TRACKERS MOONBLASTER EN 07
Contents
7.THE DISK MENU
From the music editor, the sample menu and the voice menu you can use by means of the function key F5 to the disc menu. In the disc menu information can be read from disk or written to disk. There are three different disc menus.
From the music editor you enter the main disc menu. In this disc menu, songs and sample kits can be loaded and saved. The first four choices are related to the MoonBlaster songs. MoonBlaster songs have the extension '.MBM'.
Load Song
The MoonBlaster songs that are present on the disc are shown. Send the bar to the correct song and press the spacebar.
Save Song
Writes a MoonBlaster song to disk. There are two different file modes that allow you to write a song: 'Edit' of 'User'. These modes are described in the Edit / User mode. If you want to put the song over a song already on the disc, send the bar with the cursor keys to the desired file name and press the spacebar. However, if you want to register the song under a new name, type the desired name (up to 8 characters). An input bar will automatically appear at the bottom of the screen. Press [RETURN] when finished.
Delete Song
Deletes a MoonBlaster song from the existing disk. MoonBlaster will ask for confirmation after choosing a song. By pressing the [Y] (Yes), the song is erased, with the [N] (No) nothing will be erased.
Show Song
The song on disk will be shown on the screen. The four following functions refer to the sample kits (see the explanation on songs for additional explanation). Moon Blaster sample kits have the extension 'MBK'.
- -Load Samplekit: loads a MoonBlaster sample kit from disk.
- -Save Samplekit: writes the sample kit contained in the sample memory to disk.
- -Delete Samplekit: Deletes a selected Sample Kit from disk. With the [Y] (Yes) and [N] (No) buttons, the file can be deleted or not.
- -Show Samplekits: shows the present sample kit on the screen.
Then come some general functions:
Drive
With the cursors left / right you can select the disk drive where the songs / sample kits should be written / loaded.
Edit / User mode
The MoonBIaster songs can be written in two different ways: the Edit or the User mode. The User mode saves the song as well as possible and will also erase the unhappy patterns. This can cause problems when a song is not finished and a few patterns with music data are not yet used. That is why the Edit mode can be chosen. Songs that are not yet finished can thus be saved under Edit mode. When a song is finished, write the song under the User mode. Only songs written in User mode can be played in your own programs with the replay routines included.
Format Disk
This function will format a diskette after the necessary information has been given.
Load FST Song
With this function you can convert songs written in FAC Soundtracker (extension '. MUS') to MoonBIaster format. After loading, the song is automatically converted. This does have some limitations:
- - Pitch bends, which are present in FST2 and higher, must be in MoonBIaster to be adjusted. This is because MoonBlaster handles pitch bends at a different speed as Soundtracker. This is also the reason that you can opt to omit pitch bends completely.
- - Detunes, which are present in FST2 and higher, will need to be modified because MoonBIaster handles them at a different level as Soundtracker.
- - If MoonBIaster is set to 60 Hz, the tempo will have to be adjusted slightly. This is because Soundtracker makes an attempt to run the music at 50 and 60 Hz just as fast.
- - It is possible that the channel where a bass is playing sounds an octave too high or too low. This is solved quickly with the help of the block functions.
Load FST Drumkit
This allows you to load a Soundtracker drum kit (extensions '.SM1' and 'SM2').
Back to Editor
Returns to the music edit screen. This is also possible with [ESC].
From the sample menu you can access the sample disc menu with the [F5] key. E Here you can process samples and sample kits. For more information about samples, please read Chapter 5. Separate samples have the extension '. MBS' and sample kits have the extension '.MBK' in MoonBIaster.
Load Sample
Loads the sample into the sample block indicated at the bottom of the image (can be changed with 'Current Sample Block'). If a sample is too long for the sample block, it will be asked whether it should be loaded or not. If you choose to load it anyway, the end address of the sample block will be automatically adjusted.
Save Sample
Writes the sample at the bottom of the screen to disk. You can choose from an existing sample (which will be overwritten), or save a new file by giving the name of this file (an input bar will automatically appear).
Delete Sample
Clears sample that you have chosen. You will still be asked for confirmation. Show Samples: Show all samples present on disk. A sampler kit consists of a number of samples that are in the sample memory. The start and end addresses are also stored in the sample kit. A sampler kit is in fact the entire 32 kbyte sample memory of the MSX-AUDIO.
- -Load Samplekit: Load a sample kit from disk.
- -Save Samplekit: Writes the sample kit to disk.
- -Delete Samplekit: Deletes the selected sample kit.
- -Show Samplekits: The sample kits on disk are shown on the screen.
- -Drive: This function allows you to choose the disk drive where the samples or sample kits should be processed. Use the left / right cursors to choose the right drive.
- -Format Disk: This function formats the disc according to the correct settings.
You can use the Own Voice menu the [F5] key enters the voice-disk menu. Here, self-made voices can be loaded, written or deleted. Voicebanks can also be processed. Separate voices have the extension '.MBV' and voicebanks have the extension 'MBB' in MoonBlaster.
Load Voice
Loads the selected voice into the own-voice that is shown at the bottom of the screen (this is the voice on which the bar was in the own voice bank before you pressed [F5]).
Save Voice
Writes an own voice to disk. Which is this is indicated at the bottom of the screen. You can overwrite an existing file by placing the bar on it and pressing the spacebar. You can also write a voice under a different nnam than that on the disk, by simply entering the name type, followed by a (RETURN). An entry bar will automatically appear.
- -Delete Voice: this function will delete the selected file from disk after confirmation.
- -Show Voices: shows the voices present on the disk.
A voicebank is a collection of own-voices, which is completely removed or loaded. A full voice bank therefore contains 16 own voices and represents the last column of the voicebanks.
- -Load Voicebank: loads an entire voicebank.
- -Save Voicebank: writes away the entire own voicebank.
- -Delete Voicebank: clears the chosen voicebank.
- -Show Voicebanks: displays the existing voicebanks on the screen.
- -Drive: this option allows you to select the correct drive (with left / right cursors).
- -Format disk: formats the disk in the drive.
