Terrapin Resources

Making Music

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad, this section is not for you. iOS devices have problems with playing music or sounds, and the PLAY command simply does nothing.

Logo helps you to create amazing music! It comes with its own tiny music language that lets you create songs using notes and instruments. The Logo music system is closely modeled after the MIDI specification, which is the standard for electronic music devices to exchange music data. This way, Logo will one day be able to connect to electronic instruments such as keyboards and synthesizers once browsers support the connection to these devices.

The PLAY command is Logo’s musical centerpiece. Usually, you use the command to play MP3 files and other sound or music files. But you can feed PLAY a list of music commands, and Logo will play these notes on its own, built-in synthesizer.

Sometimes, a box pops up asking you to touch or click the screen before the music begins. Newer Web standards dictate that playback needs to be the result of a user gesture. Also, the Safari browser on Mac computers, iPhones and iPads ignores stereo panning or vibrato commands for the Web synthesizers. See the Special Effects section below for more info.

Some MIDI Stuff

The MIDI standard was defined back in 1996, and it specifies the data format for music data. This data can be transmitted from, say, a keyboard to a synthesizer, stored as a .MID file, and played back from that file. MIDI defines 16 channels, where each channel can play a single instrument, giving a maximum of 15 instruments playing at the same time.

Wait! 15? not 16? This is not a typo. Channel #10 is a special channel. The MIDI people soon discovered that they could not fit more than 128 instruments into their scheme of things, which would have left out all percussion instruments. Therefore, they assigned channel #10 to be the percussion channel, and the percussion instruments to be notes being played in channel #10.

Logo comes with its own built-in synthesizer that can play all of these channels. Internally, Logo translates the music commands that you will learn about to MIDI commands. This way, you can save your songs as .MID files and replay them with any software than can play .MID files. In the future, Logo will be able to listen to MIDI keyboards, or to drive a real synthesizer connected to your computer.

OK, let’s get started.

Notes and Chords

You certainly know the standard note names C, D, E, F, G, A and B? European musicians also know that the letter H is the same as the letter B, so Logo knows that letter as well. Logo also knows sharp and flat notes as in the table above. Simply append the letter “b” or the hash “#” to your note to play the flat or sharp variant. If you look more closely at the table above, you will notice that the note “C#” is the same as the note “Db” or “DB” (remember that Logo usually converts everything into upper case).

Playing a simple melody is as easy as feeding PLAY with a list of notes:

Want to play chords? Simply use a list instead of a single note. Replace the C with a C major chord. (For now, please keep in mind that lists are used for more than chords):

Octaves

Using the letters only will only give you a single octave, but Logo can play full seven octaves. The official way to support octaves is to append the octave number (a value between 0 and 6) to your note. If you do not append an octave number, Logo assumes that you want octave #4, which is the octave around the note A at 440 Hertz.

Try to add the octave #5 to the last C note, moving it up an octave:

If you often move between octaves, Logo knows the Octave command (the letter O). Here, you can set which octave Logo should assume as the default. It is preset to “O4”. Try this:

The difference between setting the octave and appending the octave number is that Logo remembers the octave for the next PLAY command. Try to play these notes again, and you will see that Logo now plays all notes in octave 5.

This has a very good reason. Often, you will want to split up your notes into multiple PLAY commands, and it is convenient if Logo carries over your general settings to the next command instead of you having to enter all settings again before playing the next list of notes.

You can use the Reset (R) command to reset all values to the default ones:

You can imagine that if you put together a song, it is a good idea to start a song with the “R” command.

Also, Logo knows the commands “O#” (one octave up) and “Ob” (one octave down).

Timing

Right now, all notes are equally long. By default, Logo assumes a tempo of 120 beats per minute (BPM). This is equivalent to 120 quarter notes per minute, or two quarter notes per second.

Tempo

You can change the tempo of a song at any time with the Tempo (T) command, followed by the number of beats per minute. Try this to play the first three notes at double speed:

Note Lengths

Most often, you do not want to change the tempo of the entire song, but rather the length of a single note. Logo lets you prepend a note with its length. After a reset, all notes are quarter notes, so the note “C” is the same as “4C” (a quarter note C). The Length (L) command lets you change the default length of a note to anything else. The last example played the first two notes as eighth notes (a quarter note played twice as fast is an eighth note). You can do the same with these two commands:

The latter changes the length of all notes, and also carries over to the next PLAY command.

You can even fine-tune the note length. The length “8C” is “1/8 C”; unfortunately, the slash “/” means the Division sign to Logo, so if you write [1/8C], Logo understands [1 / 8C], which is something entirely different. Therefore the Logo music language uses the apostrophe instead of the slash character as in “1’8C”. You can omit the “1’” part usually, because if you use just a number as a length value, Logo assumes that you want 1/number.

But you can, of course, use lengths like “3’8” or “5’2”. Let us try this now:

Or, even more pronounced:

One more thing. You may know that it is possible to extend a note by half of its length by appending a dot. Well, Logo also knows this, so you can also extend the first note (which is an eighth note) by half of its value, resulting in a 3/16 note:

Logo treats words that begin with a number, followed by “E”, and end with a number, as numbers in scientific notation! Logo reads the value “2E5” as 2 * 105 = 200000. If you run into this problem, you will see an error message like “200000: unknown note or command name”. You can fix the problem by using the full length notation as in “1’2E5”.

The Pause

A pause is an important part of music. The Pause (P) command acts just like a note, but it is silent. So if you want a pause of 1/2 note, you would use “2P” as the command.

Loops

Although the MIDI standard does not know loops, Logo supports them. Loops cause a bunch of notes to be played over and over again, saving you tons of typing. The number behind the “RPT” command tells Logo how often to repeat the loop. Most often, you will want to use a list to write a loop. In that case, the “RPT” command must be the first element of that list.

Here is an example:

If you omit the repeat count, using “RPT” alone, Logo will repeat the loop until the song ends. This is especially convenient when you write a song with an entire band. You may want to repeat a drum loop until the solo guitar ends. See the “Purple Haze” example below for such a loop.

But beware! If you define nothing but endless loops, you will hear nothing at all! If you do not have a melody, Logo has no way of knowing how long the song is, so it does not loop at all.

Instruments

The standard MIDI instrument assignments are based on the MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) General MIDI Mode specification. There are 128 different instruments plus a set of percussion instruments. The Instrument (I) command lets you select an instrument. You are not required to stay with a piano!

Try, for example, instrument #14 (Tubular Bells). It is a lot of fun to try out all kinds of instruments!

Instrument Quality

Logo offers a number of different synthesizers, which you can select by setting the global variable MIDI.OUTPUT. The global variable MIDI.OUTPUTS outputs a list of synthesizers. Currently, Logo has these synthesizers:

SIMPLE: An oscillator-based synthesizer that does a decent job at simulating instruments, but do not expect naturally sounding instruments.

WEB: This synthesizer downloads real instrument sounds from the Web. Therefore, you may see a short delay before a song begins to play.

WEBHQ: This is the same as the WEB synthesizer; the downloaded sound bits have a better quality, but they are bigger, and may be slower to download.

On startup, Logo sets the synthesizer to WEB for mobile devices and WEBHQ for desktop computers, and pre-downloads the Acoustic Grand Piano sound for good measure.

The Safari browser on Mac computers, iPhones and iPads ignores stereo panning or vibrato commands for the Web synthesizers. If you need these (and other effects, like bending), you will have to use the SIMPLE synthesizer.

Please note that not all instruments can play every note. The Grand Piano’s lowest note, for example, is A in octave 1. If you try to play a lower note like e.g. C in octave 0, you will not hear anything.

:MIDI.OUTPUTS Result: [SIMPLE WEB WEBHQ] :MIDI.OUTPUT Result: WEB

And here is the table of instruments:

MIDI Instrument Numbers

Piano, Chromatic Percussion, Organ

       
0 Acoustic grand piano 6 Harpsichord 12 Marimba 18 Rock organ
1 Bright acoustic piano 7 Clavinet 13 Xylophone 19 Church organ
2 Electric grand piano 8 Celesta 14 Tubular bells 20 Reed organ
3 Honky-tonk piano 9 Glockenspiel 15 Dulcimer 21 Accordion
4 Rhodes piano 10 Music box 16 Hammond organ 22 Harmonica
5 Chorused piano 11 Vibraphone 17 Percussive organ 23 Tango accordion
Guitar, Bass, Strings
       
24 Acoustic guitar (nylon) 30 Distortion guitar 36 Slap bass 1 42 Cello
25 Acoustic guitar (steel) 31 Guitar harmonics 37 Slap bass 2 43 Contrabass
26 Electric guitar (jazz) 32 Acoustic bass 38 Synth bass 1 44 Tremolo strings
27 Electric guitar (clean) 33 Electric bass (finger) 39 Synth bass 2 45 Pizzicato strings
28 Electric guitar (muted) 34 Electric bass (pick) 40 Violin 46 Orchestral harp
29 Overdriven guitar 35 Fretless bass 41 Viola 47 Timpani
Ensemble, Brass, Reed
       
48 String ensemble 1 54 Synth voice 60 French horn 66 Tenor sax
49 String ensemble 2 55 Orchestra hit 61 Brass section 67 Baritone sax
50 Synth. strings 1 56 Trumpet 62 Synth. brass 1 68 Oboe
51 Synth. strings 2 57 Trombone 63 Synth. brass 2 69 English horn
52 Choir Aahs 58 Tuba 64 Soprano sax 70 Bassoon
53 Voice Oohs 59 Muted trumpet 65 Alto sax 71 Clarinet
Pipe, Synth Lead, Synth Pad
             
72 Piccolo 80 Lead 1 (square) 88 Pad 1 (new age) 96 FX 1 (rain)
73 Flute 81 Lead 2 (sawtooth) 89 Pad 2 (warm) 97 FX 2 (soundtrack)
74 Recorder 82 Lead 3 (calliope) 90 Pad 3 (polysynth) 98 FX 3 (crystal)
75 Pan flute 83 Lead 4 (chiff) 91 Pad 4 (choir) 99 FX 4 (atmosphere)
76 Bottle blow 84 Lead 5 (charang) 92 Pad 5 (bowed) 100 FX 5 (brightness)
77 Shakuhachi 85 Lead 6 (voice) 93 Pad 6 (metallic) 101 FX 6 (goblins)
78 Whistle 86 Lead 7 (fifths) 94 Pad 7 (halo) 102 FX 7 (echoes)
79 Ocarina 87 Lead 8 (brass) 95 Pad 8 (sweep) 103 FX 8 (sci-fi)
Ethnic
       
104 Sitar 106 Shamisen 108 Kalimba 110 Fiddle
105 Banjo 107 Koto 109 Bagpipe 111 Shanai
Percussive
       
112 Tinkle Bell 114 Steel Drums 116 Taiko Drum 118 Synth Drum
113 Agogo Bells 115 Woodblock 117 Melodic Tom 119 Reverse Cymbal
Sound Effects
       
120 Guitar fret noise 121 Breath noise 122 Seashore 123 Bird tweet
124 Telephone ring 125 Helicopter 126 Applause 127 Gunshot

Roll the Drums!

Now that you’ve learned how to use various instruments, let’s move on to the percussion instruments. These instruments, like drums and cymbals, are different from the usual instruments. Instead of having instrument numbers, a special MIDI channel (#10) has been set aside for percussion instruments only, and you use notes to play the various percussion instruments.

This is the standard MIDI assignment for percussion instruments on channel #10. As you can see, the first instrument corresponds to note #35 (or the note B in octave 2), and the last instrument, a triangle, is actually note #81 or the note A in octave 6.

MIDI Percussion List

Note # Name Note # Name Note # Name
B2 35 Acoustic Bass Drum C3 36 Bass Drum 1 Db3 37 Side Stick
D3 38 Acoustic Snare Eb3 39 Hand Clap E3 40 Electric Snare
F3 41 Low Floor Tom Gb3 42 Closed Hi-Hat G3 43 High Floor Tom
Ab3 44 Pedal Hi-Hat A3 45 Low Tom Bb3 46 Open Hi-Hat
B3 47 Low-Mid Tom C 48 Hi-Mid Tom Db 49 Crash Cymbal 1
D 50 High Tom Eb 51 Ride Cymbal 1 E 52 Chinese Cymbal
F 53 Ride Bell Gb 54 Tambourine G 55 Splash Cymbal
Ab 56 Cowbell A 57 Crash Cymbal 2 Bb 58 Vibraslap
B 59 Ride Cymbal 2 C5 60 Hi Bongo Db5 61 Low Bongo
D5 62 Mute Hi Conga Eb5 63 Open Hi Conga E5 64 Low Conga
F5 65 High Timbale Gb5 66 Low Timbale G5 67 High Agogo
Ab5 68 Low Agogo A5 69 Cabasa Bb5 70 Maracas
B5 71 Short Whistle C6 72 Long Whistle Db6 73 Short Guiro
D6 74 Long Guiro Eb6 75 Claves E6 76 Hi Wood Block
F6 77 Low Wood Block Gb6 78 Mute Cuica G6 79 Open Cuica
Ab6 80 Mute Triangle A6 81 Open Triangle      

Let us have a real-world example. This considered to be the most basic rock rhythm:

The top line is a hi-hat beating at 1/8 notes. The middle line is the snare drum, and the bottom line is the bass drum.

Without the hi-hat, using the bass and snare drum is quite straightforward. The bass drum corresponds to the note C3, and the snare to D3. Use a slower, more heavy tempo like T80, and this is what you’ll get:

To fill in the hi-hat, which is note Gb3 or number 42, you will need to use chords, because you want to fire both a drum and the hi-hat at the same time. Also, the basic time unit should be 1/8 note, not 1/4 note: you get this unit with the L8 command. And here is the complete command:

Have the command repeat to enjoy the intricate rhythm:

Here is the final sound:

Special Effects

Logo supports a few special effects, which we’ll touch briefly here.

Sustain

If you use the “+” command, Logo keeps all following notes turned on till the next Pause command, of until the list ends. Try this:

Reverb

You can add a reverb effect to a channel with the REV command:

Vibrato

Finally, you can add a vibrato effect to a channel, causing a note to change its frequency about five times a second. You may know this effect from singers. The more vibrato you apply, the stronger it is. A value of 0 turns the vibrato off, while a value of 127 causes an almost intolerable vibrato.

Note: The Web synthesizers on the Safari browser on Apple devices ignore vibrato.

Stereo Panning

You can decide on which stereo channel a MIDI channel is supposed to play. In MIDI terms, this is called “stereo panning”. The PAN command has a suffix value from 0 till 127. the value 64 means that the channel is exactly in the middle; the value 0 moves the channel to the far left, and the value 127 moves the channel to the far right in the stereo space. If you have stereo speakers connected to your PC, try this:

Note: The Web synthesizers on the Safari browser on Apple devices ignore stereo panning.

A Rock Band

As a last challenge, let us try to assemble a small piece of music, the beginning of Jimi Hendrix’ “Purple Haze”. Let’s not go into all of the tiny notes, but stick with the general idea.

Here’s the original piece of music, at least the six bars that you are going to do:

For those who want to watch a video at YouTube:

Part 1: The Bass

The bass part is pretty simple and straightforward. It is always the same phrase for all six bars. Note that the command “R” resets the player for a fresh start, and then use eights to write notes, because you want the pauses as well. Use instrument #38 (Synth Bass 1).

or, with a RPT command:

That was quite easy.

Part 2: The Drums

The drums are quite easy as well. The snare beats on every quarter note, and the bass drum beats on the 1/8 notes 6 and 8. You need to use MIDI channel 10 as the percussion channel. For the snare, use note D3 (Acoustic Snare), and for the bass drum, use note B2 (Acoustic Bass Drum).

Good enough.

Part 3: The Guitar

Now, you need to play Jimi Hendrix himself! The first two bars are easy as well, followed by the melody. Put it together like this, using instrument 30 (Distortion Guitar). Repeat the first phrase 4 times (each part is half a bar, so you get two bars), then repeat the melody two times.

Putting it Together

Now that you have the three instruments laid out, assign them to several MIDI channels. Use MIDI channel 1 for the guitar, channel 2 for the bass and channel 10 (remember, this is the percussion channel) for the drums.

For the drums and the bass, use Logo’s Open Repeat feature. If you do not supply a repeat count, Logo simply plays the channel again and again until the song ends. The song, in this case, is the guitar solo. Also, the drums are quiet during the first two bars, so use the command “1P2” (a full bar pause for two bars) to start the channel, before the drum repeat loop begins. Note that the Note Length specifier has to be set for each channel separately.

Also, Jimi played the tune a little slower, so let us use tempo 100 (command T100).

Here we go:

And here is the final result:

OK, this is nowhere near Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, but it sounds pretty darn cool. And it was amazingly easy to create this piece of music.

Record Your Music

Would you like to send off your music to someone else? No problem! You can record the MIDI commands that your music uses and save them to a .MID file. This is how you do it:

; turn on MIDI recording MIDI.RECORD TRUE ; play your music; you will not hear anything. ; MY.MUSIC is supposed to contain your music commands. PLAY :MY.MUSIC ; end recording and save to MUSIC.MID MIDI.RECORD “X.MID

Please check the MIDI.RECORD command for more details.

Also, PLAY can play a MIDI file. In the Web version, you need to have the file either on Dropbox or in the Files panel so Logo can find it.

Complete Command Table

Every command can have a length prefix as a number or as a note measure with an apostrophe (like e.g. 3’8), and a numeric suffix. Note commands are caseless. For more examples, please visit our Logo Library and select “Music”.

Command Scope Explanation Example
R (reset) Song Resets octave, note length, volume, reverb, staccato, instrument, and sustain to their default values and stops all music. R
T (tempo) Song The suffix defines the tempo of the entire song in beats per minute (BPS) a.k.a. quarter notes per minute. The default value is 120. The tempo carries over to the next PLAY command. T100
C D E F G A B Channel Basic notes. Notes may be flattened with an “b” suffix, or sharpened with a “#” suffix. A dot behind the note extends the note by half of its length. The suffix is the octave number (0…6). Bb6 3’8C# Eb.
N (note) Channel Play a note with its number as the suffix (0…127). This lets you play direct notes without worrying about the note name or the octave. It makes most sense when you create a percussion channel, where N35, for example, would be the Acoustic Bass Drum. [CHAN10 [RPT N35]]
P (pause) Channel Pause, works the same way as a note, just silent. Notes may be flattened with an “b” suffix, or sharpened with a “#” suffix. A dot behind the note extends the note by half of its length. The suffix is a value that the length specified is multiplied with. For example, “1P2” creates a pause of 2*1 = 2 bars. 1P2 2’1P
! (separator) Channel The exclamation mark can be used to mark measures. It does not have any effect. [C E ! F A]
[notes] Channel Plays the notes in the list as a chord. [C E G BB]
BK (back) Channel Move the timeline back. The length specifiers are the same as for notes. Use this command to move the entire timeline back in time so you can add additional notes to a channel. This can create more interesting effects than simple chords, and is important for more complex drum arrangements. The command is valid till the end of the list; you can use it to move a few notes back in time with an embedded list. 3’8BK
FD (forward) Channel Move the timeline forward. This command has the opposite effect of the BK command; it moves the remainder of the list forward in time. FD.
L (length) Channel Sets the default length of a note. After a reset, the length is 4, corresponding to a quarter note. The length carries over to the next PLAY command. L4 C L8 D E
O (octave) Channel Sets the octave of the following notes. The suffix is the octave number (0…6). After a reset, the octave is 4. The command “O#” increases the octave by one, and the command “Ob” decreases the octave by one. The octave value carries over to the next PLAY command. L4 C L8 D E
I (instrument) Channel Selects an instrument for a channel. The suffix is the instrument number (0…127). The instrument carries over to the next PLAY command. I19 [C E G]
V (volume) Channel Sets the overall channel volume (0…127). After a reset, the volume is set to 100. The volume carries over to the next PLAY command. C V64 E V32 G
S (staccato) Channel Sets the staccato amount for the following notes (0…99). This determines how log a note is played within its length. A small value like e.g. 10 plays very short notes, followed by a small pause until the note length (e.g. a quarter note) has been played. After a reset, the staccato value is 95, creating a tiny pause between notes. The staccato carries over to the next PLAY command. S 10 C D E
+ (sustain) Channel This command causes all notes to stand until a pause is reached, or the list ends. Note that if you use sound samples, a note may end prematurely when the sound ends. + C D E
M (MIDI) Song In Logo 4, you could switch the channel with the M command. It suffix is the channel number (1…16). It was useful to switch to the percussion channel. You should avoid this command, and use the CHAN command instead. This command carries over to the next PLAY command. I5 C M2 I7 C
CHAN (channel) Song CHAN selects the channel into which all following commands are recorded. This command should be used as the first element of a list of commands. Using various command lists with different channels lets you create music for multiple instruments, so you can actually create your own band. [CHAN2 I28 C D E]
REV (reverb) Channel Adds a reverb effect to the channel (0…127). REV10 C D E
RPT (repeat) Channel Repeats the following notes the number of times that the suffix says. RPT2, for example, repeats all following notes twice. RPT without a suffix causes Logo to repeat the notes as often as required until the song ends. You should, therefore, have a melody channel with a fixed length so Logo knows when to stop the repeat. If you use RPT in a list, it must be the first command of that list. C [RPT2 D E]
PAN (panning) Channel Determines the stereo position of the MIDI channel (0…127). A value of 0 puts the MIDI channel on the left speaker only, 64 puts it into the middle, and 127 puts it on the right speaker only. PAN0 C PAN127 E
VIB (vibrato) Channel Adds a vibrato effect to the channel (0…127). VIB10 C D E
Making Music
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