 22 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Parts ----- In addition to measures, a piece may be broken down into parts. In sheet music there are portions of the piece that are repeated. It is beyond the scope of this text to describe the use of Codas and such except that they are the equivalent of programming GOTOs. In general you might find that your sheet music has an introductory portion of a few measures followed by the refrain. Other than the refrain there is the chorus. A rather broad generalization would be that the lyrics of the refrain change from one to the next. The chorus is usually the same lyrics each time it is invoked. A common pattern might look like Introduction Refrain Refrain Chorus Refrain Chorus Ending Each invocation of the refrain may have a separate minor ending that would either lead it back into the next refrain or blend it into the chorus. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 23 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ In the coding a part is marked by the character 'P'. Each part .*.. is distinquished by a letter of the alphabet. This limits the number of distinct parts to 26. However, a letter may be reused if necessary. . . . PA INTRODUCTION M1 *Q1234 V2*5678 V3@H9A M2 *Q4321 V2*876I55 V3@HA9 PB REFRAIN M3 ......... M4 ......... M5 ......... . . M12 .......... PC BRIDGE OF REFRAIN TO REPEAT OF REFRAIN M13 .......... M14 .......... PD RB REPEAT OF REFRAIN PE BRIDGE FROM REPEAT OF REFRAIN TO CHORUS M15 .......... M16 .......... PF CHORUS M17 .......... . . . M18 .......... PG RB REPEAT OF REFRAIN PH BRIDGE FROM REFRAIN TO REPEAT OF CHORUS M19 ......... M20 ......... PI RF REPEAT OF CHORUS PJ ENDING M21 ........ M22 ........ M23 ........ AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 24 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Repeats ------- In the sample above we have also introduced the repeat character 'R'. When a part character is encountered any previous parts are marked as ended and the new part is begun. The repeat character is followed by the designation of the part to be repeated. Invoking a part will automatically force an end of measure process. Multiple repeats may be included within other parts as the generation of the .ROL code is done recursively. .*.. Be aware, however, that getting too complex with repeats may cause the stack to colide with the program or data areas. The use of the part designation before the repeat is generally to simply force the end of the definition of the preceding part. Invoking a repeat does not end a part. Attempting to repeat the current part will generate an error message as will trying to repeat a part that as yet has not been defined. Key --- So far our discussion has disregarded the key. Without a key signature the default is the key of C. To specify a key we use the character 'K'. K1# or K2& or K2# or K1& or K A '#" is the symbol for a sharp and the '&' is a flat. Looking at a music staff you will usually see a given number of these symbols. If three flats appear on the staff you only have to specify "K3&". A 'K' that is not immediately followed by a number is forced to the key of C. This is generally not necessary since the default is C. However, some songs will change key in the middle of a song. A 'K' followed by a number between 1 and 7 must be followed by a '#' or '&'. The digit following the 'K' must not be separated by white space. This situation would force the key of C. The program will place the appropriate sharps and flats on the appropriate notes based on the key. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 25 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Accidentals ----------- Any piece of music is apt to have notes that do not follow the key. These are know as accidentals. If in the course of transcribing a song, you encounter a note that is sharped or flatted outside of the key you simply follow the note with a sharp or flat symbol. M23 *Q387#5 V2*4376 V3@H0Q35 In voice 1 the note '7' is sharped. This will make this note a sharp for the remainder of the measure. Note however that voice .*.. 2 also has a note '7' in it. This note will also be sharped as a result of the prior '7' having been so. Note '7' represents 'C 1 above middle C'. This means that any C found after this accidental will also be sharped. Notice the note '0' in voice 3. This '0' represents middle C. It too will be sharped even though in terms of position on the staff it appears before the C that actually received the sharp. In order to correct this, assuming that there is no reason that it should be sharped, we need to return it to its natural state. For this we use the symbol for a natural, '%'. It is used in the same manner that we would use a sharp or flat. M23 *Q387#5 V2*4376 V3@H0%Q35 The natural notation can be used to either restore an accidental to its proper, natural state, or to force a normally sharped or flatted note to be natural for the remainder of the measure. Any accidentals assigned in a measure remain in effect only for that measure. A new measure restores the key to the state specified in the latest key designation. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 26 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Articulators ------------ There is one other set of modifiers for any given note. These are the articulators. These should follow a note immediately if used. If a note is modified by an accidental the articulator should follow the accidental notation. An articulator is used to give a degree of staccato to a note. The first articulator is the single quote, also know as an apostrophe ('). This causes the note to be shortened by the equivalent of one-third of a sixty-fourth note. A rest is added to fill in the space. A longer articulation is achieved with the double quote ("). This is twice the length of the short articulation. As with the shorter articulation, a rest is added to maintain the full length. Finally, there is the extended articulator, the comma (,). This essentially cuts the length of the note in half. A rest balances out the remainder of the duration of the note. A further enhancement may be forthcoming in a future version that will permit the coder to begin an automatic articulation for the current voice until it is toggled off. Articulation causes two notes to be produced for each articulated note. It also causes the number of ticks per beat to increase. .*.. Dotted notes and triplets ------------------------- Returning, for the moment, to the topic of duration, we need to discuss two modifiers that may be applied. The first is the dot (.). A dotted note plays that note for half again the duration of the note. A dotted quarter note is held for the equivalent time of three eighth notes, or, one and a half quarter notes. A dotted half note is held for the length of three quarter notes. The dot (.) must immediately follow the duration specification. M30 *Q.1I3Q56 The above segment represents a total duration of a whole note. The first duration is held for the length of one and a half quarter notes or three eighth notes. The next duration is an eighth note so our total is now four eighth notes or one-half. The remaining two notes, each held for the length of a quarter note round out a whole note. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 27 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The other modifier for a note's duration is the double dotted note represented by a colon (:). This actually stands for a triplet. A triplet is a set of three notes that are played in the same time as two notes. The equivalent time for the note is two-thirds of the base duration. M17 *Q:345H6 The above has three notes played as a triplet. The total time of the three notes is equivalent to a half note. The other half note balances out the measure. Double dotted and single dotted notation can be used in combination with each other but the order has to be with the double dot specifier first (e.g. Q:.). The reverse order will generate an error. Extending the note range ------------------------ As is probably obvious, there is a limitation to the range of notes that this coding method permits. As is often the case the notes go beyond the top limit of the coding scheme (+F) or below the lower limit (-F). There is a method of extending this range. This is by using the '^' operator. This character causes the current voice to be raised or lowered. The syntax is "^+#" or "^-#" where, in this case, the '#' is replaced by a hexadecimal number from 0 to F. When this operator is .*.. encountered it acts on the current voice only. It causes all successive notes to be raised or lowered by the specified number of whole steps (i.e. lines and spaces on the staff). In order to return to the normal, non-transposed voice mode, use the string "^+0". This is usually a temporary action if used to stretch the range of the scale. However, there is another use for this function. Some sheet music is written for other instruments than piano. These instruments may be soprano, tenor or alto in nature. By making adjustments in these values a voice can be reserved for these instruments and the notation transposed. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 28 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Transposing the scale --------------------- There are two other characters that affect the final notes played. These are the '>' and '<' operators. Placed in the code they cause the entire piece from the point of their invocation to raise or lower all the notes of all the voices by the specified number of semi-tones. They are invoked by entering either ">#" or "<#" where, again, the '#' is replaced by a hexadecimal number such as ">4". This would cause all notes to be played four semi-tones higher. "<2" would cause all notes to be played two semi-tones lower. Beat declaration ----------------- The conventions used by AdLib's Visual Composer require that it knows how many ticks there are to a beat. AdMuse calculates the number of ticks per beat for you. However, it needs to know what you consider a beat. That is where we use the 'N' functions. This character needs to be followed by one of he duration specifies H, Q, I, or S. No others are allowed. NQ says that a quarter note is considered to be equivalent to one beat. This is also the default should this declaration be left out of the code. Though it is not necessary to use this function, since a default is provided, it is the only way to make AdMuse recognize the basic tempo. Which brings us to ...... .*.. Basic tempo ----------- The basic tempo of the song is declared using the equal (=) sign in combination with the 'N' function. NQ=165 says that a quarter note is considered to be a beat and, when playing at standard tempo, there will be 165 of them played each minute. Again, there is a default supplied for the basic tempo if it is not declared. This value is 120. This is also pretty slow for most songs today. Some sheet music will indicate in what tempo it was intended to be played by putting a note at the top of first page followed by the equal sign and the number of beats per minute. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 29 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ We'll see more of the equal sign later on. It has a further use later on regarding tempo control. Comments -------- Last, and certainly least, we have the do nothing function. What would a language be without comments? To begin a comment, use the slash (/) character. All characters from that point on to the end of the line will be ignored. Comments are usually used to name the song, credit the author and most importantly, credit the guy who entered all that code into the computer. Hey!! How about that? It isn't so do-nothing as I said. The comment function can be useful in debugging code also. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 30 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The Special Stuff ================= Most of the above is derived from the original coding format. The AdLib card, however allows a much wider range of parameters than the card for which this format was developed. The AdLib card can handle volume, pitch and instruments on a per_voice .*.. basis. I've also modified the meaning of one other command mentioned above so that in another context it takes on a slightly different effect. Most of the special functions appear in parentheses. Keep in mind that this was done to be able to extend the use of letters of the alphabet that have other functions outside the parentheses. I also wanted to use the parentheses to help improve readability and to provide delimiters for the functions. The special functions also generate a number of defaults under certain conditions. For example, you may set a volume before the first note of a song is declared and it will begin the song at that volume. However, if you do not declare a volume within the code, a default is assigned at the beginning of the song. Also, if you enter code that generates notes then decide to set a volume, the default volume will be generated at the beginning of the song, followed by the placement in the song where the volume is being declared. Volume control -------------- The first control function is volume. It may take several forms. 1. (V#=.##) 2. (V#+.##) 3. (V#-.##) 4. (V=.##) 5. (V###+.##) These are only some examples. The '=' operator takes the value of the floating point argument on the right and applies it to the voice number specified on the left of the '='. The right hand argument must always be a floating point value between .01 and 1.00. The program makes no attempt to check the value of the argument but will limit anything higher than 1.00 to 1.00. Anything that goes negative will be changed to .01. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 31 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The argument on the left of the '=' operator specifies the voice to which the operator and the right hand argument apply. You may enter a list of many voices, each a single character ranging from 0 to B. These are hex value where 'A' is equivalent to 10 and 'B' is translated to 11. As a means of short-cutting, the value of '0' is used to specify all voices. Totally leaving this argument off means that the program will perform the operation on the current default voice. .*.. The '+' and '-' operators will take the previous value of the volume for the voice or voices specified and add or subtract the value in the right hand argument. Checks are made to see that the resulting value does not exceed the limits imposed by the AdLib sound program. The default volume setting is .75. When multiple voices have been specified, the position where the volume change takes place is determined by the current voice and applies to all voices that have been specified. If the change to take place must be at the end of a measure, be certain to pad the current voice with rests if the voice doesn't completely fill the measure before declaring a volume change. Pitch control ------------- Little will be said about pitch control, other than the fact that it works similarly to the volume function. The general form of the pitch function is (P[#[#[..]]] op floating_point_value) The limit for the floating point value ranges from .01 to 2.00. The default pitch variance setting is 1.00. A setting of 1.00 causes the instrument to play on pitch. Variations around this value cause the pitch to play a percentage higher or lower than the true pitch. A value of 2.00 will make an instrument play the next octave up. As with the volume, the exact timing of the pitch change is determined by the current voice when multiple voices are specified. All other caveats apply. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 32 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Instrument settings ------------------- AdMuse allows for the setting of instruments by the following special function: (I[#[#[#]..]..]=instrument_name) Just as with the volume and pitch functions, leaving out the voice number cause the program to assume the current voice. The reserved voice number '0' causes all voices to be affected. Otherwise, you may use a single voice number or a list of voice numbers. AdMuse checks for the length of the instrument name. If it exceeds eight characters an error is generated and the conversion process is aborted. .*.. The default instrument is "piano1". See volume and pitch information for restrictions concerning exact timing of mutiliple voice specifications Mode setting ------------ ROL files recognize in their structure two possible modes. The first is the melodic mode. When a song is considered melodic it can only access nine voices. The alternate mode is percussive. Percussive mode recognizes eleven voices. However, five of these voices are percussion instruments. In order to set the mode the code recognizes the following formats: (M=M) or (M=P) where the 'M' on the left of the equal sign initiates the mode function and the 'M' or 'P' on the right of the equal designates (M)elodic or (P)ercussive mode respectively. The program assumes melodic mode unless specified otherwise. While assuming melodic mode or, if otherwise specifically declared, functions that require that a voice be specified will generate an error if a voice number greater than 9 is used. It is best to declare the mode early in the code. Setting the mode also causes a default set of instruments to be declared when the .ROL file is generated if no instruments have been defined. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 33 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ The equate ---------- This is the function that has two meanings. Its major purpose is to control tempo. It has been previously mentioned that when used with 'N' function (set beats per measure) the basic tempo is set. Once the basic tempo is set it may not be changed again. Thereafter, all tempos are set as a multiple of the basic tempo. These multiple are limited to the range of .1 to 10.0. If the basic tempo is not declared in the code (it is not mandatory,) it defaults to 120 beats per minute. All tempo events declared will be percentage parts of this basic tempo. The form of the equate is simply =##.# where ##.# is a floating point value. .*.. Two other forms of the function are =+##.# and =-##.# These, naturally, increase or decrease the tempo in relation to whatever the preceding tempo was. Tempo is a parameter that pertains to an entire song and not one single voice. However, in order to be able to anchor the place in the song where a tempo change takes place, AdMuse will assume the position based on the current voice. Therefore, if the function is invoked in the middle of the string defining the notes for a specific voice, the tempo change will occur where it is declared relative to the notes in that voice. Care should be taken not to declare a tempo change late in one of the first voices defined for a measure and early in a second voice. The results would be unpredictable. AdMuse makes no attempt to check for this sort of inconsistency. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 34 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Extended notes -------------- Normally, AdMuse will end notes of a preceding measure when a new measure is declared. In some songs, though, a note is held over. This is designated in sheet music by a curving line connecting the notes from one measure into the next. In order to handle this, AdMuse uses the tilde (~) to indicate the hold over note. A portion of code might look like this: . . . M12 *Q4536 V2*Q.8IAH9 ...... M13 *I6~Q.5Q32 V2*Q7875 .... . . In measure 13 note 6 is followed by the extended note character. This means that the note begun at the end of voice 1 in measure 12 will be carried over into measure 13 without being chopped off. The total length of the note will be equivalent to a dotted quarter note (Q.) or a quarter note plus an eighth note as one note. If the note requires an accidental such as a sharp of a flat, the tilde must follow the accidental. REMEMBER: The tilde should follow the second note of the two. If the two notes are not the same, there can be no carryover between the notes. Music notation can have a curved line .*.. between two such notes. This is known as a slur. AdMuse cannot handle slurs at this time. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 35 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Beats per measure ----------------- The 'N' character has been discussed previously. This is used to define what note duration is considered a beat. AdMuse calculates how many ticks make up a beat based on a number of other considerations such as what the smallest note used is, if the smallest note is dotted, if there are any triplets, any articulation, etc. The AdLib Visual Composer uses a value in the ROL file to specify the number of beats per measure. In our coding format we will use the pipe (|) character for this purpose. For example, by putting NQ=165 . . |3 in the code, we say that a quarter note is considered a beat and that 165 of them should be played every minute. There are three beats to a measure (|3) making a total of three quarter notes per measure. Once these are set, AdMuse will not allow you to change them elsewhere in the song. It is not necessary to specify any of the three parameters in the song. There are defaults that will be used if none are specified in the code. The value of a beat defaults to a quarter note, tempo defaults to 120 beats per minute, and beats per measure becomes 4. As far as this coding method is concerned none of this really matters. The song will play properly. However, if you use AdMuse to generate a ROL file and then read it into the Visual Composer, if the values have not been set, the measure and beat markers will not align properly. This should be correctable by doing so from within the Visual Composer. A side effect of defining the size of a beat and the beat per measure that AdMuse takes advantage of is that it now know how many ticks there should be in each measure. If both parameters are defined, AdMuse will issue a warning that a given measure is too short or too long. This can be a great help in helping to debug code where you type some extra notes or inadvertently use the wrong duration notation. A warning does not abort the process, as it isn't critical just how long or short a measure is. There are some songs that change time signatures several times. .*.. Warnings may be repeated several times if they occur within a part that is repeated. This is nothing to be worried about. Fixing the problem will eliminate the repeated warnings. As mentioned above, some songs have several changes in their time signature. To eliminate all the warning messages, don't declare the beats per measure until the end of the song. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 36 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Accentuation ------------ Note: The following feature is not currently implemented. It is stated here in the event that you might want to include it in your coding so that it will be there when accentuation is implemented. Accentuation is indicated in sheet music by a short greater than sign (>) either above or below the note. This means that the note should get a stronger attack than the other notes. The character to be used for this will be the exclamation mark (!). This character, when used as intended, follows the note to be accentuated. If the note has an accidental modifying it, the accentuation character should follow the accidental. If the note is further modified by an articulator character, the accentuation character should come before the articulator. AdMuse will currently ignore this character when placed where it is expected. It will also ignore it in most other places but, if it is placed where AdMuse is looking for a modifier for another function, it will undoubtedly generate an error. When implemented, the use of the accentuation will add six bytes to the file each time it's used. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 37 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Error messages ============== AdMuse doesn't attempt to report more than one error message at a time. An error message appears near the bottom of the screen. The line with the error appears above the error message and the position where the error was detected is marked with a check above it. .*.. Error messages are generally self explanatory. There is one that is not quite as evident and deserves a quick word. An error is generated when a voice is being declared, either as the current default voice or as an argument in a special function list, if the voice is out of range or not a valid hex character. The problem is that the range is dependent on the prevailing voice mode. Therefore, if the mode is the default, melodic, the limit of any voice used is 9. The limit increases to 11 if the mode is percussive. Usually the error is marked precisely. The principle exception to this involves the special functions that are enclosed in parentheses. Due to the parsing that is performed on these longer strings, the check mark will usually appear at the right hand parenthesis. The associated error message will explain the nature of the error. Narrowing it down should be relatively simple. One other warning that may be received concerns some limitations imposed by the internal numbers that comprise a ROL file. Numbers are stored as two byte, signed integers, This limits the total number of ticks that a voice may play to something in the range 32K ticks. To AdMuse, this looks like a negative number. If the total ticks for a voice exceed this limit a warning is issued and a number is displayed. The number should be negative. The number has no significance except the fact that it is negative. I would suspect that the Visual Composer would blow up on this. Stand-alone players may treat the numbers differently so you might stand half a chance of making it play. Articulation on even one note could cause this warning to occur. Removing it might solve the problem. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 38 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Composing hints =============== The following suggestions constitute opinions that I've developed over the years while encoding music. These are only opinions and may not agree with your philosophy. Some pertain to using this coding method and others are general observations. ----------------------------- Always scan your sheet music in advance. Take notice of tied notes. You may decide to disregard them at first, then go back and insert the tildes where needed. Failure to tie notes may make a piece sound choppy. Plan your voices before you start to code. Know in advance what notes will be assigned to what clef. If you can mark on your .*.. copy of sheet music, draw colored lines between notes that will belong to the same voice. Play all notes. Some songs will go along for quite a while playing only three notes in the treble clef then have a number of fourth notes. These lend some expression to song and doesn't have much effect on the size of the file. If you own the sheet music from which you are transposing it is a good idea to write a number above, inside or below the measure and use the number in the measure declaration of your code so that you can find it more easily if you detect something wrong when you play the song. Or make a copy of it for marking on. If a measure has a variation in it, that is, when the measure is played again and one or more notes are change for the second verse, you will need to define the measure as a separate part. When the time comes to define the measure along with the variation, use the same designation for the measure but append a character that shows that it isn't the same as the first declaration of the measure. For example, for measure number 23, the first time the verse is played, mark the measure with "M23". The second time the verse is played, with the variation, Mark it as "M23a". This will help to keep things straight. Don't be afraid to use comments to document your code. Comments are ignored when the code is compiled but they can help you find your position in the file. Use a comment whenever you change to a new page. The comment should include the page number. Also place blank lines between each set of measures on a line. This also will help you find your position. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 39 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Place at least one blank space before the declaration of each new default voice. Always redeclare the clef when changing to a new default voice. This is not necessary except where the clef changes but it will help you remember which clef is being used and can improve readability by separating the number that denotes the voice from numbers that declare notes. Make use of the notation for beat definition and number of beats per measure where practical. It will help with debugging. Some songs may be improved by using articulation. Military and march songs usually fall into this category. The main problem here is that articulation automatically declares a sixty-fourth note as being three ticks and depending on conditions concerning dotted notes may double that feature. This doesn't prevent a song from playing properly, but if viewed under the Visual .*.. Composer the scale is magnified to the point of getting very short portions of a measure on the screen. Use the operators in the special functions creatively. Crescendos and decrescendos can be implemented with the volume function using the '+' and '-' operators. You can also use this for fades at the end of songs. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 40 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Keep in mind that when a part is repeated, the information is taken from the text at the point the part begins. Special functions within a part are repeated along with the notes. This can be used to advantage for such things as endings where you want to do a repeat and fade. Use the minus operator sprinkled inside the repeated part(s) to gradually reduce the volume. Some songs begin with a measure that starts with a number of rests. Though it is not necessary that these rests be declared to make the song play on a stand-alone player, it is a good idea to declare them in order to make notes align properly with the Visual Composer's measure markers. If a measure ends with all voices in a rest condition, pad one of the voices to make certain that a full number of beats per measure results. Use the comment character to mask out lines you don't want to listen to when checking a song. There are times when it would be helpful to play a single measure or a string of measures over and over while looking at the sheet music, looking for errors. Be choosy with the songs you select. Some vocals sound great on the radio but translate to pure instrumental poorly. The human voice has a greater potential for expression than most instruments and certainly more than those created by digital techniques. Songs that are intended to be instrumental turn out best. Along the same lines, sheet music that is designated as a piano arrangement may not lend itself well to using other instruments in place of piano. Study the song and determine what voices are used as fill-in. Some instruments with smoother sounds make better fill-ins than those with abrupt attacks or decays. Even a simple percussion pattern can improve the sound. Drum out a cadence with your fingers and work out some relative times for the various portions of the beat. Mix the percussion. Use combinations of drums with cymbal type instruments or snare to help break up the monotony AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 41 .*.. ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Make use of unused voices for special effects. The following piece of code is used to produce a crescendo. M35 *H12 V2*-1-1 V3@Q$A$A v9*i(v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$ (v0+.01)$ (v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$ M36 *Q$$$5 V2*H0Q03 V3@Q$A$8 v9*i(v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$(v0+.01)$ (v0+.01)$ (v0+.01)$(v0+.0 1)$(v0+.01)$ Since voice 9 is not used, it can be used to produce more minute changes in volume where voices 1, 2 and 3 use only quarter notes as their smallest increments. The rests in voice 9 are used to advance the timing. Specifying 0 as the voice in the volume declaration causes all voices to increment despite the fact that voice 9 is current. They all take on the timing of voice 9. The increment is that of an eight note. Your ASCII editor probably has the capability to reproduce the more tedious portions of the code. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 42 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Common errors ------------- If songs don't sound right, the following may help you to find the error. If the song as played by a standalone player doesn't sound right, make sure that the sound driver has been invoked with a sufficient buffer size. If a measure sounds long and seems to play extra notes, make sure that you have properly declared a new voice where needed. Sometimes a voice declaration is repeated inadvertently in the same measure. Long or short measures can occur as a result of not specifying a change in the duration. When the length of a note is declared, it remains in effect until a new declaration is made. This is true even between voice changes and measures. Sometimes, when modifying code, something is inserted that includes durations declarations. This may come between two portions of code where the duration was assumed to be unchanged so no change was made. .*.. Musical clunkers may result from a failure to change the clef or in declaring the wrong clef. If volume, pitch and instrument changes seem to cause the song to demonstate extreme, unexpected changes, there might be some attempt to cross declare them. Make sure that all such changes don't logically occur in a manner that may have them out of sequence. For instance: M23 *Q783(V12+.05)5 V2*(V+.03)7395 The first volume change in the example above is declared in what amounts to near the end of the measure. This causes the change for voice 2 to occur at the same point. But the second change, declared when voice 2 is current, says to make the change at the beginning of the measure. So, in terms of sequence of events, the second change should occur before the second. However, since the sequence in which it is declared causes it to do other wise, the information is stored in the improper order. There are a couple of ways of working around this. One way is to declare voice 1 after voice 2 as in: M23 V2*(V+.03)7395 V1*Q783(V12+.05)5 or the components of voice 1 can be split up M23 *Q783 V2*(V+.03)7395 V1*(V12+.05)5 or specify the volume changes relevant to voice 2 independently. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 43 ___AdMuse__________________________________February 12, 1990___ ________________________ Documentation _______________________ Future Features =============== The following are considerations for future features. Some may be implemented and others may not, depending on the practicality. 1. Automated crescendos. Decrescendos also. 2. Mapping of preset volume levels. Music notation recognizes certain letters that show what the volume level should be at a given point. The user should be allowed to define what these levels will be, then mark where in the song the volume changes to any of the preset values. .*.. 3. Pitch bending effects. 4. Attack accentuations for expression. 5. Pre-defined bass or percussion patterns. These would then be used in a repeating fashion to eliminate unnecessary typing. 6. Voice duplication. The user should be able to specify that all notes for a given voice will be automatically duplicated in another voice. This, combined with pitch variation would provide for richer sounds. 7. Directory searches. 8. Listing instruments in a user defined instrument bank. 9. Copy and delete functions. 10. Chord notation. Might be able to simulate guitar strumming. 11. An option allowing the user to define the length of the buffers used to store the note information. 12. Color options for those who absolutely need to have them. Maybe some windows, maybe not. AdMuse______________________________________________ Page 44 AdMuse Registration Form Mail check or money order to: Robert A. Calbridge 12904 Elam Road, Apt 101 Balch Springs, TX 75180 Please do not send cash in the mail Please fill in the following information Your name _________________________________________________ Adress _________________________________________________ .*.. City, State, Zip _________________________________ _____ __________ How much are you enclosing? $________ Where did you get AdMuse? ______________________ Comments or suggestions ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ AdMuse Copyright (C) 1990, Robert A. Calbridge, Jr.