Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
63 lines (53 loc) · 2.32 KB

BEESYNTH.md

File metadata and controls

63 lines (53 loc) · 2.32 KB

🎹 BeeSynth

Using the BeeSynth Project, you can write and play your own music using a special musical notation.

It's just a text file with a header which describes tempo and channel count, and a body which contains notes for each channel:

#!/bin/beesynth         ; Required shebang at the very first line

; Required attributes:
@bpm      : 120         ; Beats (number of quarter notes) per minute
@channels : theme bass  ; Channels that will be played

; Notes of the channel 'theme':
@theme: !Q:E3 E:0 .W:A4
        W:G4# Q:0 ~H:A2b

; Notes of the channel 'bass':
@bass: !E:F3b Q:A3#

; Continue the channel 'theme':
@theme: H:A2b

You can play this file just as follows:

beesynth.exe N:\\Folder\\notes.txt

The only supported command-line arguments are --iopl (see at the BeeWave page) and --switch-interval=N which is used to switch the channel each N nanoseconds to emulate polyphonic sound:

beesynth.exe --iopl --switch-interval=2000000 N:\\Folder\\notes.txt

Markup syntax:

  • Shebang is required and must be #!/bin/beesynth at the very first line.

  • Comments are written as # at the arbitrary place of the line.

  • Attributes are written as @name: value.
    There are two required attributes:

    • @bpm - beats (number of quarter notes) per minute. E.g., @bpm: 120.
    • @channels - space-separated list of channels that will be played. E.g., @channels: ch1 ch2.

    All other attributes are treated as channel names. Channels are played simultaneously.

Note format

Notes are written as [STYLE:]DURATION:NOTE[MODIFIER]:

  • STYLE is optional and can be one of the following:
    • Absent - non-legato.
    • ! - staccato.
    • ~ - legato.
    • . - prolongated note (x1.5 of the base duration).
  • DURATION is required and can be one of the following:
    • W - 𝅝 - whole note.
    • H - 𝅗𝅥 - half note.
    • Q - 𝅘𝅥 - quarter note.
    • E - 𝅘𝅥𝅮 - eighth note.
    • S - 𝅘𝅥𝅯 - sixteenth note.
    • T - 𝅘𝅥𝅰 - thirty-second note.
    • X - 𝅘𝅥𝅱 - sixty-fourth note.
  • NOTE is required and can be one of the following:
    • Cn, Dn, En, Fn, Gn, An, Bn - where n is the octave number.
    • 0 - silence.
  • MODIFIER is optional and can be one of the following:
    • #, s or ♯ - diesis.
    • b or ♭ - bemolle.