Category : A Collection of Games for DOS and Windows
Archive : PRSMDEMO.ZIP
Filename : HELP.DAT
Output of file : HELP.DAT contained in archive : PRSMDEMO.ZIP
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FILE LIBRARIAN
The librarian is your control window for loading and saving songs and
patterns. On the left side of the window is a list of all the song
files in the current directory. On the right side is a list of song
files. You can scroll through these lists by using the scrollbars to
the left of each list. Also notice the "File" label in the upper-left.
This is a pull-down menu that lets you access all the file commands.
SONG FILES
Song files store an entire song, which includes all patterns and links,
along with "setup" information like tempo, time signature, and MIDI
Thru.
LOADING A SONG FILE
To load a file from the list, Right-click on a song filename in the
list.
SAVING A SONG FILE
You can do one of two things here. Selecting "Save Song" from the
"File" pulldown will save the song under its current name (the name it
had when you loaded it). Selecting "Save Song As" will let you type in
the filename you want to use.
SAVING AND LOADING PATTERNS
Individual patterns can be saved on the disk. When you do this, the
pattern loaded or save is ALWAYS THE CURRENT PATTERN. The current
pattern is the displayed in the track sheet, so it is usually the one
you are interested in. You can change the current pattern by disabling
"Song Mode" in the transport window and then scrolling the "Pattern"
selection to what you want. To load a pattern, Right-click on the
pattern filename from the list. To save the current pattern, select
"Save Pattern" from the "File" pull-down.
COPY, RENAME, DELETE
Any song or pattern file can be copied, renamed, or deleted. First,
Left-click on a song or pattern filename to select it. Then select
"Copy", "Rename", or "Delete" from the "File" pull-down.
CHANGING DIRECTORY or DRIVE
You may want to use separate directories to organize your files better.
You may also want to store files on a different drive than the one the
program is on. To change to a different directory or drive, click on
the box where the current directory is displayed, hit
the old directory, type in the new one and hit
to change to drive A you would just type "A:".
NEW FILE
This will destroy whatever you have in memory and let you start with a
clean slate, so to speak.
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This file is intended to help you with the general aspects of Prism and
its window system.
KEY COMMANDS
Although you can operate Prism entirely with a mouse, some commands have
been assigned to function keys to make things faster. A summary of
available key commands is:
F1 Play/Stop
F2 Record/Punch
F3 Previous pattern/link
F4 Next pattern/link
F5 Cut in track sheet
F6 Copy in track sheet
F7 Paste in track sheet
F8 Clear in track sheet
F9 Undo in track sheet
F10 Quit Prism
Shift-F5 Cut in event list
Shift-F6 Copy in event list
Shift-F7 Paste in event list
Shift-F8 Clear in event list
Shift-F9 Undo in event list
ALT-F1 Librarian window
ALT-F2 Transport window
ALT-F3 Track sheet window
ALT-F4 Event list window
ALT-F5 Link list window
ALT-F6 Link list window
THE MOUSE
The mouse can be used in several different ways. On a two-button mouse,
both buttons are used. On a three-button mouse, the middle button is
unused. The mouse inputs used by this program are:
Left-Click: Click the left mouse button, then let go. This is what
is meant when the instructions say "click".
Right-Click: Click the right mouse button, then let go.
Shift-Left-Click: Hold down the shift key and do a Left-Click.
Shift-Right-Click: Hold down the shift key and do a Right-Click.
Drag: Press the left mouse button on an item, and while holding the
button down, move the mouse.
Hold: Press the left mouse button on a item, and keep it held down
for some time. This is used for scrollbars.
THE WINDOWS
Most everything that happens in the program happens in a window. Any
window that has a thin border and a thick "title bar" can be moved
around to make room for other windows and to keep your screen organized.
Windows with a uniformly think border cannot be moved, and "take over"
while they are on the screen. You must respond to those windows before
continuing.
MOVING A WINDOW
To move a window, use the mouse to drag it around by its title bar.
When you let go it will be redrawn in its new place.
RAISING OR LOWERING A WINDOW
It is easy to bring a buried window to the top of the window heap, or to
push a window down to the bottom. Hold down the ALT key and click
anywhere in a window. If the window is covered by anything, it will be
brought to the top. If it is already on top, it will be pushed to the
bottom. ICONIZING Some windows have a solid box on the right side of
their title bars. Clicking this box will shrink the window down to a
tiny window with an icon in it. This is useful for getting a window out
of the way when not in use. To get the original window back, click the
icon in the miniature window.
CLOSING A WINDOW
Some windows cannot be iconized, but they can be closed. If a window
has an empty box on the left side of its title bar, then it can be
closed by clicking that box. This will destroy the window. However, it
can always be created again using the same command that created it
previously.
WINDOW HELP
Most windows have a little '?' box near the left side of the title bar.
Clicking the '?' will display a help file that is specific for that
window.
SCROLLBARS
The scrollbar is found scattered throughout the program, and behaves
more or less the same everywhere. Its behavior is very similar to
Microsoft Windows or the Mac. The scrollbar controls whatever it is
attached to. In the case of lists, this means scrolling through the
list. In the case of data entry, this means changing a value.
The arrows on the ends of the scrollbar change the item by one. Holding
down the button on one of these arrows will continue scrolling or
changing the value. The box in the scrollbar can be dragged with the
mouse to a specific position for quickly changing a value, or scrolling
a list to a specific place. Clicking in between the little box and the
ends of the scrollbar will "page" up and down in a list, or change a
value in large increments.
EDIT BOXES
Edit box also appear everywhere in the program. They are used to
display text data. They are also "editable", meaning that you can
directly change the data in the boxes by retyping it. Often, a
scrollbar and an edit box will team up and allow you to edit a value
with either the scrollbar or the edit box.
To change the text in an edit box, you must first click the box. This
"activates" it. You can tell that a box is activiated if there is an
underscore cursor in the edit box.
Both the
an edit box.
text.
After you type in a new value in an edit box, you must type the
key to signal the end of your input. When you type
whatever you type is interpreted by Prism. If you typed an invalid
value, then Prism will display the nearest valid value to what you
typed.
PULL-DOWN MENUS
Pull-down menus are found along the top of the screen, and along the top
of some windows. They usually just look like a word on the screen, but
can also be a graphic picture. Holding down the left mouse button on a
pull-down menu will display the commands or options accessible from that
pull-down. To select one of the commands or options, keep the mouse
button help down until it is over the selection you want, and then
release the button.
You can easily peruse the options for every pull-down menu by holding
the left mouse button down and moving it across the labels for all the
pull-down menus you can see.
TIMES, TIMES, TIMES
Since this is a sequencer, time data appears virtually everywhere.
Times are displayed like:
012:2.76
| | |
| | Clock pulse
| Beat
Measure
There are two types of time displays: absolute and relative. An
absolute time tells you when something occurs in a pattern. The
smallest absolute time is "001:1.00", meaning "measure one, beat 1,
clock pulse 0".
A relative time tells you the time span between two things, or the
amount that some other absolute time should be changed. It can be
either positive or negative. Relative times can repesent things like
note durations and time shifts. A relative time of zero is displayed as
"000:0.00".
PATTERNS
Patterns are the fundamental building blocks in Prism. A pattern is a
complete sequence of some phrase of music. A pattern can be entire song
in itself, or simply a portion of a larger whole. Every pattern
contains the full twelve tracks. In this sense, it can be thought of as
a segment of multi-track tape. You can set the length of a pattern to
be any length between 1 and 1000 beats. You are given 32 patterns to
work with total, so you can use some of them for "scratch" work while
you are composing your song.
SONGS
A song in Prism is simply a bunch of patterns chained together so that
they play sequentially. When Prism is in "Song Mode" (there is a button
in the transport window to switch that mode on and off), then this list
of patterns will be played.
LINKS
Links are the mechanism used to create the chains of patterns. The Link
List Edit window allows you to insert and delete links from the song
list.
Each link is associated with a single pattern, and also has some
settings that let you mute and/or transpose selected tracks. Muting and
transposing tracks in the link is useful because you can then use the
same pattern in several different links, muting and transposing
different tracks in each link. This lets you get the most mileage out
of your patterns, and keeps you from making copies of the same tracks
and using more memory.
The Link Edit window is used to edit individual links. You can use it
to select the tracks you want to mute or transpose, and to specify the
transposition amount and a repeat count for the link.
THE TRANSPORT CONTROLS
The Transport window is the control center for recording and playback.
It is used in tandem with the Track Sheet for many operations. See the
help file for the transport window for more details.
THE TRACK SHEET
The Track Sheet is a convenient display and editing center for the track
data. This window lets you perform cut-and-paste editing directly on
the tracks. You can also use it to mute or solo tracks during playback,
and to make channel assignments. See the help file for the Track Sheet
window for details.
MEMORY (RAM) USE
Prism uses memory for several different things, including the window
system, tracks, patterns, and several buffers. Specifically, the edit
buffer, record buffer, clipboard, and undo buffer all share memory with
the tracks. If you start running out of memory, you can help the
problem in several ways. First, cutting and pasting across several
tracks at a time requires Prism to store the data you cut to the
clipboard. In addition, all the altered tracks are stored in the "undo
buffer" in case you change your mind. Editing fewer tracks at a time
will reduce the memory required by both the clipboard and the undo
buffer. Should you find yourself running out of memory, cutting some
"empty space" from a single track will free up memory in the clipboard
and the undo buffer.
EDIT BUFFER MEMORY
The edit buffer used by the event list occupies a fixed amount of
memory. The amount of memory that is allocated to the edit buffer is
about 1/5th of the total amount of memory available when Prism is
started. If you start getting "Edit buffer full" messages, this means
that you have tracks that are too long (or have too many events) for the
edit buffer to hold. There are three ways to get around this problem.
First, you can buy more memory or remove any TSR programs (like
SIDEKICK) that occupy memory. Second, you can break up your long
patterns into several shorter ones (Prism operates much faster with
short patterns anyway). Third, you can try keeping continuous
controllers or pitch bend on a different track or removing such events
altogether. Also remember that turning off the TOUCH RECEIVE option
will automatically strip out after-touch and poly-key-press events while
recording.
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The Track Sheet window is the main workhorse for doing pattern-level
editing. In here you can cut and paste segments of individual or
multiple tracks, set channels, mute and solo tracks for playback, and
select tracks and regions for recording or event editing. You can also
also apply operations like quantization to any region across multiple
tracks.
THE SELECTED TRACK(S)
Clicking a track name will select that track. The selected track will
change color (on an EGA or VGA), or go inverse video (Hercules or CGA).
Shift-clicking on a track name will add that track to those already
selected, so you can select multiple tracks. If you hold down the shift
key, and then click-and-drag across multiple track names, they will all
become selected. Shift-click also is useful because it does not change
the selected region (see below). This is useful if you want to
cut-and-paste across multiple tracks. Whenever you have multiple tracks
selected, then operations like RECORD and the event edit window will
always use the first selected track.
SCROLLING THE TRACKS
The vertical scrollbar on the side of the track sheet is used to scroll
the track sheet up and down to access different tracks. You may need to
do this when selecting multiple tracks.
THE SELECTED REGION
At the top of the track sheet window are two time displays, "Start" and
"End". They display the beginning and end of the region you have
selected. The selected region shows you exactly what data is going to
be changed when you do a cut-and-paste operation, autopunch recording,
or whatever. Whenever you click a track name, the whole track is
selected, and these displays show the beginning and end of the track.
You can edit these times directly, by clicking the left and right arrows
by the times to increment and decrement them. Left-click on these
arrows will change the times by clocks and Right-click will change the
times by beats.
The easy way to select the region is to do it directly on the data
display (the little boxes, or stars and dots on a monochrome monitor).
Position the cursor at the beginning of the region you want to select,
hold down the mouse button, and drag the mouse to the end of the region
you want to select. If you drag the mouse off the edge of the display,
then the display will scroll to select stuff that was "off the edge".
Notice that you are only selecting the TIME of the region when you do
this and are NOT selecting any tracks. So if you have multiple tracks
selected, then you are selecting a region for ALL those tracks at the
same time. Also notice that selecting a region with the mouse always
selects entire beats at a time. To get non-beat intervals, you must
change the "Start" and "End" time displays directly.
If you hold down the Shift key while using the mouse to drag out a
region, you will extend or modify any previous region. For example, if
you have a REALLY long pattern, you can select just the beginning beat
of a region, and then scroll the data display (using the scroll bar) to
the desired end of the region and Shift-click there to select the whole
region you wanted.
CUT AND PASTE EDITING
In the upper-right corner there is a pull-down menu labeled "Editing".
In there are the usual clipboard editing operations "Cut", "Copy",
"Paste", "Delete", and "Undo". They all deal with a buffer called the
"clipboard", and are described separately below.
CUT
This will cut out the selected region from the pattern and place it on
the clipboard. The selected region will become empty space. If you
have multiple tracks selected then they will all be affected.
COPY
Similar to cut, except the region is just copied to the clipboard and
not deleted from the pattern.
PASTE
This is kind of the opposite of cut. After you have selected a region
and CUT or COPIED it to the clipboard, PASTE will place that data back
into the pattern. The general procedure is this. First, select and cut
a region. Second, select a NEW region, possibly involving different
track(s). Third, do a PASTE. The data you cut will appear in the new
region. Some rules to remember are:
1) The number of tracks you PASTE into must be the same as the
number of tracks you CUT from. The PASTE menu selection will be
gray and you will not be able to select it if this condition is not
met.
2) An exception to rule 1 is that you can always paste onto a single
track, even if you cut or copied multiple tracks. In this case, all
the tracks in the clipboard will be merged into the target track.
3) If you are PASTING data over the top of other data, BEWARE that
the data will be merged, meaning that any redundant note-ons and
note-offs will be deleted!! For example PASTING a track back onto
itself will accomplish nothing, because all those identical note-ons
and note-offs would be deleted.
4) CUT and PASTE can be used together to effectively "bounce"
tracks, as long the the target track(s) are cleared before PASTING.
PASTE TO FIT
Paste to fit is similar to paste, except that the phrase(s) on the
clipbaord are stretch or shrunk to fit the selected time region. Thus,
if you cut two measures, then selected a one-measure region and did a
paste-to-fit, the original measures would be squashed down to fit into
one measure.
FILL
Fill is like paste, except that the data in the clipboard is repeated
over and over to fill up the selected region. For example, if you cut
one measure, and then selected an entire track and did a fill, the
entire track would be filled with the one-measure phrase. This is
especially useful for rhythm parts. If you select a time region for
filling that is not an even multiple of the time span of the phrase on
the clipboard, then the "uneven" part of the region will be left
unfilled.
CLEAR
Delete will simply delete the region from the pattern without copying it
to the clipboard. This is good for getting rid of data but leaving the
clipboard intact. For example, you may want to PASTE something into a
track but find that there is data there you need to get rid of first.
UNDO
UNDO will undo the must recent editing operation (CUT, PASTE, DELETE).
In addition, it will also undo the last recording, and the last change
made by "Writing" from the Event edit window.
INSERT TIME
Insert time will let you insert some blank space into a track, or into
multiple tracks. First select the tracks you want to change, and then
select a point where you want to insert time. For example, clicking the
first beat of measure three in the track sheet will insert time BEFORE
the third measure. After selecting tracks and a time, choose "Insert
time" from the "Editing" pull-down. You will be asked how much time you
want to insert. You can also specify "lengthen pattern" at this time,
which will cause the pattern to be lengthened by the amount of time you
are inserting. It should be emphasized that time is only inserted into
the selected tracks, and all others remain unchanged unless you specify
"lengthen pattern".
DELETE TIME
Delete time will let you delete some from a track, or from multiple
tracks. First select the tracks you want to change, and then select the
start point of the time deletion. After selecting tracks and a time,
choose "Delete time" from the "Editing" pull-down. You will be asked
how much time you want to delete. You can also specify "shorten
pattern" at this time, which will cause the pattern to be shortened by
the amount of time you are deleting. It should be emphasized that time
is only deleted from the selected tracks, and all others remain
unchanged unless you specify "shorten pattern".
MUTE and SOLO
The first two columns of the track sheet let you "mute" and "solo"
tracks while you are playing or recording. A muted track will not play.
If any tracks are soloed, then they will be the only ones playing. You
can change this at any time, even in the middle of recording or playing.
You can click-and-drag on the mute or solo columns to affect multiple
tracks at once.
CHANNEL ASSIGNMENT
The "Ch" column indicates the MIDI channel used for playback of each
track. Regardless of which MIDI channel your keyboard transmits on when
you record, each track will playback on its assigned channel. Selecting
"Assign Channel" from the "Special" pull-down will change the channel
for any selected tracks.
NAMING A TRACK
To name a track, first select a track, and then choose "Name Track" from
the "Special" pull-down. You will be prompted to edit the current name
of the track, or to type in a new one if it is unnamed. To edit the old
name, use either
type in a new one.
SETTING THE PATTERN LENGTH
When you want to change the length of the pattern to accomodate more
measures, or to truncate it, use the "Set Pattern Length" selection from
the "Special" pull-down. Then adjust the time with scrollbar and click
OK. You can also type in the new time directly by clicking the box with
the time in it, hitting
the new time. If you just want to specifiy the number of measures, you
can omit the beat and clock fields. For example, just type "4" to get
four measures.
SETTING THE DEFAULT PATTERN LENGTH
This works like setting the pattern length, except that you will be
setting the length of all UNUSED patterns. For example, if you are
working in 4/4 time and use a lot of eight bar patterns, then set the
default pattern length to 8.
THE RECORD BUFFER
The record buffer is where the last recording you made is stored. It is
stored there in its "raw" form before any quantizing. Because of this,
you can access the record buffer and retreive the unquantized version of
a track you just recorded, or to retreive it quantized in a different
manner. For example, let's say you recored a passage with quantization
on by mistake. You would turn off the "quantize" button in the
transport, and then choose "Record Buffer" from the "Special" pull-down
in the track sheet. Click "OK" in the dialog box that appears and you
will have your unquantized version. Similarly, if you recorded
something quantized to sixteenths, and you wanted to see what it was
like quantized to eigths, you would first change the quantization
divisor in the "Qz" pull-down in the transport, and then choose "Record
Buffer" from the "Special" pull-down in the track sheet. Click "OK" in
the dialog box that appears and you will have eighth-note quantization.
LOOP RECORDING AND THE RECORD BUFFER
(ACCESSING MULTIPLE TAKES)
Loop recording is a special feature of Prism that lets you just jam for
a while and record a few bars (or even a whole pattern) over and over
until you get something you like. This is done by selecting a region on
the track to record, turning "Loop" on, and clicking "Record".
Normally, the last recorded loop is chosen automatically by Prism when
you stop recording. You can access the other takes as well from the
"Record Buffer" selection in the "Special" pull-down. If you bring up
the Record Buffer dialog box after loop recording, you will be able to
select from the multiple takes you recorded, instead of just the last
one. Use the scrollbar in the Record Buffer dialog box to select a
"take number", and click OK. You can then play the track to see if that
was the take you wanted. You can also change the quantization settings
before selecting a take, as described in the previous section.
RESIZING THE TRACK SHEET
You can resize the track sheet in the vertical direction to display more
or fewer tracks. To do this, click the mouse on the square in the lower
right hand corner of the track sheet window and drag up or down. You
may have to move the track sheet window toward the top of the screen to
accomodate more tracks.
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THE TAPE TRANSPORT CONTROLS
The left half of the transport window behaves like a common tape
transport, with a few embellishments. You may have noticed that there
is no STOP button. Instead, whenever you hit the play or record button
it will turn into a STOP button so all you have to do is click it again.
The time display at the bottom will always show you the position of the
transport, displayed as "measure:beat.clock".
FAST FORWARD and REWIND
These controls let you set the position of the transport. Left-clicking
on them will move the time by clocks, and Right-clicking will move it by
beats. Changing the time display will change the point where playback
starts.
CUE POINT
The CUE POINT is displayed in the box to the left of fast-forward. This
setting will force playback to start at the CUE POINT, so you don't have
to wait to skip material you don't want to hear. Left-clicking this box
will set the CUE POINT to the transport time. So use fast-forward and
rewind to position the transport, and then Left-click the CUE box to set
it. Right-clicking the CUE box will move the transport to the CUE time,
to make it easy to change the CUE POINT.
PAUSE
PAUSE will stop the transport during playback or record, without
resetting the time like the normal STOP command would.
PLAY
PLAY will start playing from the current time displayed. If the time is
"001:1.00", and the CUE POINT is set, then it will play from the CUE
time.
RECORD
Before recording, FIRST select a track from the track sheet by clicking
its NAME field. Pressing RECORD normally will start recording at
"001:1.00". Recording will continue to the end of the pattern or until
you press STOP or PAUSE.
LOOP RECORDING
If you turn the LOOP option on, then the program will continue recording
successive "takes" of the pattern until you press STOP. The last
non-empty take will be the one used. You can go back and review all the
takes recorded by using "Record Buffer" command from the "Special"
pull-down in the Track Sheet.
AUTOPUNCH RECORDING
This lets you record over a region of a track. Perhaps you just want to
record over a few beats in measure three because you didn't quite get it
down the first time. To do this, select a track from the Track Sheet
and then select the desired autopunch region by dragging the mouse along
the track data display. Much more detail on selecting a region is
offered in the Track Sheet help window. After you have a region
selected, then hit record. The pattern will PLAY up to the beginning of
the region and then switch to RECORD during that region, then back to
PLAY after the region is over. You can couple this with the CUE POINT
to only play a few beats before the beginning of the autopunch region.
You can also couple this with LOOP to record multiple takes of the
autopunch region.
PLAY SELECTION
The PLAY SELECT button lets you play just the region you have selected
in the track sheet. To select a region, click a track name in the Track
Sheet and then select the desired region by dragging the mouse along the
track data display. Much more detail on selecting a region is offered
in the Track Sheet help window. After you have a region selected, then
hit PLAY SELECT to hear just the contents of that region. This is
especially useful in conjunction with AUTOPUNCH RECORDING, because it
lets you hear exactly what you are going to record over.
ON/OFF BUTTON OPTIONS
Quantize - Turns quantize on for recording.
Loop - Makes playback and recording loop forever.
Count in - Gives you a lead time four beats before playing starts.
Metro - Turns on the metronome beep.
QUANTIZE OPTIONS
The big "Qz" is pull-down menu that lets you select between several
different quantization methods and divisors. The divisors select the
sub-beats that notes are forced to start on. The methods all affect how
note durations are handled. They are:
Align - Quantize both note-on and note-off to the nearest divisor.
Even - Set the duration to the beat divisor.
Unaffected - Quantize the note-on but keep the same duration.
In addition, you can set up eighth and sixteenth note quantization as
"swing", meaning that every odd eighth or sixteenth note will be delayed
by some amount ranging from no delay to a full note's worth. The amount
of delay is determined by the "swing factor", which you will be prompted
to enter after selecting "swing" from the "Qz" pull-down. Setting this
swing factor to zero will produce no swing.
MIDI OPTIONS
The "MIDI plug" pull-down lets you set several options:
Midi Thru - Lets all incoming MIDI data be echoed to the OUT port of
the MIDI interface.
Control Reset - Sets all controllers and pitch bend back to zero when
playback is stopped.
Touch Receive - Allows recording of after-touch data, which can be
voluminous.
Internal sync - Makes the timebase of Prism driven by its internal clock.
Tape sync - Makes the MPU-401 sync to an FSK tone on tape.
MIDI sync - Makes Prism sync to external MIDI Song Position Pointer
messages.
USING SYNC
There are three different types of sync available as discussed above.
They are internal, tape FSK, and MIDI. A complete discussion of using
tape and MIDI sync is found in the manual, but we will mention the
procedure breifly here.
Tape (FSK) sync allows you to sync up to any tape deck -- even a home
cassette deck -- as long as you can set record/playback separately for
each channel. You should use this when you have completed the
arrangement of your song in Prism and want to record live tape tracks in
sync with it. To use tape sync, first "stripe" the FSK code on the
highest-numbered track of your tape. To do this, set sync to INTERNAL,
turn on count-in, turn on "Song Mode", scroll to link 1, connect the
MPU-401 TAPE OUT to the input of your tape deck, set your tape deck to
record, and adjust the record level to VU 0. Start your tape deck
recording and record about five seconds of the "unmodulated" FSK tone.
While still recording, click "Play" in the transport and play the entire
song. Wait about five seconds after the song has finished and click
stop, then stop your tape deck.
Now you are ready to record live tracks. So rewind the tape deck, set
the sync type to TAPE SYNC, and scroll Prism back to link 1. Connect
the output of the tape deck to the TAPE IN of the MPU-401. Set one of
the audio channels to record, start the tape rolling, and when you hear
the start of the sync tone on the tape, click PLAY in Prism. Prism will
wait for the end of the unmodulated FSK tone, and then start in sync
with the tape. Record your live tracks in sync with Prism by playing
along with Prism's song.
MIDI SYNC is far too involved to discuss fully here, but basically, when
you set Prism to MIDI sync, it will respond to MIDI Song Position
Pointer, MIDI Start, and MIDI Continue commands received on the MIDI
input(s). This is good for syncing to a drum machine or to a
SMPTE-to-MIDI or VITC-to-MIDI converter. For example, to record
patterns from a drum machine you would set MIDI SYNC and click RECORD.
Prism will wait until you start you drum maching going.
TIME SIGNATURE
The time signature will affect how all time displays look, and will also
select the sub-beat rate of the metronome. The most obvious thing it
does is set the number of beats per measure, which affects the display
of times, and also affects how the track sheet measure lines are drawn.
A setting of "no time signature" will make the time displays all look
like "beat.clock", and effectively eliminate any notion of measures,
which may be useful for certain types of music.
In addition, you can set the number of beeps per beat. This sets how
many metronome beeps you will hear for each beat when "Metro" is turned
on. It is useful to change the number of beeps per beat when recording
at half tempo, because it is easier to keep in sync with the metronome
when you can hear sub-beats (like sixteenths).
TEMPO
The tempo setting, in beats-per-minute, can be changed by clicking the
left and right double arrows. Left-clicking changes the value by one,
and Right-clicking change the value by 10. NOTE that on a 4.77Mhz PC,
the higher tempo settings may cause problems because the PC cannot keep
up with the demands of the MIDI interface.
SONG MODE
SONG MODE lets you switch between working on a single pattern and
working on an entire song. Most of the time you will have SONG MODE off
to edit, play and record a single pattern. When you start linking
patterns together into a song, then you can turn this on to see what the
whole song is like.
PATTERN/LINK SELECTION
With SONG MODE off, use this to select which pattern to work on.
Selecting a different pattern will change the Track Sheet and Event Edit
windows to display the new pattern data.
With SONG MODE on, you can select the current link. This makes it so
that playback of the song will start at that link. This will also set
the pattern you work on to the pattern associated with the link.
CHANGING THE PATTERN NAME
You can change the pattern name by clicking the name edit box, hitting
c n G µ E ú J D = J Ë H ' ) I I H Ú C , B n I · Æ E 3 > @ H THE LINKS
In the link window, you chain a bunch of patterns together to form an
entire song. Basically you are creating a list that says to Prism,
"when you are in Song Mode, then, play the intro first, and then verse1,
and then repeat the chorus twice, and then verse2, and then
interlude...." This is a natural way to express a lot of music, and also
lends it self to having different "experimental" configurations of the
song quite easily.
THE LINK LIST and PATTERN LIST
On the left side of the screen is the list of links in your song. This
may be blank if you haven't added any links yet. On the right side of
the screen is a list of your patterns. When creating a song, the
procedure is:
1) Select a pattern from the pattern list by clicking on it.
2) To add a link for the pattern to the end of the link list, click
"Append".
3) To insert the link before some other link in the list, first
click the other link and then click "Insert".
To get rid of a link you don't want, select the link from the list and
click "Delete".
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½ ½ .½ I w½ I À½ G ¾ H O¾ ) x¾ z¾ ¾ F Ⱦ J ¿ G Y¿ G ¿ ¨¿ ª¿ H ò¿ J <À H À C ÇÀ âÀ äÀ íÀ F 3Á H {Á C ¾Á I  < C E [ J ¥Â D é G 0à B rà A ³Ã F ùà % Ä Ä /Ä D sÄ H »Ä ×Ä ÙÄ ìÄ J 6Å J Å J ÊÅ # EVENT LIST
The event editor is for doing the real nitty-gritty editing work,
allowing you to change each field of each event, create new events, and
so on. In addition, it has some high level features such as clipboard
editing, time scaling, velocity mapping, and time shifts. I will
explain the mechanics of getting around in the editing window first, and
then move on the fun stuff.
SELECTING A TRACK TO EDIT
The event editor always edits the first track you have selected in the
track sheet. It also always edits the current pattern. This makes
sense, I hope. It also means that you should not fool around with the
transport too much while in the middle of editing a track or you might
accidentally go to a different pattern.
THE SPREADSHEET
The actual events are organized in a "spreadsheet", kind of like some
popular business software. Each row of the spreadsheet represents one
MIDI event. The columns in the spreadsheet tell you different things
about the event:
"stat": MIDI status. This is the event type.
"time": Time that the event occurs within the pattern.
"data": Primary data for the event, like the note value for
note-ons.
"aux": Auxiliary data for the event, like the velocity for note-ons.
SCROLLING THE EVENT LIST
The scrollbar on the left of the list lets you scroll up and down in the
event list. Clicking on the up and down arrows will scroll one line at
a time. Clicking inside the scrollbar above or below the little box
will page up and down in the list. Finally, dragging the little box
around will move the list to reflect the position of the box.
SELECTING WHOLE EVENTS FOR CLIPBOARD EDITING
Clicking the "stat" field of an event will select that event for
clipboard editing. If the event is a note-on, then the associated
note-off will also be selected, since they must be dealt with in pairs
to make sense. Shift-clicking a "stat" field will add the event to
those already selected.
USING THE CLIPBOARD
After you have whole events selected, use the CUT, COPY, PASTE, and
CLEAR clipboard functions to edit these events. These commands are
available from the "Editing" pull-down in this window. CUT will delete
the events and copy them to the clipboard. COPY just copies the events
to the clipboard and leaves the track intact. CLEAR deletes the events
without disturbing the clipboard. PASTE will prompt you for a time
where you want the events events on the clipboard to go, and then put
them there, keeping their relative time spacing and merging them with
any events that already exist.
QUANTIZING EVENTS
To use the QUANTIZE pull-down selection, first select the WHOLE EVENTS
(not just the time fields) that you want to quantize. Next set the
quantize divisor and type uising the "Qz" pull-down from the transport
window. Finally, select the "Quantize" option from the "Editing"
pull-down.
SETTING NOTE DURATIONS
To use the Set Duration pull-down selection, first select the WHOLE
EVENTS (not just the time fields) for notes that you want to change.
Finally, select the "Set Duration" option from the "Editing" pull-down.
You will be prompted to select one of the note duration symbols, or to
enter a duration time directly.
SELECTING DATA FIELDS FOR EDITING
Clicking a field in the spreadsheet other than the "stat" fields will
select that field for editing. The value for that field will be
displayed in the edit box above the spreadsheet. You can change the
value of the selected field by clicking the edit box, hitting
to erase the old value, typing in a new one and hitting
Shift-clicking a field will add it to the fields already selected. Note
that you can only have one type of data selected at a time, so the
program won't let you add incompatible fields. For example, if you have
a velocity field of a note-on selected, you can use Shift-click to add
only velocity fields. You cannot, for example, have both a velocity
field and a time field selected.
SELECTING COLUMNS OF DATA
You can easily select an entire column of data by first clicking a field
of the type you want, and then clicking the column label above it. For
example, to select all the velocities, first click one velocity field,
and then click the "data" column label. Note that this will only select
all the fields of the same type -- like all velocities in this example.
In many cases, a column will contain more than one type of data. For
example, you could have note events recorded along with pitch bend data.
Remember that you can never have different types of data selected
simultaneously, so clicking the "data" label could not select both the
note values for the note events and the pitch values for the pitch bend
events. Remember to first click a SINGLE data field of the type you
want, and then click the "data" label.
TYPING IN NEW DATA
Once you have selected one or more data fields, you can set them all to
the same value. To do this, click the edit box where the data is
displayed at the top of the spreadsheet, hit
appearing in the edit box, type in a new value and hit
the selected fields will then be set to the new value.
CHANGING NOTE-ONS and NOTE-OFFS
Note-ons and note-offs are always treated as pairs. If you change
something for a note-on, then the corresponding note-off is changed too.
For example, if you change a note-on from "C#3" to "C#4", then the
note-off will change to "C#4" as well. If you change the time field of
a note-on, then the time of the note-off will change to keep the
duration of the note the same. This lets you change the times
arbitrarily without worrying about getting the note-offs before the
note-ons.
In addition, the program will not let you change the "note" field of
note-offs without changing the note-ons as well. This is to avoid
"orphan" notes.
USING POST-OPERATORS
If you have a bunch of data fields selected, you can alter them all at
once by using a post-operator. A post-operator is one of:
"+": add a value to the selected data.
"-": subtract a value from the selected data.
"/": divide the selected data by a value.
"*": multiply the selected data by a value.
"r": randomize the selected data by a given amount.
For example, if you have a bunch of velocity values selected, then
typing "10+"
".7*"
them by 70%. Typing "5r"
adding a random number between -5 and +5 to each one.
CHANGING TIME FIELDS
Whenever you select time fields and change their values, times that are
set beyond the ends of the track will "wrap around". For example, if
your pattern length is eight measures, then the maximum time value (in
4/4 time) is "008:4.95". Now suppose you set an event's time to
"010:2.12". It will wrap around and appear at the time "002:2.12".
Note that the graphs treat times differently than the post-operators do.
A graph will alter both note-on and note-off times, and simply switch
the note-on and note-off if notes get reversed. A post-operator will
only move the note-on and keep the duration the same. This means that a
graph will compress ot stretch note durations and a post-operator will
not.
HEARING CHANGES YOU HAVE MADE
In the event edit window, there is a play button similar to those found
in the transport. Clicking this will play the track you are editing to
let you preview changes before you write them out to the track sheet.
Note that the cue point and transport position in the transport window
still affect where playback will start.
WRITE!
"Write!" writes the contents of the event list out to the track from
whence it came. Do this when you want to save the changes you have made
in the event list. Note that "Write!" will will throw away unmatched
note-on and note-off events, and sort the event list in chronological
order.
A useful editing is turn on the Loop option in the transport and start
it playing in pattern mode. Then make editing changes in the event list
and write them to the track sheet as you make them. Your changes will
be played on the next loop, and there is no need to ever stop the
transport during editing.
SORTING
You can sort the events you are editing in two ways. First, you can
sort them chronologically. Second, you can sort them by status (event
type). These two options are accessed from the "Sort" pull-down.
Sorting by status is useful if you just want to concentrate on one type
of event without all the others cluttering up the display.
THE SELECTION FILTER
The selection filter greatly simplifies selecting a certain type of data
or events within a given time range. For example, you may want to
delete all the after-touch information from 001:2.00 to 004:4.00. Or
you may want to select all the pitch wheel data from 002:2.48 to
010:4.00. This is a separate window and is invoked by choosing
"Selection Filter" from the "Editing" pull-down. More detailed help
info is available from that window.
CREATE EVENTS
Selecting "Create event" from the "Editing" pull-down will let you
create any arbitrary event you desire. This is also a separate window
and has its own help info.
SOUND NOTE OPTION
The "Sound Note" option makes it so that clicking any field in a note-on
event will sound the note for about a half second. This may be annoying
at times, so you can turn this off if you don't like it. This option is
found in the "Editing" pull-down.
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The mapper is one of three graphs that let you manipulate the events in
a very powerful and abstract fashion. The mapper is used most often for
scaling, clamping and shifting velocity, pitch wheel, and controller
data. Another popular use is in transposing note data. It can also be
used for really bizarre effects like distorting or reversing a sequence
in time, or transposing the notes in a convoluted fashion. I should
emphasize here that the mapper CANNOT be used to do things like
crescendo, diminuendo, and swing. For these, see the time scaler and
time cycle graphs.
Technically speaking, the mapper is a transformation. The easiest way
to describe this graph is to point out what this graph isn't. The graph
does not care what time it is. In other words, this is not a
value-versus-time graph. It is a value-in-versus-value-out graph. In a
simple example you might want to transpose every note up one semitone.
So, you replace every note with the next higher one. It doesn't matter
where in the track the note occurs; all C4's become C#4's, all G#5's
become A5's, and so on. In a slightly more complex example, you might
want to clamp off all velocity values to 90 or below. To do this, you
would set all velocities over 90 to 90, and leave the others the same.
Once again, this would be independent of time.
THE GRAPH COORDINATES
The mapper is tightly coupled to the event edit window. The coordinates
of the mapper graph extend from the minimum to the maximum allowable
values of the data selected. So if you have velocity data selected,
then the coordinates go from 0 to 127. If you have notes selected then
it is from C-1 to G9. For pitch it is from -8192 to 8191. When you
select different data fields, you should see the coordinates of the
graph change to reflect the data being altered.
BEFORE DRAWING THE GRAPH
Select some data in the event edit window. This will set up the graph
coordinates so you can see exactly what you are creating.
CHANGING THE GRAPH
You can change any point in the graph by clicking it with the mouse (you
have to be pretty accurate about this), and dragging it around. The two
boxes near the top of the screen will display the horizontal and
vertical coordinates of the point as you drag it around. The point you
changed last will show up as a filled square. Note that the end points
of the graph have to stay on the sides.
MAKING NEW POINTS
Clicking anywhere in the graph but on a point will create a new point
that you can drag around. There is a limit to this, of course.
DELETING POINTS
Clicking on a point and hitting CTRL-D will delete the point clicked.
You can continue typing CTRL-D to delete points to the LEFT of the
original one clicked. However, you cannot delete the end points. The
fastest way to delete all the points in the graph is to close the window
and open it again.
TYPING IN VALUES
If you need real accuracy (or have a difficult time with the mouse), you
can edit the horizontal and vertical coordinates display directly. Just
click the coordinate edit box, hit
in the new one and hit RETURN.
ZOOMING IN AND OUT
If you want to get a close-up view of a certain part of the graph, use
the zoom in/out buttons. They look like pointing-in arrows (zoom in)
and pointing-out arrows (zoom out). There is a separate zoom in/out for
each axis because you may want to change just one axis more accurately.
In the middle of left and bottom sides of the graph are the
magnification values. They look like "16x". Normally they are set to
"1x", but change as you zoom in and out. These serve as a useful
indicator to remind you of being in "zoom mode".
When you are zoomed in, the scroll bars on the bottom and left become
active, and let you scroll the graphical display around to view other
areas at high magnification. As you scroll around, the labels on the
coordinate axises will change to show you the area you are looking at.
USEFUL TIP: to zoom in on a particular point, first click the point and
then zoom in. This will keep the point centered in the display as you
zoom in.
DO IT!
This will actually apply the graph you have drawn to the data you have
selected. Click this when you are done drawing the graph and want to
change the data. Be careful not to inadvertently click this more than
once, because each click re-crunches the data. For example, if this
graph was for transposing notes, then every time you clicked "Do it!"
you would further transpose the notes.
APPLYING THE MAPPER TO TIME DATA
This deserves special consideration because the mapper can do nifty
things to time data, but it is a pretty weird concept. The most obvious
thing is to reverse the times. To do this, select the time column, and
then draw the graph so that the left end is at the top and the right end
is at the bottom. Then click "Do it!". This will reverse the times.
You can also compress the time data by pulling the right side of the
graph down from the top.
Note that the graphs treat times differently than the post-operators do.
A graph will alter both note-on and note-off times, and simply switch
the note-on and note-off if notes get reversed. A post-operator will
only move the note-on and keep the duration the same. This means that a
graph will compress ot stretch note durations and a post-operator will
not.
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The time scaler lets you produce time-varying effects such as crescendo
and diminuendo. You can also produce more esoteric results like
regional transposition, left-right panning, and subtle time shifts. I
have found that this graph is a lot easier for most people to grasp than
the mapper, because it has an intuitive "value-versus-time" layout.
THE GRAPH COORDINATES
The time scaler is tightly coupled to the event edit window. The
coordinates of the vertical axis of the time scaler graph extend from
the minimum to the maximum allowable values of the data selected. So if
you have velocity data selected, then the coordinates go from 0 to 127.
If you have notes selected then it is from C-1 to G9. For pitch it is
from -8192 to 8191. When you select different data fields, you should
see the vertical coordinate of the graph change to reflect the data
being altered. The horizontal coordinate always ranges from the
beginning to the end of the pattern.
GRAPH MODES
The time scaler has three modes: Shift, Scale, and Replace. In shift
mode, the data selected will be shifted up and down from its original
value. The graph thus indicates how much the value is shifted versus
time. In scale mode, the original data is scaled by a value from 0% to
200%. The graph shows you how much scaling takes place versus time. In
replace mode, the graph represents the actual values that the data will
have after being crunched. Replace mode is most useful for velocity and
controller data, where you actually want to "draw" the data out versus
time. In general, use shift or scale when you want to preserve the
nuance and inflection of the original music, and use replace mode when
you want to exactly specify the values over time.
DATA RANGE INDICATORS
There are two vertical dotted lines in the time scaler graph. These two
lines tell you where your selected data starts and ends. So if you only
have one measure selected out of a 10-measure pattern, then the dotted
lines will enclose about 1/10th of the graph, to show you where on the
graph your selected data is. These lines are useful because any parts
of the graph outside these lines will have no effect at all. If the
lines are close together, so may want to zoom-in on the time axis to
view it better.
BEFORE DRAWING THE GRAPH
Select some data in the event edit window. This will set up the graph
coordinates so you can see exactly what you are creating.
CHANGING THE GRAPH
You can change any point in the graph by clicking it with the mouse (you
have to be pretty accurate about this), and dragging it around. The two
boxes near the top of the screen will display the horizontal and
vertical coordinates of the point as you drag it around. The point you
changed last will show up as a filled square. Note that the end points
of the graph have to stay on the sides.
MAKING NEW POINTS
Clicking anywhere in the graph but on a point will create a new point
that you can drag around. There is a limit to this, of course.
DELETING POINTS
Clicking on a point and hitting CTRL-D will delete the point clicked.
You can continue typing CTRL-D to delete points to the LEFT of the
original one clicked. However, you cannot delete the end points. The
fastest way to delete all the points in the graph is to close the window
and open it again.
TYPING IN VALUES
If you need real accuracy (or have a difficult time with the mouse), you
can edit the horizontal and vertical coordinates display directly. Just
click the coordinate edit box, hit
in the new one and hit
ZOOMING IN AND OUT
If you want to get a close-up view of a certain part of the graph, use
the zoom in/out buttons. They look like pointing-in arrows (zoom in)
and pointing-out arrows (zoom out). There is a separate zoom in/out for
each axis because you may want to change just one axis more accurately.
In the middle of left and bottom sides of the graph are the
magnification values. They look like "16x". Normally they are set to
"1x", but change as you zoom in and out. These serve as a useful
indicator to remind you of being in "zoom mode".
When you are zoomed in, the scroll bars on the bottom and left become
active, and let you scroll the graphical display around to view other
areas at high magnification. As you scroll around, the labels on the
coordinate axises will change to show you the area you are looking at.
USEFUL TIP: to zoom in on a particular point, first click the point and
then zoom in. This will keep the point centered in the display as you
zoom in.
DO IT!
This will actually apply the graph you have drawn to the data you have
selected. Click this when you are done drawing the graph and want to
change the data. Be careful not to inadvertently click this more than
once, because each click re-crunches the data. For example, if this
graph was for scaling velocity, then every time you clicked "Do it!" you
would further scale the velocities in the same fashion.
APPLYING THE GRAPH TO TIME DATA
This deserves special consideration because it is not at all obvious
what you can do with the time data. The most common thing to do is to
put the graph in shift mode and draw out a VERY slight time-shift graph.
You should limit the extent of the shift to about +-10 clocks or you
will get unacceptable results. This type of graph will let you subtlety
shift one track against another to get rid of some "mechanical" feel.
One example of this is in drum tracks, where you can shift the snare and
kick relative to the rest of a drum pattern to make the track sound more
"pushed" or "liad back".
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The time cycle lets you add effects like swing and inflection to your
music. You can also create rhythmic variations in controllers and
velocity. This graph is much like the time scaler, except that instead
of spanning the entire length of the track, it just covers some small
portion like one measure or one beat. The idea is that this graph is
applied repeatedly to the selected data in the entire track. This lets
you do things like "increase the velocity of the third sixteenth note in
every beat", or "add some swing by delaying every second eighth note".
Just remember that whatever you draw is going to be repeated over and
over.
THE GRAPH COORDINATES
The time cycle is tightly coupled to the event edit window. The
coordinates of the vertical axis of the time cycle graph extend from the
minimum to the maximum allowable values of the data selected. So if you
have velocity data selected, then the coordinates go from 0 to 127. If
you have notes selected then it is from C-1 to G9. For pitch it is from
-8192 to 8191. When you select different data fields, you should see
the vertical coordinate of the graph change to reflect the data being
altered.
THE CYCLE TIME
The horizontal coordinate has a variable range that you can set
yourself, anywhere from 48 clocks (1/2 beat) to 10 beats. You change
this by moving the scrollbar on the bottom of the window around, or by
clicking the edit box displaying the cycle time, hitting
erase the old time, and typing in a new one and hitting
time of "001:0.00" means one measure, and a time of "000:1.00" means one
beat. Whatever time you set will be the repeat interval of the graph.
If you set this to one BEAT, then you can do things like "emphasize
every other 1/16th note". If, on the other hand, you set it to one
MEASURE, then you can do things like "delay the third beat of every
measure a little".
GRAPH MODES
The time cycle has three modes: Shift, Scale, and Replace. In shift
mode, the data selected will be shifted up and down from its original
value. The graph thus indicates how much the value is shifted versus
time. In scale mode, the original data is scaled by a value from 0% to
200%. The graph shows you how much scaling takes place versus time. In
replace mode, the graph represents the actual values that the data will
have after being crunched. Replace mode is most useful for velocity and
controller data, where you actually want to "draw" the data out versus
time. In general, use shift or scale when you want to preserve the
nuance and inflection of the original music, and use replace mode when
you want to exactly specify the values over time.
BEFORE DRAWING THE GRAPH
Select some data in the event edit window. This will set up the graph
coordinates so you can see exactly what you are creating.
CHANGING THE GRAPH
You can change any point in the graph by clicking it with the mouse (you
have to be pretty accurate about this), and dragging it around. The two
boxes near the top of the screen will display the horizontal and
vertical coordinates of the point as you drag it around. The point you
changed last will show up as a filled square. Note that the end points
of the graph have to stay on the sides.
MAKING NEW POINTS
Clicking anywhere in the graph but on a point will create a new point
that you can drag around. There is a limit to this, of course.
DELETING POINTS
Clicking on a point and hitting CTRL-D will delete the point clicked.
You can continue typing CTRL-D to delete points to the LEFT of the
original one clicked. However, you cannot delete the end points. The
fastest way to delete all the points in the graph is to close the window
and open it again.
TYPING IN VALUES
If you need real accuracy (or have a difficult time with the mouse), you
can edit the horizontal and vertical coordinates display directly. Just
click the coordinate edit box, hit
in the new one and hit RETURN.
ZOOMING IN AND OUT
If you want to get a close-up view of a certain part of the graph, use
the zoom in/out buttons. They look like pointing-in arrows (zoom in)
and pointing-out arrows (zoom out). There is a separate zoom in/out for
each axis because you may want to change just one axis more accurately.
In the middle of left and bottom sides of the graph are the
magnification values. They look like "16x". Normally they are set to
"1x", but change as you zoom in and out. These serve as a useful
indicator to remind you of being in "zoom mode".
When you are zoomed in, the scroll bars on the bottom and left become
active, and let you scroll the graphical display around to view other
areas at high magnification. As you scroll around, the labels on the
coordinate axises will change to show you the area you are looking at.
USEFUL TIP: to zoom in on a particular point, first click the point and
then zoom in. This will keep the point centered in the display as you
zoom in.
DO IT!
This will actually apply the graph you have drawn to the data you have
selected. Click this when you are done drawing the graph and want to
change the data. Be careful not to inadvertently click this more than
once, because each click re-crunches the data. For example, if this
graph was for scaling velocity, then every time you clicked "Do it!" you
would further scale the velocities in the same fashion.
APPLYING THE GRAPH TO TIME DATA
This deserves special consideration because the time cycle can do some
amazing things with the time data. When you have time fields selected,
first put the graph in Shift Mode. Then whatever graph you draw out
will be a "rhythmic variation" on the original track. The time within
each cycle will be distorted, so you can use this to add swing or
shuffle to your tracks. If you set the Cycle Time to something that
isn't a beat multiple, say "000:2.37", then you will get variations that
don't sync up with the beats. This is good for getting some interesting
arythmic or polyrhythmic effects.
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The selection filter will make it easier for you to do several things:
1) Select a mixture of whole events for clipboard cut/paste editing.
2) Select a certain type of data.
3) Select data within a time range.
SELECTING COMPATIBLE TYPES
Just as in the spreadsheet of the event editor, you cannot select
different types of data at the same time. For instance, you could not
select both the note field of a note event and a controller value
simultaneously. You CAN select different types of whole events
simultaneously for clipboard editing. You can also select the time
fields from many different event types, because all times are treated
equally.
"GRAYED" LINES
Some of the rows in the selection filter window are "grayed" to show you
which data does not exist on the track you are editing. You cannot
select data from these rows, as that wouldn't do you any good at all.
THE IN AND OUT TIME
These two times are represented by the scrollbars at the bottom of the
window. They are the selection start and end times for the type of data
you have chosen. For example, you may want to use one of the graphs to
scale some velocity data, but only for the 3rd and 4th measures. You
can set these times by either using the scrollbars, or by clicking the
time edit box, hitting
and hitting
RESTRICTIONS
Restrictions are tools for marrowing down your selection. Sometimes you
may want to select just the events on a certain channel, such as when
unmerging tracks. Use the "Channel" editbox to type in the channel you
want to select. There are two sets of additional restrictions, labeled
"above" and "below". They are used to select allowable ranges for the
event fields. For example, when selecting fields of note events, you
might set "above" to C2 and "below" to C6 to select the middle four
octaves.
SCALE FILTER
At the bottom of the selection filter window are twelve boxes -- one for
each key in the chromatic scale. If you are selecting note events, then
you can use this to select just the notes that belong to a certain key.
For example, you could select just the notes in the key of G major.
Conversely, you can also select just the notes that DONT belong to a
key, to get rid of accidentals resulting from chromatic transposition.
FOR EXAMPLE
As an example, you may want to select all the pitch bend values between
"012:0.30" and "018:2.00". To do that, you would click the "Pitch"
button on the "Pitch Wheel" row, and then use the scrollbars on the
bottom to set "In" to "012:0.30" and "Out" to "018:2.00". Then click OK
to make the selection.
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The Link Editor lets you set parameters for each link in a song.
Basically, you can mute and transpose selected tracks, and repeat the
pattern associated with the link up to 10 times. It is important to
know that the link edit window always displays the data for the current
link (shown in the transport window), when you are in song mode. The
link parameters in this window will have no effect unless you are in
song mode!
TRANSPOSING TRACKS
In the "Transpose" row in the window, you can turn transposition of
tracks on and off. Tracks with a heart symbol displayed under their
letter will be transposed by the amount shown in the lower left of the
window. To select which tracks to transpose, click the "Transpose" row
under the track letter. You can "drag" along this row to select more
than one track at a time.
TRANSPOSITION AMOUNT
The tracks selected for transposition will all be transposed by the
amount shown in the "Transpose By" box in the lower left. To change
this amount, click on the box, hit
in the new one and hit
to be made. The transposition amount is limited to the range (-24 to
+24). This is plus or minus two octaves.
MUTING TRACKS
The "Mute" row in the window displays what tracks will be muted for this
link. Note that this is IN ADDITION TO any tracks you have muted
manually in the track sheet, and only has effect during song mode
playback. To select which tracks to mute, click the "Mute" row under
the track letter. You can "drag" along this row to mute more than one
track at a time.
THE REPEAT COUNT
The repeat count indicates how many times the pattern will be played for
the given link in song mode. For example, you may want to repeat a
chorus verse several times in some places but not in others. To change
the repeat count, click the edit box displaying the current value, hit
You must type
RELATIVE TEMPO
The relative tempo is added to the base tempo setting in the transport
window. Since each link can have its own relative tempo setting, you
can set up tempo changes as your song progresses from link to link. You
can type a number between -128 and 127. However, the final tempo that
results from adding this number to the base tempo will be forced to end
up between 16 and 240. Remember that this tempo offset is only in
effect when you are playing in song mode. To change the relative tempo,
click the edit box displaying the current value, hit
the old value, type in the new one and hit
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The create event window lets you create individual MIDI events, or
streams of evenly spaced events. You can also create notes (which are
actually note-on/off pairs.
SELECTING THE EVENT TYPE
First, select the type of event you want to create (note, pitch wheel,
etc.). To do this, click one of the six buttons near the top of the
window. When you do, you will notice that labels appear beside some of
the edit boxes and/or scroll bars. These labels appear as prompts for
you to fill in some data. For example, if you clicked the "Note" event
button, then the labels would prompt you to enter a note value (like
D#3) and a velocity (1-127).
ENTERING DATA
To enter data into one of the two data edit boxes, click the edit box
with the mouse to get the cursor in the edit box, hit
the old data, type in the new value and hit
valid for the type of event you are creating. For example, you could
not enter "900" for a note value.
SETTING THE EVENT TIME
In the lower half of the window, there are four scrollbar/edit-box
pairs. The first has the label "Time", and is where the event will be
created. Change this time by using the scrollbar, or by typing in a new
time value directly using the edit box. Using an edit box is described
in the "ENTERING DATA" section.
SETTING THE NOTE DURATION
If you are creating a note event, then you will have to enter the
duration of the note, using the scrollbar/edit-box labelled "Duration".
What the program actually does when it creates a note is create separate
note-on and note-off events. The note-on will be placed at the event
time, and the note-off will occur later, by the amount you choose for
"Duration". Make sure not to make the Time+Duration later than the end
of the pattern, or your note will get truncated. Some duration
examples:
Quarter note: "0:1.00"
Eigth note: "0:0.48"
Sixteenth note: "0:0.24"
Eigth-triplet: "0:0.32"
FILLING EVENTS
Above the big "OK" box, is a button labeled "Fill". If you turn this
on, then you can create a stream of evenly-spaced events. The time
range and the interval between events are both adjustable. This is most
useful for creating a stream of continuous controller or pitch wheel
data, which you can then shape explicitly with one of the time graphs
(like the time scaler).
When you turn on "Fill", the labels "From", "To", and "Interval" will
appear. "From" and "To" are the time range within events will be
filled. For example, setting "From" to "2:1.00" and "To" to "4:1.00"
means that you want to create a stream of events filling measures two
and three.
Changing the "Interval" value will change the spacing of the events.
The smaller you set this value, the more tightly spaced the stream will
be. Tightly spaced events are great for creating smooth pitch bend
sequences, but also take up a lot of memory and can create a MIDI
bottleneck, especially at high tempos. For example, if you filled a
track with controller data, with an interval of "0:0.03" (32 events per
beat), and the pattern length was 128 beats, then over 4000 events would
be made! You can't do that very often without gobbling up loads of
memory.
When you are done setting all the necessary values, click "OK" to create
the events. The event edit window will be updated to show the new
events. A word of caution here: If you create note events, then make
sure that you are not creating notes that will overlap previously
existing notes of the same note value. In others words, it is bad to
have two "A5" notes overlapping, and Prism will remove one of them if
you do. If this condition will occur, then put the new data on a
separate track.
Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!
This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.
But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/