ISLAND LOGIC, the software company that wrote the "Music System" program for the BBC computer (reviewed One Two December 1984), are just about to launch an updated, modified, improved version of the System designed to work with the Commodore 64 micro.

We caught Island Logic in the last week of preparation for the new Music System when we visited them just before Easter, and had Logical person Adrian Boot do a bit of explaining. And yes, he's heard all the "Boot Error" kind of compu-bore jokes.

Island Logic set new standards for home micro music software with the Beeb Music System — it provided a UK-based test-bed for the team, too. Now, with the international potential of the C64 version, the Islanders look like topping their initial achievement with ease — and recouping some of their considerable R&D investments.

They've added a very useful MIDI link on the new Commodore System, and have used the 64's greater memory to move bits of information more usefully around the screens, so that compositions on staves and data about your voices can be manipulated where and when you want them in the System, without leaping back and forth to and from the status screen.

Most notably, they've cracked the real-time keyboard-to-notation problem. You can now play in a line of music on a keyboard (from a real, MIDI-equipped keyboard and interface, or from the Commodore's Qwerty keys masquerading as black-and-white notes), and the computer will flash up the notation on the stave as you go along. Not even Yamaha's CX5 Music Composition Program can do that — the CX can handle pitch, but not duration. The Synclavier can do it, of course, but that is a rather different cash scenario.

If you're unfamiliar with the original BBC-based System, it's essentially a series of utilities on a disc or on two cassettes. It fiddles with the computer's internal sound chip to get modulation and a bit more bite to the sounds, and gives general control via status screen selection of various sections.

On the BBC version, those sections are: the SYNTHESISER, to set up voices; the KEYBOARD to play with Qwerty keys and deploy sounds with a simple multitrack facility; the EDITOR for making parts via notes and staves; the LINKER to build up longer compositions; and the PRINTER to send your finished music to a suitable computer-peripheral printer. Very nice.

What have IL improved with the C64 version? Quite a lot. They've made a link between the KEYBOARD and the EDITOR that wasn't there before.

"There's now one 'Music file'," explained Adrian Boot, "to which you can write either from the KEYBOARD or from the EDITOR. It's not two separate files like before."

And there's the "Voice Monitor Window", referred to by IL people as the VMW. This is not a people's version of a BMW but, as a direct result of the improved memory available from the Commodore, a means of displaying a pop-screen of the stave "scrolling" your recorded part in front of you at various useful points in the System, for reference or modification.

However, of the three parts you can put in, it'll still only display one part at a time. "We considered making available the display of all three parts concurrently," said Adrian, "but found it impossible if we were to get a tempo above 50 beats-per-minute. It's a matter of memory — getting those sounds going and animating the parts on the stave at the same time eats it up. So we opted for one part at a time, but at reasonable tempos and with other necessary facilities."

The BBC-based System is rather irritating in its insistence on your learning lots of different key functions for certain processes. Happily, the Commodore MK II System has done away with a lot of this, accessing more functions directly from the "windows" and pop-ups that are so liberally sprinkled among the screens.

Another distinct improvement over the Beeb version is the EDITOR'S repeat and sectioning possibilities — a very fast auto-repeat set-up can mean quick accompaniment over simple riffs, for example. But best is the new "notepad" function that lets you cut out bits of music that you've used elsewhere and stick them into the part you're working on: scissors and paste at the press of a button or two.

As Island Logic did with the BBC, so with the Commodore they've managed, through careful programming, to meddle with the 64's sound chip to get a lot more from the computer's built-in sounds. The demos we heard were indeed impressive. IL think they've made the Commodore more like a real synthesiser than anyone else has yet managed, which is what you'd expect them to think. Interestingly, from what we heard they may well be right. The SYNTHESISER section is good — visually it's an improvement too, with its sneakily-animated ADSR graphic for example. There is now access to filter control, and also a degree of resonance control. You can give names to your voices, too, which is handy. And there's a nifty sequencer on-board the SYNTHESISER with 1000 steps, realtime entry, and tempo adjustment.

A major addition is the MIDI section — a new icon on the status screen selects this option. "Yes, the icon for MIDI is a bit strange," Adrian answered my query. "Can you come up with a good one?" Theirs looks like a microphone clutching an Afro comb. MIDI?

Plug in a MIDI-equipped music keyboard via a suitable interface and you can play up to six channels of MIDI'd synth into the Music System, monophonically line-by-line or polyphonically as you choose. You can then allocate these six channels of MIDI information to any of the three Music System parts, and edit with all the System's facilities.

IL have even emulated voices of popular keyboards (the DX is high on the list) so that you have something of a soundalike going on when you're editing MIDI-sourced parts in the System. Adrian adds, rather drily: "Most MIDI editors that we've checked out tend to work as a series of numbers. We've tried to make it work for musicians." The System's MIDI section is designed for stand-alone keyboard use, rather than multiple keyboard and drum machine set-ups. But what it does, it does elegantly.

And speaking of MIDI interfaces, we saw a lead and a chip plugged into the new Music System and a DX9 when we visited — a hardware designer called Mike Hughes has emulated the necessary MIDI interface hardware in software. The only hardish part he couldn't get around is a 47p chip. Island Logic are planning to use the new setup, and reckon it could well mean ultracheap MIDI interfaces. We'll keep our ears open, as usual.

What else? The LINKER is made more versatile, again benefiting from extra memory, and the PRINTER now lets you add lyrics to your composition, even keeping several sets on separate files for the creatively uncertain songwriter. It really means a cheap and easy way to generate a top-line score, if nothing else. "The Island music publishing department asked us for that bit," said the generous Boot.

The important part, at last. The "Advanced" System, with all six sections as described, will be £35 on disc. A cheaper version, the "Concise", with just the KEYBOARD and built-in EDITOR commands, will be £15 on cassette or disc. They will be in the shops in June. And then there's the helicopter simulator that turned into something surreal...

ISLAND LOGIC commodore 64 music system advanced: £35 concise: £15

CONTACT: Island Logic, (Contact Details).