to read more about this project - klick here http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=259439 This is a PreAlpha version with only one(three) tool(s) for testing it online and show you what the project can be for us in the future. Up to 48 MIDI polyphony, copy & past melody-blocks and drum-loop-blocks like in FL-Studio 8 or Reason 4, also supports patterns (for some ideas of contests and sharing music, please read till the end) xaby's composer includes useful tools to generate soundeffects, manipulate your melodies and compose your own great songs bring you the Mighty-Tools: - Mario Paint Composer (a clone for Sctrach) - PianoRollUp-Editor - Loop-generator, Drum-Box, Beat-Creator - Noise-Maker - Lyrics editor (song texts, KARAOKE) - Song-Exporter (QR-Code, MarioPaint) ... - Block-Converter, Block-Compressor - Block-Adjuster, Song-Adjuster ... - Esoteric melody generators (like you have seen in other Scratch projects) ... - graphic equalizer - dance animator ... I hope, we will have a tool creater contest and can integrate the best ones in a later version of xaby's composer or you use some techniques for your own block-based tools greatest features: play and store best music over minutes (up to hours in best MIDI quality with an average of 280 kBytes per 2,5 minutes when using e.g. 4 notes at the same time and 4 drums at the same time) in your own projects (by way of comparison a bad compressed wave-file is only 32 seconds long at this file size and sounds worse) you can import also in the browser a complete song from Mario Paint Composer 2 or some other filetypes with new Scratch 1.4 Question-Block, (maybe you will use my engines and program techniques to write a fully Scratch based MIDI-file loader like I did for Mario Paint Composer 2 files) export and import as images for your own music programs or games, export as QR-Code for mobile phones, to share your songs and save them as text-files saving songs can have all MIDI-features like all 128 instruments, 10 octaves for your notes, velocity for every note, each note another instrument if you want it. up to 48 notes at the same time. MORE than 47 different MIDI drums (easy integration in your own projects, also more notes at the same time possible, only limitation is the performance of the hardware) supports also special wave-sound effects during playing MIDI store copyright information in your own blocks and share them online, you can also save lyrics for KARAOKE, or give your blocks names to find them with integrated search-engine xaby's composer integrates some lerning lessons for guitar grips and piano play, also a note sheet generater and note sheet editor it comes with interesting techniques like: - tool based working platform with - dobble clicking - mouse follower - copy and paste with - drag'n'drop I call it my DragOn-Master ;-) - multiple windows - text interpretation (Scratch 1.4) - color coding - compression technique - multilingual support - help system (balloon tips and other ones) ... maybe sometimes my Scratch code is a little bit confusing or not done the easiest way, please be insightful it is my third program with Scratch and I am no Scratch-Guro. I used only Scratch for programming and it was sometimes very hard with large statements, for picture manipulation I used mostly photo impact 10 or the Scratch Paint, !!! concept and design and all the layout is done by me, idea of the Dragon-Master, block easy decoding algorithm, the block technique ... all done by me without help or looking into other programs (only for the integration and adaption of some esoteric melody composers. I done it because some programs were very cool, but unfortunality there was no way to store the music for long time or to generate longer songs or edit them. Also I mist a format I can use in many of my (I hope so) following programs. Like jump'n'run or what ever. Using the composed music as background music or for sound-effects during the game. with (my) ;-) music-block-standard it would be possible to share music between programs without spending so much time of reprogramming to integrate good songs. It would be also possible to upload music in a blog or post it in forums as picture. create a screen capture or grab sprite from screen. load sprite in other programs and it is done. Easy ;-) integration. (unfortunately it's not possible to save the background as *.gif, for this you have to change the color coding of the music-blocks, (it's deprecated, because you will make it incompatible to all other programs using this coding standard, but with the integrated OneDot-Converter it will easy to change the colors back, but it will cost much time) I love the pastel colors and if you change it, it would be maybe to scratchy. I hope it will work fine in browsers. I used colors from Scratch-Color-Palette to minimize errors with picture compression. I think it is a good compromise between functionality, compatibility and beauty. I love the PNG-Picture-format. Maybe a later version of Scratch can store pictures with its compression without loosing color information.) inspired by (some Scrtach music programs you will find in my galery) inspired by music-aplications: SoundClub (by bluemoon software) (I used some instrument symbols from it) DOS-Version can import MIDI-Files, Win-Version can export as Wave-File Mario Paint Composer (I have done a complete clone for Scratch to give you an easy access into composing) (Mario Paint by nintendo 1992, unFun Games 2007-2008, Scratch-MPC by xaby 2009) you will find many videos at you tube where you can see compsings done with Mario Paint Composer others: Melody Assistent, Anvil Studio, Dance Ejay, Reason 4, FL Studio 8, MagixMusicMaker, Hammerhead (beats) About me and the idea for this program: I was looking for a easy programming language and found Scratch. I tested it a little bit. I read some things in the forum, store MP3 or WAVE-files makes Scratch programs (very) big, too big for the internet. MIDI-files can't be loaded by Scratch itself and MIDI integration with lists is not so easy and compatible, beacause everyone programs it a little bit in another way. Thought about a standard. And a way Scratch gives us in the official version. That's loading pictures, import, drawing etc. also export is possible. there was no official way to import text or lists. So it was not far to seek store music in pictures. But I wanted not only do a program for a melody which is playing fro a few seconds. And I wanted to exhaust the given Scratch MIDI possibilitis. And I wanted to spend some more time with Scratch after nearly one year without programming or release. Came in mind in november 2008, but I did not get around to do some programming on my vison ;-) beginning of programming this project was june 2009, beacaue a new Scratch version was released and I had much more ideas I would integrated in my comming program. (import text-files with question-block e.g.) you want a MIDI-Loader, MIDI-Converter for smaller sound-files, AND HERE IT IS ;-) I hope, you enjoy xaby's composer a little bit Maybe also the MIT will love it and invites me to Boston :-) It would be great. TERMS OF CONDITION: BE CAREFUL with personal data in lyric blocks feel free to use program pieces, but please do not upload xaby's composer with only little changes and say it was done by you. if you want to present your songs, you can do this, also without changing my program, but please mark your project as MUSIC ONLY (choose MUSIC ONLY tool in xaby's composer before you will share it online, so it's possible for other users to see if it is a new version of xaby's composer, a new tool with technique of xaby's composer or only a song, which was created WITH xaby's composer BY YOU) if you post a song, take care about the copyright (c) and (p) of a song. Is it an adaption, conversion of an existing song from its author or was it done by you and it is your own composing? You can also post some Mario Paint Composer 2 text files as comment. (open *.txt with editor or notepad, mark all, copy it to clipboard, paste it with control + v into the question-answer-space and press return or click the check mark write down TITLE of the song and the AUTHOR (if it's not you) and also your NICK now we have our own scratch tunes ;-) (like iTunes, but for Scratch) and many possibilities for many great contests of music programs ("xaby's composer plugIns", tools, your own programs using some techniques of xaby's composer) or composed songs or games using the xaby's composer music block standard and or xaby's composer playing technique IF YOU CHANGE the color code for your music-blocks it will be incompatible and it will be hard to share it or use it in other aplications. Don't compress music-blocks with JPEG-compression!!! Be CAREFUL with the CLEAR block in Scratch while composing your song. (if you have not export a sprite with your composed blocks or saved the scratch project before - ALL data will be lost) take a screenshot of scratch and save the clipboardimage to a file (I advise real color PNG) to backup your songs.
