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Tutorial Demos ​

The demos in examples/learning/, in the order to learn them, each teaching one feature a scene at a time. Each is described again on its genre's page; About Demos lists every page of demos.

Hello World: 01_hello_world.yml ​

The smallest set there is: a C major scale up in the first scene, down in the second, and up again in the third while a second track holds a C chord for a quarter note, every note a sixteenth. Three seconds long. Open it to see what a pattern, a track and a scene are, play it first when setting up real-time MIDI (docs/MIDI_SETUP.md), and record it first (docs/RECORDING.md).

examples/learning/01_hello_world.yml · C major · 120 BPM · 0:03 · 3 scenes · 2 tracks

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Patterns Only: 02_pachelbel.yml ​

The opening of Pachelbel's Canon in D for three violins and a cello, using nothing but patterns and scenes, the way you might copy a score in. Because it's a canon, the violins share the same patterns, each a scene behind the one before.

examples/learning/02_pachelbel.yml · D major · 44 BPM · 1:19 · 7 scenes · 4 tracks

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Key Changes: 03_mary_keychange.yml ​

Mary Had a Little Lamb in four keys, one a scene: C major, C minor, E major, and whole tone on F#. The tune and its bass are one pattern each, written in scale degrees, and only each scene's Scale changes, so it shows how a key change is one field on the Scene page and no pattern moves.

examples/learning/03_mary_keychange.yml · C major · 112 BPM · 1:09 · 4 scenes · 2 tracks

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Scales: 04_scale.yml ​

Every scale llamatron knows, each run up an octave and back down from D, one scene per scale, in the order of the scale picker. Use it to preview a scale before choosing one. The demo shows that a scene can set its own scale, and that a degree past the top of a scale wraps up an octave.

examples/learning/04_scale.yml · D major · 120 BPM · 3:01 · 47 scenes · 1 tracks

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Voice Leading: 05_voice_leading.yml ​

Block chords on the piano over a bass in D major, three progressions each played three ways, back to back: in root position, every chord jumping up from its root; inverted by hand with the chord editor's Inv. row; and through the Voice leading generator, which plays each chord in the inversion and octave nearest the chord before. The last scene keeps the root in the bass.

examples/learning/05_voice_leading.yml · D major · 96 BPM · 3:00 · 9 scenes · 2 tracks

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Progressions: 06_chord_progression_generator.yml ​

A pop song in C major made from three patterns one bar long, an arpeggio, a bass figure and a chord pad, each written over chord I and played through a Progression, a different one in every scene: Pop, Fifties, Andalusian in A minor, Pachelbel's eight chords, Pop again with the pad's chords inverted so that they move less, and Pop with the pad through a Voice leading generator.

examples/learning/06_chord_progression_generator.yml · C major · 96 BPM · 3:00 · 6 scenes · 6 tracks

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Twelve-Bar Blues: 07_blues_chords.yml ​

A shuffle blues in G, where the walking bass, the comping chords and the riff are each one bar long, played through the twelve-bar blues and the quick-change blues. The comp's chord is a dominant seventh, which stays one on every chord of the blues, and the riff's blue note moves with the chords.

examples/learning/07_blues_chords.yml · G major · 96 BPM · 3:00 · 6 scenes · 7 tracks

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Ties: 08_tie.yml ​

An original downtempo piece in D Mixolydian whose pad draws its chords with the Tie row rather than with gates, so a chord lasts as long as the ties that follow it, and whose ending holds a bass note with ties alone, longer than any gate could make it. The demo also brings in the tracks one at a time, morphs a tune into its answer, grabs an echo and slides a filter, so it's the closest thing here to a finished song.

examples/learning/08_tie.yml · D mixolydian · 84 BPM · 2:59 · 9 scenes · 8 tracks

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Grooves: 09_groove.yml ​

A twelve-bar organ shuffle in G minor, llamatron's own tune in the spirit of a sixties organ trio: a Hammond lick, walking pedals, seventh chords bubbling through an arpeggiator, and drums. The song shuffles with the factory groove 8th swing 66, the pedals and pads keep grooves of their own, the drums are off so the kick and snare stay on the grid, and the scenes play it straight, drag it behind the beat with a groove of the set's own, and shuffle it harder, so you can hear how the track's choice wins over the scene's, which wins over the song's.

examples/learning/09_groove.yml · G minor · 130 BPM · 1:51 · 5 scenes · 5 tracks

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Directions: 10_mtn_king_direction.yml ​

The theme of In the Hall of the Mountain King played in each of the step directions, from forward and the two reverses to pendulum, random and brownian. The demo also shows that a clip's direction overrides its pattern's.

examples/learning/10_mtn_king_direction.yml · B minor · 138 BPM · 2:33 · 11 scenes · 2 tracks

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Ratchets: 11_ode_to_joy_ratchet.yml ​

The first line of Ode to Joy, slowed down to long notes, and then chopped up. The scenes named Ratchet use a pattern's own Ratchet, Ratchet offset and Probability rows. The scenes named AutoRatchet leave the pattern alone and do the chopping in a chain instead.

examples/learning/11_ode_to_joy_ratchet.yml · D major · 144 BPM · 4:00 · 18 scenes · 1 tracks

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Arpeggiator: 12_sailor_arpeggiator.yml ​

The verse of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor, with its chords played through a different arpeggiator in every scene: step lengths, orders, octave ranges and jumps, offsets, and then combinations of them. The tune plays alongside, plainly, so you can mute it and hear only the arpeggio.

examples/learning/12_sailor_arpeggiator.yml · D dorian · 112 BPM · 3:26 · 24 scenes · 2 tracks

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Strum: 13_classic_strum.yml ​

An acoustic folk song in G major whose guitar chords are strummed as a hand crosses the strings, down on the beats and up between them, compared scene by scene: struck all at once, strummed tight, normal, with the full acoustic setting of fade, loose timing and light upstrokes, and rolled like a harp.

examples/learning/13_classic_strum.yml · G major · 92 BPM · 2:52 · 9 scenes · 2 tracks

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Glide and Shorten: 14_acid_glide.yml ​

Fluid acid techno for a synth with portamento: one sixteen-note acid line from start to finish, and Glide and Shorten rows of 5, 7 and 3 steps putting its slides and short notes somewhere new each bar, though the line itself never changes.

examples/learning/14_acid_glide.yml · A minor · 128 BPM · 3:00 · 8 scenes · 4 tracks

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Articulate: 15_acid_articulate.yml ​

An acid house line played the whole way through, whose notes lengthen from short blips into long, gliding, joined notes over each scene while its filter opens, with no gate changed. The demo sets Articulate on the scenes, on the line itself and as a generator that bounces between short and long every bar, and a register bound to CC 74 opens the filter as the notes lengthen.

examples/learning/15_acid_articulate.yml · A minor · 120 BPM · 3:00 · 9 scenes · 6 tracks

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Swell: 16_bolero_swell.yml ​

An original piece in three in the manner of Ravel's Bolero: one tune and one snare rhythm, nine scenes of one unbroken crescendo from soft to full force, climbing evenly in loudness, without one velocity changed in a pattern. Each scene's Swell starts where the one before ended, the first three scenes keep the same instruments so that only the loudness climbs, and in the last the timpani run through a Swell generator that accents every downbeat. Use velocity-sensitive instruments to hear it.

examples/learning/16_bolero_swell.yml · C major · 72 BPM · 3:00 · 9 scenes · 7 tracks

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Chains: 17_complex_gifts_chain.yml ​

Simple Gifts on a single track, growing from the plain tune into triads, then synthwave, then happy metal, using only five patterns and a chain for each scene. The demo shows that a chain runs its steps in order, so an arpeggiator followed by an AutoRatchet sounds different from the other way round.

examples/learning/17_complex_gifts_chain.yml · A major · 120 BPM · 2:40 · 10 scenes · 1 tracks

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Morphing: 18_techno_morph.yml ​

A 16-step minimal techno groove whose bass and lead slowly turn into other patterns over 8 or 16 bars, in each morph style. The lead turns into the opening of Für Elise.

examples/learning/18_techno_morph.yml · A minor · 126 BPM · 2:17 · 8 scenes · 4 tracks

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Hocketing: 19_hocket_shanty.yml ​

The Wellerman, held by a muted track called SILENT melody, with up to four voices taking turns at its notes, one note each, through a Hocket generator that names the melody's track as its source. That's called hocketing. One voice plays every note, two alternate, and four each play every fourth note; each voice has a sound of its own, flute, clarinet, oboe and violin, to hear the tune pass between them.

examples/learning/19_hocket_shanty.yml · A minor · 100 BPM · 2:14 · 7 scenes · 5 tracks

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Few Patterns: 20_arrangement_shanty.yml ​

The Wellerman again, with eight parts built from only four note patterns. The harmony is the melody patterns transposed on its track, the bass grabs the roots of the pad's chords, and a counter-line grabs the melody in its own rhythm. Read this one to see how to set up a song so that changing one pattern changes every part that follows it.

examples/learning/20_arrangement_shanty.yml · A minor · 100 BPM · 2:34 · 8 scenes · 8 tracks

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Grabbed Parts: 21_look_ma_no_notes.yml ​

A gospel song in A flat where the bass, the piano and the lead hold no notes at all. The organ holds one seventh chord a bar, moved through the changes by Progression generators, and every other part is Grab steps that take the root of the organ's chord and build on it: the bass an octave down, the piano's chords from its Chord row, and the lead three ways, from the register rows, from an arpeggiator and from climbing and falling ratchets. The last chorus goes up a half step, and every part follows.

examples/learning/21_look_ma_no_notes.yml · Ab major · 76 BPM · 2:57 · 6 scenes · 7 tracks

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Registers: 22_registers.yml ​

An acid techno riff of five notes, changed bar by bar by the four registers, AX to DX. AX, BX and CX each move a different note of the riff, in cycles of 4, 6 and 5 bars, then all three at once. Then DX fades the riff, kick and hat out together over six repeats of the last scene.

examples/learning/22_registers.yml · A minor · 132 BPM · 1:35 · 5 scenes · 3 tracks

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Guitarify: 23_guitarify.yml ​

A tour of guitar playing in twenty short scenes, each a way a guitar is played, on seven General MIDI guitars and nothing else: a country bass note and strum, picking with thumb and fingers, bluegrass crosspicking, jazz comping, a blues in open G, power chords, a surf tremolo, the folk strum, funk scratching, a singer's rolled chords, metal gallops and a twelve bar shuffle. Every pattern is only a row of chords or low notes, and the Guitarify generator of each scene does the playing, so the demo shows what its Shape and Strokes sections do to the same kind of pattern.

examples/learning/23_guitarify.yml · G major · 104 BPM · 3:09 · 20 scenes · 7 tracks

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Released under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later.