From psto@xs4all.nl Tue Oct 4 10:47:09 1994 Date: 20 Sep 1994 16:02:22 GMT From: Peter Stone To: sci-virtual-worlds@nl.net Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: EWorks FAQ (Virtual Sequencer) I'm putting together EWorks FAQ, and send some basic information to the net. If you have more questions I'd be happy to answer them. What is EWorks? EWorks is a virtual sequencer, and it's the first music language that is purpose-build to make music on the charts. For instance, there are some powerful scripts suitable for dance music, and if you handle structured programming it is relatively easy to write scripts to clone hits (really!). Programming gets you directly in the song blueprint level, and the virtual fingers are much more flexible than the physicals ones. How do you write music with EWorks? The basic idea is to create sections and orchestras. Next you send messages to the instruments, and these scripts tell them how to play. create score all-sections be intro a b chorus bridge a2 b2 chorus chorus end intro be i1 i2 bridge be part1 part2 end be intro bridge a b2 endcreate define orchestra all-instruments be drums perc synths drums be bassd1 bassd2 snare1 snare2 hihato hihatc perc be tablas xylophone synths be emu matrix6 obmx enddef The following script shows how to tell the virtual fingers to play synths (which are here emu, matrix6, obmx). Note that intro has sections i1 and i2, and so this message is received by emu, matrix6, obmx which play in i1 and i2. Got it? This is called 'inheritance' and it's a really neat feature. tell fingers of synths in sections intro play a b c e b a :restart bridge play same endtell Then you tell more. Each instrument has 5 components, bars, positions (= chords or scales), fingers, beats and dynamics. The scripts operate on these. Finally it's time to play it all into a MIDI file. This is done with play script. Now the virtual sequencer starts crunching and allocates virtual tracks, and the virtual hands start playing. Then it saves the results to a MIDI file. There is not yet internal playback capabilities, but they are working on it. play to file "EWorks" all-instruments in all-sections endplay What does the 1 million tick resolution mean? The virtual sequencer has internal tick resolution about one million ticks. When it plays to a file, ticks are converted to a lower resolution. This means that EWorks extends your sequencer's resolution with the virtual resolution and lets you make polyrhythms not possible otherwise. How does EWorks compare to sequencers? Comparison makes interesting reading. While sequencers give instant interaction with keyboard, they are flexibility-restricted what comes to designing. EWorks by contrast grows into virtual dimension and gives ascript language that let you roam free. FEATURES EWorks Sequencers Hypersections unlimited no Sections unlimited few Instruments unlimited limited Tick resolution 1 million 3000 Full cloning of hypersections, YES NO, only pattern, or sections, instruments and pattern group copying components Well-tempered processors YES NO, only chromatic transpose Fractal generation YES NO Beat manipulation YES NO, only quantisation English-like music language YES NO What sort of languages is it? Here is a listing of EWorks scripts. SCORE menu: setting, create, design, define, tell, give, play, clone, take, place, modify, as, sections of, leftovers, like, bar, total, header. TURBO menu: wave, fractalize, ask, fibonacci, morph, brownian, white, vmix, quantize, range, modulate, tofingers, todynamics, topositions, tobeats. TRANS menu: transpose, reverse, invert, multiply, iterate, scale, mix, exclude, extract, midpass, midcut, template, pause, beat, calm, common, scratch, randomize, keep, humanize, variate, chordize, melodize. TONALS menu: tonality, drums, reposition, maj, min, dim, aug, v, &5, sus2, sus4, 6, 7, maj7, 9, 7#9, 7&9, 7#11, 6-9, (all positions & inversions) + major, melodic-minor, harmonic-minor, natural-minor, blues1, blues2, lydian, ionian, dorian, aeolian, locrian, phrygian, mixolydian, pentatonic, pentamajor, chromatic, whole-tone, (easy to expand). BEATS menu: syncopate, figurate, condense, flipbeat, staccato, addrest, addup, zonalize, beatspace, tick, change. How easy it is to write scripts? If you get this far, you will probably handle it. It shouldn't be more difficult that writing HyperCard scripts. EWorks has a Mozart parser that checks the scripts. If it finds errors it gives you a check list. As you have probably heard, some find programming easy, and some don't. The more you do it the easier it gets. And the more you know music the better, or is it? Some say it is better not to know music because then you can break the rules and find new paths. I'd say "turn on, tune in, write out". How fast does it compile? That depends on your Mac. In general it is from 10 seconds to few minutes. If you have 10 instruments and a 3 minute song, it is likely that the compilation takes also 3 minutes. It depends on how much interrelations the sections have, and how much your scripts use well-tempered processing. What is a WTP (well-tempered processor)? The virtual fingers play a virtual keyboard. The fingers do not play directly the keys, but they play in a position. It is the same as in real life: you never play just notes, but you always play in a position, whether a scale or a chord. When your hand moves to a new positions your fingers play different notes. A WTP processes finger patterns, and the results play in the same key as the original pattern. You can also hook several WTPs together to get more complex behaviour. The horrors of chromatic transpose are over. Check out the TRANS menu and the last ones in TURBO menu that show the predefined WTPs. Shortly EWorks, The Virtual Sequencer, runs on Macintosh with 4MB of RAM; hard disk drive; System 6.0.5 or later. EWorks is a programmable arpeggiator & accompaniment software. It supports unlimited number of tracks and sections, and there's no user style limitations like in hard-wired synths or software. You write music with simple english-type scripts, that tell the virtual fingers how to play. The scripts allow full cloning of sections, instruments and components, so you can take a section a and clone it to section b making variations as a whole while cloning. There are also 23 Well-Tempered processors developed by J.S. Bach. That's quite exiting feature, plus it provides also fractals and morphs. It's expandable plugging in new modules. SoundEffects add sounds to compilation. XTC-808 adds sequencer-type scripts for dance and chart music. Ambient- Expander adds music randomization scripts and new waveforms. % An unlimited track virtual sequencer % A programmable arpeggiator & accompaniment software % No user style limitations % Perfect tick-adjustment on all sequencers % Adds high-level script language to any sequencer To extend this FAQ list send your questions to Innovative Solutions, RR #1, BOX 70 D-1 RICHMOND, VT 05477 (802) 482-3464, e-mail: jcrystal@moose.uvm.edu, or psto@xs4all.nl.