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The Settings Panel
Drum SelectionOne of the greatest strengths of MuSing is the fine tuned control you can have over which drum samples are used. MuSing scans for all files with recognized audio file extensions (AU, AIFF, WAVE) and displays those files, along with their directory structure in the Drum Selection panel. It is from this panel that you can select exactly which drums are used in your beats. This allows for you to make significant changes in the sound of the created rhythms with a few clicks of the mouse.Musicians enjoy variety and therefore it is not unreasonable for you to have hundreds or even thousands of drum samples to manage in your drums folder. With so many samples, selecting which you want to use may prove frustrating and time consuming. To help speed up this process, selection has been designed to be simple and intuitive. If a folder is selected every folder and every sample inside of that folder is selected; similarly for when a folder is unselected. To select or unselect multiple folders or samples, hold down the multiple selection key on the keyboard (on Macs this is the "Command" or apple key) and click on the folder or sample. What if you want to change the drums selected during the evolution process? Let's say that when you created the beats you had only synthesized sounding drums selected, but then you unselected the synthesized drums and selected only natural sounding drums. This is what will happen: The very first generation of beats created will have entirely synthesized drums. After selecting a beat for evolving and pressing the "Evolve" button, you will be given a new batch of beats. These beats will, in general, use the drums that their parent used. However, if one of the children's instruments was mutated, then it will be changed to one of the selected natural sounding drums. This technique can produce very interesting effects. What ends up happening is that your rhythms seem to morph from one sound style to another! The speed of the morphing is governed by the "Mu" slider. What if you want to move folders around inside of the drums folder? Unfortunately, at this time that may produce undesirable effects. When you save a beat it stores the location of the instruments it utilizes. If the location of the samples changes then some or all of the channels may not play back. Geneffects is hard at work remedying this problem. In the meantime it is advised that you find a folder structure you like and stick with it to avoid these problems. TempoWhen "BPM" is selected the number in the text input box represents the Beats Per Minute at which the created rhythms will play. By default BPM is selected and set to 120.When "Samples" is selected the number in the text input box represents the number of samples long that the produced beat will be. This number will, in general, be much larger than if BPM were selected. For example, to produce beats that are one second long put 44100 in the text input field. The number 44100 dictates one second because that is the number of samples in one second of CD quality sound. When a loop is loaded the tempo is automatically set to conform exactly to the number of samples contained in the loop. This allows for you to load loops and not be troubled by matching the tempo of your evolved beats to that loop - it is done automatically. Time SignatureOften songs have varying time signatures. Most contemporary Western (as in Western Hemisphere) music is set in 4/4 timing. That means when you count to a song you find yourself repeating every four beats - "one, two, three, four, one, two three, four,É". With a waltz the time signature is 3/4, meaning that when you count to a waltz you find yourself repeating every three beats - "one, two, three, one, two, three". Blues typically has a six count before it repeats. Set the time signature to whatever you like. When training a beat on a loaded loop it is often good to choose the same time signature as the loop, but on the other hand choosing a differing time signature can produce interesting effects.Mutation ItemsPatterns - These are the actual rhythmic patterns of the beats. Selecting this to be mutated allows for the rhythmic patterns to be changed.Instruments - These are the sounds of the drums. Selecting this to be mutated allows the drum samples assigned to different channels to be changed. Mutes - Mutes determine if a channel plays or not. Allowing mutes to be evolved changes the thickness of a beat. If mutes are activated it makes a more minimalistic sound, and a more dense sound if they are deactivated. Pans - Pans control the direction from which a listener perceives a drum track to be coming. An instrument may sound as if it is entirely in the left ear, right ear, or somewhere in between. Levels - Levels control the volume of each instrument. Selecting this to be mutated means that some children beats may sound as if certain instruments are louder or softer than those of their parents. Velocities - It is useful to think of velocities as being how hard a drum is hit. In a rhythm performed by a living drummer, a drum is never hit with the same strength twice. This creates interesting nuances and can be used to evoke very powerful effects. A trick is to set Patterns and Velocities to be the only Mutation Item selected after a nice sounding beat has been evolved. This can create drum fills or different drum parts for a song with a good degree of continuity. The SlidersMu - This governs the mutation rate. Setting this slider to the bottom means that all children beats will sound just like their parent, there will be no change. Setting this slider at the top means that all children beats will sound strikingly different from the parent. Since the principle is that we want our children beats to contain basic properties of the parent but to also contain unique characteristics, the mutation rate is set by default to 25%.Dens - This governs the density of a beat. The density is the probability that a drum will be hit at any given time. When this slider is set at the bottom you are given very sparse beats; when set near the top the resulting beats are very dense but often not very interesting. A good medium between low and high density is required as pleasing rhythms are governed just as much by what is not played as by what is. The default is set to 50%. An interesting effect can be achieved with this slider: Evolve a beat that you like then set "Patterns" to be the only mutation item selected under Mutation Items box. Set the Density slider to the bottom and begin evolving the beat. What happens is that increasingly sparse beats are produced with every generation. If these beats are saved and played in sequence it sounds as if the drummer is fading out, but not in the typical volume sense. Loop - This controls the volume of a loop if one is loaded. This slider has no effect if no loop is loaded. Playback RepeatsThis setting governs the number of times that a beat is repeated in playback. The default is set to "2" so that you get a sense of what a beat is like repeatedSave FormatThis setting governs to what format all audio files are saved. Set this to whichever format is most convenient for your purposes. |