19. Sequence box properties

Figure 19.1
Click on thumbnail for full size image.

Figure 19.1 shows a Sequence box being selected and its properties being edited. The Sequence properties are as follows:

• Start time (in seconds). This corresponds to the alignment of the Sequence box against the time ruler.
• Duration (in seconds). This corresponds to the part of the Sequence box that doesn't have a blue grid.
• Start volume. If using Multiply relative volume — as opposed to Add — for Vol operator fields of Interval or Repetition Group boxes contained within the Sequence box, it is best to enter a value greater than zero in this field; otherwise, relative volumes won't work properly in the Sequence as the current volume would always evaluate to zero. Also be aware that if the Duration property of the first Sound box in a Sequence box is set to Prop. to vol. less extent then it would evaluate to zero — giving silence for that sound — if the Start volume were zero.
• Volume multiplier. This can be used to weight Sequence boxes' amplitudes relative to each other; entering a value smaller than the default value of one would make a Sequence less prominent, whereas entering a value greater than one would make it more prominent. Entering values greater than one will make a lot of sounds seem more staccato, as the part of the sound envelope closer to zero becomes relatively inaudible compared to when the volume multiplier was one. Conversely, entering values less than one will make a lot of sounds seem less staccato. The greater the deviation from one, the more noticeable these effects.

• Start pitch. The relationship of pitch to frequency in Kangas Sound Editor, when MIDI pitch numbers aren't being used, is log to base 2:

  Pitch	Frequency (Hz)
  1	1
  2	2
  3	4
  4	8
  5	16
  6	32
  7	64
  8	128
  9	256
  10	512
  11	1024
  12	2048
  13	4096
  14	8192
  15	16384
  16	32768

  The frequency range of human hearing is roughly from 20Hz to 20000Hz, or between 5 and 16 on this scale. Pitches at extremes of this range tend not to produce pleasant sounding results, depending on the quality of your speakers or headphones, but feel free to experiment.

  Under this scale, a pitch difference of one represents one octave.

In the Start pitch edit field a new value of 7 (previous value was 8) has just been entered; the effect is to lower the pitch of the entire sequence by one octave.

After clicking on Compute, here is the newly-generated sound: