In conversation with the Editor of one of the more erudite computer magazines the other day, I ventured the opinion that computer music may be the next 'big thing', since computer games have declined a little recently.

"Cor strike a light, guv", he riposted, "de-bleedin'-clined? Plummeted, they 'ave. PLUMMETED".

Taking this as agreement, I went on to suggest that even hardened businessmen may be tinkling the QWERTY keys before long, even if it meant buying Casio CZ-101's and relatively expensive packages for the IBM and compatible business computers.

"Ah, yerss", he affirmed, "but in yer States the IBM is a home computer as well as a business machine".

So once again we come to the conclusion that people in the States have more money than we do, and gain some idea of why they're so fixated on Apples, Macintoshes, IBM's and other up-market micros. For them, even spending the equivalent of £2,000 doesn't take you too far upmarket.

Luckily the UK market is buoyant enough to continue to develop perfectly useable packages for the Commodore 64, BBC and more affordable machines. Take the Microvox DSE for example.

The Microvox Digital Sound Editor doesn't look too inspiring — a bit home-projecty — but connected to a Commodore 64 it's a formidable studio unit at a mere £230. It's a monophonic sampler (later versions may be duophonic on the Commodore 128), and offers 0.8 seconds at 20kHz (very respectable frequency response) or 17.28 seconds at 1 kHz response (okay for reproducing the sound of somebody eating cornflakes).

The Microvox comes in a metal box half the size of a C64, with a power supply, manual and software on disk. It has Audio In and Out jack sockets, MIDI In/Out ports, a ribbon cable connector to the 64's cartridge port, and front panel controls for Gain, Mix, Output Level and Repeat (for use in the 'echo unit' mode).

Of course, all the clever stuff is in the software. The first page display allows you to take samples using an input gain display and an adjustable threshold level represented by a moveable bar. You can select a sampling rate and time, and compander/filter sections help improve frequency response.

A Waveform Editor page displays the sampled sound diagrammatically and allows you to edit, loop, invert or fade it in or out. You can multi-sample until all the available memory is used, so it's possible to sample a complete drum kit of sounds and see what percentage of memory each sound has used up. You can then play sounds from the computer's keys or from a MIDI synth.

It's also possible to sequence sounds on (you guessed it) the Sequencer page, and the Microvox can be set to respond to any MIDI channel. Screen six of the software allows you to assign different sampled sounds to different synth keys if you find that easier than playing the computer's keys.

Sounds and sequences can be saved on disk and the Microvox is generally pretty fast and easy to use. Between the manual and the user-friendly displays, even a computer novice should be sampling away happily after an hour or so, and as an added bonus the system will eventually be capable of echo and harmoniser effects.

More good news for the Commodore 64 as the Oxford Synthesizer Company announce their appointment as UK distributors of the Steinberg Research range of MIDI software products. The range includes;

A 16-track realtime/steptime polyphonic sequencer (£90).

A Scorewriter/Music Editor capable of editing the sequencer's files, transcribing and printing complex music in standard notation (£120).

A Sound Editor for the Yamaha DX7/TX7 including 160 new sounds on disk (£70).

A Sound Editor for the Casio CZ synths including 128 new sounds on disk (£70).

A Sound Editor for the Korg DW-6000 with access to 576 sounds at once (£70).

The 'Piano Partner' educational package combining aural and visual feedback to depict the relationships between chords and UMI-2B (or not 2B) with BBC 'B' scales (£35).

The 'Guitar Partner', package showing chords and inversions on the fingerboard and their relationships to scales (£35).

A MIDI interface (One In/Two Out) (£40).

A synchroniser to drum machines and tape for the MIDI interface (£35).

A deluxe MIDI interface including tape and drum machine sync with additional MIDI routings (£135).

All the software is on disk and runs on the Commodore 64 or C128; the Sequencer, Score Writer and DX7 also run on the Apple II and IIe computers using the deluxe interface.

Full reviews of all these packages as soon as possible, but for the moment suffice it to say that Steinberg had a very impressive display at Frankfurt '85 and that Korg Europe are using their software writing talents to great effect.

Although it's only indirectly related to computer music, you'll be glad to hear that computer hackers have come to the aid of poverty-stricken Ensoniq Mirage owners who are a bit miffed at having to pay £14 for pre-formatted sound disks when they know perfectly well that blank disks are £47 for 10 in any computer shop.

Saviours in this case are MPS Software, who have a Mirage-owning director and who ran a Mirage disk through a Macintosh to see what made it tick. Apart from the fact that all the Mirage's operating details are contained on every disk, the formatting system used is highly complex — mainly to cram in as much information as possible — and the usual safety locks also exist.

However, MPS have compromised by formatting disks without transferring the operating system (that would bea little too close to copyright infringement territory) and are marketing disks at £50 for a pack of five, which is a considerable saving.

All you have to remember is to start each session with a 'genuine' Ensoniq disk, or the MASOS Advanced Sampling Disk, which contains the operating system, otherwise your Mirage will just look at you blankly and say "what the 'ell's going on 'ere?". Just like the old days of the Emulator 1, in fact.

Some dealers are stocking MPS disks, but if you can't find them, you can mail order from MPS at the adress given below.

If you're into computers for nonmusical purposes it's worth having a chat with MPS about their Toolkit IV disk utilities software package, which gives your C64 a fast file copier and fast disk copier, a variable format program, a file cruncher which reduces file sizes by 40 to 50 percent, a sector editor which allows you to fix corrupted sectors, an individual track and sector reader and much more, all for £22.95.

Two computer music systems have received updates recently, the Joreth Music System and the London Rock Shop's UMI-2B.

Joreth's basic compositional software 'MCS' is being upgraded all the time, and can now support a Casio Tone Editor which helps you create and file sounds for the Casio CZ synths. The new Key Programmer package extends the scoring and editing functions of the MCS, which as it stands is a very powerful polyphonic MIDI composer with realtime entry and comprehensive editing.

We did have details of the latest update to the UMI-2B which runs on the BBC, but apparently they're already out of date, since another update is well in hand. This time the system's capacity is going to be expanded so much that it may well have to go onto two chips as opposed to the existing one which fits inside the BBC. The system also needs a Sideways ROM hardware memory expansion to work in addition to the interface and software, so it isn't the most inexpensive system in the world. However, it is regarded as highly professional and is being used by everybody from Blancmange (both of them) and Vince Clarke to film composer Paul Bliss and Def Leppard producer Mutt Langer...

The London Rock Shop, (Contact Details)
Joreth Music, (Contact Details)
OSC, (Contact Details)
Supersoft/Microvox, (Contact Details)
MPS Software, (Contact Details)