Creative sound monthly 4
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CREATIVE SOUND MONTHLY
A Monthly Magazine For Sound Blaster and
Sound Blaster Pro Enthusiasts.
Issue 4
July/August 1992
Edited and Published By: Allan Dib
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=Table of contents
- From The Editors Desk
- How To Contact Me
- Included Files
- Readers Questions and Comments
- Advertisements
- Commercial Game Review - Ian Bothams Cricket
- Shareware/Public Domain Game Review- Wolfenstein 3D
- Where's the AdLib Gold ?
- Commercial Game Review- Epic
- How To Write and Edit .MOD Files (Part Two)
- That's All Folks
- Credits
You may freely distribute/copy this and all the included files, to whomever you wish, as long as you don't profit from it, and that all files that have been included are distributed. You may not in anyway modify this text file or any accompanied files/programs. You may not in part or whole re-publish or include any part of this text file into your own work without permission of the editor (Allan Dib).
From The Editors Desk
Well I've finally settled down with a new machine of my own to work on, a great improvement from the old 286. The sound scene has been pretty quiet this month, not very much happening at all so we've had a bit of trouble trying to gather up a few GOOD articles that are worth putting in, after all I don't want to put in useless information just for the sake of having a few extra articles. I want Creative Sound Monthly to be "Quality not quantity" thing. So if anyone out there has anything useful to contribute to please do so. As you may have already noticed CSM 4 is another bimonthly issue mainly because there has been very little happening this month in the Sound Blaster scene..... it's a real shame when you can't write anything because of lack of "action", well anyway I've done my best with this issue....
Thanks,
Allan Dib.
How To Contact Me
Please feel free (even encouraged) to write me mail about queries or problems you may have regarding your Sound Blaster or Sound Blaster Pro. The mail that I think should be published, will be in the next possible issue of Creative Sound Monthly under the "Readers Questions and Comments" section. ALL mail that is sent to me will be answered. You may send me mail, leave me a message at any of the Bulletin Boards listed in the text file NODELIST.TXT or ring me by voice.
Mailing Address:
CREATIVE SOUND MONTHLY
c/o Allan Dib
19 Ondine Drive, Mulgrave
Melbourne Vic 3170
Australia.
Telephone:
(61-3) 560-3963 - Outside Australia
(03) 560-3963 - Within Australia
Ask for Allan Dib.
NOTE: See the text file NODELIST.TXT for a full list of all the bulletin boards in SBC-Net. Leave me a message at ANY one of the bulletin boards listed in NODELIST.TXT for a prompt answer (usually between 1-5 days).
Included Files
I have included the following files inside the archived file that this magazine came in.
NOTE: You may not distribute this magazine if all accompanied files aren't distributed with it, it must also be in it's original archive which is, CSM-004.??? Where ??? is ZIP, ARJ, PAK, ZOO, or ARC
CSM.004 - This magazines main text file (Your reading it !!!!).
VIEW.EXE - Views text files.
CSM-004.EXE - Views CSM.004 with VIEW.EXE.
RATINGS.DOC - The rating and comments form for Creative Sound Monthly. (simply print it out, fill it in and send it to me).
NODELIST.TXT - This is a full list of all the Bulletin boards in SBC-Net. You may leave me mail at anyone of them for a reply taking 1-5 days.
NOTATION.GIF - A standard .GIF graphic file explaining musical notation, this is for use with the article by Gordon Craick, "How To Write and Edit .MOD Files (Part Two)". You should have no trouble displaying this file with any normal .GIF file viewer and on any graphics card. The .GIF file is in 640x480 mode and is in 2 colours.
Readers Questions and Comments
From Scott Plant.........
Firstly, you've got a brilliant magazine going. It knocks the other attempts at Sound Blaster mags out cold. I'm now (just like you recently became) the owner of a Sound Blaster Pro 2. They're brilliant.
One of the few things that your magazine lacks is a good 'menu' system. Scrolling through 20 pages to get to the article in a question doesn't seem right. Have a look on one of the disks in the box included with this letter. It's CSM issue #3 put into a menu style. The pascal source is in the .ZIP file also. With this system you can also display full screen colour ANSI advertisements in the ads section (which get stored inside the .EXE file). The file compresses better than VIEW.EXE and the entire magazine is only about 20k bigger than the old style.
If you like the program and know enough pascal, go ahead and use it (just include my name somewhere). If you want to use it, but don't know enough pascal then contact me and I'll put your articles into the .EXE file, ready to run.
Other enhancements that could be added would be a routine to play the included .MOD file and another one to print out the "comments and ratings" form.
I can't remember in which issue but you said to post you some disks down (with a return stamp) and you'd send them back with the requested programs. Here's my wish list that I just can't find on any of the bulletin boards -
VOC-386, NoHiss and ModEdit.
Thanks a lot and keep up the good work. I (just like many others) am looking forward to the next issue.
Scott Plant.
Reply From Me.........
Well Scott thanks a lot for taking the time to reply to Creative Sound Monthly. I had a look at the program you sent in and I must say I liked it, the size was very good, the actual program was great and I really liked the pull down menu job. The idea of including colour ANSI ads and logos also was quite good. As much as I'd like to use your program I can't for the following reasons -
- All the text, all the ads and logo's need to be hard coded which makes it very difficult and tedious to correct and add to.
- Routines used for it are copyrighted by TechnoJock Software and need to be licensed for legitimate use.
This is real a shame because I think the program had great potential.......
Thanks anyway,
Allan Dib.
P.S. Although we are not planning to use the software you sent us, it is a great concept and we hope to make some sort of similar interface for CSM in the near future.....
Thanks again.....
Advertisements
This section is provided for anyone wanting to advertise a bulletin board or hardware they want to sell (NOTE: all hardware for sale must be sound related, e.g. Sound Blaster Pro or Adlib card). Advertising doesn't cost anything, all you have to do is send me on disk or via modem your ad in ASCII (text) format. If your advertising a bulletin board, mention what you specialise in, phone number, maximum baud rate etc.
A U D I O P H I L E S P A R A D I S E
Online 24 hours a day
Host of Audio-Net. 52:1000/0 (Australian Host)
52:3000/0 (Victorian Host)
Sysops - Peter Webb, Peter Buncle.
Phone: +61-3-587-5804. 1200 -> 2400 Baud (Line 1).
+61-3-587-1478, 1200 -> 12000 Baud (Line 2).
(Line 2 - Registered Users and Donors Only)
Australia's Largest Range of Sound Blaster and Sound Related
Public Domain Software.
Give us a call !!!
Speeds supported 1200 up to 12000 Baud on a Netcomm M5
V22, V22bis, V23, V32, V42, V42bis & Mnp 1-5
We have access to the largest network of Sound BBS's with
connections all over the world (Not SBC-Net). Soon to be
expanded to 4 lines each at 9600 baud.Commercial Game Review- Ian Botham's Cricket
Written By: Allan Dib
Well this game recently came out and caught my attention because it's one of the only cricket games to come out on the IBM so I decided to give it a look. It has really good speech and fairly good VGA graphics. The umpire speaks everything, for example he introduces the game, calls no-balls, tells you when it's out, etc. The sound effects in the game are really good like the sound of the stumps getting hit by the ball and also the cheering of the crowd when a wicket falls or a boundary is hit. I being a real cricket fan especially enjoyed this game, it has many great features that make it just that little bit more realistic e.g. an option to adjust the field placing, allows you to play different shots, allows you to save your game and/or your field placing, you can change your grip when bowling, different weather a pitch conditions, many different types of bowlers and many other little features that make it a great game.
Overall it's a great game if you like cricket but I think it lacked a few things that would have made it a lot better i.e. more realistic life-like graphics, replays from different angles e.g. stump cam. Also things that happen in real cricket like more than one inning matches, bowlers bowling from around the wicket as well as over the wicket, noisy crowds, rubbish on the field. Also it doesn't allow you to choose from left and right handed batsmen. These are a few things the game lacked, but I don't think these things will be missed too much by the not so enthusiastic cricketer.
Retail Price:
$59.95 (Australian).
Sound Capabilities:
Sound Blaster, AdLib, PC Speaker.
Graphics Capabilities:
VGA.
RATINGS
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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Shareware/Public Domain Review- Wolfenstein 3D
Written By: Allan Dib
Well Apogee software, one of the best if not THE best makers of excellent quality shareware games have done it again, only this time better than ever before. Wolfenstein 3D is not only a brilliant game but has excellent graphics and super smooth scrolling it also takes advantage of your AdLib or Sound Blaster card. The Sound Blaster sound is extremely good and fits the story well. There's digitised sounds everywhere e.g. shooting a guard, opening a door, seeing a guard, firing your gun and many more. It's one of those really addictive games that you can't stop playing. It has a sort of, almost virtual reality type of interface, it's as if you are looking through the eyes of the character your meant to be playing. Another great feature is that it will use expanded or extended memory if found, this enables less loading from the hard disk and faster operation of the game. This game requires you to have 286 or better to run.
The plot goes like this - You are B.J. Blazkowicz, American spy for the allied forces in World War II. Facing horrific dangers, sometimes having only a knife and his wits between him and death. His escape from the Nazi imprisonment is the stuff of a contemporary legend............
Well there's six different episodes in the one game, however in the shareware version only episode one is enabled, you need to register to get the rest, believe me if your into these sorts of action shoot 'em type games, this one is definitely worth registering. Usually in a game review I have negative as well positive things to say about the game, but this time I was honestly was unable to find anything negative to say about the game.
This is not the only great game Apogee software have released, there are many others including the famous Commander Keen series, Duke Nukem Series, Cosmos's Cosmic Adventure series and many, many more, the more recent ones now have Sound Blaster support.
Retail Price:
Episodes 1,2 & 3- $35 (U.S.).
Episodes 4,5 & 6- $20 (U.S.).
or
Episodes 1-6 - $50 (U.S.).
This is really great value for money !!
Sound Capabilities:
Sound Blaster, AdLib, Disney Sound Source or Covox Speech Thing and PC Speaker.
Graphics Capabilities:
VGA.
RATINGS
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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Where's The AdLib Gold ?
Written By: Allan Dib
NOTE:
The following information is NOT based on solid facts, it's believed to be true and accurate, and came from a reliable source however there is a chance that it could be incorrect or slightly inaccurate, if that is the case, I take no responsibility for this article, it has been provided simply to let you know what's been going round.
OK, well after all that talk going round about how good the AdLib Gold is going to be, you may ask; Where is the AdLib Gold ? Good question, it is believed that the AdLib company went bankrupt three days before the release of the AdLib Gold. This seems a real shame considering the features it was meant to have. It would have also given Creative Labs more competition, bringing about the lowering in price of their products.
However that's not the end of the story, rumour has it that Creative Labs, are considering buying out the AdLib company. This would be quite good for both Creative Labs and people buying a sound card in the future. Obviously Creative Labs will profit from it and we'd benefit because, we'll be getting newer technology, quicker.
Nevertheless Creative Labs still have plenty of competition from fast growing makers of sound cards such as Media Vision, Micro Key, Aztech and Omni Labs, however for the moment they still seem to be leading.
Commercial Game Review- Epic
Written By: Rishi Mehra
Wow.... They said this was hot and all I can say is that it really is. The vector graphics on this thing have to be seen to be believed. What's it about? Basically the plot goes like this.......
The local sun is going to shortly turn into a super nova. That means the big bang and everything goes, including your planet. However hope is still around for the humans. A fleet with 60 million people in it, is about to make an intergalactic trip to a virgin world - Ulysses 7. The fleet will be escorted by the mighty Federation. But the problem is this: in order to make it to Ulysses 7, the fleet must pass through the neutral zone. This itself is a violation of the treaty and constitutes war. You must help the fleet to make it to Ulysses 7 by offering fighter protection.
You could say this is a lot like Wing Commander II. The graphics certainly reflect that feel, as well as certain elements such as the pre-flight briefing. You also get to go on a variety of missions such as destroying special military sites on various planets that could pose a threat to the fleet.
Once again the vector graphics are probably the best I have ever seen done on a PC. Though the game is very good, I felt that certain parts were could have been a lot better, like the good old dogfights. In this game it seems to only take 1 or 2 shots to destroy an enemy fighter. I also didn't like the fact that on a few missions there was actually a time limit. This game could be classed as more of a simulator type space game rather than an arcade game. Briefings must be carefully read in this game otherwise you will be inclined to miss the objective totally. Another thing - the graphics are very fast on this game so you don't necessarily need a fast computer or large hard drive with good access to get enjoyment from this game.
Unlike Wing Commander II, where you save your game, this system operates on a series of codes for each level. As far as sound is concerned, the Roland sound is good, but the Sound Blaster is sadly lacking with only AdLib Support. One feels that they could have gone to greater lengths to improve the Sound Blaster support on this game.
Tips - "This aint tips...this is the answers..."
Mission Code
======= ========
1 AURIGA
2 CEPHEUS
3 APUS
4 MUSCA
5 PYXIS
6 CETUS
7 FORNAX
8 CAELUM
9 CORVUSRetail Price:
$69.95 (Australian).
Sound Capabilities:
Sound Blaster, Roland, AdLib, PC Speaker.
Graphics Capabilities:
VGA.
RATINGS
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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10How To Write and Edit .MOD Files (Part Two)
Written By: Gordon Craick
The topics covered in part two include:
- Introduction...
- What you'll need...
- Some good transcribed modules...
- Some musical theory (*gasp*)...
- Transcribing Music...
- Finishing Touches...
- Part 3...
WELCOME TO PART 2!
Welcome to part 2 in a series of articles on how to create module music on your PC! Hopefully you've already read part 1 in CSM issue #3 which details how to record samples and load them into a module editor such as ModEdit. If you haven't read part 1, I suggest that you do as it includes some technical jargon and things that are also fairly relevant to this article also.
Part 2 is designed to teach you how to copy music that has been previously written on sheet music into a digital module form (a .MOD file). This is commonly known as TRANSCRIBING. A knowledge of musical notation is preferable but I've also written a short bit on the theory of different notes, etc for those who are completely ignorant (Well not exactly ignorant, just unversed in this area!). This article will take a rather simplistic approach for those who've never done this sort of thing before.
Anyway, on with the article!......
WHAT YOU'LL NEED
To transcribe the music you'll need some or all of these things:
- ModEdit or a similar sort of module editor.
- Some sheet music (to transcribe).
- A musical instrument (quite useful but not essential).
- Some samples or the ability to record samples (see part 1 of this series, in CSM issue #3).
All of these are in addition to the hardware requirements listed in part one.
First you'll need some music that you like or think that will sound good modulated. The easiest method is to go to a local music shop and look through their collection of sheet music available (usually in book form). The titles usually are something like- "50 greatest hits from the 80's" or something along those lines. There are also books of music of specific artists or groups such as "The best of Metallica" or "Van Halen's Greatest". These are good if you would like to transpose quite a few songs from your favourite artists. When looking through the books try and choose one that doesn't look TOO complicated. Music with 100's of Slurs (if you don't know what a slur is see the theory section), lots of chords or lots of complicated bits will make it a lot harder to transpose. It isn't impossible but often you will have to improvise, so if you're just starting, choose a relatively easy one. Also try and get one that has the music for several other instruments (There are 4 tracks, remember?).
Pick one that has quite a few songs that you like as these music books aren't exactly cheap. Be expected to fork out $5-$30 (Australian) for one book so choose carefully! Now hopefully armed with the music you want to transcribe, you can get ready to start writing it into a module.....
Another method of getting music is to listen to the piece that you want many, many times and write down all of the notes as you hear them. To do this you'll need a very good musical ear and a sound knowledge of musical theory. This process takes many times longer than just copying the music from the book into the module and is definitely not recommended for the non-musical! If you're going to do this you'll need some musical paper with lined staves which you need to write down the notes. Though hard, it's cheaper than buying a book and you can also make modules before the music is released in musical books. Often, many songs just never appear in music books. If this happens you'll have to use the trial and error method of writing down what you hear, copying it down and seeing whether it sounds like the original later. Quite tedious!
IF you don't think that you want to transcribe the music, you might want to make your own then you'll have to wait for part 3 of this series of articles in which I will hopefully detail how to go about writing your own module from your own ideas.
SOME GOOD TRANSCRIBED MODULES
These are some of the good modules that have been transcribed either from sheet music or the original song:
NIRVANA.MOD, SUNSHINE.MOD, 1STTIME.MOD, ENTERSAN.MOD, BHILLCOP.MOD, ALF.MOD, DRIVESME.MOD, BREATH.MOD, PUMPUPJA.MOD, SMOKEWTR.MOD, ALWAYSON.MOD, 2MMMMIX.MOD, MADONNA.MOD, DONTGO.MOD G-SLEEVES.MOD, THEMES.MOD, LADYINRE.MOD, BLADERUN.MOD and many more.
All of these should be available somewhere in SBC-Net. Download a few of them (assuming you have a modem) and look them over with a module editor. From this you can get a good idea of what makes a good transcribed module and also gain a few ideas as to what YOU would like to modulate.
SOME MUSICAL THEORY
To copy music from sheet music you will need to know a small amount of musical theory. I must admit I'm not an expert at this, but I should know enough to show you some of the basics. If you like you could always go up to your local library and look for one of the numerous books on the subject. Included in this month's edition of CSM is a small .GIF picture of some musical notation. This should make it a lot easier than describing them or drawing them in ANSI or ASCII. The .GIF file included (NOTATION.GIF) has a resolution of 640x480 and is in monochrome so it should be viewable on all graphics cards with your favourite picture viewer. It is recommended that you print it and have it handy to look at while reading this.
To begin with, if you don't already know this, a note is an instrument or sample played at a certain pitch. These pitches are sequential and named after the different letters of the alphabet, 7 in all. Starting from "A" you then have "B,C,D,E,F,G". One set of these notes is called an OCTAVE. After one octave, the notes start repeating themselves so you have- "A,B,C,D,E,F,G, A,B,C,D,E,F,G" etc. The only difference between different octave notes are that they sound higher in pitch than the lower ones, eg: lower octave "A" sounds virtually the same upper octave "A", just with a higher pitch. Also between the seven note values you can also have SEMITONES which I will get to later.
All of the different notes sit on a special place written on the musical STAVE. If you will look at figure 1.0 in NOTATION.GIF file you will see that a stave is just basically a set of 5 lines on which the notes are placed. The top stave is called the TREBLE CLEF and is used to show all the middle and high sounding notes. Below the treble clef is the BASS CLEF which is used to show all the lower and lowest sounding notes. In between the bass and treble clefs is middle "C". Middle "C" is the cross-over point between the bass and treble clefs. If the notes are higher than middle "C" they are on the treble clef, if they are below, they are on the bass clef. To show the different clefs there are two different symbols which are placed at the start of the stave to distinguish them apart; the less squiggly one with two dots is the bass clef and the more squiggly one is the treble clef (both have been pointed out in figure 1.0).
To show where the notes sit, the position of each notes has been shown with a dot, eg: "A" on the treble clef is the 2nd space from the bottom and all of the other notes get gradually higher (or lower) from that. As the position of the note on the stave changes, so does the pitch of the note change, eg: "B" is higher on the stave than "A" so therefore it will have a higher pitch than "A". Notes are ALWAYS placed on the same position on the stave on their clef, no matter what the piece of music.
Above the staves are sometimes LEDGER LINES. These ledger lines are put there only under any notes that are higher than the normal stave. Because most of the notes are on the stave, the ledger lines make it easier to write just the lines for the notes that need it, rather than extending the whole stave by drawing more sets of lines.
Some instruments can only play on one clef, and some can play on both. The flute for example, can only play treble clef notes, but the piano can play in either the bass OR treble clef (hence the large number of keys). The treble clef is probably the most commonly used in music, although the bass clef is used quite frequently for some instruments.
Between each of the tones, there are also SEMITONES. These semitones are the halfway point between one note and the next. A semitone can be either a SHARP or a FLAT. Sharps are distinguished as a small hash like indicator at the top of the note (see figure 2.1). A sharp means that the note is half a tone HIGHER than the original note, eg "C#" is half a note higher than just plain "C". The other semitones are the flats. The flats are distinguished by a small little letter "b" at the top of the note (see figure 2.2). They aren't really letter "b" 's, and as you can see, they have a pointed bottom rather than a round one. Flats are half a note LOWER than the original note, eg: "B flat" is half a note lower than "B". Usually a piece of music has a KEY SIGNATURE(s) (see figure 2.4) which tells you when you play a note, to play it as a semitone rather than a normal tone. The position of the key signatures on the start of the music tells you which notes are flat and which are sharp. So if you see a flat symbol on the "B" line of the stave that means that whenever you see a "B" during the piece, it should be played as "B flat". The only exception to this is when a NATURAL sign (figure 2.3) is placed on the note that is being played. This means to play it as a normal note, not as a flat or sharp. A natural takes effect only on that note for the rest of the bar (see later for a explanation of a bar). The key signature is always placed after the clef and before the time signature if there is one.
Now that you know about most of the different notes, it is also important to know about DURATION. The duration of a note is the length that the note is held for. Each of the note durations have special names but the duration can change depending on how fast the music is to be. The CROTCHET is the first note duration and all other durations are based relatively on that (see figure 3.1 for a picture of a crotchet). A crotchet is held for one beat. A beat is usually about one second but varies on the piece being played, so a crotchet is held for roughly one second. The next note after the crotchet is the MINIM (see figure 3.2). A minim is held for twice as long as a crotchet, or two beats. The largest value note is the WHOLE NOTE (see figure 3.3). The whole note is held for four crotchet beats. There are also notes that are smaller in duration than the crotchet. The first of these is the QUAVER (figure 3.4) which is HALF the value of a crotchet, or half a beat. The next one is the SEMI-QUAVER (figure 3.5) which is half the value of a quaver, or a quarter of a beat. There are also notes with durations even shorter than the semi-quaver, but since they are hardly used, I won't go into them. Another sort of note duration is DOTTED NOTES (see figure 3.6 for a picture of one). A small dot near the bottom-right of the note means that the note is held for it's value, PLUS half of it's value again, eg: A dotted crotchet is held for one beat AND a half beat. Dotted notes can be on used on any of the different note durations.
When two or more notes of the same duration are next to each other, a horizontal line is joined between the two "sticks" (figure 3.7). For a crotchet it is only one line, for a quaver it is two and so on. Only notes that are crotchets or are smaller are done like this.
There are also special pauses in the music which are called RESTS. A rest means just to stop playing any notes for the specified number of beats in the rest. There are four different types of rests: the "whole rest" (figure 8.1), the "half rest" (figure 8.2), the "quarter rest" (figure 8.3) and the "quaver rest" (figure 8.4). They are held for 4, 2, 1 and 1/2 beats respectedly. For instance, a "half rest" means NOT to play anything for TWO beats.
Along with the notes, there are a few other musical indicators that can effect the notes and their duration. The first one of these is a SLUR (figure 4) which appears over two or more notes (eg: "A" and "C") on a different line. A slur simply means that the notes gradually change from one to the other without a pause in between. Another one of these is a TIE (figure 4.1). A tie means to hold the note for the value of the note AND the other note, eg: so a tie over a crotchet and a whole note means to hold the note for a total of six beats. The easiest way to remember the difference between a slur and a tie is to remember that a slur only connects notes between different pitches, a tie only connects two notes of the SAME pitch.
It is now important to see how all of the notes, durations, rests and symbols fit together. To do this I've composed a sample bit of music to demonstrate how all of these things are blended together to form music (figure 6.0). This is purely made up to show you what is looks like, so don't expect it to sound like anything in particular. On any piece of music you first have the staves which there can be either be one or two of, depending on whether the instrument can play just bass or treble clef notes or both. In the front of every stave on every piece of music is the clef symbol. This says whether the notes to be played are to be bass or treble notes. After the clef you then have the key signature (as mentioned before) which says what notes are to be played as "flat" and which are to be played as "sharp". After the key signature you then have the TIME SIGNATURE (figure 7.1), which says how the notes are to be counted in the piece. The bottom number of the time signature specifies the type of beat that is used to count a bar (eg: an 8 means to count in quavers, a 4 means to count in crotchets, 2 means to count in minims, etc). The top number specifies how many of these are in a bar. For instance: a time signature of 4/4 means that there are 4 crotchet beats to every BAR. A bar is just a vertical line (pointed out in figure 6.0) that separates the number of notes specified in the time signature (a bit like a sentence). After you have the time signature, you then have all of the notes of the piece of music, separated by the bars. At the end of the music you can either have a REPEATER indicator (figure 7.2) or an END OF MUSIC indicator (pointed out in 6.0). The repeater means to play that section of music again and then stop. The end of music indicator just means that it is the end of the piece of music.
By now, you should have a fair indication of most of the notes, durations, rests and special musical indicators in any piece of music. Hopefully, this is really all you need to know to transcribe music into a module. If there are any that haven't been mentioned here that you come across, try ignoring them and see whether the music sounds right. Most of the other indicators aren't really important anyway unless you're playing the instrument. Since we're not actually playing an instrument, just a sampled instrument, they shouldn't be a hassle. If that fails and the piece doesn't correct, try looking up a musical theory book and see what it says about it. I might also cover some advanced music theory in another article (probably quite a few from now considering there are a lot more interesting things to write about!).
THE SAMPLES TO USE
Now that you know some musical theory and have your piece of music that you want to transpose, you now need to get your samples for your music. The easiest way to do this is to record the instruments off the original music and use them in your module. Try to have only one sample of each instrument in the module unless you need some special ones which can't obtained by changing the sample's pitch in the module editor. An example of this is a distorted electric guitar note or similar. If you don't have the required hardware for sampling (which are listed in part one, CSM #3), try and get the closest match you can by getting samples from other people's modules (this hopefully shouldn't offend them unless you start copying bits of their song!). Usually a similar or even different sample or instrument can sound just as good as the original. Also when you are sampling, don't record just great sections of the original song (like a big long guitar bit or something). Doing this really defeats the purpose of .MOD file writing, anybody can do that, and TRUE module musicians don't. Load all of the samples you need into your favourite module editor (see article 1 in CSM #3 for a list of .MOD file editors) and you should be ready to start ENTERING IN THE MUSIC! (yay!).
ENTERING IN THE MUSIC
This is probably the hardest part in transcribing a module from written music and takes quite a bit of skill (and practise!) to perfect. A lot of this can only be learnt by experimenting for yourself, although I can hopefully give you some useful tips to help you on your way.
The most important thing to remember is to WRITE DOWN THE MUSIC AS YOU SEE IT! Just keep reading the music and put the notes in, one by one into the .MOD file editor. Try and stick to a common scale and base all of your other notes on that. Even if it doesn't sound right at first, you can transpose (raise or lower the notes of the .MOD file) later on to make it sound right. Each line of the track is about one semi-quaver long at the default speed, so if you wanted to put in a crotchet you would put in the note, then put the next note 4 lines down from that. This is commonly called a RELATIVE NOTE SCALE. The ModEdit documentation includes a useful bit on this (page 17 in version 2.00, under the heading: Entering the Note field) and it might be wise to download it (even if you are going to use another module editor other than ModEdit). What is also useful is the Highlight every 'n'th track feature in some module editors. With this you can highlight the start of each bar of the music, eg: with a time signature of 4/4 you would highlight every 4th line.
Try and place one instrument's music in ONE track. This makes it a lot easier when you continue on to the other patterns to see where things need changing. Another thing to remember is to place the same instruments in the same tracks throughout the piece. Then when you need to transpose the instrument, you aren't transposing the others (unless you specify which samples to transpose on the track). Also, when you're using a stereo D/AC device (such as the Sound Blaster Pro) this can sound strange (or annoying) when the instrument track swaps to another channel (left or right speaker). While I'm on the subject of stereo output devices, it also important to take in to consideration a few things when you are writing a module for/on a stereo device (or that other people might hear it on one). One of these is to balance the sorts of instruments for one channel and the other. Try to put melody tracks in two different channels, one in the left and one in the right and the bass on one and the percussion on another, so you would have one melody and one bass in one channel (say the left) and the other melody and percussion in the other (say the right). This will give you a blend of heavy and lighter music and give the module a "smooth" sounding feeling. More on stereo ethics and other such wonders (such as artificial stereo on a mono device) in another article (maybe next the one).
When copying in the music, there is no need to write the same passage of music twice, the module editor can do that. Just write the passage in once and then specify that you want to play the pattern(s) twice (or more) when you sequence them (tell the module editor and players what order to play the patterns in).
If the sheet music you have, has notes for less than 4 instruments, it's a good idea to duplicate the lead track onto another track. When you do this, the main tune of the music will sound stronger and you also get to fill up the free track. If two of the same tracks drown out the other tracks/instruments, try reducing the volume of that track by putting a C XX (where XX equals 00-40 in hex) in the effect field next to each note.
This is all you really need to know to start entering in your music......
FINISHING TOUCHES
If you've got your music in the module, but don't think that it sounds right, this section should help. What really comes in useful for this is a REAL instrument (you know, one of those things that all of this synthesised music started from!). It should be one which you can play reasonably well or at least know all of the notes on). Even if the music you have isn't for that instrument, any instrument played with the same notes should give you an indication of what the music will sound like. By playing your newly created module and playing your instrument, (assuming you got to this stage without going temporarily into a mental psychosis!), you should be able to correct any off sounding notes. If you don't have an instrument you should be able to fiddle around with the note field until it sounds like the original anyway.
Now is the time to transpose your module if you entered the notes using a different note scale than the original. Tell the module editor what tracks that you want to transpose and which samples in the track you wish to transpose. Transpose the track(s) by the number of semitones that you think they are off by. If it doesn't sound right the first time, try again until it sounds like the original. You are sure to have a few notes that sound wrong so correct them if necessary.
Arrange all of the patterns into the correct order, repeating any that need to be. If you've done all of the above and have a completed module, now is the time to compare the original with your modulated one! The true test is to compare your module that you created using only your PC and a few extras with those of the musicians who used tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. If it sounds nothing like it you can always try again with another bit of music (some music is just to complicated to modulate on the PC). If it sounds pretty similar and you feel proud of it, DISTRIBUTE IT! Upload it to all your favourite bulletin boards! Even send it to us here at CSM, (if you upload it to a bulletin board in SBC-NET it's almost guaranteed to be distributed right across the world!), advertise a message for it in a Sound Blaster message area! Show your friends! Amaze your dog! WHATEVER!
PART 3
Well, by now you should be able to transcribe sheet music into module music. Look out for my next article hopefully in CSM #5. Part 3 should detail how to go about composing your own module and other such wonders. Future articles will probably not be quite as long as this one and will cover more different specialised areas of .MOD file editing. See you then! ......
That's All Folks
Well people, that wraps up this double month issue of CSM, we've got a pretty good issue lined up for next month, so look out for that, also keep that mail rolling in, and send in any info, ads etc that the world should read about.....
See ya all next issue,
bye.
Allan Dib.
Credits
- Gordon Craick - Wrote the really detailed article on transcribing music sheets to .MOD files, NOT an easy thing to do, he also made the NOTATION.GIF file to explain his article more clearly, top effort Gordon !
- Rishi Mehra - Rishi reviewed the game "Epic", nice review!
- Scott Plant - Scott took the time to write in to us at Creative Sound Monthly with a few really good suggestions he also wrote the pascal code for a menu style program to put CSM in which we were unfortunately unable to use, but anyway thanks a lot for your efforts man !
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