Re: Picture Instruments Preset Converter Pro 1.0.8 (x64)
Irmgard Verzi
To jump ahead in this manual, use Command F in your browser, type the keyword(s), and click enter to search. Or click on these common topics links: Project Folder, Sample Editor, Effects Room, Image Synth Room, Image Filter Room, Spectrum Synth Room, Image Sequencer Room, MetaSynth Instruments (Synths and Samplers), Montage Room (aka MetaTrack), or Xx (MIDI) Sequencer.
The Sample Editor is an audio editing utility that provides one location to record, edit, and render audio. It is available at all times. The current sample can be edited, used as an input for rooms like the Effects Room, Image Filter or Spectrum Synth, as the Output render location of most rooms, and a sample editor in the Montage Room.
Additionally, there is the optional Xx which can play MetaSynth Instruments via MIDI, import/export MetaSynth Sequence files, and export IS Presets and Montage Room files, or Generate compositions then create a MetaSynth Project out of it!
By convention, the project folder name should match the main IS preset file as well as the montage file. For example, if MySong is the name of the project folder, the MySong.presets file will hold Image Synth elements, and MySong.mont will store the final montage. If there are multiple .mont and .presets files, the one matching the folder name will be used. Therefore, if you rename the project folder, be sure to rename the files and folders within for best results. Alternative montage files (i.e. for different versions of a song) can be used and opened manually, but the only name-matched montage will be opened automatically when loading a project.
Additional .presets bundles can be placed in the project for experimentation or storage or to provide other sounds. However, they cannot be used directly as images in the montage as the montage room only loads the name-matched preset bank. To use them as rendered sound files, render the alternate IS preset into the Sounds folder and use them as you would with Sounds coming from anywhere.
Numerical fields in MetaSynth have a few special properties. You can click on a numerical field and enter a new value by typing. To complete the text entry, you must press the Return or Enter key.
You can also drag vertically to increase or decrease the value. Option-drag will multiply the resolution of increments by an order of magnitude. For even higher precision you can use Option+Shift. This increase in resolution also works with sliders and numeric sliders.
There is a tooltips display region at the bottom center of the MetaSynth window (and also the Instruments Editor) that displays the helpful information when the cursor is placed over an area or control. This can include the names of buttons and other controls, keyboard shortcuts, numeric values, etc.
When the Preferences > Overflow Handler is set to Continuous Ceil, dynamic range compression is ON. Therefore, red in the level meters indicates that compression is being applied to avoid clipping. In most cases, the built-in compression should be transparent, but if it proves undesirable, open the Preferences dialog and set the Overflow Handler to MIN Ciel.
In MetaSynth CTX, holding the Control key + Clicking in a work area usually brings up a MetaSynth pop-up menu. For example: In most rooms, the Control key alone will display the Edit Menu. The following details show how the Control key can be used in various contexts.
When creating a project, ensure that the sample rate in the Preferences dialog matches that of your audio interface and of any other audio applications that may be running in the background. This can avoid many undesirable or unexpected behaviors.
As noted above, changing the sample rate of a project can cause problems if sound files already imported into Instruments or the Montage are not also resampled to match. So for best results, make sure the sample rate is set correctly at the beginning of a project.
Backing up a project mainly involves backing up its project folder in its entirety. However, Instruments stored in the MetaSynth application folder can be used in any project, so be sure to back up the application folder as well, particularly if you have used any custom-installed items in your Montage or Instruments.
Apple events are supported for native sounds and common image formats, as well as specific MetaSynth formats like sequence file .mseq or spectrum synth file .spct. Thus you can drag a sound file, a png file or a MetaSynth sequence file onto the MetaSynth Application icon in the Dock to open the element into the corresponding room.
Double click on a file in finder is also managed by Apple Events but MetaSynth is not necessarily the first target of common types like png, thus a direct drag to the icon is a more reliable method for common types.
When performing most edits in the Sample Editor, MetaSynth auto-crossfades on either side of the edit point to ensure that there are no pops or clicks when playing back the edit points. The default setting is 20ms, which is usually sufficient. To disable this, set the Auto-Crossfade time to 0 samples.
Tech note: loop points are saved using kAudioFilePropertyMarkerList meta tags. It is unclear if this is uniquely Mac OS or can apply to PC wave file as well. The old Sound designer loop points were stored in the Resource fork which is no longer available on recent MAC OS. It may be needed to use older MetaSynth versions instruments saving to convert these old sd2f files to AIFF to successfully recover the loop points.
Propose to save only the selected area shown in blue. This is handy to split a sample into various parts. The standard Mac OS save file dialog will be invoked to name and choose the location (by default the source sample location )
Clicking this with a stereo sample loaded discards the right channel, destructively, making the sample mono. If you need to get only the right channel swap the L/R using Edit menu/Swap left and Right (i) command before converting to mono. This is not undoable!
Remove very high frequencies from the selected region of the current sample. Smooth differs from the Remove Highs command in that it removes only the very high frequency content of the sound (over about 18 kHz). Smooth is useful for attenuating discontinuities and for preprocessing a sound before pitch shifting it upwards.
Click here to insert a duplicate copy of the sample or selection. Repeat performs a ripple edit which inserts the data at the beginning of the selection (if there is one) or at the end of the sample if there is no selection.
Record Sound to File. In a new session, it first opens a Setup window to choose the input for recording the sound (from options in your system Audio Setup), and to route audio channels from the input into MetaSynth left (mon0) and right channels. It next opens a dialog to name the file, tag with a color, and choose a folder (default is Presets).
Turns the selection grid on and off. The Selection Grid makes it easy to make musically meaningful selections. When the grid is on, the selection is restricted to the grid, as determined by the Grid Size and Beats Per Measure settings. When the grid is on, beat lines are displayed in the waveform display area. Measure boundaries are indicated by full-height gray lines; beat boundaries are indicated by gray tick marks.
Subdividing the selection grid makes it easier to select musically useful durations of audio data. A beat (quarter note) consists of 240 ticks. Grid Sizes Presets (in Ticks) allows Provides a generally useful selection of preset grid sizes. For example, using the 320-tick grid size preset will constrain selections to multiples of 1 beats.
The numeric controls add finer- or coarser-grained control depending on the modifier keys that you hold down while dragging. The Option key makes dragging a finer-grained adjustment, and adding the Shift key makes it finer still. In MetaSynth CTX the graphic display of the selection will update while changing values.
Slides the adjacent samples of the Sample Editor sound into the selection by clicking on this tool and dragging left or right. This tool is handy for correcting slight rhythmic errors or moving syllables and words in voice tracks.
Set Sample View Tempo sets the tempo used by the selection grid. This value is automatically set when you render a sound from the Image Synth, Sequencer or Spectrum Synth. The tempo will only affect how the tempo and selection grid is displayed, not the playback (speed) of the sample.
By default, MetaSynth crossfades around the selected area when performing most editing operations in order to avoid the clicks that can occur when editing audio. Set the value to 0 if you prefer no crossfading be done.
When the cursor is in the waveform display, the time corresponding to the cursor position is displayed to the right of the Time range Display. To use the Sample Editor cursor hold down the Command key while clicking on the waveform, the cursor will leave a blue, vertical line. If you want to select a part of the waveform, you hold down the Command key while dragging the mouse. You can not use the Command or Shift key to increase or decrease the selected area.
Click on this button to record audio into the Sample Editor. The first time you record in a session, MetaSynth will display the Record Input Setup dialog. To terminate recording, press the spacebar. To record in mono, deselect the Record in Stereo if Applicable checkbox.
When the Preferences > Overflow Handler is set to Continuous Ceil, dynamic range compression is ON. Therefore, red in the level meters indicates that compression is being applied to avoid clipping. In most cases, the built-in compression should be transparent, but if it proves undesirable, open the Preferences dialog and set the Overflow Handler to MIN Ciel.Effects Room
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