To see the Java applet

Synthesis
making music with your computer
(R. Bigoni)

versione italiana

The applet on this page allows you to:

• emit musical notes, by clicking with the mouse on the keys of the representation of a piano keyboard, and simulate the sound of a musical instrument;
• compose a simple melody played by a simulated instrument, and save it in *.midi format to a folder on your system;
• assemble multiple melodies, played by many simulated instruments into a single composition and save the simultaneous execution in *.midi format to a folder on your system;
• save the source files of your compositions to a folder on your system, so you can edit them later (correct, expand, change instrument or tempo); these source files will have extension *.syn.

Of course it is necessary that your system is equipped with tools of sound reproduction (speakers, headphones, etc.).

To simulate the notes of an instrument:

• in the menu, click on New Instrument: a piano keyboard appears;
• the keyboard shows four octaves, but you can extend it at the top and at the bottom; to this end click on the button ottava +/-; when this button is active, if you click on a key of the last octave, you get the corresponding note in the next octave; if you click a key of the first octave, you get the corresponding note of the previous octave;
• choose the instrument in the field Instruments and click on a key of the keyboard: you get the output of the note;
• the last key on the right, in red with the letter R (Rest), stops the emission of the last played note.

To record a new melody:

• in the menu, click on New Instrument: a piano keyboard appears;
• choose the instrument;
• Click the button COMPOSE: under the keyboard you can see the figures of the durations of the notes (quarter note, eighth note, demisemiquaver, etc.. plain or dotted or in triplets);
• click a key to emit the desired note (or pause) and, following, the figure of its duration;
• specify the type of note: whether it is a leading note, that is a new note in the development of a melody, or a note of a chord to be issued concurrently with a previous leading note, or the continuation of a previous note; in the last case, the note must have the same pitch of the last leading note;
• confirm the recording of the note;
• repeat the previous three steps until the end of the melody;
• at the end of the melody click on the button END.
• Now you can:
• • listen to the melody produced (LISTEN button);
  • change the instrument and listen to the same melody played by a different instrument;
  • change the rhythmic pace of the melody by changing the value in the field tempo (see the table below);
  • change the volume by changing the value in the field volume; the minimum value is 10, the maximum of 127, the default value is 60;
  • continue the melody by clicking on the button CONTINUE;
  • start composing a new melody, with a new instrument, by clicking the item New Instrument in the applet menu; a new keyboard appears; proceed as for the previous keyboard.

When composing a melody, by clicking on the button TABLE, you get the display of the sequence of notes entered up to that moment. Acting on this table, you can check and modify the sequence of notes entered, their type and their duration. Opening the tables of two or more instruments, the values in column tick allow you to check their synchronization. You can:

• correct a note: click on the corresponding row of the table, click the button CORRECT and re-enter note, duration and type;
• delete a note: click on the corresponding row of the table and click the DELETE button;
• insert a note: click on the corresponding row of the table, click the INSERT button and enter note, duration and type;
• copy and insert a sequence of successive notes:
  • select in the table the rows to copy by dragging the mouse;
  • click on the COPY button;
  • click the row of the table in which to insert the copied lines;
  • click the PASTE button;
• listen to a segment of the melody: dragging the mouse, select the rows selected in the table, and click on the EXCERPT button;
• increase or decrease the intensity of the sound across a group of notes, that is create effects of crescendo or decrescendo:
  • select in the table the rows to vary by dragging the mouse;
  • click on the CRESCENDO button;
  • set the value of the final volume; if the final value is greater than that in the volume field, we will have a crescendo; if the final value is less than that in the volume field, we will have a decrescendo; the final value must be between 10 and 127;
• clear all the effects of crescendo or decrescendo previously entered by setting the intensity of all the sounds to the volume written in the volume field: click the VOLUME RESET button.

At the end of the composition of one or more melodies, you can:

• listen to the composition of all entered melodies: click on Listen in the applet menu;

• change the rhythmic pace from a certain point onwards: to this end

  • detect from a table the tick corresponding to the desired point;
  • click on the item 'tempo in the applet menu;
  • in the dialogue boxes that appears, enter the number of ticks and the new tempo;

  the entered tempo is effective until end of the piece; to return to the previous value, or change tempo again, repeat the sequence of the previous steps;

• generate the audio file of the composition in the *.midi format, and save it to a folder on your system: click on Save Midi in the applet menu;
• save the source file of the composition to a folder on your system: click on Save Source in the applet menu.

The Save Midi item of the applet menu starts a procedure that asks you to name the file to be produced (plain name, without the extension, that is mandatory *.midi) and to confirm the operation.

If you confirm, you are prompted to select the folder on your system. Choose the folder and confirm, to download the file from the server of this site to your system.

The *.midi format is recognized by most of the sound player programs. So, if you open the destination folder and click on the file icon, you should listen the music played by the default audio/video program or by another you may have installed in your system.

The Save Source item of the applet menu starts a procedure that asks you to name the file to be produced (plain name, without the extension, that is mandatory *.syn) and to confirm the operation.

A source file encodes only the notes and their durations, not the possible volume changes, which are effective only in listening or in the production of the *.midi file.

To reprocess or recompile a source file (with extension *.syn), previously saved to a folder on your system, you must first upload it to the server, where it is kept for an hour. To do this, click on the Upload item in the applet menu and select the source file to be loaded. Only after your *.syn file was reloaded on the server, by clicking the File item in the applet menu, you can select it and work on it, that is expand it, fix it, save new versions, create new *.midi files, etc.

From these midi files, saved to a folder on your computer, you can create files in other more popular formats like *.mp3. To get these files, you can use applications available on the Internet, like, for example, SolMiRe.

last revised: 30/11/2015