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• Documentation TBM4
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Where is it ?

You can access to the Composer mode in 2 ways :
- click on COMPOSER on the top of the screen of the machine, so you begin with a blank grid.
- in MY SONGS, click on a title already recorded, then click EDIT.

The score (the grid)

The score allows to see the entire piece. The rectangles with rounded corners each represent 1 measure of 4 beats. To navigate through the song you must use the scroll bars and eventually the zoom.

To fill a small square, click on it, and to empty it ... well click on it too. You can fill or empty several squares at once, leaving the mouse button pressed. To position the playhead, you have to click over the rectangles in the place of the numbers of measures.

The melody

Vertically, the 10 lines correspond to the 10 possible notes of the melody of the TBM. Horizontally, there are 4 squares per time. Each square corresponds to a sixteenth. To write a quaver, you have to fill 1 square of 2 to write a crotchet, you must fill 1 square of 4
Here are some equivalencies between normal scores and Composer mode of the TBM :

Au Clair de la lune


Badinerie


I mention that you can not choose the duration of notes. The machine adjusts itself according to what is written.

The Bass

It's roughly the same function as the melody but with 7 notes. If you do not know what to write on the bass, try to only put the cons-time, that is to say the 3rd square of each beat, usually it sounds good :

Or else you can inspire you with rhythms already present in the patterns and adaptat them. For example :

Other instruments

Other instruments are not always accurate in the sixteenth, but sometimes in the quaver or the crotchet. The accompaniment (ACC) follows the bass notes. I won't spread myself on that topic ... You'll understand the Drums, the Vocals and the Thunder Break pretty well I think.

Copy and Paste

Here is a technique that will save you much time! To do that, you have to :
1) select the measure to copy
2) go to EDIT then click on COPY (or keyboard shortcut: CTRL + C)
3) select the measure to paste
4) go to EDIT then click on PASTE (or keyboard shortcut: CTRL + V)
5) that's it!

Making it work requires that the measure to copy is in the same instrument than the measure the paste. To save even more time, it is strongly recommended to get used to keyboard shortcuts.

You can also copy and paste a complete measure of the song with all instruments.

The principle is the same except that we must double-click on the measure.

You can also select several measures (up to 4) by clicking while pressing in the CTRL key.

Add / Delete a measure

These are the options INSERT and DELETE in EDIT. It is convenient to know the keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl + I and Delete

For adding measure: when nothing is selected, the measure is added to the end. Otherwise it is added just before the selected measure.

For deleting measure: you must select the full measure (double-click) to completely remove the measure. Otherwise, it is only clear the selected rectangle.

The author

Anthony Bouchereau (Tony-b) created the Tony-b Machine and the site tony-b.org in 2007. He continues to develop the site and three new machines over the years. Today web developer and musician in Umanis in the Quatuor Megamix he still devotes part of his time to develop the site.

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History

Contact

contact [at] tony-b.org

Translations

• Français : Tony-b

• English : Tony-b

• Italiano : Brainpunk

• Türk : Seyhan

• Español : Christine

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