.SuperJAM! FAQ

What is SuperJAM?
What's MIDI?
Is this the first program of its kind?
Why use SuperJAM?
What are the hardware requirements for SuperJAM?
How do I install SuperJAM?
How do I install the extra Styles?
Which Style Collections are available, and what Styles are in them?
How do some of these crazy window or menu options work?
How do I load an existing Song / Style / Band / etc.?
How can I set Band, Style, Personality, Key and/or Tempo defaults for every new section?
Whenever I run another program (for instance, opening a browser to follow along with a tutorial), SuperJAM! doesn't work.
I've got a stuck MIDI note and the thing won't shut up!
I can't install or run SuperJAM on my Cyrix, AMD, or Windows 2000 computer.
I'm having trouble printing sheet music.

What is SuperJAM?

SuperJAM! (refered to throughout this site as SJam) is a MIDI "jamming" program. The idea is that, rather than composing and arranging all the parts of a musical work, the user can give some basic information to the program -- chords, musical style, general tone or personality of the music, what instruments to use -- and the program will handle the details, generating complete arrangements in real time. The user can modify the arrangements at any level, add a melody, print sheet music using the included Notation Station, and export the song as a MIDI file.

Hold up -- what's MIDI?

The Musical Instrument Digital Interface, a standard for electronic musical instruments. Check out the main FAQ for more details.

Is this the first program of its kind?

Not hardly, although I think it's the best. The first that I was aware of for commercial purposes was an old Electronic Arts program called Instant Music, which was not a whole lot more than a toy but was really impressive for its time. You put in chords, you picked a musical style, you "drew" your melody across the screen with your mouse (or joystick!)... and the program stayed on key. This was A Big Deal in 1985.

There are at least two commercial programs still available that make liberal use of the concept: Jammer from Soundtrek, and Band in a Box from PG music.

So, why use SuperJAM?

SuperJAM! makes music creation easier and more fun:

• It truly is "easy enough for the novice, but flexible enough for the professional". The first SJam tutorial shows how, with literally only a few mouse clicks, you can create a song.

• Music arrangement is quick and powerful. Repeating sections (verse, chorus, bridge, whatever) can be copied with a Ctrl-click drag, and then individually edited. Styles, bands, musical personality, key, tempo, and much more can be changed from section to section.

• Simple MIDI sequencing is also included, using the mouse to "draw", move, duplicate, and otherwise alter notes on a piano-roll-style display. This allows you to easily tweak your creation.

• A real biggie: SJam includes a Style Editor, allowing you to create your own Styles of music. Unhappy because SJam doesn't have Styles for Hawaiian Folk Music or Irish Reel? Want something that sounds a bit more like Phil Collins, Tori Amos, or R.E.M.? Make 'em yourself! (If you have any Styles that you're proud of, send 'em along to me, and I'll put them up here for everyone to download and enjoy.)

What are the hardware requirements for SuperJAM?

To run SuperJAM! V2.0, you will need:

• Windows 3.1, Windows95/98, Windows 2000, or Windows XP (NOT Windows ME! The elimination of "Real DOS" mode seems to totally tank SJam -- it doesn't work properly. There have been some reported problems with Win2K, but other users have handled it just fine; that may be a configuration problem -- I'm still gathering information. See below)

• A VGA display

• 8 MB of free hard drive space

• 4 MB of RAM

• A 386SX or higher processor (although you may have troubles on some Cyrix or AMD processors, see below)

• A Windows-compatible sound card or MIDI interface

As you can see, you can get up and running on fairly minimal computers. The silicon monsters of the day, with 700-1,700 MHz processors and 20-to-75(!)-gigabyte hard drives, should not have a lot of trouble. I have run the software without problems on 486, Pentium 2, and Celeron computers, as well as on a Pentium 1 card installed in a Power Mac. However, some people have reported some difficulties with Cyrix and AMD chipsets, and with Windows ME. (See below.)

How do I install SuperJAM?

There are two main .zip archives, one for each of the two program disks:

• Right-click here and select Save as... to download SJam2-1.zip (install "disk" 1)

• Right-click here and select Save as... to download SJam2-2.zip (install "disk" 2)

Note: I go into a bit of extra detail here, assuming you know very little about dealing with archives, because I've had some requests from people having trouble installing the software, and I got an e-mail from at least one person who seemed completely unfamiliar with .zip files. So, please don't be insulted that I hold your hand. I'm trying to save us both some trouble.

1. What you downloaded are in fact archives, compressed amalgams of the files on the original two SJam floppy disks. To access them, you will have to get an archiving program such as WinZip (an incredibly powerful shareware archiving program you can download at winzip.com). The WinZip program, winzip80.exe, is a self-extracting archive that will install itself politely onto your hard drive when you Run it.

2. Once it's installed, select WinZip from your Start Menu to run it. Select the option to Open an archive. The first one you should select is SJam2-1.zip. This will list the files in the archive.

3. Now, select the option to Extract an archive. This will take you to a screen which will allow you to pick what (temporary) folder you'd like to extract the archive to. If you don't have a regular folder that you use for this purpose, just use the folder that came up as a default (which should be the same folder you downloaded the archives to). Make sure the options "All Files" and "Use Folder Names" are checked, and click Extract. This will create a folder called SUPERJAM2-1.

4. Now, Open the archive SJam2-2.zip. Select the option to Extract. Again, make sure "All Files" and "Use Folder Names" are checked. Extract the archive to the same temporary directory as the first archive. This will create a directory called SUPERJAM2-2.

5. Close WinZip, and any other programs you've got running.

6. Using either the Run command or a directory program, get into the SUPERJAM2-1 folder, and Run the program called Setup.exe. This will ask you if you want to install into a different folder besides their default (there's no particular need to, so don't worry about it), and your name and company name (your name is required to continue the installation; your company name is optional). It will then begin to install the program.

7. When it asks you where Disk 2 is, click on the [...] button to select the path of Disk 2. Select the folder SUPERJAM2-2, and the installation program should finish by itself, ask if you want the icons (say yes -- it's just putting stuff in the Start Menu), and open the Readme file.

8. Go to the Taskbar, and click on Start to open the Start Menu. Under Programs, you should find a Program Group called "SuperJAM! 2.0", and the SuperJAM! 2.0 program inside it. Select it to run it.

9. The first time you run the program, it will ask to test your sound card. This is a very easy configuration program; just click on the options for your sound card, and you should hear music. Once you do this, you shouldn't have to do it again, unless you change your MIDI device, or add a new one.

If you have any problems with this procedure, please let me know.

How do I install the extra Styles?

Each of the following Style Collections (which can all be found on the Download page) is a self-extracting archive.

1. Copy the style archive you want to install (say, blues.exe) into a temporary folder (say, c:\temp\styles).
2. Using the Start Menu's Run command, Browse to that folder and Run the .exe archive. This will open a WinZip self-extraction window.
3. Check off the box marked Overwrite, and then click the button marked UnZip.
4. When a message pops up saying "[x number of] files unzipped successfully" or somesuch, click OK and then Close.
5. Again using the Start Menu Run command, Browse to your temporary folder and Run Setup.exe.
6. A window will pop up, announcing that you are in the Power Series setup. Under the section marked "To which product[s] are you adding styles?" check off the box next to "Any SCORE-compatible product except SuperJAM! 1.0".
7. Just click Continue or OK when necessary, and the Styles in that archive should install directly into your C:\WINDOWS\SCORE folder, to be available the next time you start SuperJAM!
8. Repeat with each Style archive.

Which Style Collections are available, and what Styles are in them?

At some point in the near future, I'll give much more extensive details about all of the styles, possibly in their own FAQ. In the meantime, here's a quick list of the available Style Collections and the Styles in each one.

Blues

Barroom Blues, Boogie II, Diddly, Howlin' Wolf, Memphis Blue, RiffRock, Blue Rain, Texas Swing, Strummin', Midnight Train

Classical

20th Century Chorale, Bach, Beethoven, DeBussy, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Minimalist, Rachmaninoff, Rameau, Stravinsky

Country

Backbeat, Bluegrass, Country Folk, Country Pop, Country Rock, Country Swing, Last Dance, Rockabilly, Two-Step, Workin' Man

Cutting Edge

Brazilian Pop, FunkJungle, FunkSeven, Funky 7/4, Fusion, Fusionist, Latin Five, New Age II, Punkarama, ReggaeRock

Dance Mix

Chill, ClubMix, Disco, Fever, FunkEasy, Groovitis, HipHep, PowerDance, ShuffleMix, Strut

Jazz

Basie, Big Band, Blue Groove, Blue Shuffle, Jazz Ballad, Jazz Folk, Jazz Gospel, Latin II, Latin Funk 3/4, Ragtime

Movie Soundtrack

Adventure, Americana, Chase, HiJinks, Horrific, Love Theme, Nobility, Otherworld, Sir Real, Suspense

Pop/Rock

FunkMellow, Fusak, Go-Go, Gospel Waltz, PopMellow, R&B, Rock IV, Rockapeggio, SuffleEasy, Southern Rock

World Music

Appalachia, Argentina, Carribean, China, Eastern Europe, Gypsy, India, Italy, Mexico

How do some of these crazy window or menu options work?

Everything in SuperJAM! is intended to be intuitive. The most important thing to remember is that all menu options are context sensitive -- which means, simply, if the option doesn't make sense in the current active window, it's not available in the menu. A good example is the Options menu itself.

When the Keyboard window is active, the Options menu lets you Free Unused Styles (clear any styles you haven't used this session out of RAM), run the MIDI Setup... function, or Change the Keyboard Split Point (the point on a MIDI keyboard to the left of which playing a key will produce a chord in SJam and the the right of which playing a key will produce a single note). But if the Section window is active, you suddenly get five more options, including Auto Scrolling of your display and Automatic Chord and Octave selection -- choices which don't make sense in the more general context of the Keyboard menu. (By the way, the Automatic Chord Selection is based on the Section's Personality, and the Automatic Octave Selection is based on the Section's key.)

How the heck do I load in a song, or a style, or a new band, or chord changes, or anything?

The Open... menu item lets you load an existing Song, Band, Style, and a whole lot more. It is a bit tricky, a holdover from the days when Windows did not necessarily remember the last folder and file type you were dealing with. So you have to browse for the correct folder and set the correct file type every time. Fortunately, as SJam deals with such small file sizes, it's no trouble to create a few new folders in your C:\SUPERJAM folder, such as "My Bands" and "My Songs", to keep everything close together and to keep your work separate from the program's defaults.

How can I set Band, Style, Personality, Key and/or Tempo defaults for every new Section?

When you create a new Section, using either the New... Section menu option or the New Section button (the one that looks like a pie chart), the new Section is created with the current settings of the Keyboard window (the one with a two-octave piano keyboard in it). The new Section will have a generic name and a length of eight measures, both of which you can change as the time of creation, or later in the Edit menu. Setting defaults, therefore, is based on how you've got things set up in the Keyboard window. A few tips:

• The View menu has an option, Style Info, that gives you notes from BRS on the default band and hints about using the Style to best effect.

• If you're loading a specific homemade Band for the song, Open and Select it while the Keyboard window is active. Otherwise, you'll have to load and select it for every measure. Also, if you decide to change anything about that Band, select Save as... to save your current Band under a different name, as a backup, and then Save the changed Band under precisely the same name -- otherwise, each and every Section will be looking for The Little Band That Wasn't There.

• There is no way to globally change the tempo or key of an existing song. If you realize halfway through your opera that everything is just a bit fast and a perfect third too high, you're going to be changing a lot of Sections.

• You can also preview the Chord choices in the Keyboard window. Any Automatically Selected Chords in a given window are based on the Personality chosen for that window at the time the chords were created. This is not retroactive. So, if you suddenly realize that your Brooding song should be more Romantic, you will have to reenter each and every chord to get the specific Automatic Chord Choices for Romantic. I have done this. It's not fun. If you intend to use a Personality to influence your chord choices, preview your chords, get the sound you're looking for, and stick with it. It is seriously easier on your nerves to start from scratch than it is to change every damn chord.

• If you want to use a particular set-up a lot, save it as a song with with no Sections, naming it something like "tmpcntry.sng" (for Template - Country) or "newbeeth.sng" (for New - Beethoven) or "def-rag.sng" (for Default - Ragtime) or "blnkrck4.sng" (for Blank - Rock IV).

Whenever I run another program (for instance, opening a browser to follow a tutorial), SuperJAM! doesn't work.

Many older MIDI programs don't "play well with others". They don't multitask well, hogging the system resources as much as possible even when they don't need to. SJam is actually very polite about this (remember, it was developed on an Amiga, which multitasked in hardware with no problem). As a default, it only uses the sound hardware when the SJam window is active. But by going into the MIDI Setup window (Options > MIDI Setup) and checking the box labeled Keep MIDI/sound card resources, you can make SJam continue to play even if another window is active... perfect for, say, following a tutorial in a browser.

I've got a stuck MIDI note and the thing won't shut up!

A MIDI note actually consists of two actions: a Note On signal, and a Note Off signal. Sometimes, in the midst of an intricate arrangement, or on a computer that's trying to do too much at once, or because of an unexpected interruption of the performance, or occasionally just because it feels like it, the MIDI program forgets to send the Note Off signal for one or more notes. You stop the song, but the notes keep going, usually at an eardrum-piercing, head-splitting level. Fortunately, the third button on the Toolbar at the top of the program window, the Notes-Off button, sends that signal to all MIDI channels, and shuts 'em up.

I can't install or run SuperJAM on my Cyrix, AMD, or Windows 2000/ME computer.

Earlier models of AMD and Cyrix chipsets had serious problems coping with Windows floating-point functions. As a result of this, SJam may not run properly, or at all, on those computers. Newer AMD computers have, as far as I am aware, completely solved the problem. (They darn well better have. I'm probably getting an AMD chip in my next computer, and I ain't giving up SJam.)

Unfortunately, a new problem cropped up. Microsoft has been attempting over the past few years to phase out as much of DOS as they dare, and the newest "feature" of this is the elimination of "Real DOS" mode in Windows 2000 and Windows ME. It is now much more difficult, if not impossible, to run programs with any DOS hooks in them on one of these computers, and all of the programs on this site are of a vintage that makes them susceptible to the problem. This may make it impossible to even install SJam.

However, there do seem to be exceptions. I will try to sort them out, and as soon as I know anything more definite, I'll let you know.

One thing for sure: I have successfully upgraded to Windows XP, and SuperJAM! installed just fine the first time, and runs flawlessly. It even gives you the option in the MIDI setup to use Microsoft's newest software synth, which sounds darn good.

I'm having trouble printing sheet music.

The version of the SCORE.DLL file included with the Notation Station module of SJam 2.0 is buggy. For a later, fixed version, click here. Just copy this into your C:\WINDOWS folder, overwriting the previous version of the file, and restart your computer.

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