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Other Features of BeatPad |
At the far left of the row containing the Loop Pointer, there is also a right-facing arrow that marks the start of the pattern. By tapping directly onto this arrow and dragging it to the right you can change what step of the pattern will be the downbeat. When you lift the pen, the pattern will be shifted (or "rotated") to put the new downbeat as the first step (as the left-most step). Like changing patterns, if BeatPad is playing it will wait until the end of the pattern before making this change. The pattern length will remain the same, meaning that the Loop Point will also be moved to a new place in the pattern so that the same number of steps are played. | ![]() Moving the Start Point |
You can also copy a pattern to another letter or number designation. Tap on the current letter or number (the inverted ones) and drag the pen over other letters or numbers. When the pen is over the desired destination (both the original and new designation are inverted), lift the pen. The patterns is automatically copied (writing over whatever was previously in the destination pattern) and you are left in the copy. In the screen shown to the right, we started in "C4", the pen was put down directly on the "4" and dragged over to the "1". When the pen is lifted we will be in "C1" which is now an exact copy of "C4". You can only copy to another letter, or another number, not changing both at the same time. Notice also in the example to the right that the melodic pattern has been muted. This is done with a small mute box beside the veiw icon in the lowwer left corner of the screen. There is a mute box for each icon, letting you completely silence either the melodic or drum pattern. | ![]() Copying a Pattern |
When you tap on the silkscreened "menu" button beneath the screen (left of the Graffiti area) of your Palm OS handheld (or tapping on the Title bar if using OS 3.5 or "menu hack"), the BeatPad options menu appears (this is NOT available while BeatPad is playing). The first item "Get Infor" will show you basic application information: the version number, names of the software creators, web address, and copyright date. The second item "instructions" will give you a brief version of these instructions covering all the features of BeatPad. The third item "MIDI Preferences" will bring up a preferences screen where you can turn MIDI on (play patterns to the serial port instead of the speaker) and set other MIDI paramaters (Beat Clock, and Channels). The fourth item "All MIDI Notes Off" sends a special MIDI command to turn any stuck notes off on MIDI hardware that is connected to the Palm. This is rarely needed, and some hardware will ignore this command so you may have to turn it off and on again to clear any notes. | ![]() Options Menu |