NTRQ: quick poll (Page 1 of 3)

I hope I understand you correctly when you say pattern commands. You mean commands put in the effects column, like most trackers?

If so, my first question is: is there are kill note command? And if yes, is it possible to kill a note with more detail then on a certain step, in other words, on a given tick of a step?

Also, I often use Delay Commands when tracking. For instance if the speed is set to 06, each step would be divided in to six ticks, and the delay command would enable you do shift the note on the given step up to five ticks forward. If the "kill note" command is placed in the note column, and not the effects column, delay and kill note could be combined together for what I asked for first: kill note with tick precision.

I hope my sentences makes sense to you

Cheers!

Hey Random! Nice to see you around here (though perfectly natural I guess)

Yes, Pattern Commands = effects column.

There is a "Key Off" command which currently has no parameters. It actually goes in the note column as opposed to being in the command/effect column.

I'll have a think about your suggestions. I hadn't thought about a delay command. What would you use that for? Phase effects with two unison voices and detune? (Actually, fuck, I don't have detune!)

It would be tricky in NTRQ because I have "dual speed methods" i.e. you can opt for either the usual frame (tick) count method or the more-resolution-but-less-accuracy counter overflow method (see my other posts). In fact you can dynamically change between them at any time in a song.

At the moment, the command doesn't totally KILL the sound (well it does on triangle and DPCM) - it actually forces the ADSR into the release phase. If you want it to kill the sound immediately you can have 0 release on your ADSR. There's certainly scope for a parameter on the "key off" command if required.

I wish I hadn't asked

Right. Delay command. If I have this correct, you can set a delay "x" and when a new note is triggered it triggers on the next step + "x" ticks?

If so I'll have a look at how I might be able to do it. It's definitely a tricky one because I only call the pattern update routines every step. Have to think of a different approach to achieve the same results. Leave it with me

If you want the delay command just to add a swing/groove feel, that's what the speed table is designed for. Using multiple speeds like;

00: 04 01        ;set speed 4, jump to step 1
01: 04 02        ;set speed 4, jump to step 2
02: 02 00        ;set speed 2, jump back to step 0

In a 3/4 song would make the 3rd note play twice as fast as notes 1 and 2, giving you a swing feel.

I'm still looking into Delay (and Detune!) though.

Last edited by neilbaldwin (Jan 17, 2010 4:45 pm)

Yes, sorry, I worded that badly.

In addition to adding swing/groove, I tend to use delay commands for "grace notes" as well. Just small detail in leads mostly, to make the melody more jazzy somehow. For instance, a fragment of one of my melodies could be like this (D0X = delay note by X ticks. xx = kill note):

00 E-5  --
01 --     --
02 --     --
03 F#5 D03
04 G-5 --
05 --     --
06 xx    --
07 --     --
08 C-5  --
09 --     --
0A --     --
0B --     --
0C xx    --

And then again, if the delay command could be used in combination with the kill note command, that would be great.

Otherwise, in response to your original question, I agree that it would be easier if you could set volume in the pattern editor as well. In what way have you run out of bits to add? Technically hard to implement more commands?

Then another question: How does the pitch bend work? Simply bend up/bend down, or some kind of slide-to-note (legato) command as well?
In some trackers, the legato command can be used not only to make an audible slide to the note, but also to avoid the instrument to re-trigger. So for instance if you have a looping volume envelope, and just for the sake of example, a looping pulse wave modulation as well, it can sometimes be irritating to have the evenlope/pwm loop re-trigger on every new note. Some trackers handle this by removing the instrument number in the editor (or instrument "0"), and as I said, some (though mostly sample-based trackers as far as I know) do it with the slide-to-note command.

Really excited about the project, looking forward to try it hands on

The maximum delay is normally however many ticks in a step, minus one (so you can't delay notes into the next step)... And I can't imagine people tracking at 10 or more ticks per step very often (I usually use 6, 4 or 3, I imagine most people are the fairly similar). So yeah, I guess 9 ticks would be enough as a maximum delay!