Main Screen | Roland Musical Instrument manual

maxWerk - Copyright 2000-2007 Amanda Pehlke

Published by RedMoon Music - www.RedMoon-Music.com

progress command restores your sound generating setup to match the current state, saved or unsaved, of maxWerk's MIDI message- based settings and patches, according to the Global Setup. Revert to last save lets you go back to your last-stored set of information.

The Commands menu simply lets you bring up an important reference list in the Key Commands window. Typing [shift-k] does the same. The Key Commands Reference at the end of this Guide describes each in detail. Since keystroke shortcuts greatly speed using maxWerk, it's a good idea to refer to this list until reminders are no longer necessary.

The Extras menu offers Quick Mutes, a handy window for controlling play of multiple tracks manually when Automute is not engaged. It also has handy editor window buttons and a key command. From this menu you can also open the Idea window for quick midifile recording from your controller keyboard, which has access buttons in the Note and Drum Editors. The last menu item brings up a complete Werk text Leadsheet. Read more about the Idea track in Part II, and about the Leadsheet in the closing section "Werk Files".

1.3 The Main Screen

Music is comprised of time segments or measures, and we'll call them bars for brevity of labeling. maxWerk can store data for up to 128 bars. An important first decision in composition is how many eighth-note beats or counts you want in a bar, and maxWerk's Meter can be set at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 12 beats. You can make your desired choice in the meter menu in the upper left section of the Main Screen, which defaults to 8 eighth-counts. Meter governs the eighth-note click of the metronome, which is provided purely for guidance as you enter data while listening to your tracks, and which you can switch in and out with a key command. Meter also determines the automatically computed step resolution of two special-purpose tracks. One of these is the Melody line, and the other is Improv, where maxWerk "expresses itself" given constraints that you can impose. We won't cover everything now about how