RAGE HARD!

More from the column which looks more at your Spectrum hardware than your software, (honk). Phil South takes his magic screwdriver to Music Maestro for all Spectrum computers, and avoids ALL the obvious puns. (Well nearly all...)

CONTACT BOX
Utility: Music Maestro
Contact Box: Torchraven Ltd, King House, 60/64 Matthias Road, London N16 8QD. Tel 01-923 1744
Price: £9.95

Music Micro Please! (Okay, okay, no more naff puns like that I promise). Music is one of my fave hobbies, as you know, but it has always been a bit of a sore point on the Speccy, to be sure. It's been possible to make music on our favourite button box before, but 'how'? has always been the real question. Packages to help you have come and gone, but it seemed that no-one ever put much thought into this aspect of the computer. The SpecDrum was one good idea, but you needed the box to hear the sounds, and if you wanted to give someone else a copy of your "song" what good was that?

So, if you like to make music for yourself or have a more commercial idea in mind, game effects and music for example, then a new program from Torchraven looks like being right up your street.

TAKE NOTE

Music Maestro is a music creation utility for the Spectrum range, requiring no add-on boxes, and lots in the way of editing, playing and saving stuff. Things which require more specialist knowledge or extra devices have been left off, like MIDI and print out options. So it's the ideal thing for folks who want to dibble around with music in some way, but can't really afford the expense of the current crop of MIDI add-ons. MIDI is okay, of course, but it does mean that you have to spend upwards of 300 smackers on a MIDI synth or module! Cost effective music on the Spectrum was the plan. So what is the end result like?

SO MUCH IN IT?

Music Maestro is supplied either on tape or disk. If bought on tape it can be transferred to disk for use. The supplied programs are as follows: a basic loader and load screen, the Music Maestro program itself plus some essential demos and utilities for compiling and setting interrupts, and soon.

To load the program you simply insert the disk and press ENTER for loader. The program loads automatically. After the program has loaded, you are presented by the main Music Maestro screen.

Music created by Music Maestro in the editor can be saved in two ways, as source' code, easily edited note lists, or compiled blocks of machine code, called 'music objects.' A long time ago there was a package called Wham! Music Machine. If you remember that, you'll be intrigued to note that better than that, the Music Maestro program not only allows you to program the BEEP speaker, but also the three channel AY chip sound found in the 128 and +2/+3. This is the first thing you notice about the main screen, you can select between BEEP and channel music. In the top left of the screen the contents of the three channels, indicated by the numbers 1, 2, and 3 are displayed, and you can select any channel by pressing the indicated number key on the top row of your keyboard. Channel on/off indicators show which channels will be played when play is selected. And Tone on/off, which is only used when the AY chip is being addressed, shows whether tones are generated for the shown channel. Again, the White Noise on/off shows whether noise will be generated for the highlighted channel.

There is a Speed rating as well, between 1-4, at which the currently loaded piece will be played, and next to that you'll find the key in which the music is written, shown in varying amounts of sharps or flats. Don't worry about the amount of 'real' music notation and references in the game. One of the points of this program is that it allows you, by twiddling around to learn more about musical notation if your musical education doesn't run to sticks and blobs.

Other features of the main screen are a white noise level, which will increase or decrease the amount of generated white noise, if you're using any for a drumbeat, say. The other thing is to toggle the sound-to-light facility. This is a bit of fun, which I'll go into in a moment.

Centrally, the screen shows the notes to be played on the current channel. The highlighted bit in the centre is the cursor position, where you insert, edit and delete the notes directly underneath. This area doubles as a wave display when you're editing waves/envelopes. Right underneath the central editing zone is a line for the name of the file you're currently editing. You can alter the name any time you like. All the other options for using the Music Maestro program are right along the bottom of the screen. To use a much loved convention, all the initial letters, or at least the highlighted letters, are the keys pressed to activate each option. One option which remains constant throughout all the menus is the 'Q' command, for quit obviously.

Saving off your edited scores is easy, as you just tap the F key for file, T or D for tape or disk, and L, S or D for Load, Save or Object Save. Files are automatically appended with the extensions MUS for source, MOB for object files, and ENV for attached envelopes. You can also specify, (and this is useful if you do your music for professional purposes) whether the tune plays just once, or whether you'd like it to repeat over and over. Handy for title screen tunes and high score tables.

ALLOW ME TO COMPOSE MYSELF

Editing on the Music Maestro is a dream. You can go to a certain measure of the music by typing S for start, E for end or B for a certain bar! For varying note lengths and pitches, you can select StaCcato, Dot, Sharp, Natural and Flat. (Flats and sharps always stay until cancelled by a natural, as in real music.) Rests are as important as notes, as you are probably aware, so you can insert a rest by pressing R. The thing which separates this package from others, including Wham! Music Machine, is the amount of actual editing you can do to the score once you've entered it. You can also perform 'block' operations, chopping and changing whole chunks of your source to make the piece longer or shorter, or repeat areas which you can't be bothered to enter again. You can also Play just the indicated block, rather than the whole piece! Handy for checking out a section without having to sit through an entire performance.

LETTER PERFECT

You can draw two envelopes for each channel, pitch and amplitude (loudness) which affect the 'timbre' or tone of the note. And you can also edit the envelopes with graphic feedback on the screen. This is actually a feature reserved for only the most expensive synthesizers. The control over the envelopes is how you make the notes sound like different instruments. Now I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea, here. The difference between sounds isn't that pronounced, and nobody could mistake a Sinclair sound for a real instrument. But you will be pleasantly surprised by the range of tones you can get with the onboard synth chip. As for the BEEP, well, you can't affect its sound, only note and duration.

DIG THE COLOURS MAN

The sound-to-light effect is activated by O for options, and then L for Light. Then the pieces you play on Music Maestro are interpreted in a 'free-form' display of coloured dots on the screen. This is rather nice, and I spent many long hours in the dark watching this before they broke the door down and tied my sleeves behind my head. Fortunately you can press the SPACE bar to quit this pretty cosmic mode.

THE VERDICT

I like Music Maestro a lot. It's a well thought out program which has something for everyone Home users will enjoy making their own music. And pro users can save machine code music for use in programs, as the instructions for using interrupt driven music are very comprehensive.

On any other system the price would be high, but on the Spectrum the software standard prices call the tune, to coin a phrase. So to obtain a copy of this marvellous utility, you only need £9.95 for cassette, and £12.95 for disk. A bargain. I think you'll agree. Incidentally, Torchraven is currently selling Music Maestro direct by mail, but if any major distributors/software houses are interested, Torchraven will be only too happy to take their call.

Many thanks to Steve Joyce of Torchraven for his help in preparing this review.