THE MUSICIAN 3 BY VICTOR ISSA Introduction ------------ Ever since I first had my Amiga, I always wondered why there were no music- pianos for it in the PD. It seemed to me that it woulnd't be too difficult to make a piano-keyboard on screen that would play back the proper sounds like a piano. I also wanted to be able to record live music playing, and none of the commercial music programs (that I know of) can do this. So I got to work, and now I have completed a new version with many additions. Main Menu --------- The MUSICIAN3 will first show you some neat graphics to keep you busy while it's loading all the necessary files. Then you will be presented with a menu of three instruments (piano/amiga/drums). You can select one of these instruments with the mouse, and sound waves will animate when you do so. There are four boxes with commands in them. The KEYS box will take you to the Keys-screen. The FILES box will take you to the load/save area. The HELP box will take you take a help screen (READ IT!). The EXIT box will quit the program. You can tap away at the keyboard which is layed out like a piano, and play some nice music. Keys Menu --------- To get a view of a Yamaha keyboard and the layout of keys, just click the KEYS box in the main menu. The Yamaha keyboard will light up the keys that you press on the keyboard. I find this to be the easiest way to know what keys you are pressing. There are four command boxes on the Keys screen. The FILTER box will let you toggle the Audio Filter on the A500 and A2000. This will have no affect on the A1000's sound. The RECORD box will let you record some live music that you create. The recording will start when the mouse pops to the top left corner of the screen. In order to stop the recording you must press LEFT-AMIGA & CONTROL-E all at the same time (I'll make it easier later). Note that you cannot select box options while recording a song. The PLAY box will play back a recording that you have made or have loaded up. To get back to the Main Menu, simply click the mouse on the MENU box. Files Screen ------------ To get to the Files screen just click the box in the Main Menu labeled FILES. You will now be able to load or save a song. At the first prompt, enter l to load a file or s to save a file. You can just press return to return to the Main Menu. The next prompt will ask you for a file to load or save. Enter the name of the file with a FULL pathname (RAM: DF1: DF0: VDK:, etc...). Keep in mind that the name you enter will have the .mus extension added to it. The program will now test for how much memory you have. The loading & saving requires a large amount of memory. If you have enough memory (more than 195K free),it will load/save the file very quickly. If you have between 70K and 195K free, it will initiate a low-memory sequence and will take a bit longer (It unloads some screens, and then re-loads them). If you have under 70K free, the program will not allow you to do a load/save command. After typing the name, rhe file will be loaded/saved. If you loaded a file, it can be played in the Keys area. New Additions to Musician3 -------------------------- The Musician program has gone through a lot of changes. The Musician3 has many new features. It now has live record/playback of songs, loading/saving of songs, an audio filter switch, a help area, much better sounding drums, and internal memory management. The Musician3 is intelligent when it comes to memory. If you have low memory and try to do memory-intensive options, it will unload portions of the program and then re-load them later. The more memory you have, the faster the program will run. ---- Warnings! --- I suggest you PROTECT the MUSICIAN and MUSICIAN.info files because WB 1.2 likes to mess around with the icons, and this can harm the program. The Musician 3 should be run from Workbench. It will run from CLI, but will give you an error when exiting. Do not run the Musician3 from RAM! The Musician uses RAM: for activities, and if you put the main program in the root of RAM: you will get some real problems. It should work from RAM: if you put all the files in a directory (not the root), and have enough memory. If you only have 1 DRIVE then you have one of two options... You will either have to do a lot of swaps when loading, or you can put the musician3 on a workbench disk (no swaps)... When running the Musician you MUST have the workbench files on a device somewhere (especially the Assign command). Be warned that the Musician3 is a MEMORY HOG! If you have 1MEG or more, you should have around 600K free. If you only have 512K, run the musician immidiatly after booting (like with CTRL-D, loadwb, and endcli). The Musician 3 is NOT in the Public Domain! This program may be freely distributed but may not be used in any commercial product without prior written permission. Comments/Donations GREATLY appreciated. Victor Issa 15062 Rayen St. Sepulveda, CA 91343