Music Composer
Chibur
1985

TITLE: Music Composer
SUPPLIER: Chilbur Software
PRICE: Not available

This is an extremely easy program to use, but seems to suffer from oversimplification. Beginners may find it useful, but more experienced musicians will find entering notes very tedious, having to specify sharps for every note entered (flats aren't catered for). Entering a tune is slightly inconsistent, in that at the beginning of the program you're asked to enter the duration in seconds of one beat (crotchet). Then, when entering a tune, pauses are specified in seconds, even though notes are specified as crotchets, semibreves, and so on. This is, however, only a minor grumble.

Though not explicitly designed for creating tunes for use in your own programs, everything is written in BASIC, so you could easily copy the load and play parts of the program into your creations - for your own use only, of course!

STAVE NOTATION: Yes, but only just. No bars, ties, slurs, triplets, etc. Sharps are shown as red notes.
ENTER MUSIC: Yes
PLAY MUSIC: No
SAVE TO TAPE: Yes
PRINTER: No
TEMPO CHANGE: Defined at start of program.
KEY SIGNATURE: No
TIME SIGNATURE: No
TRANSPOSE: No
STORAGE: 1401 notes in 48K. 467 notes in 16K.
48K/16K: 48K (and possibly 16K).

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Blurb: TEXT To make your choice slightly easier, we've tabulated the basic features of each package. The meaning of these features is as follows: STAVE NOTATION: Does the program show the entered tune in proper musical stave notation, use bars, treble and bass clefs, and so on? ENTER MUSIC: Can music be entered directly, one note at a time onto a musical stave? PLAY MUSIC: Is it possible to record music by "playing" the Qwerty keyboard? The advantage of this method is directly proportional to your dexterity on the keyboard! ALTER RHYTHM: If you can "play music", can you subsequently edit (and correct) the timing of each note, say, by tapping the rhythm on a single key? SAVE TO TAPE/DISK: Can the tune data be saved to tape or disc for loading at a later date? PRINTER: Does the program have facilities to print out the tune data? This will usually only be relevant on packages with stave notation. TEMPO CHANGE: Can the speed of playback be changed? In other words, can you change your peaceful ballad to allegro at the touch of a button?! KEY SIGNATURE: Is it possible to define the key (eg. C major) in which a tune will be played? TIME SIGNATURE: Can the time signature be specified? TRANSPOSE: Does the package allow tunes to be transposed? Transposing a tune changes the key signature. STORAGE: How large a tune(s) can the system handle? DEFINE ENVELOPES: Can pitch/amplitude envelopes be altered? Envelopes define the type of sound that a note will produce (eg. piano-type or guitar-like). This feature does not apply on the Spectrum. Finally, we have given a score (out of ten) for the GRAPHICS and EASE OF USE of each program. Though these comparisons should prove useful in helping you decide which program is best for your own needs, always bear in mind what you intend to use the program for. Also, don't use the tables to compare different micros. For instance, the BBC and Commodore programs are not only dealing with better sound chips than the Spectrum, but tend to be far superior programs.