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| KwikFaq Q:Hey! Whenever I make a new intrument, my others all sound like it after! A: Read step 3 Q:Hey! When I load a tune, or export a MID, all the sounds turn to piano! A:Read step 5. Q:Hey! I'm not gettin any sound at all! A:Start at step 1, or, "RTFM" Q:Hey! Midi sucks! A:Youbetcha! But ZT will help is suck a little less! Q:Hey! I wanna convert an IT! A:No prob. Just load it, and assign new midi instrumnts to the old samples.. (I hope your sample names are descriptive enough.) Sorry, but more exotic samples just won't have a match in midi. Q:Hey! I wanna make a MID! A: Go to save, hit the 'save as mid' button, type in the name, hit return. Bang. If it come out with a lot of piano, read step 3. Q: Hey! Why does this effect have 5 digits! Like "Exxxx"?? A: Read Step 5 |
| Why should I? There comes a time in every tracker's life when he(she, it) decides for some reason, that they need to make a MID file. "MADNESS" you say! Well, I would too, but in my case, a coder needed a MID specifically. Also, people who want to get into 'studio quality' midi, but are used to Impulse tracker's interface, often vommit on site of most midi programs, which use standard notation. (Literally a medievil way of thinking about music.) Enter Ztracker. Designed after IT, and specializing in midi. I personally have been looking for years for something like this, but of course, there are some crucial differenced between ZT and IT. This document focuses on those d ifferences, to get you up and tracking ASAP. |
| Step 1: ZTCONFIG.EXE OK kiddies, before we get any action, we're gonna have to run the config program that comes with ZT. General options- Most of these are simple preferances, but I highly recommend you turn on Auto-Open Midi. (The lighter color is the on position, in case that's unclear) MIDI OUT- Panic on stop- This is better on... why? Because midi likes to play it's sound through regardless of whatever else is going on... so, if you stop the tune, a long sound, or a continuous sound will keep playing... which can get noisy and irritating... Panic on stop just means that when you hit F8 to stop the playback, ZT also issues a command to kill all midi sound. (You may have heard of a lot of midi stuff having a 'panic button'.. same function.) Prebuffer? Eh, don't worry about it.. I've left it at 2, and raising it didn't do anything for me. Below the prebuffer are the possible outputs for midi sound. Set em all on. (highligted) You might only end up using one, but until we know for sure which, set em all on. You can come back later and turn off those you don't need, but that's not too important. MIDI IN- Slave to external MIDI clock- Unless you have other external midi gear hooked up, set this off, or playback just won't go anywhere. Options below are for selecting used keyboards, and other such stuff. For general tracking pruposes, leave any of these off. OK- save your options, and head into the tracker! |
| Step 2: Set your first 'sample' As I hope you know, Midi uses sounds from the soundcard, instead of from a file on the hard drive. This makes for smaller song files, and playing them back takes very little processor time. (and the code to play them back is found just about everywhere.) But of course there's a down side. The selection of sounds is limited, especially if you don't have anything but a basic soundcard. (As compared to those meant for Midi composition, or other enternal midi resources) AND, when the file playes on a different soundcard, the sounds used will be a bit different than the ones you heard when you made the song... So don't get TOO attached to hearing your song exactly the way you made it, because no one else will... it will still sound like the song you made, andit will probably be about as good- just not exact.. so keep that in mind. Anyway, hit F3, just like in IT, to get us to the instrument screen... On the lower right is a list of the output devices you seleced. Click on one,and hit return. A checkmark should appear beside it. (You can also hit ALT, with the number it is on the list to toggle it.) Now this is the output device you've set for instrument 1. Near the upper right is a slider called "PATCH". Set it to anything besides OFF. (0, for example, is the basic grand piano.) Hit a kew keys for notes. Hear anything? yes- good. Remember what midi device you set below, and use it for the others as well. Later on, you can set the rest of them off in the TZconfig.exe no-select a different output device, and try again. Now you can mess with some of the other options, but leave "bank" and "channel" alone for now... You can type a name in for that sound on the left. Poof! Your first insturment... |
| Step 3: Your second instrument What, you didn't think you could just do that for all of them, did you? well, Ok, for the most part, you can. Select the scond entry on the left list. Then change the "Channel" slider from 1, to 2. If you don't, the patch you assign to this instrument, will take over instrument 1. --easy explanation--- Each instrument must be set to a different channel, or you'll find your other instruments changing their sound, unexpectedly. Bad. You have 16 channels to work with, but don't use channel 10 for this.. why? We'll go to that later. --complicated explanation-- If you've used the instruments in IT, there's a good analogy- If you have one sample, but two instruments use it, you can set different panning and whatnot, making two different intruments, that use the same sample... different, but same... Think of the PATCH slider as the sample... when you set patch 34 to channel 1, that's like loading a sample into an IT instrument. It not only affects the instrument you're working on, but also other instruments using the same sample... So in ZT, if you have more than one instrument using channel 1, they're all using the same patch. You can set the volume and stuff different, but the basic sound is the same. If you want a different sound altogether, the newer instrument must be on a new channel. Generally, this is not so useful, so It's usually easier to just use the 'easy explanation' above. |
| Step 4: Drums, and the mysterious channel 10 So, none of the patches are giving you much on the way of drums.... start a new instrument, and set it to channel 10. There's your drums. All of them. Hit different notes, and you get different drums.. (Sorry, can't adjust the tone.. ) This might seem like a lame way to do drums, but.. uhm.. it is. The good side is, the drums only take up one instrument.. which may be of small comfort, but hey... that's the way general midi works. So now, you have multiple sounds, drums, so lets go track! |
| Step 5: Pattern editor F2. Familiar territory. Default pattern legnth is 128, so you might wanna switch that to 64, which we IT guys will feel more comfortable with. Other than that, it's pretty much the same. Some effects are different, but they can be looked up with F1, like in IT. Huh? But wait! What are these 5 digit effects? Like Fxxxx??? How the heck do I fit that in? Go back to the pattern editor, and hit ctrl-tab. THAT'S where you put them. Hit ctrl-tab again to go through the different view modes. There is one effect that is worth mentioning- if not used right, you may find that when you load a tune, or export a midi, all the instruments besides the drums turn back into piano. This, as you may have suspected, blows. Don't ask me why this happens, but we can solve it: Whenever you play a new instrument in the song, put in the effect: P0000 . That's right, 'poooo', like the logic of whoever invented the midi format. Just remember to put that effect in on the same line as when you introduce a new instrument, and it'll be fine. |
| Other screens F1: Help referance, like IT F2: Pattern editor. See step 5 F3: Instrument editor. See steps 2-4 F4: Not used, since all insrument finctions are done on F3. F5: Play from start of order list. Like IT. F6: Play current pattern, like IT. F7: Play from curson, continue through order list. Like IT. F8: Stop. If set in the config, also hits panic button. (silence) like IT. F9: Panic button. While stopping the tune with F8 will also hit 'panic', if set in the config, F9 will also do panic, wether F8 is set to or not. F10: Set title, default speed.. leave the 3 bottom options alone for our purposes, in the default 'on'. F11: Order list, just like IT, except that there's no panning/channel volume settings here. Panning isn't an option in Midi, and as for volume, you'll just have to set that another way, like in the instrument, of the patterns. F12: A couple of these options are from the external config proram. Just don't hit the "Refresh" button, or you'll probably have to exit, and run the config again, to set your input devices again. (I'm not sure why this, is, but heck.. midi is crazy.) |
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