VS-TrackEdit instructions


MIDI connections
OMS and FreeMIDI
Required settings
Starting up the program
Menus
Keyboard controls
Preferences dialog
Main window
- time display mode
- tempo map list
- communications status
- amplitude profiles
- time and bpm displays
- command buttons
- transport and other controls
- song map
- marker editing
Using VS-TrackEdit with VS-Console
Final comments


MIDI connections

First ensure that OMS has been correctly configured. For the VS-880 device, use a name which includes both "VS" and "80" because when the program starts up it will search for the first device with both these strings in its name (thus "VS880", "VS-880", "Roland VS-880-EX" and "VS880EX HDR" would all work). Make sure in the VS-880 device info that MTC and MMC are enabled both for sending and for receiving.

Connect the MIDI output of the VS-880 to the appropriate MIDI input of the Macintosh MIDI interface, and the MIDI input of the VS-880 to the appropriate input. Do not connect other MIDI instruments to the same input/output ports to avoid confusing the program.

The VS-880 song must have the following three settings made before starting the program:

SYS:MID:MIDIThr = Out
SYS:MID:SysEx.Rx = On
SYS:MID:SysEx.Tx = On

 Important: remember that these settings are saved with the song, therefore changing to a different song which does not have these settings made will cause the program to lose contact with the VS-880.


OMS and FreeMIDI together

For those who have MOTU interfaces it is possible to have both OMS and FreeMIDI installed so long as the following settings are made:

OMS preferences
Run MIDI in Background must be disabled

FreeMIDI preferences
Allow other applications must be enabled
OMS Emulation must be disabled


Required VS-880 settings

VS-TrackEdit will adjust various settings at start-up. The program will not work properly without these settings so do not change them while the program is open.
MID:MMC = SLAVE        (allows the transport and locate buttons to be used)
Syn:Source = INT
Syn:Gen. = MTC
Sys:PreviewLen = 1.0s  (adjustable in the program)
Sys:Scrub Len = 50ms   (adjustable in the program)
For intelligent interfaces which may redirect MTC/MMC, see also here because it is critical to the functioning of the program that MTC receiving and MMC sending work correctly.

Starting the program

Double-click on the VS-TrackEdit program icon to start it. A window will open to show the progress as the program registers itself with OMS. If OMS is not installed or version 1.x is installed then the program will report that it cannot continue and then quit. If all is Ok then the following dialog window will be displayed:



The VS Input and VS Output settings must correspond to the OMS VS-880 device. If for any reason the program does not select the correct devices on startup (ie the names do not correspond to the rules already described) then select them now by clicking on the boxes to access the popup menus with all the OMS devices. With simple MIDI interfaces the Sync Input should be the same as the VS Input and the MMC Output the same as the VS Output. For intelligent interfaces it may be necessary to select the interface itself for either or both of these two (see the hints page).

Now click on the button "Check communications". If everything is Ok the response should arrive almost instantly, something like this:



(obviously the system software revision will not necessarily be 3.03). Note also the Device ID value, which can be changed on the VS-880 directly. The actual ID value does not matter, but do not change it while the program is running otherwise the program will lose contact with the VS-880.

If contact is not established, the following dialog will appear after a short wait:



This means that either the command did not reach the VS-880 (watch to see if the MIDI/DISK LED flashes green) or the reply did not reach the computer. Possible reasons are errors in the connections either physically (the MIDI cables), in the OMS studio setup, or in the VS-880 MIDI settings as shown in the message. It also happens occasionally that the first attempt after starting up the computer does not work (if, for example, the interface was not switched on before the computer) so it is worth trying a couple of times just to be sure. NB there is no point trying to continue with the program until the correct response is received - click Quit and check the OMS studio setup and/or the interface settings.

If everything is working, dismiss the message window and then click Ok to continue. The main window should open, initially only a couple of green flashing "LED"s will be seen showing that the program is communicating with the VS-880 and then the whole window should be drawn.

Menus

Apple menu

About VS-TrackEdit displays the program version and the amount of free memory available to the program.


File menu

Open is always disabled.

Close is always disabled.

Save is always disabled.

Quit quits the program.


Edit menu
(in addition to the standard options)
Preferences... opens the preferences dialog .


OMS menu

OMS Version... displays the OMS version installed.

OMS Studio Setup... opens the OMS Studio Setup program (*).

OMS MIDI Setup... opens the OMS MIDI Setup window (*).

MIDI Analyser opens a window with a rudimentary graphical and hexadecimal display of the MIDI data being received. If it isn't obvious how it works and what it is doing then it won't be any use me explaining it anyway :)

* it is quite likely that the program doesn't respond correctly to all the possible changes that can be made with these two options (and it is certainly possible to make changes that will leave the program unable to communicate with the VS-880) - you have been warned...


Commands menu

Software Version... displays the same message as that which is shown when the Check communications button is pressed in the startup dialog.

Set Locate -n- (where -n- runs from 1 to 8) sets Locate point -n- to the current song position. Note that the current song position is reported to the program via MTC which does not include sub-frames and therefore some fine-tuning may be necessary afterwards. Holding down the alt/option key and selecting the menu with the mouse will clear the selected Locate point. Note also that the apple/command key will work for setting a Locate point but to clear a Locate point the menu must be selected with the mouse (see the trouble-shooting section if the corresponding LED on the VS does not switch off when the Locate point is cleared).

Update Settings updates the settings of the window, including resetting all required parameters. Use this after making changes directly on the VS-880 instead of with the program.


Keyboard controls

The following keys are defined for VS actions:
  1-8            Move to locate
  0              Stop if playing, otherwise To Zero
  Enter          Play
  *              Record


Preferences dialog

Click here for information about the Preferences dialog.


Main window

Screen shot

The name of the song, the sample rate, and the MTC frame rate are displayed in the title bar of the main window.

Time display mode



There are three options selectable from the popup menu for time display: MTC, Measures, and VS Blocks. This selection affects the display of all other times other than the bpm information.
MTC is displayed as HH:MM:SS:FF:SF where HH is hours, MM is minutes, SS is seconds, FF is frames, and SF is sub-frames.
Measures are displayed as MMM.B.SB where MMM is measures, B is beats, and SB is sub-beats (resolution 384 steps).
VS Blocks are displayed as BLOCKS, one block is 16 samples (highest editing resolution available with the VS).
If Measures display is selected then the Sub-divisions popup menu is also active, allowing beats to be sub-divided in the amplitude profiles for more flexible editing.

Tempo map list



For the Measures display it is necessary to have the tempo map set correctly. The program does not allow editing of the tempo map values, but it does allow the display of these values. Clicking on the tempo map text will step through all the defined tempo maps, shift-clicking will step backwards, and command-clicking will rotate through the various details of each map.

Communications status

At the top right of the screen there is a row of boxes which act as "LED" indicators to show the status of communications:


The Tx box flashes green when the program sends MIDI commands to the VS-880 (also yellow if MMC commands are sent to the MMC Output port).

The Rx box will flash when incoming MIDI data is detected. It may flash green, yellow or red. Always green means that the data is being dealt with quickly enough by the program so that there is no risk of losing information as it comes in. If it flashes orange occasionally there is some overlap but the program has a secondary buffer which should handle things Ok. If it flashes red then the buffer has overflowed because data is coming in too fast for the program to handle it.

The Sync box will be disabled (greyed border) if the Sync Input setting is the same as the VS Input setting. If, instead, the Sync Input setting is different then it will respond to data coming in on the Sync Input port. This "LED" will flash yellow in normal operation, or red if buffer overflow occurs.

The MMC box flashes pink if an MMC command is received on either the Input or Sync ports.

The MTC box turns blue if MTC is being received on the Sync Input port (or the normal VS Input if the Sync Input is not enabled).

The Clk box turns light blue if MIDI clock is being received on the Sync Input port (or the normal VS Input if the Sync Input is not enabled). NB the program does not respond to MIDI clock, it simply indicates that it is being received.


Amplitude profiles



There are four amplitude profiles, associated with the first four Locate points which are used in the same way as for the normal VS editing described in the manual (with the exception of the Insert command, which uses Locate 3 - End - to define the end point of the time to be inserted). The label and Locate time are shown top left, with the format of the time display being chosen according to the time display mode popup. Top right are four popup menus. From left to right, the first two popups set the track and virtual track displayed in the profile BUT NOT the virtual track selected for playback. The third sets the time precision of the profile display, with 1 blk every vertical bar corresponds to a single block (for fine editing) whereas with 128 blks every vertical bar corresponds to the average of 128 blocks. The larger this value is, the more time can be contained in the profile, but also the time to update the profile will be longer (at 128 blks the VS takes several seconds to respond). The fourth popup sets the vertical precision, with x1 covering the full range and x2 giving a better view of the lower amplitude values (but chopping off the peaks).

Top left and top right of the display rectangle are scroll buttons which move the Locate point left or right by a full display width. Holding down the mouse button will cause the display to scroll continuously, with the speed limited by the response time of the VS.

In addition to the central vertical black line which represents the Locate point position there can be other vertical lines. Markers (not shown in figure) are drawn in green and are labelled with the corresponding marker number. In MTC and VS Blocks display modes, the only other lines which will be visible will be those that mark the position of tempo maps. Tempo map lines are in red, with the number of the tempo map displayed below the display rectangle. In Measures mode the vertical lines also indicate measures (blue lines with the measure number displayed below the display rectangle), beats (light blue lines with .2 .3 .4 ... labels), and sub-beats (light blue-grey lines with letters b c d ... as labels). In Measures mode the number of the tempo map is not displayed because it always coincides with a measure, but the marker line is still red.


Several operations are possible clicking on the main area of the amplitude profile:

Simply clicking will adjust the Locate point according to the click position.

In Measures mode, holding the shift key down and clicking will snap the position to the nearest marker line for fast and precise song time editing (in MTC and VS Blocks mode the shift key is ignored).

Holding down the option key and clicking will activate the audio scrub function of the VS, move the mouse left and right to move the scrub position. Note that it is the active virtual track that will play, NOT the virtual track selected in the popup menu of the amplitude profile.

Holding down the command key and clicking will bring up a popup menu allowing direct copying of the other available Locate points (undefined Locates will not be available).

Holding down the control key and clicking will allow marker setting and editing .


Time and BPM display



Immediately below the amplitude profiles, to the left there is a simple display of time difference and corresponding beats per minute value. The values are calculated from the difference between the Start and End Locate points, and the difference between the From and To Locate points.


Command buttons



After setting the Locate points according to the standard rules of the manual (with the exception of the Insert command, which uses Locate 3 - End - to define the end point of the time to be inserted) the edit commands can be executed by pressing these buttons.


Pressing the Copy, Move, Exchange, Insert, Cut, Erase, and Comp/Exp buttons will open the following window:




(in this case the window is configured for the Copy command, the title and available popups depend on the particular command selected).

In the upper region of the window the tracks to edit are selected by clicking on the corresponding check box. For commands where target tracks must be defined, the popups for selecting the target track and virtual track will then be enabled. For quicker selection of multiple tracks, the buttons enable/disable rows and columns.

Immediately below the track selection area are the command-specific popups.

Below the command-specific popups is a non-editable display which describes the commmand as it is presently defined, in the same format as used in the VS manual.

Finally there are the Ok / Cancel buttons. Pressing Ok will check that the command is correct, and then either report the error or send the command to the VS. Pressing Cancel will close the window without further action.


Pressing the Undo and Redo buttons will immediately send the command to the VS. Note that using the Undo command on a song that has not been edited after optimisation will appear to delete the song - because there is no other undo level. Sending Redo will recover the song.


Pressing the Download command will start the sequence of events for downloading audio via MIDI to an AIFF format file ( READ THIS BEFORE USING THIS COMMAND . The track and virtual track to download is defined by the popup menus of the Start Locate amplitude profile. The start and end of the audio section to download are defined by the Start and End Locate points. Pressing Download will first open the usual file select window to decide where to save the data (pressing Cancel at this point will stop the operation). DO NOT select a floppy disk, it will not be fast enough to keep up with the data arriving. Pressing Save will start the download process, opening a progress window. The download can be interrupted by pressing Command-'.', but it is necessary to wait until the end of the present block before the abort will actually happen (the VS can not be interrupted in the middle of sending a block of data). The window will report that it is preparing to abort as soon as it detects the abort command. If for any reason there is no data coming in, then it is possible to force an abort by pressing Command-'.' five times - DO NOT DO THIS if data is still coming in.

If the Command key is held down when clicking the Download button then a graphical display of the data being transferred will be drawn in the song map area. On very slow computers this might add too much extra work to ensure a reliable download but in most cases it should be no problem.


Transport and other controls



Pressing the Locate buttons will set the VS song position to the selected Locate point. Holding the Command key down and clicking a Locate button will set that Locate point to the current song position.

The Scrub menu allows the selection of the scrub loop length time.

The Preview To and From buttons send the commands equivalent to pressing the same buttons on the VS (see here if these do not work as expected). The popup allows the selection of the preview time.

The five number boxes show the song position, displayed according to the time display mode. In MTC mode the boxes display, from left to right, HH MM SS FF SF. In Measures mode the first two boxes will always be 0, the remaining boxes MMM B SB. In VS Blocks mode each box displays two digits of the block number (if the first digit is below ten the first zero is not displayed). Note that the song position is updated according to the MTC messages sent by the VS, which means that sub-frame accuracy is not possible.

Finally there are the standard transport controls. The Fast Forward / Reverse buttons do not have to be held down to keep going, instead it is necessary to press the Stop button. The Record button is not active, it is purely decorative and will just beep if pressed.The transport buttons respond to incoming song position messages, sometimes incorrectly but this should not matter. Note that most commands cannot be performed if the song is playing.


Song map



The song map provides a graphical representation of the song, including all virtual tracks. Red horizontal lines represent the active virtual tracks, light blue horizontal represent the other virtual tracks where audio is recorded. A black vertical line represents the current song position, pink vertical lines represent the Locate points with a small label below the main song map rectangle. To the left of the song map are the track labels and virtual track popups which allow the active virtual track to be selected. A black mark between two tracks indicates that they are linked. Small tick marks along the bottom of the map indicate the position of markers (none in the figure shown).

Clicking on the song map will set the song position (this works even while the song is playing).
Holding down the control key and clicking will place a new marker at the corresponding position (see marker setting and editing ).

Above the song map there is a popup which allows the updating of the song map to be made automatically after each edit command or only after using the Update menu command. This is because song maps with many edits can take several seconds to download, slowing down editing. If the song map is out of date then a warning will be displayed next to the popup. Changing the popup value from Manual to Automatic when the song map is out of date will cause an immediate update.


Marker setting and editing

As already noted above, the program displays the marker positions in both the amplitude profiles and the song map. Holding the control key down and clicking in these display areas activates the marker editing which works as follows:

If there is no marker within the minimum distance allowed between markers (0.1 seconds) then a new marker is added at the clicked position.

If there is a marker closer than the minimum distance, but not at the exact click position, the program will give the option of moving the marker to the new position (which is done by deleting the existing marker and then adding a new one).

If the click position corresponds to an existing marker, then the program will give the option of deleting the existing marker. Although this could also work in the song map the precision is usually not high enough to click exactly on an existing marker and so generally deleting markers should be made using the amplitude profiles.

If new markers are added directly using the VS controls then the program settings must be updated (Command-U) or subsequent marker editing will have unpredictable results.


Using VS-TrackEdit with VS-Console

VS-Console can be run at the same time as VS-TrackEdit (*), but be aware of the differences between the two programs. The VS-Console programs can be used to make changes that will cause the VS-TrackEdit programs to stop working, whereas the VS-TrackEdit programs will make certain settings at start-up and during updates that are not automatically communicated to the VS-Console programs. As such, it is necessary to make a full update (Command-Shift-U in VS-Console, Command-U in VS-TrackEdit) on switching from one program to the other.

(*) Users of the original VS-Console program must upgrade it to version 1.1 or later.


Final Comments

I hope that this program will make the use of the VS easier and therefore more productive, and I'd really like to hear any music that it helps to create.

For CD's, bug reports, or whatever, contact me by e-mail