=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-TOTAL IRRELEVANCE=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- How To Get by Without a sampler ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 3 "It`s all over", Commander MegaLoMania Yes, that's right, we have finally reached the end of our marvellous tour of life without a sampler. This final episode is concerned with the part of the OctaMED manual that NOBODY ever reads... Yes, it's SynthSounds. I was going to give some information on personalising ripped samples as well this issue but I have held it back because of two reasons : 1. Space - The SynthSounds part is so large that nearly all of TI would be filled by both sections - the commands list is VERY long! 2. Next Issue - If you have read this article backwards, you will have seen that next issue's in-depth tutorial is about SAMPLING so I will include a `personalising' section in that. So don't worry, Non-Samplers - you won't be left out! I mentioned SynthSounds in article 1. The ones I said I would be concentrating on would be SampleMaker SynthSounds. I lied! A hasty change of plan meant that I finished part 2 MUCH earlier than I anticipated so I had loads of free time to learn the complicated MED SynthSound programming language. And here it is. Finished (at last). I`d just like to say a few words about the format, now. I understand that people like colour so you will find it liberally splashed across these tutorial "pages". If you are new to the Amiga, and would like to know how to add colour, bold, italics or underlined text, read this: You need a text editor or word processor that can enter standard ASCII escape sequence codes. For example, EdWord from TIPD. The styles have a command to turn them on and one to turn them off. What you do is type your text, as normal, then before it put a style command. After the word(s) you want you put the "off" command. Note that if you need to do more than a whole line you will have to put one command per line. Try loading this file into a text editor to see what I mean. Anyway, the commands are: Esc[30m (Esc means press escape then type the command) Set foreground colour 0. (Usually the background colour)Esc[31m to 33m Set the other colours Esc[40m to 43m set the background colours (See this article's title) Italics On = Esc[3m Off = Esc[23m Underline On = Esc[4m Off = Esc[24m Bold On = Esc[1m Off = Esc[22m I expect to see loads of colour all over EVERYTHING now! Lets kick off with a reminder about how good (or bad) synthsounds can be. SynthSounds - An Overview ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SynthSound is a shortened name for Synthetic Sound. You may also hear these being referred to as "Chip sounds." They are the simple, bleepy instruments that you used to hear on the Spectrum, Amstrad, C64 and Atari ST computers. On their own they don`t tend to sound too hot but the odd Synth in the middle of a tune isn`t too bad - electric guitars can be made easily from SynthSounds and they don`t sound too bad! I have drawn up a Pros and Cons chart for Synths to help you. SynthSounds... FOR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * They do not take up much memory (the major reason for their use) * You have almost infinite control over them * They don`t degrade when played at a lower or higher note than their base, like samples do * You can use 4-5 octaves with them * If the length of each waveform (more on these later) is kept as a power of 2 (i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128) they are perfectly in tune, so you can tune your samples with them. * They sound `cool` - the current Rave trend uses simple sounds a lot SynthSounds... AGAINST ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * They have none of the harmonics of `real` sounds so appear simple * They are an acquired taste - I love `em `cause i `ad a `64! My mates all hate them (I can`t stand these people who get an Amiga as their first computer then insist they know everything!) * A lot of hard work is needed to create the sound you need OctaMED SynthSounds - The tutorial bit! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All you need now is a copy of OctaMED or MED. I recommend v3 of OctaMED or above. Version 5 users can, as usual, read the text in BLUE for any differences between these versions. If you are not using version 3 of OctaMED or above, I strongly recommend you do so. As from the next article in the regular tutorial series, I will concentrate on VERSION 5 and include annotation text for VERSION 3 or above ONLY. As usual, to use this tutorial to its full potential you ought to get a hard copy of this file. MUG offers a service where any three files can be printed out from the any issue of TI if you send them an SSAE or IRC. 1. Getting Started  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Making a simple SynthSound in OctaMED is surprisingly, some may say uncannily, easy. Make sure editing is off (the black E in the command strip above the note window is NOT black), then click on the following buttons... (See the picture for help if you can't find the buttons) i) INSTR ii) SYNTH (within then instrument panel) iii) SYNTH (on the right hand side of the screen) Hey, lets party! OctaMED version 5's method is TOTALLY AND UTTERLY different!!! What you do here is this... i) Click on the Type button on the top right of the main screen ii) Click on Synthetic inside this window, then close or iconify it iii) Click on the button marked Edit SynthS below the instrument name "Wow!", I hear you shout, "A screen of buttons flanked by two windows looking just like a pair of stereo oscilloscopes!". These two windows are the EDIT windows. The right hand one is for preliminary work (a bit like the spare page in Deluxe Paint) and the one on the left shows the current waveform. The waveforms are the separate `ingredients` of the sound, and can be played in any order - like sequencing instruments to make a tune! 2. Making a SynthSound  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To make your first sound, a looping wave, you can draw a shape on the right hand edit window. Alternatively you may use the pictures at the bottom of the SYNTH screen for triangle, square, round (such technical knowledge!) waveforms. Once you have finished, click on the button at the top left, between the two edit windows. It is called . A 00 will appear. Move the cursor to the SECOND of the two 00s and ensure the cursor is on the rightmost digit of the number. Press 1... Now your list will read 00... 01. When you play the note (after turning editing off) you will find that the first waveform you made will become the attack and the second will be looped forever. Now you can make loads of waveforms and put them in any order. But the more astute of you will have noticed a problem - what happens if you don`t want to create looping sounds? Simple! Remember how you make the new spaces in the waveform list? Well do it in the volume list. OK? Now you can put in any volume from $00 to $40 (decimal 0 to 64). If you don`t know Hexadecimal you may have a problem, so I`ve found a clever way of converting numbers from hex to decimal and back again! See the end of this text to find out how. To make a sound with an end, just make sure the final volume sequence entry is 00. (Try it) So you can make a SynthSound with multiple waveforms and changing volume but what if you want MORE control - vibrato, volume and pitch slides etc? Well there are many special commands in OctaMED that you can use to do just that. You enter them by making a gap in the usual way but instead of a number, you position the cursor to the left of the two digit number and press a special key (documented with the command). The command you have used so far is command 0 - no hotkey needed. With the other commands, you put in the command then use the next digit for its parameters. In the note editor you use commands like C-3 00101 | | | |___Parameter | |_____Command In the Synth sequence it would be more like... 00 40 ----- Basic volume = 64 01 CHD ----- Command = Volume slide down 02 05 ----- Parameter = Speed $5 (decimal 5) 03 END ----- END of sequence Some commands are longer e.g. arpeggio descriptions. With these, a special command may be needed to terminate the parameters. 00 00 ------ Waveform 00 01 ARP ------ Start arpeggio description 02 00 03 03 ------ Arpeggio 037 - Minor chord! 04 07 05 ARE ------ End arpeggio description 06 01 ------ Play waveform 00 07 END ------ End of sequence I know it sounds a bit complicated but please bear with me. Experimentation is the key word here, so try everything out. We will now jump in at the deep end and list the commands. The following text is based upon Teijo Kinnunen`s description of the Command set in the OctaMED v2 documentation. If you don't understand, try it out! In previous versions you had to create two entries for commands so the argument could be entered. Now, in v5 all you have to do is enter the command and a new slot will be automatically created after it for its argument (if it needs one) Volume List Commands Set ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Set Volume Command: --- Keyboard: --- (key press to use) You used this command first to set the volume. Its parameters are between $00 and $40. Example: 00 30 ----- Set volume $30 01 2A ----- Set volume $2A etc. 2. End sequence Command: END Keyboard: --- This designates the end of the list. It is always there. Press ] The slider sets the length of the waveform from 2 to 128 bytes. Below this bit is a bank of 11 buttons. The first one is New Waveform. As its name suggests this creates a new waveform. To the right is one saying New Here. This makes a new waveform after the current one and moves all the others up one. Delete Last and Delete current delete the final and currently selected waveform, as you may expect. Now there is the text Range and the rest of the buttons in the bank. To draw the range you click on the drawing mode button marked Pixel until it reads Range. Now you can draw a range to affect in the edit window. Drag the mouse to make it. (in v4 and below just drag the mouse using the right button to make a range) Cut, Copy and Paste cut, copy and paste the chosen range, respectively. The Paste option pastes the copy buffer to the cursor position. The cursor is placed by choosing range drawing mode and click once inside the edit window. A single vertical white line will appear. Clear clears the current range, double expands it to twice its original length (if there is enough space in the waveform to do so) and Reverse reverses the range. There are also two more buttons; [<<][>>] These shift the ranged data to the left and right respectively, so you can make some space in your SynthSound. Down the centre of the screen are yet more buttons. They are arranged like this: [] [ ] [ does the opposite; copying the left to the right. swaps the contents of the left and right windows. |<] middle [>|] end Menus ~~~~~ There is nothing of note in the first menu. The second menu is full of options to use the built in waveforms. It is worth trying all of these out. The third menu is the best one! I will go through the options it has... Stretch is a fun feature. First you must set the cursor to a point in the main window. Done? Right. Now select "Stretch" from the menu. Type in a value, in bytes and press return. Sorted or what? What it does is stretch the point beneath the cursor x bytes to the right. If you enter a negative number the point is move left. Change volume changes the volume of the ranged area. It is expressed as a percentage so 200 will double the volume and 50 will halve it. Finally, in the third menu, there is a command that generates a smooth transition from one waveform to another. To try it out, create a few blank waveforms and put one of the set waveforms from the second menu (or draw one) then another in the last one. Make sure the first waveform in your transformation is the current one then select the option "Start Transformation". Now go to the last one in your transition and choose the option "Do Transformation". Now flick through your waveforms to see the result. This is best used as a smooth slide through the waveforms, from beginning to end then back again. It is a bit like an aural version of morphing. Most of these features are buttons in v4 or below so I suggest you read the manual/documentation to find out where the commands are. In version 5 you can use the superb on-line help system (I assume you have already found it!) to get more information on the commands. Hints & Tips ~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have problems with Hexadecimal notation, why not use this ingenious method I have discovered. Both the tempo selector and instrument volume slider (in the INSTR panel) use both Hex and Decimal, so why not use these to work out your HEX? Just move the slider until the left hand number reads the decimal value you need, then read the HEX off the right hand side! Plus it works in reverse! It is then an easy task to return the slider to its original position. The volume slider, I may add, has NO EFFECT on SynthSounds so, as long as it's not at 00 it can be left where it is. Command E ~~~~~~~~~ In a song, command E is used with SynthSounds. It triggers a jump in the waveform sequence list. C-3 10E06 ----- Jump to position 06 in the pitch list Hold/Decay ~~~~~~~~~~ Hold and decay works slightly differently with SynthSounds. The hold value still works the same but decay is not a speed but a position in the volume sequence. So a hold of 2 will hold the note for 2 pulses A decay of 3 will jump to position 03 in the volume list once the hold has finished. Hybrid Sound ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is a cross between a sample and a SynthSound. To make one, load a sample, then go to the sample editor. Click on RANGE ALL then R>SY. Now click HYBRID in the INSTR panel. The sound can now be controlled with the SynthSound language. Note that only the volume sequence can be used. Just change the Sample in the Type window to Hybrid. What next? ~~~~~~~~~~ If you got stuck, check out the OctaMED manual and the demo synthsounds you got with the program, and to quote Teijo Kinnunen, "Don`t be afraid if you didn`t understand everything described in this file (I hardly understand it myself ;-)" If you bought TI3 you will have seen No Sampler 2 - the SLIST. Why not make a directory for SynthSounds on your sample disks? And why don`t you all create some really good SynthSounds and send them to MUG. Perhaps a future MUG samples disk will have SynthSounds on it! If you have the special No Sampler Utilities disk from MUG, you will have noticed the sample disk creation script. This automatically makes a SynthSounds drawer on your sample disks. Plus, on the disk there is a drawer of SynthSounds, MED and Samplemaker for you to check out! And on TI2 there was a drawer full of SynthSounds. You can learn a lot just by reading the waveform and volume lists on other peoples' sounds - another form of ripping. This was the last instalment of How to Get by Without a Sampler. Please send your opinions on it to TI - perhaps you want it to come back, what do you want it to be about? Was there anything you didn`t understand? Write and complain! Whatever you like - It's not just you : It's US too! ****************************************************************************** *Next Issue - How to get by WITH a Sampler. Yes, why not spend those pennies* * you saved up for a rainy day on a spanking new sampler! Or * * maybe you`ve just got a sampler but can`t use it yet! Either * * way, TI5 will be just what you need! * ****************************************************************************** This article is ©1993 MUG and Michael Richmond OctaMED is ©1993 RBF Software and Teijo Kinnunen Thanks go to Richard and Ed for their invaluable help Thought for the day :- "If it wasn`t for Total Irrelevance I would have a lot more spare time!" Michael Richmond, 28/7/93 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-TOTAL IRRELEVANCE=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-