OPINION

SPECTRUM VERSION

Take a good idea - a MIDI controllable sampler as a peripheral for a home computer. Then 'optimise' the price/performance ratio to such an extent that everybody can afford it... but nobody wants it. A recipe for disaster, you'll agree, but to my ears this is exactly what has happened somewhere in the design history of Ram's highly publicised 'Music Machine'.

Call me a hard bastard if you like, but I would be guilty of aiding and abetting if I wrote pages describing the fruits of every keypress, clever though they may be, and then just hinted in the summary that the sound quality was a bit 'iffy'.

As a learning tool the package scores highly, ironically by highlighting its own deficiencies. It certainly taught me that there is more to sampling quality than duration and bandwidth. No wonder the bottom line on the MIDI sample dump standard is eight-bit linear format.

At its best (when coupled with an external sound source), the Music Machine is a duophonic steptime sequencer and sampled drum sound rhythm composer. Not bad for fifty quid even if the drums are a little flat and switching noise from the computer spills into the audio channel. Conceiveably, you could work out demos in this configuration.

DECISION

At its worst the peripheral is a duophonic sampler. The supplied microphone appears of dubious quality but its replacement with an Audio-Technica PR80 did nothing to improve matters. I could barely distinguish between samples of a Yamaha upright piano and a direct injected Fender-Rhodes. Sure, the sample editing software is very clever with front and back truncation, zoom, and reverse. But rather more fundamental is that a sample should retain some degree of fidelity on replay. Oh, and by the way, there's no way of tuning the sample. I appreciate that getting good samples is an art but even a great sample on the Music Machine would be below enthusiastic amateur standards.

But enough of the hard man. Ram's hardware seems well made and no doubt a real time MIDI sequencer package will be on the way - possibly from third parties. As a sound source, the Music Machine's wavetables would be better filled with the calculated values of basic and complex waveforms. OK, it wouldn't have the marketing buzzword 'sampling' but it could give sequencer owners additional low-cost usable voices. And finally, if only that hardware could be upgraded to 12-bit...

Prices - Tape: Spectrum, Amstrad 464/664 £49.95. Disc: Amstrad 464/664/ 6128 £59.95.