This menu groups complex transformations performed on the selected sounds: transformation to and from patterns, effects and modulation of sounds.
Insert Pattern: Inserts the currently selected pattern after the current selection, or at the beginning of the piece if no sounds are selected. Calling repeatedly this action lets one create rapidly a regular beat or accompanying voice.
Make Pattern: Takes the selected sounds, creates a pattern from those sounds, and replaces those sounds with an instance of this pattern. This is the most convenient way to create patterns.
Ungroup Pattern: Takes the selected patterns and replaces them with instances of their content. This lets you start from a global pattern and perform local changes to this pattern at specific location. You can also edit a pattern this way, by instantiating it, ungrouping it, performing the changes, then selecting its components again and create a new pattern from the former pattern.
Replace with pattern: Replaces all the currently selected sounds with an instance of the currently selected pattern. This action is particularly useful as you progress in the elaboration of a piece, or when you want to edit a pattern:
In the first case, you can start a piece by laying out a simple melody or chord progression using a simple sound (Such a melody or progression can be extracted from a MIDI file or played from a MIDI keyboard). Then, you lay out more complex harmonic parts around this simple voice. When you have obtained some kind of balanced result, you may want to start elaborating on the timbre of this "lead" voice. To do so, you can create a more elaborated pattern, then select your "melodic" voice as a whole, and use "Replace with Pattern".
Modulate Frequency: This action turns the last selected sound (highlighted with a dashed blue contour) into a frequency modulator (vibrato) of all the other selected sounds (highlighted with a black contour).
The last selected sound is not heard anymore, but it will be used to modulate the frequency of the other sounds, according to the frequency and shape determined by its frequency curve and waveform. The modulation index is set as the ratio of the level of the carrier and modulator signals, adjusted by the modulator's envelope.
Graphically, the modulation is represented by a dashed link between the modulated and modulator sounds, and the signals will be drawn with a dashed pattern: color\black for the modulated signal, and color\white for the modulator. This is to indicate better that the modulator signal is actually not heard anymore.
Note that modulations can be cascaded at will: a modulator can itself be modulated, and a sound can be modulated by several modulators.
Modulate Amplitude:This action turns the last selected sound (highlighted with a dashed blue contour) into an amplitude modulator (tremolo) of all the other selected sounds (highlighted with a black contour).
The last selected sound is not heard anymore, but it will be used to modulate the amplitude of the other sounds, according to the frequency and shape determined by its frequency curve and waveform. The amplitude of the modulation is set as the ratio of the level of the carrier and modulator signals, adjusted by the modulator's envelope.
Graphically, the modulation is represented by a dashed link between the modulated and modulator sounds, and the signals will be drawn with a dashed pattern: color\black for the modulated signal, and color\white for the modulator. This is to indicate better that the modulator signal is actually not heard anymore.
Note that modulations can be cascaded at will: a modulator can itself be modulated, and a sound can be modulated by several modulators. In the case of amplitude modulation, however, the effect of cascading modulations and modulating a sound with several modulators result in pretty much the same effect.
Remove Frequency Modulation: Removes all the frequency modulations attached to the currently selected sounds.
Remove Amplitude Modulation: Removes all the amplitude modulations attached to the currently selected sounds.
Effects create "shadow sounds" from the selection, by repeating a selected sounds a predefined number of times and applying some local variations, such as a change in pitch, duration or level. This allows easily implementing various effects such as echo, reverb, loops... Not implemented yet.
Takes the current selection and turns it into a new waveform. This method allows very complex timbres to be created easily.