2. Kangas Sound Editor main screen

thumbnail of Kangas Sound Editor main screen Figure 2.1
Click on thumbnail for full size image.

In figure 2.1, we see the main screen of the Kangas Sound Editor. As you can see, this is divided into a number of different areas:

  1. To the upper left of the screen is a tree-like structure, that has individual nodes that can be clicked on to open and close panels to the right of the screen, each of which contains details for a particular aspect of a particular track. In this case, Edit Panels for tracks 4 and 7 are currently open.
  2. To the upper right of the screen is a ruler with graduation marks. The ruler represents time units. In this case, as the toolbar radio button labelled '1' is selected, the time units are in seconds. Using this ruler, we can see that the four blue boxes (more on these in a bit) in Edit Panel E4 start between 2 seconds and 10 seconds. As the toolbar edit field contains 0, we see the time on the ruler starting from 0. If we'd wanted it to start from 10 seconds, we could simply have typed 10 into the toolbar edit field.
  3. Running vertically down the screen is a toolbar containing an edit field (that currently contains '0') that represents the start time of the ruler, a set of radio buttons which determine the time units of the ruler, and 7 buttons with icons and colour-coded bars. It is possible for this toolbar to be re-positioned by using drag and drop - you may notice a change in its position further on in this tutorial.
  4. To the lower right of the screen is the part of the screen that contains view panels, in this case just 2 Edit Panels (E4 and E7). The Edit Panels contain boxes that are in various colours. These correspond to the colours of the buttons above, i.e. the colour indicates a kind of box. Notice that in E4 there are two large grids, with the area between 2 (seconds) and 12 free of grids. In this case, sound in E4 can only be generated between 2 seconds and 12 seconds from the start of the final composition. For E7, sound can only be generated from 0 seconds up to about 15 seconds after the start of the composition.
  5. To the lower left of the screen is the Properties Panel. In this case, it contains 2 edit fields ('Code' and 'Amplitude'), and 3 buttons immediately above 'Compute', 'Play' and 'Duration'. This Properties Panel shows properties for the box selected in the Edit Panel - which in this case is the small solid purple box in E7. A box is selected by clicking on it with the mouse. Beside the Code field is a search button with an image of Roo and Joey having a Captain Cook at a book. Pressing the search button brings up a dialog (that you'll see later) that allows you to search for a code, so you don't need to remember all the codes.

The 7 toolbar buttons with coloured bars can be individually depressed, and releasing the mouse button over the Edit Panels (e.g. E4) below, in order to create a box with a matching colour. As you can see, the boxes can be nested inside of each other. There are rules for which boxes can go inside another:

  1. Only the blue boxes - Sequence boxes - can go directly onto an Edit Panel.
  2. Boxes of other (i.e. non-blue) colours must go inside a Sequence box, directly or indirectly.
  3. Sequence boxes cannot go inside of other Sequence boxes, i.e. they can only go directly into an Edit Panel.
  4. Only a red (Repetition Group) box, yellow (Sound box), green (Chord Group box) or orange (Recorded Sound box) can be placed directly inside a Sequence box.
  5. A purple (Harmonic) box and turquoise (Anti-harmonic) box can only go directly inside a Sound box, no other box types can go inside a Sound box.
  6. No boxes can go inside a Harmonic box, Anti-harmonic box or Recorded Sound box.
  7. The grey Interval boxes are unusual in that they aren't placed directly by pressing a button (as you can see there is no grey button). These always go inside a Chord Group box. No boxes can go inside an Interval box. The program automatically interposes Interval boxes between other boxes that are placed inside a Chord Group. More on these in a bit.

As a novice user of this program, you don't have to make a special effort to remember all these rules; the program will prevent you from breaking them (the drag 'n drop won't work if you try to break the rules).

The Sequence boxes shown in figure 2.1 illustrate how an example Sequence can be built following these rules. First, a Sequence box is dropped into the Edit Panel (leftmost box in E4). Next, a Repetition Group box is dropped into the Sequence box (second box from left in E4). Next, a Chord Group box is dropped inside the Repetition box (third box from left in E4). Next, a Sound box is dropped inside the Chord Group box (rightmost box in E4). Next, a Harmonic box is dropped inside the Sound box (leftmost box in E7). Alternatively, an Anti-harmonic box is dropped inside the Sound box (second box from left in E7). Copying-and-pasting the Sound box containing a Harmonic box, into the same Chord Group results in the third box from left in E7 (notice how the program has interposed grey Interval boxes between the yellow Sound boxes).

The 7 coloured-bar toolbar buttons are, in order from top to bottom:

  1. The Sequence button (blue bar). This allows a Sequence box to be selected, which is the container for other kinds of boxes, and allows a duration, start pitch and a start volume to be set (i.e. these are Sequence box properties).
  2. The Chord Group button (green bar). For those of you with a music background, this is a concept looser than a chord in conventional music, where a chord represents notes played at the same time. In the Kangas Sound Editor, a Chord Group would only coincide with a conventional chord where the intervals between them (represented by the grey boxes) have zero duration. In other cases, they contain sequences of notes, which might be very close together (e.g. if simulating a guitar chord), or a more significant time interval apart.
  3. The Repetition Group button (red bar). You may have noticed, when listening to various kinds of music, that there is often a significant amount of repetition. Repetition Groups are one means the Kangas Sound Editor has of setting up such a repetition. The most significant property of a Repetition Group is the number of repetitions, and other properties allow you to specify the interval between repetitions, whether there is a pitch or volume change between repetitions, and so on. The other means of repeating something in the Kangas Sound Editor is to copy and paste (possibly using drag and drop) a Sequence box. Repetition Groups are also the way reverberation is done within the Kangas Sound Editor - for this purpose, the time intervals are likely to be small, and graphs may well be used.
  4. The Sound button (yellow bar). This, as you may have guessed, represents a sound. It has a duration that can be specified, and graphs (more on these later) that can be selected to determine how the amplitude and possibly the pitch of the sound varies as the sound is played.
  5. The Harmonic button (purple bar). This allows a harmonic instrument to be selected, representing musical instruments with recognisable pitches, such as the guitar or piano. A harmonic instrument in the Kangas Sound Editor is a pure harmonic, i.e. all frequencies are exact multiples of a fundamental frequency (the lowest frequency). This differs from some real-life (non-percussion) musical instruments, which have an element to them that is not purely harmonic. The Kangas Sound Editor does have the ability to effectively mix pure harmonic instruments with anti-harmonic instruments, to achieve the same effect. This can be done by placing one or more anti-harmonic box(es) alongside a Harmonic box - i.e. in the same Sound box.
  6. The Anti-harmonic button (turquoise bar). This allows an anti-harmonic (aka inharmonic) instrument, i.e. where the frequencies are not necessarily all multiples of a fundamental frequency, to be selected, representing sounds, or musical instruments without distinct pitches, such as drums or cymbals.
  7. The Recorded Sound button (orange bar). This allows existing sounds from uncompressed .WAV audio files (possibly recorded sound, although the program doesn't enforce this) to be incorporated into Kangas Sound Editor compositions.

You might be wondering why all the Sequence boxes have blue grids in them. That is because the Sequence boxes are intended to have visual clues as to not only when they start, but also what is the maximum duration (as set by the Sequence's Duration property). Where there is a grid, it means that the width of the box is greater than its duration. This could be because a duration on the Sequence box has not yet been set (in which case the grid fills the entire Sequence box), or, as in the case of the bottom Sequence box on the screen, the boxes that have been placed inside the Sequence box have caused it to expand so that it is wider than its duration (measured against the time ruler). Looking at the bottom box on the screen with reference to the time ruler, I would say that the duration of the Sequence box is somewhere between 3 and 4 seconds, the width of this box is bigger as it has to accommodate the nested boxes.

Also evident from figure 2.1 is the 'negative gravity' characteristic of the Sequence boxes, i.e. the boxes never overlap, they rest on the bottom of each other The non-overlapped characteristic is important, as without it, some boxes could get hidden behind others, possibly resulting in un-expected sounds in the composition! The gravity aspect is important too, as if boxes were allowed to just float, they could easily get missed if the Edit Panel they are in were narrowed (it is possible to drag the divider between Edit Panels, or another track view was opened, which would reduce the height of the existing views).

At the top of figure 2.1 is a menu-bar. The menus are:

  1. Composition. Menu items relating to opening, saving, renaming, reloading and deleting compositions are here, as are menu items for opening and deleting tracks of the current composition.
  2. Edit. This is used for copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste operations. Note that all boxes can be copied-and-pasted/cut-and-pasted, not just Sequence boxes. From version 3, a range of Sequence boxes can be copied, moved or deleted from this menu item.
  3. XML. This allows data such as Sequence boxes, Tracks and Compositions to be exported to a KangaSound XML file, and subsequently imported. This feature can be used to collaborate with and build upon the work of other users of the Kangas Sound Editor/QI.
  4. Graph. This is where Graphs can be created, edited, renamed, and deleted on the database. Graphs are ubiquitous in the Kangas Sound Editor, for example they can be used to define a Harmonic, or set the amplitude envelope of a sound.
  5. Harmonics. This is where Harmonics - referenced by harmonic instruments - can be created, edited, renamed and deleted on the database.
  6. Anti-harmonic base. An Anti-harmonic Base is used in the construction of Anti-harmonics. An Anti-harmonic base essentially defines the frequency distribution of an Anti-harmonic that uses it. This menu option allows Anti-harmonic bases to be created, edited, renamed and deleted on the database.
  7. Anti-harmonic. An Anti-harmonic builds on top of an Anti-harmonic Base to give (relative) amplitudes to the frequencies setup by the Anti-harmonic Base. This menu option allows Anti-harmonic Bases to be created, edited, renamed and deleted on the database.
  8. Variation. A Variation can be used by a Harmonic or Anti-harmonic, to allow the amplitude of selected harmonics or anti-harmonic frequencies to be varied throughout the duration of the sound, or even suppressed altogether.
  9. Configure. This allows various aspects of the Kangas Sound Editor to be configured. This menu item is not present in Mac OS X, where the Preference dialog is used instead.
  10. Track 0. Track 0 (zero) is a special track in the Kangas Sound Editor, that combines all other tracks that have the 'Include in track 0' property checked, in order to produce the sound of the final composition. Track 0 menu choices are to compute this track 0, and to play it.
  11. Help!. This is currently limited to on-line help (such as this tutorial), and a couple of other functions such as the About box.