Music Scene
Welcome to the 'Music Scene' tutorials. All the resources are MY own work, and appeared in Commodore Scene, but there are just a few of these that did not quite make it to the mag, or may be appearing in the mag soon. We start from the BASICS to the advanced music composing using my favourite music composer, which is Graffitys' Demo Music Creator V4.0. So please select a category from below and let's get started in yhe tutorial.
Introduction
Getting Started Drums and Bass Writing Your First Tunes Mixing Sound Types Quick Recap and Using Switches Volume Control

INTRODUCTION
What is DMC V4.0?

DMC V4.0 is a powerful music editor, written by Brian of Graffity for the Commodore 64. The program was/has been released into the public domain. The DMC V4.0 player has various options and editors, which can help you create your own demo songs. You can even use up to 8 different tunes, by using channel switching. The DMC V4.0 music player also has 'LIVE PLAY SYNTHESIZER', which allows you to tap in a key, to hear the note ;o). There are three channel sounds that you can use to compose your music. The editor looks something like this:

Getting Started

So many people in the C64 scene uses DMC V4.0 and I am one of them. Well, if you were expecting the old Music Scene by Andrew, think again. This is because I have decided to take over 'Music Scene' (I hope Andrew didn't mind this at all). I have decided to teach you all how to turn yourselves into cool C64 music composers.

For those of you who are interested in learning to use DMC V4.0, I'll be teaching you how to compose really cool music, add additional beat styles, such as 80's disco, techno, and many others. Anyway, let's forget all this nitty gritty and get on with somne serious experimenting.

The DMC V4.0 has various options involved. There are filters, instruments, track editors, and also sequence editors, as well as a live play synthesizer and recording option. First of all, you will see that there are no instruments set. This is because, you need to build the instruments yourself. Go to the menu screen, by pressing the back arrow key and highlight the 'Sound Editor' option, using the cursor keys on your keyboard. (See diagram below:

Okay, now take a look at the image below. It shows you what the sound editor looks like. As you can see, the sound datas are full of zeroes, therefore there is no sound. Press space to test the sounds. As you can see, you cannot hear the sounds at all, due to no data.

Familiarise yourself with the sound tables. Now it is time to do some serious work on those tables. For a start off, let us have just a normal instrument, which can be the main instrument for any tunes, that you compose in future. Because you're at sound #$00, enter as follows:

Now that you have input the ADSR settings. you will now need to build an instrument by using the instrumental table, so move the flashing cursor across to ## and then press SHIFT + RETURN to enter the sound editor.

Now do as follows:

Please note: 91 ends block.

Now press SHIFT + RETURN again then press SPACEBAR to test the sound. There, we are, a perfect working sound. The octave of your test sound can be incremented and decremented by pressing SHIFT and '+' or SHIFT and '-' (depending on which way you would like your sounds' octave to go). Okay, now press the UP ARROW key on your C64 to put the current sound intro memory buffer. You should see part of the screen flicker in green. Now press '+' without pressing the SHIFT key and then press '@' to paste to the next instrument. Now all you need to do is add a filter. The next diagram enables a filter to be turned on.

Okay, so not much of a difference to this diagram. All I've done here was added '28' to 'FX'. Basically using '2' or 'A' underneatu 'F' turns on the filter and the number under 'X' either emulates as a drum, or just holds your note down, until a GATE is set (GATES will be looked at later on in this feature).

Okay, now press the BACK ARROW yet again to enter the flashing bar menu, and then highlight the Filter Editor, using cursor keys, followed by RETURN to activate that editor. The diagram below shows you what the filter editor looks like.

Now try this:

There, now we have a filter ready for the sounds. Press SPACE to test your sound. There you are, what you think? Quite a nice sound eh? Press BACK ARROW to move back to the main menu.

Anyway, lets' go and create a new instrument, using the sound editor. Enter as follows:

ADSR L P SPEEDS L F V1 V2 ## FX
00AE 0 0 000000 0 0 00 00 02 08

Move your cursor to ## and then press SHIFT & RETURN. You're able to do this with any sound you decide to create, as well as change the ## values. The ## Values is where your put your sound type. Say for example we use ##66, this indicates the DMC player to jump along to section ##66 in the sound data tables.

Anyway, at ##02 we want to do a C64-style minor chord, so now copy as follows in the data tables:

02 21 00
03 21 03
04 21 07
05 21 0C
06 94 00 ;94 loop four sounds.

The last line controls the octaves. #$03 is octave 3, #$07 is octave 07, and #$0C is octave 12. #$94 repeats the four octaves for a while (depends on the attack/decay used).

Now do the same for the major chords (remember copy & paste to the next sound no).

ADSR L P SPEEDS L F V! V2 ## FX
00AE 0 0 000000 0 0 01 02 07 08
07 21 00
08 21 04
09 21 07
0A 21 0C
0B 94 00 - Not hard is it ;o) ?

In the next chapter, we'll introduce some more instruments, for you to try ;o)

Drums and Bass

Okay then students, what were we looking at in the previous chapter? Ah, yeah, I remember, we were looking at how to get started with creating instruments using DMC V4.0. This chapter takes a look at creating your own C64 drum kit. Let's get back to the sound editor and try as follows.

ADSR L P SPEEDS L F V! V2 ## FX
00E8 0 8 000000 0 0 01 02 0C 01

Now edit the table below:

0C 81 FF ;Drum 1
0D 81 FF
0E 41 0C
0F 41 0A
10 41 02
11 91 00 ;End

Now let's make cymbals.

ADSR L P SPEEDS L F V! V2 ## FX
00E9 0 0 000000 0 2 00 00 12 A1

12 81 FF
13 91 00

Enter the filter editor and enter in table 2. the following:

R T ## RT ST S1 S2 S3
0 4 A0 00 00 FF 00 00

Now lets' creat drum 2.

ADSR L P SPEEDS L F V! V2 ## FX
00A9 0 8 000000 0 0 01 02 14 01

14 81 7f
15 41 0E
16 41 0C
17 41 0A
18 41 08
19 81 55
1A 91 00

Now test all your drums.

Writing your First Tunes

Let us take a look at what we have done so far. Well, we played around with sounds and filters, now we shall start writing a little ditty. For a start off, hop on to the tack editor, by cancelling the main menu (pressing BACk ARROW again). Now copy as indicated in the diagram of the track editor. Pressing 'C= and E' sets STOP and 'SHIFT + E' puts end and loops to the very first sector.

Now go to track 1, highlight the sector at $00 and then press SHIFT & RETURN to enter the sector editor. Now do as follows in sector $00.

00 DUR.06
01 SND.XX ;Use the sound number which first drum is
02 A-1
03 SND.YY ;Use the sound no. which are cymbals
04 A-1
05 SND.ZZ ;Second Drum
06 A-1
07 SND.YY ;Cymbals again
08 A-2
09 END

Quick recap: 'C= and S' sets SND.xx, which indicates the sound number which you want to use, while 0-9 and SHIFT A-F sets the sound no. 'C= and 'D' sets DUR.XX, which is the duration. Yet again, use the same number, and letter keys to set the sound. '£' sets a GATE (We'll look at this later), 'UP ARROW copies the sector in to memory buffer, '@' pastes from memory buffer to current sector, 'SHIFT+X' sets SWITCH (Also will be looked at), while 'SHIFT+G' makes GLIDE. To place 'END', just press '='.

Let's edit SECTOR 1 to do a bit of music.

00 SND.00
01 DUR.06
02 A-1
03 A-1
04 A-2
05 A-1
06 A-1
07 A-2
08 A-1
09 A-2
0A END

Now press F1 to listen to what you have done so far. There we are, your first tune done on DMC V4.0. Easy huh?

Mixing Sound Types

This IS possible. You have seen how the drums, major, minor chords and all of this works. Anyway, in this feature, we take a look at mixing sound data tables. The Major and Minor chords were done by sound mixing, and using 94 as a continuous loop to play those sounds, according to the data table. Now we are going to make a few more, but firts let us familiarise you on what type of sounds you can use or mix.

$09 - Blank
$11 - Triangle
$13 - Weird Triangle 1
$15 - Weird Triangle 2
$16 - Weird Triangle 3
$21 - Sawtooth
$23 - Weird Sawtooth 1
$25 - Weird Sawtooth 2
$27 - Weird Sawtooth 3
$41 - Pulse
$43 - Weird Pulse 1
$45 - Weird Pulse 2
$47 - Weird Pulse 3
$51 - Twinkle
$53 - Weird Twinkle 1
$55 - Weird Twinkle 2
$57 - Weird Twinkle 3
$81 - Noise (Good for usage in drums)

You can even slow major or minor chords by doubling the size of the table like as follows.

XX 21 00
XX 21 00
XX 21 03
XX 21 03
XX 21 07
XX 21 07
XX 21 0C
XX 21 0C
XX 98 00 ; Loop to first sound in data table

Try and familiarise yourself with the types of sounds and the mixing that you can create.

Now try this sound and check it out:

XX 41 00
XX 41 00
XX 41 00
XX 41 00
XX 41 0C
XX 41 0C
XX 41 0C
XX 41 0C
XX 98 00

Or maybe you could try this:

XX 41 0C
XX 41 0C
XX 41 00
XX 11 00
XX 91 00

Try and use different techniques with your sounds, so you can come up with some amazing synth instruments for your own music compositions ;o)

Quick Recap and Intro to Switches

Okay, now for some basics about the DMC Player V4..0B We shall look at the commands, that can be useful in the sector editor, and then try some experimentation with these. The sector editor consist of the following commands. These are as follows:

SND.XX: The sound type (Use 00-16) depending on the instrument you have created.

DUR.XX: The delay for the note. As with the sound but this time it is with the duration. This must be used before the note is played.

VOL.XX: A new function, compared to DMC V2.0. You can control the volume of your sounds (useful for echoing effects)

GATE: Stops a current sound.

SWITCH: A special one this. See CS29 and you’ll see why.

GLD.XX: Glides the current note accordingly.

How does a Switch work?

Basically a 'SWITCH' function adds some kind of effect to your sounds. Let's do a test switchSo, go to the sector editor, and do as follows:

SECTOR XX:
00 SND.XX
01 DUR.03
02 C-4
03 SWITCH
04 D-4
05 E-4
06 F-4
07 G-4
08 A-4
09 B-4
0A C-5
0B END

Now play test the test switch. Easy huh?

The SWITCH command even works on filtered sounds, that use a long duration. You'll find that any sound with a fast gate-off will not work properly under SWITCH. You can even turn off the SWITCH once, you want to make various notes do normal things. Changing instruments will affect the switch command, therefore the switches are turned off.

Introducing Volume Control

Not much will be happening this time, but we will be taking a look at some really cool things that can be done, when using the DMC V4.0 player. Well, I talked about installing a gate, I also talked about installing, what now? Ah yes, we’ll take a look at the volume feature. The volume feature can do amazing effects with your sounds. Especially when you are using the block/sequence editor. For example, you can do a sort of fading effect to your note. Why not try this:

SECTOR 00:

00 SND.XX
01 DUR.08
02 VOL.0E
03 A-4
04 VOL.0D
05 A-4
06 VOL.0C
07 A-4
08 VOL.0B
09 A-4
0A VOL.0A
0B A-4
0C VOL.09
0D A-4
0E VOL.08
0F A-4
10 VOL.07
11 A-4
12 VOL.06
13 A-4
14 VOL.05
15 A-4
16 VOL.04
17 A-4
18 VOL.03
19 A-4
1A VOL.02
1B A-04
1C VOL.01
1D A-4
1E END

However the problem is, if you jump from one sector to another. Let us say for example this is your first sector, and you would like to edit your second sector, then you would need to set a volume, else the second sector will use the last volume which was used and we don’t really want that do we? Still; not to worry. We can sort this problem out by going to the next sector and set the correct volume. Okay then, let’s try this:

SECTOR 01:
00 SND.XX
01 DUR.08
02 VOL.0E
03 A-2
04 ------
05 ------
06 ------
07 ------
08 ------
09 ------
0A ------
0B ------
0C ------
0D ------
0E ------
0F ------
10 ------
11 GATE
12 END

Now combine these in track form. like this:

TRACK 1 TRACK 2 TRACK 3
00 - 00 00 STOP 00 STOP
01 - 01 01 - 00 01 - 00
02 STOP 02 - 00 02 - 00

Okay, now press F1 to play the small sample you created. If you find that there are no sounds coming through then the reason behind this is because you have not loaded or created any sounds. Else, you should hear the sample more easily.

Now then, here’s a challenge for you. Try and make the volume go UP instead of down. Heh, heh. I don’t know if you’ll manage this, but why not give it a go.

Okay, now for something new. We are going to play around with filtered effects coming through with your sounds. When I was writing a piece of music for Commodore Scene’s game ‘Stealth 4’, I originally used the DMC player to do the superb effects, but sadly I could not use the tune in the game, due to part of the player’s routines being snipped off. So, I used the Dutch USA Team Music Assembler. But I still love the DMC player. Anyway, let’s create a few filters and import them into some of our sounds shall we? Yeah, why not. We’ll do at least six or seven filters for this bit. Before we do this initialise everything so that we have no sounds at all. Go to the sound editor and then enter as follows:

SOUND 00:

ADSR L P SPEEDS L F V1 V2 ##
00AA 0 0 000000 0 0 00 00 00
FX
20

Once you have done the sound data, go to ‘##’ and then press Shift + Return and edit the sound data tables.

00 21 00
01 91 00

When you have done your sounds, press Shift + Return to go back to the sound editor.

Now we are going to the filter editor. Press the ‘Back Arrow’ key, and highlight ‘Filter Editor’ with your cursor keys. Once you have done this, select the first filter and do as follows:

Filter 0:
R T ## RT ST S1 S2 S3
F 1 08 00 08 00 00 00

Filter 1:
R T ## RT ST S1 S2 S3
F 1 18 00 18 00 00 00

Filter 2:
R T ## RT ST S1 S2 S3
F 1 28 00 28 00 00 00

Filter 3:
R T ## RT ST S1 S2 S3
F 1 38 00 38 00 00 00

Filter 4:
R T ## RT ST S1 S2 S3
F 1 48 00 48 00 00 00

Filter 5:
R T ## RT ST S1 S2 S3
F 1 58 00 58 00 00 00

Filter 6
F 1 68 00 68 00 00 00

Now, go back to the sound editor and copy each sound b y pressing ‘Up Arrow’ and paste to the next sound and change the value of ‘F’. This is because ‘F’ represents the filter number your C64 tries to read.

Now let’s go back to the track editor and play around with the filtered sounds. First of all, in your track editor, do as follows:

TRACK 1 TRACK 2 TRACK 3
00 - 00 00 STOP 00 STOP
01 STOP 01 - 00 01 - 00

Now enter the sector editor and do as follows:

SECTOR 00:

00 DUR.03
01 SND.00
02 C-1
03 C-2
04 C-2
05 C-1
06 C-2
07 C-2
08 C-1
09 C-2
0A SND.01
0B C-1
0C C-2
0D C-2
0E C-1
0F C-2
10 C-2
11 C-1
12 C-2

And keep repeating until you have done SND.06, then go back down again to SND.01. Well basically that is all I’ll be leaving with you with in this chapter. Just play around with DMC.

If you have SIDPlug installed, you are listening to "Eclipse".