| Setting up Buzz |
| First you must setup the proper waveout device. Go to View | Preferences and select the desired device from the list. You may need to configure it by pressing the Config button. You can test your setup by loading the demo tune (under \songs) and pressing the Play Button (F5.) |
| General Buzz concept |
| The idea is you have machines which interconnect and produce music. Machines can either generate or modify sound. Generators, simply enough, generate sound (like 303 style bass, or tracker, which is like a sample based tracker.) Effects modify the sound (like reverb, delay, flange, etc.) To create a new machine click on the View Machines button (F3), right click on the background, and select new machine. Connect machines in your desired order and Master is the output. |
| Connecting machines |
| First thing to remember is generally you will have something that looks like generator->effect->master. You cannot have anything trying to go into a generator. To connect machines, hold down shift and drag a line from the source machine to the destination machine. You can have many generators going into the same effects machine and likewise many machines going into the master. Any machine connected to the master can have it's panning changed by sliding the little block on the machine itself. |
| Programming the machines |
| Now that you have your machines layed out, you have to program them. Go to the Pattern Editor (F2) and select which machine you wish to create a pattern for in the machine combo box. Then CTRL-ENTER creates new patterns and CTRL-+ creates new tracks in the patterns (just like channels in trackers.) The pattern editor works just like a tracker. If you are unfamilliar with tracking you should check out MAZ Sound. Notice that lots of information about the highlighted field shows up on the status bar at the bottom of the screen, including the description of the current effect in the tracker generator. Most of the parameters in the machines, such as filter cutoff and resonance in the Bass-2 module, can be modified in realtime in the Parameters Dialog. This can be found by pressing the View Machines button (F3), right clicking on the desired machine, and click on Parameters. |
| Programming the Bass-2 machine |
| The bass-2 machine is fairly easy. You can set the filter cuttof and resonance in the first two columns by entering a number between 00 and 80 (remember, they are in hexidecimal.) Cuttof envelope mod and decay are the next two colums and are the same. Waveform is the shape of the soundwave. Sine and sawtooth are straightforward. Pulse is a square wave. Triangle is slightly different from sine and noise is, well, noise. The next column is the note (C-0 thru B-9.) Use the keybaord letter keys to enter notes. Volume is next, again in hexidecimal (actually, all fields are hex except for note fields.) Vol is 0-80, and 81-FE is 100%-~198% volume amping. The next field, length of note in ticks, is the number of rows the note will play before cutting. The last field is the the note slide-to field. If you had C-4 in the note field, 02 in the length field, and C-5 in the slide field, C-4 would play and slide up to C-5 in two ticks. |
| Programming the Tracker machine |
| The Tracker machine is very much like the Bass-2 machine except that instead of generating a wave, it relies on samples, much like regular trackers. The first field is tick subdivide. This number is the number of times the effect is processed per row. The next field is the note, explained above in the Bass-2 section. The next number is the wave which will play at the selected note. This number corrospondes to the slot with the same number in the Wavetable (F9) section. You can load samples into these slots by selecting a WAV or XI from the list on the right (be sure to setup the wav dirs in the preferences menu) and clicking on the << button. The next column is volume, again explained above in the Bass-2 section. The last two are effect number and effect data. These work just like in a tracker. You can find out which effect number is what effect by entering it and looking below at the status bar. All in all, this generator works pretty much like every tracker. |
| Using the Sequence Editor |
| The Sequence Editor (F4) is where you build the tune. You order
which pattern should play when for each machine. To create a new track for a
machine press CTRL-ENTER. CTRL-B sets the begin of the loop (really
begining of song) and CTRL-E once sets the end of the loop, twice sets the
end of the song. The list on the right shows available options for each field in the
orderlist. Once you have ordered your tune, press the Play Button (F5.)
Pressing . on an order will set it to |