The song editor

The song document is where much of the focus of using Doggiebox takes place. This section discusses the fundamentals of the song document window.

Opening or creating a song

To open an existing song file, choose Open... from the File menu, or drag the document's icon to the Doggiebox application icon in either the Finder or the dock. Doggiebox song files typically end with the ".dbsong" file name extension.

As an exercise, open the "Demo Song.dbsong" file, provided in the Examples folder. After a few moments a document window should appear.

When opening a song you may be prompted to locate a drum kit file if the previously-used drum kit cannot be located. This may happen if you re-arrange files on your hard disk, for example, or open a song that was sent to you by someone else.

In every song file the path to its drum kit is saved. When opening a song, if Doggiebox can't find the drum kit at that location, it will look in the same folder as the song file. If the kit still cannot be found, Doggiebox will prompt you to locate one. It is not necessary to choose exactly the same drum kit as originally used, but if you don't, you may then also be asked to reconcile missing drums in order to proceed.

To create a brand new song, choose New Song... from the File menu. An empty song document will be created using the most recently chosen drum kit.

Song document overview

The screen shot below illustrates the main components of the song document window, which are described in the following subsections.

[screenshot]
Elements of the song document window

The pattern editor

The pattern editor provides the visual representation of the drum sounds and rhythms in the song. This is where you will spend most of the time adding and removing beats. Instead of using traditional music notation, however, the pattern editor provides more versatility using a unique grid format.

The pattern editor is discussed in more detail on the following page.

Drum kit list

At the bottom-left of the document window is the drum kit list, a table which lists all of the various instruments available in the song's current drum kit. The icon beside the instrument's name indicates how it will be shown visually in the pattern editor. Click on a drum to select it for subsequent editing operations (and hear what it will sound like).

Drums or cymbals which have more than one variant are displayed with a triangular button to their right. Clicking on this button will expose a pop-up menu listing all of the variants for that instrument. The current variant for a multi-variant instrument is displayed beside its name in parentheses.

You can change the list of available drums by choosing a different drum kit file. To do so, choose Change Drum Kit... from the Song menu (or click the ... button above the list), and select a Doggiebox drum kit (.dbkit) file. If the new drum kit you choose does not exactly match the one currently in use, you will be asked to reconcile the drums before continuing.

Section list and playlist

Doggiebox allows you to build songs out of discrete groups of bars, called sections. Each section can contain any number of bars. By arranging sections in the playlist, you can build out the structure of your song.

Sections can be used more than once in the playlist. This allows you to create complex songs with ease, without having to laboriously duplicate the same groups of bars over and over. For example, you may create two sections named "verse" and "chorus", then create playlist entries in the order of verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. When you make a change to the "verse" section, it will be automatically reflected everywhere in the song where the verse is used.

The section list and playlist are discussed in more detail on the following page.

Song title and notes

You may type the title of your song, as well as any arbitrary notes, into the text fields at the top of the window.

Playback controls

Beneath the section lists is an area containing several controls related to song playback.

Pressing the Play button begins playback of the pattern(s) currently shown or selected in the pattern editor. While playing back, its function changes to Stop . If one or more bars is currently highlighted, only they will be played; otherwise, all visible bars will be played. You can also press the space bar to toggle playback.

In addition, if an input MIDI device is active, playback will respond to incoming MMC PLAY/STOP and MIDI START/STOP events. If an outbound MIDI target is active, Doggiebox will send PLAY/STOP commands at appropriate times (regardless of how playback was initiated), and also stream MIDI time code while playback is underway.

Enabling the Loop button will cause Doggiebox will repeatedly loop the shown bars until you press Stop. Otherwise, playback ceases automatically after the last bar.

Enabling the Mono button will temporarily collapse the drum mix from stereo into dual mono sound (useful if you wish to export a track for monitoring purposes or want to check phase coherency in the mix).

The Master Volume slider controls the relative level of the entire song. If you later choose to export the song as an audio file, you may find the need to make adjustments to normalize the output level or prevent clipping.

The Master Tempo adjustment slider provides a global adjustment of the song tempo over a wide range, while maintaining respect for the relative tempo changes expressly indicated within the song. As you move the slider, the cue times and durations will be updated in real time in the section list and playlist. You may double-click the slider to quickly return it to 100%.