The pitch editor

The Pitch Editor (PE) allows you to create and modify pitches. Pitches are considered an “expression” in AT terminology, as opposed to instruments.

What is a pitch?

If you are a guitar player, you may know it as “pitch bend” or “slide”. In our case, it is also used to simulate a vibrato. A pitch is simply a slight change of frequency, a shift from one note to another. It can be musical or a special effect.

Here is a upward pitch:

And a nice vibrato:

But you can get crazy and do this:

The pitch list

On the left side of the screen is a list of various items, such as instruments, arpeggios, and, without surprise, pitches.

Open the pitch list (PL) by

  • clicking on shift + F5
  • or clicking on the third icon of the icons to the left (as highlighted above).

The editor

The PE itself opens either by:

  • pressing F5
  • clicking on the fourth icon of the icons to the right
  • or by double clicking on an item (such as “Pitch up” in the screenshot above).

In this screenshot, there are 3 pitches : “Pitch up”, “Vibrato” and “Crazy”. The “None” is always present and selecting it means “no pitch”, so doesn’t really count as one.

The PE looks much like the instrument editor, and even more like the arpeggio editor, which both should be known to you by now.

One row only is present, and is the pitch. Each value is added to the note frequency. Negative values will sound lower, positive higher. Use the “+” and “-” icons to increase the visible range of the pitch if you need more of them.

At the top is a header:

The loop start and end indicate what part to loop. Note that contrary to instruments and just like arpeggios, pitches always loop.

The speed goes from 0 (fastest) to 255 (slowest). And just like instruments, you can override this speed in your patterns via the Pitch Speed effect, so that you don’t have to duplicate a pitch just because you want to change its speed occasionally.

Shift is new though. It is only a convenience that allows you to add virtual “0” at the beginning of the pitch. The loop is also shifted. It is useful if you want to have your pitch to start with a little delay. You can use this parameter instead of adding empty bars by yourself. Typically, you may want a vibrato to start a bit later than the start of the note.

Finally, the loop icon changes the horizontal zoom of the bars, which can be useful to visualize the pitch better if it grows long.

Editing

The way to edit the bars is exactly the same as for the instrument editor, that is, either via the mouse, the cursor, or by typing them.

Testing

Just like for the instrument editor, you can use your MIDI keyboard, the QWERTY keys of your computer keyboard, or even the piano at the bottom of the screen.

Using a pitch in a song

Once you feel satisfied with a pitch, you can use it in song. As you can see in the PL on the left, each pitch has a number associated to it (1 for “Pitch up”, 2 for “Vibrato”, etc.). It is this number that you use in the pattern, thanks to the Pitch Table effect, represented by the “p” letter.

By writing this little pattern (at slow tempo)…

… you could hear this:

Let’s break it down:

  • The first two notes (C-4 01 and D-4 01) have no effect.
  • E-4 01 p01 means that the pitch 01 is used (“Pitch up”).
  • F-4 01 has no effect. However, pitches, just like arpeggios, start again at each note, so the latest pitch applies. There is no need to continuously write it!
  • G-4 01 p02 plays the pitch 02 (“Vibratos”), which you can also hear on the next note, A-4 01.
  • B-4 01 p00 has a special meaning: by using pitch 00, we stop the possible pitch.
  • C-5 01 p03 triggers pitch 03 (“Crazy”), which sounds just like its name implies!

The “Pitch up” pitch can be seen in the screenshot above.

“Vibrato” looks like this:

“Crazy” looks like this:

The nice thing about Expressions is that they stack up: you can have an arpeggio and a pitch at the same time, for very expressive (and sometimes unexpected) results.