pilophae / pixla

pixla

The Pixla project is an 8-bit music style soundtracker using intracker synthesized sounds.

Command column description

• 0xy - Arpeggio, 4x speed playing note, note + x, note + y, note + 12
• 1xy - Slide up, max 4 octaves up from note value then sliding stops
• 2xy - Slide down, max 4 octaves down from note value then sliding stops
• 3xy - Tone portamento, only xy == 00 supported (change pitch)
• 4xy - Vibrato, x = speed, y = depth
• 7xy - Tremolo, x = speed, y = depth
• Bxx - Jump to song position (0-255).
• Cxx - Channel volume 00-FF. Is reset to maximum value upon note trigger (but not on tone portamento)
• Dxx - Pattern break, set position to row xx in next song position
• Exx - Set global volume 00-FF. Will remain until a new value is set or song is restarted.
• Fxx - Set tempo, in 2 * BPM values (i.e. 0x40 = 64 = 128 BPM)

Keys

• Shift + F5,F6,F7,F8 - Mute channels 1-4
• F1, F2 - Decrease/increase octave in editor
• Shift + F1, F2 - Transpose track down/up
• Alt + F1, F2 - Transpose pattern down/up
• Space - Stop/Edit
• Right Ctrl - Play Pattern
• F9, F10 - Select instrument
• Alt + F9, F10 - Decrease or increase song BPM (set on song start, can be overridden with F command)
• Half / Shift + Half - Increase/Decrease stepping
• Alt + Left, Right - Decrease/Increase pattern at position
• Alt + Up, Down - Decrease/Increase song position
• Alt + Shift + Down - Increase song position, if at the end, add another position
• Alt + Home - Move to beginning of song
• Alt + End - Move to end of song
• Alt + Backspace - Remove previous song pattern
• Alt + Delete- Remove current song pattern
• Alt + Insert- Insert a pattern at position
• Shift + F9, F10 - Activate/deactivate instrument editor mode
• Shift + X - Cut track
• Shift + C - Copy track
• Shift + V - Paste track
• Alt + X - Cut pattern
• Alt + C - Copy pattern
• Alt + V - Paste pattern
• Ctrl + O - Open song
• Ctrl + S - Save song as
• Ctrl + B - Render WAV output
• F12 - Save current song

Instrument editor mode

• Up, Down - Navigate through instrument settings
• Left, Right - Alter current instrument setting

Edit mode

• Backspace - Delete previous row
• Insert - Insert row at current position
• Del - Delete row at cursor
• Return - Clear note or command at cursor
• Shift + Return - Clear note and command at cursor
• Ctrl + Z - Undo changes in pattern (undo buffer resets when a new pattern is edited)
• Ctrl + Y - Redo changes in pattern (undo buffer resets when a new pattern is edited)

Instruments/Patches

• Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release configurable per patch
• Up to three wave segments per patch
• Each wave segment has the following properties
  • A waveform (Lowpass Pulse, Lowpass Saw, Pulse with PWM, White Noise, Triangle, Ring Modulated Pulse)
  • A length in some time uint, or 0 to indicate this is the last segment
  • A starting duty cycle (for PWM)
  • Pulse width modulation speed
  • A note modifier keyword:
    • = 00 no change
    • < 00 subtract this from current note value, effectively adding the absolute value to the played note
    • > 00 play the specified note regardless of the note in the tracker
  • A relative volume, values 0 = MAX/default, 1-127 = relative value
  • Filter
  • Ring modulation carrier frequency or 0 to use channel 0 frequency (when wave = Ring modulation)