Dr.Godfried-Willem RAES

Kursus Experimentele Muziek: Boekdeel 5: Notatie en Muzieksoftware

Hogeschool Gent : Departement Muziek & Drama

5932:

RTOA.EXE is een file-konversie programma waarmee ASCII Ravel files kunnen omgezet worden in binaire action-files.

Hier volgt de beknopte gebruiksaanwijzing voor het programma:

NAME

rtoa - Ravel to action translator

SYNOPSIS

rtoa [-v velocity] [-p poff] filename.ma filename.a

DESCRIPTION

rtoa is a program that translates from a subset of the Ravel language which is a plain text ASCII file into a binary data action file.

RTOA will translate only Ravel actions; i.e., a very strict subset of Ravel statements; essentially notes, patch, bend, poff, rest, key, tie, and ccont statements. The expected format is along the lines of a voicelist as follows:

vco

note C q

note D q 100

note E q 120

end

with only action statements. No programmatic constructs (if-then-else, etc.) are allowed. This is basically the output produced by a simulation run in mos. All forms of note statements are accepted. The nnootteedd keyword is also accepted. Rtoa is basically a slimmed down version of "mc", the Ravel compiler. Rtoa will accept note and time constants, but not predefined velocity values (e.g., forte). It cannot handle constant expressions.

Rtoa will only handle one voicelist; i.e., one action sequence or pattern.

The [-v velocity] switch may be used to change the default velocities for a piece if they are all the same; i.e., notes that do not have velocities. It will not normally be useful.

The [-p poff]] switch is optional and will set the pitch bend offset to whatever non-zero value is given. The pitch bend offset defaults to 64 if not set. The pitch bend range in MIDI is a 14 bit unsigned number; in decimal this is 0 to 16383. A centered wheel has the value 8192.

Ravel uses a "pseudo-op" called the "poff" or pitch bend offset that is multiplied internally against the value used with the pitch bend action; e.g.,

bend q 128

is the value for a centered wheel, since 128 * 64 = 8192. Note that a pitch offset of 1 will leave the units unscaled.

SEE ALSO

mtor, ator.

September 4, 1990

Filedate: 901022