MaxB YABuzzTools (MaxB Yet Another Buzz Tools)

Author: Mario Baksa (also known as MaxB) from Croatia (a beautiful country in east Europe near Italy - visit www.hr/index.en.shtml for more info)

This software is a powerful set of tools useful to anybody who uses Jeskola Buzz for creating music. It can also be useful to people who use other trackers. Please read this manual completely - otherwise you might not know all the functions and features of this software. YABuzzTools consists of several parts, each one is in it's own tabsheet:

MaxB YABuzzTools: Machine Tools

MaxB YABuzzTools: Scales

It's simple: the window is divided into two parts: left and right. In left part you select the scale in which the notes are and in right part you select the scales to which the notes will be transposed - you can also use Octave Change - if 0, the octaves remain unchanged. If it's 1, the notes are raised for 1 octave and if it's -2 the notes are lowered for 2 octaves. You can raise/lower notes for 6 octaves. If that's not good for you, copy the transposed notes, and lower/raise note again.

You can enter notes by typing the note name in left part - at this time, you must enter each note in this form: C-4 or c-4 or C4 or c4 if there's not # and C#4 or c#4 if there is #. You must enter octave number! In this program version you have to type the notes the way you would type them in a text processor - in future I intend to add the ability to enter notes the way you enter them in Buzz, and to add a grafical keyboard.

Warning: this works well if source and desired scales have the same number of notes (transposing from major to minor works OK - which major/minor is, doesn't matter). For example, when transposing from C-major (7 notes in an octave) to C-Pentatonics (5 notes in an octave) notes in left part (source notes) A-4 and C-5 give the same result C-5. I'm not trained musician so I don't know how to properly transpose notes in this case - if somebody knows, please let me know via e-mail!

If you have scales that are not included in the program, please send them to me! You can also manually edit 'scales.ini' file to add scales but I would prefer that you send them to me so that everybody can use them when I add them into new releases. If you can send me scales transposed to note C. Just mark which keys are included in an octave - for ex. c-minor: C-yes C#no D-yes D#yes E-no F-yes F#no G-yes G#yes A-no A#yes B-no. And it's that simple! In future releases I'll add import/export ability for scales.

MaxB YABuzzTools: TPB

Very useful if you work with TPB (Ticks Per Beat) other than 4, 8, 16 or 32 but it can be useful even then. There are two tabsheets: Rhythm and Note Length.

Rhythm - classic 4x4 techno rhythm - it shows you where to put the triggers for selected TPB. You can also see how many kicks, claps and hats are in the pattern. Number of kicks should be equal to number of hats and number of claps should be equal to half of number of kick. If it isn't so you should consider changing Pattern Length.

Note Length - if you want to create more sophisticated music (rather than using that boring 1 or 2 ticks note length @ 4 TPB) you probobly want to use notes that if form the normal musicians use them: 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/4+Dot etc. This tool helps you with that. Select desired TPB, pattern length, note length and note (if you want because here is not importat if it is C-4 or G#2 - here is only important note position in the pattern) and click Add. You can add as many notes as you want. If you want to add a Pause instead of a Note then check Pause. If you want to make note longer for half of it's value then check Dot. When you've entered notes, you can reorder them or delete undesired note(s). Finally, click Show and you get the pattern with notes in it's position. First value in pattern is row (tick number). Second is note (if it is a Pause <P> is shown). The third value is the most important - it is length of desired note (or pause) in ticks - if it's not an integer the selected TPB is not good because notes aren't in the positions they should be! Change the TPB or change the note Length in order to correct this problem.

MaxB YABuzzTools: Theme Editor

Finally you've got the complete clickable theme editor! :) At this time, it's the best Buzz theme editor - the easiest for use and with the largest number of functions/options. Although there are already a few Buzz theme editors, I decided to make another one because none of them is the way it should be. Some have clickable interface, some have special features but none of them has it all - until now! YABuzzTheme Editor has all you can ask for.

First line of buttons: New, Open, Save, Save As... - I think that the button names speak for themselves. Just something about button New - you always start new theme that is based on some other theme (template) - you can choose among Buzz Default Theme, Current Buzz Theme and Themes in Buzz Themes Folder.

Second line of buttons: first five buttons are the are very similar to Buzz interface: Pattern Editor, Machines, Sequence Editor, Signal Analysis and Theme Info. If you click one of them (or if you just like in Buzz press F2, F3 etc. the desired view is selected), you get the view that looks like the same view in Buzz - just click on color you want to change and select desired color. It's that simple! You can also select color by clicking one of the color buttons at the bottom of the tabsheet. There are also some other functions: Fade, Invert and Swap.
Fade - you can select color that you want to fade (ex. in Pattern Editor: Background or Dark-Background or Very-Dark-Background), the amounth and the direction of fade - you could select Dark-Background color and than simultaniously fade-in this color to Background and fade-out this color to Very-Dark-Background. When you move amount/direction slider, you also preview colors which you'll get with selected amount/direction.
Invert - simply inverts color - usually is the best that the Text color is inverted color of Background color.
Swap - only for Amplifiler Background and Handle in Machines view - swaps these two colors.

Theme Info - here you can choose theme format. If you choose the first option, the only additional info saved in theme file is the date the theme was modified/saved and the editor signature (of this editor, of course :). If you choose the second option, you can enter some information about you (the author of the theme, e-mail, web site) and the theme you've made (title, descriptions, keywords) - it will be saved in CyanWerks CyanBuzzTheme almost-compatible format (CyanBuzz theme editor doesn't have e-mail field in info and has a lack of some features (color of Machine LED Borders). Anyway, it's not important if it is compatible with older theme editors because you currently use the best one.

Maintain - very useful part of theme editor - here you have the list of all themes in Buzz Themes folder - you can edit, delete, rename or import (this function actually just copies file to 'Buzz\Themes' folder) them and also you can set desired theme as the theme in Buzz.

Notice that those small squares on the line and the master border (Machines), on the place where two line are crossing (Sequence Editor) and on time and frequncy lines (Signal Analysis) are actually the squares for selecting colors of elements they are on because it would be hard to point with the mouse exactly to machine border which is only one pixel in width.