How to make the switch to Psycle 1.7.4, from, well, any Traditional Tracker.
IntroductionAlright, so you've decided that your beloved Modplug Tracker just doesn't do it for you anymore. Your Impulse Tracker or FastTracker won't run on your new hardware... VDMSound and DosBox give you too much latency for you to use it, and now you're looking at alternatives...
If this sounds all too familiar, this article is designed for you... It is designed to give you the information you need to get started quickly with Psycle. Please note, many of these concepts apply to other modular trackers as well. But, due to Psycle's standardized column layout, it is one of the least frightening programs to learn. Once you pick up Psycle, you will understand the power available to Modualr trackers, and you will also be more comfortable moving to something else, perhaps with a variable pattern layout (ie: BUZZ), should you decide that Psycle is not the tracker for you...
This document will not teach you the subtle nuances of Psycle. If you wish to learn all about tweaking and midi commands, and using synths, then please use the UpWeGo tutorial, and the "Tweakings and Commands.txt" provided at Psycledelics, and with your Psycle install. This document is designed to familiarize yourselves with the interface, to a point where you can input notes and get sound out of Psycle, as well as point out minor, yet important differences in the pattern interface.
Also, keep in mind, that there are several shortcut keys in Psycle, and you can completely customize your keys. This document assumes a standard US 104 key layout, with default keyboard commands, and will rely on menus, and other GUI based controls. If you are a keyboard fanatic, don't worry, there's usually a keyboard command to get where you need...
InstallationFirst, you need Psycle... You can get it at
http://psycle.pastnotecut.org. It's free, and open sourced... It should only take a couple minutes to get up and running with the Windows Installer...
OK, Now that it's installed, load it up. The first time it is run you will be greeted by the setup screen. If you make a mistake, you can always go to "Settings..." in the "Configuration" menu... The most important thing to set up is your input/output. Please select the Input/Output tab. Select the driver you wish to use. The MME driver is currently the "safest" driver to use, but DirectSound and ASIO are both options, providing your sound card supports it. Once you select your driver, Psycle MAY ask you which sound card to use. Make your selection, and then click OK. Click OK again to apply changes, and exit the dialog. Congratulations, you now have Psycle running!
Building Sound Through MachinesNow that Psycle is up and running, you will have a blank screen in front of you, with little box marked "Master"... This is known as "Machine View" and is probably the most daunting looking thing in modular trackers, as it is an entirely new interface to grasp. Don't worry, it's actually pretty easy.
Machine view is a graphical representation of all your plugins. All your plugins are called machines. Some machines only have outputs. These are called generators. Other machines have inputs and outputs. These are called effects. Think of Master, as being your speakers. What you are trying to do, is choose a generator, run it through whatever effects you want, then, ultimately, output it to the speakers by connecting it to master. As you are probably the most comfortable with samples, we will add a "Sampler" Generator, and connect it directly to Master.
First, Double-click your mouse in the open area. This brings up the "New Machine" Dialog. There are two ways of organizing the machines. By type of plugin, or by Class of Machine. Class of Machine will seperate machines into Generators and Effects. Type of Plugin organizes plugins by how they were built. For instance, The sampler is the only plugin that has been compiled directly into Psycle. Likewise, any VST plugins you wish to install into Psycle, will be under VST. If you sort by class of Machine, your VSTplugins, Internal plugins and Native plugins will all be grouped together under Generators, or effects. Sort by Type of plugin, and then choose sampler. Click OK to add the machine. If you wish to Name the machine something more descriptive, or delete the machine altogether, right-click the machine. If you wish to change the default settings of a machine, double-click it.
Now, to connect the machine. Hold down your "Shift" key. Left-Click and drag a line from the machine, to Master. This creates a "Wire". A Wire is a line with a big triangle in the middle. This triangle shows the direction which the sound is travelling. In this case, it is travelling from the sampler to the Master.
If you wish to delete the wire, in order to add an effect, just right-click on the triangle of the wire. At the bottom is a big button, marked "Delete connection". In this way, you can remove connections to add your effects later. For now, we'll just leave the sampler connected to Master.
Next, we need to load samples. The internal sampler uses a pool of samples which you load into the .psy file. To load these samples, Select "Samples" from the dropdown list box, typically found at the top-center of your screen. Other values this can hold, are "MIDI" and "Params". This selection allows you to choose the information you wish to modify in the dropdown list box to the immediate right. Setting this to samples, at this time will allow you to load samples into various slots. Once you are set to samples, choose an empty slot, and click the "load" button on the top-right corner of the screen. Pick your sample, and click Open. You now have your sample loaded. If you want more, just choose another empty slot, then load it. Note the number next to the sample. This is how you will access it in the pattern view.
Psycle Pattern LayoutSo you have hooked up your machines in Machine view... Now it's time to get into more familiar ground: The pattern view. Only, there's been some minor changes in Psycle... Here is how a Psycle track is laid out:
nnn-pp-mm-vvvv
n=Note
p=Parameter
m=Machine
v=value
Note - The note works similar to other trackers, including a note off command, but there also 3 new commands here: twk, tws, and mcm. If you leave the note column blank, then you will issue a Tracker-global command. Twk and tws are the "Tweak" commands, and "tweak smooth" commands respectively... If you want to change a setting on-the-fly, without retriggering a note, you must use one of the tweak commands. Also, if you use a VST that relies on MIDI commands, you can use an mcm to issue a soecific MIDI Command. These are more advanced topics and will not be discussed in this document.
Parameters - these are the parameters of a Machine. In the case of a sampler, these will be the samples. In the case of a synth, or effect, these would be the dials on the synth.
Machine - This is where you choose which Machine to send commands to. You can send commands to Generators or effects. This lets you alter your sounds, effects, etc... in the pattern view, so that you will have a more natural sound. Gone are the days of having 15 guitar samples, each with a different Wah setting. You can now use 2 or 3 samples and pass them through a wah plugin, and tell the Wah plugin to open and close.
Value - The Value is a specific command you send at Note On. With the Sampler, it is used like the effects column of a traditional tracker. Please see the "Tweaking and commands.txt" file that comes with Psycle for more information on the various Sampler commands. When "Tweaks" are issued, this will be a raw number which a machine's parameter will be set to.
FAQ's About PsycleI can load multiple samplers... If they all use the same sample pool, why would I do this?If you want to apply effects to one sample and not another, you will need seperate samplers. For instance, If I want to add reverb to my drums, and not to my vocal samples, I create two samplers. I feed One sampler through a reverb plugin, and the other directly through to Master. I now have a "Clean" channel and a reverb channel, which I can send notes to, at will.
Can I load Instruments (XI, etc...) into Psycle?Unfortunately not at this time... On the bright side, you will need less samples because you can now process your raw signals with effects, in real-time, in order to make smoother transitions. As well, using Synthesizer machines, in a way creates dynamic samples... Piano plugins for instance, can usually set up stereo panning of the keys, and won't sound as tinny or unrealistic as a low-pitched sample played at high sample rates. But if you had a great drum kit XI, then you are out of luck... On the other hand, there are many Soundfont VSTi's out there, and some people have had success using these. If someone were to create their own VST or Psycle plugin generator that loaded XI's, then you could load these externally. Unfortunately I don't know of any.
