Tutorials for Melodia Professional
by Kelly Reed


In these tutorials you will be creating and working with your
own Melodia file.  At the beginning of each tutorial will be a
brief explanation of the purpose of the tutorial, and directions
as to which "Page" or "Area" you will start out on.

When you are doing these tutorials, you will be instructed to
either "click," "dial," or "slide" values into different inputs.
Click by clicking the left mouse button.  To dial a value, hold
down on the left mouse button and move the mouse whichever
direction you are instructed.  Slide refers to "slider" inputs,
which are horizontal lines.  To slide a value, hold down on the
left mouse button on the present value (the white number
somewhere on the line), and move the mouse whichever direction
you are instructed.

Now a brief review of the Pages, Areas, and Screens.  "Page" refers
to the individual page you will be working on.  There are two basic
pages: the PLAY page and the COMPOSE page. "Screen" is the monitor
screen, and generally refers to the PLAY and COMPOSE pages combined,
which is only attainable if you have VGA. "Area" refers to the area
of the screen on which you will be working.  

The PLAY page has two main areas: the Conductor area (top two lines
of the page), and the Play area (the remainder of the page).  The
COMPOSE Page also has two main areas: the clocks (bottom five lines
of the page), and the Compose area (remainder of the page).  When the
PLAY and COMPOSE pages are combined onto one screen, the four areas
are: PLAY (upper portion of the screen), COMPOSE (lower portion of
the screen), Conductor (top two lines of the screen), and Clock
(bottom five lines of the screen).

To change pages, click on "Page" (if you are not in low
resolution, click on "Zoom" first) in the lower right-hand
corner.  To switch between separate and combined pages, click on
"Zoom" (next to Page in the lower right-hand corner).

The PLAY page consists of the top two conductor lines, and the
sixteen voices in groups of four.  A "voice" is one line of
characters, starting with the square in the M(ute) switch column
(upper left corner) to the "Fade" value (long horizontal line
under the column labeled Fade - upper right corner).  The voices
are identified by their MIDI channel numbers, which should be
unique and set to match your synthesizer setup.  MIDI channel
numbers are the light blue numbers in the column labeled "Ch" to
the right of the mute switches.

If you do not have VGA, you can go to the COMPOSE page by
clicking on "Page" in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

The COMPOSE page consists of the "Clocks" on the bottom of the
page, labeled in brown, and the eight different processes
(labeled - starting from the top left corner and going clockwise
- Ssq, Bsq, Lmt, Tst, Inv, Ran, Fol, and Val), each unique in
its own function.

TUTORIAL 1 - CREATING A SOUND

In this tutorial you will be working with the clocks, voices,
text, the Ran(dom) generator, and the Bank and Switch
Sequencers.  You will be using three different voices and
clocks.  If you do not have VGA, click on Page (lower right-hand
corner of screen) until the PLAY page appears (the PLAY page is
the one with the sixteen voices in groups of four).

Before you do any of the following steps, you will first need to
create a new file. To do so, use the following method:

a. Click on "File" (bottom right).  Click on the current file
name (just below "Save" and "Erase" in bright white).

b. Type in the name you want your new file to be called.  Press
the space bar to delete unwanted characters.  Press [ENTER].

c. You will be prompted with Load, Overwrite, New.  Click on
"New" to create a new file.

d. Return to your composition by selecting "Return" (on the
bottom of the File Menu).

1. VOICE #1 -

To turn the voices on, click on the first three squares under
the M column (make sure each of the squares is red), and make
sure that Halt (upper left-hand corner of the screen) is green,
not bright yellow.  If it is yellow, click on it to change it.

Before starting, be sure that the channels in the Channel column 
(Ch - top left-hand corner of the PLAY area) are set to conform to
your particular synthesizer(s).  The default channels are 00-15.

a. In the Pc (Program Change) column (upper left-hand corner of
the PLAY area) dial the first number to a sound that you like.

b. Click on the Tsp (Transpose) column (upper left-hand corner
of the PLAY area) and dial right until the value C/5 appears. 
This will play the note at a higher octave.

c. Under the first Kb column (Keyboard column - top left-hand
corner of the PLAY area), dial left to R4.  A connection takes
the place of a numerical value.  This connects the Kb value to
Random Generator #4.

As you are dialing, note the connections are in alphabetical
order.  Also note the lowercase and @ connections when you are
dialing connections.  These will not be used in any part of the
tutorials, but they are explained later, in the User's Guide.

VOICE #2 - Enter a sound that you like in the Pc (Program
Change) column on the second line. 

VOICE #3 - Enter a sound that you like in the Pc (Program
Change) column on the third line.

2. Before starting this step, you are going to set up Pan.  In
the Pan column (top right-hand corner of the PLAY area) dial R5,
R6, and R7 into voices 1, 2, and 3, respectively.  If your
synthesizer supports Pan (most do), the voices should bounce
from left to right in your speakers.

VOICE #1 - Change the "Fade" slider (top right-hand corner of
the PLAY area) to F by clicking on the present value and sliding
right.

VOICE #2 -

a. Slide the Fade to a moderate level (around A).

b. Dial the value for the second number in the first Kb column
left to B1.

VOICE #3 -

a. Slide the Fade to maximum level (F).

b. Dial the value for the third line in the first Kb column left
to S1.

3. If you do not have VGA, switch to the COMPOSE page for this
part of the tutorial. 

VOICE #1 - THE RANDOM GENERATOR 

There are four controllable Ran(dom) generators, located at the
bottom right portion of the COMPOSE area, labeled "Ran" in
magenta.  In addition to these four, there are four more
invisible random generators, which are fixed to a range of
0-127.  They are labeled as connections R5-R8 in numerical
inputs. 

Under Ran#4 (Random process #4 - on the bottom of the screen,
slightly to the right, labeled "Ran" in magenta) dial a 39 on
the fourth line under the column labeled "Lm."  This will give
the random selection of notes for voice #1 a range of 0-39.

VOICE #2 - THE TEXT EDITOR

Now you will be working with the "Text" part of Melodia.  Melodia
assumes you have DOS 5.0 or later, which has a text editor named
"EDIT."  In this tutorial, you will write your own text (a poem, for
example) with the text editor.  After you have done this, you will
return to Melodia, load the text you have just created, and convert
that text to musical intervals in Melodia's Bank Sequencer.

In addition to the text files, there are also a number of DNA
sequence files.  You can access these by clicking on "Text" (in
the File menu) twice, then clicking on the file name you wish to
be loaded.  More information about DNA files can be found in the
User's Guide section of this manual. 

a. Click on "File" (lower right-hand corner of COMPOSE area),
then select "Edit."  This starts a text editor so you can make
your own text. Since you have made changes to your composition,
you will be prompted to save or discard the changes.  For now,
click on "Save."  

b. When the editor loads, select "File" in the upper left-hand
corner of the screen.  Click on "New."

c. Type your text - even a short sentence will suffice.  When
you are done typing, click on  File and select "Save As."  Give
your text a name, followed by ".TXT" (i.e., SONG.TXT) [ENTER]. 
IF YOU DO NOT INCLUDE ".TXT" AS PART OF YOUR FILE NAME, YOUR
FILE WILL NOT BE RETRIEVABLE! 

d. To return to Melodia, click on "File," then select "Exit."

e. To load your text, click on "Text" (in the Melodia File
menu), then click on your text file name.   Note that the file
name under Save/Erase does not change.

f. To return to your composition, click on "Return" at the
bottom of the File Menu.  Your text will be loaded into the Bank
sequencers in the form of numerical values, indicating pitch
changes. 

g. Next to the letter "A" in the column under "Bsq" (Bank
Sequencer - in the upper middle portion of the COMPOSE area)
there is a green block.  Hold down on the first block and dial
right until you see a green arrow pointing up. This activates
the Sequencer by making clock "A" count up.

VOICE #3 - COMPOSE AREA

a. Under Ssq#1 (Switch Sequencer #1 - in the top left-hand
corner of the COMPOSE area, labeled "Ssq" in magenta) hold down
on the zero in the Step column (Step is the blue horizontal line
under the brown "Step" label with a zero at the left end and a
little green circle at the other) and slide to Step 2.

b. Under the column labeled "#," dial 20.  You have just dialed
in a new pitch for Step #2.

c. Hold down on Step 2 and slide to Step 8, then under the # column,
dial 36.  You have just dialed in a new pitch for Step #8.

d. Hold down on the green circle at the right end of the Step
line, then drag it to the space just after step 8.  This will
limit the sequence range to 0-8.

e. Next to the letter "A" in the column under "Ssq," there is a
green block.  Hold down on the first block and dial right until
you see a green arrow pointing up.  This activates the sequencer
by making clock "A" count up.

f. Change the letter "A" (under Ssq #1) to "C" by dialing right.
This will cause the sequencer clock to be in sync with the voice
clock.  Note the Ssq pitch change on steps 2 and 8.

To save your work, click on the File menu, select "Save" (not
the checkmark).  The checkmark will change to a dot to indicate
that your work has been saved.  After saving, click on "Return"
to go back to your composition, or "Exit" to exit.

TUTORIAL 2 - MODIFYING THE SOUND

In this tutorial you will be working with the Test ("Tst") and
Follow ("Fol") processes, and Velocity.  If you don't have VGA,
switch to the PLAY page.  You will need to start where you left
off in the last tutorial.  Open the saved file (click on "File,"
then select the desired file and click on Return).

1. VOICE #1 - Isolate voice #1 by clicking on "M" (top left-hand
corner of the PLAY area - M will change to S), then clicking on
voice #1's square in the S column.  Voice #1's square should be
the only red one; all the others should be blue.

Since voice #1 is in the fifth octave and the Random sequencer
was set fairly high, some of the notes may be extremely high. 
To change those high notes, you can do one of two things:

1. you can lower the random range or

2. you can "weed out" the higher notes with the Test process

The Test process is located in the middle right-hand portion of
the COMPOSE area, labeled "Tst" in magenta.

a. For the first number under column "A", dial left to R4.

b. For the first number under column "B" dial right to 20.

c. For the first number under column "Y" dial left to S2, and in
column "N" dial left to R4.

This tells Melodia that if the note in R4 is greater than 20,
switch that note to Switch Sequencer #2, and if it is not
greater than 20, leave it alone.

d. Now move over to Switch Sequencer #2 (the second line under
the Switch Sequencer - top left-hand corner of the COMPOSE
area).  Slide to step 0 (Step is the blue horizontal line under
the brown "Step" label with a zero at the left end and a little
green circle at the other) if you are not already there.  Dial a
"12" in the # column.

e. Hold down on step 0 and slide to step 1, then dial a "16" in
the # column.  Hold down on step 1 and slide to step 2, then
dial a "19" in the # column.

f. Move the green "stopper" (the circle at the end of the Step
line) to the space just after step 2, and dial the green block
(next to A in the column under Ssq) right to the "up arrow."

PLAY AREA VOICE #1 - 

g. Dial T1 for the first number in the Kb column (top left-hand
corner of the PLAY area), replacing the R4 already there.  Note
that the higher notes have been "weeded out" and replaced by
lower notes from Ssq#2.

Now you will be working with the Fol(low) Process.  The Fol
Process (in the middle, toward the bottom of the COMPOSE area)
will change the Random sound to a scale-like sound.

h. On Fol #1, dial left to R4 into the first number under the
column labeled "#."

i. Dial right to F1 in Voice #1 under the first Kb column (top
left-hand corner of the PLAY area), replacing the T1 already
there.  Note the scale-like sound now.

j. Turn voices #2 and #3 back on by clicking on the S (top
left-hand corner of the PLAY area - it will change to M).  The
other two squares should turn red, indicating that the voices
are active.

This is a good time to experiment with different sounds.  Click
on the Pc (Program Change - top left-hand corner of the PLAY
area) of the voice you wish to change, and dial left or right
while listening to the sound.  

2. VOICE #2 - Under the first column labeled "Vl," (top
left-hand corner of the PLAY area) dial right the greatest
value.  Note that numbers greater than 99 are magenta.  This
number will be a magenta 27, the equivalent of 127.

Save your file by clicking on File (lower right-hand corner of
the COMPOSE area), then select Save.  Return to your composition
by clicking on "Return," or "Exit" to exit.

TUTORIAL 3 - LIMIT, VALUE, & INVERT

In this tutorial, you will be learning about the Lmt (Limit),
Val(ue), and Inv(ert) processes.  

Before you do any of the following steps, you will first need to
create a new file. To do so, use the following method:

a. Click on "File" (bottom right).  Click on the current file
name (just below "Save" and "Erase" in bright white).

b. Type in the name you want your new file to be called.  Press
the space bar to delete any unwanted characters.  Press [ENTER].

c. If you have made changes to your composition, the computer
will ask you if you want to save or discard those changes.  
Save the changes by clicking on "Save."

d. The computer will ask you if you want to Load, Overwrite,
create a New file.  Click on "New" to create a new file.  

e. Return to your composition by selecting "Return" (on the
bottom of the File Menu).

If you don't have VGA you will start on the PLAY page.

LIMIT:

First you will need to get a voice.  Click on the first square
in the M column (top left-hand corner of the PLAY area) to turn
the voice on.  Under the Pc (Program Change - top left-hand
corner of the PLAY area) column dial a sound that you like for
voice #1.  Under the first Kb column, dial left to L1. 

1. Under the "#" sign in the Lmt process (top right-hand corner
of the COMPOSE area), dial the connection that you want to be
limited (for now dial R4).

2. Under the "Lm" column, dial to a white 15.  You have just
limited the note range from 1-15.

VALUE:

First you will need to get a voice.  Click on the second square
in the M column (top left-hand corner of the PLAY area) to turn
the voice on.  Under the Pc (Program Change - top left-hand
corner of the PLAY area) column dial a sound that you like for
voice #2.  Under the Kb column, dial left to V1. 

1. Dial R4 under the "#" sign in Val process #1 (lower left-hand
portion of the COMPOSE area).

2. For the first number under the Sl(ew) column in the Val
process, dial 18.  

3. In Ran#4 (Random generator #4 - bottom of the COMPOSE area -
slightly to the right) dial the letter A (fourth line, under the
Ran label) to D.  This connects Ran#4 to clock D.  You should
hear a gradual scale-like sound.

INVERT:

First you will need to get a voice.  Click on the third square
in the M column (top left-hand corner of the PLAY area) to turn
the voice on.  For the value in third line under the Pc (Program
Change - top left-hand corner of the PLAY area) column dial a
sound that you like for voice #3.  Under the Kb column, dial
left to I1. 

1. In Ran#3 (Random generator #3 - bottom of the COMPOSE area,
slightly to the right) dial right to 127 (magenta 27) under the
"Lm" column.

2. In Inv#1 (lower right-hand portion of the COMPOSE area) dial
zero into the first number under the column labeled "+-."  This
will give you an unchanged output for I1, and an inverted output
for I2.

3. In Pans 1 and 2 (top right-hand portion of the PLAY area),
dial left to I1 and I2, respectively.  If your synthesizer
supports Pan (most do), you should hear the voices bouncing
separately from speaker to speaker.

In the case of Pan only, you can achieve the same effect by
connecting R3 to Pans 1 and 2, then clicking on the light blue
arrow on only one of the two arrows.  When the arrow is pointing
down, the Pan output is inverted.

Save your composition by clicking on File (lower right-hand
corner of the COMPOSE area), the selecting Save.  To return to
your composition, click on "Return."  To exit, click on "Exit."

TUTORIAL 4 - THE STAGE SEQUENCERS

In this tutorial you will learn how to change stages.  You will
be working with the "conductor" on the top two lines of the
screen. If you don't have VGA, switch to the PLAY page.  You
will be using the voices from the previous tutorial, so load
your saved file from it now by clicking on "File" (lower
right-hand corner of the COMPOSE area), then selecting the saved
file.  To return to your composition, click on "Return."

1. STAGE #00

a. Set the "Slews" (top right-hand corner of the PLAY area) of
the first three voices to 4.

b. Set the Measure (on the second conductor row,      "M =
Stop") to four measures.  Do this by dialing right on Stop until
M = 004.

c. Click on "Strt" (upper left-hand corner of screen, first line
of the Conductor area).  The volume should gradually become
louder until it reaches its set value, then stop.

2. STAGE #01

When you clicked on "Strt" your measure should have played and
then moved to stage "01" on the long horizontal line next to
"Cont" on the first conductor row at the top of the screen.  If
it did not, move to that stage now.

a. To bring up the previous stage, click on "Prev" (right side
of second conductor row).

b. Now slide the first three Fades (top right-hand portion of
PLAY area) to zero.

c. Click on "Strt" (top left-hand corner of Conductor area). 
The volume should gradually go up, then down, then stop and go
to stage "02."

3. STAGE #02

a. Change the measure (M = Stop - second conductor row on
right-hand side) to "Loop" by dialing left on Stop.

b. Click "Strt" in the upper left-hand corner of the Conductor
area.  You should hear a continuous loop of the voices rising
and falling.

Save your file by clicking on the File menu (lower right-hand
corner of the PLAY area) and then clicking on Save.  To return
to your composition, click on "Return," to exit, click on "Exit."