User talk:LexisMikaya/MML 101 Guide

Considering I'm not adept in MML coding...Wondering if I am giving good tips or not. I only ever composed 1 full song while greatly modifying others. Is there anything a phrased weird or doesn't make sense? I really need a personal editor for these things lol...

I'll read this over and give some feed back sometime within the next week. There are some quirky differences between 3MLE's and Mabinogi's MML parsers that many people don't know that I can help explain as well.

Yes please do. I pretty much had to figure this crap on my own (not musically adept)

"When attempting to compose, it is ideal you have actual real life knowledge of music, how to read it, and how to compose. While with many, this is not the case. I am one of those."

This passage sounds kind of awkward. I suppose you mean to say that there are many people who don't have any real life musical knowledge.

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"Be default, the octave of any note place will always be 4 (o4)."

I think you mean "By default", and also, this makes it sound like if you don't specify the octave of each note, it'll play at o4. It might be better to explain that each octave goes from C to B and the octave stays the same until changed. Then you can say that each track in a song starts at o4.

Also, it's possible to play on the 0th octave, but only some instruments have notes on that octave (Guitar and Piano are the ones I know of), and 3MLE and Mabinogi behave differently for this. (See second to last section of this post for details)

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"Be sure to always place the opposite bracket at the end of a note set, or it will keep playing on the newly inputted octave."

I don't think this line is necessary if you explained that octaves are constant until changed as I mentioned above.

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"Avoid using "V15" at all costs."

I use V15 all the time except on flutes and whistles. Those two are the only obnoxiously loud instruments at V15 in my opinion. Also I think that people should spend more time adjusting the volumes of tracks that aren't playing the main tune though because a lot of otherwise good MMLs tend to have overpowering bass.

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"For example, I want to make the beginning louder for the check of a song but afterwards, the song must be softer for it to sound correct. The MML code is as follows

• v15l64c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c&r1v8l8>cd+f4fd+fa+"

Most people I know call the check here a "tuner". Perhaps leave a note about the different terminology somewhere.

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The Notes and Note Length Section is too short, especially for people who don't know any music theory at all. You should explain that a bigger number means a shorter interval. For example, a quarter note is twice as long as an eighth note. It's also possible to have something like twelfth notes, which are a third the length of a quarter note. You also missed the dotted lengths. A period after a note will make the note 50% longer so "c4." is the same as "c4&c8". Incidentally, "l8c." works fine; you can omit the 8 if the default length currently is 8 already.

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Differences in 3MLE's and Mabinogi's MML parser:

1. In 3MLE, placing a < while at o1 will do nothing, but placing a o0 will let you place notes in the 0th octave. However, in Mabinogi, neither < while on o1 nor o0 will let you play on the 0th octave. You have to use N to get the right note from the 0th octave instead. This is kind of a pain since you have to use L to determine the length of the note.
2. 3MLE can play the same note on top of each other on different tracks. For example, if you play "c1" on melody and "l16eedcdefg" on harmony 1, the melody will still be playing its c1 after the harmony 1 plays the c in the middle of it. However, if you try this in Mabinogi, you'll notice that the melody's c will stop playing when the harmony 1 plays its c.
3. Mabinogi has a weird issue with rests played next to a tempo change. This is hard to detect normally, but the rest will be a slightly different duration than the intended duration. This is generally not an issue if you are doing a solo song, but in band songs, it will cause desynchronization at a fairly noticeable level. As a workaround, you can set volume to 0 and play silent notes instead of rests.

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Random extra note, 3MLE has a functionality that automatically rewrites your notes to the shortest form possible. You just right click on the name of the track and click Optimize Track (assuming you're using the English translated version). Note that if you are using the 0th octave, it will ruin it so after optimization, be sure to fix the notes in 0th octave again.

Hopefully I fixed what you saw. I never did know what dotted notes did, so didn't really bother with it. I probably overlooked it to consider how small periods can be... =-=;

The first oddity at the bottom is incorrect. Mabinogi will not continue to the play the c1 in the example, but 3MLE will.

Would you mind if I edited this page myself to fix any grammar, spelling, or clarity issues?

Not at all, so long as what's there is still intacted. I think even on my user page, I stated editing is approved, so long as it is within reasonable means.