maxWerk - Copyright 2000-2007 Amanda Pehlke
Published by RedMoon Music - www.RedMoon-Music.com
II. maxWerk In Depth
We have seen that maxWerk's eleven Basic Loops and two Drum Loops can play patterns up to four bars long. Add to these the three special-purpose tracks - Melody, automatic Improv, and the Noodle track for accompanying live play, and maxWerk gives you sixteen MIDI channels' worth of creative engines. There is a bonus Idea layer that you can mix in with any track to make Werkmusic.
2.1 Main Settings
After you have customized Global Setup and Noodle settings upon getting started with maxWerk, you'll find the thru MIDI destination automatically switching as you move between tracks. An indicator in the upper left section of the Main Screen shows the current target instrument and MIDI channel. Switching takes place because the auto-thru checkbox is enabled by default. As we have seen in Part I, from the MIDI-thruheading in the menubar you can manually change the MIDI target, and if you disable the auto-thru checkbox, incoming notes and other information remain directed to the track instrument/channel last edited or selected for thru play.
On the Main Screen, the KB map checkbox appears for the benefit of those who aren't accomplished keyboardists. Checked, it enables one of two note mapping modes chosen in the Global Setup window. Both allow very non-traditional keyboarding behavior. When chords & scales is selected, above an adjustable split point the pitches of the currently selected Key and Scale, having been adjusted by any Global Offset(s), lock to the set of white keys starting on C, and the black keys are silent. You can use the white keys above the split point for melodic lead line playing while you trigger Tonic transposing from the remaining white keys. The black keys in the left-hand group trigger (+)Notes as you press them, and remove those (+)Notes when they are released. Starting at C#, the scale step (+)Notes triggered by black keys are 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7.