SP Studio Systems SP-12 - Manual (Page 52)

CREATING A SONG
© E-mu Systems, Inc. 1985 Page 52
Enhanced by The Emulator Archive 2002 www.emulatorarchive.com
3M EFFICIENT USE OF MEMORY
The more efficiently you use memory, the more space you’ll have available for
storing all those wonderful drum patterns. Consider a song where you have
an 8 measure chorus, consisting of 7 identical measures followed by 1
different measure that serves as a “fill”.
The least efficient use of memory would be to treat the entire 8 measure chorus
as one long segment.
A much better use of memory would be to treat the 7 identical measures as 7
distinct song steps, followed by an additional song step for the “fill”.
The best use of memory would be to repeat the Identical measure 7 times (this
only requires three song steps: begin repeat, the segment number of the
measure, and end repeat 7 times), followed by an additional song step for the
“fill”.
Remember, the most efficient way to use memory is to repeat segments
whenever possible. Song steps take up very little memory space compared to the
memory needed to record a segment; any time you can replace segments with
song step instructions, you save considerable amounts of memory.
The shorter the segment, the better. If a segment consists of two identical
measures, change it into one measure and repeat it twice.
Periodically check the remaining percentage of memory (see Section 2M). If you
start getting close to a memory full condition, erase unneeded segments, or
program a smaller number of songs. You may save what you already have on
disk or on tape via the cassette interface (see Part 5).