Notation editor =============== OctaMED has a built-in notation editor, for printing songs in standard notation. It's also possible to enter/delete notes with the mouse. The editor is quite straightforward to use. Selecting displayed tracks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have a song with several tracks with lots of notes (as you usually do), the display will easily become cluttered. To avoid this, you can turn on/off or ghost individual tracks. Usually it's convenient to put different components of the song on the same tracks throughout the song, for example drums on track 0+1, bass pattern on track 2, chords on tracks 3-5 and so on. Then you can easily e.g. hide drums, just by turning off the track(s) used for them. 'Show tracks'-gadgets allow you to turn on/off each track. 'Ghost tracks' allow you to "ghost" each track. Presets ~~~~~~~ You can have 5 different "configurations" of selected/ghosted tracks, which you can select with a single mouse click. The PSET 1 - 5 gadgets select the current preset. For example, let's use the above example to demonstrate that: You'd like that preset 1 displays ALL tracks, preset 2 only chords, preset 3 only the bass pattern, and preset 4 the chords and the bass. Preset 1 shows all tracks by default. Then click PSET 2. Now nothing should be displayed. Turn on the chord tracks (3 - 5 in this example). Click PSET 3, turn on the bass track (2). Finally, click PSET 4 and turn on tracks 2 - 5 (bass + chords). Now you can easily select one of these setups with the PSET gadgets. The 'CLR' gadget next to the PSET gadgets clears the settings of the current preset. Selected track ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you want to enter notes with the mouse, you must first select the track you want to edit. This is done with the 'Sel.track'-gadgets. When you select a track, the other tracks will be ghosted. The selected track is also changed when you change presets. Time signature ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The notation editor displays one line of (textual) note data as a 1/16th note. So, a quarter note would be 4 lines long on the text display. The notation editor displays/prints one measure at a time. A measure contains either 3 or 4 quarter notes (3/4 or 4/4). You can select this with the two TS gadget at the lower right corner. Key signature ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The key signature is selected with the set of SIG gadgets. You can set the number of signs you want with the + and - gadgets, and whether you want sharp (#) or flat (b), with the two gadgets next to them. Instrument numbers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The instrument numbers of the selected track are displayed above the notes if you click the 'Num' gadget. Options applying to instrument display ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are two options that apply to the current instrument only, and has to be set separately for each displayed instrument: 'Hide' hides the current instrument. If there are e.g. chord on the drum track(s), you can hide the drum instruments, showing only the chords. 'T' is the display transposition value of this instrument. This can be used e.g. to shift the main melody one octave up (to separate it from the bass sounds). Usually you want to transpose one octave at a time (12, 24 ,-12 or -24), but you can use any other value, if needed. Note that the editor can display a bit over 4 octaves, while OctaMED supports up to 5 octaves, Saving the note display settings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you activate 'Save', the settings of the note editor (tracks on/ghost/off, selected tracks, signatures, instrument hide/transpose) will be saved when you save the song next time. Note that if you save a module, you've to answer 'Y' to "Save instrument names etc." prompt, in order to save the notation editor settings. Entering notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The big black block is the cursor. You can move it with the cursor left/right keys. You can still enter notes from the keyboard, you're not restricted to mouse-only note entering. However, now I'll explain how to edit with mouse. To enter a note, you first have to select its length. There are pictures of the most standard notes available. You can select the note length with these gadgets (or alternatively, the length of a pause). If you need less ordinary note lengths, you can select multiple notes by shift-clicking any additional notes. The actual length (in lines of text display) is shown (L:). Then you position the mouse pointer (which looks like a note), over the point where you want to place the note. Press the left mouse button. You can listen and select the correct note by moving the mouse up and down. When you release the mouse button, the note will be placed. Remember to turn the editing on! You'll get a message, if no track is selected. 'Selected track doesn't exist' means that you've selected a track that doesn't exist on the current block, e.g. track 6 on a four-track block. The 'Ins' gadget turns on the insert mode, so that when you insert notes, the following notes will be pushed to the left. Note that you have to position the note exactly on the place you want it to start. The automatically advancing cursor helps by showing you where you can put the next note. When 'Del' is activated, the notes you point will be deleted (the following notes will be moved to the right). Printing ======== The main reason why the notation editor exists is the capability of printing standard notes, as well as the textual form they appear on normal OctaMED display. There are several options that allow you to choose what you want to print: 'Header' If this is selected, a song header is printed first. The header contains information about instruments, the playing sequence list, relative volumes etc. This is always printed as a plain text. 'Notes' Prints the note data as a standard notation, as a graphics. The printing is done through the printer.device, and any Preferences-compatible printer should work. The appearance of the graphics (margins, centering etc.) can be changed with the Preferences tool. 'Text' Prints the note data as text (as it appears on the standard OctaMED editing screen). 'FFeed' If this gadget is selected, a Form Feed is sent after each block has been printed. '->File' This gadget allows you to redirect output to a disk file instead of printer. Enter the file name into the file requester. You can print only the header and textual note data! Blks:0>0 All You can select which blocks you want to print. If 'All' is selected, all blocks are printed. If not, the blocks specified in the range (two integer gadgets) are printed. The first number is the starting block, and the other one is the ending block. 'PRINT' Press this gadget to start printing.