2.4. Making Some Noise

Now that Aldrin is set up, you are ready to create a very small song, consisting of one plugin, one pattern and one sequence. This is a repeating process for every new song, and every new instrument you introduce.

2.4.1. Right Where It Belongs: Routing Plugins

You should now be back where you begun:

Figure 2-5. The router view.

What you are seeing is the Router View of Aldrin. It allows you to chain generators and effects to define a processing order of signals. What does that mean? Let's try an example.

Right-click somewhere in the empty space of the view. You should see the routers context menu. Select Makk M4wII. A new generator plugin will appear at the coordinates where you right-clicked the view:

Figure 2-6. A new plugin.

The Makk M4wII is a quite feature-rich synthesizer, imitating an analogue synth model. Right now, the M4wII is not connected to the master output, and thus you will not be able to hear anything. Connect the synth to the master by clicking the plugin with the middle mouse button, and dragging the appearing arrow to the master plugin. You can also connect machines by holding Shift and using the left mouse button.

Figure 2-7. A router connection.

2.4.2. The Core of Composition: Editing Patterns

Now that the synth is created, hit the F2 key to show the Pattern View.When you create a generator, Aldrin automatically adds a first empty pattern for you to work on, so you should now see the empty pattern:

Figure 2-8. The pattern view.

In this pattern, time flows vertically, while actual changes in parameters are arranged horizontally. When a parameter does not change, it's associated column only shows one or more dots. You can click on fields or use the arrows on your keyboard to navigate in the pattern. For each column, the status bar will display the row index, the column index, the current value, it's readable representation, if any, and a long description of the parameter.

It is possible that you can not see the entire pattern width, so you need to move to the first track. Hit Tab to jump to the first track, then use the keyboard to enter a few notes into the first column named Note:

Figure 2-9. A pattern track with a few notes entered.

As you enter each note, M4wII will be triggered to play that note, allowing you to preview what you are writing. The cursor travels down by one row. You can change the pattern length and name either by selecting Pattern Properties... from the pattern views context menu, or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Backspace.

Figure 2-10. Pattern properties.

Name

The name of the pattern. Aldrin usually enumerates patterns with a sequence like 00, 01, 02, and so on, but you are free to choose your own names.

Length

The length of the pattern in rows (= ticks). You can see from the TPB edit field at the top of the main window that the song is currently set up to 4 "ticks per beats", which is the number of rows that is being played per beat. One bar consists of four beats, so that's 4x4 rows = 16 rows - precisely the number of rows that your pattern has right now. The dropdown box provides you with a set of defaults for different speed and bar settings.

2.4.3. Putting It All Together: Sequences

Once your pattern contains some notes, you will want to put your pattern into your songs sequence. In order to do that, hit F4 to enter the Sequence View. You will see a screen that looks like this:

Figure 2-11. Sequencer View.

Since you created a generator, the sequence view already contains a track for the M4wII, but it is currently empty. By moving left and right with the arrow keys on your keyboard, you can change the time index. Moving up and down will change the track and plugin you are adding patterns for. On the right side of the window, there is a Pattern List, which lists the available patterns you can put into that track. Each pattern is prefixed by the name of the key that you should press on the keyboard to place that pattern into the sequence. In our example, pressing 0 will put pattern 00 in the current track at the current time index your cursor is at.

Now hit F5 to listen to what your song sounds like. F8 will stop the song. Your first track - although a bit bland and simple - is finished!