Pagan

A Music Sequencer

Table of Contents

• Reading The Layout
  
  • The Rhythm
    
  • The Notes
    
  • The Instruments
    
• Controls Overview
  
  • The App
    
  • The Config Menu
    
  • The Tuning Table
    
  • The Line Menu
    
  • The Channel Menu
    
  • The Column Control Menu
    
  • The Note Control Menu
    
• Settings
  
  • Change SoundFont
    
  • Toggle Relative Controls
    
• How Tuning Works
  
  • Equal Temperament Tuning
    
  • Using The Tuning Table
    
    • Radix
      
    • Note Tunings
      
    • Transpose
      
• F.A.Q.
  
  • What's a Radix?
    
  • How Do I...
    
    • Name my Project?
      
    • Add a Channel?
      
    • Remove a Channel?
      
    • Add a Line?
      
    • Remove a Line?
      
    • Import a MIDI file?
      
    • Import a Project?
      
    • Change a Soundfont?
      
    • Remove a Soundfont?
      
    • Change the Sample Rate?
      
    • Change an Instrument?
      
    • Change a Percussion Instrument?
      
    • Set the Tempo?
      
    • Add Beats?
      
    • Remove Beats?
      
    • Move a Line?
      
    • Hide (or show) the Percussion section?
      
    • Jump to a Beat?
      
    • Set the tuning?
      
    • Save the project?
      
    • 'Save As...' the project?
      
    • Export a MIDI file?
      
    • Export a WAV file?
      
    • Delete the Project?

Reading The Layout

The Rhythm

Pagan is laid-out on a beat-by-beat basis, rather than by groups of beats (measures). So a time signature wouldn't really make sense to use here.

Each column represents a single beat, regardless of visual width.
So the equivalent of a quarter note or crotchet in 4/4, would be a column's width
The equivalent of, an eigth note or quaver in 4/4 time would be a column divided in 2
A triplet would be a column divided in 3 and so on

Rests are implicated by the lack of an active note in any given position.

These two images represent the same thing:

The Notes

Instead of using letters with sharps and flats, Pagan uses the index of the note in the octave.

00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11
A	A#	B	C	C#	D	D#	E	F	F#	G	G#

...and the octave is represented by the subscripted prefix.

_octaveIndex

Octaves are counted starting at A (0) rather than C (3). So A0 remains ₀0, but the proceding C is not ₁C, but rather ₀3

So middle C (C4) would be written as ₃3

The Instruments

On the left side of the Pagan interface, you'll notice labels that look something like 0::0 or 0!

The lines written like 0::0 are Pitched Instrument Lines.

The lines written as a number with an exclamation mark (0!) are Percussion Lines.

Controls Overview

The App

The Config Menu

The Tuning Table

The Line Menu

The Channel Menu

The Column Control Menu

The Note Control Menu

Settings

Change SoundFont

From here you can either select an imported .sf2 file or select 'import' and use a soundfont from your device. By default, a message will appear if you have no soundfonts, providing a link to the Fluid R3 general midi soundfont on the internet archive.

Toggle Relative Controls

Pagan has the option to set notes based on preceding notes(eg +1, -3, etc). This can control can be enabled here. Projects with relative notes are still viewable if this option is not enabled.

How Tuning Works

Equal Temperament Tuning

Simply put, this means each note is double the frequency of the same note one octave lower.

Mathematically speaking, equal temperament is defined thusly:

    base_frequency * (2 ^ ( x / radix ))

Where, relative to western music:

    base_frequency = 27.5
    radix = 12

27.5Hz is the frequency of the A₀ on a piano and there are 12 keys per octave

Using The Tuning Table

The tuning table has 3 parts:

Radix

Changing the Radix changes the number of notes per octave. The note tunings will default to equal temperament when this gets changed.
This means you could set the radix to 24 and use the even notes as normal and the odd notes as micro-tones. Or you could experiment with different sized octaves.

Note Tunings

Instead of using "cents" and "semi_tones", Pagan uses ratios and offsets.

The Offset is the index of the note given a list of notes. (See How to Read).

The Ratios are the (x / radix) part of the function in equal temperament tuning.

This means that if you want to tune a key up, you need to have a ratio between (offset / radix) and ((offset + 1) / radix)

If you are unfamiliar with a "cent", a cent is a 1/100th step between each note. This means that in order to tune a note Up One Cent, the ratio would be:

((offset * 100) + 1) / (radix * 100)

Transpose

Pagan defaults to ₀0 = 27.5Hz (or A₀).

The transpose is which offset you want to start at.

So if you wanted to set ₀0 to C, you would change Transpose to 3. (A:0, A#:1, B:2, C:3)

F.A.Q.

What's a Radix?

A radix is the number by which you group when counting. If you are part of most of the modern world, you'll be familiar with radix-10, in which we count in groups of 10 numerals.
Binary is radix 2 and hexidecimal is radix 16.
Pianos are implicitly radix 12. Even if western music thinks of notes as letters rather than numbers.

How Do I...

Name my Project?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap 'Change Project Name'.
   
3. Enter the new name and tap 'OK'.

Add a Channel?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap 'Add Channel'.

--OR--

1. Tap a line Label. Any line label. To select a line.
   
2. Tap it again to open up the channel menu.
   
3. Tap the 'Add channel' icon.

Remove a Channel?

Keep in mind that you can't remove the percussion channel, but you can hide it. The steps are the same.

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the X button on the channel you want to remove.

--OR--

1. Tap a line label in the channel you want to remove.
   
2. Tap it again to open up the channel menu.
   
3. Tap the 'remove channel' icon.

Add a Line?

1. Tap the line label where you want to insert a new line.
   
2. Tap the 'add line' button.

Remove a Line?

1. Tap the line label of the line you want to remove.
   
2. Tap the 'remove line' button.

Import a MIDI file?

1. Tap the vertical ellipsis.
   
2. Select 'Import'
   
3. Pick your .mid file.

Import a Project?

1. Tap the vertical ellipsis.
   
2. Select 'Import'
   
3. Pick your exported project (.json)

Change a Soundfont?

1. Tap the vertical ellipsis.
   
2. Select 'Settings'
   
3. Tap the 'Active Soundfont'
   
4. Pick from already imported sounfont or choose 'Import' and select a .sf2 from your device.

Remove a Soundfont?

1. Tap the vertical ellipsis.
   
2. Select 'Settings'
   
3. Tap and Hold the 'Active Soundfont'
   
4. Choose the soundfont to remove from the list.

Change the Sample Rate?

1. Tap the vertical ellipsis.
   
2. Select 'Settings'
   
3. Use the 'Playback Quality' Slider to set the rate.

Change an Instrument?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the channel with the instrument to be changed.
   
3. Pick an instrument from the menu.

--OR--

1. Tap the label of the line which instrument you want to change.
   
2. Tap the the same label again
   
3. Tap the button at the bottom that has the name of the currently active channel instrument
   
4. Pick an instrument from the menu.

Change a Percussion Instrument?

1. Tap the label of the percussion line to change
   
2. Tap the button with button labelled with the current instrument name (eg. 0: High Q)
   
3. Pick an instrument from the menu.

Set the Tempo?

To set the initial tempo:

1. Tap the metronome icon at the bottom of the table.
   
2. Tap the BPM button.
   
3. Input the new tempo in Beats per Minute.

To change the tempo within the song:

1. Select a leaf along the tempo line as you would the other lines.
   
2. Tap the BPM button.
   
3. Input the new tempo in Beats per Minute.

Add Beats?

1. Tap the top of a column.
   Single Beat:
   
2. Tap the 'Add Beat' button in the corner
   Mutliple Beats:
   
3. Tap and Hold* the 'Add Beat' button the corner.
   
4. Input the number of beats to add.

Remove Beats?

1. Tap the top of a column.
   Single Beat:
   
2. Tap the 'Remove Beat' button in the corner
   Mutliple Beats:
   
3. Tap and Hold* the 'Remove Beat' button the corner.
   
4. Input the number of beats to remove.

Move a Line?

1. Insert a line where you want the moved line to go.
   
2. Drag and drop the line label of one onto the other.
   
3. Delete the empty line.

Hide (or show) the Percussion section?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the eye icon at the end of the percussion channel button.

--OR-- (hide only)

1. Double tap a percusion line label.
   
2. Tap the eye icon to hide.

Jump to a Beat?

1. Tap the arrow icon in the top-left corner of the editor
   
2. Use the slider to select a beat.

--OR-- (to jump to 0)

1. Tap and Hold the arrow icon in the top-left corner to jump to the first beat.

Set the tuning?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the 'Tuning' button.
   
3. See the Tuning Section if this table doesn't make sense to you.

Save the project?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the floppy disk icon in the bottom-left corner.

'Save As...' the project?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap and hold* the floppy disk icon in the bottom-left corner.

Export a MIDI file?

NOTE: Projects can only be exported to midi when the Radix and Tuning table are unaltered. (See Tuning for more information).

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the 'Export' button at the bottom-right of the menu.
   
3. Select 'Midi File'.

Export a WAV file?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the 'Export' button at the bottom-right of the menu.
   
3. Select 'Wav File'.

Delete the Project?

1. Tap the hamburger menu to open the configuration menu.
   
2. Tap the trash bin icon.