Keytar Synth by Abranimations

Abranimations Keytar Synth Instructions

In this pack you will find the following items...

Abranimations Keytar v1.1 - This is the main keytar you attach to your avatar
Abranimations - Keytar Synth HUD - This is a control HUD that appears on your screen.

THE CONTROL HUD
This displays a 3 octave keyboard. Pressing a key will cause the Keytar to play the note. The HUD also has several buttons on the top to control various functions. These buttons are as follows :-

1. Sound Bank Button - Hit this button to display all the sound banks available in your Keytar. It is preloaded with 6 synthesized sounds. If you are an electronic musician it is possible to add your own. See further down this note.

2. PreCache - You will find that the after loading a Sound Bank the keyboard can appear 'sticky' with a delay before notes play for the first time. This delay is because the sounds have to be downloaded to your computer from SL before they play. The precache button will cause all the sounds in the current sound bank to download for yourself and other avatars around. This can take a few moments but is essential before any performance if you want to ensure everyone can here your notes play on time.

3. Playback Mode - There are two playback modes. Clicking this button switches between them. Single note play causes the notes to play only when you hold your mouse button down on them. Continuous play mode will cause a note to continue to play until another note is played or the stop button is hit.

4. Load Song - This will load a song preloaded into the control HUD. A few very simple demos are included. (they are not great, but should help you to see how a song is constructed)

5. Play/Stop Song - This will start or stop a currently loaded song

6. Composition Helper - This will display in chat the name of the note you hit, this is to help you construct your own composition.

CREATING YOUR OWN CUSTOM SOUND BANKS ( FOR ADVANCED USERS ONLY )
Whilst song note cards are stored in the HUD, the actual Keytar sounds are all stored in the Keytar itself. Advanced users and electronic musicians that have a series of their own samples can create there own instrument sound banks by adding a properly configured notecard to the keytar. When the sound bank button on the HUD is hit followed by the custom button all available note cards will be displayed. Please note only 12 note cards can be added. To configure a notecard add the uuid of the sound in the correct slot for the respective key.

COMPOSE A SONG ( FOR ADVANCED USERS ONLY )
To help compose your own music click the composition helper button on the HUD. This will caused the note you press to say its name in chat. You will need to know their names when creating a song notecard. All songs are stored in note cards inside the control HUD.

This is an example of the jingle bells song included with an explanation.

SongName=Jingle Bells
- This is the title of the song, it displays in chat when it loads

Tempo=200
- This is the tempo in bpm. You can also put Time= to set a timer interval in seconds. for example time=0.5 to trigger a new note every 0.5 seconds.

*Score*
- This is the header to say the musical score follows.

fff
- Sets the volume (dynamics) to very loud. Available options from quiet to loud are as follows ppp,pp,p,mp,mf,f,ff,fff

e2,e2,e2,*,e2,e2,e2,*,e2,g2,c2,d2,e2,*,f2,f2,f2,f2,f2,e2,e2,e2,e2,d2,d2,e2,d2,*,*,g2
- This is the songs score. Each note/event is separated by a comma.
- An * represents a single beat pause.
- You can use the commands tempo= or time= to change the tempo at any stage
- As well as the single beat pause you can also create a timed pause with the command pause=
(eg pause=0.5 will create a half second pause)
- At any point in the song you can change the dynamics with the options ppp,pp,p,mp,mf,f,ff,ff
- You can spread the song over multiple lines for readability.

Copyright 2015 Abranimations (R)
by Abramelin Wolfe & Wildcat Snowpaw