Window 12

=  Record to file =

Start Recording
Start recording using the selected audio format

Save As Midi File for Tune
Browse for location to save, and save using exact desired times

Save Play
Save using exact desired times and play

Save show as web page
Save using exact desired times and show the midi clip embedded in a web page

Midi file options...
Various options to configure how the midi recording is done

TYPE
Midi, .Wav and Mp3 supported right away. For other formats, see FAQ | General...

To save mp3s etc, you need to install suitable utilities for FTS to call to do the conversion.

See FAQ | General | How do I record and play back recordings | Adding support for mp3s etc

Use original midi file timings
Use the original times (for midi player) or calculated times (other tasks)...

Select for a glitch free recording even if your computer playback stutters, and with exact note placement and the crispest possible chords. Unselect to record the notes exactly as they are played.

When unselected, uses the actual times since the recording started. When selected, uses the original, or calculated times - the two are normally the same to within milliseconds but the original or calculated time is exact to the ms while the actual elapsed time may vary by a few ms, or sometimes even longer, depending on factors such as the CPU load on your computer.

If there are lots of notes to play then the play back time may lag by a significant amount - e.g. In fast fractal tunes or the like, it may be impossible to play all the notes quickly enough in real time.

If you play notes between the calculated times, the times are interpolated so that they are played back at the right place in the recording.

E.g. if you play a note from the midi or pc keyboard while a midi file is retuned, chord progression, seed, or tune etc is played etc, your note will get recorded at the right place in the recording even when using the desired rather than the actual times.

TO FILE
Name for your recording, what you want it to be saved as

>> History
Click here to show recently visited files of this type...

Alternatively, Ctrl + right click on button, text field or drop list

Keyboard shortcut Ctrl + F10

Add info as text file, same file name...
Make a note on the file - saves it as a text file with extension .txt...

You can use this to keep track of important details about e.g. the instruments you used, amount and type of environmental reverb, or whatever.

You may want to also remember the details of the midi relaying settings you were using - or the fractal tune.

Do this using File | Save AS | Files of type | Midi Relay (*.rly), which one could save with the same name as the recording. Same for the fractal tune - save as type Tune Smithy (*.ts). Then you can easily find them again.

Set to Fractal tune file name
Sets file name for the recording to match tune...

When you use this button, the auto set check box gets switched on as well. In the rare case where you want to use this button just the once and not switch on auto set, you can use Shift + click on the button. That's not normally recommended since if you then open another file then you may easily save it again using the recording name for the previously opened tune.

Auto set will get switched off again automatically when you edit the recording file name away from the preset name.

What this button does depends on the task. For the fractal tune tasks, it sets the recording name to match the name of the fractal tune, but with extension .mid, .mp3 etc.

For the retuning midi player tasks, it sets the file name to the name of the original clip with _retuned added. E.g. from joyful.mid to joyful_retuned.mid

For midi relaying tasks it is automatically set to the most recently opened midi relaying file. Or if a project is open, then sets the recording name to the name of the project.

Set to Fractal tune file name
Set to 0 to loop endlessly. 1 to play once. Or set number of times to loop

Set to Fractal tune file name - SPIN
Adjust the the number of times to play

auto set
Automatically sets recording name to match tune whenever tune changes...

For the retuning midi player, if the file to play and the file to record to are in the same folder, adds "_retuned.mid" to the retuned file

FOLDER
Folder where you want your recording to be saved

>> History
Chose from recently visited folders, used for File | Open...

You can also bring this up with Ctrl + right click on the folder text box or drop list if the window has one of those.

USING THIS LIST

If you want to navigate quickly to a file in any of the folders you have previously visited - then first choose the folder you want to go to here. Then go to File | Open - or use the Open... entry in the recent files list, and you will find that you go to the folder you selected here.

WHAT YOUR SELECTION HERE CHANGES

Files in the recent files history list are normally displayed complete with the folder location. The folder is omitted for the folder you select here (it is also automatically updates to the one most recently visited whenever you open a file).

For windows with a separate Folder text field, your selection here will immediately update that field as well (e.g. for Record to File).

Your selection here won't change the drop list of files shown in the fractal tunes drop lists or the scales lists as those are user editable menus set up with their own navigation system.

It will however change the drop list for the retuning midi player as that's a folder listing.

WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE PREFERRED FOLDER OPTION SWITCHED ON

Note that you can also go to a preferred folder every time for File | Open - configured in the recent file types opts.That option overrides the folder selected here.

So, if you have the preferred folder switched on, the only effect of your selection here is to change the way the files are displayed in the recent files lists.

browse for folder...
Browse for folder to save recording into - or Ctrl + open to change file too

My Docs...
Set the save folder for your recording to your My Documents folder

List all notes in file...
Shows a list of all the notes in the current midi recording.

List all events...
Shows all events including controllers, pitch bends, pitch bend range resets etc...

There will be many events, particularly all the pitch bend range resets at the start of the clip if it has them as those require four events for each channel.

You may need to scroll down a fair way before you find the actual notes recorded.

List hex data events..
Shows the actual data as well - dual format, hex to left, description to right...

This can be useful if you want to know the exact details of what got recorded.

There is no need to be able to read the hex as it all gets expliained in the comments to the right of it. Most will be better off with the list of all events which shows the comments without the hex data. But the actual hex data can be of interest to some.

C-sound Instr. for parts...
Set the instruments to use for CSound save and play in CSound AV

Render Score Now!
Converts the CSound score into an audio file for listening to...

You need to do this before you can listen to it. The score and orchestra files are just a series of instructions which CSound uses to make the audio file you can actually here.

When you press this button you will see the CSound window appear briefly. It will automatically close when it is finished.

If you want to close down CSound manually after the render, e.g. to give yourself the opportunity to read any error messages, then hold down Alt or Caps Lock while you press this button.

Render Score Now!
You can record over it, or continue the recording from the end of previous one.

Audio format
This sets a maximum file size for midi recordings...

You get a message when the maximum size is reached. To set it to unlimited size recordings, place a 0 in this field.

Midi files are usually small,. However, some of the fractal tunes have so many really short notes they can get fairly large at times.

Especially if you are planning to send your midi clip by e-mail you may want to limit the size here. It can also fill your hard disk if you have many enormously large midi fractal tunes. Also (rarely) some midi players may not be able to handle midi files beyond a certain size very well as it is rather unusual to have such large files in this format, especially megabyte sized ones.

They can get that large with some of the faster fractal tunes if they continue for long enough - many run at a rate of 1 Kb per second or so for the fractal midi notes, so a Mb will get recorded in seventeen minutes or so, for those ones.

Log midi to text - uses midi file name, with ".notes_log.txt" added
All notes recorded to midi are also logged to this text file when selected

Start rec. at 1st note
With waveform audio formats, first note is an ignored cue note...

To use this with recordings in .WAV, MPE, or other audio formats, then play any note a moment or two before the recording starts. The cue note isn't recorded, it just starts the recording. This setting is useful when recording your playing from a music keyboard or from a PC keyboard. May also be useful when relaying from a midi sequencer or notation software. May not be needed for fractal tunes.

When this option is used for a recording in Midi format, the first note played is recorded, and the recording starts at the exact moment the note is sounded. That's because no extra preparation is needed to get the midi clip started - well a few bytes need to be got ready to be written to disk, that's all.

For fractal tune recordings in audio formats, again the recording can start straight away. That works because there can be a sufficiently long pause before the tune starts playing to be able to prepare for the recording before the tune begins.

However with improvisations, or when relaying via Midi In from notation software / sequencer, or if you start recording in the middle of a tune, the first note played after you press the button just cues the recording, and isn't recorded. All subsequent notes are recorded.

That's because it takes a moment or two to set things up for recording in audio format. The cue note would get lost anyway, or most of it, as the recording wouldn't start until it is well underway.

Start recording just before fractal tune
Used for recording fractal tunes to waveformat audio...

With this switched off, the recording starts immediately when you press the play button. With it on, the recording starts a little later - immediately before the start of the tune itself. The difference is most noticeable if you have it set to pause before the start of the tune, e..g .for a screen reader

You can leave the "Start at first note" switched on as well. When you do waveform audio type recordings (wav, mp3, au etc) the recording will start at the first note played (as a cue note) or at the start of the fractal tune, whichever comes first.

The cue note method is useful when recording your playing from keyboard or pc keyboard. This option is useful when recording fractal tunes to audio.

End rec. on stop play
Stops recording when you press stop play - or melody ends (if not cycling)

Stop after
You can use this to stop recording so many minutes or seconds after it starts.

Play recording
Play the recording directly in Tune Smithy - or stop playback...

Useful for a quick review of the recording to check it was made correctly. Changes to a stop button when playback is in progress.

For more detailed control, to pause, restart, change volume etc, you will want to play in Windows Media Player, WinAmp, etc.

To show the recording in the program which is set up to play audio clips on your computer, use the Play by Association button.

Play by assoc.
Play using the program set up to handle audio clips on your computer...

Use this after you have finished making the recording to play it to hear the results.

This has the same effect as double clicking on the file in your folders listing - it uses your computer's file association for whatever type of file it is you play - so will start up whatever program has been set up to handle this type of fiile.

Usually it will get played by Windows Media player. It could also be played by WinAmp or the like if they have been installed on your computer or other music programs you installed that have registered themselves as able to handle audio playback (the last one installed has precedence, also usually when a program is installed you are asked what file types you want it to handle).

You can configure the file associations yourself, using Tools | Folder Options | File Types in Explorer - or just right click on one of the files, go to Open With... then Choose Program... and say that you always want to use that program to open the files of this type.

E-mail recording
Send the recording shown in this window as an e-mail attachment...

Uses whatever is your current preset e-mail client on your computer. If you haven't configured this at all, it will probably attempt to send it using Outlook Express.

If you need to send the file using web mail you will need to attach the file to the e-mail yourself manually

Play as web page
Show the recording in a newly made web page...

This is particularly designed for those who use Quicktime with FTS but may also be useful for users of Windows Media player and other players that work well embedded in web pages.

Note that you can set the size of the player for the web page. See the More version of this window.

FTS can also play via Quicktime directly by adding QuickTime devices to the out menu, but with anomalies - the rhythm may not be well reproduced that way. In some tunes with much "pitch polyphony" such as the tone scapes or non octave tunings it may also pause at times to give time for the next note to get retuned (or it may play pitch bend artefacts if you choose not to do gaps).

So the idea here is to experiment with the tune in FTS where you can play it on QuickTime directly to get a first idea of what it will be like. Then when it is finished, record to midi and show it as a web page.

BTW if you show this in XP with SP2 then FTS just shows the player - in other operating systems FTS also shows a link to the midi clip below the player.

You cant get both link and player to work in the same web page in XP with SP2 when the page is on your local machine with the standard security settings.

If you want to try - hold down the shift key while you make the page and it will add the link to the midi file to the web page, but remove the "mark of the web" so that you can follow the link. You get a message about blocked content at the standard security settings.

If you want to try what happens if you keep the mark of the web in, hold down Ctrl as you make the page. You will probably find that nothing happens when you click on the link. Nor will it let you open it - but you can right click and save it to elsewhere on your hard disk and so get to it that way.

This is why I can't get active content combined with direct links to non web page type files such as tune smithy files or midi clips to work together in the help with Internet Explorer with SP2.

Set Web Page Player size
Set the player size for the option to play the recording in a web page

Set Web Page Player size
width for the embedded web page player

by
height for the embedded web page player

Less <<
Shows this window with either more space, more options, or alternative layout

C-Sound Opts...
Includes CSound volume, reverb, audio format, etc. and save for fractal tune or metronome

Record Control...
Select whether to record from microphone, or midi, or "what you hear" etc...

What you see hear depends on your system and soundcard. Usually there is a fader for the microphone and one for your midi synth, or maybe "What you hear" or "Stereo mix" etc. It controls the standard levels of recording for the whole of your system and windows.

Save Midi File
Makes midi file using the exact desired times...

This uses the exact times intended for all the notes rather than the times they were played.

For chord progression player, makes a midi clip for the chord progression.

For wave count task makes midi clip for seed, or for theremin playback.

For retuning midi player, retunes the original midi file to a new file using exactly the same timings, same number of midi ticks per second and tempi - and copies across all the original meta events such as desciptions, lyrics etc.

Play
Play midi clip, chord progression, fractal tune or metronome..

What this plays depends on the task selected from the Tasks menu.

SHORTCUT FOR FRACTAL TUNES OR METRONOME

You can use Shift + click to fast forward...

Also Ctrl to fast forward even more. Shift multiplies the tempo by 10 and Ctrl multiplies it by 100, so the two together would play a fractal tune at for instance, 60,000 instead of 60 as the tempo. This is useful sometimes for fast forwarding through fractal tunes.

Help = F1
Click for help for this window. Or F1. Other opts: Shift, Alt, Ctrl + click...

F1 or click shows the help for the current window in your web browser.

Some windows may have no help yet in which case the help icon is shown crossed out with a red line.

Shift + F1 or Shift + Click brings up the tool tips extra help window (this window) to show any extra help for a tool tip.

You can tell if a tool tip has extra help if it ends ... like this one.

Ctrl + F1 or Ctrl + click takes you to the list of keyboard shortcuts for Tune Smithy.

Alt + F1 or Alt + click (alternatively Caps lock physically held down + F1 or Click) takes you to the on-line page at the robertinventor.com web site about the current main window task - which gives a short introduction to it for newbies to the program. If there is no on-line page specific to a task, takes you to the main tune smithy page on the web site.

Since the help for Tune Smithy is currently a bit out of date and needs to be redone completely for the new 3.0 release, then you may find the on-line page for some of the newer tasks particularly useful.

Organise Windows = F2
Or F2 - Reset / save / open for individual windows, right click for cat. list...

Shows the Organise windows window - which you can use to reset all the parameters for the current window - or save them all, or open previously saved parameters for just this window. Also has a drop list of all the windows and their shortcuts.

You can also right click on this icon as a quick way to get the floating drop menu of all the Tune Smithy windows organised by category