Chapter 3 - Architecture

The Bhajis Loops sound engine as well as its user interface are based on the following hierarchy:

The source of everything is... samples. A sample is simply a digital recording of a sound, with extra looping information. That's all! Samples can be imported from .WAV files stored on expansion cards, from sample packs, or from a small sample library stored directly in the application resources. Samples can be as complex as a drum loop or gamelan break, or as simple as a looped waveform to provide a basic oscillator.
An instrument contains a reference to a sample - that is to say, the same sample can be shared between several instruments - and information about how to play this sample, such as relative pitch, filter and enveloppe parameters, etc. The notion of instrument is very similar to the notion of Program found on hardware samplers.
The basic bricks to build your songs are notes. A note is described by its start time, its duration, its pitch, its velocity, the instrument which should play it, and optional performance parameters that override the instrument settings (eg pan, cutoff, vibrato depth...).
A group of notes that are structurally related and likely to be repeated can be gathered in a pattern. For example, a rhythm or a bassline can be considered as patterns. The notion of pattern is very similar to the notion of Blocks manipulated in sequencers such as Logic Audio or Cubase, the only difference being that a Bhajis Loops pattern can contain notes played on several different instruments.
A song is finally made by assembling and chaining patterns together, in an arrange window like editor.
Each instrument can be routed to one of the two effect buses. An effect plug-in can be selected for each bus. The resulting global signal is sent to a final effect bus.
Finally, automation curves can be drawn to control the evolution of sound parameters over time.

That's all! To go further into terminology, a file that contains a complete song, that is to say: its structure, its patterns, notes, instruments and samples is named a module.

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