Programming pop and rock music
Ian Waugh
If anyone is interested in programming pop music I can
recommend a book called 'Sequencer Trax Chart Hits' (£5.95 from Hal Leonard,
distributed by IMP) which contains nine, note for note arrangements of tunes in
four or five parts. Contents include: Every Breath You Take, Flashdance, Kyrie Eleison,
Maniac, Miami Vice (your own DIY Jan Hammer kit!), Neutron Dance, One More
Night, When The Going Gets Tough and Who's Johnny.
There is also an interesting series of books called Rock
Scores (£6.95 from Music Sales) which contain 'exact transcriptions' of songs
by a variety of rockers. Some are in as many as ten parts and may include
guitar parts, too, so a full implementation is likely to be beyond the scope of
the Hybrid Music System - but you could still have fun with them. The series includes
AC/DC, The Beatles, Iron Maiden, Ritchie Blackmore, Rolling Stones, Bruce
Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Huey Lewis, Billy Joel and Phil Collins.
Space saving in the Staff editor
Carl Robinson
When entering music in the Staff editor make your first word
'sig' - containing the clef, time signature and key signature only. If you are using
these throughout the piece then they can then be omitted from the other words.
To hear a piece play, come out of STAFF and set up the required voices. Type
'sig' then type the part you want to play or press f1 with the part in the
Staff editor. Also, don't forget to put 'sig' at the beginning of your main
play part.
Controlling the Roland D-110
Roger Sapolsky
When using the Music 2000 MIDI interface to drive the Roland
D-110 expander the AMPLE music words dealing with the setting of dynamic levels
are ignored by the components of a drum kit, unless it includes only one instrument.
This can, however, be worked around using a system exclusive command.
I found the appropriate 'channel command' on page 114 of the
D-110 manual: &F0 &Bn (where n is the channel number - 1) 7 nn (where
nn is the sound level, maximum 100) &F7. The Music 2000 User Guide gives
two alternative definitions of a word 'sysex' to send messages more than one byte
long with 'MIDIOUT'. Using the second version of 'sysex' the full command then
becomes:
-1 &F0 &B9 7 nn &F7 sysex
Including &F7 in sysex and making a short word including
-1..7 makes the command simpler.
Getting to know the many preset sounds on a new synthesiser
can be best done if all the sounds of a given category, say the basses, play a
short appropriate riff in succession. A loop in a simple program greatly facilitates
the process.
For example,
"part1a" [SCORE
47FOR(
INDEX MIDIPROGRAM riff1
)FOR
]
will play 'riff1' first with 'Tuba' (program number 48),
next with 'EnglishHorn' (47), and so on, until 1 is reached or Escape is
pressed. A rest of convenient duration at the end of 'riff1' would enable the
listener to note down any comments.
For rhythmic timbres the word
"part1a" [SCORE
kn FOR(
INDEX 60 #- PITCH rhy1
)FOR
]
can be used, where 'kn' is the 'key number' defining an
instrument, and 'rhy1' is a rhythm pattern.
Sheet music inaccuracies
Jack Wrigley
Poorly transcribed music has been discussed in AMPLINEX
before, but one thing the Staff editor 'Bad bar' message has shown me is the
number of 'misprints' present on contemporary sheet music. Originally, this led
me to waste a great deal of time trying to figure out why I couldn't lose the annoying
message. I never expected the note values to be wrong! Given the price of sheet
music I think the 'Tin Pan Wallies' could do better.
'Riders on the Storm'
Andrew Leahy
Having recently purchased the AMPLE music disc 'Music City
2' I was most impressed with Bernie Dawson's rendition of 'Riders on the
Storm', which includes lyrics timed with the music.
The 'music only' version of the song has a snare part, which
is not played with the 'lyric' version. If you want the snares included in the
'lyric' version the 'RUN' word needs to be altered. Change the following line,
%music and lyrics %"123457-abcde"PLAY
to
%music and lyrics%"1234567-abcde"PLAY
A & B Computing 'Jukebox' program
Allan Gardner
In the 'Jukebox' program described in the November 1988
issue of A&B Computing magazine, there is a potential bug associated with
the re-definition of function key 4.
In the program, the f4 key is re-defined to produce
"Jukebox"LOAD run
to load and run Jukebox, and to abort any playing sequence
that has already been defined.
The problem is that the f4 key is always re-defined, even if
the sequence consists of only one file.
So, if you load a music program via Jukebox, and then start
to edit that file, pressing f4 will not clear the current contents of the
editor, as you might expect, but will instead load and run Jukebox.
This bug was subsequently corrected in the second version of
the program, but A&B Computing have decided not to print the new listing;
instead it will only be available on a support disc with the September 1989
issue (available from the first Friday in August).
The second version has several new features, namely:
1) Full wrap-around of the cursor, in all directions
2) Sequences can be programmed from all available disc
surfaces (This feature may be of interest to Jack Wrigley and other users of
40-track disc drives who want a menu system which accesses multiple drives)
3) On-screen help facility
4) Auto-repeat of a sequence
5) Menu of filenames can be sorted and presented
alphabetically.
As A&B Computing have not yet made the second version
available, I have created an ASCII file of the corrections needed to cure the
f4 key problem. This can be *EXECed into the first version of the Jukebox
program (as entered from the November 1988 magazine). This will correct the f4 key
error, but will obviously not give the extra facilities of version two.
Unfortunately, as ASP (the publishers of A&B Computing)
now hold the copyright on the program I cannot include it in its entirety in
the new format.
Related file on this disc:
H.Jukef4 - corrections to version 1 of Allan Gardner's
A&B Computing 'Jukebox' program
In the Features section of this issue is an article by Allan
Gardner on different methods of automatically chaining together AMPLE programs.
