Becoming famous as a musician, rock star or a recording artist is about equal in level of difficulty to becoming a movie star. It probably has more to do with alignment of the constellations than with actual ability. It isn't anything that can be taught. At least not here. But if you need a boost in the technical side of musical composition and recording, then you have come to the right place. We'll get you started by walking you through the steps of using Quartet X2 Music Studio, software that is designed to let even the most inexperienced musician compose and record music. We will also show you how to write and print your own sheet music along with lyrics, using the new Quartet Songwriter notation software.

Main Toolbar

Reset the tableau

Click this button on the main toolbar  to erase all notes and refresh the interface. This also changes most of the settings to their default mode. Individual Instrument settings are reset to the current channel instrument setting.

Main Settings

Click this button on the main toolbar  to open the Setup  toolbar. The setup toolbar (which is always opened when you first open the program) is set initially in a default mode, so you don't need to touch the settings unless you want to change individual settings.

Every Windows OS is equipped with at least one Midi device (MIDI Mapper) and usually with one or more additional devices or drivers. These will be listed in the drop-down window headed "Midi Device". These software devices produce different sound quality, and some work better than others. If you have more than one, you should experiment with these and set the device that you find works best. This will remain as the default device.

Setup Toolbar (Setup Tab)

Select the Instruments

Setup Toolbar (Channels, Instruments Tab)

In the "Channels, Instruments" tab, Channel buttons are colored for easy identification, and notes are colored in the corresponding channel color to distinguish them from other channel notes. When channels are inactive, the corresponding channel notes acquire a faded color, while active channel notes have bright colors.

Channel 1 is the default channel. To switch channels, click one of the channel buttons. Only one channel is active at a time, and is indicated by the channel button in a depressed position, and an arrow pointing to it.

The default instrument is Nylon Guitar, and the default percussion instrument is Acoustic Bass Drum. Melody notes are drawn on the Melody tableau (white background), and percussion notes are drawn on the percussion tableau (light green background).

The music notation tableau is divided into sections or measures by thin blue vertical lines. Each section can contain 8 notes with a value of 1 beat. In the GOLD edition the number of beats per measure can be changed between 4 and 16. So, depending on how you want to convert the notation to conform with standard music notation, a full note may be one section, or two sections. Each note may therefore have a value of 1/4 note, or 1/8 note respectively.

Each note has a time duration which is defined by the Tempo times the length of the note.

The numbered line above the tableau defines the note number. Vertical lines mark each 4 beat division. There are 4 beats in each division. The time for a single note is defined by the tempo, which is denoted in milliseconds. The default tempo is 100, which means 8 beats per second. This means that when you click "Play" 8 beats per second will be played. That's 2 divisions marked with thin blue vertical lines. You can verify this with a stopwatch. Draw a single note every eighth beat, then start playing. You should hear one "beep" per second, or 60 beeps per minute. Thus, when you set the tempo to 50, you will be playing 4 beats per second , or one division. Keep in mind that Quartet X2 features a high precision multimedia timer. But the accuracy will be dependent on your computer's ability to process the code without any pauses. While notes are playing, a lot of code is being processed, and your CPU is being called upon to process this code without any pauses or hesitation. If your machine lacks processing power, you may notice a slight hesitation during scrolling of the tableau. You can minimize this by hiding the playing position marker. In severe cases of timing inaccuracy, you may wish to save your notes in a MID file, and record your music while playing the MID file instead of "live" notes.

You can draw a note of any given length, determined by the length of its tail. the start of the note is marked by a circle, and the tail determines how long the note is held.

Example of drawing notes

Score writing example

Erase any old notes on the score by clicking the "Clear all notes" button.

Create a Instrumental section

Use your mouse to draw notes on the staff. Mov e your cursor over the white, instrumental tableau to the spot where you want to draw a note. Then click your left mousbutton to draw a single note. Now, holding the musebutton down, move the cursor over the tableau to draw the tail of the note, then release when the tail is long enough.

Next, click the blue button in the "Channels, Instruments" tab to switch to Channel 2. Use the "Instrument" selector to select a new instrument. Move your cursor over the button on the right-hand side of the selector, click the left mousebutton to open the drop-down list, and scroll down the list till you find the instrument you want. Highlight it, then click the left mousebutton to select it. Then repeat the above process of drawing notes. Continue this procedure for as many channels as you wish.

Create a Percussion section

With your mouse, move your cursor over the light green tableau and click the left mousebutton. This activates percussion Channel #1. Look at the channel buttons on the setup toolbar to verify this.  An arrow indicates the active channel. Initially, the percussion tableau is only one note high. To expand it, click the right mousebutton, and drag the cursor down until the green area is expanded to the size you need. Then release the right mousebutton. You can reverse this movement to contract the percussion tableau.

Use your mouse to draw notes on the percussion tableau exactly the same manner as you draw notes on the instrument tableau.

Notes of each percussion channel show up clearly in their own distinct colors.

Start by creating a simple beat, using a single channel. You can expand this to more channels as you gain experience. You can change the instrument with each new note, so you can actually create a fairly complex rhythm using only one channel.

Percussion  writing example

In this example, you will create a motif that repeats every 16 beats (that's 4 divisions).  Write in the number of notes required.

The motif contains 4 divisions. the first 3 divisions have 3 notes,  and the fourth division is silent, as shown in the illustration above.

Next, you want to duplicate the motif you created over the entire length of your composition. To do this use the "Duplicate Notes" feature in the Editing Toolbar.

Use the Selector  to define the the total number of notes in the finished piece (window labelled "Notes"); repetition rate (window labelled "Repeat"); and the number of beats in the "Repeat" section to be duplicated.

In this example, the number of notes is set at 60 (a very short melody); the repetion rate and beats are each set to 16.

You can use the scrollbars to change the numbers in each window (or just write in the numbers in the spaces). Notice that you can have fewer beats than the repetition rate, but you can't have more beats than that.

Then check the "Percussion" checkbox and uncheck the "Instrument" checkbox. This means that only the percussion notes ate to be duplicated.

Next, click the "Duplicate Notes" button.

That's it. You're done.

Saving a Score

Click this button to save a score as a *.SNG file for further editing, or save it as a standard *.MID file. You should always keep a copy of a score available in SNG format as a backup. It's a simple matter to edit this type of file, change tempo, instruments, etc.

Editing Notes

Simple editing functions, like erasing and redrawing notes are done right on the main music tableau. More complex editing functions, like cutting, copying and pasting groups of notes, are performed using the Editing tableau (seen below).

Edit an Existing SNG Score

Click this button to open a *.SNG file for further editing. When the notes have loaded on the staff, select the channel you wish to edit, by clicking the Channel Number button. This will activate the selected channel, highlighting its note colors, while deactivating and dimming the remaining channels. To make editing easier, you can black out inactive channels by clicking the white space below the inactive channel. This way you can pinpoint errors and tune the melody on each channel individually.

To make simple edits, one note at a time, you can simply use your mouse to make notation changes, or delete notes. For more complex changes, open the Editing Toolbar.

Click the pencil icon to activate the selection mode. Now you can select entire sections to edit at one time.

Use the "Copy", "Cut", "Paste" and "Space" features to make changes to your composition. Examples of these functions can be found in the Tutorial Wizard.

Click this button to save a score as a *.SNG file when finished.

Creating a New Music Score

Starting a new Score

Note Drawing Example

Click this button on the main toolbar to erase any old notes on the tableau, and reset the settings to their default mode. In this position, you can plunge right in and start to draw notes without changing anything. However, as you become more creative, you may wish to compose more complex scores. This will require you to make adjustments in the settings.

Set the Tempo

If you accept the default tempo, you may skip this step. Otherwise, use the Tempo selector, in the Setup toolbar shown here  to change the Tempo.

Tempo is the time taken to complete a note. This is how the timing works: The tableau is divided into beat divisions by faint vertical lines. The numbered line above the tableau defines each beat number. Faint vertical lines mark each beat division. Blue vertical lines mark each measure.

In the Standard Edition there are 8 beats per measure. In the Gold Edition, you can vary the setting from 4 to 16 beats per measure. The time to play a note is defined by the tempo, which is denoted in microseconds. The default tempo is 100, which translates into 2.2 seconds per measure. At a tempo of 240, there are 8 beats per second. This means that when you click "Play" 8 one/eighth notes per second will be played.  You can verify this with a stopwatch. Draw a single note every eighth division, then start playing. You should hear one "beep" per second, or 60 beeps per minute. Thus, when you set the tempo to 120, you will be playing 4 notes per second, and so on.

Keep in mind that Quartet X2 features a high precision multimedia timer. But the accuracy will be dependent on your computer's ability to process the code without any pauses. While notes are playing, a lot of code is being processed, and your CPU is being called upon to process this code without any pauses or hesitation. If your machine lacks processing power, you may notice a slight hesitation during scrolling of the tableau. You can minimize this by hiding the playing position marker. In severe cases of timing inaccuracy, you may wish to save your notes in a MID file, and record your music while playing the MID file.

Select the Channel

By default, the program opens in Channel 1, and this is normally the channel where you should start a new composition. Depress the Channel 1 selector. An arrow indicates the active channel.

Select the Instrument

By default, the program opens in Instrument #24 (nylon stringed guitar), a selection made by the program author. But you should change the instrument to the required type, using the selector in the Instrument toolbar.

You must set the instrument before drawing notes, since only notes drawn after the selection will be played on the newly set instrument. You will be aware that this means that you can change the instrument from note to note on the same channel. Do this by drawing some notes using a previously set instrument. Then reset the instrument and draw additional notes, and so on.

Draw notes on the staff

Use your mouse to draw notes on the staff. In the "Compose" mode, the cursor is shown as an upward arrow pointing to the note space. When you hold down the mouse to draw a note, the cursor changes to a pencil image , and stays that way till you release the mouse button. The note you draw begins with a filled circle to mark the starting point, and has a tail which extends to the end of that note. This gives a graphic picture of a note that covers more than a single beat. Whether or not you are accustomed to reading conventional sheet music, you will find this to be a very useful and intuitive method of illustrating notes graphically.

Score writing example

When you have completed a draft of your Channel 1 melody, depress the Channel 2 selector. The notes for Channel 1 will fade as Channel 2 becomes the active channel.

Then use your mouse to draw notes on the staff for the new channel. If you want to simplify the process, you can render Channel 1 notes invisible by clicking the space below Channel 1, as illustrated.

Saving a Score

Click this button to save a score as a *.SNG file for further editing,

or as a standard *.MID file. You can open a MID file for playing, but not for editing in this program. Therefore you should always keep a copy of a score available in SNG format as a backup. It's a simple matter to edit this type of file, change tempo, instruments, etc.

Editing a Music Score

Open a Score

Click this button on the Main toolbar  to open the Editing toolbar

Editing Toolbar

Click to open an existing score file (*.sng). The notes will appear on the staff when the file opens.

In the Setup toolbar, click the number of the channel you want to edit.

Setup Toolbar

The score can be edited without the benefit of the editing controls, of course. But you will find that it saves considerable time and effort to use the controls to performs functions that would otherwise require many individual operations to perform. Here is a description of each editing feature.

Erasing a single note at a time

This operation can be performed while the cursor is in the normal draw mode , by placing your cursor on the note you want to erase, and clicking the right mouse button.

With the above exception, all other editing functions require that you switch from "Drawing mode" to "Editing mode" by clicking the cursor button on the Editing toolbar to change its image to this . This will activate the editing features on the upper row.

In this mode, you can do the following:

1. Select one or more notes

Place the curser on the starting note, depress the left mouse button and drag the mouse over the notes you want to sele ct. Then release the mouse button. The selection is made.

2. Cut selected notes

Click this button to cut the selected notes. When you do this, the remaining notes on the right side of the staff will shift to the left to fill up the space.

3. Copy selected notes

To copy the selection, click the right mouse button to open the pop-up editing menu, and select "Copy selection".

The next step will be to copy the selected notes to another location on the staff. With the left mouse button, click the spot on the staff where you want the selection to begin.

4. Paste-insert selected notes

Click this button to paste-insert the selection. This means that the selection is inserted in the spot on the staff you clicked. The selection is copied into that location, and the balance of the score is shifted to the right by the same number of spaces as the selection takes up.

5 Paste-overwrite selected notes

Click this button to paste-overwrite the selection. This means that the selection is inserted in the spot on the staff you clicked. The selection is copied into that location, overwriting any notes in that location.

Creating a Percussion Section

Erase any old notes on the score by clicking the "Clear" button.

Create a Percussion section

With your mouse, move your cursor over the light green tableau and click the left mouse button. This activates percussion Channel #1. Look at the channel buttons on the setup toolbar to verify this.  An arrow indicates the active channel. Initially, the percussion tableau is only one note high. To expand it, click the right mouse button, and drag the cursor down until the green area is expanded to the size you need. Then release the right mouse button. You can reverse this movement to contract the percussion tableau.

Use your mouse to draw notes on the percussion tableau exactly the same manner as you draw notes on the instrument tableau.

Notes of each percussion channel show up clearly in their own distinct colors.

Start by creating a simple beat, using a single channel. You can expand this to more channels as you gain experience. You can change the instrument with each new note, so you can actually create a fairly complex rhythm using only one channel.

Percussion writing example

In this example, you will create a motif that repeats every 16 beats (that's 4 divisions).  Write in the number of notes required.

The motif contains 4 divisions. the first 3 divisions have 3 notes,  and the fourth division is silent, as shown in the illustration above.

Next, you want to duplicate the motif you created over the entire length of your composition. To do this use the "Duplicate Notes" feature in the Editing Toolbar.

Use the Selector  to define the the total number of notes in the finished piece (window labelled "Notes"); repetition rate (window labelled "Repeat"); and the number of beats in the "Repeat" section to be duplicated.

In this example, the number of notes is set at 60 (a very short melody); the repetition rate and beats are each set to 16.

You can use the scroll bars to change the numbers in each window (or just write in the numbers in the spaces). Notice that you can have fewer beats than the repetition rate, but you can't have more beats than that.

Then check the "Percussion" checkbox and uncheck the "Instrument" checkbox. This means that only the percussion notes ate to be duplicated.

Next, click the "Duplicate Notes" button.

That's it. You're done.

Creating Polyphonic Sounds

Polyphonics means multiple sounds played simultaneously. While it is possible to blend notes by playing individual notes simultaneously on every channel, polyphonics, as used in this program, means multiple tones playing on a single note. Chords are polyphonic tones in harmony with one another.

There are three ways to create polyphonic notes. Here, we describe each method.

1. Converting to polyphonic by right-clicking on a note

The simplest way to convert a single note to a poly-note is to use the right-click option setting.

Click the Right-click option button on the main menu, for the selection menu to appear. Then select the "Set Poly-notes on right-click" option. Next, align your cursor vertically with a note previously drawn on the tableau and right-click your mouse to change a single note to a poly note. Notice that the note changes visually. Whenever a note is converted to a poly note, it acquires a distinct halo that distinguishes it from an ordinary note.

Main Interface showing polyphonics bar and poly notes

2. Using the Polyphonics bar to create poly-notes

Using your mouse, you can select areas on every channel where you want polyphonic notes. Hold down the left mouse button, and draw your mouse over the polyphonics bar, creating Colored areas that designate polyphonics. Each channel is  color coded to match the channel color. When you change channels, the polyphonics bar reflects the current channel settings.

Channel 1 is red, channel 2 is blue, and so on. To convert a single note to a poly-note (or assign an area in which you want to draw notes) align your cursor vertically with the start of the note, and mark the associated channel area on the polyphonics tableau. To change an area, hold down the right mouse button and draw your mouse over the space(s) you want to undo. Then re-draw using the left mouse button, as described above. Using this method, you can pre-assign areas on each channel where polyphonic notes will be placed.

3. Assigning all channel notes as Polyphonic

Use the Polyphonics tab settings in the Setup tableau to assign all notes on a given channel as polyphonic, overriding other assignments. Click the color coded Channel button to assign all notes on that channel as polyphonic.

Polyphonic notes are 4 note chords. As well, there are 2 octave chords, and 3 octave chords. Select a chord using the drop-down selector, to the right of "Select". You can strum chords by clicking the respective button in the row marked "Strumming". (Strumming can't be saved in a MID or SNG file, but you can record it as a WAV file.)

Recording your music score

1. Open the Recording/Playback toolbar

Recording Toolbar

2. Check your system's Recording Control setting

Your Windows operating system has a Recording Control feature that is accessed via the "Volume Control" device in your sound driver software. For the average user who has experienced no problems in recording music using the Recording module, this section can be skipped.

If you find that wave files recorded by Quartet are mute -that is, they contain no sound, but are produced with no errors noted in the recording log, the probable cause is that the system's Recording Control has been disabled. You must turn the Recording Control ON in order to record wave files normally. Here's how to do it:

1. Click the Volume Control button in the Preferences tab to open the Volume Control interface.

2. In the Volume Control panel, click Options, then Properties menu items. This will open the Properties window.

3. In the Properties window, click the "Recording" option in the"Adjust Volume for" frame. This will open the Recording Control panel. This identifies the settings of various sound input and output devices, including Recording.

4. If a "Select" checkbox is available in the "Recording" category, place a checkmark in it. Now the Recording has been enabled. Close the Recording Control.

You will likely have to perform the above procedure only once, if at all. The specific configuration of the Recording Control may vary, depending on the sound card and driver software in your computer. In some cases, the Recording Control setting can't be adjusted. This means that it is permanently "ON". You should be able to produce recorded wave files normally in this case.

3. Set your Preferences

Click "Preferences" to open the Preferences tab.

Preferences Tab - Recording Toolbar

4. Select WAV Recording Format

Recording format refers to the Sampling rate and frequency used to record sound data onto your hard drive. There are 5 categories available.

Recording Quality chart

If you intend to convert your recording to MP3 or into a CD, set this to 44100Hz, 16 bit Stereo, or higher. Lower settings will yield very poor results.

The recording quality is set at 16 bit Stereo, 172 k/sec. by default. If you wish to leave the setting in the default position, you may skip this step. To change format: Using your mouse, open the drop-down list and scroll down the categories. Select the one you want.

5. Select MP3 Encoding Format

Adjust these settings only if you intend to encode your recording to MP3 format.

MP3 Bitrate

Settings range from 32 to 320 kbits/sec.

MP3 Quality

Settings range from "Low" to "Studio"

6. Other preferences

1. "Auto-Encode to MP3" - check this to automatically begin encoding a WAV file after recording.
2. "Delete WAV file" - check this to delete a WAV file after completing encoding
3. "Show Note position" - check or uncheck this to show/hide the note position indicator during recording from notes.
4. "Mixer" - click to open the system Volume controls to make adjustments in your settings.