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- THE MUSICIAN 3 BY VICTOR ISSA
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-
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- Introduction
- ------------
-
- Ever since I first had my Amiga, I always wondered why there were no music-
- pianos for it in the PD. It seemed to me that it woulnd't be too difficult
- to make a piano-keyboard on screen that would play back the proper sounds
- like a piano. I also wanted to be able to record live music playing, and
- none of the commercial music programs (that I know of) can do this. So I
- got to work, and now I have completed a new version with many additions.
-
-
- Main Menu
- ---------
-
- The MUSICIAN3 will first show you some neat graphics to keep you busy while
- it's loading all the necessary files. Then you will be presented with a
- menu of three instruments (piano/amiga/drums). You can select one of these
- instruments with the mouse, and sound waves will animate when you do so.
- There are four boxes with commands in them. The KEYS box will take you to
- the Keys-screen. The FILES box will take you to the load/save area. The
- HELP box will take you take a help screen (READ IT!). The EXIT box will
- quit the program. You can tap away at the keyboard which is layed out like
- a piano, and play some nice music.
-
-
- Keys Menu
- ---------
-
- To get a view of a Yamaha keyboard and the layout of keys, just click the
- KEYS box in the main menu. The Yamaha keyboard will light up the keys that
- you press on the keyboard. I find this to be the easiest way to know what
- keys you are pressing. There are four command boxes on the Keys screen. The
- FILTER box will let you toggle the Audio Filter on the A500 and A2000. This
- will have no affect on the A1000's sound. The RECORD box will let you record
- some live music that you create. The recording will start when the mouse
- pops to the top left corner of the screen. In order to stop the recording
- you must press LEFT-AMIGA & CONTROL-E all at the same time (I'll make it
- easier later). Note that you cannot select box options while recording a
- song. The PLAY box will play back a recording that you have made or have
- loaded up. To get back to the Main Menu, simply click the mouse on the
- MENU box.
-
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- Files Screen
- ------------
-
- To get to the Files screen just click the box in the Main Menu labeled
- FILES. You will now be able to load or save a song. At the first prompt,
- enter l to load a file or s to save a file. You can just press return to
- return to the Main Menu. The next prompt will ask you for a file to load
- or save. Enter the name of the file with a FULL pathname (RAM: DF1: DF0:
- VDK:, etc...). Keep in mind that the name you enter will have the .mus
- extension added to it. The program will now test for how much memory you
- have. The loading & saving requires a large amount of memory. If you have
- enough memory (more than 195K free),it will load/save the file very quickly.
- If you have between 70K and 195K free, it will initiate a low-memory
- sequence and will take a bit longer (It unloads some screens, and then
- re-loads them). If you have under 70K free, the program will not allow you
- to do a load/save command. After typing the name, rhe file will be
- loaded/saved. If you loaded a file, it can be played in the Keys area.
-
-
-
- New Additions to Musician3
- --------------------------
-
- The Musician program has gone through a lot of changes. The Musician3 has
- many new features. It now has live record/playback of songs, loading/saving
- of songs, an audio filter switch, a help area, much better sounding
- drums, and internal memory management. The Musician3 is intelligent when
- it comes to memory. If you have low memory and try to do memory-intensive
- options, it will unload portions of the program and then re-load them
- later. The more memory you have, the faster the program will run.
-
-
- ---- Warnings! ---
-
- I suggest you PROTECT the MUSICIAN and MUSICIAN.info files because WB 1.2
- likes to mess around with the icons, and this can harm the program. The
- Musician 3 should be run from Workbench. It will run from CLI, but will
- give you an error when exiting. Do not run the Musician3 from RAM! The
- Musician uses RAM: for activities, and if you put the main program in
- the root of RAM: you will get some real problems. It should work from RAM:
- if you put all the files in a directory (not the root), and have enough
- memory.
-
- If you only have 1 DRIVE then you have one of two options... You will either
- have to do a lot of swaps when loading, or you can put the musician3 on a
- workbench disk (no swaps)... When running the Musician you MUST have
- the workbench files on a device somewhere (especially the Assign command).
-
- Be warned that the Musician3 is a MEMORY HOG! If you have 1MEG or more,
- you should have around 600K free. If you only have 512K, run the musician
- immidiatly after booting (like with CTRL-D, loadwb, and endcli).
-
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- The Musician 3 is NOT in the Public Domain! This program may
- be freely distributed but may not be used in any commercial
- product without prior written permission. Comments/Donations
- GREATLY appreciated.
-
-
-
- Victor Issa
- 15062 Rayen St.
- Sepulveda, CA 91343
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