VocalWriter User's Manual

For Mac OS X

User’s Manual

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VocalWriter Music and Vocal Synthesis

Version 2.0 User’s Manual

TM

Copyright © 2005 KAE Labs. All rights reserved. This manual may not, in whole or part, be distributed, copied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine readable form without written consent of KAE Labs. Your rights to the software are governed by the accompanying software license agreement. VocalWriter, VocalTracks and Resonant Articulatory Synthesis (RAS) are trademarks of KAE Labs.

Mailing Address: KAE Labs P.O. Box 1904 Woodinville, WA 98077 Web Page: E-Mail:

http://kaelabs.com [email protected]

Contents Getting Started ................................................................. 11 About This Chapter .................................................................................. 12 About VocalWriter ................................................................................... 13 The Editors .................................................................................... 14 The Sequencer and Synthesizers .................................................... 14 Resonant Articulatory Synthesis ...................................................... 15 Starting VocalWriter ................................................................................. 18 System Requirements..................................................................... 18 Installing VocalWriter ..................................................................... 18 What Gets Installed ....................................................................... 19 Product Registration ...................................................................... 19

Playing Music Tutorial ....................................................... 21 About This Chapter .................................................................................. 22 Opening the Demo File ........................................................................... 23 The Deck Window ................................................................................... 24 Play Button ................................................................................... 24 Stop and Rewind Buttons .............................................................. 25 Fast Forward Button...................................................................... 25 Deck Window Behavior ................................................................. 25 Deck Menu ................................................................................... 26 The Tracks Window.................................................................................. 28 Overview ...................................................................................... 28 Track Control Area ......................................................................... 29 Track Mute and Solo ...................................................................... 30 Track Select and Track Level ........................................................... 30 Track Type ..................................................................................... 31

Track Name ................................................................................... 33 Play / Record ................................................................................. 34 Marker Buttons and Play from Marker ............................................ 35 Navigate Buttons........................................................................... 35 Viewing Lyrics .......................................................................................... 37 Playing Standard MIDI Files ...................................................................... 38 Why Standard MIDI Files? .............................................................. 38 Loading MIDI Files ......................................................................... 39 Songs Menu .................................................................................. 40 Reviewing This Chapter ................................................................. 40 Vocal Idiosyncrasies ................................................................................. 41 Fast Forward ................................................................................. 41 Starting Midstream ........................................................................ 41

Editing Music Tutorial ....................................................... 43 About This Chapter .................................................................................. 44 Copy and Paste Tracks.............................................................................. 45 Adding a Drum Track .................................................................... 45 Changing the Track Type to Drums ................................................ 46 Saving Your Work .......................................................................... 48 Transposing the Song .................................................................... 48 Adding the Melody........................................................................ 50 Changing the Track Type to Vocals ................................................ 51 Editing Lyrics............................................................................................ 53 Marker Buttons .............................................................................. 55 Horizontal Zoom ........................................................................... 55 Typing the Lyrics ........................................................................... 56 Adding a Karaoke Track ................................................................. 60 Experimenting with Vocals ....................................................................... 63 Changing the Vocal Instrument ..................................................... 63 Vocal Chorus ................................................................................ 66 Pitch-Bend .................................................................................... 68

VocalWriter Reference ....................................................... 71 About This Chapter .................................................................................. 72 Menus .......................................................................................... 73 Windows ...................................................................................... 73 The File Menu .......................................................................................... 73 New ............................................................................................. 73 Open… ........................................................................................ 73 Save .............................................................................................. 75 Save As… ...................................................................................... 75 Close............................................................................................. 76 Close Window............................................................................... 76 Export… ....................................................................................... 77 Play-to-Disk… ................................................................................ 78 Quit .............................................................................................. 79 The VocalWriter Menu ............................................................................. 80 Preferences ................................................................................... 80 The Edit Menu ......................................................................................... 82 Undo ............................................................................................ 82 Cut ............................................................................................... 82 Copy ............................................................................................. 83 Paste ............................................................................................. 83 Clear ............................................................................................. 83 Transpose Song… ......................................................................... 84 Scale Levels… ................................................................................ 85 Time Signature .............................................................................. 86 Reverb Controls ............................................................................. 86 Insert Measures… .......................................................................... 88 Delete Measures… ........................................................................ 88 The Selection Menu ................................................................................. 89 Transpose Notes… ........................................................................ 89 Quantize Notes… .......................................................................... 90 Move Events… .............................................................................. 91 Change Duration .......................................................................... 92 Change Velocity ............................................................................ 93 Change Controller ......................................................................... 93 Adjust Phonemes .......................................................................... 95

The Windows Menu Deck ............................................................................................. 97 Tracks ........................................................................................... 97 Notes ............................................................................................ 97 Copyright ...................................................................................... 98 Imported Lyrics .............................................................................. 98 Karaoke ......................................................................................... 98 Synth Stats .................................................................................... 99 Instrument Map ........................................................................... 100 The Deck Menu ..................................................................................... 101 Play ............................................................................................. 101 Play-From-Marker......................................................................... 101 Stop ............................................................................................ 101 Record ........................................................................................ 101 Rewind ....................................................................................... 101 The MIDI Menu ...................................................................................... 102 Output Setup .............................................................................. 102 Input Setup ................................................................................. 103 Turn Metronome ON................................................................... 104 Trun Metronome OFF ................................................................. 104 All Notes Off ................................................................................ 104 The Deck Window ................................................................................. 105 Rewind ....................................................................................... 105 Stop ............................................................................................ 105 Play ............................................................................................. 106 Play-From-Marker......................................................................... 106 Record ........................................................................................ 106 Fast Forward ............................................................................... 107 Window and Button Behavior ..................................................... 108 The Copyright Window .......................................................................... 109 The Tracks Window................................................................................ 110 Cursor Location Display ............................................................... 111 Track Control Area ....................................................................... 111 Track Select ................................................................................. 112 Track Type ................................................................................... 113

Track Name ................................................................................. 114 Track Mute and Solo .................................................................... 114 Play / Record ............................................................................... 115 Track Level .................................................................................. 115 Marker Buttons ............................................................................ 116 Navigate Buttons ......................................................................... 116 The Notes Window ................................................................................ 117 Quantize Button .......................................................................... 117 Horizontal Zoom Button .............................................................. 119 Select and Insert Mode Buttons .................................................... 119 Note Duration Palette .................................................................. 120 Control Density Button ................................................................ 121 Navigate Buttons ......................................................................... 121 The Virtual Keyboard ................................................................... 122 Note Velocity Slider ..................................................................... 122 Position Displays .......................................................................... 123 Marker Buttons ............................................................................ 123 Control Select Button................................................................... 123 Notes Area .................................................................................. 129 Control Data Area ....................................................................... 131

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Chapter

1

Getting Started • About This Chapter • About VocalWriter • Starting VocalWriter

Chapter 1 - Getting Started

11

About This Chapter This chapter explains what you need to do before using VocalWriter. You’ll learn how VocalWriter is organized, some basic differences between speech and instrumental acoustics, what equipment you need and finally how to install and register your software. When you have finished this chapter, you’ll be ready to start using VocalWriter and begin the tutorial described in the next chapter.

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Chapter 1 - Getting Started

About VocalWriter VocalWriter is a Mac OS X music application that has the unique feature to synthesize vocals from lyric text. It integrates music editing together with realtime synthesis output for an interactive authoring environment. One advantage of this tight integration is many complex editing operations are easily automated. For example, editing lyrics is a simple process. All the complexity with finding the correct pronunciations and accurately synchronizing the phonetic units is hidden from the user. Real-time Software Synthesis:

• Sing English lyrics • 85+ singer models • General MIDI instruments • 60 voice polyphony • 32 voice/track multi-timbre • Built-in reverb • Real-time MIDI input/output Authoring and Editing:

• Graphical music editor • Enter lyrics as English words • Over 100,000 words in English pronunciation dictionary • Import and export Standard MIDI Files • 32-track note and controller editing • Save music to AIFF files for final output As shown in Fig. 1.1, VocalWriter workflow is centered around the Song Editor. From there, the user can either create and change the contents of each individual track in the song or control and monitor the real-time performance of the song. Also shown, MIDI I/O is supported for either note data entry or for live performance. Fig 1.1 VocalWriter workflow diagram

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Chapter 1 - Getting Started

13

The Editors The two basic editors in VocalWriter are the Tracks and Notes windows. The Tracks window shows all the tracks in the song in a single view to allow making global modifications that affect the entire song. On the other hand, each individual track can be opened separately in a Notes window to editing individual note, controls and vocal events. Since the differentiating VocalWriter feature is the unique vocal synthesizer, an obvious question to ask is why release yet another proprietary music editor? Aren’t there already many established and better editors we could leverage by simply developing a plug-in synth? Unfortunately that wasn’t possible and the next subsection will try to answer that question.

The Sequencer and Synthesizers Fig. 1.2 shows the real-time performance section of VocalWriter. The sequencer reads the note events and dispatches them to the appropriate synthesizer. Although this looks like a standard sequencer design with two plug-in synths, VocalWriter actually has a unique requirement for real-time playback: singers need to know what they’re singing next.

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VocalWriter realtime performance section has unique look-ahead requirements.

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Fig 1.2

The MIDI note ON / OFF model does not work for vocals because speech is a precisely timed continuous process rather than the mostly independent and discrete event sequence for instrumentals. A singer needs to know ahead of time exactly what notes and what syllables are next to successfully sing the phrase.

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Chapter 1 - Getting Started

Likewise, the vocal synthesizer needs to know not only the current note and syllable, but also the next note, exactly when it will occur, the next syllable, the next pitch, all controller events in between, any tempo changes, etc. In fact, note OFF has very little meaning for singers – the entire phrase is a single event. These unique look-ahead requirements are beyond any real-time synthesizer plug-in architecture and is why VocalWriter has to include a custom sequencer.

Resonant Articulatory Synthesis Combining the latest advancements in the acoustic modeling of musical instruments with new breakthroughs in speech synthesis, VocalWriter uses a sophisticated technique called Resonant Articulatory Synthesis™ (RAS) to model the human vocal tract. This mathematical vocal tract model is the core technology used to make VocalWriter sing. Human vocals are probably the most complex of all musical instruments. Most acoustic instruments have fixed and static behavior when compared to human speech production. With most acoustic instruments, there’s only a single type of sound excitation source and the instrument’s resonant characteristics don’t change very much. The instrument timbre usually stays in a very narrow range. On the other hand, speech is highly dynamic. Its acoustic characteristics are almost never stationary. Vocals are complex because: • The instrument shape is continually changing (throat, tongue, lips, cheeks, etc.) in a very controlled and precise way to articulate intelligible speech. • There are many different sound sources, glottis (vowels), tongue (“t”), teeth (“s”) or lips (“p”). These are often articulated simultaneously (like glottis and teeth together making “z”). • The sound output can be through the mouth, nose (“m”) or neck (“b”). • Wide timbre range. Voices can be male, female, child, adult, breathy, hoarse, whisper, scream, etc.

Chapter 1 - Getting Started

15

This dynamic behavior of speech is illustrated in Figs 1.3 and 1.4. These graphs show the waveform signal on the bottom and its corresponding spectrogram on the top. It’s assumed that VocalWriter users are already familiar with digital audio so no explanation is needed for the waveform.

Fig 1.3 Oboe spectrogram (top) and oboe waveform (bottom) showing static behavior.

Like the signal waveform that shows signal air pressure changes over time, the spectrogram shows harmonic or spectrum changes over time. It is especially useful to show any resonant frequencies are in the signal. The oboe in Fig. 1.3 has the expected open tube resonances shown by the horizontal stripes at 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 3000 and 4500 Hz. The brighter the color means a stronger resonance at that frequency. For the oboe, there is a predominant frequency peak caused by the combination of the 1000 and 1500 resonances and is an important characteristic in defining that recognizable oboe timbre. Except for the brief period when the note first starts, notice how the oboe spectrum is very static and stationary. This is expected since nothing physically is changing very much while the note is playing. The instrument dimensions are fixed and the performer is maintaining a somewhat constant air pressure on the reed. Now compare that to the speech signal in Fig. 1.4. Throughout the entire spoken word, the acoustic features are never stationary, continually changing in very precise movements to articulate the intended speech message. Unlike the oboe, here the instrument shape is never the same, causing acoustic resonant frequencies to be deliberately modulated using very complex trajectories. Also unlike the

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Chapter 1 - Getting Started

Fig 1.4 Speech signal of spoken female “fraudulent” utterance showing dynamic behavior.

“f

r

au

d

u

l

e

n

t”

oboe, which has only a single excitation source (the vibrating reed), speech has many excitation sources located at different points on the vocal tract. You can easily see in the speech waveform how different excitation sources change the shape of the signal. The “f” is produced by smoothly blowing air through our teeth and lips. The “t” has an entirely different sound caused by a burst of released air through the teeth and tongue. The “d” is similar except it also has along with the burst an additional glottal voicing. The “n” is distinctive because the signal is partly radiated through the nose. Even more dramatic is the difference shown between the two spectrograms. Notice how the resonances are now highly dynamic and continuously variable. This is because we are changing the shape of our mouths to produce the various phonemes that define the specific timbres used to build syllables and words. These dynamic resonances or formants are the primary acoustic encoding for human speech. And finally, if you play two different oboes, most people would not be able to hear major differences between them. For most of us, one oboe sounds similar any other oboe we’ve heard. However with speech, just the opposite is true. Each speaker and singer we hear has their own distinct acoustic characteristics that we can easily identify and discriminate.

Chapter 1 - Getting Started

17

Starting VocalWriter

System Requirements To use VocalWriter, you’ll need the following system requirements: • PowerPC® G4, or G5 processor • Mac OS X v.10.3 through v.10.4 • 512 MB minimal • 10 MB of available hard-disk space • 1,024x768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video card • Stereo or mono audio output (44.1 kHz, 16-bits) • MIDI interface (optional)

Note that other configurationswill probably work just fine. At the time of this writing, these were the ones tested.

Installing VocalWriter To make distribution easier, all the VocalWriter files have been combined into a single disk image file called VocalWriter20.dmg. So to install VocalWriter, you’ll need to open the disk image and manually copy the VocalWriter™ 2.0 folder to a permanent location somewhere on you’re your computer.

Fig 1.5 To install VocalWriter, drag this foldr on to your hard drive.

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Chapter 1 - Getting Started

What Gets Installed Fig 1.6 shows the required files needed to run VocalWriter. The file called VocalWriter is the application you open to play and edit music. The support files GMSpeech, GMBank and EnglishLex are the music synthesizer extensions used by VocalWriter to play music. These files must always be in the same folder with the VocalWriter application file for correct operation. If any of these files are removed, VocalWriter will not work.

Fig 1.6 VocalWriter files.

In addition, music files are installed into two folders. The Tutorial folder contains example files you’ll use in Chapter 3. The Demo Music folder has some demo music files for you to try out with VocalWriter.

Product Registration When you run VocalWriter for the first time, you’ll need to register the new copy of the program. While in the Finder, open the “VocalWriter™ 2.0” folder and launch VocalWriter by double-clicking on the icon. After a few moments, you’ll see the Product Registration window displayed. Type your Name and product Serial Number into the two text fields shown on the window. The product Serial Number is emailed to you when you register

Chapter 1 - Getting Started

19

VocalWriter. Type this number carefully, VocalWriter needs this number to be entered exactly as shown on the label. You can switch between these two fields by either pressing the TAB key on your keyboard or by simply clicking your mouse anywhere inside each field rectangle. The Register button remains disabled until both fields have valid entries. If the button is still disabled after entering your Name and product Serial Number, this means you made a mistake copying the Serial Number. Double-check this number and correct it until the Register button becomes enabled.

Fig 1.7 Type your name and product Serial Number.

After entering your name and product serial number, click your mouse on the Register button or press the RETURN key on your keyboard to continue with the start-up process.

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Chapter 1 - Getting Started

Chapter

2

Playing Music Tutorial • About This Chapter • Opening the Demo File • The Deck Window • The Tracks Window • Viewing Lyrics • Playing Standard MIDI Files • Vocal Idiosyncrasies

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

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About This Chapter When you launch VocalWriter, the two windows in Fig 2.1 are displayed. The small window in the upper left corner is called the Deck window. It has controls to start and stop the music. On the bottom is an empty Tracks window (named “Untitled”) for displaying, editing and controlling music tracks. In this chapter, you’ll learn: • How to load VocalWriter and MIDI files. • The basic Deck window functions for playing music. • The basic Tracks window functions for controlling music tracks. • How to view “Karaoke” lyrics. • Some peculiarities of sung vocals.

Tracks Window

Deck Window

Fig 2.1 The two VocalWriter windows after launch. 22

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

Opening the Demo File Pull down the File menu and select the “Open...” item.

Fig 2.2 Loading files.

At the File Open dialog, got into the “Demo Music” folder and you’ll see a list of VocalWriter music files (the actual file names in your folder may be different from what’s shown in Fig 2.3). The file you’ll open is called “Five Days.trk”.

Fig 2.3 File Open dialog.

Before loading this file, note the three-character extensions at the end of the file names. Files ending with the “.trk” extension are VocalWriter specific files. Files ending with the “.mid” extension are Standard MIDI files.

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

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The difference is “.trk” files can only be opened and played by VocalWriter while Standard MIDI files can be imported and exported by many different music programs, including VocalWriter. The reason for this distinction is “.trk” files have additional information that cannot be included in the Standard MIDI format. Go ahead and open the demo file called “Five Days.trk”. When the file has loaded, you’ll see the Tracks window update itself with information from this file. You’re now ready to play some music.

The Deck Window

Play Button As shown below in Fig 2.4, the Deck control buttons are somewhat similar in function to a tape deck or VCR unit. The Counter is positioned at the beginning (measure 1, beat 1) and the Stop button is pressed. To start the music, press the Play button. You should now hear a familiar Christmas tune sung using various synthesized voices with guitar accompaniment. VU Meter

Counter

Fig 2.4 The Deck Window.

Rewind

24

Stop

Record Play Play Fast from Marker Forward

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

Since this is a short piece of music, play it all the way through to the end. As the music is playing, the Counter increments, showing the current music position. The VU Meter lights are displaying the volume for both the left and right sound output channels. When the end is reached, the Stop button is automatically pressed and the Counter position is automatically reset to the first beat (1:1).

Stop and Rewind Buttons Press the Play button again and let it play for a measure or so. Now press the Stop button. You’ll notice the music has stopped and the Counter is set at the location where you stopped. Press the Play button again and you’ll hear the music pickup and continue from the point where you stopped. If you want to restart from the beginning, press the Rewind button while the music stopped. The Counter will reset to the first beat. If you try pressing the Rewind button while the music is playing, nothing will happen (no, it won’t play backwards!). The Rewind button can only be used while the music is stopped.

Fast Forward Button While the music is playing, press the Fast Forward. You’ll hear the music rate increase to twice the tempo. When you release the Fast Forward button, the tempo reverts back to normal speed. The Fast Forward button works opposite of the Rewind button: it only functions when the music is playing. Pressing it when the music is stopped will have no effect. If you need to play from a specific point midstream in the music, this can be done by using Markers in the Tracks window. This topic will be covered later.

Deck Window Behavior A general rule with VocalWriter is buttons and controls inside an inactive window are disabled. They’ll work only when the window is active. Plus, inactive windows become active whenever you click your mouse anywhere inside the window.

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

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The sole exception to this rule is the Deck window. The Deck buttons are always active. If you press any of them when the Deck window is inactive, they’ll still work. In addition, pressing a Deck button on an inactive Deck window does not activate the Deck window. Whatever window was active when you pressed the Deck button still remains active. This non-standard Deck window behavior is there for your convenience. It lets you play or stop your music with a single mouse click when you’re working in another window. It also keeps your current window active after pressing Deck buttons. This saves a lot of unnecessary mouse clicking in windows. With the music stopped, click your mouse inside the Copyright window to make it active. This automatically makes the Deck window inactive since only one window can be active at any time. Now try pressing the Play button. You’ll notice the button still works, even though the window is inactive. Also notice the Copyright window remains active. To make the Deck window active, you’ll need to click you mouse somewhere inside the Deck window other than the Deck buttons. Try clicking on the VU Meter area to make the Deck window active again.

Deck Menu The Deck Menu gives you an additional way for controlling your music. Except for FastForward, every button in the Deck window has a corresponding item in this menu. You can use this menu in cases when the Deck window is covered and not visible.

Fig 2.5 The Deck Menu.

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VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

This menu also provides Command Key equivalents. In many cases you’ll find these more convenient than pressing the Deck buttons. By the way, an easy way to remember the Command Key for Play is to think of the word “Go” (unfortunately xP is the Mac standard Command Key for Print). Likewise, to help remember the Command Key for Rewind, think of the word “Back”.

Deck Window Summary: • The Play button starts the music at the current Counter location. • The Rewind button sets the Counter to the beginning (1:1). • Rewind only works when the music is stopped. • Fast Forward speeds up the tempo when playing. • Fast Forward only works when music is playing. • The Deck buttons are always enabled, even if the window is inactive. • Pressing a Deck button on an inactive Deck window does not make it active. • An alternate method for the deck functions is the Deck Menu.

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

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The Tracks Window Overview VocalWriter uses a multitrack tape deck analogy to control and organize music data. And like a multitrack deck, each of the 32 individual tracks can be edited and controlled independent of one another. Marker Buttons

Track Control Area

Cursor Location Display

Navigate Buttons

Track Data Area

Fig 2.6 Tracks window showing example music file.

Looking in the Tracks window, you’ll notice it’s divided into three basic areas. The topmost area of the window has a collection of miscellaneous displays and controls. Below these are the individual tracks with each horizontal row representing one track in the music file. On the right is the Track Data Area where the horizontal colored lines are miniature piano-roll representations of the notes for each track. On the left, the Track Control Area, is a series of buttons for controlling, editing and naming each track. 28

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

Except for the first track, all remaining tracks can have note data. Track 1 is unique because it only contains tempo changes. This is called the Tempo Track. In the first measure, notice that a tempo change is shown as a small vertical gray bar. This bar represents the opening tempo for this song. Make sure the Tracks window is active by clicking your mouse in the Tracks window title bar. As you move your mouse around the Track Data area, you’ll see the Cursor Location Display indicate the cursor position in the song. The left display labeled “T” shows the track number. This reflects vertical mouse position as the cursor passes over each individual track. To the right of this is a display showing horizontal cursor position (“M B F”). The number under the “M” label shows the measure location of your mouse, “B” shows the beat and “F” shows the fine units. These fine units are small subdivisions of the beat. They are usually referred to as “ticks per quarter note”. We’ll deal more with this later, but for now remember that VocalWriter has 240 of these subdivisions for a quarter note. Go up to the Deck window and press the Play button. You’ll see the Track Data Area in the Tracks window hilite the current measure being playing. When the music gets to the right end of the window, the Track Data Area will automatically scroll to the right.

Track Control Area Shown in Fig 2.7 are the Track Controls for track 2. Each one of the 32 tracks has an identical set. These controls are used for track editing and track playback control.

Track Select

Play Record

Track Type

Track Name

Track Mute

Track Solo

Fig 2.7 Track Control Buttons.

VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

29

Track Mute and Solo With the music playing from the beginning, look at the Track Control Area for track 2 (“Vocals”). Press the Mute button (labeled “M”). You should now hear only the guitar accompaniment, without the vocals. Notice the track has been “grayed” out. The Mute button turns the sound off for that track. Press the Mute button again and you should hear the vocals return and the track is no longer grayed out. Now press the Solo button (labeled “S”) for track 2. Now you’ll hear only the vocals without any guitar accompaniment. Notice all the tracks except for track 2 have been grayed out. The Solo function is the complement of the Mute function. While the Mute button turns sound off for only the specified track, the Solo button turns sound off for all tracks except for the specified track. With track 2 still in Solo, press the Solo button for track 5 (“Guitar 3”). You will now hear both tracks 2 and 5 with tracks 3 and 4 still silent. Any number of tracks can be in Solo or in Mute. To un-Mute or un-Solo a track, press the button again. These buttons work much like standard Mac check-box buttons.

Track Mute and Solo Summary: • Mute turns sound off for the specified track. • Solo turns sound off for all tracks except the specified track. • More than one track can be in Solo or Mute. • Mute and Solo buttons behave like Mac check-boxes.

Track Select and Track Level Make sure no tracks remain in Solo or in Mute from the previous examples. Press the Track Select button for track 2 (labeled “2”). Besides highlighting this track in the Track Data Area, notice the Track Level thumb is now drawn on the slider.

Fig 2.8 Track Level slider.

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VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

Start playing the song from the beginning. When you hear the vocals, slowly drag (click-drag) the Track Level thumb towards the left. The vocals will become proportionately quieter as you go left until the track becomes silent. Dragging the thumb towards the right will make the track louder again. The slider display is calibrated from 0% to 200% of normal loudness. This slider can be used to adjust the level balance for each track. It’s especially useful when you’re experimenting with different instrument arrangements for a track. You’ll find it much easier than trying to scale note velocity or volume controls. The slider becomes active when any track selection is made in the Tracks window. As will be shown later, you can select track areas by simply dragging the mouse in the Track Data Area. The Track Select buttons give you the convenience of selecting the entire track. Press the Track Select button for track 3 and notice that track 2 is automatically deselected and its Track Select button unpressed. These buttons behave like standard Mac radio buttons since selecting a new track also deselects the old track.

Track Select and Track Level Summary: • Track Level slider adjusts the volume for selected track. • Track Select buttons select the entire track. • Track Select buttons behave like Mac radio buttons.

Track Type With the music stopped, press the Track Type button for track 2. You’ll see the pop-up menu shown in Fig 2.7. The first and last items are dimmed while the middle two are active. For now, don’t select anything from the menu, just release your mouse button to hide the pop-up.

Fig 2.9 Track Type Pop-up menu.

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This menu lets you tell VocalWriter what type of data is played for each track. The letter drawn on the Track Type button shows you the data type selected for the track. Instrumental Drum Vocal Karaoke Tempo

Play General MIDI instruments Play General MIDI drum set Sing lyrics Display lyric text Play tempo changes

Since track 1 is always the Tempo track, you cannot change its type. All the remaining tracks can be Instrumental, Drum, Vocal or Karaoke. Only one track can be designated as the Karaoke track. VocalWriter uses this to display the lyrics in a special window while the music is playing. Once you designate the Karaoke track, its selection in the Track Type pop-up will always be dimmed for all tracks. The Track Type pop-up for track 2 had the Vocal and Karaoke items dimmed because the track is already vocal and the song has a designated karaoke track (track 6). More on the Track Type will be discussed in the next chapter.

Fig 2.10 Hold the OPTION key down to get instrument location popup menu.

If you press the Track Type button while the OPTION key on the keyboard is down, the pop-up menu now shows the location of every instrument change in the track. Press the Track Type button for track 2 with the OPTION key pressed (Fig 2.8). Select the instrument called “17:3 - Tracy”. The Track Data Area will automatically scroll to measure 17. In this special pop-up menu, the numbers on the left show the instrument location while the label on the right shows the

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VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

instrument name. Since this is a Vocal track, the instrument name is the voice name. You can use this power key to quickly navigate the Track Data Area to locations where the instrument is changed. Or you can use this to simply display the instruments used in a particular track. In this case, don’t select anything in the pop-up menu and the Track Data Area will not change its position.

Track Type Button Summary: • Track Type button displays a data type pop-up menu. • Track 1 is always type Tempo. • Tracks 2 - 32 can be Instrumental, Drum, Vocal or Karaoke. • Only one Karaoke track can be designated. • Instrument changes are displayed with OPTION key pressed.

Track Name As you move your mouse cursor over the Track Name field, notice the cursor changes from the arrow to an I-beam. This is done to remind you that this field can be edited. Click your mouse inside the Track Name area for track 2 (“Vocals”). You’ll see the dialog window shown in Fig 2.11 your screen.

Fig 2.11 Edit Track Name dialog.

The current track name is displayed in white letters in the dialog text edit field. Click your mouse anywhere inside this field. Notice the letters change color to black and a blinking insertion cursor appears by nearest text character to your click point. Selected text in edit fields is always colored white while unselected text is always colored black. VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

33

Pressing the DELETE key on your keyboard removes characters on the left side of the insertion cursor. If you have an area selected in the text field, the DELETE key will remove the selected text. You can move the insertion cursor by simply clicking your mouse to the desired point or by using the left and right ARROW keys on your keyboard. To select an area, drag your mouse over the desired characters. In the text field, rename this track to “Voice Track”. When you’re finished, there two ways to exit this dialog. If you press the “Cancel” button, no changes will be made to the track name when you exit the dialog. Pressing the ESC key on your keyboard will do the same thing. If you want the track name changed to the text you typed in the edit field, press the “Change” button. The border around this button means the button can also be activated by pressing the RETURN key on your keyboard. Press the “Change” button and you’ll see track 2 now has the new name.

Track Name Summary: • Selections in text edit fields are colored white. • Unselected text is colored black. • The “Cancel” button exits without changes. • The “Change” button exits with changes in effect.

Play / Record If you’re set up for MIDI input, you can record your MIDI performance directly into any VocalWriter track. This button is used to designate the target track for MIDI recording.

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Marker Buttons and Play from Marker Directly above the Track Data Area is a horizontal series of buttons (labeled “1”, “2”, “3”...) called Marker Buttons (see Fig 2.6). Each button is labeled with the song measure number. Notice the vocals in this song start at measure 5. Press the Marker Button for this measure and then press the “Play from Marker” button in the Deck window (see Fig 2.4).

Fig 2.12 Set Marker for measure 5.

You’ll hear the music start at the point where the vocals start, skipping the guitar intro. Stop the music and press the Marker Button for measure 9. Like standard Mac radio buttons, the old marker (measure 5) will be automatically released when you press a new one (measure 9). Now engage the “Play from Marker” button again. The music now starts with the male voice singing at measure 9.

Marker Summary: • Markers are set on measure boundaries. • Only one marker can be set at any time. • The “Play from Marker” function automatically positions the music to the marked measure before playing.

Navigate Buttons In the previous example, you may have noticed the “Go To Marker” Navigate Button (Fig 2.13) become un-dimmed when you turned on a Marker Button. Whenever you set a marker or make a selection in the Track Data Area, the appropriate Navigate Button will become active.

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Go To Select End Go To Select Start

Fig 2.13

Go To Marker

Tracks window Navigate buttons.

The Navigate Buttons are used to automatically scroll the Track Data Area to either the marked measure, selection start measure or selection end measure. Turn on the marker for measure 9. You’ll see the “Go To Marker” become active. When you press this button, the Track Data Area will scroll to measure 9. Turn off the marker by pressing the measure 9 Marker button again and note the “Go To Marker” button now becomes inactive (dimmed). Drag a selection in the Track Data Area between measure 7 and measure 9 on track 2. Press the “Go To Select Start” button. The Track Data Area should scroll to measure 7. Pressing the “Go To Selection End” button will scroll the display to measure 1. Why measure 1 and not measure 9? It’s trying to scroll the Data Area with measure 9 on the right side of the display. The “Go To Select Start” button tries to scroll the Data Area so that the selection beginning is first measure on the left. However, the “Go To Select End” button tries to scroll the Data Area so the end of the selection is on the right side. This is done to fit as much of the selection into the viewing area as possible. Press the Track Select button for measure 2 to select the entire track. The selection Navigate Buttons will now scroll to either the beginning or end of the song.

Navigate Buttons Summary: • The “Go To Marker” button scrolls to the marked measure positioned to the left side. • The “Go To Select Start” button scrolls to the selection start positioned to the left side. • The “Go To Select End” button scrolls to the selection end positioned to the right side.

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Viewing Lyrics If you look at track 6 in this example music file, you’ll see the Track Type button is labeled “K” for karaoke. This track has special lyric events that can be viewed while the music is playing.

Fig 2.14 Open the Karaoke window.

In the “Windows” menu, select the “Karaoke” item. This will open a window that displays the first four lines of lyrics for this song. Rewind the song and start playing. When the music gets to the vocals, you’ll see each lyric line become highlighted as it is sung. In the next chapter, you’ll learn how to add these to your music.

Fig 2.15 Karaoke Window.

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Playing Standard MIDI Files Why Standard MIDI Files? When you create some music and save it as a file on your computer, most music applications will write the file using some sort of private data format. Each application has its own unique data format for saving music files. Since each music application knows how to read its private format, this usually is not a problem when you want to open it later on - as long as you use the same application. If you want to open your music file using some other music application, you’ll have problems because most music applications don’t know how to read someone else’s private file format. You usually can’t interchange music files between applications. Standard MIDI solves this problem by specifying a common data format for music files. Since it is a mature and open format, music in Standard MIDI can be opened by most music applications, independent of the computer platform or operating system. This format has become a popular way to distribute music files.

Fig 2.16 Standard MIDI allows file interchange between platforms and applications.

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One important feature of VocalWriter is the ability to play Standard MIDI Files that have been arranged for General MIDI instrumentation. There are thousands of these, which are available free on the Web, from on-line services and from commercial sources. The available styles cover the entire spectrum of music. Whatever your musical tastes may be, the music is probably there for you to play using VocalWriter. With VocalWriter you’re not limited to just listening to these MIDI files. You may, for example, take your favorite music and change instruments to experiment with new and interesting arrangements. You can even add vocals to the music to hear the melody sung with the lyrics. As with most tasks on the computer, high quality results are usually a collaboration of many different applications. You may want to leverage some advanced features from other music editors. In this case, you can export the tracks as Standard MIDI, then import them into VocalWriter. You can usually identify Standard MIDI files easily because they will have a threecharacter extension to the file name of “.mid” or “.kar” (or all caps versions).

Loading MIDI Files Open the file called “Invention.mid”. VocalWriter will automatically import Standard MIDI files. When you play this file, notice the music is instrumental only, without any vocals. Since the data format for Standard MIDI was defined well before synthesizers could sing lyrics, it cannot include the required vocal information. Standard MIDI files are always limited to instrumental music.

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Songs Menu After you loaded the “Invention.mid” file, you may be wondering what happened to the “Five Days.trk” demo file which was opened earlier. Since you didn’t close it, it’s still in memory. Pull down the Songs menu and you’ll see the three items shown below in Fig 2.17.

Fig 2.17 The Songs Menu.

This is a list of files that are in VocalWriter memory. The diamond mark in front of the file name tells you which specific file is chosen for editing and is currently displayed in the windows. Select “Five Days.trk” from this menu and you’re back to where you were earlier. To remove this file from memory, select the “Close” item from the File menu. If you look at the Songs menu now, there should only be two items remaining. VocalWriter lets you have up to 10 documents open at any time. It’s usually a good idea to close files you’re not using to make more memory available for editing.

Reviewing This Chapter If you want to play some of the other VocalWriter demo files or have any personal MIDI files you’d like to try out, now may be a good time to review everything you’ve learned in the chapter. Open your files and play them, adjust track levels, try soloing different tracks, etc. If you hear some very strange arrangements, it’s probably because the file is not General MIDI, but an arrangement made to some specific synthesizer.

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Vocal Idiosyncrasies Fast Forward When you Fast Forward and release back to normal tempo on a singing voice, sometimes you’ll hear an abnormal stretched or compressed syllable. This side effect occurs because VocalWriter can’t read your mind and predict when you’ll press or release the button. Just like a human singer, VocalWriter is looking ahead when singing and may be committed to finish a specific syllable at the old tempo. The stretching and compressing you hear is the singing voice trying to catch-up or slow down to then new tempo. It will always be correctly synchronized by the next syllable.

Starting Midstream If you start playing a singing voice somewhere other than the beginning of the music file, you may sometimes hear the first word sung without its initial consonant. Here’s a trick question, how many syllables are sung in Fig 2.18?

Fig 2.18 How many syllables are sung?. She’s (SH-IY-z)

gone. (g-AO-n)

If you consider the song from start to finish, the answer is actually four! 1 - Beginning rest silence. 2 - The syllable “She’s” 3 - The syllable “gone” 4 - End silence. It’s important that understand the synchronization of notes to sung lyrics is not aligning word start to note start. Singing is the alignment of a syllable nucleus to a note. In this example, the IY (“ee”) phoneme in “She’s” is the syllable nucleus, so it’s always aligned to the start of the first note (middle D). To stay in beat, a singer VocalWriter - Playing Music Tutorial

41

will anticipate this and start the word early to force the IY to fall on the first beat of the second measure. So SH is actually pronounced earlier at the end of the proceeding rest, before the start of the second measure. SH gets moved back to become part of the first syllable (silence - SH). Likewise, to align the syllable nucleus AO (“aw”) in “gone” to the second note (middle E), a singer will sing the consonant g at the end of the first note’s (middle D) duration. The sung events, start silence, note middle D, note middle E, and end silence are aligned in time as follows: 1:1 - 2:1 2:1 - 2:2 2:2 - 2:4 2:4 -

silence + SH IY + z + g AO + n silence

VocalWriter always starts singing at a syllable nucleus. If you start the song on the second measure, you’ll hear something like “ee’s gone” because SH is part the proceeding syllable. Even if you started playing at 1:2, you’d hear silence then “ee’s gone” because VocalWriter won’t start singing until the next syllable nucleus. To hear SH, you need to start at 1:1 to include the first syllable (remember, silence is considered a syllable nucleus).

1:1

Fig 2.19 Syllable nucleus is aligned with note start.

silence

2:1

SH

IY z g

2:3

End

AO

n

silence

If this sounds overly complex, don’t panic. As you’ll learn later, you don’t need to worry about this syllable realignment when you enter lyrics for your music. VocalWriter does this automatically when it sings. Just be aware that you may get this side effect when starting vocal music in midstream.

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Chapter

3

Tutorial - Editing Music • About This Chapter • Copy and Paste Tracks • Editing Lyrics • Experimenting with Vocals

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About This Chapter This chapter covers some of the basic techniques you can use when editing music with VocalWriter. For this tutorial, you will edit a short song and learn how to: • Copy tracks between songs. • Change track types. • Add and edit lyrics. • Add and edit music controls. The examples in this tutorial are based around building a short two-phrase song called “Empty Nights”. To give you an idea of what you’ll do in this chapter, a completed demo of this song is provided. You can use this demo as a reference throughout this chapter. If you’re not quite sure about a specific step in the tutorial, you can always go and check your work against this completed demo. So before you get started with the tutorial, open the completed demo file called “Empty Nights.trk”. All the files you need for this chapter are found inside the folder called “Tutorial”.

Fig 3.1 All the files used in this chapter are inside the “Tutorial folder.

After opening this file, go ahead and play it so you can hear what it sounds like. Notice it has one Vocal track, one Karaoke track, one Drum track, while the rest are Instrumental.

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Copy and Paste Tracks The first step in this tutorial is to build your song by copying music from other files. You will start off with the base file called “Tutorial.trk”, which has most of the tracks already laid out. From there, you’ll copy the drum track and the vocal melody track. The files you’ll use are:

Tutorial.trk Drum Pattern.mid Melody.mid

- starting base file - Drum track - will become the vocal track

It’s probably a good idea to go ahead and open all the files we’ll use in this tutorial now. This way, they’ll be sitting in memory and you can quickly switch between them as needed. Your Songs menu should look something like Fig. 3.2 after you’ve opened these files.

Fig 3.2 Pre-load all the files you’ll need for this tutorial.

From the Songs menu select the “Tutorial.trk” item and then play it. This will be your starting file. You’ll be taking music from the other two files and pasting them into this file. Notice that most of the music is already in place. It’s missing the drums, vocals and it’s in a different key.

Adding a Drum Track First, you’ll copy over the drum track. Select the file called “Drum Pattern.mid” from the Songs menu. This Standard MIDI file has only a single track on number 3 called Drum Kit. Select the entire track by pressing the Track Select button. As

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described in Chapter 2 (see page 2-9), you can select data two ways in the Tracks window: dragging your mouse with the button pressed over any track range (click-drag) or selecting the entire track by pressing the Track Select button. Since you want all the data in this track, select the entire track.

Fig 3.3 Press the Track Select button to select the entire track.

Once the track is selected, choose the Copy item from the Edit menu. The track data is now stored in VocalWriter’s internal clipboard. It’s important to understand that all files in VocalWriter share a single clipboard. This way you can copy data from one file and paste it into another. Now that you have a copy of the drum track in the clipboard, all you have to do is paste it somewhere into your base file. Select the “Tutorial.trk” file from the Songs menu and find an empty track for the drums. Press the Track Select button for track 7 and paste the drums in by selecting the Paste item from the Edit menu. You should see the drum track data appear in blue colors in the Track Data Area. Fig 3.4 Select track 7 to paste the drum track.

Changing the Track Type to Drums When you play this song you’ll notice something very wrong: a piano is playing instead of the drums! VocalWriter doesn’t yet know to play the drums for this track. It always defaults to instrumental. One general rule is when you’re pasting one track type (Instrumental, Drum, Vocal or Karaoke) into a different track type;

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the destination track type always wins. In this case you were pasting Drum data into an Instrumental track, so it became instrumental data. To make this new track play the drums instead of the piano, all you have to do is change its type by selecting the Make Drum item from the Track Type menu (see page 2-11).

Fig 3.5 Press the Track Type button to change track 7 to Drum type.

At this point, you’ll probably notice that the drums sound too loud. You can easily adjust the correct mix for this track. As you learned in Chapter 2 (page 2-10), you can use the Track Level slider for this. This slider is also active during playbackx, so you can make your mix level adjustments in real-time. Select the track 7 and notice the Track Level slider becomes active. Start playing the music and you can adjust the level to where you like it. For this tutorial, set it at 66.

Fig 3.6 Select track #7 ans set the mix level to 66.

There’s one last thing you should do with this drum track before you’re done with it. Double-click on its Track Name field and set the name to “Drums” (see page 213).

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Saving Your Work Before you go on, you should save your modified “Tutorial.trk” file. If you look in the Songs menu, you’ll note the file is now underlined. This shows you the file is “dirty” - meaning the file has modifications you haven’t saved yet.

Fig 3.7 Underlining indicates a “dirty” file.

Go to the File menu and select the Save item (you can also save it under a new name from the Save As item if you want). Now if you look in the Songs menu, notice the underlining is gone. This means the file is “clean” – what you have opened in you computer’s memory is the same as what’s saved on disk. Remember the usual rule with computers: save your work and save it often.

Songs Menu Summary: • Diamond indicates selected file. • Underline indicates “dirty” file. • No underlining indicates “clean” file.

Transposing the Song There are two ways to transpose notes with VocalWriter. You can transpose only your current selection or you can have VocalWriter automatically transpose every track in the song. As you add synthesized vocals to your music, you’ll find yourself transposing the entire song surprisingly often. It’s been the author’s experience that many songs seem to have a specific natural base pitch for the vocals. When you move the pitch away from this, it sounds entirely different.

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For “Tutorial.trk”, you’ll need to transpose it down a whole step. From the Edit menu, select the Transpose Song item. Since you’re moving down a whole step, in the dialog box select the Down button to specify direction and select the 2 Semitones button specifying how much to transpose (Fig. 3.8). After pressing the Transpose button, compare your song to the reference “Empty Nights.trk” file to make sure the key of both songs match.

Fig 3.8 Transpose the entire song down one whole step.

One point to keep in mind when using the Transpose Song function: you cannot undo this operation. If you look in the Edit menu, you’ll see the Undo item dimmed. Most VocalWriter editing operations can be undone if you change your mind. However there are a few exceptions. This is one of them. But it’s not a big problem, all you have to do is transpose the song again, but invert the direction.

Transpose Song Summary: • Transpose all tracks at once. • Will not transpose Drum tracks. • Cannot be undone.

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Adding the Melody You still have one more track to copy over into “Tutorial.trk”. This is the vocal part that you’ll get from “Melody.mid”. Select “Melody.mid” from the Songs menu and select the entire track 3 called “Melody”. Then copy it using the Edit menu. So far, this is pretty much the same as what you did when copying the drum track. However, pasting is going to be different this time. Instead of pasting this track into beat 1, measure 1 like the drums, you’re going to insert it into measure 5. To do this, you’ll have to make a selection starting exactly at measure 5. When you paste data, VocalWriter only looks at the start selection point, ignoring the end selection point. It then inserts the entire clipboard starting at this point to the end of the clipboard. In this example, you have 8 measures of notes in the clipboard. Pasting into measure 5 will fill measures 5 through 12. So the end selection doesn’t matter, only the start selection point is used. Another point to remember is pasting into a selection is not the same in VocalWriter as you’re used to with word processors. When you paste some text into a selection, word processors will first delete the selection and then insert the new text, adjusting the remaining downstream text accordingly. VocalWriter only inserts, if there are already notes in place, they will be mixed with the new notes. You can think of Paste in VocalWriter to be more like mix instead. Make sure you have “Tutorial.trk” selected from the Songs menu and make sure the Tracks Window is front and active. The next free track is number 8, so you’ll paste the melody notes there. Move the cursor to track 8 and position the cursor to exactly location 5:1:0 (Fig. 3.9). Now click-drag your mouse for about a measure to make a selection. The actual number of measures you select is unimportant since VocalWriter only looks at the start point when pasting notes. After you made your selection at measure 5, select Paste from the Edit menu to insert the clipboard data.

Fig 3.9 Move your cursor to track 8, location 5:1:0 to make your selection.

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Listen to your song, making sure you pasted the notes into the correct location (your new track will play the piano for now). To save time when checking your work, start play from measure 5 by setting a marker and using the Play-fromMarker deck button (see page 2-15). Since it will eventually sing the lyrics, go ahead and name this track “Vocals”.

Copying and Pasting Tracks Summary: • Copy will duplicate all events into the clipboard from selection start through selection end point. • Paste will insert clipboard to selection start point only (selection end is ignored). Selections are made by pressing the Track Select button or click-dragging mouse cursor over target area. • Pressing the Track Select button on empty track makes a selection at measure 1, beat 1 (1:1:0).

Changing the Track Type to Vocals Your “Vocals” tracks is playing the piano because the type is Instrumental. Remember the new drums tracks played the piano until you changed the track to Drum. To make your new melody track sing, you’ll have to change its type to Vocal.

Fig 3.10 Press the Track Type button to change track 8 to Vocal type.

When you play the song now, you should hear a synthesized voice sing “doo” vocals for the melody. However, you’ll immediately notice two things wrong: the vocals are too loud and the vocal pitch is too high. Following the same procedure you used to adjust the drum level on track 7, set the track 8 vocal level to about 70. VocalWriter - Editing Music Tutorial

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Previously you transposed the entire song down two semitones. Now you’re going to transpose only the Vocals track down one full octave. Select the entire track by pressing the Track Select button for track 8, then select the Transpose Notes item from the Selection menu. All these functions in the Selection menu work only on areas of music you currently have selected. If nothing is selected, these functions are dimmed in the menu.

Fig 3.11 Select the entire Vocals tracks and transpose.

At the Transpose Notes dialog select the Down button and select the “12” Semitones button (for 1 octave), then press the Transpose. Now you’ll hear the voice sing in a more reasonable octave. Now compare it with the demo “Empty Nights.trk” song, except for the “doo” lyrics, they should sound pretty much the same. In the next section, you’ll be editing the song lyrics. Since lyrics are independent of the accompaniment, it will probably easier for you to hear what you’re doing without all the instrumentals playing along in the background. You can solo your Vocals track by selecting the Solo button for track 8 (see page 2-10) When you play your song, it’s interesting to realize what’s really going on. The “Doo’s” you hear are not just the typical recorded samples of vocals statically played back by a digital oscillator. Unlike any other music synthesizer you’ve used, VocalWriter is dynamically synthesizing the vocals using a mathematical knowledge base of human speech production. In other words, VocalWriter is singing “Doo” not because an oscillator is blindly playing some digitized data snippet, but because it can intentionally encode the speech message which our ears and brain hear as the word “Doo”. And it can do the same with “Ah”, “La”, “Baby” and almost any other English utterance you specify.

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Editing Lyrics The next step in this tutorial is to change the default Doo’s to some actual English lyrics. So far, all of your editing has been done in the Tracks window. This window is good for manipulating coarse chunks of music. To view and edit finer track details, you need to launch what’s called a Notes window. Each Notes window shows you the music data for an individual track. Here you can graphically edit notes, lyrics and MIDI control data. To open a Notes window for a particular track, you simply double-click where you want to edit in the Tracks window Track Data Area. For this tutorial example, you want to edit the lyrics so double-click your mouse somewhere in measure 5 on track 8.

Fig 3.12 Double-click on track 8, measure 5 to open a Notes window.

Double-click your mouse button here

You should see a Notes window similar to the one shown below. This window is divided into three basic sections. The “piano roll” style display is called the Notes Area. This area shows the track notes in blue (red when they are selected). Here you can directly enter and manipulate note position, duration and other attributes. The vertical and horizontal scroll bars let you manually navigate your way around the track data.

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Zoom Button

Control Data Area Mode Buttons

Control Density Button

Notes Area

Virtual Keyboard

Horizontal Scroll Bar

Marker Buttons

Vertical Scroll Bar

Fig 3.13 The Notes Window.

You’ll probably want to use the vertical scroll bar (the right side of the window) to center the notes in the window. The scroll bars work just like any word processor you’ve used except the display is music instead of text. So scrolling down will move the display data up. Press the down arrow on the vertical scroll bar until all the notes fit within your window. Directly above the Notes Area you’ll see your lyric text, one Doo string for each note in the track. This section of the window is called the Control Data Area. This area lets you edit various standard MIDI and custom VocalWriter music controls. Besides the lyrics, you can edit such music controls as MIDI volume, pitch-bend, sustain switch, vocal chorus and many others. 54

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Surrounding these sections on the top and left are various buttons, sliders, switches and displays. These are used to set different options for data editing. Many of these will be described as they are encountered in this tutorial.

Marker Buttons As you did in the Tracks window, you can also set a Marker button on a specific measure in the Notes window. Pressing the deck Play-From-Marker button will start music playback from this marked measure. Since you can set the playback marker in both the Tracks and Notes windows, the hierarchy goes as follows when working from the Notes window and pressing the Play-From-Marker button: 1 - If there’s a Notes window marker, start playback from the Notes window marker. 2 - If there’s no Notes window marker, but a marker is set in the Tracks window, start playback from the Tracks window marker. 3 - If there’s neither a Notes window nor a Tracks window marker set, start playback from the beginning at measure 1.

Horizontal Zoom Before you get started with the lyric text, set the horizontal zoom to 2x. Pressing the Horizontal Zoom button, you’ll see the menu shown in Fig. 3.14. Selecting the 2x item means the magnification will be twice the normal value. Fig 3.14 Set the horizontal magnification to 2x.

After you zoom, scroll the Notes Area so that it displays the track notes and lyrics starting at measure 5. This is done using the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the window. VocalWriter - Editing Music Tutorial

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Typing the Lyrics As you move your mouse cursor around in the Control Data Area, notice the cursor changes from the arrow to an I-beam as you pass over a text string. If you click your mouse button while the cursor is an I-beam, you will enter the edit mode for the specified lyric text. Once you’re editing the lyric text, the text edit behavior is the same as anywhere else in VocalWriter (see edit description under Track Name, page 2-13). A few highlights are: • An active edit field has a blue background. • Selected text characters are in white while unselected characters are drawn in black. In addition, the lyric text edit mode has a special key command to make lyric editing easier and faster. Pressing the Tab key or Space Bar will automatically advance the text edit to the next note. This way when you’re entering strings of lyric text, you don’t have to remove you hand from your keyboard until you’re done. When you’re done editing, simply click your mouse with the cursor positioned in a neutral (no control) area. As a matter of fact, any action that’s not an edit function will pop you out of lyric text editing. Exiting lyric editing will always cause the changes to be accepted. If you give it some bogus data, VocalWriter will try to correct it. Often you’ll get the default “Doo” inserted if VocalWriter encountered an error it can’t correct. So to start editing your lyrics, position your cursor over the first Doo in measure 5 and click your mouse. The background for this text will turn light blue in color with white lettering (word selected) for the text.

Fig 3.15 Start lyrics editing on the first note.

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Now, type the lyrics for the first phrase of this song. Remember you can press the Space Bar to automatically advance your edit to the next note.

Lyric

Note

Why do the empty nights

F2 F2 F2 F2 E2 D2

seem so long

E2 F2 A#1

I know she’s gone

G1 A#1 F2 E2

Make sure to include the “-“ in the first syllable for “emp-ty”. This tells VocalWriter the next syllable on the next note is part of the current word. When you play this phrase, don’t worry about the awkward sounding “the” on the third note (should sound like “thee”). VocalWriter will automatically correct this later. Now finish the lyrics for this song (there still will be 5 Doo’s remaining at the end).

Lyric

Note

Why did I let her go

F2 F2 G2 A2 D2 D2

And here again, note the formal sounding “did I” and “let her”. On a word level, these are pronounced correctly. However in real speech, we slur these words

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together by flapping our tongue against our mouth. You can try this yourself: say “Did, I” as two isolated words with a silence between them. Next say them together (“did I”) without any pause or silence, but try to pronounce them like you did with the pause in between. Notice that it’s very difficult to say the two words without adding the slurred flap. That’s why we insert the flap, otherwise it’s too difficult to say. You can have VocalWriter scan your lyrics and look for mispronunciations like these and others. When it finds them, it can automatically correct the pronunciations for you. To do this, you first have to specify which notes VocalWriter should scan. You could go back to the Tracks window and select the entire Vocals track. Or you could select the range of notes directly in the Notes window. Since you haven’t made any note selections in the Notes window yet, as an exercise, you’ll make your selection here. Block selections are made by drawing a rectangular selection “marquee” around the notes you wish to select. Try a few block selections by pointing anywhere inside the Notes Area and click-dragging your mouse. When you select the notes, they’ll be colored red. Notice the window automatically scrolls if you move the selection marquee past any Notes Area border. Now select all the notes from measure 5 through measure 10 (Fig. 3.16).

Fig 3.16 Block select all the lyrics.

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In the Selection menu, select the Adjust Phonemes item. At the dialog, keep all the options at their default values and press the Adjust button. Now, when playing the lyrics, notice these problems are cleaned up.

Fig 3.17 Making automatic pronunciation adjustments.

Since you still have some leftover Doo’s at the end, you should finish the song with some of your own lyrics. Remember, only one syllable per note. A syllable must have a vowel in it. Fig. 3.18 shows some examples of using the syllable split (“-“) and vowel repeat (“=”) characters.

hello

ov- er

hel- lo

hel- =- lo

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig 3.18

(a) (b) (c) (d)

love- =-

=

(d)

Syllables from the same word are split with “-”. To sing a two syllable word on a single note, break the note apart. Use “=” to repeat a vowel over several notes. Three note, single syllable word.

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Lyric Edit Summary • Open Notes window by double-clicking in Track Data Area. • Click I-beam cursor over lyric text in Control Data Area to start edit. • Press Tab or Space Bar to automatically advance to next note lyric. • Split syllables in word with “-“ character. • Carry syllable to next note with “=” character.

Adding a Karaoke Track So far you’ve added a new drum track and a new vocals track to this song. You still have one more track to add: the Karaoke track. A Karaoke track is a special VocalWriter track type, which instead of playing music, displays synchronized text in a window. This track is typically used to display the vocal lyrics as it’s sung. The procedure for making a Karaoke track is fairly simple. You’ll copy the entire Vocals track, paste it into the Karaoke track, and finally you’ll format the Karaoke display with a minor text edit. Your Karaoke track will be the next one available, track 9. First, make the track type for track 9 into Karaoke by selecting the Make Kara item from the Track Type menu. At this time, you should also name this track Karaoke.

Fig 3.19 Make track 9 into type Karaoke.

Next, select all of track 8 and copy it into the clipboard. Now normally, if you were to paste this clipboard into track 9, the lyrics would be lost since track 9 is a different track type than the data in the clipboard. However, you can tell VocalWriter to transfer the lyrics as Karaoke text if you hold the Option key down while pasting the clipboard. 60

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So here’s what you do, select track 9 by pressing in the Track Select button. Then hold down the Option key while selecting the Paste item from the Edit menu. This will not only copy the notes, but will also copy the lyric text. If you open a Notes window for track 9, you will see your lyric text exactly as in the Vocals track. Open the Karaoke window by selection the Karaoke item from the Windows menu. Notice that all the lyrics are display on a single line. This is because VocalWriter doesn’t know how you want to break the lyrics up. You insert the “/” character wherever you want to start a new line. Open a Notes window for track 9 and edit the Karaoke text so it reads as follows:

/Why do the empty nights /seem so long? /I know she’s gone. /Why did I let her go? /Doo Doo /Doo Doo Doo.

Fig 3.20 Lyrics formatted for Karaoke display on track 9.

The “/” character is to designate the start of each line in the Karaoke window. The character itself is not displayed. However notice that you did enter some punctuation characters, these will be displayed. Now your Karaoke window should look like Fig. 3.21.

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Fig 3.21 Formatted Karaoke display.

When you play the song, the Karaoke display will highlight each line as the synthesizer sings it. Your version of this song should now be the same as the demo song “Empty Nights.trk”. Listen to them both to see if you can hear any differences. If you hear something different, find out what it is and change your version.

Karaoke Summary • Copy entire Vocal track as Karaoke track. • Hold down Option key to transfer vocal lyrics as Karaoke text. • Insert “/” character at line start. • Punctuation will be displayed.

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Experimenting with Vocals So far in this tutorial, the main thing you’ve done with vocals is enter the lyric text. This is just scratching the surface when you consider the rich set of vocal controls available in VocalWriter. This next section will show a few things you can do with vocals. The purpose is to illustrate various VocalWriter procedures and techniques, so these examples are not necessarily musical. In fact, your song will probably sound much worst when you’re done!

Changing the Vocal Instrument The first thing you can do is experiment with different singing voices for the vocals. Open a Notes window for the Vocals (track 8) and click on the Control Select button. From the menu select Instrument item. Fig 3.22 Instrument item will show voice controls in Control Data Area.

This will show any Instrument (or Program) changes for this track in the Control Data Area. This control works just like MIDI Program changes except on Vocal tracks it selects an instrument which can articulate English speech. Notice there are no initial Instrument controls for this track. Just like MIDI defaults to Program 1 when no Program Change is specified, VocalWriter defaults to Instrument 1, which is the standard male voice called “Robert” you hear. To change the voice, you will have to insert an Instrument control somewhere before the actual vocal notes start in measure 5. But first you’ll have to put the Notes window into Insert Mode. When you first open a Notes window, it’s always VocalWriter - Editing Music Tutorial

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in Select Mode. Two things show you this: first the Select Mode button is pressed (Fig. 3.23) and second, the mouse cursor is a cross when it’s in either the Notes Area or Control Data Area. Check this by moving the cursor around in either area. Pressing the mouse button while the cursor is a cross always selects data. Make sure the function of these two buttons is clear to you, for the remainder of this tutorial, you’ll be switching between Insert and Select Mode a lot. Fig 3.20 The Notes window Select and Insert Mode buttons.

Pressing the Insert Mode button, changes the cursor to a pencil. Pressing your mouse button while the cursor is a pencil, will insert notes in the Notes Area and will insert controls in the Control Data Area. To insert an Instrument control, click you mouse while in Insert Mode somewhere in measure 4 in the Control Data Area. This will bring up the Insert Instrument dialog.

Fig 3.24 Insert Instrument dialog.

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The current selected instrument is shown highlighted in white lettering. To select a new instrument, just click your mouse in any box. The instruments which have people names (Robert, Sarah, Tracy, etc.) are the “natural” voices which emulate many human characteristics. The remaining voices have instrumental names (Banjo, Cello, Trumpet, etc.) because they’re special synthetic models of musical instruments with dynamic vocal tracts. If you run your cursor over the virtual music keyboard at the top, you can preview the selected instrument. Try playing some keys on the virtual keyboard and you will hear Robert sing “One two three four”. Next, try selecting another instrument and then check it out on the virtual keyboard. Select the instrument called “Strings”, found on the first column, 9th row. Press the Change button to insert the new instrument control. In the Control Data Area you should see the label “Strings” at the point where you inserted this control. Play the song starting from measure 5. It will now sound like a phased chorus singing the lyrics. If and orchestra could sing, this is what the string section would sound like. You have the complex phase-shift interactions of many stringed instruments playing a single note transformed through an artificial vocal tract to produce speech. As you move your mouse cursor over the “Strings” text label in the Control Data Area, notice the cursor changes from the pencil to an I-beam. This means that you will change the instrument control instead of inserting a new one. If you click your mouse when the cursor is an I-beam, you’ll get the same dialog box as before, except it will be called Change Instrument. Now go back to Select mode. Notice the cross cursor does not change to an Ibeam when you’re over the text label as it did while in Insert mode. If you want to edit an existing instrument control while in Insert mode, just double-click you mouse button with the cross cursor anywhere on the instrument text label. To get familiar with some of the vocal instruments, spend some time here and try some of them out. As with any musical arrangement, instruments are context dependent, some will work in this song while many won’t.

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Insert and Change Instrument Summary • Click inside Control Data Area while in Insert mode and cursor is pencil to create new Instrument control. • Click on target Instrument control while in Insert Mode and cursor is I-beam to change existing control. • Double-click on target Instrument control while in Select Mode and cursor is cross to change existing control. • Natural voice models are in first two rows of Instrument dialog. • Preview selected instrument on virtual keyboard at top of Instrument dialog box.

Vocal Chorus In the previous section, when you selected a vocal instrument like Strings, you got a chorus effect for the vocals. This is because the voice model is built around an instrument that’s inherently chorused. This is fixed and cannot be changed. However, VocalWriter lets you add chorus effects for the natural voices (1st row in Instrument dialog ). First, make sure Robert is singing your song, this will not work if you’re using any of the special effect voices. Next, from the Control Select menu, choose the Chorus item. Now, while in Insert Mode, go to 4:2:0 (measure 4, beat 2) in the Control Data Area and move your cursor so the Value display shows 4. You should have something that looks like Fig. 3.25. Fig 3.25 Insert a Chorus control with a value of 4.

Play your song and notice two Roberts are now singing. If you want to change the chorus amount, you’ll have to remove the control and insert a new one. At this point the fastest way to remove it is to Undo what you just did. You can do this from the Edit menu. 66

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If you had made other edits to this song and can no longer Undo, you have to deliberately delete the control. While in Select Mode, click-drag the cross cursor over the Chorus control. Notice the selection area is highlighted dark gray while you drag-click (Fig. 3.26) and then the control becomes selected in red when you release your mouse button.

Fig 3.26 Click-drag to make a selection.

Once you have a selection, pull down the Edit menu. At this point you have three options, you can Cut, Copy or Clear the selection. Since you want to replace this control with a new one, select the Clear option. The control should now be removed from the Control Data Area. Next, insert a new Chorus control at the same location (4:2:0). But now insert one with a value of (minus) –4. With positive chorus values, a second voice is added which is slightly above in pitch from the first. Increasing chorus values increase the relative pitch for the second voice giving more exaggerated chorus effects. Small positive values will give a somewhat flanging effect to the voice because the pitch displacement is so small that it causes phase cancellations in the signal. However negative chorus values also add a second voice, but the pitch is now displaced by an octave. Increasing negative values decrease the second voice’s pitch down from the octave.

Chorus Control Summary • Works on natural voice models only. • Positive chorus values add second voice with positive pitch displacement. • Negative chorus values add second voice with octave above pitch displacement.

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Pitch-Bend There are five different ways to specify or alter the pitch of a singing voice. Obviously you can specify a musical note and the voice sings at that given pitch. But there’s a lot more going on with pitch that can be changed by inserting special controls into your music. Like the human vocal tract, VocalWriter doesn’t instantaneously jump to a new pitch when singing notes. Instead it smoothly glides the pitch between notes. The amount of glide used between notes can be adjusted by inserting Portamento controls into your lyric tracks. To make the voices more interesting by giving them an effect of motion, every vocal instrument has some vibrato added to the pitch. There’s actually an envelope on the vibrato, which ramps the depth up as the note is sustained. Vibrato can be changed with the Vib Freq and Vib Depth controls. You can raise or lower the overall pitch in very small increments with Fine Tune controls. Sometimes you’ll notice a problem when you have two or more tracks singing in chorus. When two tracks sing the same note in unison, you often lose any separation between the voices. It sounds like only a single voice is singing instead of two separate ones in unison. Because your computer is very accurate and repeatable, when two voices sing the same note, they are locked to exactly the same pitch. And if the two tracks are singing the same voice, the exact the same waveform is synthesized for each track. When these two identical waves are added together, the result sounds like one voice singing a bit louder. To add some separation, you can slightly shift one of the tracks forward or backward in time, give a different vibrato frequency setting, and use the Fine Tune control to offset the overall pitch of one track. And finally, to add pitch profiles, you can insert Pitch-Bend controls to the track. These work exactly the same as any other MIDI synthesizer you’ve used. In addition to Pitch-Bend controls, you can set the pitch range or sensitivity for the Pitch-Bend controls with the PB Range controls. Again, these work the same as defined by the MIDI spec. Got to the Control Select menu and choose the Pitch-Bend item. Make sure you’re in the Insert Mode. Now move the cursor to 5:4:0 in the Control Data Area and drag-click your mouse in a forward direction. As you move the cursor forward,

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notice that you stretch a “rubber-banding” line. When you let go of your mouse button, you’ll see a staircase between your starting point and ending point. At each step in the line, VocalWriter will insert a pitch-bend control.

Fig 3.27 (a) Click-drag where you want a pitch ramp. (b) VocalWriter will insert Pitch-Bend controls.

(a)

(b)

You may have noticed when you chose the Pitch-Bend item from the Control Select menu and went into Insert Mode, the Control Density button became enabled. Pressing this button produces a menu of several different options you can choose. Notice the default is set to 10. This means 10 controls are inserted for every quarter note. As you can see, the available range is from 5 to 50 steps per quarter note.

Fig 3.28 Control Density options.

Five steps per quarter note is usually too crude for pitch ramps, you’ll often hear the discrete steps. However, the same rubber-band line control is also used for Volume ramps. Our ears are not very sensitive to volume changes so the 5 steps per quarter works fine.

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Select 50 from this menu and draw a new line from where you ended. Select and new endpoint of zero so the remaining song is in tune.

Fig 3.29 Pitch-Bend ramping up witha density of 50 controls per quarter note..

Hopefully this tutorial has given you enough information to get you started. Obviously the best way to learn is to actually try various functions yourself. If you’re not sure about a certain function, you can always look it up in the next chapter.

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Chapter

4

VocalWriter Reference • • • • • • • • • • •

VocalWriter Reference

About This Chapter The File Menu The Edit Menu The Selection Menu The WindowsMenu The Deck Menu The MIDI Menu The Deck Window The Copyright Window The Tracks Window The Notes Window

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About This Chapter This chapter gives a detailed description of every menu, window and dialog used in VocalWriter.

Menus The VocalWriter menu bar has seven menus from which various commands can be executed. The menus have items that are grouped together with common functions.

VocalWriter File Edit Selection Windows Deck Songs MIDI

– Standard Finder features and VocalWriter preferences – Disk I/O and user preferences. – Basic edit functions and global song changes. – Make changes on selected regions only. – Open or bring windows to foreground. – Command key equivalents of Deck window buttons. – Select opened songs. – Configure MIDI setup and MIDI panic button.

Windows There are four basic window types in VocalWriter. The Deck and Tracks windows are always shown and cannot be closed. The remaining windows can be opened through a Windows menu selection and independently closed.

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– Record and playback control. – Song overview. – Track details. – Information. Copyright Karaoke Performance Instruments

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The File Menu

Fig 4.1 The File Menu.

New The New command creates a blank song and adds it to the Songs menu. The default name for the first song is always “Untitled 1”. Subsequent New commands will create songs with names in an increasing sequential order (“Untitled 2”, “Untitled 3”, etc.). The only data in the new song is a Tempo event of 120 bpm in track 1 at 1:1:0. The default key signature is 4/4. The New command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-N key from the keyboard.

Open… The Open command lets you load a music file from your disk into VocalWriter. This command presents a file directory dialog box, from which you can locate and choose the file.

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Fig 4.2 Open File dialog.

Once you have located your file, open it by double-clicking on its name or by pressing the Open button after selecting its name. If you change your mind, press the Cancel key. You can open only two types of files: 1 - VocalWriter music documents. These usually have a three character extension of “.trk” at the end of the file name. 2 - Standard MIDI Files. These typically have a three character extension of “.mid” or “.kar” at the end of the file name. When importing Standard MIDI Files, VocalWriter looks for either Macintosh file type of “Midi” or any file with the “.mid” (or “.MID”) extension. Standard MIDI formats of both Type 0 and Type 1 are supported. Since VocalWriter is MIDI channel independent, these will automatically be expanded into separate tracks for each instrument. An error alert will be shown if the result is more than the VocalWriter limit of 32 tracks. When importing MIDI files, channel 10 data will be placed into separate tracks of type Drum. If you’re importing a Karaoke file (“.kar”), the lyrics will be extracted and placed in an Imported Lyrics window (see the Windows menu). The Open command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-O key from the keyboard.

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Save Choosing Save will automatically save the current song under the name that appears on the Tracks window title bar. The exception is for new songs (“Untitled X”) and imported Standard MIDI Files. With these, you will be given the option to rename the song before saving it to disk. The Save command replaces the new old file with a new file of the same name. In other words, the old file’s data is lost forever. In most cases this is desirable since you mainly care about you most recent version. However, it’s a good idea to periodically save your work under a new name (use Save As…) just in case something goes wrong and you need to revert to a previous version. This way you can always fall back to an older version. The Save command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-S key from the keyboard.

Save As… The Save As command presents you with a file directory dialog to save the current song to a new location or with a new name. You typically use this command to create a new version of a music file while preserving the previous version.

Fig 4.3 File Save As dialog.

After you located where you want to store the new version and it has the desired file name in the text entry box at the bottom, press the Save button to create the new file. If you change your mind, press the Cancel button.

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Close The Close command will close the current song and remove its name from the Songs menu. If there are still changes in your song that have not been saved, you’ll get a dialog giving you the option to save your work.

Fig 4.4 Closing a somg with unsaved changes.

Pressing the Don’t Save button will close the song and discard any changes you made. Pressing Cancel will cancel the Close command and return you back where you were before initiating the command. The current song remains unaltered. Finally, pressing the Save button will initiate the same function as the Save menu item before closing the song. If there are no more songs in the Songs menu, VocalWriter will create a new blank song named “Untitled X” in its place. The Close command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-/ (slash) key from the keyboard.

Close Window If a Notes window is open and it is the front-most active window, you can close it with the Close Window command. The Close Window command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-W key from the keyboard.

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Export… The Export command lets you save the current song as a Type 1 Standard MIDI File. This function mostly automated but VocalWriter may need your input on assigning MIDI channel numbers to tracks. Since VocalWriter is MIDI channel independent, you can easily end up with more tracks in your song than available MIDI channels. MIDI only allows for 16 channels while VocalWriter has 32 independent tracks. So VocalWriter cannot simply make a one-to-one track to channel assignment. When you chose the Export command, you’ll first get the Set MIDI Channels dialog. You can specify the MIDI channel number assignment for each of the 32 VocalWriter music tracks. Shown below is the default MIDI channel assignment for the demo song “LiveShow.trk”.

Fig 4.5

Assign MIDI channel numbers to active tracks.

The procedure is to select the target track button and then move the Channel Number slider on the bottom to the desired MIDI channel for that track. Notice there are track select buttons for only some of the tracks and not for all 32 tracks. VocalWriter puts track select buttons only on those tracks that have MIDI channel data in them. Unless your song is using all 32 tracks, there’s no reason to assign channels to tracks that are unused. The above example song is only using the first 13 tracks. VocalWriter Reference

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Notice that VocalWriter automatically assigned the song’s four Drum tracks to MIDI channel 10. In General MIDI, channel 10 is the only channel that plays the drum banks. If you’re not exporting to General MIDI, you can change the drum channel assignment to something else if you want. Since there’s nothing in the MIDI spec specifying what to do with sung lyrics, VocalWriter exports what it can as standard Meta events. The text for the lyrics are exported as Text Meta events while the phonemes are exported as Lyric Meta events. Unfortunately this is not detailed nor robust enough to import back as sung Vocal events, so once you export your lyrics you cannot import them back. After accepting your track assignment by pressing the Export button, a file directory dialog is presented for saving the file. The file name will default with the “.mid” extension on the end.

Play-to-Disk… The Play-to-Disk command exports the music in your song as an audio file. Instead of playing the song through your computer’s audio output port, the music is rendered in memory and saved as an AIFF file instead. Be aware these audio files can be very large in size. At 44.1kHz, 16-bit stereo, the file size will be 176K bytes for each second of music, or 10MB for every minute.

Fig 4.6 Specify the starting and ending measure numbers for Play-to-Disk.

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Because of the large file sizes, VocalWriter gives you the option to save only a part of you music as audio. Before issuing the Play-to-Disk command, set up you tracks exactly how you want to play them. This includes setting the mute or solo buttons for your tracks. Then select the Play-to-Disk item from the File menu. At the dialog, specify the range you want to play by typing the start and end measure number. If you had a selection in either the Tracks or Notes window, VocalWriter will automatically use this selection range as the default play range for this dialog. After pressing the Play button, a file directory dialog is shown for you to specify the new AIFF file location and name. An “.aiff” extension is automatically appended to the end as the default file name. Pressing the Save button will start the audio rendering. A progress bar is shown while audio is saved.

Quit Choosing the Quit command will close all songs and exit VocalWriter. If there are still changes in a song that have not been saved, you will get a dialog giving the option to save your work (see Close command). The Quit command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-Q key from the keyboard.

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The VocalWriter Menu Fig 4.8 The Edit menu.

Preferences… The VocalWriter Preferences is where you set global settings that control features throughout the entire application. These settings are stored on your hard drive so they are persisted the next time you run VocalWriter.

Fig 4.7 The Preferences dialog.

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Latency Slider This slider controls the audio output buffer size. The slider values are shown in milliseconds. Smaller values will enable faster real-time response but with the risk of your computer not being able to keep up. On the other hand, larger buffers can guarantee sufficient CPU overhead but the cost is longer delays in real-time performance. So depending on your computer hardware and required voice polyphony, you may need to adjust this slider for the optimal delay setting. If the buffer is too small, you’ll hear distortion in the audio output because of random silence gaps in the audio. So the goal is to find the lowest acceptable setting that won’t result in distortion. Typical values are in the range of 20 to 30 milliseconds. Reverb Button You can enable or disable the reverb processing with the Reverb button. If your Mac audio output is going to some external reverb or effects processor, you should turn VocalWriter’s reverb off. Turning the reverb off will free up a lot of computer bandwidth for more VocalWriter polyphony. MIDI In / Out Button If you plan on connecting VocalWriter to external MIDI devices, you’ll have to first enable it with this button. If you’re not using MIDI, turn it off to free up computer bandwidth. Cancel Pressing the Cancel button will exit the dialog leaving your original Preference parameters as they were before. Done Pressing the Done button will save your Preferences on your disk, to be used the next time you run VocalWriter.

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The Edit Menu Fig 4.8 The Edit menu.

Undo The Undo command will in most but not all cases, undo your last changes made while editing music. It applies to most editing commands that change music data in a single track. The exceptions for Undo are commands that change music across multiple tracks or affect the entire song. The menu label for Undo will change to reflect its current state. For example, if your last command was a Cut, the menu item will read “Undo Cut”. If VocalWriter cannot undo your last command, the item will be dimmed. The Undo command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-Z key from the keyboard.

Cut Choosing the Cut command will delete any selected data and place it into the VocalWriter clipboard. The clipboard data can then be pasted anywhere in your

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music. The cut material will remain in the clipboard until you cut or copy some other data. The Cut command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-X key from the keyboard

Copy Choosing the Copy command places the current selected data into the VocalWriter clipboard without deleting it. The clipboard data can then be pasted anywhere in your music. The copied material will remain in the clipboard until you cut or copy some other data. The Copy command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-C key from the keyboard.

Paste The Paste command will place the entire contents of the VocalWriter clipboard into a designated area in your music. If you have a selection as your paste target area, VocalWriter will insert the data at the selection start location. The selection end point is not used for pasting. If you have a selection when you paste, VocalWriter does not replace the original contents with the clipboard contents. Instead, it always mixes the clipboard data with the track data. If you paste at the end of your song, VocalWriter will automatically add measures to the end to accommodate the pasted data. The Paste command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-V key from the keyboard.

Clear The Clear command works much like the Cut command except Clear will not place any data into the clipboard. Usually you use this command if you want to delete data without disturbing the VocalWriter clipboard.

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Transpose Song… The Transpose Song command lets you tune all the tracks in the entire song at once. Since Drum tracks specify the instruments by their note position, Drum tracks are not transposed. All the remaining track types (Instrumental, Vocal and Karaoke) will have their note positions moved up or down after issuing this command.

Fig 4.9 The Transpose Song dialog box.

The Transpose Song shows a dialog from which you specify the direction and the amount to move. The buttons labeled “1” - “12” specify the transposition in steps of semitones, with 12 indicating a full octave. This is one of the VocalWriter commands that cannot be undone. However, you can easily undo this manually by simply executing the Transpose Song command again but with direction reversed. There’s one side effect to watch for when transposing. VocalWriter is designed to work within a 6-octave note range (C0 – C6). If the transposition causes some notes to fall outside this range, VocalWriter will clip these notes to their minimum or maximum positions. For example, if you are transposing a note to E6, VocalWriter will clip it down to E5. 84

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Scale Levels… The Scale Levels command lets you change the settings for all 32 track levels at once, adjusting the overall loudness of your song. This single command is equivalent to manually selecting each track one by one and adjusting the Track Level slider. Initiating this command brings up the Scale Track Levels dialog.

Fig 4.10 The Scale Track Levels dialog.

There are two ways to adjust the track levels from this dialog. By selecting the top slider, you can force all track levels to a single value between 0 and 100. Selecting the bottom slider lets you scale the current track levels by some relative amount between 0 and 200 percent. The information display labeled “Tracks” shows the current minimum and maximum track level settings in the song. This is shown to give you an idea of the current range setting before you scale their values.

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Time Signature You can change the song’s time signature with this command. The current time signature is shown in the upper left-hand corner of the Tracks window. This will define the measure size for the entire song since VocalWriter supports only one time signature per song.

Fig 4.11 The Change time Signature dialog.

At the dialog box, set the time signature numerator using the Beats per Measure slider and the denominator by selecting a Beat To button.

Reverb Controls The Reverb Controls command lets you adjust the VocalWriter reverb parameters. If reverb is turned off in your Preferences, this item will be dimmed. To allow realtime feedback in setting these parameters, this menu item is active during playback, enabling you to make live adjustments while playing your music.

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Fig 4.12 The Reverb Controls Dialog.

Default Reverb panel Whenever you create a new song or import a Standard MIDI File, VocalWriter will assign default reverb parameters to your music. Initially, it defaults to the Hall preset. You can change this default setting to anything you want by turning this button on when making your changes. When you press the Change button, VocalWriter saves this new reverb configuration in your Preference file. Reverb will now always default to your new setup. Presets panel As a convenience, VocalWriter has several reverb configurations predefined for you. Reverb On / Off panel This is a duplicate of the Reverb button in the Preferences dialog box. It is used to enable or disable reverb processing. Room Size panel This slider sets the amount of delay for the reverb acoustic reflections. A value of 1 is the smallest delay while 100 is the maximum. Wetness panel This slider sets the mix amount between input (dry) and delayed (wet) signals in VocalWriter Reference

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the reverb processor. A value of 50 gives an equal mix of dry and wet signals. Moving the slider to the right towards 100 increases the wet mix while moving the slider left towards a value of 0 increases the dry mix. A value of 100 gives a purely wet signal output while a value of 0 produces a totally dry signal output.

Insert Measures… Delete Measures… These commands are used to adjust the length of you song. If the Tracks window is front-most, these menu items remain dimmed until you make a selection, designating the insert or delete target location. They are always active if a Notes window is front-most since the current cursor location can be used as the target

Fig 4.13 The Insert and Delete Measures dialog boxes.

location. Insert will push everything downstream to make room for the added measures. Delete will remove everything in the target measures and move the remaining downstream data back upstream.

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The Selection Menu Fig 4.14 The Selection menu.

Transpose Notes… This command will move the selected notes up or down by a given amount. At the Transpose Notes dialog, you specify the direction and the amount to move. The buttons labeled “1” - “12” specify the transposition in steps of semitones, with 12

Fig 4.15 The Transpose Notes dialog.

indicating a full octave. There’s one side effect to watch for when transposing. VocalWriter is designed to VocalWriter Reference

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work within a 6-octave note range (C0 – C6). If the transposition causes some notes to fall outside this range, VocalWriter will clip these notes to their minimum or maximum positions. For example, if you are transposing a note to E6, VocalWriter will clip it down to E5.

Quantize Notes… The Quantize Notes command will make all selected notes to occur on multiples of some number of ticks. It can also make the durations fall into a multiple of some number of ticks. When working with tick numbers, VocalWriter uses a resolution of 240 ticks per quarter note.

Fig 4.16 The Quantize Notes dialog.

In the Quantize Notes dialog, the top panel is for quantizing note position and the bottom panel is for quantizing note duration. These can be turned on or off by pressing the radio buttons. You can type the exact number of ticks to quantize in the edit boxes or you can select any one of the preset buttons. The Dot button works in combination with any of the five note value buttons, increasing their value an additional 50%. In Fig.4.16, the notes will be quantized to the nearest quarter note position and their durations will be quantized into eighth note multiples. 90

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Move Events… The Move Events command lets you shift selected events forward or backwards by a set number of ticks. When working with tick numbers, VocalWriter uses a resolution of 240 ticks per quarter note.

Fig 4.17 The Move Events dialog.

In the Move Events dialog, you specify the number of ticks for the selection to move. You can type the exact number of ticks to move in the edit box or you can select any one of the preset buttons. The Dot button works in combination with any of the five note value buttons, increasing their value an additional 50%. You specify the direction for the moving in the bottom panel. VocalWriter will automatically add measures if the forward moving takes it beyond the end of the song. However, moving will stop if backward movement hits the beginning of the song at 1:1:0.

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Change Duration… The Change Duration command lets you modify the note durations of any selected notes.

Fig 4.18 The Change Note Duration dialog.

In the Change Note Duration dialog, you can choose the top radio button if you want to force all selected notes to a single duration value. You can set this fixed duration by either selecting one of the preset note buttons or by typing the exact number of ticks in the edit box. The Dot button works in combination with any of the five note value buttons, increasing their value an additional 50%. When working with tick numbers, VocalWriter uses a resolution of 240 ticks per quarter note. You can also scale the selected note durations by some relative amount by choosing the bottom radio button. Type in amount you wish to sale in the edit box to the right of the button. Any number between 1 to 999 percent will work. VocalWriter will automatically add measures if the new duration takes it beyond the end of the song. The bottom panel shows the range of duration values in the current selection. The duration values are in tick count units. 92

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Change Velocity The Change Velocity command lets you modify the velocity value of any selected notes.

Fig 4.19 The Change Note Velocity dialog.

From the Change Note Velocity dialog, you can choose the top radio button to force all selected notes to a single velocity value. You set this fixed velocity value by moving the slider to any value between 0 and 100. You can also scale the selected note velocities by some relative amount by choosing the bottom radio button. Set the slider to any percentage value between 0 to 200%. The bottom panel shows the range of velocity values in the current selection.

Change Controller The Change Controller command lets you modify the values for any VocalWriter control event in your selection. Like all commands in the Selection menu, the selection can be in the Tracks or Notes window. If the current selection does not contain any control events, this menu item will remain dimmed.

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Fig 4.20 Change Controller dialog.

From the Change Controller dialog, you must first select which of the VocalWriter controls you want to change using the top panel menu button. The button face text shows the current target control. Pressing this button brings the menu shown in Fig. 4.21. Choose your target control type from the menu.

Fig 4.21 Choose the target control event type from the menu.

The bottom panel gives you three options on what you can do with the target control. Selecting the top radio button will force all selected controls to a single value. You set this fixed velocity value by moving the slider to the desired value. You can also scale the selected controls by some relative amount by choosing the middle radio button. Set the slider to any percentage value between 0 to 200%.

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Choosing the bottom radio button lets you cut all the selected target controls into the clipboard. The controls are deleted from the selected region. You can then paste them back anywhere you want in your song. This option gives you a way to cut, copy and paste selected controls using the Tracks window.

Adjust Phonemes When you’re entering lyrics, VocalWriter automatically figures out the pronunciation of each word as you type. However in English, some pronunciations change depending on their context in the phrase. The Adjust Phonemes command lets VocalWriter scan the selected lyrics and automatically make the required pronunciation adjustments.

Fig 4.22 The Adjust Phonemes dialog.

From the Adjust Phonemes dialog, you have five options for pronunciation correction that you can turn on or off.

The – Thee The word “the” is pronounced two ways depending on the word that follows. If the following word begins with a consonant (“the man”), it is pronounces as DH UX. Otherwise if the following word begins with a vowel (“the ant”), it is pronounced as DH IY.

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Double Vowel When two vowels follow each other, speakers usually insert a glottal between the vowels (“we eat”). Although common in speaking, this is usually handled better by controlling note durations while singing. It goes both ways when singing, sometimes you want the first vowel to smoothly flow into the second or you may want to shorten the duration of the first vowel to break the two vowels apart. For this reason, this option is turned off in the default setting. In English, there are some phonemic sequences that are unnatural and more difficult to pronounce than others. Often, these difficult sequences will assimilate with neighbor phonemes to make the difficult transitions easier to articulate. The assimilation usually results in a new articulated consonant. The remaining three options are available to cover these cases.

Y-Slur Pronouncing a “t” or “d” followed by a “y” requires a difficult change in mouth position. So typically speakers will replace the “t” with a “ch” (“at your” to “atch your”) and the d is replaced with “j” (“had you” to “haj you”). Glottal-T Under many cases when a “t” is followed by a consonant, the “t” disappears or it becomes a subtle glottal sound. Examples of this are “at last”, “at the”, “at me” and “at you”. Flap Very often, a tongue flap replaces a “d” or a “t” when followed by a vowel (“but I”). This tongue flap is unique because it closely resembles a rolled-r, which is not an American English phonetic unit. Of all the five options available here, this is by far the most important and most noticeable. If these flaps are not correctly placed in you lyrics, the speech sounds very awkward and incorrect.

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The Windows Menu Fig 4.23 The Windows menu.

Deck Choosing the Deck command will select and make the Deck window the frontmost. The Deck command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-D key from the keyboard.

Tracks Choosing the Tracks command will select and make the Tracks window the frontmost. The Tracks command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-T key from the keyboard.

Notes Choosing the Notes command will open a Notes window for the selected track in the Tracks window. The Notes command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-N key from the keyboard. If you have any Notes windows opened, they will be appended to the bottom of the Windows menu. In Fig. 4.23, there are three Notes windows opened: Choir, Drums and Vocals track. Choosing any of them from this menu will bring the selected window to the front.

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Copyright Choosing the Copyright command will open or select the Copyright window.

Imported Lyrics When importing Karaoke (“.kar”) files, VocalWriter will extract the lyric text events and copy them to a special window called Imported Lyrics. You can use this as a reference when typing the lyrics in a Notes window. Choosing the Imported Lyrics command will open the Imported Lyrics window. The Imported Lyrics command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-L key from the keyboard.

Karaoke Choosing the Karaoke command will open the Karaoke window. A Karaoke window is used to display the lyrics, synchronized in real-time while they are sung by VocalWriter. The Karaoke command can also be initiated by pressing the Command-K key from the keyboard.

Fig 4.24 The Karaoke Window.

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Synth Stats Choosing the Synth Stats command will open an under-the-hood informational display. This window can be used to diagnose real-time performance problems.

Fig 4.25 The Synth Stats window.

The bar graph on the far left shows the amount of computer power being used to synthesize the music. A graph bar to the top means 100% of your computer is being used to synthesize the current notes. If you get this, you are overloaded and are probably hearing breaks and distortions in your music. Go to your Preferences dialog and start lowering your VocalWriter CPU bandwidth (turn off reverb, lower polyphony, etc.). The bar graph on the right shows the real-time instrumental polyphony being used to play the music. The bar graph is calibrated as a percentage of the maximum instrumental polyphony of 48.

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Instrument Map Choosing the Instrument Map command will open an Instrument Map window for the active song.

Fig 4.26 The Instrument Map window.

The General MIDI instruments being used are shown in white text. This display is informational only and cannot alter your music data in any way.

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The Deck Menu

Fig 4.27 The Deck menu.

Play Play-From-Marker Stop Record Rewind The Deck menu commands duplicate the functions of the Deck window buttons. They are provided in this menu for their command-key equivalents. Sometimes you’ll find these faster and more convenient than clicking on the Deck buttons.

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The MIDI Menu

Fig 4.28 The MIDI menu.

Output Setup… When playing music, you can designate any track to output its events to your external MIDI connection instead of playing the internal VocalWriter synthesizer. The Output Setup command opens a dialog where you can set this up.

Fig 4.29 Setting tracks for MIDI output.

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To designate a track for MIDI output, select its button and adjust the Channel Number slider to the desired channel number. Now, all events on this track will play out on your MIDI out connection on this channel number. Blank buttons have MIDI output turned off and will play the internal synthesizer. The Output Connection panel has a popup menu for selecting the OMS output connection port.

Input Setup… When you turn MIDI on, VocalWriter is always listening to your MIDI input connection. You can customize this so it plays a specific instrument and that it listens to s specific MIDI channel number. The Input Setup command opens a dialog where you can set this up.

Fig 4.30 Choosing the MIDI input instrument.

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To select which General MIDI instrument you want playing when VocalWriter receives MIDI input events, simply click in any one of the 128 boxes in the dialog. All the controls in this dialog are live, so you can check out your selection as soon as you make it. The current selection is highlighted with white lettering. If you want to limit MIDI input to a specific channel number, move the Listen to Channel slider to your desired channel number. VocalWriter will now only listen to this channel and ignore all events on the other channels. The Output Connection panel has a popup menu for selecting the OMS output connection port.

Turn Metronome ON Turn Metronome OFF This commend will toggle the on/off state of the recording metronome. When the metronome enabled, the menu will read Turn Metronome OFF. Likewise when the metronome is disabled, the menu will read Turn Metronome ON so you can enable it again.

All Notes OFF If you ever get stuck or hung notes, the All Notes OFF command turns off all notes on all channels for both the internal VocalWriter synthesizer and any external MIDI devices. This function is provided as a panic button and under normal circumstances should be used very infrequently.

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The Deck Window VU Meter

Counter

Fig 4.31 The Deck Window.

Rewind

Stop

Play

Record Play Fast from Marker Forward

The Deck window is used for music recording and playback. As shown in Fig. 4.31, the window has a stereo VU meter panel, six deck control buttons and a location counter display. The control buttons are similar in function to a tape deck or VCR unit.

Rewind The Rewind button will reset the location Counter to measure 1 beat 1 (1:1). The next Play or Record will now start from the beginning of the song. The Rewind button is active only while music is stopped.

Stop The Stop button halts playback or recording at the current location. It also releases the activating button (Play, Play-From-Marker or Record). The location Counter set to where it was when you pressed the Stop button, it does not reset to the beginning. Pressing Play will pickup and continue the music from the point where you stopped.

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Play The Play button starts music playback from the current location Counter position. When you press the Play button, it releases the Stop button. If you don’t press the Stop button, music playback will continue until it reaches the end of the song. At which time the Stop button is automatically pressed and the location Counter is reset to 1:1.

Play-From-Marker Instead of starting playback from the current location Counter like the Play button, the Play-From-Marker button starts playback from the measure location of an active Marker button in either the Tracks window or a Notes window. Once it starts playing, it behaves exactly like the Play button when it reaches the song end. If the Tracks window is front-most and active, playback will start from the Tracks window marked measure. If there is no marked measure, then playback will start from the beginning at 1:1. If a Notes window is front-most and active, then playback will start from the Notes window marked measure. If there is no Marker set in the active Notes window, then playback will start from the Tracks window marked measure. And if there is no marked Tracks measure, then playback will start from the beginning at 1:1.

Record In order to record, you’ll have to make sure two things are set before you start. You’ll need to have MIDI input initialized and working. And second, you’ll have to set one of the 32 tracks for record input. This is done in the Tracks window by pressing a target Play-Record button.

Fig 4.32 Setting record on track 3.

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Here are some operational details to note when recording music with VocalWriter: • Recording always starts at the Marker location in the Tracks window. If there is no marked measure, then recording will start from the beginning at 1:1. • Recording will always mix the new notes with the track data. Nothing gets deleted in the track. • Recording is Undoable, so if you don’t like what you just recorded, simply Undo it from the Edit menu. • Recording will automatically append measures if the song end is reached. • Since VocalWriter is track based and not based around MIDI channel numbers, the channel numbers are ignored for the recorded events. The recorded events behave as though they were all filtered into a single channel. If you have some split keyboard arrangement or are feeding and external sequencer into VocalWriter, record each channel on a separate VocalWriter track. • The metronome can be disabled and enabled from the MIDI menu.

Fast Forward The Fast Forward button will speed up the performance of you music while it’s playing. The increased tempo will remain as long as the button is pressed. Releasing the button will return the music its normal tempo. The Fast Forward button is active only while the music is playing, pressing it while the music is stopped will have no effect.

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Window and Button Behavior A general rule with VocalWriter is buttons and controls inside an inactive window are disabled. They’ll work only when the window is active. Inactive windows become active whenever you click your mouse anywhere inside the window. The sole exception to this rule is the Deck window. The Deck buttons are always active. If you press any of them when the Deck window is inactive, they’ll still work. In addition, pressing a Deck button on an inactive Deck window does not activate the Deck window. Whatever window was active when you pressed the Deck button still remains active. This non-standard Deck window behavior is there for your convenience. It lets you play or stop your music with a single mouse click when you’re working in another window. It also keeps your current window active after pressing Deck buttons. This saves a lot of unnecessary mouse clicking in windows.

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The Copyright Window

Fig 4.33 The Copyright window.

When you’re distributing or publishing your MIDI music, usually you’d like to include some text to give credits, describe the music, publish your email address, etc. The Copyright window lets you include and display a text string up to 255 characters in length.

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The Tracks Window

VocalWriter uses a multi-track tape deck analogy to control and organize music data. And like a multi-track deck, each of the 32 individual tracks can be edited and controlled independent of one another. Marker Buttons

Track Control Area

Navigate Buttons

Cursor Location Display

Track Data Area

Fig 4.34 The Tracks window.

The Tracks window is divided into three basic areas. The topmost area of the window has a collection of miscellaneous displays and controls. Below these are the individual tracks with each horizontal row representing one track in the music

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file. On the right is the Track Data Area where the horizontal colored lines are miniature piano-roll representations of the notes for each track. On the left, the Track Control Area, is a series of buttons for controlling, editing and naming each track. Except for the first track, all remaining tracks can have note data. Track 1 is unique because it only contains tempo changes. This is called the Tempo Track. Tempo change events are shown as small vertical gray bars. Often you’ll see one in the first measure on the first beat to represent the opening tempo for the song.

Cursor Location Display As you move your mouse around the Track Data area, you’ll see the Cursor Location Display indicate the cursor position in the song. The left display labeled “T” shows the track number. This reflects vertical mouse position as the cursor passes over each individual track. To the right of this is a display showing horizontal cursor position (“M B F”). The number under the “M” label shows the measure location of your mouse, “B” shows the beat and “F” shows the fine units. These fine units are small subdivisions of the beat. They are usually referred to as “ticks per quarter note”. VocalWriter has 240 of these fine subdivisions for a quarter note.

Fig 4.35 TheCursor Location Display.

Track Control Area Shown in Fig 2.7 are the Track Controls for track 2. Each one of the 32 tracks has an identical set. These controls are used for track editing and track playback control.

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Track Select

Play Record

Track Type

Track Name

Track Mute

Track Solo

Fig 4.36 Track Control Buttons.

Track Select In the Tracks window, there are two ways you can select track data. You can select track regions by simply click-dragging the mouse in the Track Data Area. Or you can select the entire track by pressing the Track Select button for the target track. The Track Select buttons give you the convenience of selecting the entire track with a single action. These buttons behave like standard Mac radio buttons since selecting a new track also deselects the old track.

Track Type Pressing the Track Type button shows a pop-up menu that lets you specify the data type for each track. The letter drawn on the Track Type button shows you the current data type selected for the track.

Fig 4.37 Track Type Pop-up menu.

Instrumental Drum Vocal Karaoke Tempo

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Play General MIDI instruments Play General MIDI drum set Sing lyrics Display lyric text Play tempo changes

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Since track 1 is always the Tempo track, you cannot change its type. All the remaining tracks can be Instrumental, Drum, Vocal or Karaoke. Only one track can be designated as the Karaoke track. VocalWriter uses this to display the lyrics in a special window while the music is playing. Once you designate the Karaoke track, its selection in the Track Type pop-up will always be dimmed for all tracks.

Fig 4.38 Hold the OPTION key down to get instrument location popup menu.

If you press the Track Type button while the OPTION key on the keyboard is down, the pop-up menu now shows the location of every instrument change event in the track. In this special pop-up menu, the numbers on the left show the instrument location while the label on the right shows the instrument name. Selecting an item from this menu will automatically scroll the Track Data Area to the target instrument change location. You can use this power button to quick navigation or you can use this to simply display the instruments used in a particular track. In the latter case case, don’t select anything in the pop-up menu and the Track Data Area will not change its position.

Track Name As you move your mouse cursor over the Track Name field, the cursor changes from the arrow to an I-beam. This is to remind you that this field can be edited. Clicking your mouse inside the Track Name area will display the dialog window shown in Fig 4.39 your screen.

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Fig 4.39 Edit Track Name dialog.

The current track name is displayed in white letters in the dialog text edit field. Clicking your mouse anywhere inside this field, the letters will change color to black and a blinking insertion cursor appears by nearest text character to your click point. Selected text in edit fields is always colored white while unselected text is always colored black. Pressing the DELETE key on your keyboard removes characters on the left side of the insertion cursor. If you have an area selected in the text field, the DELETE key will remove the selected text. You can move the insertion cursor by simply clicking your mouse to the desired point or by using the left and right ARROW keys on your keyboard. To select an area, drag your mouse over the desired characters. When you’re finished, there two ways to exit this dialog. If you press the Cancel button, no changes will be made to the track name when you exit the dialog. Pressing the ESC key on your keyboard will do the same thing. If you want the track name changed to the text you typed in the edit field, press the Change button. The border around this button means the button can also be activated by pressing the RETURN key on your keyboard.

Track Mute and Solo Pressing the Mute button turns the sound off for each individual track during playback. This is indicated with the track drawn as “grayed” out. Pressing the Mute button again re-enables the track playback and the track is no longer displayed as grayed out.

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The Solo function is the complement of the Mute function. While the Mute button turns sound off for only the specified track, the Solo button turns sound off for all tracks except for the specified track. When a track is in solo, all remaining tracks will be grayed out. Any number of tracks can be in Solo or in Mute. To un-Mute or un-Solo a track, press the button again. These buttons work much like standard Mac check-box buttons.

Play / Record This button is used to designate any target track for MIDI recording. Normally with the button out, each track is set in play mode. This is shown with the letter “P” on the button face. Pressing in a Play/Record button changes the designated track to record mode. This is shown with the red letter “R” on the button face.

Track Level The Track Level slider can be used to adjust the mix balance for each track. It’s especially useful when you’re experimenting with different instrument arrangements for a track. You’ll find it much easier than trying to scale note velocity or volume controls. The slider becomes active when any track selection is made in the Tracks window.

Fig 4.40 Track Level slider.

Dragging the Track Level thumb towards the left makes the track output proportionately quieter until the track becomes silent. Dragging the thumb towards the right will make the track louder again. The slider display is calibrated from 0% to 200% of normal loudness.

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Marker Buttons Directly above the Track Data Area is a horizontal series of buttons (labeled “1”, “2”, “3”...) called Marker Buttons (see Fig 4.41). Each button is labeled with the song measure number.

Fig 4.41 Marker set on measure 5.

Markers are used to automatically position the music playback to the marked measure when using the Play-From-Marker function. Like standard Mac radio buttons, the old marker will automatically release when you press a new one.

Navigate Buttons The Navigate Buttons are used to automatically scroll the Track Data Area to either the marked measure, selection start measure or selection end measure. Whenever you set a marker or make a selection in the Track Data Area, the appropriate Navigate Button will become active.

Go To Select End Go To Select Start

Go To Marker

Fig 4.42 Tracks window Navigate buttons.

The Go To Marker button scrolls to the marked measure positioned to the left side. The Go To Select Start button scrolls to the selection start positioned to the left side. The Go To Select End button scrolls to the selection end positioned to the right side.

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The Notes Window There are two ways to open a Notes window. You can double-click a location in the Tracks window Track Data Area. A Notes window will be open, starting at the nearest beat where you clicked your mouse. You can also open a Notes window by choosing the Notes item in the Windows menu whenever you have a selection in the Tracks window. Here, the new Notes window will open at the selection start position. Control Data Area

Note Velocity Slider Position Displays

Button Panel

Notes Area

Virtual Keyboard

Horizontal Scroll Bar

Marker Buttons

Vertical Scroll Bar

Fig 4.43 The Notes Window.

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This window is divided into three basic sections. The “piano roll” style display is called the Notes Area. This area shows the track notes in blue (red when they are selected). Here you can directly enter and manipulate note position, duration and other attributes. Directly above the Notes Area is the Control Data Area. This area lets you edit various standard MIDI and custom VocalWriter music controls. To the left is the Button Panel. This is a collection of miscellaneous Notes window editing modes, options and functions.

Fig 4.44 The Notes window Button Panel.

Quantize Button

Zoom Button

Select Mode Button

Insert Mode Button

Note Duration Palette

Control Density Button Navigate Buttons

Quantize Button When you manually create or move notes, you can force then to snap into grids of sixteenth, eighth, quarter and half note boundaries. You can select the quantize value from the Quantize button popup menu.

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Fig 4.45 The Quantize button popup menu.

With Quantize turned OFF, notes can be created and moved anywhere in individual tick clock increments. With Quantize turned on, notes will snap to the nearest grid value specified in the button menu. Besides creating and moving notes, Quantize also snaps manual duration changes to this grid.

Horizontal Zoom Button The Zoom button sets the amount of horizontal magnification for the Notes and Control Data Areas. The magnification amount is set in the popup menu.

Fig 4.46 The Zoom button popup menu.

The numbers in the menu specify the magnification amount. For example, 2x is two times magnification, 3x is four times magnification, and so on.

Select and Insert Mode Buttons While in the Notes Area or Control Data Area, there are two basic actions that can be done with your mouse pointer. You can either select notes and controls or you can insert notes and controls. Choosing between these two modes is done with the Select and Insert Mode buttons.

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Fig 4.47 The Select and Insert Mode buttons.

When you first open a Notes window, it is always in Select Mode. The Select Mode button is pressed and the mouse cursor is a cross when it’s in both the Notes Area and the Control Data Area. Pressing the Insert Mode button, changes the cursor to a pencil. Pressing your mouse button while the cursor is a pencil, will create notes in the Notes Area and will create control events in the Control Data Area.

Note Duration Palette When you’re manually entering notes, you set the note value and location by clicking you mouse in the Notes Area. The vertical axis specifies the note value and the horizontal axis specifies the note location in the song. The actual duration of the new entered note is selected in the Note Duration Palette.

Fig 4.48 The Note Duration Palette.

Dot button

This palette only becomes active when you’re in the Insert Mode, otherwise all the buttons are dimmed in Select Mode. The Dot button works in combination with any of the note duration buttons, increasing their value an additional 50%.

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Control Density Button For controls that are created by drawing a line segment, this button shows a popup menu letting you select the spacing between events.

Fig 4.49 Control Density options.

This button becomes enabled only when the Notes window is in Insert Mode and the Control Data Area is displaying Volume, Pitch-bend, Brightness or Noise. The available values shown in the menu are calibrated as events per quarter note. The available range is from 5 to 50 events per quarter note.

Navigate Buttons The Navigate Buttons are used to automatically scroll both the Notes and Control Data Area to either the marked measure, selection start measure or selection end measure. Whenever you set a marker or make a selection, the appropriate Navigate Button will become active. Fig 4.50 The Navigate buttons.

The Go To Marker button scrolls to the marked measure positioned to the left side. The Go To Select Start button scrolls to the selection start positioned to the left side. The Go To Select End button scrolls to the selection end positioned to the right side.

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The Virtual Keyboard There are three way to enter notes in the Notes Area: manually click you mouse at the desired song location, play each note one at a time through MIDI, or finally, you can press the appropriate key on the Virtual Keyboard.

Fig 4.51 The Virtual Keyboard.

Notes are created only when the window is in Insert Mode. You can enter only one note per mouse button click since the note is created on the button release. Playing the Virtual Keyboard in Select Mode only plays the instrument at the current Notes Area insertion cursor. Since the Virtual Keyboard cannot play vocals, you’ll hear it play instrumentals on vocal tracks. For both Virtual Keyboard and manual mouse-click note entry, the slider above the keyboard specifies the created note’s velocity. All VocalWriter volume parameters are calibrated in 0 to 100 unit ranges. For velocity, a slider value of 100 actually corresponds to a MIDI value of 127.

Note Velocity Slider This slider lets you edit a selected note’s velocity value. It is only active when you make an individual note selection. Otherwise the slider is inactive.

Fig 4.52 The Note Velocity slider.

All VocalWriter volume parameters are calibrated in 0 to 100 unit ranges. For velocity, a slider value of 100 actually corresponds to a MIDI value of 127.

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Position Displays These two display shows you the mouse cursor position in both the Notes and Control Data Areas. Fig 4.53 The Position Displays.

The MFB display shows the horizontal position in Measure, Beat and Fine units. The Fine units have a resolution of 240 ticks per quarter note. The Value display shows the vertical position in the appropriate units for the current display.

Marker Buttons Directly above the Control Data Area is a horizontal series of buttons (labeled “1”, “2”, “3”...) called Marker Buttons. Each button is labeled with the song measure number. Fig 4.54 Marker set on measure 6.

Markers are used to automatically position the music playback to the marked measure when using the Play-From-Marker function. Like standard Mac radio buttons, the old marker will automatically release when you press a new one.

Control Select Button The Control Select button chooses the control event type that is displayed in the Control Data area. The options shown in the menu vary, depending on the track type. Tempo and Karaoke tracks contain only one control type each, so the menu is inactive. The menu for Instrumental and Drum tracks is shown in Fig. 4.55a while the menu for Vocal track type is shown in Fig. 4.55b. VocalWriter Reference

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Except for Vocal track Text and Phon selections, all the remaining control types are independent control events. This means each control is separate and can be moved independent of one another. The Text and Phon types are not events but additional note attributes, much like velocity. They are permanently linked to a corresponding note. If you move a note, the Text and Phon strings follow along. (a)

(b)

Fig 4.55 Control Select menu for: (a) Instrumental tracks (b) Vocal Tracks.

The current selection is shown with a small diamond mark in the menu and an abbreviated text label on the button face. Instrumental Controls

Volume The Volume control event is the same as MIDI Volume except the value range is 0 to 100. Default value is 100. Sustain The Sustain control event is the same as MIDI Sustain Switch except the value range is OFF or ON. Default value is OFF. Pitch-Bend The Pitch-Bend control event is the same as MIDI Pitch-Bend except the displacement range is -50 to +50. Default value is 0.

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PB Range The PB Range control event specifies the gain for Pitch-Bend controls. The values are calibrated in half-step increments. The range is 0 (Pitch-Bend disabled) to 12 (+/- one octave). Default value is 2. Instrument The Instrument control event is the same as MIDI Program Change for General MIDI. Inserting or editing Instrument events display the Instrument dialog box. Default value is Instrument #1, the Piano. Fine Tune The Fine Tune control event has a range of –50 to + 50 units. Default value is 0.

Additional Vocal Controls

Brightness The Brightness control event has a range of 0 to 100. Default value is 50. This control filters the voicing for the natural voices. Chorus The Chorus control event has a range of -25 to +25. Default value is 0. This doubles the voicing for the natural voices. Positive chorus values add a second voice with positive pitch displacement. Negative chorus values add second voice with octave above pitch displacement. Vib Depth The Vibrato Depth control event has a range of 0% to 12.7%. This control specifies the vibrato modulation index. Default value is 1.5%. Vib Freq The Vibrato Frequency event control has a range of 0 to 12.7 hertz. Default value is 4.5 hertz. Portamento The Portamento control event has a range of 0% to 100%. This control specifies the glide time between notes. Default value is 40%.

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Breath The Breath control event has a range of 0% to 100%. This control specifies the amount of aspiration in the voice. Default value is 0%. Noise The Noise control event has a range of 0% to 100%. This control specifies the gain for noise type consonants (“t”, “s”, “sh”, “f”, etc.). Default value is 0%. Text When this item is selected, the lyric text string for each note is displayed. These strings can be modified while in both the Select and Insert Modes. As your mouse cursor passes over a Text field, the cursor changes to an I-beam. Clicking your mouse button at this point will open an edit box at the Text string location. This is shown with a blue background and white selected letters. The edit box behaves as any other in VocalWriter except you’re restricted on what you can type in. Only the “a” - ”z”, “A” - ”Z” and “-“ and “=” are accepted. All other characters will be ignored. When you are finished with the string, any action not for the edit box (clicking outside the edit box, menu item selection, etc.) will close the edit box and process the text. If you need to edit additional lyrics, clicking on another Text string while the cursor is an I-beam will automatically close the current edit box and open a new on the Text string where you clicked. If you’re editing a sequence of lyric Text strings, you can press the Space Bar or Tab key to close the current edit and automatically open the next Text string. If you get to the right edge of the Notes window, VocalWriter will automatically scroll the window to fit the next string at the window center. You can use these keys to rapidly enter the lyrics in for the first time. When you close the edit box, VocalWriter automatically figures out the pronunciation and fills in a corresponding Phoneme string for the note. If you need to extend a word over several notes there are two additional characters you can use to specify how this should be done.

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VocalWriter can sing only one syllable per note. So if a word has multiple syllables, they will have to be split over several notes. Syllables of the same word are linked together with the “-“ character. For example, the word “over” is entered as lyrics for two notes as “ov-“ and “er”. Don’t worry about correctly splitting the syllables, VocalWriter will split the syllables correctly for the Phoneme spelling. The above example can be split the following ways and they all will be sung correctly:

ov- er o- ver ove- r The other command character, “=”, is used to extend a single syllable over two or more notes. For example, the word “love” cannot be split over two notes by typing it as “lo-“ and “ve”. This is a single syllable word, so VocalWriter will sing it on the first note only. The cover both notes, you can type “love-“ and “=”. This is telling VocalWriter the word continues to the next note and to extend the vowel through the second note. These can be combined as the following example shows. The word “no” is sung over two notes and “satisfaction” is sung over 5 notes.

Fig 4.56 Command characters example.

I

can get

no- =

sat- tis- fac- tion- =

Finally, it’s important to understand that a syllable always needs a vowel nucleus. When you’re entering lyrics, make sure every note has a vowel somewhere in the syllable.

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Phon When this type is selected, the pronunciation string for each note is displayed. These phoneme strings can be modified while in both the Select and Insert Modes. As your mouse cursor passes over a Phoneme field, the cursor changes to an I-beam. Clicking your mouse button at this point will open an Edit Phonemes dialog box. This dialog is used to fine tune the pronunciations of your sung lyrics. Lyric List

Phoneme Palette

Fig 4.57 The Edit Phonemes dialog.

The dialog is divided into two sections, the Lyric List and the Phoneme Palette. The English text is shown on the right side of the Lyric List while the corresponding phonemes are shown on the left side of the list. The phonemes in the Lyric List are further divided into individual phoneme fields. The Lyric List shows the label “-Rest“ wherever there are silences in the vocal track. This is added to help you reference back to your music. You can use the Lyric List scroll bar to access all lyrics in the track.

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You can use the Lyric List to edit both the English text and phonemes. When you select the English text, an edit box opens on the selected text field. Here you can edit the lyric, although you’re limited to only the letters “a” - ”z”, “A” - ”Z” and “-“ and “=”. When you choose another entry or quit the dialog, VocalWriter will automatically update the new pronunciation. Selecting a phoneme field not only highlights the phoneme in the Lyric List, but also highlights the phoneme in the Phoneme Palette. Choosing a new phoneme from the palette will change the pronunciation of the selected syllable. The Phoneme Palette shows the phoneme symbol and an example word of the pronunciation. To remove a phoneme, select the “empty” item from the palette. When you’re modifying phonemes, make sure to include one vowel for every note. Otherwise you may get unpredictable results.

Notes Area The Notes Area is where you can manually create and modify note events. Using a “piano-roll” style display, you can edit either individual notes or selected groups of notes. The horizontal and vertical scroll bars are used to move around in the song. The blue bars show the individual note positions and the bar length shows the duration. On Vocal tracks, silence gaps between notes are drawn as hollow bars. Selected notes are drawn in red. A blinking insertion point indicates where MIDI or Virtual Keyboard note insertions will appear. When you’re in the Notes Area, the cursor shape tells you what will happen when you click your mouse button or when you click-drag the mouse cursor. The options are selecting, inserting, moving, stretching or scrubbing.

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Group Select Cursor

The group select cursor is shown whenever the Notes window is in Select Mode and the mouse point is not over any note event.

Click: Moves the insertion point to the new location. Click-drag: Draws a “marquee” rectangle around the group of notes that will be selected when you release the mouse button. This will automatically scroll the Notes Area if the selection rectangle hits any Notes Area edge. Fig 4.58 Click-drag the rectangle to make a group selection.

Insert Cursor

The insert cursor is shown when the window is in Insert Mode.

Click: Creates a new note at the mouse point position. Click-drag: Same as click.

Move Cursor

The move cursor is shown whenever the Notes window is in Select Mode and the mouse point is over the front and middle area of a note event.

Click: Selects the note. Click-drag: Moves the note.

Stretch Cursor

The stretch cursor is shown whenever the Notes window is in Select Mode and the mouse point is over back end area of a note event. 130

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Click: Selects the note. Click-drag: Stretches the note’s duration.

Scrub Cursor

The scrub cursor is shown whenever the Command key is pressed.

Click: Plays all notes at current mouse point location. Click-drag: Plays and tracks any notes at current mouse point location. Because Vocal tracks are monophonic and Instrumental and Drum tracks are polyphonic, there are some basic differences when editing either type. On polyphonic tracks, you can place any number of notes anywhere without limitations. However on monophonic tracks, notes can only follow one another in a single sequential order. Notes can never overlap each other. When you’re converting an Instrumental track to Vocal or you’re inserting notes in a Vocal track, VocalWriter automatically adjusts the track notes to fit this monophonic requirement.

Control Data Area VocalWriter control events are displayed and edited in the Control Data Area. The specific control event type that will be shown is chosen from the Control Select button’s menu. Controls are events that can be inserted and edited independent of each other and any notes. The only exceptions are the Text and Phon items. These two are not really controls but additional attributes for a vocal notes. The control events can be divided into three classes, depending on how they are displayed and edited. Almost all of the controls are graphically shown as step transitions to a new level. The control’s value is indicated by its vertical position. These level type controls can be further classified by how they are manually created in the Control Data Area. Most are created one at a time by mouse button clicks while in Insert Mode. These single events are inserted by positioning the pencil cursor to a target location and level and then clicking your mouse button to create the new control event.

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Fig 4.59 Inserting a single control event.

For some of the controls, you can create a series of controls at once by drawing a line between a starting and ending position. VocalWriter will automatically insert interpolated controls between these points. The actual number of controls which are interpolated is determined by the Control Density button’s menu selection.

Fig 4.60 (a) Click-drag where you want a control ramp. (b) VocalWriter will insert controls.

(a)

(b)

Finally the third class of control events are special controls whose value cannot be represented by a numerical level. These are created and edited through text edit boxes and dialogs. Single level insertion

Sustain PB Range Fine Tune Chorus Vib Depth Vib Freq Portamento Breath Noise Tempo 132

Line insertion

Special

Volume Pitch-bend Brightness

Instrument Text Phon

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Except for Text and Phon items, the remaining events can be group selected by click-dragging your mouse pointer in the Control Data Area. As you’re dragging, the target area is highlighted dark gray. When you release your mouse button, any controls in the target area will be selected and colored red.

Fig 4.61 Click-drag to make a selection.

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