Sound Menu
Run (toolbar ) starts the synthesizer. The synthesizer begins to produce waveform output to selected output device. The CPU usage indicator displays the percentage of CPU time used for synthesis.
Stop (toolbar ) stops the synthesizer. The synthesizer no longer consumes the CPU performance, thus giving the other processes more power.
Panic cancels all sound. Use in case of stuck MIDI notes, patch structure entering an unstable state, etc.
Run Oscilloscope (toolbar ) starts the synthesizer and the oscilloscope. The waveform is sent both to the output device and (actually its left channel only) to the oscilloscope window. This lets you to visually monitor the synthesizer's output. Useful for debugging complex structures. The oscilloscope scale is about +/-4 units per window height (the maximum allowed signal range) and one sample per pixel horizontally.
Audio Setup... lets you specify the waveform output device, sampling rate, resolution, latency and maximum allowed CPU consumption for the synthesizer. Also for Windows version you specify resolution and latency and for BeOS low-level audio output number of buffers and buffer size (* is use buffer size as suggested by the output device - recommended). Increasing number of buffers may help if you experience gaps in the output audio (it doesn't increase the latency though). Changing the buffer size may affect the latency, but it is generally not recommended. You can use Cortex or a similar app to see what's happening.
The resolution is the length of a waveform packet sent to the output device and also the time resolution of the incoming MIDI events. Increasing the resolution results in better timing and smaller available latency but requires more CPU time for sending packets to the output device, since there are more such packets. Also too small resolution may result in clicks in the output audio.
The latency is the length of waveform data written to the output device in advance. Reducing the value introduces a faster MIDI response but may result in gaps in the output audio (heard as clicks) as the SynC Modular is not granted CPU in time by the system.
Note. Doubling the sampling rate doubles the consumed CPU performance.
MIDI Setup... lets you specify the MIDI input device for the synthesizer. You can choose of any standard MIDI input devices available through the system or under Windows, select the SynC Modular MIDI In provided that you have installed the SynC Modular MIDI pipe driver during the program installation.
Note. If you want to use SynC Modular with a concurrently running sequencing software under Windows you have to use either SynC Modular pipe driver or some other MIDI pipe device avaliable (e.g. Hubi's Loopback device). Under BeOS you need to select External Connection.
Render MIDI File... (registered version only) does sample-accurate rendering of a MIDI file to 16-bit stereo WAV using the current ensemble and allowing to specify any reasonable sampling rate.
PC Keyboard/Play (toolbar ) controls usage of PC keyboard for patch auditioning. When on you can play patches using your PC keyboard using alphanumeric keys. This also disables all keyboard shortcuts in alphanumeric range. PgUp / PgDn keys transpose the keyboard by octaves. The current transpose setting is indicated on the toolbar button.
PC Keyboard/Octave Up transposes the PC keyboard up by one octave. Disabled when Play PC Keyboard mode is off.
PC Keyboard/Octave Down transposes the PC keyboard down by one octave. Disabled when Play PC Keyboard mode is off.