Swiftlet MIDI Editor is a simple MIDI editor with a spread sheet like user interface. No external device like MIDI keyboard is neither required nor supported. Swiftlet supports both standard MIDI format files and its own native format files. Recorded MIDI files can be imported into Swiftlet MIDI Editor, edited and saved back as standard MIDI file. So Swiftlet can be used to make finer alterations to already recorded sequences.

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System Requirements

Swiftlet runs on any system that has Microsoft^® Windows 95/98/ME and has installed sound card and necessary drivers. Memory requirements are minimal.

The quality of the sound produced depends upon the type of synthesizers in the sound card. FM synthesizers are the old types and the sound quality is poor. Newer ones are the software wavetable synthesizer and the hardware wavetable synthesizer.

Swiftlet was tested on Yamaha Opal 3 sound boards, Creative SoundBlaster and compatibles and on a few others. Since swiftlet does not use any vendor specific MIDI messages, the brand of the board should not make any difference (except of course in the quality of the sound) so long as it complies with the MIDI level 1 specifications.

Grid Editors

The editor interfaces of Swiftlet are the editor grids, which look like spreadsheets. The highest level grid is the MIDI channel grid. Each row represents one MIDI channel. The channels contain blocks of recordings. The blocks can be arranged in the channels. They can be dragged along the channels to change the time when the block is played. They can be cut, copied and pasted. They can be moved across channels.

Each block has properties like the instrument, the lowest and highest notes, repeat count, controls and pitch. The blocks can be stretched, compressed or cropped. By changing these properties, the way music is played can be finely controlled. Repeating sequences in a song can be recorded in block and placed at different places where the sequences occur along the MIDI channel. If the same sequences are played on multiple instruments, they can be recorded once and copied and the instrument can be changed from the property sheet. The fine control over the blocks simplifies the task of creating MIDI music.

Double clicking a block pops up another window that zooms into the details of the block. This grid shows the details of the notes in the block. A block is represented as a matrix with columns representing time and the rows representing the note position or pitch. The block will have rows from the lowest note used in the block to the highest note. Notes are switched on at different times and switched off after a period of time. The interval between the switching on and off is the time when (usually) the note plays. It is like a line segment in a vector graphic editing program, except that the direction is fixed.

Controlling the note segments by dragging them along the note channel is the ideal way to manipulate them. But the precision achievable by this with the help of a mouse is going to be pretty low. Hence the editing technique in this grid is more raster oriented than vector. Note segments can be drawn along the note channels.

Any rectangular area with one or more cells can be selected, cut, copied or pasted in another place like in a spread sheet. Thus repeating subunits within a block can be cloned within the block. The grid has more similarities to a spreadsheets. Multiple columns can be selected, copied or pasted. Columns can be inserted or deleted. Anybody, who has working knowledge of any spreadsheet program would find it quite familiar.

Double clicking on a cell will open up a zoomed view of the cell. In the block grid, each cell represented a beat. In the zoomed view, each cell represents a tick that is 1/32 of a beat. This grid allows modifying the notes at a precision of 1/32 of a beat. Notes can be drawn using the mouse in this window.

Recording tools

Blocks of music notes can be input using the PC keyboard itself. Alternatively a blank block can be created and the notes can be drawn in it. A continuous (fretless) stringed instrument simulation is planned. A prototype of the user interface in included in this version. But recording is not enabled.

The keyboard simulator uses the upper two rows of keys   ('`' - '-' on the numeric keypad on the upper row and 'Q' - '+; on the lower row) for playing lead notes. The lower two rows play chords. The keys in the last row are for toggle controls. these are:-

Whether these keys produce any effect or not depends upon the soundboard. These are the standard toggle controls specified by the MIDI General Specification Level 1.

Common continuous controls are provided as dials on the virtual keyboard. These are 1. Modulation control, 2. Breath control, 3. Phaser control, 4. Timbre, 5. Sound release, 6. Attack, 7. Brightness, 8. Tremulo, 9. Chorus and 10. Celeste control. Again, whether these affect the nature of the sound depends up on the sound board.

The keyboard has two other buttons. Start - used to start the recording and Tracks - to select the other tracks to play along while recording.

Effect Control

In the current version, effect control is implemented through the keyboard shortcuts for toggle controls and the dials for continuous controls as described earlier. The exact time and values of these control values can be viewed clicking the controls button on the property sheet of the block. In future versions, editing of the control messages visually and by directly modifying the messages will be added.

In the current version pitch bending is supported. A block of notes can be played and the pitch continuously adjusted by dragging the indicator line to left and right. The range of pitch bending can be specified in notes and semitones.

Mixing Consoles

Swiftlet provides two mixing consoles. The volume balance console lets you adjust the relative volume of each of the 16 MIDI channels. Volume adjustment is done using 16 slieds. The scope above shows the notes playing (though not an exact representation of the relative volume) and the height of columns roughly corresponds the the number of notes playing concurrently and the relative volume of the channel. The speed of the scope fall off and the colurs of the columns can be set.

Second mixing console is for changing the pan position of the channels. Positions can be continusously adjusted using dials or slides.

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