The Notes Window
The Notes Window
The Notes Window
The Notes Window
Fig 4.43 The Notes Window.
Note Velocity Slider Position Displays Button Panel Virtual Keyboard Control Data Area
Notes Area Horizontal
Scroll Bar
Vertical Scroll Bar Marker Buttons
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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.
Quantize Button
Quantize ButtonQuantize Button
Quantize ButtonQuantize 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.
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
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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
Horizontal Zoom ButtonHorizontal Zoom Button
Horizontal Zoom ButtonHorizontal 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 4.45
The Quantize 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
Select and Insert Mode ButtonsSelect and Insert Mode Buttons
Select and Insert Mode ButtonsSelect 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.
Fig 4.46
The Zoom button popup menu.
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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
Note Duration PaletteNote Duration Palette
Note Duration PaletteNote 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 4.47
The Select and Insert Mode buttons.
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%.
Fig 4.48
The Note Duration Palette.
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Control Density Button
Control Density ButtonControl Density Button
Control Density ButtonControl 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.
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
Navigate ButtonsNavigate Buttons
Navigate ButtonsNavigate 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 4.49
Control Density options.
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.
Fig 4.50
The Navigate buttons.
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The Virtual Keyboard
The Virtual KeyboardThe Virtual Keyboard
The Virtual KeyboardThe 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.
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
Note Velocity SliderNote Velocity Slider
Note Velocity SliderNote 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.
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.
Fig 4.52
The Note Velocity slider.
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Position Displays
Position DisplaysPosition Displays
Position DisplaysPosition Displays
These two display shows you the mouse cursor position in both the Notes and Control Data Areas.
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
Marker ButtonsMarker Buttons
Marker ButtonsMarker 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 4.53
The Position Displays.
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
Control Select ButtonControl Select Button
Control Select ButtonControl 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.
Fig 4.54
Marker set on measure 6.
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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.
The current selection is shown with a small diamond mark in the menu and an abbreviated text label on the button face.
Instrumental Controls Instrumental Controls Instrumental Controls Instrumental Controls 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.
(a) (b)
Fig 4.55
Control Select menu for: (a) Instrumental tracks (b) Vocal Tracks.
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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 Additional Vocal Controls Additional Vocal Controls Additional Vocal Controls 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 displace- ment.
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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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.