HELP - BASIC HELP
(for global keys, look at the bottom)

At this point, you are probably wondering how to use this 
program and how are you supposed to be able to make music 
with it.

The following should answer most of your questions/doubts 
about it.

1-What is a Tracker?

A tracker is style of program intended for music 
composition. Its origins date from the amiga years.
Trackers became rapidly popular because of it's simple
design and easyness of use. To write a song, you basically
write a bunch of \"patterns\" (or song sections) and then
specify the order in which they should be played.

2-What is ShakeTracker?

ShakeTracker takes the tracker approach (originally intended
for internal audio processing) and adapts it to midi processing. This way, instead of controlling a few internal samples (instruments), you control midi ports.

3-What is a midi port?

A midi port is a device used for transmision of midi data.
Midi data consists on instructions such as \"play this note\",
\"use this instrument\", \"change this volume on that channel\", etc.

4-Ok, how do i get, at least, a basic sound?

First, you need to make sure that you have a working 
midi port. To do this, go to the SYSTEM tab, and
enable the devices you think may be useful (under unix,
all devices are enabled by default so this step is not
 necesary).
Once you have selected midiout devices, go to the USER DEVICES
section. Now, create a device (or rename the existing null 
one) and selecte a "hardware device" for it.
Ok, now you have your device working.. Now it's time to create
a track.
Go to the TRACK PROPERTIES tab. It should be empty. Push
NEW TRACK button and a new track should appear. Now, select
the device for this track (use the one you have 
created/edited). And then select a patch.
Now go to the PATTERNS tab. You should see a column with many
rows that look like:

... .. .00 ...-00
... .. .00 ...-00
... .. .00 ...-00
... .. .00 ...-00

Position the cursor on the leftmost field, and now, use the
letters of the keyboard to write notes. Hopefully you should
be hearing some sound while you write down the notes. 
If no sound is heard, try selecting another hardware device
in the USER DEVICES tab.

Now, to play the pattern, press F6 and you should be hearing it.


5-I get no sound! I tried all the hardware devices, What should I do?

Apparently, you dont have any device capable of producing
sound. Under Windows, most cards come with some sort of midi
synth so this is unlikely to happen. Under unix, this is probably what's happening to you. For both Windows and Linux there
are excellent free soft-wavetable synthethizers. If you ask me, the best pick is TiMidity (running as ALSA client in linux).

6-Ok, now what else?

Try reading each section's help. If you still feel that you're
missing something you can try to contact me. (I need to
set up a mailing list or something).


---------

GLOBAL KEYS



ESC - file menu
F1- section help
F2- pattern screen
F3- instrument screen
F5 - play song
F6 - play current pattern
F7 - play song from cursor
F8 - stop
shift-F8 - panic

F11 - Order list
F12 - Global variables

numpad / (slash) - decrease editing octave
numpad * (asterisk) - increase editing octave

--
For more help, questions, requests,  etc - mail me at - coding@reduz.com.ar




















