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Article from Music Technology, May 1994

Que Computer Hardware Buyers Guide, AMG Global Trance Mission sample CDs, Microsoft Music Multimedia CD-ROMs


MICROSOFT

Music Multimedia


software

While Peter Gabriel, Todd Rundgren, et al have been busy doing their thing on multimedia CD-ROM for the rock and pop industry - and jolly interesting it is, too - Microsoft have already released several multimedia CDs of classical music. There are three titles to play with - Musical Instruments, Multimedia Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony which includes the 'Ode To Joy' popularised in A Clockwork Orange, and Multimedia Mozart: The Dissonant Quartet.

The Musical Instruments CD contains information on over 200 instruments from all around the world arranged into four areas of access. Families of Instruments tells you about the five basic instrument groups - brass, strings, woodwind, keyboards and percussion. The A-Z of Instruments lets you access the instruments alphabetically - there's even a section on synthesisers and guitars. In Instruments of the World you can pick an area of the globe and see which instruments are used there.

Musical Ensembles contains seven families of instruments which are often used together - orchestras, wind bands, jazz bands, steel bands, gamelans, chamber groups and rock bands. The latter is divided into four sub-groups - rock 'n' roll, heavy metal, soft rock and pop.


Microsoft's Musical Instruments CD divides rock bands into five categories.

The program describes the different parts of the instruments and there are over 1500 samples so you can hear what they sound like. There are also over 500 high quality photos - a fascinating collection which you could easily spend hours looking through.

The Musical Instruments CD even includes synthesisers and samplers.

The Beethoven CD has five sections. The Pocket Guide lists major sections in each of the four movements and you click on a particular section to play it. Beethoven's World describes the times in which Beethoven lived and details the influences which shaped his music. The Art of Listening explains basic musical concepts and is illustrated with extracts from the Ninth Symphony.

Multimedia Beethoven has five sections easily accessed by a click of the mouse.

A Close Reading plays the entire symphony allowing you to start and stop whenever you like. As the music plays, the text on the page changes to describe what you are hearing. You can click on it to see examples of phrases and motifs in notation format and play them from the CD or through a sound card. The Ninth Game is a question-and-answer game about Beethoven's life and his Ninth Symphony. The Mozart title works in a similar way but has more chapters and subheadings. It includes a section on the instruments of the quartet and a Mozart Bibliography.

Multimedia Mozart gives you a step-by step account of the musical development of The Dissonant Quartet.

These CD-ROMs are an excellent example of how an interactive medium can not only entertain but inform and educate. I can't think of any way in which a listener could acquire the same amount of information and the same kind of detailed explanation (whilst the music is playing!) other than by personal tutor. The CD format means you can quickly go back to a passage, see the notation, take a broader look at the musical form and so on.

Ludwig's Ninth, for example, is not my favourite Beethoven work, but the CD certainly let me get more from it than I thought possible, and with the understanding came a great deal of additional enjoyment. Yes, it's a different format to Xplora 1 - it may not let you interact with the music, but it does give you a much deeper insight into it. That said, I do feel an opportunity has been missed by not including score for the two music CDs. This would have been an incredible opportunity to marry the notation with the music. Real shame, that.

It would be interesting to see the same methodology applied to the likes of rock and pop, although part of the reason for the success of these titles is that classical music is more involved and complex and follows a more detailed process of development. But perhaps modern music would be a greater challenge and more ephemeral. Just a thought.

If you're at all interested in any of the music on these CDs and would like to get more out of listening to them, I can't recommend them too highly.

Price: Musical Instruments £50, Multimedia Beethoven £50, Multimedia Mozart £50
More from: Microsoft, (Contact Details)



QUE

1994 Computer Hardware Buyer's Guide


by Bud Smith

We regularly receive Grief letters from readers wanting to buy a computer. The trouble is, the comments we pass on are often out of date before they get into print. OK, perhaps not, but computer technology changes so fast... well, you get the idea. It's also such a vast subject that a few paragraphs can do no more than scratch the surface.

Que's 1994 Computer Hardware Buyer's Guide is an attempt to bridge the knowledge gap. It concentrates on PCs and Macs - though more on PCs than Macs - and assumes virtually no prior computing experience.

It presents chapters outlining the benefits of using a computer, how to choose a system to suit you, selecting a manufacturer, putting a system together and so on. There are sections on monitors, printers, CD-ROM drives and modems, plus several pages of tables listing scores of computers and peripherals.

The list of Macs is hopelessly out of date, thanks to Apple's "it's Tuesday let's rehash our range" policy, and the book is American, so the prices are in dollars. In any case, you could only use these as comparative guide anyway, as computer prices do, literally, change every month. With that in mind you must make allowances for some of the author's comments such as buying a cheap PC to run DOS if you're on a budget. In today's market, if you're looking at PCs I would honestly find it difficult to recommend anything less than a 486. If you can't afford that then you need to rethink you needs, your budget or perhaps look at a different type of computer.

For a book, the Guide is reasonably up-to-date. It even mentions the PowerPC, the Pentium and the PCI buss, although not in any detail, and it touches on multimedia. You'll still need to buy a few dedicated computer magazines to top up and update your knowledge but it's an excellent source of information and advice.

Yes, we know it's a minefield out there. The Computer Hardware Buyer's Guide is the best hard hat and steel-tipped boots you'll find.

Price: £15.45
More from: Computer Manuals, (Contact Details)



AMG

Global Trance Mission


sample CDs

Nick Fisher and Garry Hughes are on a Mission. In fact, they're on a Global Mission to, er... trance. Thankfully, somewhere along the way, they've decided to jettison a vast proportion of their personal sample libraries into the waiting hands of AMG. The result, Global Trance Mission Capsules 1 and 2 form one of the most desirable sample collections of its type - certainly one of the best I've ever heard.

By 'best' I'm not referring simply to quantity - although the collection had to be split across two CDs, such was it size - or indeed, variety (the sounds are overwhelmingly analogue). No, I'm referring to the sheer usefulness of the samples included here, which when not acting as inspiration for new tracks, should slot into existing ones effortlessly.

The two volumes - or 'Capsules' as AMG prefer to call them - can be bought individually for the usual fifty quid each, or together for a reduced price of of £80. Should you decide to buy one volume and then add a second at a later date, the additional CD will cost you only £35. The samples themselves are split equally across the two CDs; for example, rather than Capsule 1 featuring all the synth loops and Capsule 2 all the drum loops, a cross-section of both is included on each volume.

As I hinted above, Global Trance Mission takes the bulk of its inspiration from analogue synths and effects processing. Categories on each CD include analogue sound effects, synth sequences (similar to those found on Vince Clark's sample CD collection), old beatbox loops and hits, basses, ambient pads, strange dialogue and a smattering of ethnic loops and chants. The data sections at the end of each disk (compatible with Akai S1000 format on Capsule 1 and S3000 on Capsule 2) contain a host of additional delights, not presented in audio format, such as choirs, Hammond organs, pianos and more pads. Now is the time to buy that digital interface, methinks...

Reading through the above list, you may be inclined to think that Global Trance Mission's selection of sounds are similar to those present on a host of other current CD collections. Not so. Ingenuity, quality and length are just three of the criteria that sets GTM well apart from the competition. For instance, rather than presenting a couple of tracks of the 'usual' drum loops, Fisher and Hughes have put their beats through an eclectic assortment of effects processors, including a Roland Space Echo, Korg Vocoder and Eventide Ultra Harmoniser. The result? Some of the strangest, funkiest and most refreshingly different rhythms ever to grace a sample CD.

Of the non-rhythmic sounds - quite a few have been treated with reverb, and those that haven't would almost certainly benefit from a touch of processing. More importantly, its pleasing to see samples recorded over a decent length of time, allowing synth phrases to evolve and ambient effects to swirl properly between speakers before being cut off.

I particularly liked the extended dialogue sections, too; rather than tedious banks of "Oohs", "Wows!" and "Yeahs!", you are given entire phrases from which to chose the words you need. Sure, it can eat up sample memory, but properly spliced together, you should be able to produce something more engaging than the usual sample CD speech breaks. Also worth mentioning are the percussion sections: despite being familiar with a least thirty current sample CD collections, I can honestly say there are virtually no sounds here I recognised. This must be something to do with Fisher and Hughes' mysterious 'modification' of their instruments.

As you might imagine, the samples are primarily intended for the dance floor, but given that the word 'dance' has become a catch-all terms for styles as disparate as techno, ragga, house, ambient etc, this isn't the restriction it once might have been. The two demo songs give you an idea of how the swirling pads (Snake Breath 2), chugging basses (Crossmodgrunge), arabic chants and thundering sequence riffs (Hypnotherapy) can gel together - but your own experiments should yield equally fruitful results. A lot of care has been put into the programming of this CD - and it shows. The sounds here are destined to end up in some of the most crucial cuts of the next twelve months - get them while they're hot.

Price: Single Capsule £49.95; both Capsules £80: additional Capsule £35. All prices include VAT.
More From: AMG, (Contact Details)



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Publisher: Music Technology - Music Maker Publications (UK), Future Publishing.

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Music Technology - May 1994

Quality Control

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