Parts menu

This menu deals with all kinds of instrument settings, or parts settings. Some of the parameters will work with almost any General Midi (GM) equipment (like Volume settings) while others only work with GS- or XG-compatible synthesizers. The number of selectable menu entries will vary depending on the synthesizer type settings.

Please note that some menu entries may have no effect on your equipment even if selectable. In some cases special system exclusive message needs to be sent first in order to enable the specific feature (see Edit/create single events on how to create a system exclusive event). In other cases the equipment just doesn't support the feature. Please consult the owner's manual of your sound generator for more info.

All parameters are operated with sliders per track (part). Note that for some platforms the number of adjustable parameters are restricted because of the size of the dialogs.

Please note that only one parts dialog can be opened at a time.

Mixer and Master
Sound, Vibrato and Envelope
Controller dialogs
Drum Instrument Parameters
Partial Reserve
Part Mode

Mixer and Master

Setting of default Volume, Pan, Reverb and Chorus.

Figure 2.17: Mixer window

Sound, Vibrato and Envelope

Sound dialog - change sound color:

• Cutoff frequency - filter high frequencies
• Resonance - make the sound more 'synthetic' (wha-wha sound)

Vibrato dialog - change the way the tone's vibrato develops in time:

• Vibrato Rate - controls how fast the vibrato will be
• Vibrato Depth - controls how much vibrato you get
• Vibrato Delay - controls at what time after note start the vibrato begins

Envelope dialog - change the way the tone envelope (amplitude) develops in time:

• Envelope Attack - controls how fast the tone increases in volume when it starts
• Envelope Decay - controls how fast the tone will decrease in volume after it has started (also called sustain)
• Envelope Release - controls how fast the tone decreases in volume after it is has ended (how fast the tone stops)

Controller dialogs

Controllers are:

• Pitch Bender - used to control continuous tone-pitch in real time
• Modulation Wheel - used to control 'tone expression' (e.g. vibrato) in real time
• Channel Aftertouch (CAf) - some keyboards senses how hard you press down the key after the attack, used for 'tone expression' in real time. Affects all tones of the part (midi channel).
• Polyphonic Aftertouch (PAf) - same as above, but only affects one key pitch of a part (channel).
• Continuous Controller 1 (CC1) - used for misc. 'tone expression'
• Continuous Controller 2 (CC1) - used for misc. 'tone expression'

All the controllers have three associated types dialogs with sliders; Basic, LFO1 and LFO2. The settings tell how much the controller will trigger the sound-change described by each parameter. Parameters are:

• Pitch Control / Sense - pitch in half-tone steps
• TVF Cutoff - controls high frequency cutoff (TVF = Time Variant Filter)
• Amplitude - controls amplitude (dynamic volume)
• LFO1 Rate, Pitch, TVF and TVA - controls the rate of the Low Frequency Oscillator 1 (LFO1) and how it affects pitch, TVF and TVA (TVA = Time Variant Amplitude)
• LFO2 Rate, Pitch, TVF and TVA - controls the rate of the Low Frequency Oscillator 2 (LFO2) and how it affects pitch, TVF and TVA (TVA = Time Variant Amplitude)

The Basic dialogs of the Continuous Controller entries also has a Controller Nr dialog to set what continuous controller the part will respond to.

Drum Instrument Parameters

This is a dialog for controlling different parameters of the individual drum instruments of the primary drum part. The track selected is the first track with channel equal to the .drumchannel setting (in the configuration file ). Note that the name of the track also has to be set.

Drum instruments are listed in a list box. The sliders are valid for the instrument currently selected from the list. Listed instruments to be controlled are added/deleted by using the Add and Del buttons.

The controllable parameters are:

• Drum instrument pitch coarse
• Drum instrument TVA (volume)
• Drum instrument panpot (checkbox gives random pan)
• Drum instrument reverb send
• Drum instrument chorus send

Partial Reserve

Sound generators have a limited amount of tones that can be played simultaneously. This is sometimes referred to as 'maximum polyphony'. When the maximum polyphony is exceeded the synthesizer will start cutting tones, which can cause audible 'distortion' to the music.

In some GS equipment you can assign the number of tones (oscillators) that is assigned to each part (channel) and thereby control which instruments are 'more important'. This is what this dialog is for.

Part Mode

Here you can set two things:

• Rx Channel - the channel to be received by the part
• Use for rhythm - sets the part to normal mode (value 0) or drum modes (value > 1). Part 10 (channel 10) has default value 1, all others have default value 0. On GS and XG synths you can get another drum part by setting that part to value > 1.