TamTam:How to use TamTam1

How to use miniTamTam

miniTamTam is a small and easy version of the upcoming TamTam editor. It can do the following things:

• Play different instruments using the keyboard
• Record and playback your own sounds with the microphone
• Generate some algorithmic beats

Playing sounds

To play a sound in miniTamTam, simply select one of the instrument buttons in the section at the left and hit the keyboard keys (Q to N). In particular, keys (Q-I) play the sound up a major scale. The keys (S,D,G,H,J) play a pentatonic scale and correspond to the black keys on a keyboard. The keys (Z-,) also play a major scale and correspond to the white keys on a keyboard. By combining the keys on these two rows, a chromatic scale can be played. The (F) key is silent as there is no black key to correspond to it. This is not a malfunction of your keyboard.

There is a bug on the Btest1 that prevents some voices from loading when you launch miniTamTam for the first time after a cold boot. Simply close miniTamTam (using the Sugar frame of by pressing alt-c on the keyboard) and re-launch it.

Using the microphone

You can also record sounds using the microphone. You will need to use an external microphone as the internal one doesn't work at this time. To record, press the record button (red dot) on top of a microphone button (labeled from 1 to 4). Make some noise (make sure it's loud enough). Clicking on the microphone icon should now playback the sound you recorded. You can now use the keyboard to transpose your sound. The recording length is set at half a second for each slot and it will start recording when it begins to hear sound (meaning you don't need to hurry after you have clicked on the red dot).

Generating beats

The beat generation is a small teaser for what will come in the full TamTam. To start a beat, click one of the drum sets (Jazz/rock, Arabic, African) at the bottom right of the screen. To stop it, hit the stop button (square button). The beat is controlled by 3 sliders at the right of the screen. The first slider controls the regularity of the beat. The higher it is, the more straight it will be, the lower it is, the more random it will be. Note that once you have made a setting, you will need to retrigger one of the drum buttons to hear the changes. The next slider is the number of beats per bar, from 2 to 12 and the last slider is tempo.

The horizontal slider at the bottom left controls the reverb. In the case of the drum beats, set the reverb and then trigger a beat. Once the beat is triggered you can continue using the slider to control the volume of the instruments without affecting the reverb for the drums.

= Playing sound

Like TamTamMini, keyboard keys (Q-N) play variations of the sound. In particular, keys (Q-I) play the sound up a major scale. The keys (S,D,G,H,J) play a pentatonic scale and correspond to the black keys on a keyboard. The keys (Z-,) also play a major scale and correspond to the white keys on a keyboard. By combining the keys on these two rows, a chromatic scale can be played. The (F) key is silent as there is no black key to correspond to it. This is not a malfunction of your keyboard.