XDRUM(1)

NAME
xdrum - a program for graphically creating and editing drum patterns

SYNOPSIS
xdrum

DESCRIPTION
xdrum is a program that runs under X. It is designed to facilitate constructing and editing rhythms for drum machines, and is based on TCL(1,) TK(1) and TCLM(1). xdrum supports reading and saving the patterns in an ASCII format as well as saving patterns in the Standard MIDI format for playing back with other utilities, such as mplay(1). Essentially, xdrum is just a fancy wrapper around the drumgrid(3) widget. See drumgrid(3) for further information.

xdrum uses the default drumgrid(3) bindings. Pressing mouse button 1 in a box will increase the velocity of the box by 1. Pressing mouse button 3 decrease the velocity by 1, and pressing mouse button 2 sets the velocity to zero. Since it is a pain to constantly click the mouse button to set velocities to higher values, keyboard accelerators have also been incorporated into xdrum. The velocity of a box can be set directly to a specific value by first moving the mouse to the box and then pressing a key in the range 0 - 9, where the key value is the desired velocity. The '+' key can be used to increment the velocity of a box by 10 and the '-' decrements the velocity by 10. Thus, you can set the value to velocities greater than 9. If you specify a velocity greater than the maximum level, the maximum level will be used.

xdrum also has 2, or 3, pull down menus that allow you to adjust the parameters in the grid and save or load files. The optional third menu will only appear if the tclm(1) library was compiled with play support. The ``Adjust Grid'' menu allows you to add voices and remove them, change the pitch of voices, which is a voice's associated MIDI value, change the tempo of the pattern, change the MIDI channel on which the pattern is played and change the division value to use when generating a MIDI file. This menu also allows you to change the configuration of the grid. You can change the number of measures in the pattern, the number of beats per measure, the quantization value and the number velocity levels (remember a velocity of zero counts as a level). These options are displayed below a line in the menu because changing these values will erase anything that is currently in the grid.

The ``File I/O'' menu allows you to save a pattern in an ASCII format, load a pattern that was previously saved in the ASCII format and save a pattern as a Standard MIDI file. xdrum cannot load files in the Standard MIDI format. Files that have been saved in the format may also be edited by hand with your favorite editor.

The optional third menu allows you to start playing the pattern and stop playing the pattern. This menu will only appear if your version of the tclm(1) library was compiled with support for playing Standard MIDI files.

There is also a ``Quit'' button for exiting the application.

Since xdrum may only display a portion of the pattern at one time, a message is displayed above the grid showing where in the pattern the display begins. This value is shown in measures, beats and fractions of a beat. The name of the pattern is also displayed. The scrollbars allow you to move around in the pattern.

APPLICATION RESOURCES
The application resources which are part of the drumgrid(3) widget are available to customize the xdrum setup. It is recommended that the voices and related pitches be stored in your .Xdefaults file so they need not be set by hand each time xdrum is run.

SEE ALSO
tclm(1), wish(1), drumgrid(3)

AUTHORS
TCL and TK
    John Ousterhout - ouster@cs.berkeley.edu
TCLM and XDRUM
    Mike Durian - durian@advtech.uswest.com

BUGS
Just because I don't currently know of any doesn't mean they aren't there.