Ludwig Tutorial
By Tim Conrardy

For this tutorial , you will need the LIB1.LWG 

INTITIAL BEGINNINGS

1. Double click on Ludwig.prg. The program loads.

2. Go to FILE on the menu and selct LOAD LUDWIG FILE. Find the LIB1.LWG file and select it.

3. A dialog appears: LOAD LUDWIG PARAMETERS FROM LIB1.LWG. You have a choice to select which pitch and rhythm patterns you want to use. For our tutorial, select OK. This will select all of them.The file loads into Ludwig's memory.

4.To get some initial output from Ludwig,hit the spacebar to play what is currently loaded.

5. You will see the screen devided up into 4 sections. Tracks 1 through 4 are shown. Track 1 is the only one "playing". This is indicated by the two 'arrows' you see alternating between two 'cells'as they are called in Ludwig.

6.In the far upper right corner of the screen you will see 8 arrows in a row.One arrow is in an 'upward' position. The others are down.These are Mutting and Unmutting switches for each of the 8 tracks in Ludwig. Select the second arrow. The arrow goes UP unmutting track 2. You will hear a flurry of notes playing at the same time as Track 1. Select the second arrow again, and the track is mutted, returning us to the original pattern on Track 1.At this point, hit RETURN and Ludwig stops.

THE EDITORS and RECORDING A PATTERN.

7. Lets take a look at what makes Ludwig tick, that is by viewing the patterns in the Library we just loaded. Go to the Menu and select PATTERN, then PITCH.You are taken to a dialog which lists all the patterns in memory.They are numbered starting at 00 and going to 29. By clicking into the arrows at the bottom of the screen, you can scroll to the next screen of patterns.Clicking into one of the names, you can edit the name if so desired.However, for our purposes, CONTROL-CLICK into a pattern name.This will bring up the pattern creation screen. You will see the notes used in the pattern highlighted in the first row.Selecting PLAY will play the notes.

8. To record a new pattern, select RECORD and play your MIDI keyboard 'slowly' so Ludwig can 'hear' the notes you are entering into it. Remember you are only recording the notes, not the rythym. Rythym is dealt seperatly in Ludwig as well as velocity. When you are done, hit the space bar.You will see the notes you played in the highlighted area.Select PLAY to hear them back. (You can also select notes with the mouse instead of using a MIDI keyboard). Now you can select OK to keep the new pattern or CANCEL to go back to the original pattern. You are brought back to the Pitch Pattern screen. Now select EXIT.

NOTE: if you want to ADD to the library, go to the next screen as described above and CONTROL-CLICK into an empty pattern feild and create a new pattern as above. Give it a new name as well. Remember to save the file when you have completed your session under FILE/SAVE LUDWIG FILE.

9. You are now back at Ludwigs main screen. Go to PATTERNS again on the menu and select RHYTHM. The list of rhythms are presented.CONTROL-CLICKING into a pattern field will bring up the rhythm editor where you can create your own rhythms. For now, select CANCEL and you are broght back to the main Ludwig screen.

CREATING VARIATIONS

10. Looking at Track 1, you will see in the first cell a <U> with a <00> below it.<U> stands for USER PATTERN while <00> stands for pattern number 00 in the pitch pattern list we just veiwed. Click into the U/00 cell so it is highlighed.Right-Click on<00> and the number increases. Left-clicking will decrease it.Change it to <01> This means we have changed our user pattern to number 01 in the pitch patterns list. Get it? Now click anywhere outside the field in the screen and it un-highlights.

11. Press the space bar. You will hear a different pattern playing then when we first started .Now the FUN begins ! Click into the second cell ON the letters EC. A dialog appears at the bottom of the screen for PITCH SERIES OPERATIONS. These are the actual algorithms that you can create variations to the initial seed pattern. For our purposes, click into RF (Reflect) RF goes into the cell, but it is still highlighted.You can now put in a value for how much 'reflection' you want by right clicking into the number cell under RF. Change it to <05>. Now click outside the feild to enter the parameter, and the cell un-highlights. You will now hear a change in the pattern as the algorithm RF permutates it. Now you can start having more FUN as you click into the next adjoining cells, select different pitch series operations and values and hearing what it does to the initial 'bone'. Facinating variations can be created from one initial seed pattern or BONE.

12.Now click into the P (for Pitch) on the TRK 1 field.It changes to a V and the VELOCITY dialog appears for track 1.Try selecting different velocites and changing the different values to see what it does to the music. Remember the music is still playing as we do this!

13. Click into the V, it changes to R for RHYTHM. Clicking into the second empty cell will bring up the RHYTHM SERIES OPERATION dialog. Here, as in the pitch series, you can select the different algorithms and values to change and alter the RHYTHMS of the initial seed pattern or Bone.EXPERIMENT ! Clicking into R again and you are brought back to the P(itch) screen for track 1.

RANDOM VARIATIONS

14. Now for something completly different.On the right side of the track dialog is a section that says MIX WITH <00>. Right-Clicking into <00>will allow you to enter a value. Change it to <05>. This means that Pattern 01(the initial seed pattern) will be mixed with pattern 05. Below this is a dialog for +/- <00>. Clicking into this will allow you to put in a 'percentage' of how much pattern 05 will be mixed with pattern 01. For our purposes, change it to +/- <30>.

15.Now left-click into an empty slot below the percentage dialog and another impressive dialog  presents itself: the PITCH RANDOMIZER FUNCTIONS. There are many options for random permutation. For our purposes, select R :<select notes randomly>. The R goes into the slot. You can select more slots to put in more random functions.However we don't hear the permutations yet.(remember...the music is still playing!) How come? We have to tell a Ludwig where we want the random permuations. We do this by selecting another empty cell in track 1 and selecting <?> RANDOMIZED. Now the features we just programmed will take place when Ludwig arrows to the <?> cell.

MORE FUNCTIONS

16.Now you can try unmutting some tracks with the top arrow keys, selecting different patterns , pitch and rhythm series operations in the same way we did for track 1. Try to pick patterns and operations that go well together. Some nice polyrhythmic variations can be created.

17. Press RETURN to stop Ludwig. Click into TRACKS on the menu and select SUMMARY. A dialog appears where you can assign track names, Midi channel,legato percentage,patch number and Pitch/Rhythm Mesh (Yes or No)Experiment with these settings to see what sounds best.Exit when completed.

RECORDING A LUDWIG SONG

18. To do a recording in ludwig, set up your patterns and algorithms. Then press the Space bar to start Ludwig. Then Mute, unmute tracks, and let ludwig play through the permuations. When completed, press RETURN. Ludwig stops. Now go to FILE on the menu and select SAVE SONG. The file selector appears, give your song a file name and hit OK, and it is saved. The song is actually saved in Hybrid Arts Edit-Track SNG format. To create a midi file, you need to download Edit Track (which is freeware now) and load the .SNG in and convert it to a standard MIDI file. From there you can export it to your favorite sequencer, that is unless Edit Track is your favorite sequencer!

CONCLUSION

There is obvously more to this software then meets the DOG...er...BONE. In the manual are discriptions of each algorithm and what it does as well as value settings. Perhaps time will tell in providing a list of the algorithm settings, but experimentation is the KEY to this program. I have found that Ludigs output is not static, but keeps changing providing you input many variations, but even then surprizes me as I am rediscovering this software.

Tim Conrardy
9-5-01

