Syntheogen Guide
Songs
Updated May 29, 2014
The SONG dialog allows you to construct and edit songs:
SONG dialog
A song is displayed here by pressing the LAST SONG button on the MAIN dialog, or by selecting an entry from the ALL SONGS dialog and pressing EDIT.
Elements view
Every song is built from one or more song elements, each of which references a loop. As the song is played, these loops are played back, one after the other, each for a certain number of beats. The large view on this dialog shows the elements in the current song. Zoom into or out from the elements with standard pinch gestures.
A thick semi-opaque line line shows the playback position. The ruler at the top of the view marks positions within the song, as measured in beats. The playback position can be set by tapping the ruler.
Tapping an element selects it. Long-tapping an element displays the referenced loop in the LOOP STEPS dialog. Tapping an already-selected element displays the SONG ELEMENT dialog, where you can edit the element:
SONG ELEMENT dialog
This dialog contains the following controls:
| LENGTH | Sets the element length, in beats. An element can be as short as one beat or as long as 999 beats. |
| DESC | Sets the element description, which is displayed on the element in the song elements view. If no description is set, the loop name will be shown instead. |
| LOOP |
Sets the loop referenced by this element. The small button at the right end of this box opens the loop in the LOOP STEPS dialog; any changes made in this dialog are discarded. |
| Loop elements view |
Selects the loop elements to be played during this song element. By default, unmuted elements are enabled, muted elements are disabled, and soloed elements are enabled in isolation; this causes the loop to be played the same way it is played during loop editing. By tapping element entries, you can selectively enable or disable loop elements without changing the loop itself. This lets you turn a single loop into an evolving composition with breakdowns, breaks, and drops. Adding a loop element to the loop will not change the sound of this song element after it has been set up; when the song element is edited again, the new loop element will appear, but it will be disabled. On the other hand, deleting a loop element will change the sound of this song element if the loop element was enabled here. |
| CANCEL | Closes the SONG ELEMENT dialog without applying changes. |
| DONE | Applies any changes and closes the SONG ELEMENT dialog. |
Command buttons
On the SONG dialog are the following buttons:
| PASTE ELEMENT | Displays the PASTE ELEMENT dialog, which you can use to add an element to the song. If you copied an element earlier, that element's settings will be used to fill the dialog; otherwise, default values will be shown. The new element can be pasted before, after, or over the selected element. |
| COPY ELEMENT | Copies the selected song element. |
| DELETE ELEMENT | Deletes the selected song element. |
Other controls
Above the command buttons you will see the VOL controls that appear on loop and track edit dialogs.
To the far right is the title bar, which shows the name of the current song. Tapping the title bar opens the SONG PROPERTIES dialog.
Below the title bar is the RESTART button, which starts or restarts playback from the beginning of the song, and the PLAY button, which alternately starts and pauses playback.
