Roland Musical Instrument instruction

maxWerk - Copyright 2000-2007 Amanda Pehlke

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

these work, but using them comes easily once you get a feel for making looping tracks.

While maxWerk supports only one Meter choice per Werk, but tracks based on step numbers that are multiples of 6 and 8 counts are compatible in the same Werk, and may be included in either Meter. In other words, besides steps in multiples of 8, you can choose step numbers of 12, 24, and 48 in an 8-count Werk. Similarly, besides 12, 24, and 48, the number of steps can be 8, 16, or 32 in a 6-count Werk. To create a piece that has changes in Meter, you can save a Werk to become a midifile source, change Meter, edit as necessary, and save it again under a new name, so that at a later time you can paste together music segments from midifiles of each. You should take into account that decreasing the number of counts may shorten some loops and Melody lines such that notes may be lost, and increasing the count will of course add empty steps.

Tempo in BPM (beats per minute) is set from a Main Screen tempo slider. You can adjust it by using key commands as long as you are not in Performance mode, which refers to a Tempo Map. Next to the Tempo slider is the tempo map button, which is described fully in the "Main Settings" section of Part II. Briefly, the Tempo Map takes effect when you engage Performance mode and allows a tempo change at each bar. When you open Werk file, the Tempo setting saved for bar 1 appears as the default.

The round play status indicator below the Tempo indicator is also a start/stop button, though it's easiest to use the spacebar to toggle play. Play always starts at the beginning of the next bar after the one that was in play when it was stopped. By means of a key command you can switch playback from full tempo to half-timedwhile editing. This lets you think about exact note positions if, for example, you are working with a higher resolution pattern that has a swing feel.

Below the play-status section of the information panel there is a bank of function switch-buttonsthat have key command equivalents. These always reflect the status of their respective