Question: Automatic cursor movement
Does anyone know how to position the cursor to automatically
highlight and pre-select a particular user-menu line?
The particular situation I am dealing with is when the menu
selection will run a short piece from within the same program (i.e. the
selection does not cause another program to be loaded).
I wish the cursor to be re-positioned whilst the piece is
playing so that just hitting Return will get a repeat playing (without the need
to use the arrow keys). Another advantage would be that the selection playing
would be highlighted whilst it was playing, not the name of the top line in the
menu.
I realise that something similar to this is done when the
Music 4000 Keyboard or Recorder options are run from the jukebox menu. However,
in those instances another program (kins* or rmix*) is loaded as part of the sequence.
This seems to be a quite different situation to that I am having difficulties
with.
Tony Walduck
Question: MIDI into AMPLE
Does anyone know how to get MIDI information into AMPLE? I
would like to be able to send the data from my keyboard's accompaniment section
into Notepad so that I could examine its contents. I understand the MIDI side of
it but I do not know how to go about writing the necessary AMPLE program. The
lack of support by Hybrid Technology in respect of the MIDI In side of the
Music 2000 is surprising.
I would have thought that they could have produced and sold
many useful programs using it. It would have been useful to AMPLINEX composers
who could have put the backing from a keyboard into their compositions. Perhaps
the lack of this type of program is the reason that members are moving on to the
Atari etc. Anyway, if anyone can help I would be grateful.
Ken Hughes
Answer: Transposition
Jim Brook asks (AMPLINEX 026) whether the Music Publisher
software would allow him to do transpositions of a score. As the author of the
software I can say sorry, but no, Music Publisher does not support
transposition at present. It should, and hopefully will in due course; but I am
very, very short of ROM space, and simply had to offer a basic range of
features before tackling the more exotic.
Extraction of selected staves will be next, because it is
practically done already. Then transposition, when I have got my mind around
the full implications - and have conjured up space in ROM!
A more immediate response to questions may be had by writing
to me at:
4 Francis Close
HITCHIN
Herts
SG4 9EJ
HITCHIN
Herts
SG4 9EJ
or by telephoning (0462) 440489.
Arthur Rowles
Answer: Transposition
In AMPLINEX 026, Jim Brook asked if there is any way to
transpose music so that it will print correctly. I had the same problem, for
the same reason: to bring songs into my vocal range.
I am sure there are other, neater and more rigorous ways of
doing this, but I find that my method works. The steps are described below. As
an example, assume you have a song for tenor in the key of G and you want to
drop it by two and a half tones to D for a bass.
1) Change the key signature. This is obvious: K(+F)K changes
to K(+F+C)K.
2) Set up a table of the corresponding notes in the two keys:
KeyG Accidentals KeyD
+F =F -> =C ; ++F -> ++C +C
E -E -> -B ; +E -> +B B
D -D -> -A ; +D -> +A A
C -C -> -G ; +C -> +G G
B -B -> =F ; +B -> ++F +F
A -A -> -E ; +A -> +E E
G -G -> -D ; +G -> +D D
+F =F -> =C ; ++F -> ++C +C
E -E -> -B ; +E -> +B B
D -D -> -A ; +D -> +A A
C -C -> -G ; +C -> +G G
B -B -> =F ; +B -> ++F +F
A -A -> -E ; +A -> +E E
G -G -> -D ; +G -> +D D
3) Using the table,
replace the note letters in G with the corresponding letters in D. The changes
in the sharps and flats for the normal notes of the key are already done by the
change in key signature.
4) Make changes to
accidentals where necessary. You can see, from the table, that this only
happens where there is a change in sharp or flat with the change of note - here
from B to +F.
5) Make a SPOOL file
of your original song with:
*SPOOL spoolfile1
WRITE
*SPOOL
WRITE
*SPOOL
6) Load this into a
word processor such as Wordwise or View. Use the search and replace function to
change accidental symbols: in this case, -B to =B and +B to ++B (and the same
for -b and +b). You could also replace the 14 letters (A to G and a to g) in a
similar way but it is slow and not as simple as it looks - try it and see!
Instead proceed as follows.
7) Rearrange your
text, if necessary, so that the words containing the notes (e.g. the parts),
come after all other words, like mix, or RUN.
8) Insert a letter Q
between these two groups of words, immediately before the first part word definition.
Note: your word for the key signature must be before the Q.
9) Save the text to a
new file (referred to as 'spoolfile2' in this explanation).
10) Now, in BASIC, load and run the program 'TranAid'
(included on this disc). Enter 'spoolfile2' as your source file and a new file name
as your destination file (referred to as 'spoolfile3' below). Enter the desired
transposition, i.e. the number of letters up (+) or down (-) the series,
ABCDEFGABCDEFG. In our example, G to D is either +4 or -3; both will work. You
are told when the transposition is finished.
11) 'spoolfile3' is now your transposed song but it needs a little
adjustment, so load it into your word processor and look at it. You will see
that the words above Q are unchanged but there are some funny spellings of the words
below. In our case 'part' is now 'pert' and SCORE is SGORB. Put these right,
remove Q, and save the text to a new file ('spoolfile4').
12) In AMPLE, *EXEC 'spoolfile4' to produce your song in the
new key. run it, and you will almost certainly find that you must make some
changes to the octave settings in the piece, but this is no problem. When you
are happy, save your new version and delete your text files. All this is not as
long-winded as it looks.
Fred Bridges
Question: 'Volga Boatman'
Did anyone notice that the piece 'Volga', in AMPLINEX 025,
had a load of rubbish in the middle of it? No, I am not referring to the music,
but to the actual music file. From location &1082, just after the 'rtn'
word, up until the famous '?info' word, at location &14A6, there is what
appears to be an de-tokenized version of the 'blurb' word. In fact, the '?info'
word just overlays the end of it.
AMPLE seems to have chained its word length fields right
through this until it came to the '?info' word. The name lengths do not have
their top bit set and so can not be recognised as user words and are therefore
ignored. So doing a *SPOOL and WRITE and then *EXECing it back in again gets
rid of the junk, and obviously reduces the music file size, but I wonder just
how it got there in the first place?
Bryan Anslow
Question: AMPLE BCE versus Nucleus
In the good (or was it bad) old days of AMPLE BCE, one of
the sometimes useful features was the ability to gate the separate channels of
a voice as individual sub-voices. This allowed, for example, a maximum of 16 voices
instead of the normal 8, albeit with restricted tone quality and some complication
in organising the note sequences.
With AMPLE NUCLEUS, I have concluded that this is not
possible - is anyone able to prove me wrong?
Alan Minns
Related file on this disc:
Published in AMPLINEX 027, July 1992
