MBWAVE DISKMENU EN

5. �DISK MENU

From the music editor, the wave menu and the voice menu you can enter the disk menu with F5. In the disk menu you can read files from or save files on disk. The options with the load and save choices will depend on the place in the program.

5.1 The main disk menu

Load file The MoonBlaster files of the selected type that are on disk will be displayed. Move the bar to the desired file and press the space bar. The file will be loaded. With DOS2 subdirectories are displayed between brackets. When the bar is placed on a subdirectory and you press space this subdirectory will be entered. You can always change drives with the <SELECT> key. This, especially for harddisk owners, is very practical.

Save file The MoonBlaster files of the selected type that are on disk will be displayed. If you want to overwrite an existing file, move the bar to the desired filename and press space. However, if you want to save with a new name, just type the desired name (max. 8 characters). An input bar will appear automatically. Press [RETURN] when done.

Show files Shows all files of the selected type.

Delete file With this option you can delete files from disk. This is especially convenient when a disk is full and you really need to save something.

Drive At any moment in the disk menu when files are displayed, press <SELECT> to change the current drive.

�Song Songs can only be loaded or saved when you enter the disk menu from the music editor. Songs have the extension ‘.MWM’ on disk. Songs can be saved in edit or user mode. More information about this follows. It is also possible to load ‘old’ MoonBlaster v1.4 music (for MSX-AUDIO). The program will try to convert it as well as possible. For the conversion of the sample channel in MoonBlaster a separate menu appears to select the waves that will replace the samples. The difference between edit/user mode songs is explained later.

Wavekit Wavekits have the extension ‘.MWK’ on disk. When you save a wavekit it is important to be aware that ALL valid tones and all waves up to the highest valid wave that is available at that moment will be saved. So it is wise to clear all unused tones waves first. This can decrease the wavekit size considerably. Wavekits can also be saved in a user or edit mode. Saving a wavekit in the raw mode will be the same as saving in the edit mode.

Tones Tones, can be saved or loaded by selecting the concerning tone and go to the disk menu with <F5>. With tones it is important to make sure that enough sample RAM is available.

Samples In the tone menu you can load raw/PCM samples. A selection between 8 and 16-bit, signed and unsigned is possible. If you are not sure whether the sample you are loading is signed or unsigned, just try it. You will hear which one is right and no harm is done. Not that 4 empty bytes are added when a sample is loaded. This is done to let the OPL4 loop on a silent part after it finished playing.

​Edit/User mode The MoonBlaster songs and wavekits can be saved in two different ways: the Edit or User mode. The User mode crunches the song as well as possible and will not save the unused patterns. This can be annoying when a song is not finished yet and a few patterns filled with music data are not used yet. So, songs that are not finished should be saved in the Edit mode. Another difference is that in the edit mode all names of the used own-voices will be saved. With wavekits all names of waves and tones will be saved. In the user mode they will be lost.

On the average a music composer will only use the edit mode. He wants to save as much information as possible. At the time that songs will be used in own programs these should be saved in the user mode.

Next to the edit and user mode a third mode exists, this is the ‘raw’ mode. However, this mode is meant only for several conversion programs from and to MoonBlaster songs. These can be programmed faster and easier this way. With all other use, this mode is not advised.

5.2 File extensions

Below is an overview of the most important file extensions:

MWM​- MoonBlaster Wave Music MWK​- Wavekit MTN​- Tone MWV​- Wave