365 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
365 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
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| STARTREKKER 1.2 |
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+---------------------------------------------------------------+
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CODED BY EXOLON OF FAIRLIGHT
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RELEASE DATE: 19/11-1990
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Now your own local Exolon has been up all night coding on the StarTrekker
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just for you... But the result was worth the pain, because...
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The main theme for this release is SYNTHETIC SOUNDS.... Read..
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------------------------New features in 1.2--------------------------
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1. Now prints patterns while playing in 8 channel mode.
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2. An FM-Synthesizer is included to make samples for you. You can make
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any sound from organs to whips, chains and drums :-) See special doc
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below.
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3. An AM-Synthesizer is included to make realtime sounds for you. A bit more
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limited than the FM, this makes sounds similar to the Future Composer..
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Doc below...
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3. Diskop screen squeezed into halfheight... So you can diskop while
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pressing play and stop...
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4. Channel On/Off gadgets in 8 channel mode.
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5. You can now click on the spectrum analyzer and it turns into two COOL
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oscillioscope pictures... Click again and the analyzer comes back. The
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left scopes displays voices 1 and 4 (the left channels) and the right
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scope displays voices 2 and 3 (the right channels).
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6. Play routine sources included on this disk:
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NORMALREPLAY.S - normal replay routine without "AM" sounds
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AMREPLAY.S - replay routine for both normal and "AM" sounds
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8CHANNELREPLAY.S - replay routine for 8 channel modules
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7. Maybe it's a little more bugfree now... Try it!
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--------*> FM SYNTHESIZER <*--------
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Welcome to the FM Synthesizer!
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First of all I would like to send some great thanks to my friend GLUEMASTER
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for exploring this topic. He got inspired of the Yamaha DX FM synth and
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decided to write his own on the amiga. He did, and now I have made one too!
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And included it into the StarTrekker 1.2!!
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It works like this:
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After you have pressed RESET,
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you have four sinus-waves under your control. You can't change the waveform,
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but you can change the envelope and base-frequency for each sinus-wave. Then
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you can choose for each to listen to it, modulate the next's frequency or
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both... The program then calculates a sample of your selected length, and
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you are free to use this sample to whatever you want (including playing
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it!). You can also choose just to save the parameters (120 bytes) to disk.
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You have some examples in the FMSOUNDS drawer on this disk. Load,
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press calc, play, and learn...
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Some hints:
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Try to only listen to ONE sinuswave (number 4 f.x), then put a small
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envelope on sinuswave 3 and press F.MOD on wave 4. Now wave 4's frequency
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will be modulated according to the output of wave 3. Then you alter the
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envelope and frequency of wave 3 till it sounds great, then press F.MOD on
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wave 3 and make a envelope on wave 2, adjust and continue with wave 1. NOW,
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if you press F.MOD on wave 1 also, it will be modulated by wave 4, and the
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modulation will be fed back to the beginning, causing some kind of noise
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suitable for drums etc..
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The FM-Synth controls:
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In the middle of the screen there's a rectangle containing the selected
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wave's (the 1-4 buttons) envelope. It always display the envelope from the
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start till the release ends, even if the total time is just a fraction of
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the whole sample. Above the envelope is a black line. This line shows how
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much time the envelope shows, with respect to the total sample time.
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Buttons 1-4 let you select which wave to edit.
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The TOT number is the total time for the envelope (discussed above), if you
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want the envelope to be the same lenght as the sample, the black line above
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the envelope should be as long as the rectangle. HOWEVER if the total time
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is longer, the line's still only as long as the rectangle, so to be sure
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decrease the TOT until the line begins to shorten, the increase to the
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rectangles end..
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The LENGTH number is the number of bytes the output sample should have.
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The FREE button clears the FM parameters but the sample's still intact.
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The RESET button loads the current FM parameters with the default sound.
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The LOAD and SAVE let you load and save the parameters as a disk file
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of the length 120 bytes.
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The CALC button calculates a sample according to the current parameter
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settings. The small dot appearing up in the right hand corner of the calc
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button signals that you have changed the parameters since you CALCed last.
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The FMOD button tells wether the current wave should be frequency modulated
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by the preceding wave.
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The LISTEN button tells if the output sample should contain this wave's
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output or not. To get a sound at all, at least ONE wave should have this
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button highlighted.
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Now for the real parameters... From up to down:
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FQ This waves base frequency. $1 is very low, $4 is average and $20 is
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quite high.
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L0 Start amplitude for the envelope
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A1L Attack level
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A1S The speed that the amplitude changes to the attack level, $1 is slow
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and $40 is fast.
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A2L Secondary attack level, for those who likes envelopes...
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A2S Secondary attack speed.
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DS The speed that the amplitude decays down to the:
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SL Sustain level. There is remains for the time set by the
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ST Sustain time.
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RS Release speed. The speed that the amplitude falls from ST to 0.
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Any change of either of the envelope parameters will cause a redraw of the
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envelope curve. It's very easy to see what does what with the graphic
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representation.
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DO NOT set any speed to 0, unless you want the amplitude to remain at the
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last value.
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To roll values faster, press the right mouse button also.
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When you press SAVE MODULE a requester pops up asking whether to save the
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by FM synthesis calculated samples. Normally you press NO to save diskspace,
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the FM sounds are automatically recalculated when you reload the module.
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However, to use the module in the replayroutines, you have to press YES
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because the replaysource doesn't contain a FM generator. (Guess why...)
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I realize that the FM-Synth can be quite hard to understand, there has been
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a lot of talking about FM-sounds and calculation here and there, but load
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the examples in the FMSOUNDS directory and try to change some parameters,
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important, DON'T FORGET THAT YOU HAVE TO PRESS CALC before you can play with
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your sound...
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------------> AM SYNTHESIZER <------------
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Welcome to the AM synthesizer. Unlike the FM synth this doesn't create a
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sample. It has it's own internal 32 byte long samples, and changes the
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volume and period of the sound 50 times a second. So, it operates similar
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to all the other synthetic sound programs out there like Sidmon, Future
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Composer etc. Here you therefore doesn't have to press a CALC button all the
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time, just change a parameter and play the keyboard.
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CONTROLS:
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In the box you have the envelope shape. You can edit the envelope in
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exactly the same way as in the FM synth, so please look above for that.
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Below the box there's four waveform gadgets to select the waveform. There's
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a sinus, a sawtooth, a pulse and a noise waveform.
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To the left, you can edit the vibrato amplitude and speed as well as the
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pitch fall.
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The FQ value is the octave. 0 is the highest and 5 is the lowest.
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Again, the best way to learn is to load the examples in the AMSOUNDS drawer.
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The FREE button clears the AM parameters.
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The RESET button loads the parameters with the default settings.
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The LOAD and SAVE buttons speak for themselves, don't they?
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---------------------------------
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Greetinx goes to:
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F/X-lab, Lord CMP, Octo, Olwon, Freddy "FISKEN", Alex "PADDEL",
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Toffelhero, Peter Bo X-tra Long John Silver Skold Frankenstein,
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and to all others who has helped me with suggestions about the 1.2...
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Well that was all for this time, hope to see you soon in further
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more advanced versions of the only state of the art music-program:
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THE STARTREKKER!
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Signed EXOLON OF FAIRLIGHT!
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As always, suggestions are welcome at this address (NO SWAPPING!)
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Bjorn Wesen
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Roslins v.20A
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S-217 55 Malmoe
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SWEDEN
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Or contact me at FAIRLIGHT EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS:
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MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE +46/44247539
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Or mail me on the Amiga Echo area on FIDONET to 'Bjoern Wesen'.
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------------------------------1.1 doc--------------------------------
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1. Opens an own intuition screen so mouseclicks won't fall through to the
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underlying workbench and cause trouble.
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2. MULTITASKS correctly... Just press the screen to back gadget on the
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ST screen and it will lie quiet in the background Wait()ing... When you
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want to return to the st, just select the st window on the st screen by
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pressing the workbench depth gadgets.
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3. KEYBOARD ROUTINE REWRITTEN! Using an IDCMP port connected to the st
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window... The ST now works on any configuration without using the -h
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option. So now you can choose your own key repeat speed in Preferences.
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NOTE: Key repeat will be disabled when not in Edit mode. Otherwise it
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wouldn't sound very good if you just play with the keys, hold one down
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and it goes R...rrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....
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If you have the polyphonic mode on (see the old docs below) you can now
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press many keys at the same time and play CHORDS... Great eh?
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4. 8 CHANNEL EDITOR! Now the editor is in MED-RES in 8 channel mode so you
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can edit all 8 channels at the same time... When in polyphonic mode,
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choose voice 1-4 with LEFT ALT + F6-F9 and choose voice 5-8 with LEFT ALT +
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LEFT SHIFT + F6-F9.
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5. INSERT/DELETE note in the editor. In edit mode, press return and the
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notes below in the column will go down one step.. Just as in an ordinary
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text editor. Also, by pressing Backspace you will delete the note the
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cursor's on and the notes below will be moved up one step.
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6. FREEMEM now prints with 6 chars... So those of you with 2 meg chip can
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see all..
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7. COMMANDS implemented in 8 channel mode:
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$1 <amount> Frequency up
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$2 <amount> Frequency down
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$4 <speed><amplitude> Vibrato
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$A <up><down> Volume slide
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$C <volume> Volume change
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$D Pattern break
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$F <tempo> Tempo change
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It's not a very great idea to load a 4 channel tune and go 8 channels..
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Because of the way the 8 channel routine works, it is very difficult to
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make the portamento commands in 4 and 8 mode equal f.ex.
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8. The DISKOP menu now uses a real filerequester.. So you can go loading
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songs, modules and samples from wherever you want... There is no delete
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buttons on the diskop menu because in the filerequester you can delete
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any file you want.
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Some bugs fixed:
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When saving an 8 channel module or song the last odd pattern was lost.
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This is now corrected. (Thanx Lord CMP of Paradise for reminding me
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about that one.)
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Restart didn't work in 8 channel mode. I had it fixed in one version
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but unfortunately there was a slight version mix up. Now it's fixed.
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There was a bug in the NoiseTracker 2.0 when loading the .NT extra
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file. It was supposed to contain the midi transpose values etc. but
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they got overwritten as soon as the file had been loaded. This is now
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corrected.
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VERY OLD DOCS:
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POINT KEY: ( [.] On the keypad)
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With the point key you can select three playmodes. With one press, one
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dot will appear next to FREEMEM. You can now play with the keypad like
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a drum machine. The pitch for each instrument is set by pressing left
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ALT + the desired pitch key. With two presses, it's just like above
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but now the notes will be written to the pattern when in edit or record
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mode. With three presses, you will activate the POLYPHONIC mode. Now
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you can play on the keyboard, and the StarTrekker will automatically
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change voices. You can choose which voices are used by toggling them
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on and off with left ALT + F6-F9.
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QUANTIZE:
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With the quantize control, you can choose how many lines the cursor
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should jump when you enter a note in a pattern. The number is increased
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by pressing the left mouse button in the QUANT box, or by pressing
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CTRL. The number is decreased by pressing the left and right mouse
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buttons in the box, or by pressing left SHIFT + CTRL.
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COLOR CONTROL:
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Because the ordinary grey color is so utterly boring, you can choose
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between a bunch of colors by pressing ALT + F10. If you don't like any
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of them, SHIFT + F10 makes your day by randomizing the colors!
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MIDI:
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INCOMING MIDI:
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With the R: control you can select the channel the ST will respond
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to. You can play on the synthesizer's three middle octaves just like
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on the Amiga keyboard.
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The ST will NOT respond to MIDI clocks, Active Sensing or other
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control commands.
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OUTGOING MIDI:
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With the C: control you can select an outgoing channel for the current
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instrument. The L: controls for how long (how many patterns steps) the
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note will be played. If there is any C commands (volume change) in
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the pattern, these will be sent along with the notes as Attack
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Velocity. The T: finally is a transpose control.
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The ST will send out MIDI clocks in the same tempo as you have
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selected with the F command. Also the ST will transmit Midi Start
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and Midi Stop when you start or stop a tune.
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Remember to turn the MIDI on!
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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BYE! HA DET BRA! /EXOLON
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BRAECKKORV FOREVER!!!!
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