XLR8 Chip Composer by Sentry
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* XLR8 - Sentry Chip Composor *
* Coded and designed by F.v.Nispen *
* Painted by A.Bod *
* Release Version 1.0 - 01.05.93 *
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XLR8 - Sentry Chip Composor is a SHAREWARE Product from the XLR8 Section of
Sentry NL. If you want ro register, you have to send us $10 or any equivalent
amount of money. You will receive an ACC-Player for *.XMS, *.XVS and *.XNG
files with the possibillity to play your tunes over the MIDI Interface to a
synthesiser or keyboard. You will also receive a convert program for other
players to Chip Composor (Mad Max, Modules...) and the first update wich will
include SID-Voice (Synth) in the Saved *.XMS Files. The adres is on the end of
this document.
THIS PACKAGE CONTAINS:
- XLR8CHIP.PRG The Editor (COLOR and MONO)
- XLR8CHIP.TXT This short manual
- XLR8PLAY.TTP For playing *.XMS Files from the
desktop
- PLAY.S Assembler Source for playing *.XMS
Files
- PLAY.GFA For playing music with GFA
- Instruments, VoiceSets, Songs ....
This package should run on every ATARI ST(e)/TT/Falcon, with 512kb or more.
It supprots both ST Low and Monochrome modes and will run on every vertical
sync frequency (50Hz, 60Hz and 71Hz).
WHAT DOES IT DO?
The XLR8 - Chip Composor is a program to compose music for the Yamaha 2149
soundchip that is included in every ATARI ST(e)/TT computer. With this musical
editor, you are able to compose music on this chip with maximum quality.
FEATURES:
- Three channel soundchip music on every ST
- For STE/TT users it will be possible soon to compose music with
three channel soundchip and two channel digital sound for drums.
This will make an amount of five channel sound that is never been
done before on Atari.
- A complete instrument-editor to make your own sounds with six
different syntheses.
- Tone Slides
- Volume control for every pattern and note
- Possibility to save musicfiles that include the song and voiceset
with a replayer in 680X0-machine code, so you are able to use
the music you made with it in Assembler, Basic, Pascal, .....
- It works with transposable patterns like Midi-programs, so you will
get very small music-files.
- The replayer is very fast, so it is also usable for demo's and games.
A FAST INTRODUCTION
Since the ATARI ST was released in 1985, there have been a many musicians
who made music on it. A few of them became very famous on Atari. The music
that these people made was often used in many demos because there was no
possibility to make your own music.
Every one in the demo-scene wanted to have the 'Max Max - editor' or any
alike editor, so they could make there own music. But none of the musicians
wanted to spread there magic tool. There came a few new musicians and a few
stopped their activities, but still there were no editors available.
But then! There was Music mon, but this commercial editor didn't get enough
of the possible sounds of the Yamaha chip out of it, so your music was doomed
to be wors than the DemoRoutines. And till the day of realease of this
editor there hasn't been any music-editor available that was good, fast, nice
to see, and took complete advandage of the soundchip.
So here it is, the first GOOD music editor for the ATARI ST(e)/TT and Falcon
computers.
START OFF THE PROGRAM
To start the editor you must dubbleclick on XLR8CHIP.PRG
THE EDITOR, GLOBAL
If you start the editor, an information box will appear on screen. You can just
click on the OK button to continue.
The screen is sepparated in three parts, on TOP you will find the program
options like LOAD/SAVE, INFO, V-SET,... In the midle of the screen you'll find
a window called 'PATTERN EDITOR'. On the BOTTOM of the screen there is a window
called 'SONG EDITOR'.
EDIT
If you click on the 'EDIT' button, a white cursor will appear within the
pattern-window. I the cursor is visable, you are in edit-mode. If you click
on the 'EDIT' button again, the cursor will dissapear.
By clicking on either the PATTERN-window or the SONG-window, you can swap
between the PATTERN EDITOR and the SONG EDITOR. If you are in PATTERN EDIT
mode or not in edit-mode at all, you can play tunes with the selected
instrument by pressing the keys 'Q' to 'RETURN' and '\' to '/' like playing
the piano:
1
A S F G H K L ' 2 3 5 6 8 9 0 = `
| # # | # # # | # # | # # # | # # | # # # | # #
| # # | # # # | # # | # # # | # # | # # # | # #
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
-----------------------------------------------
\ Z X C V B N M , . / Q W E R T Y U I O P [ ] RETURN
By pressing F1 to F7, you are able to change the octave-range, with F1 the
'\'-key will be C0, with F3 the '\'-key will be a C3 note.
PATTERN EDIT-Mode
A pattern is a little track of music with a maximum of 32 notes. You can play
the patterns in any order on any of the three channel and you are able to
transpose the patterns to a higher tone. So you can edit a pattern with some
melody based on the C-accord, and by transposing it by 12 keys, it will be
played in the C1-accord. By transposing it by 4 tones it will be played in the
E-accord. In this way it is possible to generate very short music files.
An example pattern:
00 C0 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00
01 A0 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00
02 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00
03 A0 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 A0 01 00 00 --- 00 00 00
04 C0 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00
05 C0 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00
06 C0 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00
07 C0 01 0F 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00 --- 00 00 00
On the first line of this pattern you see 'C0 01 0F 00 .....'
C0 is the note that will be played, 01 is the instrument that will be used to
play the note with, 0F means TONE-SLIDE SPEED 0 and VOLUME F that is 15! The
numbers in the pattern and song-editor are all in HEX! You can find a
conversion table for this in the appendices. From the moment you the toneslide
is not '0' but '1' to 'F', the current tone will be slided to the tone you
wanted to slide to. '1' is a very slow slide, 'F' is very fast.
Everything you enter in the pattern are changes. this means is you are playing
If you first enter 'C0 01 0F 00' and a little bit later 'A0 00 08 00', the
instrument you were playing at the moment will continue exactly the way it was,
but the frequency of the tone will change to 'A0' and the volume will be half
as loud. If you enter 'A0 01 0F 00' and later '--- 01 00 00', The instrument
will be restarted and the tone and volume don't change. So if the instrument
was a a piano, the A0-Key will be pressed again.
You can change instrument by clicking on the arrows behind the instrument-name
and number in the bar of the pattern-window. On this bar you will also find
the name of the pattern on the left. By clicking on these arrows you can select
a pattern to edit. By clicking on the name, you can alter the name of the
pattern, ESC will put the old name back.
COPY and MIX patterns
By clicking in CPY or MIX you are able to copy or mix patterns. You will be
asked to enter a(the) source(s) and destination of the pattern(s). You can
change the pattern by clicking on the arrows or by clicking on the name
of the pattern and enter the name of the pattern you wish to copy or mix.
If you want to mix, you have to put the most important pattern on src 1.
For example, if you want to mix DRUMS with a BASELINE, you must put the drums
on SCR 1 and the bases on SCR 2. If none of the tracks contain data, the data
ot the desteny-pattern will be maintained. If one of the two contain data,
it will be copied to the desteny-pattern, of they contain both data, the note
from SCR 1 will be copied.
THE KEYS IN PATTERN-EDIT mode
TAB - Next note
UP - cursor up
DOWN - cursor down
LEFT - cursor left
RIGTH - cursor right
INSERT - note back
CLR/HOME - note further
BACKSPACE - clear note, premelary note will be continued
ESC - put pause, tone will be stopped
+ - next instrument
- - instrument back
ENTER - play song, starting at the first songposition that appears
within the song-window
. (keypad) - play pattern, at the speed that is set in the bar or the
song-window.
SPACE - stop sound
SONG EDIT-Mode
A song is a sequence of patterns. You are able to transpose patterns or alter
their maximum volume. You can also edit the channel of the soundchip the
pattern will be played on.
Clicking on the songname will allow you to enter a new name, pressing ESC will
put the old name back.
channel 1 channel 2 channel 3 STe channel speed
00 PTRN01 00 0F ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
01 PTRN01 02 0F ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
02 ------ 00 00 PTRN02 00 0E ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
03 -REST- 01 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
04 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
05 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
06 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
07 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 ------ 00 00 06
The colomn in which you are editing, decides on with channel a pattern will be
played. '00 PTRN01 00 0F .....' will play pattern 01 on channel 1 with a
maximum volume of 15 (F) at speed 6. On the second line (01) is pattern 01
played with all notes transposed by 2 notes.
'-REST- 01 00' mains that the song must continue at position 01.
You can enter a new pattern by typing its name or by typing the number of the
pattern in 2 digits and press RETURN.
'-REST-' means 'RESTART' and can be entered by typing '-REST-' or by pressing
'*' on the keypad.
'------' is a pause on the channel and can be entered by typing '------' or by
pressing 'BACKSPACE'.
'-STOP-' means that the song is ended and must stop playing (no restart). You
can enter this or press 'ESC'.
You can use the arrows to scroll up and down and to move left and rigth.
INSERT and DELETE can be used to insert and delete one line.
THE TOP PART OF THE SCREEN
On the TOP part of the screen you'll find all options for the editor: LOAD,
SAVE, INFO, DELETE, EDIT, PREFERENCES, VOICE-SET EDITOR and in the the near
future EXTRA.
On the rigth-top of the screen you can see a Joystick with means PLAY SONG,
a FIST that means stop music and a HEADPHONE that is unused at the moment.
Below these three figures there are four leds with a little number on top of
it representing the soundchannel corresponding to this number.
By clicking on it it will alter from GREEN to RED or from RED to GREEN. Green
means that this channel is activated, Red means that this channel is dissabled.
INFO
Draws the INFOBOX that appears at the start of the program.
LOAD
This draws a box with the following LOAD FORMATS:
LOAD - SONG *.XNG XLR8 soNG
- 1 PATTERN *.XPT XLR8 PaTtern
- INSTRUMENT *.XIN XLR8 INstrument
- VOICE SET *.XVS XLR8 Voice Set
- MUSIC FILE *.XMS XLR8 MuSic
LOAD SONG loads a song including patterns and names.
LOAD 1 PATTERN loads 1 pattern on the pattern that is currently on the screen.
LOAD INSTRUMENT loads 1 instrument put it on the instrument that is currently
active (in the pattern bar).
LOAD VOICESET loads a voice set including names.
LOAD MUSIC FILE loads a music file that includes the song, pattern, instruments
and generated code for playing it and converts it back to the
editor.
SAVE
This function is dissabled in the DemoVersion
EDIT
Switch between normal mode and edit mode.
PREFERENCES
Allows you alter the jump to the next position while editing patterns
to be automaticly or manualy and to activate name-change of instruments within
the sequencer or dissable it (default).
DELETE
This allows you to delete some parts of a music,
SONG - Clean the song window
1 PATTERN - Clean the pattern window
ALL PATTERNS - Clear all patterns
VOICE SET - Clear Voice Set
ALL - Clear Song, patterns and voiceset
If you don't delete ALL before loading a new file, the file will be overlayed
on the old information!
V-SET
Go to the Voice Set editor screen. (See below).
EXTRA
Not used at the moment.
THE VOICE SET EDITOR
With this editor you are able to get everything out your YM2149, even new
bussounds and SID-Voice are included.
The main idea of a sound:
You are able to edit 64 Sounds and 5 Synthese Tables. You have 32 Tables with
each Synthese.
If you want to enable a synthese on a sound, just select a tablenumber with the
arrowkeys behind every synthese (On the left top of the sceen):
VOLUME -- <> ARPEGGIO -- <> VIBRATO -- <>
NOISE -- <> WAVE -- <> SYNTH OFF
If you go lower than 0, it will display '--' and disable the synthese.
By this way, you don't have to copy any tables from or to an instrument.
So you can easilly make two sound completely the same except for the
arpeggio (One with and one without arpeggio).
VOLUME SYNTHESE
Disable this option will always give you a volume of 15 (MAX).
If you select a table, the table will be shown in the VOLUME window (right
top of the screen).
You can alter any volume table you want by clicking on the raster with the
left key, The rigth key will delete a position. You can edit with TONE ONLY
(Red), TONE & NOISE (brown) or just NOISE (White). You can select this in the
volume window:
+--------+
| T # | Select TONE ONLY
| TN # | Select TONE & NOISE
| N # | Select NOISE ONLY
| # | Show the selected color
+--------+
The bottom of the blue raster gives VOLUME 0, Top of the blue raster gives
VOLUME 15 (Max.) and selecting the green raster on a position enables the
Hardware Wave Synthese.
In every window You can set three things:
SPEED 0 <>
RSTRT 0 <>
REPT 0 <>
SPEED Selects the nuber of VBL's to wait for the next value (the speed that
the table is handled by the synthese).
RSTRT With this one you can set to with position in the table the synthese
has to jump after the table has been done one time.
If it is 0, the table will be repeated continuesly from start to end.
If you put it on the end of a synthtable, the table will only be played
ones. So for example if you want to make a PIANO Sound, the table goes from
the left to to the bollom right '\' and the RSTRT is set on maximum.
REPT Currently unused
NOTE: This is the procedure with all other syntheses as well.
ARPEGGIO
You can edit a table when you selected one by clicking on the data window:
00 00
01 --
02 --
03 --
04 --
05 --
06 --
07 --
Exit the edit mode by pressing 'ESC', you can use 'BACKSPACE' to delete the
rest of the table.
Arpeggio is used for simulation Chord schemes, If you entered the following
in the data table of the Arpeggio window:
00 00
01 04
02 07
03 --
...
If you play any note afterards, the synthesizer will play the Normal tone, then
the Tone + 4 Tones, the the Normal Tone + 7 Tones and the normal again...
This means if you play 'C', the program will play:
C+0: 'C'
C+4: 'E' 0:C 1:C# 2:D 3:D# 4:E
C+7: 'G' 5:F 6:F# 7:G
So the program will simulate the Majeur-C Chord!
0,3,7 will give a mineur-C (C D# G)
NOISE Synthese
As you could read before, noise synthes should be selected within the VOLUME
Synthese window. With this synthes you can alter the NoiseFrequency (0-31)
that is played when noise is selected within the Volume table.
VIBRATO (FM)
In this table you can add a small value to the Tone frequency. If you would
enter: 00, 01, 02, -- in the VIBRATO WINDOW, The tone will automaticly
vibrate (Frequenty Modulation).
SYNTH
You can only put this one 'ON' or 'OFF'. It will activate the Ring Modulator,
known as 'SID-Voice','LAP-Effect' or 'Synergy Sound'.
NOTE: Synth ONLY works on channel 1 (left).
WAVE SYNTHESE
This one is probably the hardest of all to understand. For this one also counts
that the synthese must be selected within the VOICE WINDOW (Green bar is 'ON').
So if you want 'WAVE Synthese' you have to select a Wave Table and a Volume
Table with only the left top point set (green to red).
Pos. ++------- Wave Number
|| || ++++-- Period of the wave (Lo-Byte, High Byte)
00 00 0000
01 -- ----
02 -- ----
03 -- ----
04 -- ----
05 -- ----
06 -- ----
07 -- ----
Wave Numbers:
00 \____ You could use this one for PIANO
04 /|___
08 \\\\\ Usable for the so called 'Hard Buzz'
10 \/\/\ Usable for a 'Soft Buzz' (Synth dream Bass)
____
11 \
12 ///// Also a 'Hard Buzz'
____
13 / Usable for String alike sounds
14 /\/\/ An other 'Soft Buzz'
Period of the wave:
First two digits: Fine Tune, Last two: Period
The Higer the period, the slower the wave is handled: If you use Wave 00
and a high period, the volume will fade slowely away like the Piano.
BUT THERE IS MORE WITH THIS!
If you are editing the Wave nr. and you press '*', on the Period will appear
'AUTO'. This means that the period of the wave depents on the frequency of
the TONE. This is called 'BUZZ SOUND'.
If you move upon the 'AUTO' four digits appear again. This time it is NOT the
period of the wave, but parameters of the BUZZ Sound.
The first two digits give the Shift Value for Tone to period:
04xx Gives the buzz that is used in Trisound and by Synthdream.
If you use a higher shift you get a grover sound and you have to move
up in octaves.
The second two digits have the following functions:
xx00 Normal Vibrating Buzz
xx01 Half volume buzz
xx02 None Vibrating Buzz (Dry Buzz Sound)
xx03 Half volume dry buzz
xxXX Any other will have a higher period with a higher tone.
Example: You want to make the Soft SynthDream bass:
Select a VOLUME TABLE with WAVE SYNTHESE activated, select a WAVE TABLE.
The WAVE TABEL should look this way:
00 10 AUTO Under AUTO: 0402
01 -- ---- ||++-- Indicates a NONE VIBRATING BUZZ
++---- Standard Buzz shift
....
You can alter the name of an instrument by clicking on it.
XLR8 is the commercial software trademark of SENTRY. The contact adres is:
XLR8 - Frans van Nispen
Oranjeboomstraat 139
4812 EC Breda
The Netherlands
You can contact us for any reason like Design, Conversions for ST/STe/Falcon,
Programming, Music, Graphics or information on our products.
You can also register on this adres for the Chip Composor Shareware Package.
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