MUSIC MICRO, PLEASE

Just to prove that Tech Niche isn't all soulless stuff about insensitive peripherals, JON BATES and GRAEME KIDD throw away their joysticks and take up the baton to conduct a round-up of sensitively musical software.

No matter how wonderful you believe your Spectrum to be, in arguments with Commodore, BBC or even Amstrad owners, you will have to concede that they have the edge when it comes to sound. The Amstrad, for instance, has three channels, which allows you to create a stereo sound and a white noise generator. Your 'umble Speccy doesn't have a chip dedicated to sound generation and gets by when it comes to making sound by switching the 'speaker' on and off, more rapidly for higher notes, less rapidly for the lower ones.

The BASIC Manual is a bit naughty when it tells you: '...because there is only one loudspeaker in the computer you can only play one note at a time, so you are restricted to unharmonised tunes.'

'Loudspeaker' it ain't, but the only reason why you can't play more than one note at a time is because there's only one channel which can be switched on and off to generate noise. Other computers, which have dedicated sound chips, let you use several channels and that allows more complicated, harmonised tunes to be put together. Like the manual says, if you want anything more than simple unharmonised tunes on the Spectrum 'you must sing it yourself.' As you might expect, there's quite a lot of specialised hardware and software available which extends the capabilities of the Spectrum, moving it towards (and maybe even past) the level of musical competence achieved by other machines. We'll be taking a look at these bolt-on musical goodies in future Niches; for the present we've confined ourselves to a close examination of the software which runs on the basic Spectrum.

We found six programs which, to a greater or lesser extent, take the pain out of programming tunes in the 'BEEP 1,0: BEEP 5,3:' format, and three musical education packages which go part of the way to helping the musically illiterate get to grips with the subject. Rather than plunge in at the deep end on our own, we persuaded a real live musician - Jon Bates - to help evaluate the software.

A professional keyboard player, author of a book on synthesisers and keyboard teacher, Jon invented a new rating for the purposes of these reviews - MUSICALITY. We've taken account of Graphics, Educational Value and User-friendliness, but Musicality is, in effect, a musician-friendliness rating and depends on the musical accuracy of the software. Before awarding the Musicality rating for each program, Jon asked himself the question, 'is it in accordance with the basic rules of how music is written and sounds?' 0/10 for Musicality would make a musician scream, he told us!

The other half of the dynamic reviewing duo, Mr Kidd, claims to know a bit about computers but is a self-confessed music illiterate. Nuff said about him.

SPECTUNE
XORsoft
Unit 7, Newington Street, Hull
£9.95

Both the demo section and the learning mode are well put together, and despite some misapprehensions about the graphics, the whole package is well ordered and comprehensive. The demo and keyboard/stave familiarisation games provide the user with a simple but good background to what he or she is about to do - and the range of options, including the facility to store a total of 2,500 events and up to 26 different tunes at any one time is truly impressive.

The editor is a true music processor, which allows you to edit tunes by scrolling to the left and right. Short sections of music can be written and then merged together to compile one long tune, and while the editor can be a bit difficult to get to grips with, it's well worth the effort, being very accurate and comprehensive.

The inlay instructions are straightforward and well set out, and given the sheer volume of facilities on offer, are bound to be complicated.

Overall, the biggest plus has to be the facility that allows you to use the Spectrum keyboard to emulate a two and a half octave keyboard. In the practice mode, you can play music merrily, and once the piece is perfect you can play it into memory in real time. Given that a tune memorised from the keyboard can then be edited or printed out, the program could be very useful as a real-time music printer/sequencer, not least for the untrained musician who can't score out his tunes played by ear.

This program was very accurate musically and while it would benefit from a keyboard overlay and a little graphical tidying up, it's well worth the effort required to get to know the complicated editing routines. Spectune would appeal to both the total musical novice and the competent musician equally - it's just a pity that the Spectrum isn't polyphonic!

Spectune converts the Spectrum keyboard into a two and a half octave musical keyboard that can be made to record, recall, edit, save, merge and print. The instructions explain concisely how to change the length of each note, the tuning mode (which re-tunes any note for interesting scales), selecting key signatures, time signatures, writing and editing, and so on.

Diving straight into the teaching part of the software, a user starting from scratch can learn the basic techniques of playing and writing music in very simple terms. Using an on-screen keyboard, the relevant keys blink in red and an explanation of how music is printed follows. When you've had enough of the demonstration program, you're then ready to load in the main operating program.

You're offered three options from the on-screen menu, the first of which is a learning game to help you sort out exactly where you are on the keyboard. A note's printed up on-screen and you've got to find it on the keyboard within three lives. It's fun and a useful learning aid - something other programmers should take note of. Returning to the main menu, the second option - edit/write mode - is very easy to use. Having selected a note and specified its length, it's entered into the sequencer. If you change your mind, you can go straight into the editing mode and change any notes by scrolling to the left or right to insert, delete or alter any part of the composition.

The last option on the menu is the play mode. You're now programming music in real time and the sequencer's recording exactly what's played, including your mistakes! But, even if you have entered your tune in real time, the editor still allows you to remove or change any unwanted notes.

Spectune allows up to 26 different tunes in memory at any one time; these can be merged together in any sequence in the final composition. You can also make a hard copy of your tunes on a printer.

Overall, Spectune is a very well-written program, and one that I can recommend. It's a useful educational tool that's fun to use.

There are many 'make music' tapes about and this is one of the better ones.

Without the use of external hardware you are limited to what the spectrum can offer and this program makes use of everything the spectrum has. It turns the Spectrum into a piano keyboard with 34 notes. You can adjust the bar length and the crotchet length, (sounds painful). It gives you a good range of all the sharps and flats etc. and it can also memorise your tune and play it back to you. You can also edit and change your tune and it can hold up to 2500 notes.

Written for the 48K it will set you back £5.95.

£4.95
XORsoft

Very good; a good teaching section will help you learn the basics of music, both step time and real time record/play. Recommended, especially if you have little or no musical knowledge.