If you want to change the current pitch of the instrument, if you find any false note in the current tuning, or if you want to work on a specific shruti, you can always re-tune any string in the base. This is done through the Tools | Tune Strings command, which displays the following dialog:

In this dialog, you can change the overall pitch (frequency shifting) by sliding the upper bar horizontally (fine tuning can then be achieved by spinning the arrow buttons on the right). Depending on the pitch you want to achieve, you might still have to retune some of the strings. The second bar lets you change the overall volume. By default, it is set to 90% of the maximum sound, so that individual strokes can be emphasized. The lowest bar lets you tune the volume of the sympathetic strings vibration. Every time a note is played, the sympathetic strings tuned on that note are also echoed. you can thus increase or decrease these harmonics by sliding this bar.

The Reset button returns to the default values.

If you want to tune individual strings, click on the Tune Strings button. The following dialog appears:

You can scroll through the defined strings with the Previous and Next buttons. The String name appears on the top of the screen. You can then tune the string at a specific note by sliding the bar or spin control as seen previously. Once you feel more comfortable with the software, you can freely add new Ragas to your base. This is done through the Raag | New command which displays the Add Raag dialog. Also, once a Raag is created, you can display its Properties any time. The first tab contains general information about the Raag. Only the name is mandatory. The second tab, most important, defines which notes are played upwards and downwards, Aroha and Avaroha in Indian terms. The third tab lets you tune the chikaris, if any, for this specific Raag. By default, that is Sa, higher Sa.

The fourth tab lets you tune the sympathetics, if any, for this specific Raag. Normally, they are set to the descending scale, but some varieties can be there. As you tune these strings, a pattern will be created in the Raag folder simulating the downward movement of the player's nail on the sympathetics.

You can then go ahead and create any exercise or composition, using the provided strokes.

RaagWizard has been built on the same architecture as TaalWizard, which means you can always reuse created compositions to build more complex ones. Refer to the "A quick look at the guts" page for more information on this matter.

If you want to create your own sequences, you can do so by opening the base for the required instrument and clicking on the Insert | Pattern menu. If you wish to create a melodic cycle, like a Bandish (see above), you can use the Insert | Cycle option. By doing so, you will be prompted a Pattern Properties dialog where you must enter the characteristics of the pattern you want to create.

Enter the name, any description of your pattern, and set the beats as required. The number of beats corresponds to the number of impulsions of the pattern. It does not refer to the actual strokes that will be played, as you can have any number of strokes within one beat.

The Wrap At field lets you display your sequence in more than one line. If your pattern is big, you will gain clarity by wrapping it at a given number of beats.

The Number Of Rows field lets you create more than one row for your pattern. Typically, if you create a Bandish in 16 beats, but the melody covers 2 rhythmic cycles, you should then set the Nr Of Rows to 2.

To complete the creation of your pattern, you should set the classification fields gharana, composer, style, reporter and cycle. These fields are not mandatory, but they help providing interesting information about the pattern.

These fields can be set through predefined values contained in the combo-box controls, or by entering new values manually.

Gharana indicates the specific musical tradition from which the pattern comes. Composer stands for the known author of the pattern. Style refers to the type of the composition (Alankar, Bandish, Taan, ...). The Reporter is the person who has entered the composition in the software, that is You! Finally, Cycle refers to the Theka on which the composition is based, if any. Generally, a melodic composition is based on a specific cycle, except for the Alap part.

Once you have completed this input, you can press the OK button, and SwarShala will create a sequence of the specified number of beats, all set to Silence.

The strokes in a RaagWizard base are referred as Melodic Strokes. Melodic Strokes can include a single plucking (most notes) or multiple strings (chord) like for instance the chikari stroke.

Another powerful feature of a strings base is to play a note by pulling the previous note, instead of starting a new stroke. We have called this feature "Meend", even if this term involves much more than a simple note shift. A Meend is created by toggling the corresponding button in the toolbar as a cell or group of cells is selected. The Meend is immediately visualised as a link between the involved strokes.

Each item in a SwarShala base requires a unique path name. This applies to strokes as well. How do we then handle such strokes which can be played in different octaves and by different strings?

The convention that was used is to only store in the root folder the strokes of the main string, and to distribute the others in sub-folders. The stroke name is then given following these rules:

The base of the stroke name is its note initial (s, r, g, m, p, d and n) in lower case to facilitate input.

• Komal notes are added a "-", Tivra notes a "+".
• Octaves 1 notes are prepended 2 dots (".."), octave 2 notes, 1 dot (".").
• Octaves 3 notes are prepended 1 dot ("."), octave 4 notes, 2 dot ("..").

Whatever the final stroke name and path, the note is still visualized in full within the cell (Sa, Re, Ga, ...). Moreover, special signs give indications like Komal, Tivra, Saptak.

Each cell of your newly created sequence is set to a Silence item, that is no hand is playing. You should now enter the items (strokes and/or patterns) which correspond to the composition. To do so, you have different possibilities, which can be combined:

Copy / Paste

You can copy/paste a whole item, or just a range of cells. In the first case, you click on the item to copy in the tree view, press the Copy button (or Ctrl+C), select one or many contiguous cells in which the item is to be inserted and then press the Paste button (or Ctrl+V).

To copy a range of cells, double-click on the source sequence, select the cells to be copied by clicking on the first and dragging the mouse with the left button still pressed till the last cell, press the Copy button, double-click on the target sequence, select one or many contiguous cells in which the range is to be inserted, and then press the Paste button. If source and target patterns are not the same item, you will be asked if you wish to retain the link to the source pattern. If you do so, all changes applied to that pattern within the pasted range (from beat - to beat) will be automatically propagated in the target sequence. This can be interesting when trying Tihais out of a simple compositions.

Drag and drop

The drag and drop method makes it easy to insert a whole item within a pattern. All you have to do is select the range of cells in which the item will be inserted (if only one cell is concerned, you do not need to select it) and then drag the item from the tree view within that range.

You can also copy ranges of cells, but only within the same pattern. Just select the source cells, the target cells and drag the first to the latter.

A third application of drag and drop is to move cells within a pattern. Select the cells to be moved and drag them until the line separating the cells between which you want to insert them. When the cursor changes into a vertical line, just release the left mouse button and the selected cells will be moved there.

Manual input

To use the manual input method, you should double-click the first cell to enter edit mode, type in the identifier of the item to insert and press Enter. The identifier is the unique path to the item. As Main String strokes are stored in the Raag root folder, only their name is sufficient (d-, s, ...). However, items which are stored in separate folders such as String #2, #3, ... need that you specify the whole path to them (String #2\n-, ...).

You can immediately go to the next/previous cell in edit mode, by pressing Tab/Shift+Tab instead of Enter.

If you enter more than one item reference (separated by a space), the cell will be splitted evenly in as many items as were introduced. If a word cannot be matched to any existing item, that cell is set to Silence.

Which method to use?

Depending on the situation, you may choose to use one method or the other. For example, for patterns with regular rendering of the strokes like an Alankar, you should use manual input. Once you have created your empty pattern, merge all the cells into one, double-click it and type-in "s s g- g- m m d- d- n- n- s. s."; you are done.

On the other hand, that method won't be that efficient for patterns with uneven beats, as you would have to add unexpressed Silences, or enter strokes in different steps.

If you need to use items contained in folders, you should drag or copy them to avoid the trouble of entering their whole path. Also, if you have the possibility of copying a whole range of cells, you should do it through drag or copy commands.

The best way to understand the method to use is by trying them all; once you have entered some patterns, you will quickly gain experience and will automatically choose the right way.

When a new pattern is created, each cell corresponds to exactly one beat. Few sequences however follow this simple layout. If you need to create strokes which are off-beat or distributed in a different way within the pattern, you will need to use commands which change the layout of the cells and therefore of the underlying strokes.

We have already seen how when you enter a sequence within a cell, the latter is splitted according to the structure of the former. You can also split a cell or group of cells beforehand through the Cells | Split command. Once you have selected the cells to split, just click on this command and specify the number of times it should be split.

All the cells selected will be splitted accordingly. The new cells will contain the original stroke, that is if you divide a cell containing Sa say 10 times, you will have 10 cells containing Sa. If a pattern is included within the selection, the program will consider it as a single cell. Thus, if you are working on a whole performance and you split any of the cells of the Bandishes Asthayi or Antara line, the program will create as many loops of this line as specified, within the length of the original cycle.

Another useful command is Cells | Merge. Select a range of contiguous cells, click on this command and all your cells will become one, containing the stroke of the first cell of the range. If this cell happens to be within a pattern, the new cell will contain the whole pattern.

If your strokes are set properly, but you just want to change their duration, you should use the Cells | Width command. Select a first cell, click on this menu, and the current duration is displayed in a fraction of a beat. To change this setting, enter a new duration. Once you click OK, the remainder of the pattern will be shifted to the right or to the left depending on whether you have increased or decreased the duration.

Be aware that a pattern should always be delimited by its number of beats. Operations like Cells | Width, Cells | Delete or Cells | Insert create an imbalance in the structure of the pattern. This imbalance is corrected once you edit the Properties of the pattern and press the OK button. However, this will rarely give you the result you expect. For example if you delete a cell of say Sa X X X, once this pattern is restored, it will have 3 cells of 1/3 of the global duration.

The rule is therefore that when you remove a duration somewhere, you should add it elsewhere to avoid the software compensating the difference in each of your cells.

Coming back to the Cells Width command, you can jump to the next or previous cell through the appropriate buttons.

The 2 commands, Cells | Delete and Cells | Insert, which I just mentioned before help you remove a cell or group of cells somewhere and insert it elsewhere. These commands can generally be replaced by the cells moving facility (see Drag and Drop).

Finally, Append Row is a very useful command which lets you insert a new row to your composition in a neat way (no imbalance). To remove one or more rows, you should use the Delete Cells command, and then edit the Properties for the pattern, set the Nr of Rows to the new value and press OK.

The first step in creating a new RaagWizard Strings base is to define the different strings which will be used in the base. This process will be done only once for each instrument. A person using the common bases posted at the site will not have to bother about it.

To create a new string, you must define its name, the original pitch of the recording, as well as the lowest and highest note range it can achieve. After that, you will have to enter the different plucking styles available for it.