Rhythm files

In JJazzLab "rhythm" usually means a music style, like pop or bossa-nova.

Rhythms are used by songs. Many songs use only one rhythm (e.g. rock), but some may use 2 or more. A song file (.sng) does not contain all the rhythm data, it just keeps a reference to the rhythm's name.

Upon first start, JJazzLab scans the computer to get a list of the available rhythms.

In JJazzLab core, rhythms are made available by rhythm engines. Some rhythms can be based on rhythm files. For example the YamJJazz rhythm engine provides rhythms built from Yamaha style files such as poprock.sty or TripHop.S510.prs.

Rhythm files location

JJazzLab expects rhythm files to be in the User directory for rhythm files. The location of this directory can be changed in the Options/Rhythms, as shown below.

Rhythm files scanning

Your rhythm files are scanned at startup only upon a fresh install or an upgrade, and the rhythm list is saved into a cache file.

You can force a rescan in the Options/Rhythms panel as shown below.

Rescan button in the Options/Rhythms panel

You can use up to 2 levels of sub-directories to organize the rhythms in the User directory for rhythm files. Sub-directories whose name starts with an underscore '_' are not scanned.

This cache file is then used to get the rhythm list upon next startups, which is much faster than the initial scanning -especially if you have many rhythm files.

Quality of Yamaha style files found on the web vary a lot. Furthermore some styles are

sometimes “broken” (invalid file format), i.e. can't be loaded by JJazzLab.

Adding new rhythm files

Use the Add Rhythms... button from the Options/Rhythms panel (or from the Rhythm selection dialog).

Add Rhythms... button in the Options/Rhythms panel

Added rhythm files will be copied to the root of the User directory for rhythm files, and a rescan will be planned on next start.

In the Add Rhythms... dialog shown below, you can choose to add the rhythms for the current session only, i.e. rhythm files will NOT be copied in the User directory for rhythm files.

You may add rhythm files only for the current session

If, outside of JJazzLab, you add or remove rhythm files in the rhythm directory structure, you MUST manually force a rescan, otherwise the added/removed files will not be taken into account.