Rain Bird COMMODORE 64/128K User Manual Download

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AMS DEVELOPMENT TEAM

INTRODUCTION

EDITOR

KEYBOARD

SYNTHESISER

MIDI

THE PRINTER MODULE

LINKER

INDEX

APPENDIX

CONTENTS

Summary of Contents for COMMODORE 64/128K

Page 1: ...THEMUSICSYSTEM COMMODORE 64 128K ADVANCED D64 ATTACHED TO THIS PDF...

Page 2: ...TEGRATION DESIGN UTILITIES Geoffrey Ellis SYSTEM DESIGN SYNTHESISER Ewan Hayward SYSTEM ADVANCED LINKER JOEY ISLAND LOGIC ADVANCED MIDI Ching Man Wong ISLAND LOGIC COMMAND LINE KEYBOARD GRAPHICS Steve...

Page 3: ...AMS DEVELOPMENT TEAM ii INTRODUCTION 2 EDITOR 10 KEYBOARD 37 SYNTHESISER 44 MIDI 63 THE PRINTER MODULE 73 LINKER 81 INDEX 86 APPENDIX 93 CONTENTS...

Page 4: ...THEMUSICSYSTEM ADVANCED COMMODORE 64 128K...

Page 5: ...s together to form much larger compositions An understanding of the power as well as the limita tions of TMS can be gained through experience with the EDITOR module This module provides a central refe...

Page 6: ...required module can be run by pressing RETURN Make sure that the TMS system disk is in your disk drive before trying to load a module otherwise an error message pop up will appear In general SPACE is...

Page 7: ...the SPACE bar The highlight cursor is used to select the function you intend to use Menu auto scroll In some cases when the highlight reaches the bottom of a pop up menu the menu itself will automati...

Page 8: ...oughout the system to change values The INFO pop up only provides information and you can not directly change it Quantities such as available space the size of individual voices and the values of impo...

Page 9: ...module you are in TMS uses up to six different types of file Music files Prefix m Music as created by the EDITOR KEYBOARD or converted from MIDI Music files can be loaded into the LINKER MIDI SYNTHESI...

Page 10: ...t is very important that you ensure when loading and saving files that the file is of the correct type It is possible that two or more files can have the same file name but different file types ie s j...

Page 11: ...ess RETURN and the file will be saved to the current disk You cannot save files to the TMS system disk It is write protected You will need a new disk to save new or edited files To RENAME a file selec...

Page 12: ...or more seriously your disc drive is faulty 2 Disc Error 26 This happens if the disc is write protected and probably means you are trying to save files to the System disk Do not attempt to VALIDATE a...

Page 13: ...MIDI modules EDITOR The EDITOR displays notes within the selected four octave range on treble and bass staves together with the appropriate key and time signatures One of the three voices may be disp...

Page 14: ...nitor Window VMW at the bottom displaying the notes in any one of the voices a barmeter followed by the barnumber volume envelope and notename devices A Free Space device also appears in the top left...

Page 15: ...us voice If there wasn t a note playing then it will go to the last note in that voice You can therefore flip easily between voices knowing that the notes line up The VMW also displays the appropriate...

Page 16: ...itch voice 2 etc Any combination of voices may be played back includ ing none irrespective of the current voice displayed on the VMW The playback indictors also show whether a voice is being played as...

Page 17: ...account The notename for a rest is blank Entering and playing notes a quick guide The Editor is a very powerful composing tool with many facilities This section is intended as an introduction as you...

Page 18: ...me the note will appear black because it is a real note stored as part of the voice You can press to preview the note and press RETURN to move on to the next one You could just as well press or to mov...

Page 19: ...ressing COMM or to the end of the voice by pressing COMM Remember that you have to press RETURN to get a blue note at the end again So far you have only used one voice and we ll assume that you have b...

Page 20: ...ain in memory after saving it A new tune could also be loaded but remember that this will delete your current tune and replace the sound set More on editing Accidentals Accidentals can be added to any...

Page 21: ...ot really necessary Ties A real black note at the cursor may be tied to the previous note if it is of the same pitch Blue notes can not be tied directly they must be entered first The envelope number...

Page 22: ...acility is also on then the EDITOR will usually be able to make each bar the correct length according to the time signature This is often accomplished by splitting the entered note into two parts and...

Page 23: ...ice is played as a whole voice with Section off then these markers behave as normal barlines When playing and scrolling through a single voice with SHIFT RUN STOP the repeat markers and 1st and 2nd ti...

Page 24: ...mmand is particularly useful when used as a macro command for transposing sec tions of a voice by an octave see Commands Set macro Inserting notes Notes can always be added to the end of each voice if...

Page 25: ...all voices Volume Due to the nature of the CBM64 hardware it is only possible to sound all notes at one particular volume at any time This means that you cannot set different voices at different volum...

Page 26: ...0 and 8 for dynamics Despite having to play the notes in all voices at the same volume at any particular time there are two ways of changing the effective volume be tween voices You can choose or defi...

Page 27: ...her marker to the cursor using the following Moving the cursor The note cursor is initially in the centre of the screen For convenience it can be moved left or right Loop sections Loop sections are an...

Page 28: ...ctions there are in a voice A placed after the last note will give an extra loop section containing no notes If Section is not set in Values Info will say Section is off the markers are treated as nor...

Page 29: ...ction and might not even be able to reach the end of a loop section if the barmeter cursor reaches the end of the longest voice Press COMM to go to the end of the loop section the FIRST TIME THROUGH T...

Page 30: ...be recognised by their n prefix Notepads can range in size from 1 to 999 notes and will only be loaded if there is sufficient free space available If the notepad is already in use then a warning is g...

Page 31: ...rrect positions You will need to access Commands Adjust barlines to reset the barlines according to the new time signature If Tempo is set high and you have written a piece of music using lots of semi...

Page 32: ...or turns the whole voice into a loop section see Loop Sections If Autosound is on blue notes entered at the end of a voice are sounded when you press RETURN Autosound can be turned off to make enterin...

Page 33: ...Play and move for the note cursor to be updated to the last note played in the current voice If the current voice has finished playing before the tune has finished then the cursor moves to the last n...

Page 34: ...commands Relative adjusts the value of all notes up or down by the SAME AMOUNT as the current note e g transposes the section of voice up one octave Absolute sets values of all notes EQUAL to the val...

Page 35: ...replacing any previous contents of the notepad The voice is left as it was This command will only be success ful if there is enough free space in the note storage area On the other hand Move to notepa...

Page 36: ...ear the top and bottom of the staves may only have their stems pointing down or up respectively You can not alter these Check barlines will check that barlines are in the correct positions according t...

Page 37: ...the CONTROL screen as will COMM HOME Info f7 The normal music file information is displayed Hints and tips Transposition When a piece of music is transposed the music sounds and is written at a differ...

Page 38: ...e same accidental since we have to allow for the new key signature For example in the key of B flat a B natural has been raised by one semitone from the given key If the music is transposed to the key...

Page 39: ...envelope 3 and voice 2 envelope 9 Use the macro facilities if necessary If your musical composition is more complex you can divide each voice into loop sections by inserting loop markers and assign a...

Page 40: ...yed or recorded can be displayed in real time on a pop up VMW Voice Monitor Window Each note animates on the VMW showing changes in both pitch and duration Music recorded via this module can be loaded...

Page 41: ...ail below The Keyboard Screen The barmeter device on the left of the screen provides a visual guide to the contents of each of the three music voices as in the Editor module When music is recorded hor...

Page 42: ...ard can be set into various modes It starts off in TINKLE MODE Press some of the keys on the top two rows of the keyboard and the notes will sound as you press them The keys correspond to piano keys a...

Page 43: ...with music in which are selected for playback will play and any notes you play will sound and be entered into the current voice Rests are automatically put in when you re not pressing keys Notice tha...

Page 44: ...d within a composition are saved with the music m file DELETE RENAME and CATALOGUE function in the usual way Values f3 Values may be selected as usual with the SPACE bar and changed with either the Q...

Page 45: ...in beats minute within the Metronome device Metronome the audible tick maybe set to on or off tick or quiet There are however some limitations to the use of the metronome since its sound actually come...

Page 46: ...an t be changed in the Keyboard once any notes are entered You can however go into the Editor module to alter these values if you wish During Record Mode the Keyboard attempts to convert the music you...

Page 47: ...e Envelopes DREs The two DREs can transform the sound by independently modulating the frequency and or pulse width and the filter frequency The DRE is one of the more complex features of the SYNTHESIS...

Page 48: ...o the control screen by accessing Commands Exit Synthesiser or pressing COMM HOME The following sections briefly describe each of the devices on the basic screen The more advanced features are describ...

Page 49: ...r However the filter stored with that envelope will become the new global filter and may therefore affect voices which have filter selected see The Sequencer Waveform The next device on the circuit di...

Page 50: ...though you can select any of the four filters with each envelope and sound the note when playing a tune there is only one filter available for all the envelopes The filter may be on or off for each vo...

Page 51: ...ge its value using Q and W Mini VMW The mini Voice Monitor Window behaves in exactly the same way as in the EDITOR module The pitch and duration of the note can be changed This note sounds when you pr...

Page 52: ...anel controls the playback of music files within the SYN THESISER The active playback voices are shown as highlighted numbers on the left SHIFT 1 is used to switch voice 1 on etc The sequencer panel i...

Page 53: ...layed for that voice and the double arrows means that the whole voice is repeated as if it were a loop section Envelope name Each of the 15 envelopes can be given a name to correspond with the particu...

Page 54: ...access Commands zero envelope The current envelope is reset to the basic sound shape with the filter off Move around the devices by pressing SPACE Now press SHIFT SPACE and go round the other way Thi...

Page 55: ...n the EDITOR A note in the EDITOR with this envelope would sound exactly the same Finally move onto the envelope name and type in the name of your new sound The whole of sound set 1 comprising of the...

Page 56: ...has many envelope changes they provide a fascinating real time display who wants flashing disco lights Highlight the sequencer panel and move to one of the envelope boxes If the box is blank the notes...

Page 57: ...s are endless You can of course use the EDITOR KEYBOARD or MIDI modules to enter and edit loop sections Look at Hints Tips in the EDITOR for more help in using the sequencer More on creating sounds A...

Page 58: ...ep height or rate and a number of steps section length There is an overall step time which governs the actual rate of change of the pitch pulse width with time The smaller the step time the greater th...

Page 59: ...ng effect used to great effect by synthesiser players is achieved by sweeping the pulse width The step time can be used to slow down or speed up the effect Both the pitch and the pulse width can be sw...

Page 60: ...velope There are three main parameters filter type resonance and filter frequency A DRE may be used to sweep the frequency The filter devices are popped up by pressing F or accessing Commands Filter u...

Page 61: ...fect will be more noticeable The filter frequency graph gives an indication of the effect of the particular filter The black area of the graph shows which frequencies will pass through unaffected Move...

Page 62: ...t any time by accessing Commands Swap sound sets Individual envelopes or files may also be swapped or copied between the sets Sound sets can be loaded into either set 1 or set 2 When loading remember...

Page 63: ...nd set 2 You may also use this command to copy the parameters from any other envelope to the current envelope A pop up appears under the Command line Move between the devices with and changing the val...

Page 64: ...envs and Zero all filters reset all the envelopes filters in sound set 1 to the same standard values All envelope filters will then be identical This is particularly useful when starting to create new...

Page 65: ...62 Info f7 The normal music file information is displayed Use info to see which sound set you are currently using...

Page 66: ...ide some form of amplification for your keyboard MIDI Midi hardware combinations can send and receive MIDI format data files from the Commodore 64 The AMS MIDI module can record and playback MIDI stan...

Page 67: ...d to the end of a track you must use a separate track and use the EDITOR to cut and paste the two tracks together via a notepad file The EDITOR contains many facilities to help you tidy up or correct...

Page 68: ...be displayed by pressing the COM V key pair or selecting it from the COMMANDS pop up F5 The VMW is closed on pressing the same COM V key pair The VMW will display and animate music contained within t...

Page 69: ...cannot be used directly by the rest of the system A MIDI x file created by an external keyboard will retain any special effects ie modulation etc If the music data is saved as a AMS music m file then...

Page 70: ...create more than one AMS file from a MIDI file try and choose file names that relate to one another This will make life easier when reassigning these AMS files to a MIDI file eg m PART 1 m PART 2 m P...

Page 71: ...data To play the music through an external keyboard press the RUN STOP key If your MIDI keyboard is correctly set up then you should hear the music play Stop the music playing by pressing the RUN STO...

Page 72: ...you may elect to play back one or more of the tracks The tracks active for playback can be toggled ON or OFF by holding down the SHIFT key and pressing a number key between 1 and 6 The Tape Head indic...

Page 73: ...some MIDI keyboards are able to use up to 255 different envelopes you must ensure that the AMS envelope numbers to which the MIDI envelopes are assigned simulate the sound of the MIDI envelope This m...

Page 74: ...using the key Note that TIME SIGNATURE can only be changed while there is no music in the system This sets the time signature for any new music data entry INTERFACE allows you to select the MIDI hard...

Page 75: ...system If you have provided an external sound output for your Commodore then this metronome tick can be amplified separately to your MIDI keyboard output The VOICE MONITOR WINDOW command will toggle...

Page 76: ...ce Monitor Window together with a TEXT window The Printer VMW will only display Voice 1 Text or lyrics can be entered and saved as a TEXT t file Music can be printed with or without lyrics On entry to...

Page 77: ...ndow are aligned and scroll synchronously Text can be entered via the TEXT window and edited easily via simple line editing commands Editing always occurs within the current bar as indicated by the ba...

Page 78: ...ove to the start of the next bar Text often requires more space than the bar width of the music allows The bar width can be extended or reduced using the SHIFT and up arrow keys as described in the fo...

Page 79: ...increased when you insert spaces in this way the text in the current bar is simply moved over to the right and if there is not room in the bar it will be truncated Use the up arrow key described abov...

Page 80: ...will be made to match the text to the bars If the text is too long to fit a bar then the text will be truncated within the bar The PRINTER module does not allow music files which contain more than 25...

Page 81: ...Yes CBM MPS 801 No No Yes CBM MPS 802 No No Yes For the Epson MX 80 F T select Epson RX 80 Although other dot matrix printers may work Island Logic can only guaran tee that AMS will operate correctly...

Page 82: ...found by scrolling the VALUES menu up ie Move the highlight bar to bottom of window to begin scrolling Sections If set to Off then all section markers will be ignored If set to On and if a voice has...

Page 83: ...odule back to the Control Screen Note that all text will be lost from memory so remember to save it to disc before leaving the Printer module if you wish to keep it Any music file present will remain...

Page 84: ...ether with the sequence This can be reloaded for playing or editing There is space for over four maximum sized music files in the LINKER However since compositions are often made up of shorter section...

Page 85: ...ays the order in which to play the individual music files Only music files that appear in the file list can be included in the sequence Files may be repeated as many times as you want in the sequence...

Page 86: ...the end Press twice to move to the top of the sequence and press RUN STOP to play If you have a long sequence use SHIFT to move to the top You can stop the sequence by pressing RUN STOP again The musi...

Page 87: ...access the status information of each music file and a number of Commands There are no accessible parameters within Values Commands f5 Remove file is used to delete a music file from the file list Aft...

Page 88: ...o f7 The status information can be displayed for any music file in the list Move the highlight bar up or down to show the information for other files Press RETURN or f7 to pop Info down again FREE 286...

Page 89: ...ge 42 Backing Tracks 25 Band Pass 57 58 Bar Number 13 Bar Width 75 76 Barlines 15 19 20 29 33 Barmeter 11 12 13 16 26 38 Beginner 42 Block Delete 22 32 Block Tidy 34 43 Blue Note 14 22 B P M 28 39 42...

Page 90: ...ce 48 50 53 Dynamic Response Envelope 44 51 54 55 56 58 60 Dynamics 23 Editor Screen 11 Editor 10 36 Effects 51 Entering Notes 14 15 Envelope Assignment 70 Envelope Name 39 44 50 52 Envelope 13 15 17...

Page 91: ...Info Pop up 5 6 34 43 62 72 80 85 Inserting Characters 76 Inserting Files 83 Inserting Notes 21 Instrument Sounds 6 46 52 Introduction 2 J M S 63 Key Signature 5 17 28 35 41 43 59 Keyboard Devices 38...

Page 92: ...inor Keys 28 41 Modes 39 Modulation 44 58 Move 30 32 Multi track 67 Music Files 6 77 Naturals 17 Nesting 20 Noise 46 Notch 57 58 Note Cursor 12 24 Note Name 14 Note Scroll 12 Note Stem 33 Notepad File...

Page 93: ...idth 46 47 51 55 QWERTY 37 Rate 55 Real Note 15 18 Record Mode 40 Record 38 43 69 Recursive see Recursive Relative Macros 31 Release 48 49 52 Remove File 84 Rename 8 Repeat Device 55 56 Repeats 12 19...

Page 94: ...Sweep 54 55 56 58 Synthesiser Screen 45 Synthesiser Devices 45 Synthesiser 44 62 Tape Head 69 Tempo 5 28 42 53 59 71 Text Cursor 75 Text Editor 76 Text Files 7 73 77 Text Window 73 74 Text 74 75 Tick...

Page 95: ...37 38 39 40 48 65 69 72 73 74 75 Voice 5 10 11 12 13 16 22 29 52 59 67 79 Volume 5 14 22 28 31 39 40 59 Wahwah 51 54 58 Warning 63 Waveforms 44 46 51 52 White Noise 59 Wrapround 56 Write Protect 9 Ze...

Page 96: ...othing When a file is loaded simply press Y to confirm that you wish to save it to disc When the file has been saved to disc you may then load another file from tape and repeat the process N B This ut...

Page 97: ...k 12 Burble 13 Lead 3 14 Lead 4 15 Tremelo Orchestral included with Minuette 1 Violin 1 2 Violin 2 3 Cello 4 Doublebass 5 Clarinet 6 Oboe 7 Bassoon 8 Flute 9 Saxophone 10 Trumpet 11 Trombone 12 Piano...

Page 98: ...RAINBIRD SOFTWARE WELLINGTON HOUSE UPPER ST MARTIN S LANE LONDON WC2H 9DL...

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