In previous articles, we've talked about some specific features of the MA-7; the effect, 3D spatialization and some new voicing features of the synth engine. Taken together, we see that the MA-7 is a complete mini-production studio - capable of supporting every stage of electronic music production, from initial synthesizer voicing to final production mix with effects, including the synchronization of audio streams.

Creating ringtones is often a "pressure" activity, with time deadlines to be met. Under these circumstances, the content creation process needs to be as smooth and efficient as possible, but at the same time you will want to take advantage of all the unique audio benefits to be found in the MA-7 production studio.

One way of improving your own production process, is to compare methods with other developers, so for this article, I've created a simple ringtone called "The Whole Enchilada" using MIDI, synth voices, 3D positioning, effects, adding HV and audio streams, and described the work process.

Whenever I begin a ringtone on MA-7, I start with my "New Song" library or project. This contains a few banks of voices, some general audio clips, some simple HV scripts, special 3D patterns and DSP effects. I find that one well stocked library will fill the needs of very, very many individual ringtones.

Voices – I like my basic library to contain a couple of GM alternative banks, a bank mechanical/percussive and effect sounds, a bank of PCM voices. The "Send Selected Voice Message" feature ensures that I can avoid overloading the RAM size of the authoring tool. Also, the library must have some free space for adding new sounds that are tweaked specially for the current song – this is how the library grows, becoming more and more versatile as a "resource container". The current project file for download, contains a rich set of FM voices that you may find useful.



Audio Clips - Like a good collection of basic MIDI voices, I also find it useful to have a collection of audio clips stored. Usually, short sound FX, or voice clips are the most generally effective and can be "sprinkled" across many tunes. The project file here for download just contains one example, a stereo "Doppler" sound.



HV scripts – These are useful also in the library; especially short words or phrases that can be strung together in a song. Again, I allow the basic library to grow with all HV scripts that I create – you never know when they are going to be useful.



So far, I admit that I have been less careful about storing effects settings and 3D paths – having said that, there are still some 3D paths that I have found generally useful, so I intend to be more diligent in the future to grow my collection.

Starting each song with a good sequencer template can save a lot of time, especially when using MA-7, whose synth engine responds to a wide range of controllers. It is a good idea to create a set-up measure and initialize at least the following items:



(volume should normally be set to around 100. The picture shows 60 which is probably a little too low.)

When I start a ringtone, I am pretty certain that I will want to make some voice edits – either create some new voices from scratch or modify existing voices. The good ones at least, are eventually added to my basic library, but at this stage, I will simply point 4 or 5 tracks to appropriate voices that already exist in the library, in order to get going with the basic music and MIDI side of the ringtone.

Once voices have been decided for each track, the individual voices can be sent from the library to the authoring tool using the "Send Selected Voice Message" feature when you right-click at the top of a bank. This avoids "RAM size overflow". With a first draft set of voices in place, I can go to work on developing the MIDI data and concentrate on working in the sequencer. When the song is 90% mapped out, I set the cue points for start and stop then save the .MID file.

At this point, the focus of attention moves to ATS-MA7-SMAF. Firstly, the .MID file is imported, and I save the Content File (or Project File). There are now 5 processes that can be done, using the ATS-MA7-SMAF, before exporting the final SMAF file:

1. select and add DSP effects
2. add 3D paths
3. add HV
4. add audio
5. do a final mix

In addition to these tasks that are specific to the ATS-MA7-SMAF, I usually find that my songs need a bit of polishing at the MIDI level. Using the "Send assigned Voice Message" when you right-click on the Title row (voice tab on the contents page) makes it easy to move back and forth between monitoring from your sequencer and the ATS-MA7-SMAF. The one important point to remember is that any changes to the MIDI file must be saved, and the file re-imported into the MA software using the "Replace SMF" command. When prompted, make sure that ALL the current content file settings are retained.


The MA specific editing tasks:

Although it is possible to change DSP settings during the course of a song, I have not used this particular feature in the example file given with this article. In this case, the DSP effects from the Library that are pasted into the top positions of the effects tab in the Content window are the default effects for the duration of the song.



I find that setting the DSP effects first is important because when I go back to the sequencer to make improvements or changes to the MIDI music data, I can hear the effects. Effect data can also be monitored at the MIDI development stage by sending DSP data directly from the Library, but my preferred method is to get the MA contents fully set up and work the DSP from there.

The next step for me is to establish and place the 3D paths. When I begin creating the MIDI data, I have a track(s) in mind that will be my target for 3D spatialization, and now is the time to put this in place. Spatialization is sometimes a subtle effect and for this reason, I make sure that all other tracks other than the target track are muted. The best tracks for spatialization contain plenty of high frequencies, so in this example case, I chose a percussive track and pasted a circular path. The data for the path is about 8 bars long, so I pasted it three times so that the movement lasted for the duration of the tune (it’s about 20 bars long).



Just in case, I make sure that all data points are set to one ID#:



The next step is to make sure that the correct track is allocated to the 3D path. This is done by selecting "Edit 3D Patch" on the top of the Track View to bring up the following window:



Now that the 3D is taken care of, I can monitor all the tracks again and concentrate on adding any extra HV and audio stream data to the song. The first action is to copy HV script data and Audio data from the library to their appropriate positions in the contents window.

For HV, I selected the phrase "Good Morning" from the library and pasted it into the contents window.



Once it is pasted into the contents window (under the HV scripts tab) it can be entered into a Normal track – but first you must enable a track for HV using a checkbox in the track status tab. When that is done, right click on the main window anywhere on the HV –enabled track row. A note is inserted which will play the HV script. The start point of the note can be adjusted so that it is placed correctly in the tune.

Exactly the same procedure is used to insert audio data, with the exception that a Normal track does not have to be specially enabled – you paste directly into an audio track.



With everything in place, and after a final check of the MIDI note data in the sequencer and re-importing the file with any fresh edits, the track is ready for mixing. I find it useful to mix in the MA-7 software as tones are altered slightly by 3D spatialization. After doing the final mix, (in my case, I always mix on a cell-phone speaker system) the file is ready to be exported as a SMAF file.



One final job – I check to make sure that any new voices created or tweaks that I might have made in the contents window are copied back to the library for future use.

A summary of my method then, is as follows:

1. Open Basic library/project
2. Open Sequencer template
3. Start MIDI file
4. Import MIDI file to ATS-MA7-SMAF to create new contents file
5. Iterate between sequencer and ATS-MA7-SMAF to polish MIDI data and apply DSP effects
6. Tweak voices in contents file (being sure to save good ones back into the basic library
7. Focus on ATS-MA7-SMAF
8. Spatialize target tracks
9. Add HV by moving scripts from library to contents
10. Add Audio in the same way
11. Final iteration of MIDI note and event data
12. Re-import being careful to retain all content/MA information
13. Do final Mix in ATS-MA7-SMAF

And here are the example files for download. Feel free to use any of the voice banks or other data that you find useful.