Shareware Overload Trio 2/Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO/dir31/mt201.zip/MANUAL.DOC

Text File | 1994-01-04 | 22KB | 368 lines

                          M E T R O T U N E
                         (DOS version 2.01)

                        A "TRY BEFORE YOU BUY"
                          SHAREWARE program

                       To register, send $23 to:

                          Peter Thieberger
                          SCINCE FUN
                          15 Seeley St.
                          Brookhaven, NY 11719

**********************************************************************

  Peter Thieberger is a member of the Association of Shareware
  Professionals (ASP).  ASP wants to make sure that the shareware
  principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a
  shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member
  directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you
  resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide
  technical support for members' products.  Please write to the ASP
  Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe
  message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.

************************************************************************

Please note:

This is an abbreviated manual. When you order your registered copy of
METROTUNE, you will receive a disk with the latest version of the program
and a printed manual containing additional detailed information.

Other registration benefits include free assistance for two months and
future upgrade opportunities.



INTRODUCTION

METROTUNE is a simple program which will convert your PC into a powerful
and accurate TUNING FORK and into a novel, convenient and precise
METRONOME. In fact, with this program, your PC really does much more than
you could ever dream of doing with conventional metronomes and tuning
forks, and at a fraction of the cost. In addition, the program also allows
you to play, transpose, record and play-back simple melodies, to change
their tempo and to fine-tune their pitch.

METROTUNE uses the same precise electronic circuits which allow your
computer to keep track of the time of day. We use these timing circuits
both for the METRONOME and for the TUNING FORK. The resulting precision,
both in pitch and in timing, equal the precision that can be obtained with
expensive electronic instruments, and surpass by far what can be achieved
with the best mechanical devices.
With this METRONOME you can, of course, select an extremely precise tempo
but that is not all. You also select the length of the measures and the
METRONOME will accentuate the appropriate beats. Perhaps the most novel
feature of the METRONOME is that, in addition to the sound, it provides
striking visual displays of the rhythm. One of these displays in fact
simulates the motions of a director's baton. This feature solves one of the
main shortcomings of conventional metronomes. If you use METROTUNE as your
metronome, it doesn't matter if the sound it makes is drowned out by the
instruments or by the voices; you can always look at the screen.

As a tuning standard METROTUNE also outperforms anything you have seen (or
heard) before. First of all, it allows you to fine-tune the middle A (a')
with a precision of 1/60 of a half-tone. If you don't do anything, the
program selects for a', the standard value of 440 Hz (440 oscillations per
second). You get the image of a piano keyboard on the screen and you can
select any tone of the well tempered musical scale by using the mouse or
computer keys. You can use this feature, for example, to tune individual
strings of an instrument. To make this even more convenient we have
prerecorded the tones required for many different instruments and you can
add others. Finally you can record store and retrieve simple melodies and
experiment by varying their tempo and pitch.

METROTUNE does not play beautiful music. The quality of the sound is
limited by your PC's small speaker and by the fact that this speaker is
driven digitally (either in or out) and not by a smooth wave form. But the
fundamental component of the sounds have an extremely accurate pitch and
that is really all that matters for this application.

METROTUNE is easy and convenient to use yet a powerful, highly precise and
flexible program. It allows you to vary and record initial settings and to
store instrument tuning information and melodies in different disk
directories. You can tailor this program to best suit your needs. It will
run well on laptop or notebook PCs and, while monochrome displays are less
attractive than color displays, portability will be important in many
situations. METROTUNE is designed as a simple, useful and attractive tool
for a wide spectrum of users; from the beginning student to the
professional musician.


HOW TO GET STARTED

You can run the program directly from the floppy disk which comes with this
manual or you can install the program on the hard disk if your computer has
one. You can also use most of the important features of the program by
running it directly from a CD-ROM. In this last case, you will however be
unable to record or play back melodies and to change some default startup
values.

To run the program from the floppy disk, simply insert the disk in the disk
drive and type MT [Ent]. Here we use [Ent] to indicate that you should
press the Enter or Return key. If the disk drive you are using happens not
to be the active drive at the time, you must first make it the active drive
by typing A:\ [Ent] or
B:\ [Ent] depending on which drive you are using.
If you want to install the program on your hard disk, follow the above
procedure but type INSTALL  instead of MT. Now the computer will ask you
if you want to install the program in a directory called C:\MT. If you like
this choice just press [Ent]. If not, type in the directory you like, for
example D:\MUSIC [Ent] (in case you have a D: drive). The METROTUNE files
will now be installed and you will be given the option to start the
program. In the future, all you need to do is to turn on your computer (or
exit another program if one is running), select the C:\MT directory (or
whichever directory you used), and type MT [Ent].

The first screen to appear is the title screen. To start the program press
[Ent] or click the left mouse button on the < OK > "push button" you'll see
on the screen. Now a MENU will appear in the upper left corner of the
screen and the word METRONOME will be highlighted. This means that if you
press [Ent], the Metronome will be selected. You can instead select TUNE
or EXIT by using the vertical arrow keys before pressing [Ent]. There are
two other ways in which you can make your menu selection. You can click the
left mouse button on the desired item or you can press one of the letters
M, T, or E. Before selecting items from the main menu you can use the SETUP
menu with the horizontal keys or with the mouse. This SETUP menu will allow
you to choose COLOR or MONOCHROME display and also to select other initial
settings.

Once the METRONOME or the TUNE screen appears you will see certain areas
on the screen delimited by brackets  < >  or  [ ]  or  ( )  . These areas
are called "buttons" in analogy to push-buttons one may find on electronic
devices such as radios or VCRs. The piano keys on the TUNE screen are also
"buttons" even though they are not delimited by brackets.

You can make selections moving the cursor to any of the buttons by using
the arrow keys and the Tab and Shift-Tab keys and then pressing [Ent] or
by clicking the mouse on one of the screen buttons. When you do this, we
shall say that you "pushed" a button.  One off the screen buttons on each
of the two main screens is the  < HELP > button and, by pushing this
button, a screen will be displayed containing brief instructions. More
detailed instructions are contained in the next two sections.


METRONOME

To the left of the METRONOME screen you will see a number of boxes
containing various buttons, numbers and a scroll-bar.

The top box, labeled TEMPO has a scroll-bar and a number at the top. This
number indicates the number of beats per minute which is the tempo. The
tempo can be changed in one of several different ways while the METRONOME
is not running. You can move the cursor to the number field and type the
new value to replace the old one, and then press [Ent]. Another way is to
move the cursor to the scroll-bar and then to use the horizontal arrow keys
to change the tempo. Yet another way is to use the mouse by either clicking
on the appropriate spot of the scroll-bar or by clicking on one or the
other end of the scroll-bar. Finally, while the METRONOME is running you
can change the tempo with the horizontal arrow keys even though the cursor
is not visible and you can also change the pitch of the METRONOME with the
vertical arrow keys. These are the only values that can be changed while
the METRONOME is running.
The BEATS/MEASURE box lets you choose the number of beats contained in each
measure. This is the first or top number of the musical signature. For
example for the 3/4 signature it would be the number 3. You can select any
one of these values by clicking the mouse on the corresponding button or
by moving the cursor to that button and pressing [Ent]. You can see that
there are two choices for the BEATS/MEASURE value of 5 and another two for
7. This is so because there are different possible ways of accentuating the
intermediate beats of these measures. Experiment with these different
choices and you will immediately see and hear the difference.

The DISPLAY box gives you different choices for the visual display that
appears at the right side of the screen when you start the METRONOME by
pushing the RUN button at the bottom. One of the choices is to have no
visual display by using the DISPLAY Off button. For monochrome (black and
white) displays, the "Boxes" DISPLAY option disappears because this display
is largely based on colors. For some very slow computers and very fast
tempi it can occur that the computer is unable to generate the changing
display fast enough. When such a condition is detected by the computer it
will automatically turn off the display. The sound (if on) will still
continue at the correct rate, after a short interruption. When this
happens, and if you were using the Bars or the Boxes display, try using the
Baton display instead.

The sound can be turned on or off with the corresponding buttons in the
SOUND box. For slow computers, the sound and the display may appear to be
somewhat out of phase. If this bothers you, turn off one or the other.

The HELP button in the second box from the bottom displays a summary of
these instructions and the EXIT button returns you to the main menu.

Once you start the METRONOME  with the RUN button, you can change the tempo
with the horizontal arrow keys, you can change the pitch of the sound with
the vertical arrow keys, or you can stop the METRONOME by pressing any
other key. While the METRONOME is running, the present measure number and
beat number are displayed in the lower right corner of the screen


TUNE

This part of the program is used as a multiple adjustable tuning standard
or to play, record, playback and transpose simple melodies, scales and
arpeggios with adjustable tempo.

As a tuning standard, METROTUNE can produce any tone of the well tempered
scale and not just one, as is the case with a tuning fork. In this sense
you can use your PC METROTUNE much as you would use a piano to tune another
instrument. But the METROTUNE frequencies (pitch) are much more precise and
much less uncertain than those of a piano. To indicate the degree of this
precision it may be useful to mention that the beat frequency between any
of the METROTUNE sounds and the corresponding perfect, well tempered pitch
is always less than 0.5 Hz, or that the beat period is always longer than
two seconds.

Also, unlike a conventional tuning fork or unlike a piano, you can easily
fine-tune the METROTUNE pitch by adjusting a' from 432 to 444 Hz (the
standard value is 440 Hz and this is where the program normally starts),
and you can leave the METROTUNE sound on for extended periods (see below).
The upper left part of the METROTUNE screen shows the image of a piano
keyboard. The rest of the screen contains "buttons" indicated by < >, ( )
or [ ] brackets, scroll bars which are the shaded areas and "edit fields"
which allow you to type in various numbers and a melody title. As explained
above, you can push the various buttons or move to different areas of the
screen by using the mouse (clicking the left mouse button). If you don't
have a mouse, you can use the Tab, Shift-Tab and arrow keys to move the
cursor to different parts of the screen and then press ENTER to push a
button or a piano key. The TAB and SHIFT-TAB keys allow you to move from
one group of buttons to another while the ARROW KEYS let you move within
each group.Below we describe in detail the function of the various buttons.

At the bottom of the TUNE screen there are five command buttons. Of these
HELP provides a screen of basic instructions and EXIT returns you to the
initial Menu. When PLAY or RECORD are activated you can produce sounds by
pushing one of the piano keys. The main difference is that in the RECORD
mode, the sounds are recorded in a temporary file which can then be saved
with the UP ARROW key (see below). Also while in the RECORD mode you can
not change back and forth between the "INFINITE" note value and one of the
other note values. The final button on the bottom row is PLAYBACK. This
button is used to play back either a note sequence which has just been
recorded or a sequence or melody recorded previously and retrieved with the
DOWN ARROW button or selected with the LIST feature.

PLAYBACK can be interrupted by touching any key. If you touch one of the
number keys (1 to 9), playback is interrupted but the sound of the first,
second, ... or ninth note of the recorded sequence will be heard until
another key is pressed. If this other key is a number (1 to 9) another
sound will be heard. If it is 0 the sound will be interrupted but can be
resumed with one of the other number keys. Finally, if a non numeric key
is pressed PLAYBACK will be terminated. This feature, which is easier to
use than to explain, is very useful to play prerecorded instrument tuning
tones or to reproduce the first few sounds of a song.

Once PLAYBACK ends or once it is interrupted it can be restarted from the
beginning by pushing the PLAYBACK button again. However, the temporary file
containing the music information will be erased if you push the RECORD
button, if you retrieve another melody, or if you exit the TUNE screen.

The TEMPO, %LEGATO, a', and TRANSPOSE values can either be changed with the
scroll bar (using the mouse or the  left and right  arrow keys) or by
typing numbers in the boxes above the scroll bars.

The TEMPO is the number of quarter notes per minute and can be changed
before PLAYBACK. The minimum TEMPO value is  50  and the maximum is  220

The %LEGATO is the % of each note's duration the sound is on. It can be
changed before recording a note or a sequence of notes. The minimum %LEGATO
value is 10% (very staccato) and the maximum is 100% which is a complete
legato with the next note. After a sequence is recorded, these values can
not be changed during PLAYBACK.

The a' frequency is the pitch of the middle A tone which normally is 440
Hz (cycles or vibrations per second). This frequency can be changed from
432  to  444  Hz.  It can be changed, before using RECORD or PLAYBACK or
while using PLAY. Changing a' will also adjust the pitch of all the other
tones so as to preserve the intervals of a well tempered scale.
TRANSPOSE also adjusts all frequencies as above. But here the scale is
shifted by an integer number of half-tones; either down or up by maximum
values of  9  and  10  half-tones respectively. Also TRANSPOSE can be
changed, before using RECORD or PLAYBACK or while using PLAY and in all
cases it will adjust the pitch of all the sounds so as to preserve the
intervals of a well tempered scale.

The box labeled OCTAVE at the upper right side of the screen contains
buttons which allow you to select one of five octaves. In addition to
making this selection by pushing one of these buttons, you can change the
octave number up or down by using the UP and DOWN arrows respectively. This
is convenient, because thanks to this feature you don't need to move the
cursor away from the piano keyboard while playing or recording.

The box labeled NOTE at the upper right corner of the screen contains
buttons which allow you to select the notes from whole notes (1) to 1/16
notes or an indefinite length (INFINITE) note. When using the PLAY mode,
the INFINITE  Note is the most useful selection. You can select one of
these buttons by pushing it in one of the normal ways or you can also
change the selection up or down with the PgUp and the PgDn keys
respectively.

When  INFINITE  is selected and you click the mouse on one of the piano
keys, that sound will stay on as long as the left mouse button remains
depressed. This allows you to play the screen keyboard as if you were
playing an organ keyboard with one finger. When you play a screen key by
using the ENTER key (either by itself or in combination with the mouse),
the sound will stay on indefinitely until another screen key is pushed.
This feature is useful to turn on a given sound, go and tune your cord or
instrument, and then come back to the computer to change the sound or to
turn it off.

The other NOTE keys ( 1 to 1/16 ) are most useful when using the RECORD
mode. Used with or without the buttons which are below the OCTAVE and NOTE
boxes (see below), they determine the duration of the recorded sounds. The
time you take between recording one note and the next is irrelevant. If you
want a silence you must use the SILENCE button. In contrast, if you record
while "INFINITE"  is selected, the recording will reflect the pauses you
make between notes and you don't need to use the SILENCE key. These are two
distinct recording modes; one with the "INFINITE"  note selected and the
other one with one of the other notes selected. These modes can not be
mixed and the program will prevent you from switching modes while
recording. The difference during playback is that the TEMPO selection will
not affect a melody recorded in the "INFINITE" mode.
Below the OCTAVE and NOTE boxes, there are four buttons labeled WITH single
and double dots and with  /3\  and  /5\ . These buttons modify the NOTE
values in a way consistent with the normal musical notation for dotted,
double dotted notes and notes belonging to triples and quintuples
respectively. In all cases the selection of one of these buttons needs to
be made BEFORE the note(s) to be affected is (are) recorded. In the case
of triples or quintuples a corresponding number of notes should of course
follow these selections. You must turn off any of these selections, once
all the notes to be affected have been recorded. These buttons are turned
on by pushing once and they are turned off by pushing again. Another way
of changing the state of these buttons is by using the END key which
successively toggles each of them on and off and then finally turns all
off. In the rare cases when a dotted note is called for within a triplet
or quintuplet, you must replace that dotted note by equivalent two or three
notes joined by using 100% legato.

Finally, the box containing the  < LIST > , UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW buttons
is used for storing recorded melodies or for retrieving melodies which had
been stored before or which came with the program. Immediately above these
buttons there is a text field you can use to type in the name of the melody
you want to store or to retrieve. Legal melody names contain at most seven
letters plus an optional extension of up to three letters. For example
DRUMMER.BOY and RUDOLPH.RDR are legal names, and these, by the way, are two
melodies which come with the program. Once you entered the appropriate name
you can use the  UP ARROW  button to store a melody you just recorded or
the DOWN ARROW  button to retrieve a melody which has been previously
stored with that name. If you don't remember the names of the available
melodies you can use the LIST button. A window will appear containing the
list of available melodies and you can choose one with the mouse or with
the arrow keys. Once you selected the title you want, you push the SELECT
button at the bottom of this window. The window will disappear, the DOWN
ARROW (retrieve) button will be automatically activated and after a few
seconds you will see that the PLAYBACK button at the bottom of the screen
is highlighted to indicate that the computer is ready to play back. To
start the playback simply hit ENTER or push the PLAYBACK button with the
mouse.

This concludes the explanation of the METRONOME and TUNE screens. As we
saw, all operations can be performed clicking the mouse or moving the
blinking cursor around the screen with the TAB, SHIFT-TAB, and ARROW keys
and pushing buttons with the ENTER key. Also a melody name can be typed in
the appropriate box of the TUNE  screen for storing or retrieving melodies
and for either screen, numbers may be typed in, instead of using the scroll
bars. In addition we have seen that there are some special or "shortcut"
keys which make the use of the program more convenient.