Atari Mega Archive 1/Atari Mega Archive - Volume 1.iso/music/slave.lzh/VERSION2.TXT

Text File | 1992-05-07 | 15KB | 329 lines

        SLAVE DRIVER VERSION 2.02

Many things have changed for this version, new features have
been added, and several things have been fixed. Please take the time
to browse through this text file, or better yet, send it to your
printer for future reference. This file is an amendment to the
version 1.5 manual. If something doesn't work quite as described in
your manual, refer here for a description of how that function has
changed.

        YOU MUST RETURN YOUR ORIGINAL
        SLAVE DRIVER DISK

In order to receive continued support and upgrades, you must return
your original SLAVE DRIVER disk. New for version 2.02 - the program
is no longer copyprotected. If you have a copyprotected version, you
can return your original disk after receiving the update disk.

        NEW FEATURES SINCE VERSION 1.5
        - 255 SONGS!

The most exciting new feature included for version 2.0 is the ability
to contain up to 255 songs in memory. The play screen has been
modified to allow scrolling of the songs displayed on your screen.
You can scroll up or down 20 songs at a time using shift-up-arrow and
shift-down-arrow, go to the beginning of the list with
control-up-arrow, and go to the end of the list with
control-down-arrow.

As many of our customers have indicated that they frequently use the
function keys to select different songs, we have added a function
that allows you to type the number of a song to select it. By typing
control-s from the play screen (or the Playback module or the Remote
Display module), you can enter a two or three digit number to select
that number song. Typing control-s prints the message "Select" on
your screen. Type any digit between 3 and 9, and you need only type
one more digit to access songs numbered 30 to 99. Enter a number
between 0 and 2, and you can enter two more digits to select any song
from 1 to 255. Note that you will not be able to change maps using
the numeric keys, or change to songs 11-20 using the QWERTY number
keys while you are in the middle of selecting a song with control-s,
as these keys will instead enter a digit. You can, however, continue
playing your instrument, or select a song from 1-10 using the
function keys while you have typed one or two digits into control-s
song select. This can be handy if you want to have a song ready for
selection with one key press, simply type two of the three digits,
then go about playing normally. When you are ready to select the
song, type the third digit. Note that you can cancel the select
option with the Undo key, or begin typing digits again from the
beginning by re-typing control-s.

Additionally, the song order box has also undergone changes to
accommodate the greater song capacity. The control/shift arrows
described for the Play screen apply for scrolling through the list.
You can also drag a song to the top or bottom of the screen to scroll
the list. You will notice that this screen now draws much more
quickly, and that the "Compare" button has been lost (this is a trade
off - you will notice that while the version 2 program file is much
larger, the program doesn't eat any more memory than version 1.5).

        TEMPO CONTROLS

As requested by some of our customers, you can now control tempo
directly from within the program. A TMP event can be entered in any
of the Send, Reset, or Slave fields. The format of the command is as
follows;

ch   type/key   val/vel
-----------------------
       TMP       3-255

A fixed tempo may be entered in the Send or Reset field, or a range
between 3 and 255 may be specified as a Slave event.

        USING FIXED TEMPOS

One use of the TMP command would be to have to have a MIDI file
sequence play back at a different tempo than that which is specified
in the file. In this case, you would enter your play event as
follows;

ch   type/key   val/vel
-----------------------
P       SEQ        1        (or PX or LP or PE)
        TMP      145

It is important that the TMP command goes after the Play event, as
the Play event will cause the tempo to change as it reads the tempo
in the MIDI file. I'll demonstrate a way around this in a minute.

        INCREMENT/DECREMENT TEMPO

You can also increment or decrement from the current tempo. Under the
SEND, RESET, or SLAVE fields, you can enter the event as follows;

ch   type/key   val/vel
-----------------------
        TMP     INC
        TMP     DEC

        USING TEMPO RANGES

A tempo range can be specified in the Slave field. This will allow
tempo to be controlled in relation to a controller, key range, or any
other MIDI event. This will allow you to change the tempo in real
time from your MIDI controller. This event would be entered as in the
following example;

      MASTER
ch   type/key   val/vel
-----------------------
 2      OSC      0-127

       SLAVE
ch   type/key   val/vel
-----------------------
        TMP     110-140

The preceding example would have your OSC wheel from off to full
translate to tempo from 110 bpm to 140 bpm.

        USING/IGNORING MIDI FILE TEMPOS

Any tempo event that is occurred in a MIDI file will override any TMP
event you have set. This will especially cause a problem if you use
LP to loop a MIDI file, as the file's tempo will be reset on each
loop. Therefore, two events have been added that allow you to tell
the program whether or not to use the tempos specified in the MIDI
files. The USE command tells the program to use the tempo events it
encounters in a MIDI file, while the IGN command tells the program to
ignore MIDI file tempos. These events can be entered in any of the
SEND, RESET, or SLAVE fields. The format of these commands are as
follows;

ch   type/key   val/vel
-----------------------
       USE
       IGN

The program defaults to USEing MIDI file tempo events, and this
default condition is set each time you go from the edit screen to the
play screen. The IGN tempo setting can be very useful when
controlling a number of sequences, in which you want all to be played
at the same tempo. A typical application would be to specify IGN in
the SEND field, and reset the system to USE in the RESET field to
ensure normal operation for other songs.

As calculating tempos takes time, you can also use the IGN command to
save the program the time of recalculating a file's tempo each time
it loops. If you notice a small delay in the output of notes when a
sequence loops (I'm sure you won't, but I suppose it depends on how
hard you're working the program), try specifying the tempo before the
Loop event and then use IGN.

        RUN PROGRAM

This feature has been added, which allows you to run another
application from within SLAVE DRIVER. This feature can be extremely
handy for running utilities such as MIDI file conversion programs,
archive utilities, or even sequencer applications. The benefit is
that the SLAVE DRIVER application and the set and MIDI file data
doesn't need to be reloaded upon exiting the other application.
Confirmation is requested if the set you are working on has been
changed but not saved, as SLAVE DRIVER cannot vouch for how well the
application it runs will behave, whether it will crash, or whatever.
SLAVE DRIVER first shrinks it's memory reserve as small as possible
around the data it has loaded in memory, then executes the program.
When the executed program is terminated, you will be right where you
left off in SLAVE DRIVER. You will have to test how well this works
with any given application, results may vary from program to program.

        PAUSE

A pause key has been added to the play screen. By pressing control-p,
the sequencer will stop, and wait for you to type control-p again to
resume playback from where you paused. Likewise, you can select
control-p to stop sequences from starting if you want to use a
keyboard map without activating any Play events within the map.

        CHANGES FOR VERSION 2 - MENUS

The biggest change you will notice right away is the menus. Ite