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Raising The Standard

MSX Software

Article from Electronics & Music Maker, August 1986

Is the Japanese computer standard a dead duck, or will the latest music and video software from Toshiba and Pioneer save the day? Annabel Scott has the answers.


In the UK, Japan's MSX home-computer standard has made relatively little impact. But Yamaha's CX5M music computer showed what could be done with a little imagination, and now two other manufacturers - Toshiba and Pioneer - have introduced MSX machines which embrace electronic music and audio-visuals respectively.


MSX has been a failure - true or false? The answer to that one rather depends on where you live. In Japan, West Germany and some other parts of Europe, the Far Eastern micro standard continues to be quite a success, now going into its second generation with MSX computers featuring expanded memories and instruction sets and increased facilities.

But as far as the UK market has been concerned, MSX has had a very limited impact, with disappointing sales particularly over the Christmas 1985 period. That's a pity, because the standardisation available through use of the MSX format has as many applications in the field of music as in any other.

There has been one exception to the general run of the MSX story: the Yamaha CX5 Music Computer. The problem with the CX5 was that it couldn't be regarded as being compatible with other hardware as MSX micros were intended to be, simply because you had to go for a Yamaha MSX micro in order to get the FM tone-generation module. When other MSX micros plunged to £99, the CX5 stayed resolutely at several hundred, dropping to just under £300 only when market forces proved irresistible.

All that has changed now. The CX5 tone module has been updated and is available separately, and the machine has competition in musical terms from the Toshiba micro we're examining today. And several recent developments have gone some way towards realising the potential of MSX as it was first announced almost two years ago - for instance, the video-linking Pioneer computer which we're also examining.

So it may now be possible to assemble a powerful music-and-video system based on MSX computers, combining the best of the recent hardware with the cheapest of the 'old stock' accessories.

To go some way towards testing this theory, let's look first at the Toshiba HX10 computer, and its optional HX-MU901 keyboard and synth module.

First, you should be able to obtain an HX10 for around £99 - if you can still find one in the shops. In theory it has been replaced by the HX20, which has twice its 64K of memory, but in practice, either will work perfectly well with the Toshiba keyboard and software.

The HX10 is a conventional enough MSX micro, with Joystick and Printer ports to the right, Recorder, RF, Audio and Video, Cassette and Expansion ports to the rear, and a Cartridge slot on the top panel. Some later micros have two cartridge ports and this could have some musical applications, but the HX10 is an attractive enough little machine with a pleasant QWERTY keyboard and neat layout.

The HX-MU901 Keyboard and Tone Module system is now in the shops for £99, and for that price, it makes an impressive package. It consists of a full-size four-octave keyboard with Enter and Stop touch panels and a long multi-purpose sensor panel, plus an FM synthesiser cartridge which presumably uses Yamaha patent chips, despite having only two operators and two algorithms. The cartridge connects to the keyboard with an integral lead and plugs into the computer's cartridge port. There are two phono audio outputs on the cartridge, and the sound comes over the TV monitor as well.

The software loads automatically from the cartridge and presents a graphic picture of a keyboard and drum kit. This has three demo tunes (a bit of classical, a bit of Scott Joplin - the usual stuff) but rather cleverly conspires to make both keyboard and drum kit play along with the music. The synth module is nine-note polyphonic, but doesn't have the CX5's multi-timbral capabilities except in the sense that it can play bass, chord and drum sounds simultaneously (reducing the main part of the keyboard to two-note polyphony).

We'll come to the sounds later, but for the moment let's get off the opening display by pressing 'Edit/Space'. This takes us to the main screen, referred to as Display 2.

On this page you find ten main sections.

The first of these, Poly, lists the voice number from 1 to 65, allows you to switch Vibrato on or off, and to select long or short sustain. These parameters are selected using the computer's four cursor keys, and altered using the space bar and back space key.

The Bass section allows you to do exactly the same with the bass side of the keyboard when you're in Split mode. Bass parts are monophonic, and the split-point is set at the second F#.

The Chord section provides the same options, and is active when the accompaniment is running, while the Level section allows you to mix the volumes of the Poly, Bass, Rhythm and Chord parts using a small bar graph display.

The Rhythm section allows you to select any one of 20 drum patterns ranging from Rock to Swing to Big Band. Tempo can be set from 40 to 200 BPM, and the Bass facility can be set to either Walk or Root. Next to the rhythm display is the Chord box, which identifies chords played when the accompaniment section is active. This can cope with some quite complex shapes such as G#sus.

Play Mode is obviously the most important section, and sets the keyboard mode to Normal (right-hand sounds only), Split (Poly right and Bass left) or Ensemble (Poly right and Accompaniment left). Sensor Mode can be set to Percussion, Rhythm Pattern, Rhythm Edit, Voice, Arpeggio or Chord, and we'll look at these facilities shortly.

The Record section has on and off selectors for the right and left hand, and allows you to enter performances (including accompaniment selections) in real time. The memory capacity isn't stated in the handbook, but must run into many thousands of notes - though there are few editing facilities beyond the possibility of replacing backing chords by pressing Stop, the new chord, and Enter on the music keyboard. And just in case your computerised doodlings throw up a work of unexpected genius, recorded performances can be saved to disk or tape.

Meanwhile, the Function section allows you to transposed whole keyboard in semitones, to tune it to other instruments, to set the vibrato depth and to go to the Save-Load page. Beneath the main screen display is a representation of the multi-sensor on the music keyboard, and this changes to represent each function of the multi-sensor as it is selected.

So, in performance terms, the Toshiba resembles a home keyboard with a useful if rudimentary sequencer. The FM sounds are pretty reasonable, and cover all the obvious brass, piano, string, bass, metallic and abstract effects, with most of the power and clarity of, say, a Yamaha DX9 FM poly.

The drums are OK, too, though obviously you don't have individual outputs, just the stereo phono outs which split the left- and right-hand sections.

The Multi-Sensor is a cunning and versatile device which has some real uses, as well as representing a gimmick for beginners. Five coloured strips above it divide it into five ranges for percussion functions, and the first function ('Percus') allows you to tap out bass, snare, tom, cymbal and closed hi-hat sounds manually. Most of the sounds come straight out of Joy Division, so if you've ever wanted that authentic 'She's Lost Control' boingy snare sound, this is where to look.

The second Sensor mode, 'RhyEdt', allows you to enter a new rhythm pattern in real time, choosing one of the existing patterns For erasure. This function can be combined with the third mode, 'RhyPat', which allows you to enter any five of the preset rhythm patterns onto the five areas of the multisensor. This allows you quickly to call up the pattern with a single touch during performance, and partly makes up for the fact that there's no other facility for composing a complex drum pattern.

'Voice' offers the same functions for the polyphonic voices, allowing you to call up any five voices immediately from the multisensor.

The remaining sensor functions, 'Arpeggio' and 'Chord', work only when the accompaniment is running. Chord will play rhythmic chords in any sound you choose, with a different pattern to accompany each rhythm, while Arpeggio will pluck notes out of the left-hand chords and play them over all four octaves as you run your finger along the multi-sensor - in much the same way as that pioneer of budget auto-accompaniment, the Suzuki Omnichord.

Overall, the best points about the Toshiba are that it's cheap and easy to operate. The sounds are usable, but can't be edited in any more sophisticated fashion than selecting sustain and vibrato. The sequencer is useful even though it has no synchronisation facilities, and parts of the software could have some educational use - specifically the chord box on the main page which will name almost any chord you'd care to play, and the moving keyboard display on the intro page which will show you how demo pieces are put together (it lacks the top note of the keyboard, though).

Obviously the Toshiba computer will carry out all the games and other functions of any other MSX model. But in going on to our other MSX review, we find a micro which has some unique functions the like of which certainly won't turn up on any other MSX micro.


Pioneer's PX7 isn't an MSX II machine - let's get that clear right from the start. It has a perfectly standard Mk1 operating system, but it does have one advantage: Gen-Lock circuitry that allows the computer's video signal to be synchronised to that of any other steady video source, be it from videotape, camera or off-air.

To facilitate the video links necessary to take advantage of this, the computer itself is in a hi-fi style unit (almost suitable for a 19" rack, too) while the keyboard is on a long trailing lead. On the front of the computer unit are connectors for two joysticks, headphones and cartridge, volume and mixing level controls, on/off switch and video normal-or-through switch.

The real panel positively bristles with interfaces - audio in and out in stereo, video in and out, RF out, RGB out multipin, System Control in and out for LaserDisc players, data recorder multipin, printer out and an expansion port.

Three cryptically-labelled switches on the front of the Pioneer control the video mode - Video Only, Computer Only, and Superimpose. In the third of these modes, the computer's graphic output is superimposed over any video input you've connected to the rear sockets - no mean feat considering the expense of a Gen-Lock unit to accomplish this any other way.

What can you do with the Pioneer once audio and video are all linked up? Well, any graphics package suitable for MSX computers is available to you, but Pioneer themselves offer a useful £99 graphics tablet, the PX-TB7, which comes with a cartridge called Video Art. A basic palette of functions is available, including line, square and circle drawing, coloured fills, erase, large characters and background colouring. It's also possible to create sprites using a 16 x 16 matrix, and to make the sprites move across the screen and cycle from one to another to create animated action.

All functions are controlled from a scribe with a push-switch which connects into the graphics tablet, and the package can come up with some wonderful backgrounds, decent captions and basic moving effects. Each effect can be wiped across the screen in any one of a number of ways: across, up or down, centre-out, explosion and so on - budding Tube producers please take note.

You can, of course, write your own MSX routines for caption generation or other effects, and as long as you choose the start-up option of Pioneer Basic (P-Basic) which takes up virtually no additional memory, the video-lock functions should come into operation reliably.


The Toshiba music package runs perfectly well on the Pioneer machine, and with a suitable interface lead, so would the Yamaha CX5 software using the new SGF05 tone module with MIDI In and Out. At £299 the Pioneer computer isn't too expensive a proposition, and its stereo audio/video mixing facilities, though originally designed for use with a LaserDisc player, could come in massively useful for musicians interested in video, or computer music, or both.

All in all, the latest batch of MSX developments leaves plenty of options open for musicians. You could go for the cheap computer, the Toshiba HX10 (assuming you can still find one in the shops), and either a Toshiba keyboard or a Yamaha keyboard and tone module (for MIDI use) with a suitable connecting lead. Apparently, these leads aren't too difficult to make up: it's just a question of soldering on the correct kind of connector to go from the Yamaha tone module to the first 20 or so pins of the computer's expansion port. JVC's MIDI Composer package and interface should also work nicely on either computer.

Alternatively, you could go for the Pioneer computer with Gen-Lock, mix all your audio and video outputs through it, and add either the Yamaha or Toshiba music systems. Mount the Pioneer in your 19" rack, let the keyboard sit on your mixing desk, and potentially you have a powerful music synthesiser/MIDI sequencer/video graphics generator/audio-video mixer/wordprocessor at your beck and call.

Obviously this kind of mix-and-match purchasing demands a little care, but with the home computer market in its present - highly volatile - state, it should be possible to put together some exciting packages at what can only be seen as minimal expense.

MSX is the closest the computer industry has got to a standard like MIDI, and for that alone, it deserves to be supported. There are some novel developments going on here, and on the evidence of the Toshiba and Pioneer systems, computer-wise musicians on a budget should certainly re-consider MSX as the potential centre of their studio setup-right now.


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

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Electronics & Music Maker - Aug 1986

Scanned by: Stewart Lawler

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