Pulsar Operation Manual

## Duty Table Editor Page

Tracks A & B are the NES's two square-wave voices. They both have a Duty setting which sets the pulse width to one of four possible values. The four values (as they relate to the pulse width) are 12.5%, 25%, 50% and 25% (phase inverted). In Pulsar (like LSDJ) these four values are represented by little waveform icons.

In the Instrument definition you have the option of either setting a single, static Duty value (which is depicted by one of four waveform icons) or alternatively you can tell Pulsar you wish the Duty of the Instrument to be controlled by a Duty Table. There is also a Command to set/override the Duty setting of an Instrument, `Wxx`.

From left-to-right the parameters are:

`DT` | specifies the Duty setting for the Duty Table step. You can't actually assign a number, just change the little waveform icon.
`DL` | specifies the number of ticks/frames to hold the current Duty for (as specified in `DT` column). `00` means no delay, `FF` is the maximum possible delay
`JM` | tells the Duty Table which step to go to next after the current step has ended (after the specified Delay). A setting of `'--'` means to just drop through to the next step

##### Duty Table Operation

When a Duty Table is assigned to an Instrument, each time a new note is played the Duty Table starts at the first step and normally progresses to the end of the table (step `0F`) at which point it loops back to the start and continues.

As you can probably tell from the `JM` and the `DL` settings, you can manipulate this flow to pretty much create any pattern of Duty settings you like.

As an example, the Duty Table in the screen-shot above will start on step `00`, hold there for `06` ticks, then drop through to step `01`. On step `01` a different Duty value is specified and the step is held for `04` ticks. Then the `JM 02` command causes a jump to step `02` (though this is not really necessary as the next step after 01 would be 02 anyway). Then on step `02` a different Duty setting is specified and this is held for `05` ticks before jumping back to step `01`, thus looping around steps `01/02` until the end of the note.