Labels:text | screenshot | font OCR: AM/FM MUSIC-X HINTS & TIPS PART 2 AM/FM Yes, we're back with another part in the series of Music-X tips, for those of you who have used the program and know all the basic functions, but are always looking out to edit and playback your music in the quickest, easiest, and least memory- consuming ways. The first 4 tips, which were also the 4 most important ones, were covered in AM/FM issue #2, so if you missed it, make sure you get it now, by grabbing the nearest copy of AM/FM #2. Well, no use in wasting more time, let's get to it: TIP 5 - USE THE CONTROL CHANGES! Volume fading, vibratos, aftertouch, portamento, left/right panning, sustain and many other things can be controlled from within a Music-X sequence. A lot of people seem to have missed out on these, which is a pity because without them, you probably won't reach that nice polished sound. The most useable of them all is probably Volume Control, which is Control no. 07. This control has values from 0 to 127. It will work on almost all MIDI synthesizers and MIDI modules available. With many Volume Control Change messages right after eachother, you can fade the volume up or down, something which is absolutely vital. To make a nice smooth volume-fade, try the following: 1) In the bar editor, zoom in as close as you can get. Press "Add" and then Control Change. The control changes you place on the sheet will be shown as a little circle with a line going down towards the bottom. Place one as far left as you can get it, and make sure it is made Control 7 by selecting the correct Control type at the bottom right side of the screen. (Note: Control 7, not Value 7). 2) Add another one immediately to the right of the first one. And then yet another one, and so on, until you have filled up the first 1/4 with control change messages. The less space there is between them, the smoother your fading will be, but don't overdo it either, because that will make your sequence very tedious and slow to work with. One control change every 16th mote, i.e. 4 every 1/4th should be sufficient. Don't worry about the values of the control changes yet, we'll scale them to the correct values later. 3) Now set your grid size to 1/4ths, press "select", frame your control change messages and copy them to the next 1/4, then to the next one, and so on, for as long as you want your fading operation to take. Let's say you want your fading to go to go over 2 bars, then you would have to copy them and paste them on 7 times. on 7 times. (You do know of course, that you can paste the copy buffer several times without picking "copy" for every time!) 4) Now choose "Sculpt" from the panel on the right, and then pick "Control Change" from the little panel that pops up. Now all the circles on top of the control change symbols will disappear, and only the lines will be shown. Simply press your left mouse button, and "draw" your fade-line exactly as you want it. A straight line downwards will fade the volume down, and a straight line upwards will fade it up. Try adding a few notes, and listen to how it works out. Other control change messages are also very useful, like pan control, breath control, expression, portamento time and portamento on/off etc. etc. It's things like these that give that extra little topping to your music, making it sound more professional. Sure, it takes some time and effort, but it's worth it. In this very issue of AM/FM, you will find a list of all the control change messages and what they do. Go to the main menu, then choose "MIDI Information" and then "Control Change Messages". TIP 6 – AUTHOR NAME If you pick "Set Author Name" from the Projects menu, type in your name and the song title in the gadgets and press ok, then try picking "About Music-X" from the Projects menu. Fame at last, eh? TIP 7 – SAVE SEQUENCES! Once you've made yourself a drum sequence of a standard 4/4 rock beat, then enter the bar editor and pick "save sequence". Do the same thing to fade-ups, fade-downs, fill-ins, maybe even simple bass-lines etc. It's Laut convenient to have some of these lying around, so you can pick them up for later. For example, if you're in an inspired moment and you wish to start composing immediately, you'll thank yourself for having a drum sequence ready to use, instead of wasting precious moments on tapping in drums. You can always go back to the drum sequence later, and edit it to make it fit your song better, but when you first start on a new song, you don't want to spend time with basics such as drums or control changes. TIP 8 – KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS Learn to use the keyboard shortcuts (Amiga-S for sequencer page, Amiga-F for filters page etc) to save time. TIP 9 – THE FILTERS Learn to use the Filters page properly. This is one of the best parts of Music-X, and it makes channelizing, redirecting of MIDI data etc. fast and easy. You can have one keyboard which you keep real close to you, and the rest of your equipment can be positioned anywhere you want it. If you learn to use the Filters page properly, you will only need that one keyboard. Keep this "master" keyboard as close to the Amiga as possible. It's vital that you don't have to get up from your chair or lean too far over to get from the keyboard to the Amiga, as you always need to use them both constantly. TIP 10 – FASTER UP/DOWN MOVING I don't think this is mentioned in the manual: If you have a lot of sequences, and need to move your highlighted line a lot of lines down, hold down SHIFT and press arrow down. Same goes for arrow up, of course. The highlighted sequence will jump 10 or so instead of just 1 down. TIP 11 – SET UP YOUR SYSTEM WITH PROGRAM CHANGES When you load a song into Music-X and start playing it, it's very likely that all your synthesizers will be set to play all the sounds that you DON' I want. It will sound pretty ugly to say the least, and you will have to press a zillion buttons on your synths, to set them up to play the right songs. All this can be done a lot easier by adding a bunch of program changes at the beginning of all your Music-X performances. The program changes will set up the synths to the sounds you use in your song, and then start playing it. To be able to use this properly, you should assign one MIDI channel to each synthesizer and never change these. Also, don't turn off your synthesizers unless it's necessary, because this will reset all the MIDI parameters. if you have many synths, effect units etc. this can be a tedious job. Not the first time, but certainly the 258th time. AM/FM
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