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Commodore Music SystemArticle from Electronics & Music Maker, May 1986 |
If you're a computer manufacturer and you've got excess stocks to sell, you switch the emphasis to music. That's what Commodore have done, as Chris Jenkins reports.
In an effort to shift stocks of C64 computers, Commodore have announced a revitalised range of music software that includes a decent sampler and an FM synth voice module. The whole package looks conspicuously good value.
Second device in the Music Sales series is Sound Sampler, and a surprisingly good one at that. Given a selling price of just under £70, you might be forgiven for thinking this plug-in module is an expensive toy, but not a bit of it; it's a usable musical instrument that offers decent-quality monophonic sampling and a range of digital delay effects.
Like the Sound Expander, the Sampler plugs into the cartridge port of your 64 or 128. It comes complete with a plug-in microphone, but if you're going to be fair to the unit, you're better off using a more sophisticated mic. There are controls for input volume and feedback on top of the module, and a phono output. Again, there's a cartridge port for the forthcoming MIDI interface, though no direct keyboard connector.
To say that the sampler software is easy to use would be something of an understatement. On the left-hand side of the main display is a bar chart showing the input level and trigger threshold, which you adjust using the Commodore's function keys.
Select Sample, bark into the microphone, and you can play your funny noises back immediately via the QWERTY keyboard or Music Maker overlay. Sampling quality is reasonable - though no figures are given - and sampling length is about one-and-a-half seconds.
Having made your sample, you can call on a number of menu options with which to modify it. You can display a Fairlight-type mountain plot (which is pretty to look at but doesn't offer the opportunity to perform waveform editing), set a repeat on the sample, reverse it, or alter the start and end points. Not unexpectedly, these options allow you to tidy up your sample, and make it a good bit more 'playable'.
Now we come on to 'Quattro sampling', which is not a soft-drinks testing routine, but a multisample option for short percussive sounds. You can make as many as four samples, and play them back either using the keys Q, W, E and R, or using the Quattro Sequencer. This is hardly a 'professional' feature: the sequencer allows you to arrange your four samples in patterns of 16 beats only, with pauses if you wish, and play the pattern at a range of tempi from 1 to 28. If you want different time signatures, pattern variations or pitch changes - forget it. There are two demo files of percussion samples on the disk, though ironically (and rather irritatingly) these are themselves taken from digital drum machines.
The Sampler's last feature is the Effects page. Here you can select one of eight real-time harmonising effects, which can make you sound like Donald Duck or the man in the Denim adverts, depending on which treatment you select. Actually, the Feedback control offers some mildly fascinating effects, and there's also an Echo option, which provides delays of between 20 milliseconds and 2 seconds, and a repeat function adjusted by the Feedback control. Quality is fair, but control limited.
Overall, the Sampler is an excellent and inexpensive introduction to the technique, with the software's all-too-obvious failings being, I suspect, insurmountable given the limited amount of memory space in the C64.
Third of the newly-packaged add-ons is a piece of software called Sound Studio software, which uses the by now familiar menu and window routines to provide sound synthesis and sequencing on the SID chip. At under £15, the Sound Studio takes over many of the synthesis capabilities of the now updated Music Maker software, and allows you to enter up to six monophonic lines of music in step time or real time. These can then be edited on a step-by-step display, and played by three voices of the SID chip and three voices of a MIDI instrument, with the help of a suitable interface.
Along with the existing Music Maker software packages, clip-on keyboards and playalong albums of pre-recorded popular tunes, the Sound Expander, Sound Sampler and Sound Studio show just how much can be done with what is only a rudimentary home micro, with no more than a modicum of computing power and comparatively little in the way of memory. None of the Commodore packages is usable in a strictly professional environment like a recording studio, but there's no reason why their capabilities can't be used for their novelty value. And in any case, the real value of this range is that it encourages existing computer owners to do more with their machines than just play games. After all, today's Space Invaders player is tomorrow's FM programmer (it says here).
And there are more music add-ons in the pipeline. Like sound library disks for the Expander and Sampler, FM voice editing software, a music composing program similar to that of Yamaha's CX5, the MIDI interface, the full-size keyboard, and so on. Keep an eye out for them, and look out, also for bargain packages comprising a 64, cassette deck, Sound Expander and keyboard, and selling at a ludicrously low £199. First batches should be in the shops by the time you read this. In addition, there'll soon be a complete system available at under £330, and an expansion system for under £150.
Eventually, Music Sales intend to produce a single unit that'll include four-voice polyphonic sampling and editing, mixable and fully programmable FM sounds, a sequencer and a comprehensive set of MIDI functions. Unfortunately, the humble 64 and 128 won't be able to take the strain - the machine this awesome package is intended for is the Commodore Amiga.
More from (Contact Details)
Browse category: Expansion Board (Computer) > Commodore
Browse category: Software: Sequencer/DAW > Commodore
Commodore 64
(ES Nov 83)
The Musical Micro - Software For The 64
(IM Oct 85)
Browse category: Computer > Commodore
Gear in this article:
Expansion Board (Computer) > Commodore > Sound Expander
Expansion Board (Computer) > Commodore > Sound Sampler
Software: Sequencer/DAW > Commodore > Sound Studio
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