Music Composer

A step-based melody editor for any UniGeek board with a speaker. Songs are stored on disk as standard Nokia RTTTL ringtone strings, so what you write here is portable to any RTTTL-compatible buzzer, synth, or web player.

Hidden on boards without sound output (no buzzer and no I2S). The Games menu only shows this entry when DEVICE_HAS_SOUND is true for your board.

Top Menu

When you open Music Composer you get a list with three entries:

Item	What it does
New	Start an empty song at 120 BPM.
Open File	Pick a saved .rtttl from /unigeek/music/ via the file browser.
Built-in Demos	Load one of the 7 bundled public-domain melodies (see below).

Built-in Demos

Slug	Source
Twinkle	Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
OdeToJoy	Beethoven — Ode to Joy
FrereJacques	Frère Jacques
JingleBells	Jingle Bells
MaryLamb	Mary Had a Little Lamb
AlsAct	Always (lullaby)
Beep	Short ascending-arpeggio test tone

Loading a demo drops you straight into the editor with the song parsed in — edit it, then Save to write a copy under /unigeek/music/. The originals are read-only (compiled into firmware).

Song Model

A song is a sequence of up to 64 steps. Each step is one of:

• A note — a MIDI pitch in the range C2 (36) … C7 (96) plus a length code.
• A rest — silence with a length code (midi = 0).

The length code is the RTTTL denominator — 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 — and divides the whole-note duration set by the song's BPM. The whole song shares one BPM in the range 40 … 300.

Editor

The editor is mode-aware so it works on every input shape UniGeek supports:

Pitch and length

• UP / DOWN — shift the current step up or down by one semitone. Every shift auditions the new pitch via a short non-blocking tone() so you hear what you picked.
• Pitch wraps at C2 / C7. Past the top, the next press toggles the step to a rest; from a rest, UP picks the previous pitch.

Cursor (varies by board)

• 4-way boards (Cardputer, T-Lora Pager, etc.) — LEFT / RIGHT moves the cursor between steps directly.
• 2/3-button boards (M5StickC, T-Display, etc.) — the cursor never moves under the d-pad; instead use the Move step… entry in the action menu for a number picker, plus Prev step / Next step for single-step navigation.

The detection is runtime via Uni.Nav->is4Way(), so behaviour follows the active navigation mode (e.g. M5StickC with the encoder HAT is treated as 4-way).

Action menu (PRESS)

PRESS in the editor opens the action list:

Action	Effect
Play	Non-blocking playback from step 1; cancels on BACK or PRESS.
Octave +1 / −1	Shift the current step by 12 semitones, clamped to C2…C7.
Toggle rest	Swap the current step between a rest and the last pitch it held.
Length	Cycle the length code 1 → 2 → 4 → 8 → 16 → 32 → 1.
Insert step	Insert a copy of the current step after the cursor (if stepCount < 64).
Delete step	Remove the current step; cursor stays at the same index.
BPM…	Number picker, 40 … 300.
Rename…	Edit the song name (drives the RTTTL header and the filename if you save).
Save	Write <name>.rtttl to /unigeek/music/. First save uses the song name; subsequent saves overwrite the same file.
Clear	Wipe all steps and start fresh; confirmation required.
Move step…	(3-button only) Jump to any step by index.

The editor sets dirty = true on every action-menu entry, so even popups that paint over the whole screen always restore cleanly when you return.

Playback

Play walks the step list from index 0. For each step it computes the duration as:

durationMs = (60000 / bpm) * (4 / lenCode)

…and calls Uni.Speaker->tone(freq, durationMs). Rests call tone(0, durationMs) to insert silence. Playback drives entirely from onUpdate() so the UI stays responsive — the highlight bar follows the playing step.

Playback works on every speaker backend:

• LEDC buzzer (M5StickC Plus 1.1) — single-channel square waves.
• I2S DAC (Cardputer, T-Lora Pager, T-Embed CC1101, etc.) — sine-LUT mono tone.
• ES8311 codec (Cardputer ADV, CoreS3, StickC S3) — same trapezoidal LUT.

No WAV files needed; everything is generated from RTTTL on the fly.

Storage

• Working directory: /unigeek/music/ on SD if available, otherwise LittleFS.
• File format: standard RTTTL — name:d=<defLen>,o=<defOctave>,b=<bpm>:<note>,<note>,…
• Files are pure ASCII; you can edit them on a desktop or paste from any RTTTL collection on the web, then drop them onto the SD via the Web File Manager.

The serializer always writes octave 5 as the default and respects MIDI_MIN (C2) as the floor. Imports outside the C2…C7 range are clamped on load — extreme bass / treble notes from third-party ringtones may shift octave during round-trip.

Tips

• For chord-feeling melodies on a mono buzzer, use short rests between notes to give your ear an attack envelope.
• BPM affects every step proportionally; tune your tempo last so length codes stay readable.
• Save early so the action menu's BPM picker and Length cycle have a place to write — there's no autosave, and BACK from the editor returns to the top menu without prompting.