The latest product to come from those enterprising U-Music people (who brought you the excellent UMI-2B MIDI sequencer for the BBC B micro), is the UMI ConVerter (- and that's not a typing error by the way!).

It has been designed to allow you to play the older-type analogue synths by bringing them right up to date and making them touch-sensitive via MIDI control. So, if you still love using those old Mini-Moogs, Pro-Ones or Roland SH-101s, then this unit will breathe that extra little bit of life back into them. You can use it with any CV synth that has a VCA input socket and for those that allow access to the VCF, you can control the filter via MIDI as well.

Now as if that's not enough, the UMI Converter also includes a MIDI Channel Filter that re-assigns incoming MIDI data on your selected channel to MIDI Channel 1. And if you want to know why that is so useful, then try contacting the UMI distributors: (Contact Details)

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It looks like the Mac has well and truly stimulated the interest of music software writers and here's yet another program for the Apple Macintosh - the MIDIMAC Sequencer from Opcode Systems of California, USA.

The Opcode Sequencer software is just one of a series of programs that are interrelated and further programs offer patch editing for the DX7, DX5, TX7 and TX816 synthesizers. There's also an Editor/Librarian for the Casio CZ series and a Patch Librarian for storing patches to disk generated by any of the following instruments: Yamaha TX/DX/RX, Oberheim Xpander/Matrix and OB-8, Roland Juno-106/JX-8P or even the Rhodes Polaris synthesizers.

The MIDIMAC Sequencer program offers real-time record with a 24,000 note capacity, and utilises 'on-screen' emulation of the familiar tape machine transport controls of Play, Rewind etc. It allows you to record up to 26 tracks with 16 MIDI Channels each and also offers features like transpose, looping, quantization, track merge, cut'n'paste, MIDI filter and step-time record. The accompanying MIDI interface provides two MIDI In/Out ports and there's music printing software available too. (Contact Details)

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If you're a Fostex Model 80 owner, then you should find the latest unit from QuPlay of interest.

The new QP1 has been developed specifically to meet the needs of Model 80 owners on a tight budget. QuPlay tell us that by taking out the various electronic components that allowed their original QP1 to interface with almost any tape recorder, the new dedicated Model 80 version can offer all the same features but at a substantially lower cost.

This new budget unit operates as a remote control for all tape transport functions and allows you to store cue points for accurate drop-in/drop-out, as well as trigger external sequencers and start drum machines, all at preprogrammed points. It comes in the rather fetching black and orange colour scheme of the Fostex Model 80 and you can obtain further information from (Contact Details)

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During their two recent X-perience exhibitions held in Glasgow and London, Yamaha unveiled their forthcoming electronic drum kit, the PMC1 - their first venture into this field.

Other than the actual playing pads (which bear an uncanny resemblance to tennis racquets we think!), the PMC1 includes a rack mounting control system that interfaces with the drums via MIDI. Sound generation comes from the control of external sound modules, and Yamaha envisage players linking the PMC1 to the likes of the Yamaha RX11 drum machine and TX816 FM tone generators, though we suspect it will control other makes of expander/drum machine also! (Contact Details)

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Long-established importers of Japanese budget signal processors, MTR have now started to market their own design of units under the MTR label. Their first British designed and built product is the DNG-One (Dual Noise Gate), which offers a generous array of facilities that belie the unit's affordable price.

The stereo unit provides Threshold, Attack, Hold, Decay and Floor controls for both channels as well as independent frequency-conscious keying facilities. The external key section has fully-variable high and low pass filters and there's a stereo link switch for 'master' mix gating. (Contact Details)

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London-based company Take Note, are one of many new firms who are now turning their attention to supplying professional MIDI software/hardware packages to studios, musicians and educational establishments. On the hardware side, they are now stocking two new MIDI products: the TXT switch box (pictured) which is a 10-in/12-out matrix system for MIDI signal routing, and the MIDI 2x8 Thru box. For the Casio CZ owner they have an affordable 64 memory RAM pack available, and on the software side you'll be pleased to learn that Take Note are now stocking a variety of MIDI programs from Dr.T, Opcode and Southworth (to name just a few) that will run on the Commodore 64, Apple Macintosh, Atari 520ST and IBM PC computers. (Contact Details)

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Mentioned on last month's EDITS page was the Total Music MIDI Sequencer package from Southworth Music Systems of America. This highly-professional piece of software is now available in the UK. It runs on an Apple Macintosh and offers the following features: 16 MIDI channels per track, 99 tracks, 50,000 note capacity, looping, punch-in/punch-out record mode, word processor-style cut'n' paste of tracks and notes, transposition over eight octaves, simultaneous recording from two keyboard sources (is this a world-first we wonder?), external/internal sync and much more.

Everything comes under the control of the Mac's 'mouse' as you probably guessed, and there's a sophisticated music printout option that supports all standard musical notation and lets you print anything from a bar to a whole multistave composition.

Included with the software is a MIDI interface which houses four MIDI Out and two MIDI In sockets for connection to external keyboards, drum machines, MIDI mixers and effects. (Contact Details)

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Following the success of their current CMC mixing desks, Allen & Heath Brenell have announced two further versions - the 24:16:2 and the 32:16:2 - to satisfy the growing demand from end-users for more input channels. Both mixers offer programmable channel routing/muting plus some additional features not found on the smaller models. These include 8 re-routable subgroups, plus extensive fold-back and talkback systems. Apart from the onboard 32 Program memory unit, there's a new CMR Remote Programmer that offers many facilities including 100 memories for MIDI Program Change status, 100 route and 100 mute memories and there's a 10-song sequencer with MIDI sync and MIDI song position pointers. All good stuff eh?

All the CMR memory is held in RAM cartridges for fast interchange of data which will make setting up for a new session a much easier task. (Contact Details)