A visual guide to using MSHFSJ, an eye-controlled application for realtime-oriented music performance and composition.
The main interface to MSHFSJis the clip launching window. This is the window seen when MSHFSJ first starts.
The internal clock plays by default, but there is no sound. In order to make any sound, a clip needs to be launched. A clip is a short chunk of music (be it melodic, harmonic/chordal, or percussive in nature). Compositions in MSHFSJ are composed of little clips that can be mixed and matched together. A clip in eyejam is tied to a specific instrument in what is known as a clip region.
A clip region is a group 5 clips. If you use your imagination, they kind of look like ponies.
There are 4 clip regions inside of MSHFSJ. Each region controls a different kind of instrument: Melody, Melody 2, Drums, and Chords.
Each clip inside a clip region is represented by a white square button. Dwelling on a clip will cause it to be selected.
A selected clip will often briefly be a cyan color and pulse to the beat:
This means that the particular clip is scheduled to be played. A clip will wait until the next downbeat (first beat of a measure) to play the clip. That way, the clip being played is quantized and aligned precisely to the beat of the song.
A clip that is currently is being played will show up as grey:
There can only be one playing clip per clip region.
The way to turn off a clip depends on the mode they are in. Clips can either be in looped mode or single-shot mode. The clips melody clip region are in single-shot mode: the clip will play, and will automatically turn themselves off when they reach the end of their clip. Looping clips will play continuously, and can be stopped by re-launching the clip, or selecting another clip in the region.
Dwelling on the reset button will cause all the clips to immediately turn off.
Dwelling on the play button will resume playback of Eyejam, assuming it is stopped.
Dwelling on the stop button will stop all sound for MSHFSJ.
Dwelling on the +/- buttons will increase/decrease the tempo by 5 BPM.
Dwelling on the Toys button takes you to the "Toys" screen, where miscellaneous features and toys in SoundJam are contained.
Dwelling on the Config button takes you to the configuration screen for fine-tuned configuration options.
Dwelling on the edit button takes you to the clip editor screen.
The clip editor is a general purpose editor for reprogramming clips found on the clip launcher page. It features a piano roll for visualizing notes in time, and a series of buttons used to insert or remove notes in a given clip.
The piano roll is the used to visualize note information of the currently selected clip. It can be read like a bar graph. Time moves on the x-axis in equal steps, and pitches are plotted on the Y axis.
The edit playhead is a green line which tells you where the current edit position is. This is analogous to an edit cursor in a word processor. A semi-transparent rectangle follows the edit playhead. This displays this current edit step size. Notes that are inserted will also be at this length as well.
When a clip is playing, a vertical blue line will appear, indicated where the current playback position is.
The navigation buttons are found to the left of the piano roll. The left and right keys move the playhead position forwards and backwards in time in edit step increments. The up and down keys scroll piano roll up and down, and can be used to see notes out of range.
The way to input notes into a clip is to use the keyboard interface. These are series of buttons arranged to be a keyboard. When a note is pressed, it will be inserted at the current edit position. The edit cursor will then move to the end of the note. The duration of the note is determined by the edit step size.
To the right of the keyboard, additional information about the current melody editor state is displayed. Octave refers to the current keyboard octave. Clip refers to the current clip number being edited. Track refers to the current track being edited.
Play Clip will launch the clip currently being edited. Next Clip will go to the next clip in the track. Prev Clip will go to the previous clip in the track.
The button Clear Clip will clear all note information in the currently selected clip.
Next Track will select the next instrument track. Prev Track will select the previous instrument track.
Step++ will increase the step size by 1. Step-- will decrease the step size by 1.
Often there are situations where changing the step size is too slow. The Double and Half buttons will double and halve the current edit step size.
The button Remove will remove a note. In order for a note to be removed, the edit playhead must be at the beginning of the note. For polyphonic passages, the correct voice channel must be selected.
Polyphony editing in MSHFSJ is a little strange compared to other DAWs. This is largely due to how things are handled under the hood (the MSHFSJ implemenation is simpler). A polyphonic instrument such as the drum kit or the instrument for chord progressions has what will be referred as voice channels, where a particular voice is assigned to a particular channel. In eyejam, a maximum of 4 voice channels are implemented. As seen in the picture above, the voice channels are color coded: channel 1 is yellow, channel 2 is blue, channel 3 is red, and channel 4 is green.
The current voice channel can be changed using the voice++ and the voice-- to increase and decrease the voice channel. The current channel is indicated by the colored tint of the edit cursor bar.
SoundJam has many experimental and quirky eye-controlled interfaces. These can be found in the Toys Screen.
The Toys screen conists of 5 buttons total.
The Launcher button is located in the top left corner. Dwelling on it will take you back to the main clip launcher screen.
Dwelling on the XY control button turns on XY mode. In XY mode, a global filter and feedback delay effect is turned on. The XY position of the eye pointer continuously maps to the effect parameters. The X-axis maps to delay feedback amount and filter resonance, and the Y-axis maps to filter cutoff.
Dwelling on the MoonJam button launches the MoonJam musical interface.
Moon Jam is an interactive and generative audio-visual work by Paul Batchelor, driven entirely through eye tracking. In Moon Jam, one is presented with a set of pastel colored circles called "moons". Gazing at a moon causes it to burst, creating a musical note which contributes to the ambient soundtrack. Looking at the red circle in the bottom left corner causes the screen to whitewash and fade out.
Dwelling on the Arachnoid button launches the Arachnoid Musical interface.
Arachnoid is an eye controlled virtual sound sculpture by Paul Batchelor. Inspired by insects and trypophobia, Arachnoid presents a set of circles reminiscent of the eyes on a spider. Gazing at any of the circles causes it to pop, creating a chittering gurgle that aims to be both satisfying, uncomfortable, and for some, even playful.
Dwelling on the Record button will begin recording audio. Audio will be saved to a file called "output.wav" inside the current working directory. Record mode is indicated by the greyed out button as well as a thin red border along the edges of the screen. Dwelling on the record button again will stop recording. Each time recording is turned on, it will overwrite the previous file.
The configuration screen contains a button menu for fine-tuned configuration of SoundJam.
Dwelling on the "Presets" button takes you to the preset screen.
The various synths that power MSHFSJ have parameters that can be reconfigured to play different sounds and timbres through the use of presets. Hitting "+" or "-" will navigate through the presets. After each instrument label, the name of the preset will be printed, (ex: "Trinity 0 Preset: Default Lead").
The synths are associated to the following tracks:
- Trinity 0 is bound to the Melody track
- Trinity 1 is bound to the Chords track (typically a bassline)
- Surgeon 0 is bound to the Chords track (typically for Chords)
- Surgeon 1 is bound to the Melody 2 track
Dwelling on the "Loop Mode" button takes you to the loop mode screen.
The loop mode screen toggles loop mode on a particular track. When loop mode is enabled, launched clips associated with that track will continuously loop. It should be noted that the bass track and the chords track are merged together into the "Chords" button region.