EC-909
Licence and limited warranty
EC-909 may be freely distributed on FTP and Web sites, cover CD-ROMs and disks, so long as all the files pertaining to the program remain unaltered and present in the archive, and no charge is made for the software. Although EC-909 has been thoroughly tested, neither its author, or Electronic Cow will be held accountable for any loss, consequential or otherwise, incurred during the use and/or misuse of the software. This program is freeware. Consequently, there is limited technical support (via the Cow-net Web site at www.cow-net.co.uk), no upgrades, and no promise of new versions is implied.

Contents

Drum Machine
EC-909’s drum machine comprises sixteen pads; one for each of the sounds in its Roland TR-909-style kit. The default drum kit features two bass drums, two snares, six toms, rim shot, clap, open and closed hi-hats, crash and ride cymbals. Should you at any point get bored with the TR-909 sounds in EC-909 you can always replace them with samples of your own using Candi-Kit (see below for a guide).
To play a drum sound, simply press the pad at the bottom of the drum machine. Pads can also be played using a MIDI keyboard (see MIDI implementation) or keys [1]…[8] for odd numbered drum sounds (1, 3, 5 and so on), and keys [1]…[8]+[alternate] for even numbered.
Each drum can also be re-synthesized using the dials above the pads. They all have corresponding volume controls enabling you to ‘mix’ the loop, and a tuning control, so that you can pitch up or down the sounds. Additionally, the bass, snare, and toms have attack dials that can be used to reduce the snappiness of a sound. Increasing the attack time on the snare drum creates a really cool brushed snare effect. To ‘turn up’ a dial, click on it with the right mouse button; to turn it down again, use the left button.
When you press a pad, the LED underneath it will light up to denote that this particular sound has now been added to the pattern. To remove the sound from the pattern, press the pad again, and the light will go out. EC-909’s drum sequencer has sixteen steps in which to input all-manner of crazy rhythmical phrases. Using the left and right arrow buttons underneath the Edit Step LED box, or the left and right cursor keys, you can move down and up the steps. When you do move from one step to another, the LEDs below the pads will update to inform you of which sounds are used on which bar segment.

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Bass-line synthesizer
To accompany the drum tracks, EC-909 features a built-in chunky bass-line generator. And just like a real synthesizer, it has plenty of controls to re-synthesize the sound it creates. The most fundamental is the waveform, where you have a choice of sawtooth or square (which can be swapped between by either pressing the toggle switch, or using the keyboard shortcut [control]+[w]).
To shape the sound’s amplitude over time there are two controls: attack and decay. By increasing the attack level the bass sound becomes less snappy, instead fading in gradually. Decay determines the length of the bass-note. Put to good use, decay can turn a simple rhythmic phrase into something quite dynamic.
The spectral content of the bass sound may also be tweaked using the cut-off and resonance dials. Cut-off is a low-pass filter, where low settings cause the bass to sound ‘dull’; increasing the setting makes the sound brighter. Resonance is essentially a frequency boost or peak at the cut-off frequency, and has a very distinct sound. Turning up both the resonance and filter produces a bass sound rich in high frequencies, and reproduces that classic analogue bass squelch. Any alterations you make using the synthesis controls are effective immediately, so it’s quite feasible to ‘audition’ the new sound whenever you like.
Inputting or playing notes is easy: just press the button corresponding to the key on the keyboard. If you want a ‘rest’ (no, not a lie-down, but a pause in the music!) then press the Pause button to the left of the keyboard. Notes can always be changed later on simply by pressing another on the keyboard, or erased completely by pressing Pause.
As with the drum machine, the bass-line synthesizer has sixteen steps which can be navigated by either pressing the left and right arrow buttons underneath the Edit Step LED box, or using the left and right cursor keys in conjuction with [shift}. As well as being able to input different notes, the four synthesis dials may also be adjusted for each step, enabling you to create filter and resonant sweep effects over the course of the pattern.

Atari keyboard map for bass-line synthesizer

Key

Note

Key

Note

[z]
[s]
[x]
[d]
[c]
[v]
[g]

C(low)
C#
D
D#
E
F
F#

[b]
[h]
[n]
[j]
[m]
[,]
[p]

G
G#
A
A#
B
C(high)
Pause

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File Functions
New
[control]+[n]
Strictly speaking, New isn’t really a file function, but since the only place you find it is in the File menu, it’s included here. New is used to erase a pattern within EC-909’s song memory. Once selected, a dialogue box will appear giving you the choice of clearing either the bass, drum, or both parts. You may change your mind by pressing the Cancel button, else proceed with OK. Note: The New function only ever clears the pattern currently selected. It won’t erase the whole song.

Open / Save song
[control]+[o] / [control]+[s]
An EC-909 ‘song’ has the file extension *.909, and contains all ten bass and drum patterns, and all of the set-up information for the program (tempo, sample export parameters, loop markers and so on). In fact, anything that can be twiddled with is stored. Loading a song will over-write the one in memory, so make sure you’ve saved your last masterpiece first.

Loading and Saving patterns
As well as being able to save entire songs, EC-909 will let you load and save individual bass-line and drum loop patterns. This enables you to chop bits from songs and staple them into other sequences, or just to store a single pattern when you’re not feeling inspired enough to fill EC-909’s entire ten pattern memory. Whichever pattern is currently selected in the edit/play pattern LED box will be saved or written over when you select load or save. (Bass-lines have the extension *.BL, and drum loops *.DL.)

Load/save pattern keyboard shortcuts

Load

Save

Bass-line

[control]+[b]

[alternate]+[b]

Drum loop

[control]+[d]

[alternate]+[d]

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Control panel
Transport controls
Play and Stop are quite self-explanatory: to start and stop EC-909 from playing your patterns. However, Record may need a little clarification, because it’s not a record button in the traditional sense. Activating the record button actually sets EC-909 into ‘step record’ mode, and so every time you press a drum pad or enter a note on the bass synthesizer, so the edit step counter moves along. It’s designed to make it less laborious to input an entourage of chugging hi-hats, or to more easily play your bass-lines, as you don’t have to repeatedly move the step counter and increment it manually. You can disable step record mode by pressing the Stop button. Record doesn’t have to be enabled to enter notes or drums into a pattern, only if you want to use step record.

Play

[enter] or [return] (menu bar functions are disabled during playback)

Stop

[space] (playback can be stopped on the ST and TT by pressing any key)

Record

[*] on keypad

Tempo
 EC-909’s tempo control has a range of 60 to 180 beats per minute. Use the up and down buttons next to the LED box to change the speed of the pattern. By holding down [shift] or [control]+[shift] it is possible to alter the tempo in steps of ten or 100 BPM, respectively.

Loop points
The left and right loop markers are included to let you have fun with odd bar lengths. The left loop point determines the beat on which EC-909 starts playing your pattern, and the right point, where it finishes (four beats is the smallest loop possible).

Pattern and Song panels
Up to ten different patterns can be stored in EC-909’s memory, and using the left and right arrow buttons underneath the edit/play pattern LED box, it is possible to swap between them at any time. You can also use the numeric keypad (where [0] is pattern 10) to jump between non-sequential patterns.
Above the Pattern panel is the Song panel. By default, EC-909 starts in Pattern mode, and so if you want to change to Song mode, press the LED in the Song panel so that it lights up. Whilst in Pattern mode it is possible to manually change patterns in real-time, Song mode enables you to string all ten together to form a sequence that changes between patterns automatically. The small LED box in the Pattern panel always informs you of the pattern that is currently playing.
Both panels have a ‘build’ button, and this is used to render the loop. If you don’t press either of these buttons after making changes to a pattern, the loop won’t be updated and it’ll still sound the same as before (EC-909 does all its pattern processing off-line). The build button in the Song panel ([control]+[a]) automatically updates all of the patterns used in the song sequencer, whilst build in the Pattern panel ([control]+[p]) will only recreate the loop that is currently selected.
However, even if you are in Song mode, you don’t necessarily have to use the build button in the Song panel, particularly if you’ve only made modifications to one pattern. Neither will you have to press the build button if you have already built all the patterns individually, and then switched to Song mode. The only time that all patterns are automatically re-built is when you adjust the tempo in Song mode. Changing the tempo whilst in Pattern mode won’t invoke the automated building process, and so you can create some really off-the-wall loops.

Song sequencer
Although EC-909 has a ten-pattern memory you don’t have to use all of them to create a song. To order your patterns into a song, press the Edit Song ([control]+[t]) button in the Song Panel or choose the option from the Edit menu. A window will appear with ten large and ten small LED boxes. The top row denotes the pattern number (one to ten), whilst the bottom indicates the number of times that the pattern should play (up to a maximum of 48 repetitions) before moving onto the next sequencer step.
To change either values, click directly onto the LED text with the left or right mouse button to decrement and increment respectively. By simultaneously holding down the [shift] key, the value jumps in steps of ten. When you’re happy with the song layout press the OK button. Now, when you’re in Song mode, EC-909 will play your patterns in the order that they appear in the Sequencer window, repeating each one for as many times as you set.

Clipboard tools
It’s quite often much easier to build up a coherent song if you can chop up ideas and move them around, hence EC-909’s comprehensive clipboard tools. Cut ([control]+[x]) removes the data from the currently selected pattern and stores it in the clipboard, leaving you with a blank pattern. Copy ([control]+[c]) is a little less destructive, as whilst it does move the pattern to the clipboard, it doesn’t clear it. With a pattern in the clipboard you are now ready to Paste ([control]+[v]) it somewhere. Adjust the edit/play pattern to the place where you want the clipped data to, and select Paste.
Note: All three clipboard commands will let you work on just the bass or drum parts, or the whole pattern. Select the appropriate buttons in the dialogue box that appears, and press OK, or press Cancel to abort the operation leaving your patterns in tact.

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MIDI file export
[alternate]+[s]
If you feel like re-creating the pattern that you’ve created with EC-909 in a MIDI sequencer using a different sound source, use the MIDI file export function. When this option is selected, the Export file dialogue box will appear (the sample options will be greyed-out because they do not affect the MIDI file output), enabling you to choose which element you’d like saved as a MIDI file. You have a choice of bass or drums only, or both combined. Press OK to continue, or Cancel to change your mind.
Note: EC-909 saves patterns as type 1 MIDI files (all parts on separate tracks), with the bass-line set to channel 1, and the drums on channel 10 using the same notes as the General MIDI drum map.

Export sample
[alternate]+[e]
The patterns you create can also be exported as AVR, AIFF, or SPL (raw sample data with no header information) to use in a sample editor, direct-to-disk recorder, or tracker program. As per the MIDI file export you are able to choose which element of the pattern you want to include in the exported sample. However, within the export dialogue box you also have two other choices: sample format, and bit depth.
Note: Export sample or MIDI file will use the currently selected pattern only. It won’t create an enormous sample of the whole song, even if EC-909 is in song mode. Samples are always saved with a sampling frequency of 25KHz.


MIDI sample dump
[control]+[m]
Patterns may also be transferred via MIDI to an external sampler. Digitally transmitting the sound means that there is no signal degradation, so you end up with a nice crispy loop to play with in your sampler. To send a sample, open the MIDI Dump dialogue box. You then need to choose the mode suitable for your sampler: ‘Akai’ is for the Akai S900/950 and X7000/S700; ‘MSDS’ works with most other samplers and keyboard workstations (those that conform to the MMA sample dump standard), such as the Kurzweil K2000 and Korg T3ex.
Next, set the MIDI channel and sample number. The latter setting is used to let the receiving sampler know which location to store the incoming sound, although some samplers ignore this and just put it in the next available space automatically. Finally, choose which elements to transfer (since you can send just the bass or drums, or a combination here too) and press the Send button. MIDI sample transfers can be aborted at any time by pressing [esc].
If any errors are received from your sampler EC-909 will attempt to re-send the data until after a fashion, it will just give up in a huff. However, it is not imperative to connect the MIDI out of your sampler to the Atari’s MIDI in, because EC-909 will happily work in a closed or open-loop system.

Move Window
EC-909’s window can actually be moved, despite of the fact that it has no ‘mover’ bar. Instead, you press and hold the mouse button over the tab in the top right-hand corner. The mouse cursor will turn into a flat hand, and you’ll then be able to drag the window around anywhere you like (except for off the screen, that is).

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The TR909-style sounds in EC-909 are superb for all sorts of music, but you might like to put in some other less familiar drum sounds at some point to inject a little more inspiration into your compositions. This is what Candi-Kit is for…
To create your own kit, you need to have sixteen AVR samples, sampled at either 25KHz or more ideally at 32KHz. They don’t even have to be drum sounds; the only prerequisites are that they must be mono, and no bigger than 64Kb in size (both 8 and 16-bit samples are fine).
Load Candi-Kit, and you’ll see a window with sixteen boxes, each corresponding to a drum in EC-909. Click on any of the these text boxes to load (or re-load if a sample is already sitting in that place) a sample. If you know exactly what sounds you want and where, then all sixteen drums can be loaded at once by pressing the sample button, or choosing Open sample… from the File menu.
When all sixteen spaces are filled, press the drum button at the bottom of the screen or choose Save kit… from the File menu. Candi-Kit will ask you where you want to save your newly created kit: open the EC909.SYS folder and press OK (you don’t need to type in a file name).
Alternatively, if you don’t want to over-write the existing drum files right away, or would like to create lots of kits, save the files to another directory. Do bear in mind that Candi-Kit always saves the drum kit information with the same file name, so you can only save one per folder.
Once the files are written, we’d advise that you didn’t fiddle with them in your sample editor, because you may inadvertently erase some important information. Currently Candi-Kit can’t re-edit drum kits you create, so you’ll have to start again if you quit the application before saving.
Note: Please make sure that you back-up your original EC-909 drum kit folder (EC909.SYS folder and all its contents) before writing a new kit as it will be over-written.

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