Editing Tools Music Editor

Music Editor

Music in PICO-8 is controlled by a sequence of 'patterns'. Each pattern is a list of 4 numbers indicating which SFX will be played on that channel.

Flow control

Playback flow can be controlled using the 3 buttons at the top right.

When a pattern has finished playing, the next pattern is played unless:

• there is no data left to play (music stops)
• a STOP command is set on that pattern (the third button)
• a LOOP BACK command is set (the 2nd button), in which case the music player searches back for a pattern with the LOOP START command set (the first button) or returns to pattern 0 if none is found.

When a pattern has SFXes with different speeds, the pattern finishes playing when the left-most non-looping channel has finished playing. This can be used to set up double-time drum beats or unusual polyrhythms.

For time signatures like 3/4 where less than 32 rows should be played before jumping to the next pattern, the length of a SFX can be set by adjusting only the first loop position and leaving the second one as ero. This will show up in the SFX editor as "LEN" (for "Length") instead of "LOOP".

Copying and Pasting Music

To select a range of patterns: click once on the first pattern in the pattern navigator, then shift-click on the last pattern. Selected patterns can be copied and pasted with CTRL-C and CTRL-V. When pasting into another cartridge, the SFX that each pattern points to will also be pasted (possibly with a different index) if it does not already exist.

SFX Instruments

In addition to the 8 built-in instruments, custom instruments can be defined using the first 8 SFX. Use the toggle button to the right of the instruments to select an index, which will show up in the instrument channel as green instead of pink.

When an SFX instrument note is played, it essentially triggers that SFX, but alters the note's attributes:

• Pitch is added relative to C2
• Volume is multiplied
• Effects are applied on top of the SFX instrument's effects
• Any filters that are on in the SFX instrument are enabled for that note

For example, a simple tremolo effect could be implemented by defining an instrument in SFX 0 that rapidly alternates between volume 5 and 2. When using this instrument to play a note, the volume can further be altered as usual (via the volume channel or using the fade in/out effects). In this way, SFX instruments can be used to control combinations of detailed changes in volume, pitch and texture.

SFX instruments are only retriggered when the pitch changes, or the previous note has zero volume. This is useful for instruments that change more slowly over time. For example: a bell that gradually fades out. To invert this behaviour, effect 3 (normally 'drop') can be used when triggering the note. All other effect values have their usual meaning when triggering SFX instruments.