Shareware Overload Trio 2/Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO/dir31/limed1.zip/LIMEDEMO.TXT

Text File | 1994-03-11 | 19KB | 441 lines

                      LimeLight(tm) Demo
                    Version 1.5 README.TXT

                Copyright 1994 by BeBop Systems,
                      All Rights Reserved


Requirements

LimeLight(tm) and this LimeLight Demo requires VGA Graphics
(preferably color) and a Mouse. A MIDI interface and external
keyboard or sound module is required to record or play back the
song sequences. A hard disk and '286 or faster CPU are
recommended.


Demo Limitations

This demo version of LimeLight does not save and only prints the
first page (first eight measures) of the sequence. And of
course, it doesn't have our terrific user manual with tutorial.


Where to buy LimeLight

LimeLight is only $99.95! Why pay more and get less? It comes
with a 96 page manual which includes a tutorial with sheet
music. LimeLight is available worldwide at better music and
computer dealers that specialize in music software. If your
favorite local dealer does not have LimeLight, tell them to call
joel Sampson MIDI Source at 214-328-2730. Support your local,
full-service dealer!

You can also order LimeLight direct from BeBop Systems at
1-800-775-5557 or 214-320-2723. Our fax is 214-328-6909. Our
free computer BBS, OMNI-NET is at 214-328-6909. The BBS supports
1200 to 14,400 bps, use 8N1. We will also have a corporate
mailbox on CompuServe soon.


Support

Our support engineers are located in another building. Their
phone number is [phone]. The support fax is (214)
385-9269. You can also get support via our bulletin board.


What's New in Version 1.5

The latest version of LimeLight features support for most
popular MIDI interfaces. It has a new setup program (LIMESET),
enhanced record filter, input MIDI channel bump and enhanced
real-time message and sync support.


MIDI Interfaces Supported

LimeLight supports the following MIDI interfaces: None (you can
look at LimeLight, edit files and print, but not play or
record), MPU-401 (still the industry standard). Use the MPU-401
setting for Sound Blaster 16 and Wave Blaster. We also support
the Key MS-101, MS-103 and MS-124 external serial interfaces,
Sound Blaster Pro, Media Vision, and all Music Quest interfaces
including the PC MIDI Card and MQX-32M cards and parallel
external interfaces 2 Port/SE, Note/1, Note/1+. You can also use
some sound modules and keyboards with a built-in serial
interface, such as the Yamaha TG-100, Roland SCC-7 and others.

NOTE: If you use a sound card, you MUST have the MIDI cable
adapter and an external MIDI keyboard or sound module. We do not
play the built-in FM sounds, they just don't sound very good! We
do play some high-end cards that use a MPU-401 to control
on-board sounds. This includes the Roland SCC-1 and Creative
Labs Sound Blaster 16 with the Wave Blaster option.


Introduction

LimeLight is a powerful, easy-to-use graphical MIDI sequencer
for MS-DOS. A great deal of time and effort was given to
designing the user interface and feature list. We wanted
LimeLight to have all the features necessary for music
production, but still be intuitive, consistent and fun to use.
Most musical data can be viewed and edited both graphically and
numerically in a variety of ways with LimeLight.

MIDI is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
MIDI allows various makes of computers and musical instruments
to communicate and be used together. The MIDI standard lets you
to get the most out of your musical equipment, helps to prevent
obsolescence and adds a great deal of versatility and power.

Just what is a sequencer? A software sequencer works with music
much the same the way a word processor works with words.
LimeLight allows you enter music in a variety of ways, real-time
with a MIDI keyboard or other MIDI controller, step-enter a note
or chord at a time with a MIDI keyboard, or with the mouse. You
can view and edit the musical data in a variety of views. When
completed, you play the sequenced music back live exactly the
way you want it. LimeLight also works with other music software,
such as notation software which can print complex musical
scores. LimeLight has the built-in capability of printing a
"rough draft" of a single grand staff track, which is very
useful.

The LimeLight sequencing software uses VGA graphics and a mouse
to display and edit the data in a graphical representation. It's
a much easier to use than numeric text based software of the
past. LimeLight uses Apple Macintosh hot keys on the computer
keyboard. Mac hotkeys are consistent and commonly used with many
other PC and Mac software today. Hot keys make LimeLight even
faster to use once you have mastered it using the mouse.

The power of LimeLight is the note entry and editing functions
which can compensate for lack of musical technical ability or
even physical limitations if you have a disability. You can
quickly fix mistakes, change the tempo, enter notes one at a
time or use other tools to create a musical work. If you can
"hear" a musical arrangement, you can create it! Skilled
musicians will find LimeLight an even more valuable and creative
musical tool. It lets you concentrate on your music, not the
software. LimeLight is useful to professional musicians,
studios, students, hobbyist, and anyone interested in music,
regardless of their music or computer skills.

Corporate users and media professionals working in multimedia,
film, television or radio can use LimeLight to modify and
customize existing musical sequences. Sequences are available
commercially or in public domain, typically from computer
bulletin board systems. These "canned" sequences can be
customized by non-musicians for a sound track just right for
your project.

Since the computer controls the musical instruments, MIDI is
always played live without the degradation that occurs when
recording to analog tape or the tremendous overhead of storing
sound on computer disk. This live capability also gives a
performer versatility on playback. The tempo, pitch, timbre and
other parameters that can be changed in real-time while the
sequence is playing.


Demo Setup

LimeLight requires an IBM-compatible computer with VGA graphics
and a mouse. A hard disk is highly recommended, although it can
be used with a 720k or larger floppy disk. A supported MIDI
interface is required to record or play music.

After you successfully install LimeLight to your disk, you must
use the LIMESET.EXE program to configure LimeLight for your
particular hardware. Type LIMESET to run the setup program. Use
the mouse or up and down arrows to change fields and the plus
and minus keys to switch values of each field.

Specify your type of MIDI interface and hardware configuration.
The default values are usually appropriate unless you had to
change the settings on your MIDI interface because of a hardware
conflict.

You also specify your printer so LimeLight can print music. Most
printers can emulate one of the selections given, check your
printer manual. You also specify your VGA type, typically COLOR.
LimeLight can also work with monochrome or LCD black and white
VGA displays.

Type Alt-S to save the data and Alt-Q to exit LIMESET and return
to DOS.


Pull-down Menus

The Pull Down menus in Limelight are located on the top line of
all screens. Most of the operations can be executed from all
screens, although some may more practical to use with a
particular window. Many of the common commands have hotkey
shortcuts to make LimeLight easier and faster to use. Hotkeys
are listed to the right of commands in the pull down menu, so
you will learn them after you use LimeLight for a while.


LimeLight Windows

Transport Window

The transport screen is the lower portion of all LimeLight
views. It's called the transport because it has stop, record,
play, rewind and fast forward buttons, similar to an audio or
video tape transport.

Track Window

The Track Window (F5) is the default window and one of the most
frequently used views. It displays and allows the editing of
many "global" values, values that affect a track for the entire
sequence. An example is MIDI channel or transpose.

LimeLight has 72 individual tracks and you will probably run out
of computer memory before you run out of tracks. The track you
are currently on is indicated by a large red triangle in the far
left, it is also displayed numerically in the lower right of the
transport portion of the screen. LimeLight begins pointing to
track one. You can select multiple tracks for some operations,
and the selected tracks will be marked by a smaller red
triangle. A black rectangle around a field indicates a selected
field and current track.

Mixer Window

The MIDI Mixer window (F6) in LimeLight is unique and exciting.
It emulates a conventional audio mixing board and in some MIDI
studios can even replace an expensive audio console.  Your
mixing can be recorded to automate complex changes. You can
switch to the Mixer window by pulling down Window and Mixer or
pressing the F6 key.

The mixer is labeled 1 to 16, for the 16 MIDI channels. The 16
volume sliders control the volume on that MIDI channel. Most
instruments respond to MIDI volume, which is MIDI controller 7.
You simply grab the slider with the mouse, hold the left button
down and move the slider up to increase the volume and down to
decrease the volume. The green "LED" indicators on top indicate
data activity and relative loudness on that channel and can help
to indicate which MIDI channels are active.

The volume sliders can also be ganged or combined to allow
smooth fades on several channels. To gang (or ungang) a slider,
double click the left mouse button or single click the right
mouse button on each slider to be ganged. The right mouse button
is easier to use if the sequence is playing. Ganged sliders will
be indicated in red. The Master slider on the right controls all
ganged volume sliders. Click on Gang Off to return the sliders
to normal.

Piano Roll Window

The Piano Roll Window (F9) displays and allows editing of MIDI
data at the note level. This window is similar to a player piano
roll on its side. A note, indicated by a blue bar, is the
equivalent of a hole in a piano roll. This view displays and
allows editing of notes of any value, including "non-standard"
lengths. It has zoom capability and can show all 88-notes of a
piano.

Note Window

The Note Window (F9) of LimeLight is a natural way to look at
music.  Notes displayed on the grand staff help to find mistakes
as well as do harmonic and other analysis. Step entry is also
performed in the Note window. Many aspects of the Note window
are similar to the Piano roll window.

The music in Note window is always displayed as two measures of
a grand staff. The music is automatically generated by the data
in the sequence. It is quantized for the screen only, so songs
entered in real-time may not have the exact starting times and
durations as notated. Also enharmonic notes, C# versus Db, may
not be displayed like the original music. This is not possible
with just the MIDI data, since C# and Db have the same MIDI note
number. The key of C and sharp keys use sharps and naturals
while flat keys use flats and naturals.

The blue dashed line indicates beats and the green dashed lines
indicate subbeats, sixteenth notes in 4/4. The number of
subbeats is 16 divided by the denominator of the time signature.
The Note window has four modes of operation selected with an
icon: edit, erase, insert and step.

Before editing or creating a new song you should set the proper
time signature with the Misc Key signature... pull down menu and
the time signature with the Misc Time signature.... These two
setting greatly affect the Note window.

The edit mode is used to correct mistakes by moving notes. To
select the edit mode click on the arrow icon in the toolbox.
Choose a note on the staff, click and hold the right button of
the mouse, which selects the note and turns the note red in
color. You can move the note up and down to change the pitch or
left and right to change its timing. If you double click on a
note a dialog box will pop up. The box allows you to change the
duration or velocity of the individual note.

If a note is moved outside its original "column" it will be
quantized For music entered in real-time, this may not be the
desired result. To change a note in pitch but keep the original
starting and durations, you can move the note up and down but
must stay within the column. This property can also be used to
quickly quantize single notes. To quantize a note, move it
outside the original column and back to the desired location.

To add an accidental, either sharp, flat or natural, click the
mouse on the desired accidental icon and then click on the note
to be changed. Since LimeLight automatically notates from the
MIDI data stream, sharp keys and the key of C can have sharps
but not flats, and flat keys will have flats but not sharps.
This means you may have to use an enharmonic equivalent, for
example a C# instead of a Db.

If you want to delete a note, click on the rectangular eraser
tool and click on a note to delete it. If you make a mistake,
you can undelete it with the Edit Undo command.

The insert command is chosen with the pencil icon. Select the
note or rest duration, whole note to sixteenth note. Then simply
click the left mouse button to enter a note in the desired
location.  You cannot insert two notes in same location, if you
try LimeLight will "beep" the speaker. However, you can move a
note into the same location as another. If you make a mistake
when entering a note, click on the arrow edit tool and move the
note or rest into the desired location or Undo the error.

The note window is also used for step entry mode. Step entry
allows slow, non-real-time entry of notes with a MIDI keyboard
or other MIDI input device. To begin step mode, click on the
step icon and pick the duration of the note. The numeric hotkeys
1 to 6 select a note duration, just like insert mode mentioned
above. To step enter a single note, simply play that note in and
it will be displayed on the screen. To enter a chord press and
hold down at least one note while you play the other notes of
the chord. When you release all keys, the chord will be entered.
This makes it possible to enter spread chords your fingers can
not simultaneously play. With one hand playing keyboard and the
other on the computer keyboard or mouse choosing note values you
can enter music quickly and at your own pace.

There are two kinds of rests in LimeLight. You can manually
place a rests or you can automatically "Guess Rests." Manually
placed rests are inserted, edited and erased just like notes.
They will show as a solid black color.

To automatically insert rests, pull down the Misc and click on
Guess/Re-guess rests. You will have the option to Guess/Re-guess
rests or Delete guessed rests. The Guess/Re-guess option will
automatically estimate and insert rests. Guessed rests show as
gray in color. You can delete all guessed rests with the Delete
guessed rest selection. If a guess rest is not what you want,
you can use the edit mode of the note window and move the gray
guessed rests. That turns them into a manual placed rest, black
in color, which will not be automatically deleted with the
Delete guessed rest option.

You can also print out the staves shown in the note windows.
LimeLight prints a "rough draft" of the screen and does not do
desktop music publishing. For advanced publishing, write a
Standard MIDI File with LimeLight and import it into a music
notation program to combine staves and add lyrics and notation
markings. THIS DEMO VERSION OF LimeLight ONLY PRINTS THE FIRST
PAGE. The production version prints any number of pages.

However, the printing capability is very useful as you can check
your work or play it from the printed music. Make sure you have
the selected the correct printer in LIMESET, the LimeLight setup
program. The Print functions only work when you are in the Note
window. To print, pull down the File pull down and click on
Print staff.... You are given the choice to print All, the
entire song or Partial with a set range of measures. Click the
mouse on Print and the staves should be printed to your printer
two measures across with three (with a dot-matrix printer) or
four (with a laser or ink jet printer) grand staves per 8.5 x 11
inch page.

Event Window

The Event List Window (F10) of LimeLight displays a numeric view
of the MIDI data. While the graphical editing windows of
LimeLight may be easier to use, the event list is the most
precise way to view and edit very fine detail. It is also the
closest to the actual MIDI data stream transmitted through the
OUT port of the MIDI interface. The track, MIDI channel, event
time, event type and event data are displayed. Different event
types will have different amounts of data, from one to three
bytes.

Other Windows

There are three other graphical editing windows for LimeLight:
Velocity, Pitch Bend and Controllers. These three windows are
similar and make editing the parameters that make music
expressive visual rather than a list of numbers.

The three windows have a similar user interface. The upper left
of the windows displays the Time and Velocity of the mouse
cursor position. The Zoom IN and OUT box will vary the zoom, as
will the hotkeys [ for zoom in and ] for zoom out. You can view
and edit data in 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 measure views. A
ruler of valid values is displayed on the right and the measure
numbers are displayed on the bottom.



Troubleshooting the LimeLight Demo

Problem: No Sound at all.

Check MIDI cables, make sure OUT is routed to IN. Check to make
sure audio is turned on your keyboard. Try playing the built-in
demo if the instrument has one. Sequence and instrument not on
the same MIDI channel. Make sure MIDI Thru is turned on within
LimeLight. MIDI interface not setup correctly.

Problem: Get the wrong sound.

Make sure the MIDI channel and patch numbers are set correctly
in LimeLight and/or your instrument.

Problem: Note doubling or loss of polyphony.

Turn MIDI Thru off within LimeLight.

Problem: No metronome sound.

Make sure the metronome is turned on within LimeLight. Setup the
MIDI metronome with LIMESET.EXE. You must set the channel, note
numbers and velocities.


Problem: Printer prints garbage or does not print.

Run the LimeLight setup program, LIMESET.EXE and make sure the
printer and printer port are correct.


Problem: Invalid Video Configuration message displayed during
startup.

A VGA adapter has not been found. VGA graphics are required for
LimeLight.

Problem: Mouse Not found.

The mouse or mouse driver was not found. A Microsoft compatible
mouse is required for LimeLight. Check to make sure your mouse
is plugged in the and the drivers that came with the mouse are
installed properly.

Problem: MIDI Interface Not found.

The set MIDI interface has not been found.  Run the LimeLight
setup program, LIMESET.EXE and make sure the MIDI Interface type
and other parameters are set correctly.