First of all make sure you have some machines and effects created and
connected in the machines window,
do something like a :
Now choose the trilok from the drop down menu in the
pattern editor, rightclick choose new pattern, use the default setting,
16 rows and 00 as name. Note: you only need to do this if you have an
older version of buzz, all newer versions create a default pattern for
the generators. However not for the effects, since you don't always
need to program the effects.
Empty
Trilok pattern
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You
should now be able to see a 16 row long pattern, starting on 0 ending
on 15, it also has four columns, where there is one dot in the first
and 2 dots in all the others. The dots represent the parameter values
and a note value, if it is a note controlled machine. In this case
the note value is only one dot, the reason for this is that it's
not a note but rather a trigger, the trilok is a bassdrum and you
trig it with 1 and 0 - 1 means hit, 0 means no hit, a blank value
is "not" a zero, keep this in mind, a blank value means default
value. Use the arrow key to move the marker around on the sheet,
notice how a small explaining text will change when you move to
a new column. This is how you will know what parameter you are about
to change, note that all parameters that are available here are
also available in the parameter window you can get by double clicking
a machine in the machine window. There is however one parameter
you can't get to in the parameter pop-up window, the note parameter,
and this is only because of pure logic. Parameter settings can often
be global, meaning you will keep it the same during the whole song,
notes however will always have to be controlled pattern wise.
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Default values can work two ways, here's an
example. The default value for the trilok trigger is 0, the default value
for the trilok tone is 64 non hex values. If you change the trigger to
1 and the tone to 32 non hex values, you will now have a bass hit. the
next tick the trigger value will be default and no hit will be heard,
however the tone value will also be default setting it to 32 non hex,
not 64, the default value has been changed. Some value changes change
the default value for a blank field, some don't. This is something you
have to experiment a bit with to fully grasp, one thing that can be said
however is that you will never be able to change the default value for
triggers or notes. A blank space will always be, no trigger or no note.
If someone would ask you to count to ten you
would do it something like: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 - right?
This is however not like you do it in hexadecimal, in hex it's: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10
- a bit strange?
Now there is a perfectly good explanation for this, Hex is based on 16,
so in hex 10 equals 16, the letters are used instead of numbers - so A
equals 11, B equals 12 and so on - Now why on earth would buzz want to
use a system like that? - Well as I see it there is a perfectly good explanation
for that too, most music is 4/4, let's say you have a pattern with ten
rows where you can alter the parameters. Now imagine you want to place
four drum hits in the pattern to mark the fourths, well 10/4 would be
2.5 - Now wait a minute 2.5? Could you possibly place something on row
2.5? of course not, hmm - Let's try it with 16 instead, 16/4 equals 4,
now that would work, what if i were to place eights or sixteenths? - 16/8
equals 2, 16/16 equals 1, yes that would also work. See my point? By using
a system based on 16 everything becomes easier, at first this is of course
a bit confusing, but after a while i promiuse you it will feel very natural
and you'll see the benefits of it.
Pattern properties
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To
get to the pattern properties just rightclick and choose pattern
properties, here you can rename the pattern and change the length
in number of rows of it. This is good for keeping control of your
patterns, you can divide your song into different named parts and
name the patterns accordingly, just like you may with the machines.
So instead of having a "bass 3" with patterns as follows
- 00 - 01 - 02, you can have a "tb303" with - intro -
bridge - lead. This will add alot of editing capabilities to your
songs, since you can look at them 6months after you made them and
still understand what patterns and parts are which. |
| -New,
copy and remove patterns |
Pattern
options |
Just
like the rest you get these choices by rightclicking, here you can
make new patterns, remove unwanted ones or copy a pattern. Copy
is very useable and lets you copy a pattern, experiment with it
and later remove it but still have the original pattern in the song. |
These two vary from machine to machine, look
at the pattern, the patterns for some machines have empty spaces, where
the darker fields are cut, between two parameters or between the parameters
and the notes. When you choose do create a new track which you do by rightclicking
you will make a new set of columns, these can be used in samplebased trackers
or some synths to add new notes, triggers, making chords and more advanced
melodies. Or they can add a whole new set of all rows and columns, giving
you an extra machine within the machine. To understand this and learn
it you only have to try it couple of times, it's easy to see the good
parts about it. Note however that if you have a pattern with 3 tracks
that all are programmed and move on to programming the next pattern that
will only be using the first track, "do not" remove the other two tracks,
this will remove all of the 2:nd and 3:rd tracks in the whole machine
and there is no undo. Meaning you will delete track 2 and 3 in every pattern
in the machine, which will often destroy parts of your song.
Because
of a known bug in all versions including all current 1.2 versions you
cannot copy notes or slides and settings and paste them to another machine,
you can only copy,cut and paste within one machine. Instead of using the
cut, copy and paste command like crazy you often tend to use the presets,
since you can save all machine settings you like and reuse them later
on. You can also melt two songs together with a tool called m2buzz. Now
this won't solve all your problems, but many. Until a bugfix is written
you will just have to take those extra 2 minutes to write the parameters
or notes on the sheet by yourself. The short commands for these three
are the same as in all windows programs :
ctrl x [cut], ctrl c [copy] and ctrl v [paste] - there is a much faster
way for selecting a field then holding shift scrolling around with the
arrow keys, just press ctrl b where you want the selection to begin and
press ctrl e where you want it to end and you can quickly choose a certain
part of the song.
In newer buzz versions there is a button called copy in the parameters
popup window in the machine window section. By clicking this you will
copy all the parameters set by the sliders, they can later be pasted in
the pattern editor. This allows you to do a simple loop with a synth,
play with the sliders in realtime to get the sound you like and then paste
the parameters in the pattern editor to be able to edit them during the
song.
So now you are probably wondering
when we'll get to the part of making the songs, well right after a short
look on the sequencer. To make a song you have to understand each part
of buzz and how they cooperate.
next - [understanding
the sequence window]
- back to index -
©2000 - newt
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