Apple Orchard v4n9 1983 Dec

AT LAST: THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT FLOPPIES. Amazing book reveals alll How to keep from brainwashing your dis! So it never loses it's memory. : How fingerprints cat actually damage disks. Unretouched Kirlian photographs of UFO's (Unidentified Floppy Objects)! The incredible importance of making copies: the Department of Redundancy Depart- ment—and what goes on when it goes on! Power- ful secret methods that scientists Claim can ac- tually prevent computer amnesia! All this, and much more .. In short, it's an 80- page plain-English, graphically stunning, pocket-sized definitive guide to the care and feeding of flexible disks. For The Book, ask your nearest computer store that sells Elephant™ disks, and bring along one and one half earth dollars. For the name of the store, ask us. ELEPHANT MEMORY SYSTEMS® Marketed exclusively by Leading Edge Products, Inc,, Information Systems and Supplies Division, 55 Providence Highway, Norwood, MA 02062. Call toll free 1-800-343-8413, In Massachusetts, call collect (617) 769-8150, Telex 951-624. SLILOIS FHL RETS OF PERFECT MEMOR D ONE HALF EARTH DOLLAF Cirele HelpCard No. 31 Predictable. A flawless future is in sight with 3M diskettes. At3M, reliability is built into every diskette. We've been in the computer media business for over 30 years. And we've never settled in. We're constantly improving and perfecting our product line, from computer tape and data cartridges to floppy disks. 3M diskettes are made at 3M. That way, we have complete control over the entire manufacturing process. And you can have complete confidence in the reliability of every 3M diskette you buy. Apple® Compatible. 3M makes diskettes for use with Apple computers, including specially designed Fileware” diskettes for the Lisa” personal office system. Look in the Yellow Pages under Computer Supplies and Parts for the 3M distributor nearest you. In Canada, write 3M Canada, Inc., London, Ontario. If it's worth remembering, it's worth 3M diskettes. Apple, Apple logo, Fileware and Lisa are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. 3M hears you.. Sane Articles 08 From Dynamos to Dynamie RAMs - Bob A. Moog 75 Years of Electronic Music. 14 Music and Sound for the Apple - Julie White A musician looks at hardware. 20. “1WishI Had More Time...” - Dennis Briskin Users reveal their frustrations. 24 Seven Steps to Buying Your Music System - Tony Dirkson Tips for musician and home user, or both. ¥ 28 The alphaSyntauri and the Soundchaser - Tom Darter Complete reviews of two leading systems. ‘ 38 Music Programs for the Apple - Peter Nye The variety of software is amazing. 44 Apple in Music Education - Dirk van Nouhuys The computer helps to teach music theory. 48 How the Pros Do it - Lenore Wolgelenter The Apple on tour and in the studio. 58 WPL - The Sleeping Giant - Richard Loggins Part II - An Address Book. 70 E-Mu Drumulator - Dominic Milano A graphic rhythm composer. 74 Portfolio - Morgan P. Caffrey An “intelligent” market game. Coming Next Month... //e Graphics Apple /// Interface Input Routines Apple pchard Vol. 4, No. 9 December 1983 Entire contents Copyright © 1983 by International Apple Core, Inc. Peter C. Weiglin —- Editor and Publisher Donna Caldwell - Managing Editor Morgan P. Caffrey —- Senior Editor Dawn Brown - Circulation Manager Nicole Lefcourt — Editorial Assistant Cindy C. Mack - Advertising Coordinator Rick van Genderen - Design Director Contributing Editors: Mark L. Crosby — New Products “Dr. Wo” - Pascal/Languages Editor Neil D. Lipson, P. E. A. S. (Woody) Liswood Barry D. Bayer Jim Linhart — Miscellaneous Cartoonery Karen Vanikiotis Zinsmeister - IAC Staff Jay Eisenberg - Advertising Director JE Publishers’ Representative Company 6855 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 (213) 467-2266 Boston - (617) 437-1700 Chicago - (312) 445-2489 Dallas - (214) 660-2253 Denver - (303) 595-4331 New York - (212) 724-7767 San Francisco - (415) 864-3252 Address for all subscriptions, correspondence, advertising material, manuscripts, ete.: Apple Orchard 908 George Street Santa Clara, CA 95050 (408) 727 - 7652 APPLE ORCHARD (ISSN 0277 - 1950) is published monthly by the International Apple Core, Ine., 908 George St., Santa Clara, CA 95050. Second Class Postage paid at Santa Clara, CA and additional entry points. Subscription Rates (U.S. funds): $24.00 for 1 year, $45.00 for 2 years in the U. S,.FPO & APO; $30.00-1 yr., $55.00-2 yr., in Canada; $36.00 (surface), $48.00 (airmail) in Mexico, Central America, Caribbean Islands, Phillippines, Samoa; $36.00 (surface), $60.00 (airmail) in South America, Europe, North Africa; $36.00 (surface), $72.00 (airmail) in Asia, Middle East, South Africa, Australia. ApPLE ORCHARD is a publication of the International Apple Core, a worldwide federation of Apple computer User Groups. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the International Apple Core. While we appreciate the co-operation of Apple Computer, Ine. and other sponsoring members, the IAC and APPLE ORCHARD do not necessarily represent the views of any of these companies. Our existence is derived from the thousands of Apple users, and it is their interests which we serve. Textfile The use of an Apple computer to generate music—real music—,is perhaps the most spectacular application yet devised for our favorite machines. At every show, at every group’ get-together, it is the music demonstrations that attract the largest crowds. Every musician and music teacher has at least wondered about these things; can they help to teach music? Are they real? To try to answer this, we're taking advantage of our month- ly frequency to attempt our first issue mostly devoted to one subject: “computer music” or digital synthesizers. Our goal is to show you what’s available, what works, and then to encourage you to go as far into this activity as your time, talent, and inclination leads you. Ask about music synthesizers and the name that you are likely to hear first is Moog (rhymes with “mow”, not “moo”). Bob Moog is the man behind the machine, and he starts our journey with a thorough background on the development of electronic music Review and analysis of the hardware and software that lets an Apple make music turned out to be an awesome task, particularly since we wanted to approach it from a musical point of view as much as the computer/technical. Julie White, Tom Darter, and Peter Nye each tackled segments of the job, with results herein. Meanwhile, Dirk van Nouhuys, Dennis Briskin, and Tony Dirksen focused on the human and user aspects. So, you'll read about individual users, amateur and professional; about. new directions in music education, and about buying your own system. Lenore Wolgelenter also appears. And in addition to men- tioning her article on professional musicians who have be- come Apple-ized, we must point out that Lenore also served as the editorial co-ordinator for this special issue effort. We're excited about the results. Richard Loggins returns with a non-musical article, Part 2 of our WPL series. Rich begins construction of an address book, while showing you another facet of Applewriter’s com- panion. Then, Pat Caffrey looks at Portfolio, a stock mar- ket game. Question: are there other topics that you feel are deserving of this kind of special-issue focus? Or should the approach be different? Let us know what you think; Apple Orchard really belongs to you. Please join with us in a moment of sadness. Our Managing Editor, Donna Caldwell, is leaving the Apple Orchard family to pursue a slightly different but equally challenging career direction. In eighteen months, Donna moved from young and excited Editorial Assistant to less young but no less excited Managing Editor. Her efforts have been instrumental in Apple Orchard’s growth; it could have happened without her, but it wouldn’t have been as pleasant a journey for the rest of us. We hope you'll all join us in wishing her well. OPEN YOUR APPLE.TO A- WORLD OF COMMUNICATION Videx’ new PSIO Dual Function Interface Card gives you a whole’ new world of communication... with a whole new ease of operation. The PSIO allows you to use a printer (parallel output) and a modem (serial 1/O#™® port) simultaneously, through use of just one card! But best of all, * the PSIO makes com- municating through either method worlds easier than it’s ever been before. The PSIO lets you choose from among an unmatched range of software-selectable options, including vari- able baud rate selection, form width, form length, auto linefeed, linefeed mask, Xon/Xoff protocal, lowercasé€ masking, shift wire mod support, duplex mode, parity, data format, video echo mode andaslot echo mode. PSIO can also open up new worlds for graphics, since it can reproduce your picture on any graphics printer. Rotate your picture, enlarge it, change it as you wish. 897 N.W. Grant Avenue, Corvallis, OR 97330 503-758-0521 Once you've chosen your options, the PSIO’s highly sophisticated NOVRAM (non-volatile RAM) will remember and perma- nently save: them. That means you won't have to give the saine config- urations over and over again ... your PSIO will do it for you. And if you want to change those configurations, you can do it through software in- stead of through the con- fusing array of switches that other cards use. The PSIO will work with any: printer/modem you now hap- pen to own... .and it will work with any printer/modem you happen to purchase in the future. Adaptable? Definitely! whee The PSIO is, completely cémpatible with BASIC, Pascal and CP/M® systems. The PSIO from Videx...how in the world peudo without it?) . Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Inc Satisfying More Than With Innovation Grapplei + Bufferbo For Apples and Printers The Original Apple® graphics printer interface. The innovator in “dock-on” printer buffering. The Since its introduction three years ago, the Bufferboard easily adds memory to your current Grappler has been imitated by many, but never Apple interface system, freeing your computer for matched. Now with exclusive features for the additional input. Easily upgradable from 16K, the Apple lle and full support of new Bufferboard can store up to 20 pages of text. It Epson® graphics, = fits neatly inside your Apple, “docking” onto your the Grappler + existing printer interface." No clumsy boxes or remains the most cables, no external power supplies. ..just conve- { intelligent interface nience and. Tae available. Over economy. With twenty-seven com- the Bufferboard, } mands give Apple users full control over any you might never graphics or text on the Apple screen, including wait for your anew 80 column text dump. Performance, relia- printer again. bility and support have made the Grappler + “Versi the #H selling intelligent Apple interface. Perstelinterases Grapples.ts Spoon ARL and Apple 135,000 Apple Owners And Excellence. rapplei + The most sophisticated buffered Apple printer interface available. The New Buffered Grappler + combines the industry leading features of the Grappler + with the time saving economies of the Bufferboard.** With this much interface power, you’ll never need anything else. And the price will surprise you, too. **Not available for IDS printers. Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computers, Inc. Epson is a registered trademark of Epson America Inc Over 135,000 Apple® computers are using Orange Micro products. Innovation and excellence have made us the #1 manufacturer of intelligent printer interfaces. The top selling Grappler + has become an industry standard, recommended by more software houses and Apple dealers. To meet your growing needs, Orange Micro will continue to introduce new products. Recent inno- vations include the Grappler + for IDS color printers and the new Orange Interface, with text screen dumps and formatting at a low price. There is an Orange Micro product designed for your application. For a complete demonstration, see your Apple dealer today. @WOrange Micro 1400 N. Lakeview Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807 U.S.A. (714) 779-2772 TELEX: 183511 CSMA ©Orange Micro, nc., 1983 Cirele HelpCard No. 42 From Dynamos to Dynamic RAM’s: 75 Years of Electronic Music by Bob A. Moog beauty queen of antiquity appears fully developed on her first day. The painting depicts her as a mature woman, riding in from the sea on a giant half-shell, and being met by a small reception committee on shore. | n Botticelli’s famous painting “The Birth of Venus”, the So it also often seems with electronic music, which surfaced in the late sixties as a seemingly mature popular artistic medium, riding into view on the success of Switched-on Bach (one of the largest-selling classical albums of all time), and being propelled by rock and roll and the electronic media. However, real artistic media, like real people, develop and grow to maturity, a process which inevitably takes time and nurturing. According to legend, Venus spent her younger days in the sea before she made the terrestial scene. Similar- ly, the growth of the medium of electronic music took place over three quarters of a century, during which time it devel- oped from an awkward ‘child’ to the potent musical resource that we know today. The Telharmonium Electronic music started at the beginning of this century, when inventor Thaddeus Cahill designed and built an electric music system that still seems remarkable for its originality of concept and sheer size of the final product. Cahill knew that an alternating electrical voltage, when applied to a loud- speaker, would produce a musical tone. The more rapid the alternation, the higher is the tone’s pitch. Cahill designed a series of electrical generators, each running at a different speed, to produce a complete range of musical notes. He then added large mixing transformers to combine the tones, se- veral piano-like keyboards to enable musicians to control the tones, and a large bank of switches to activate and route the tones. He called his development the Telharmonium, a name that suggests sending music over distances. The Telharmonium was no hand-held or table-top instru- ment. Each generator was capable of producing up to fifteen kilowatts of power. The mixing transformers weighed up- wards of a ton each. The Telharmonium was built in the early 1900’s, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, then transported to New York City on a whole train of flat cars. It was installed in mid- town Manhattan in a building that Cahill named (what else?) Telharmonic Hall. For Cahill, the Telharmonium was more than the out- growth of casual tinkering. It was a business venture: The New York Electric Music Company. Cahill’s marketing plan 8 Apple Orchard included not only public concerts, but also a network of sub- scribers who were connected via telephone lines, and who would receive Telharmonic music in their homes and busi- nesses. The Company’s staff included several trained musi- cians who performed concerts at scheduled times throughout the day. Initial press reviews were generally favorable; musi- cians throughout the world discussed Cahill’s developments with wonder and enthusiasm. After several years of operating, however, the Telhar- monium failed to live up to its early promise. Although it was a technical towr de force that enabled musicians to control tone color through sophisticaed synthesis and touch sensitive keyboards, the Telharmonium produced tones that even- tually proved tiresome to listen to. Besides that, the radio was enjoying an increasing popularity. As the First World War drew to a close, the New York Electric Music Company “took the count” and went out of business, leaving a technocultural legacy that included additive synthesis (later employed in the Hammond organ with enormous commercial success), touch- sensitive keyboards (which are considered “hip” to this very day), and the concept of a music-by-subscriber-network that we generally refer to by the trade name Muzak. Early Electronic Instruments The vacuum tube was invented by Lee DeForest in 1907. Within two decades, when most people were just becoming acquainted with radio, technicians and experimenters were deeply immersed in finding musical applications for the new technology. Programmable Electronic Musical Instruments The idea of programmable musical instruments is nothing new. Music boxes have been made for hundreds of years, and reached a startling level of sophistication toward the end of the nineteenth century. Player pianos and nickelodeons were commonplace at the beginning of this century. So it was natural for the early electronic musical instrument devel- opers to combine electronic sound generation with pro- grammed control, to form what we would call today a “programmable synthesizer”. The first instrument of this type that I know of is the Coupleux-Givelet Synthesizer, a four-voice instrument whose ‘controls’ were manipulated pneumatically with the sort of technology that was developed by the player-piano industry. aad Conceptually however, the Coupleux-Givelet instrument went far beyond the player piano: the paper roll that pro- grammed the instrument not only turned notes on and off, but also varied pitch, loudness, tone color, vibrato, and other pro- perties of the sounds themselves. The technology employed by Coupleux and Givelet was crude by today’s standards: pneumatic bellows moving the iron cores of electrical coils to vary tone color, tracker bars to start and stop notes, and so forth. But the concept of providing musicians with ways of shaping the individual properties of sounds, of enabling mu- sicians to build up sound from component parts, is what has made electronic and computer music so attractive to mu- sicians. One of the earliest electronic instruments was the Piano- rad, invented by Hugo Gernsback, aman whom many regard as a Founding Father of science fiction in this country. Gerns- back’s invention consisted of a bank of vacuum-tube oscil- lators (electronic alternating voltage generators) covering several octaves of the musical pitch range. Each oscillator was connected to its own loudspeaker driver, and was ac- tivated by one key of a conventional organ-like keyboard. (If you are familiar with the technical bases of audio electronics, you will recognize that Gernsback’s scheme of having a sep- arate loudspeaker driver for each note was a foolproof way of avoiding intermodulation distortion,— pretty hip for the 1920's!) Throughout the 1920’s, the Pianorad was regularly played live over radio in New York City, by itself and in ensemble with other musicians. is aad Bob Moog The Theremin was perhaps the most novel and original of all the early electronic musical instruments, in that its means of control, as well as its means of sound production, was com- pletely new. Whereas instruments like the Telharmonium and the Pianorad used conventional piano-like keyboards for musical control, the Theremin was controlled by the move- ments of the player’s hand in the space surrounding the instrument. Thus, the Theremin offered musicians not merely a new set of tone colors, but a new way of controlling and shaping those colors. In the hands of a skilled musician, the Theremin produces warm, vibrant tones that suggest a cello or a human voice, but with a much wider pitch range. The Theremin was brought to this country in 1927 by its inventor, Leon Theremin. It was manufactured by the Radio Corpora- tion of America for a brief period of time during the early thir- ties. Several musicians made careers of giving Theremin concerts. The greatest of these is Clara Rockmore, who played over 150 concerts with major symphony orchestras and with her pianist sister Nadia Reisenberg before retir- ing. Other new electronic instruments challenged, but never matched, the Theremin’s originality. The Ondes Martenot, like the Theremin, was a solo instrument. That is, it produced one note at a time, like a clarinet or trumpet. However, the Ondes Martenot’s control mechanism was a keyboard that worked in combination with a sliding flexible band. It en- abled a musician to either play discrete notes or slide from note to note, much as a violinist is able to do. Another impor- tant instrument is the Trautonium, a German invention that utilized a long contact ribbon as its main control means. Leon Theremin himself experimented with a variety of new instru- ments, including a dance platform that doubled as a musical instrument. Many of these new instruments achieved small- scale production: Trautoniums were made by Telefunken, December 1983 9 and Ondes Martenots were built in the inventor's own fac- tory. Electronic Music at the Halfway Point The work of Coupleux and Givelet was the first of a series of experimental programmable synthesizers. Throughout the 1930s, a growing body of electronic musical instrument de- signers came up with an amazing variety of new instruments for musicians to explore. Some (like Theremin’s instruments) were designed to be played live. Others were intended to be programmed. Composers such as Percy Grainger, Henry Cowell, and Edgar Varese worked with these developments, struggling with early electrical disc recording to realize and record the sort of music that their minds were creating for them. World War II diverted the talents of electronic engineers from musical instrument design to more urgent matters. After the war ended in 1945, musicians discovered that yet another electronic resource was available: the tape recorder. Unlike any sound recording medium that preceded it, the tape recorder offered musicians the ability to physically man- ipulate stored sounds,- to cut sounds apart, reverse them, shape them, and splice them together with any degree of com- plexity they chose. Experimental studios sprang up in Ger- many, France, and Italy; in New York, Toronto, and Urbana, Illinois. Working in laboratory-studios with electronic tech- nicians, experimental composers set about making complete pieces of music with electronic sound-producing and modify- ing instruments and tape recorders. Their music was as experimental as their way of working: new timbres, sound structures that were far more intricate than those that could be produced by traditional performers, and sounds that start- ed out as everyday noises, but were structured electronically to become music. These experimental composers developed ways of organizing and working with electronic equipment that became known collectively as “Classical Electronic Music Studio Techniques”. They worked through the 1950s and early ’60s, conveying their new-found knowledge to music students and to other experimentally inclined compo- sers. Emergence of the Modern-day Electronic Music Synthesizer In the mid-sixties, several developments came together, the result of which was the appearance of keyboard syn- thesizers which are now so popular. These developments were the availability of high quality transistors at reasonable cost, the use of multitrack recorders in pop and rock music, the increasing popularity of rock music itself, and the increas- ing activity of experimental musicians. perform a single function, but all of which were designed to be easily interconnectable, like a component stereo system. The Classical Electronic Music Studio Technique centered on the use of a wide variety of electronic sound producing and modifying instruments which the musician connected toge- ther (patched) to perform the function that he wanted. Elec- tronic musicians soon learned to describe a particular sound event in terms of the types of instruments that he used to pro- duce the sound, and the pattern in which the instruments were interconnected. This led to the concept of a modular system—a group of devices, each of which was designed to 10 Apple Orchard When I became interested in electronic music instrumenta- tion some twenty years ago, I knew of the modular concept. (My engineering laboratory instructor was also the technical director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center!) I also knew that transistor circuits could be used to build a modular system that was much more compact, stable, wide range—and cheaper—than a similar system made with vacuum tubes. I had always been interested in electronic musical instruments, and in fact had made a good part-time living building Theremins on a custom basis while I worked my way through graduate school. When I met Herb Deutsch, an experimental composer who at that time was an instructor in the Hofstra University music department, he asked me if I was interested in building some electronic music equipment for him. I naturally said “Yes”! Herb and I worked together for several weeks in the spring and summer of 1964. Herb described the sorts of sounds that he wanted to work with, and I built some modules to meet his requirements. As we worked, I building circuits and he using the circuits and his tape recorder to compose music, the importance of the modular concept became evident. We talked about many kinds of modules and tried a variety of ideas, some of which we developed while others we discarded. We considered various sorts of control devices, and settled on a keyboard and a long, slender touch-sensitive “ribbon con- troller”. By the end of summer, Herb and I had pinned down the components of our first modular system. In doing so, we articulated a complete instrument concept, a concept which has formed the basis of the synthesizer industry which is now worldwide in scope and the fastest-growing segment of the musical instrument industry. I gave our modest collection of handmade modules its first public showing at the 1964 Audio Engineering Society convention in New York City. Our first customer was Alwin Nikolais, a choreographer who com- poses his own sound scores. Second was Eric Siday, a com- mercial composer, and third was Vladimir Ussachevsky, the director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. The world of pop and rock music had nothing to do with us; not yet! At the same time that we were getting ready to make elec- tronic equipment for a living, musician-inventor Don Buchla was collaborating with composer Morton Subotnick. The result of their collaboration was also a modular electronic system, similar in many ways to what Deutsch and I had come up with. And in Rome, television engineer Paul Ketoff had al- ready built several small modular, keyboard controlled in- struments. In retrospect it seems that in the mid sixties, the transistorized modular electronic music system was an idea whose time had come. As the sixties unfolded, our equipment became popular with experimental composers and with the loose network of musicians who produced radio and TV commercials. One of these was Walter Carlos, a New York recording engineer who had been a student of Ussachevsky. Carlos built a small but elegant electronic music studio in the living room of his apart- ment. After a few experiments, he and a couple of his col- leagues began a project to use the modular synthesizer which we had built for him to realize the music of J. S. Bach. They finished their project in 1968. The resulting record, Switched- on Bach, was an instant success, and catapulted the entire electronic music medium into public view. The beginning of the popularization of synthesizers and electronic music in the latter part of the ’60’s, coincided with the emergence of rock and roll as a dominating cultural force. As a musical medium, rock and roll could not exist without electronics. The whole electronic music medium was adopted, slowly at first and then more completely, by rock musicians. The big turning point came in the early seventies, when anew generation of synthesizers that could be played in live perfor- mance without having to be patched was placed on the mar- ket. These included the Minimoog (which is still popular among electronic keyboard players) and the early Arp in- struments. The early ’70’s were marked by the acceptance of the keyboard synthesizer as a legitimate and important addi- tion to the electronic keyboard performer's arsenal. The Importance of Digital Technology Until fairly recently, most synthesizers were analog in- struments. “Analog” is the technical term that means that the instrument’s circuitry produces continuously-varying voltages that correspond, say, to the sound waveform. In con- trast, “digital” circuits produce numbers that must be con- verted into voltages before they can have anything to do with sound. Digital circuits are inherently accurate. Their con- tents can be easily moved around, processed, and stored with no loss of accuracy. (A non-musical way of explaining analog vs. digital is this: if your watch has moving hands on it, it’s analog. If it displays numbers, it’s digital.—PCW.) The development of the microprocessor played the same role in the utilization of digital circuitry in synthesizers as the proliferation of the transistor played in the utilization of analog circuitry. Only a couple of years after the first micro- processors were put on the market, they were being utilized to replace patch cords and manually operated control knobs on synthesizers. With microprocessor programming of a key- board instrument, it is possible to set up a tone color, then store all of the numbers defining that tone color in a digital memory. The tone color can be called up in performance vir- tually instantly, a huge increase in convenience for the per- forming musician over having to adjust the knobs of an all-analog instrument. Many of the currently-available electronic keyboard in- struments are microprocessor-controlled, and are equipped with MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) which allows instruments to “talk” to one another, or to a MIDI- equipped computer. In a sense, we are returning to the mod- ular concept. Now however, the “modules” are complete instruments, the “patch cords” are MIDI cables, and the signals that flow among the modules are not sound waves or control signals, but are complete sets of commands. With the right software it is now possible, even convenient, to organize several MIDI-equipped instruments into a computer- controlled ensemble, thereby greatly reducing the need for multitrack recorders in electronic music! Digital Sound Synthesis Digital programming of an analog synthesizer requires the execution of up to a few thousand instructions per second, and can therefore be easily handled by a microprocessor. For a synthesizer to generate an actual sound waveform by digi- tal means, on the other hand, requires the execution of hun- dreds of thousands or millions of instructions per second. Personal computers are able to program and control syn- thesizers, but they do not go fast enough to generate musical quality waveforms digitally. Some computer-based music systems, like the alphaSyntauri, use peripherals that are specially designed to produce musical sounds. Others rely on large computers that are capable of musical sound through- put in real time. If you are more interested in composing than in live perfor- mance, you can use an Apple II-size computer to produce music of considerable complexity. You would write a pro- gram to produce the data for the sound waveform, and then dump that data into a mass storage medium such as a hard disk. When enough data to make a piece of music is accum- ulated, you would invoke another program to feed that data rapidly to a digital-to-analog converter, thereby producing the desired sound waveform. Experimental composers have worked this way for a long time. There are computer music laboratories at Bell Laboratories, MIT, Stanford, and many other institutions that have served experimental composers for the past two decades. Today it is possible to do the same thing on your kitchen table, with the right software and peripherals. What’s in the Future Personal computers will become increasingly important to musicians. A MIDI-equipped computer can perform the func- tion of personal recording studio (recording and processing MIDI commands as the musician generates them by playing a keyboard or similar control device), music learning center, or a composing center. Digitally programmable synthesizers may come to be regarded as specialized computer peripher- als, spitting out complex sound waveforms just as my printer spits out golden prose at 160 characters per second. If you like to play music for fun, you may, some time in the future, buy a finely crafted MIDI-equipped keyboard. You may then take it to your friend’s house on Saturday night where you will plug into his MIDI-equipped computer and synthesizer and play, either by yourself or with him. If you enjoy playing music with your friend but the snow is too deep for you to go to his house, you may elect to hook your computer to his over a phone line, and both of you can play while hearing each other’s perfor- mance, just as if you were in the same room. If you’re a professional composer, you will probably have thrown out your pen and your music paper long ago. You will compose right at your computer, using a user-friendly “‘note- processing” program. When you have enough to listen to, you'll command your computer to “play it out” through the synthesizer peripheral that’s connected between your com- puter and your sound system. If your dream is to play with your local rock band, every- thing you’ve learned on your home computer music system will carry over as you head for the bright lights and the screaming crowd. Your band will have its own computer and programmable synthesizer, just as today’s bands all have their own PA systems. You'll plug your glitter-coated hand- held keyboard into the MIDI input on the computer, call up the selection of tone colors you use for the performance, and wail away. Your record company will store the MIDI signals on their hard disk, for later release as a MIDI-encoded ‘live album”. Far fetched, you say? Don’t kid yourself! Bob Moog started the synthesizer explosion with the first Moog Synthesizer and is presently doing reasearch, lecturing and writing. December 1983 11 APPLIED ENGINEERING Quality Starts On The Drawing Board.... doesn’t end there. Our commitment to excellence applies all the way down the line, through manufacturing and testing to our three year no-hassle warranty. The aim, of course, is to provide you with the best designed and best crafted hardware available. Try any of the peripherals below and see what it’s like to own the finest. The TIMEMASTER Finally, a clock that does it ALL! Automatically date stamps files with PRO-DOS Fully PRO-DOS compatible ua @ Just plug it in and your programs can read the year, month, date, day, and time to 1 millisecond! The only clock with both year and ms. @ A rechargeable NiCad battery will keep the TIMEMASTER running, for over ten years, @ Powerful 2K ROM driver — No clock could be easier to use. Full emulation of most other clocks, including Mountain Hardware’s Appleclock (but you'll like the TIMEMASTER mode better). © Basic, Machine Code, CP/M and Pascal software on 2 disks! © Eight software controlled interrupts so you can execute two programs at the same time (many examples are included). © On-board timer lets you time any interval up to 48 days long down to the nearest millisecond, The TIMEMASTER includes 2 disks with some really fantastic time oriented programs (over 25) plus DOS dater so it will automatically add the date when disk files are created or modified, The disk is over a $200.00 value alone — we give the software others sell. All software packages for business, data base management and communications are made to read the TIMEMASTER. If you want the most powerful and the easiest to use clock for your Apple, you want a TIMEMASTER. PRICE $129.00 ‘Super Music Synthesizer Improved Hardware and Software Complete 16 voice music synthesizer on one card. Just plug it into your Apple, connect the audio cable (supplied) to your stereo, boot the disk supplied and you are ready to input and play songs. It’s easy to program music with our compose software, You will start right away at inputting your favorite songs. The Hi-Res screen shows what you have entered in standard sheet music format. Now with new improved software for the easiest and the fastest music input system available anywhere. We give you lots of software, In addition to Compose and Play programs, 2 disks are filled with over 30 songs ready to play. Easy to program in Basic to generate complex sound effects. Now your games can have explosions, phaser zaps, train whistles, death cries. You name it, this card can do it. Four white noise generators which are great for sound effects Plays music in true stereo as well as true discrete quadraphonic. Full control of attack, volume, decay, sustain and release. Will play songs written for ALF synthesizer (ALF software will nottake advantage of all our card's features. Their software sounds the same in our synthesizer.) © Our card will play notes from 30HZ to beyond human hearing. Automatic shutoff on power-up or if reset is pushed. @ Many many more features. PRICE $159.00 Z-80 PLUS! sna ] i @ TOTALLY compatible with ALL CP/M software. @ The only Z-80 card with a special 2K “CP/M detector’ chip. Fully compatible with microsoft disks (no pre-boot required). © Specifically designed for high speed operation in the Apple Ile (runs just as fast in the II+ and Franklin). @ Red “CP/M WORKING” LED indicator, the Z-80 Plus does not interfere with non-CP/M programs. @ Asemi-custom I.C. and a low parts count allows the Z-80 Plus to fly thru CP/M programs at a very low power level. (We use the Z-80A at fast 4MHZ,) @ Does EVERYTHING the other Z-80 boards do, plus Z-80 interrupts. Don’t confuse the Z-80 Plus with crude copies of the microsoft card. The Z-80 Plus employs a much more sophisticated and reliable design. With the Z-80 Plus you can access the largest body of software in existence. Two computers in one and the advantages of both, all atan unbelievably low price. PRICE $139.00 Viewmaster 80 There used to be about a dozen 80 column cards for the Apple, now there’s only ONE. @ TOTALLY Videx Compatible. 80 characters by 24 lines, with a sharp 7x9 dot matrix. © On-board 40/80 soft video switch with manual 40 column override © Fully compatible with ALL Apple languages and software—there are NO exceptions. © Low power consumption through the use of CMOS devices. © All connections on the card are made with standard video connectors. © All new design (using a new Microprocessor based C.R.T. + controller) for a beautiful razor sharp display. @ The VIEWMASTER incorporates all the features of all other 80 column cards, plus many new improvements. ViewMasTER 169 =YES.-«oES-=YES.«ES-YES«YES.ES—VES SUPRTERM MORE NOYES =NO. NO. NO NO YES YES WiZARD#0 «MORE == NO. NO-NO NO YS NO YES YES VISIONB. = MORE —«YES-—«seS:-«SCNO.ONOYES.-s=NO.'NO.NO OMNIVISION MORE NOYES. «NO. NO-NO NO YES YES VIEWMAXSO MORE YES. -YES_- «NO-NO S._—-NO. NOYES SMARTERM MORE YES. -YES_- «NO-NO NOYES. YES_—NO VIDfoTERM MORE NO NO YES NO YES YES NOYES The VIEWMASTER 80 works with all 80 column applications including CP/M, Pascal, WordStar, Format Il, Easywriter, Apple Writer Il, VisiCalc, and all others. The VIEWMASTER 80 is THE MOST compatible 80 column card you can buy at ANY price! PRICE $169.00 © Expands your Apple Ile to 192K memory. @ Provides an 80 column text display. © Compatible with all Apple Ile 80 column and extended 80 column card software (same physical size as Apple's 64K card). © Can be used as asolid state disk drive to make your programs run up e e e to 20 times FASTER (the 64K configuration will act as half a drive). Permits your Ile to use the new double high resolution graphics. Automatically expands Visicalc to 95 K storage in 80 columns! The 64K config is all that’s needed, 128K can take you even higher. PRO-DOS will use the MemoryMaster Ileasa high speed disk drive. MemoryMaster Ile 128K RAM Card Lowest power consuming 128K card AVAILABLE. @ Complete documentation included, we show you how to use all 128K. Ifyoualready have Apple's 64K card, just order the MEMORYMASTER Ile with 64K and use the 64K from your old board to give you a full 128K. (The board is fully socketed so you simply plug in more chips) MemoryMaster Ile with 128K $249 Upgradeable MemoryMaster Ile with 64K $169 Non-Upgradeable MemoryMaster Ile with 64K $149 (Our boards are far superior to most of the consumer electronics made today. All.C.’s are in high quality sockets with mil-spec. components used throughout. P.C. boards are glass- epoxy with gold contacts. Made in America to be the best in the world. All products work in the APPLE IIE, Il, I+ and Franklin. The MemoryMaster Ile is ile only. Applied Engineering also manufactures a full line of data acquisition and control products for the Apple; A/D converters and digital I/O cards, etc Please cal for more information. Allour products are fully, tested with complete documentation and available for immediate delivery. All products are guaranteed with ano hassle THREE YEAR WARRANTY. All Orders Shipped Same Day Texas Residents Add 5% Sales Tax ‘Add $10.00 If Outside U.S.A. Dealer Inquiries Welcome Send Check or Money Order to: APPLIED ENGINEERING P.O. Box 470301 Dallas, TX 75247 Call (214) 492-2027 7am, to 11p.m. 7 days a week MasterCard, Visa & C.O.D. Welcome No extra charge for credit cards Plantinsé as The Connections Electronic music synthesis on an Apple? Voice recogni- tion? Controller boxes for electric motors, lights, and other switches? Sensors for light, temperature, voltage, current, and sound levels? On an Apple? Yup. You nameit, and it most likely can be, and has been, connected to an Apple computer. Or somebody’s working on it. The array of peripheral boards that can be plugged into the Apple II’s eight expansion slots is astounding, as our product listings, reviews, and advertisements have shown over the months. It’s a major reason why “more people are doing more things...” done. Accomplishment is the key, although the hobbyists view use of the machine as an end in itself. Most of us want to use the personal computer to help us with a personally-defined range of tasks. Our tasks, both work and play. And not only are no two people’s lists of tasks the same, the aggregate of those lists is so incredibly diverse that it seems no machine can satisfy them all. Well, it can’t. Not by itself, anyway. The personal computer without expansion capability does only part of the job. Hence, the home “game machines” that stall at a load much greater than a checkbook, or the rigidly-designed business computers that have no way other than an RS-232 serial port to communicate with the world outside their motherboard wombs. Even Baby Blue has only five slots, two of which are to be used if you want a monitor and disk drives. No wonder the magazines for that machine are much larger; there are so many more things that need correcting, and there’s a con- siderable business in multiple-function boards to conserve those precious slots. , and, more importantly, getting more things. Through it all, the Apples have been unique; the company encouraged a bunch of creative minds, on and off its payroll, to go and develop—to allow Apple computers to handle more items on that aggregate list. To go beyond Games and Bookkeeping, to process control, scientific analysis... and, as we show in this issue, to music. Not just beeps, buzzes, tones and squawks, but music. That’s the real beauty of our favorite machine; when it’s not a word processor, it can be a musical instrument or a burglar alarm; sometimes more than one thing at a time. All because of the ability to plug in a variety of uses, each encap- sulated in silicon, copper (or gold), and various resins. There is always a temptation to lower production costs by using fewer connectors; the penalty is fewer access points for external items. These are usually justified by pompous pro- nouncements about market research, which boil down to “We know what’s best for you”. Maybe so. But a computer that doesn’t have that exten- sibility, even an Apple, is at a severe disadvantage; it will likely disappoint those who make the sales projections. Our intelligence on the “Peanut”, or PC Junior, indicates that one large firm thinks very highly of connecting points; see for yourself. It shouldn’t be a surprise; every salesman knows that to be successful, “ya gotta have the connections.” Fs L- December 1983 13 Music & Sound For the Apple by Julie White p until recently, systems for digitally processing and synthesizing sound have been available only in super-megabuck, megapower “installations” for professional musicians, recording engineers, and program- mers. Unless he wanted to build his own from scratch, the average home-computerist was left out. However, in the last four or five years, a number of systems have been developed to bring digital-sound synthesis and processing into the home. Each of these Apple-compatible systems has approached the concept of digital sound in its own way. Three are syn- thesizer systems, ranging from a simple but effective music- writing program with a limited variety of sounds, to a 16-voice composing system that allows for extensive sound manipulation and modification. The last is a kind of digital “tape recorder”; it lets you do neat things with real sounds. Each system has its advantages and its shorteomings— and no one does everything you might want such a system to do—but as a group, they indicate that progress may be headed in the right direction. It’s worth keeping in mind that while digital technology allows sounds to be manipulated very precisely, it also means the loss of the fluidity of control that makes analog systems so pleasant to use. It would be a mistake to assume that any of these systems will turn a begin- ner into a professional musician, or take the place of serious instrumental study. What these systems do offer, however, are various ways for the amateur or even non-musician to play around with sound, and, with a bit of work, actually to create music. ALF MC1 1315 Nelson Denver, CO 80213 (303) 234-0871 The ALF MC1 Music Card ($195) is a nine-voice music writ- ing and playback system, designed to be compatible with any Apple II with 32k or more memory. The package consists of a system disk (actually, you get two: one in Integer BASIC, the other in Applesoft) an owner's manual, and a hardware board. In addition, you will need a stereo amplifier, speakers, 14 Apple Orchard and two game paddles. The program allows you to enter music on a musical staff display, play it back, and build up “albums” of songs. The package is intended to be a general- purpose tool for the hobbyist or the professional musician, with or without computer experience, and although it is help- ful to be able to read music, it is not absolutely necessary. Installing the board is very simple — it plugs into a slot in the Apple, and a connecting stereo audio cable plugs into your amplifier. The main music-writing program is called “Entry”. A graphic representation of treble and bass staves appears, on which you enter up to nine lines or “parts,” one at atime. Music can be transcribed over a range of four and a half octaves, extending from C, two octaves below middle C, to F two and a half octaves above. Key and time signatures are entered first, via the Apple keyboard. Any time signature can be used, and key signatures can contain up to six flats or sharps. Eight asterisks are displayed to the right of these sig- natures; as you pass the cursor over each, information is dis- played on the command line at the bottom of the screen, concerning a “quarter” function that allows for tempo changes at any point in any part by determining the real-time value of a quarter note; a“‘gap” function that determines how much time there will be between each note’s decay and the attack of the next note; and a transpose function that osten- sibly lets you transpose a part up or down five and a half octaves, and thereby extend beyond the range of the staff. Practically speaking, you can transpose about three oc- taves above the highest written note before the computer rolls the pitches over into the low register, and about an octave below the lowest note before that rolls under into the high register. Other asterisk functions have to do with the volume and what are called the the “envelope” settings: the attack, decay, sustain, and release of each note. Pitches are chosen by moving a cursor up and down the staff with paddle one, and are entered when the paddle’s but- ton is pressed. When the note is entered, the pitch sounds. Note durations (which extend to 64th notes and even include triplets), accidentals, and ties can be selected from a line dis- play below the staff, using paddle zero. Another paddle-zero function allows you to move to any note in a part to insert, delete, or hear it. This last is turned on by a “speaker” func- tion. Another line at the bottom of the screen keeps tabs on what line and measure you're in, and how many notes are left avail- able in memory (total capacity is about 5900 notes). A third line displays keyboard commands as you enter them, and also lists the name and octave placement of whatever note the cur- sor is sitting on. Although you can enter nine musical lines altogether, only one line can be worked on—or seen—at a time. After you enter each line, you can listen to what you’ve done. Since all lines play back together, you can listen to individual lines only by turning every other line’s volume set- ting to zero, or by using the aforementioned “speaker” fea- ture. Other features you can use include a“fuzz” function, which adds pseudo-white noise to the sound of a line. With this and some adjusting of the envelope settings, you can produce some percussive sounds. A speed command will change the tempo of the entire piece, and a length function allows for unusual divisions of the quarter note, which can be divided into as many time periods as there are in the “quarter” set- ting. On the staff, these odd notes appear as Xs on stems, rather than as noteheads. This is very useful in entering pieces like Chopin mazurkas, which contain endless strings of 13 or 17 notes to a beat. Another feature is the ability to create subroutines, useful for having sections repeat without having to re-enter them on the staff, or for creating rounds, endless loops, and such. Once you have finished entering and editing a piece, the Play program will play it back for you. Another program, called Disco, lets you string pieces together into an “album”. These albums do not allow for uniterrupted play, as might be expected; you have to set the speed with a game-paddle and push the button before each song on an album will start. Apparently this was put in to allow you to announce each song before it starts. The manual has instructions for writing music without using the Entry program, in a chapter entitled Perform, and there’s also a chapter that provides instructions for accessing the synthesizer directly, which, among other things, allows you to create different divisions of the oc- tave. The playback sound is very clean and precise, with good pitch accuracy, going off only in the very highest and lowest registers. Rhythmic accuracy is excellent within and between parts. Adjusting the envelope settings can be fun. Important to note, however, is that the only waveform available (besides the fuzz) is a square wave. As a result, everything you play on the MC1 sounds a lot like a reedy organ, although, with alittle work, some interesting “dying squeezebox” accordian sounds can be created. The software, although flexible, is comparatively slow. It takes a frustratingly long time to get back and forth between playing and editing lines, and entering notes via the paddles is cumbersome. Using the measure lines is a bit strange, in that they are designed to appear as soon as you have entered the correct rhythmic values for a measure. When you delete a note from a measure (a common procedure), the program automatically sucks up notes from subsequent measures, creating all kinds of weird ties and note values to make up for the lost beat. Not having the full range of key signatures available is slightly annoying. The transposition function is difficult to deal with; after you order a transposition, you have to go into Play to hear it (and lower the volume settings onall the other voices if you want to really hear it). It’s easy to lose sense of what things sound like in all that going back and forth. While the above features are merely bothersome, there are more serious problems with the MC1. The manual provides no summaries within chapters, in some cases leaving you to guess what a chapter is for. The poor organization makes it difficult to find information on technical details, or to obtain any kind of overview. Information appears in bizarre places; for instance, you learn how to use triplets not during the explanation of note durations, but in the section on sub- routines. Spending all that time looking for information in the manual (and not to mention waiting for the program to load and reload) can make entering music a tedious, even exas- perating process. The prose tends to be convoluted and clut- tered with unnecessary comments. Considering the program is meant for use by the novice (both computer and musical), a more understandable manual would seem a necessity. It would also help to offset the fact that by today’s stan- dards, the software is not especially user-friendly. It is not clear how to move from one menu to another, and it is fright- eningly easy to crash the system, or destroy data by accident. I destroyed the songs in the catalog while I was (I thought correctly) following instructions on how to create an album for the Disco program. Overall, the package does what it claims, and if you are interested in transcribing music and having it played back for you, this system does that quite adequately. When it was first developed in 1977, the MC1 was the first such system of its kind, and with all credit given to it as such, it is starting to look more crude and less user-friendly as more sophisticated and flexible systems are being developed and marketed. Con- sidering its limited sound resources and user-unfriendliness, the system is a bit pricey at $195. Extra albums of music are available so that you can hear what others have done on the system. Other software, including programming aids and lots of educational software are available. Applied Engineering P. O. Box 470301 Dallas, TX 73249 (214) 492-2027 Applied Engineering makes the Super Music Synthesizer ($159), a 16-voice synthesizer system similiar to the ALF, and compatible with an Apple II with 48k memory. The system comes with a double-sided disk, a hardware board, and a stereo audio cable. You provide a stereo amp and speakers. On the board there are three tone-generating oscillators and one noise oscillator, each with dividers giving it four sep- arate outputs. The first problem with the system was encountered while installing and booting it up. I found that the manual provides contradictory instructions on which slots the board can plug into; on one page, it lists 0 through 7, while on the next it lists 1 through 7. The default setting is 8. I tried to tell the software I wanted the board in slot 0, but could not do so because the master disk is permanently write-protected. After I went toa copy (a procedure not detailed until much later in the man- ual), I tried again. This time the software accepted the in- struction, but upon any subsequent instructions, the system crashed. I decided to stick with slot 3. December 1983 15 There are several programs available. In Play, you can lis- ten to the 30 or so songs provided on disk, either in random order or individually. A catalog is provided, and the speed of the songs can be adjusted by twiddling game paddle zero and pressing the button. You ean also stop the song at any point by hitting Control/Reset. All of the musical tones on the disk tend to sound the same timbre-wise, although there are some interesting effects to be found on “Alien Chopper Death,” “March of the Womp Rats,” and “Amoeba Jig.” Another pro- gram allows you to create custom “albums” of your own songs. Inorder to use the Compose program, first you have to copy the system disk and, using FID, wipe out all the songs already on disk. If you don’t do this (and at first I didn’t), the program will not save any part of a song, and will crash if you get per- sistent about it. This tidbit of extremely necessary informa- tion is tucked away in an unobtrusive spot in the manual. Once you manage to get into it, the program lets you enter 12 lines of notes. In addition, four lines of “percussion” (noise) are available to add to other lines. About 8800 notes are avail- able in memory. As with the ALF MCI, pitches are chosen with a cursor that travels up and down the staff, controlled by game paddle one. A Hi-Res graphic display presents a grand staff (treble and bass clef).At the end of the paddle’s travel is a “rest” (hence the manual calls it the “pitch/rest” paddle), anda note or rest placed into the file by pressing the button on the pad- dle, which simultaneously sounds the pitch. Paddle zero is the “commands” paddle. As you turn the knob on the paddle, the various functions appear one by one in a inverse-video box on the screen; you select the one in the box by pushing the pad- dle button. Since they appear only one at a time, you must constantly search for the proper function. Unfortunately, my game paddles are somewhat jittery, which made the process rather annoying. The keyboard is used to enter all other commands. Only the first three letters of each command are necessary, anda list of commands is easily accessed by pressing “?”. They include key signatures, time signatures, envelope settings, quarter- value, speed, and transposition functions. The last will trans- pose up or down five or so octaves, and has the same limita- tions as the ALF transpose function. Other commands include volume, speaker location (the system can perform in quad- rophonic -- four-channel stereo -- by setting a bank of DIP switches on the board prior to installation), percussion, and subroutines. Once again, even with the extra voices and the percussion, the timbres, which seem to be pulse waves, are limited. There is a section in the manual for extending the system’s capa- bilities by programming it in BASIC or machine language, but apparently you can not change the waveforms even in these modes. You can play songs written for the ALF syn- thesizer on this system although, obviously, the nine-voice ALF song files don’t take full advantage of the Applied hardware’s 12 voices-plus. The manual is not as clear and well-organized as it could be; information is difficult to find, owing to the lack of a table of contents or an index. Few parts of the program are ex- plained as thoroughly as they could be, and a few are not explained even adequately. An attempt has been made to make the software user-friendly, with organized menus and instruction displays, but it is nevertheless far too easy to 16 Apple Orchard crash. There is no error-message table in the manual, which is annoying considering how many errors it is possible to make. Other problems include the tuning, which is not accurate, and the relatively slow pace at which the system loads, saves, and accesses files. Mountain Computer Music System 300 El Pueblo Scotts Valley, CA 95066 (408) 438-6650 The Mountain Computer Music System ($395) is a digital music synthesizer for the 48k Apple II computer. The pack- age comes with two double-sided floppy disks, an operating manual, a six-foot stereo audio cable, a light pen, and two hardware boards, which plug into two consecutive slots in the Apple. The system is intended for use by both the pro- fessional and amateur musician, with or without computer experience and, with perseverance, can be enjoyed by just about anyone. One disk contains the Music Player, Editor, and Merger on one side, and song files on the back. The other has the Instru- ment Definer and Player, with instrument files on the back. Thanks to clear instructions in the manual, installation and boot-up are easy. The Music Editor, once loaded, allows you to enter pieces of music and then edit them. Up to sixteen lines can be transcribed, one at a time. Notes are entered with a cursor that roams up and down on a Hi-Res graphic display of a musical staff, either single or piano-style double. The lower part of the screen displays a Main Commands Menu, from which you choose rhythmic values for notes and rests (with resolution up to 32nd notes, but no triplets), accidentals, measure lines, and either a single-note or chord “mode”. Other functions let you move the staff cursor to any point ina line, or even scroll up or down to look at other parts, although you ean only work on one line at a time. Three submenus are accessible from the Main Command Menu, including a signature commands menu, which offers a variety of time signatures (odd ones not listed can be entered via the keyboard), clefs (treble, bass, alto, tenor, or combina- tion treble and bass), and key signatures (up to seven flats or sharps). A note-modifier menu lets you insert accents and other musical markings (including sforzandos and staccato dots) on a single note or a group. A sound-control menu pre- sents a selection of dynamics (ranging from ppp to fff), speaker assignments, and eight standard Italian tempo markings. If you don’t like any of the tempos given, met- ronome markings can be entered via the keyboard. A status line at the bottom of the screen displays informa- tion on which part you are working in, the measure number, octave, mode, and note duration, as well as various para- meters that are referenced by asterisks under the staff. These last include speaker location, instrument assignment, and tempo. The screen can display only four octaves at a time, although the system’s range is actually eight octaves, so a number below the staff lets you know what octave you're in. There are several ways to enter information on the Music Editor, allowing for quite a bit of flexibilty. Any command can be entered from the keyboard, except for moving from one menu to another. The light pen can select items from the various menus, although it cannot position a note. With the game paddles, you can position and plug in notes, and also select items from the menus. Any combination of these can be used, and as certain functions are more suited to one or another, you can use each for whichever functions are most comfortable and efficient for you. (For me, the keyboard turned out to be the quickest, but it is pleasant to have the other options.) Once you have finished a composition, you can save it, and then print it out in music notation on a Silentype printer. You can print any part or measure of a piece, in either normal or double size. The music is printed vertically on the paper in one long strip, one line at a time. If you want to assemble a multi- line “score”, get out your scissors and glue. The Music Player lets you choose “instruments” for the pieces you've entered, and then plays them for you. Pieces are stored either as “composition” or “play” files. Composition files are the songs you have created by using the Music Editor. When you assign each of the parts of an instrument from the instrument file, and save the lot, you have created a “play” file. The instrument assignments can easily be chang- ed as many times as you like, and you can also re-assign speaker locations for each part. The Music Merger is a very useful program that lets you combine two composition files into one larger file. This allows for playback of pieces that are too big for the Music Editor (which, because it is manipulating so much information, has a limited capacity) to handle in one chunk. Although you can only combine two files at a stroke, you can merge the merged files. At some point, you will reach the maximum allowable size, which is not easily determined until you get to it. The really fascinating part of this system is the Instrument Definer, which allows you to create or modify instrumental sounds, using up to eight pairs of oscillators. As you enter each modification, a scale (or melody of your choosing) plays through your speakers, so you can hear each change. This makes the program useable by anyone, even if you don’t understand precisely what its doing with oscillators and waveforms. Features include the ability to create individual waveforms for each oscillator by a method called “additive synthesis”: you call up the first 24 harmonies of the wave and assign them all relative volumes. If you like, the system will then plot the resultant waveform for you on a graph dis- play. For each pair of oscillators, you can adjust the envelope settings (it lets you specify 15 points in the envelope curve), make dynamic pitch changes, and balance the volume with the other oscillator pairs. Also,attack and decay times can be globally adjusted for the entire instrument sound. Once an instrument is created, you can save it and call it up at any point. Since there are 16 oscillators in the hardware, quite a range of sounds can be created -- from traditional instrument sounds to weird or “electronic” sounds. In addition, the manual provides two Applesoft programs for creating your own waveforms, and encourages you to write your own pro- grams. The manual deserves special mention. Information is pre- sented in a logical, understandable fashion, with numerous graphic displays to confirm what is appearing on the screen. Summaries and overviews are provided at useful junctures, and the workings of each program are explained carefully and thoroughly. The Music Editor has three chapters devoted to it: a tutorial that walks you through it, a guide that serves as a concise overview, and a reference that contains detailed information on every function. The Music Merger and Player get one chapter each, and the chapter on the Instrument Definer contains both a tutorial and a reference. The final chapter is huge, and explains general theory behind musical sound and synthesis, the additive synthesis process, and the rest of the hardware and software that make up the system. It is comprehensive and well-written, provid- ing a detailed explanation of all the basics, and is very useful to read simply as a grounding in the mysteries of digital sound synthesis. The exhaustive appendices contain a glos- sary of musical terms, lists of keyboard commands for the Music Editor and error messages, a page on storing and fil- ing, a bibliography, lists of system specifications and fre- quencies of musical notes, and an index. Now for the drawbacks. The dozen or so preset instru- ments are out of tune (if you're willing to do some machine- language work it might be possible to do something about this), although those created with the Instrument Definer sound better. The other problem is that the system is very slow. Going back and forth between main menu items, and accessing and loading the necessary files takes lots of time, and life can pass you by in the interim. Of course, a larger micro would be of help, particularly since the system is so extensive and flexible. Since it takes so much time accessing, exiting, saving, etc., be prepared to entertain yourself while waiting for things to get done. The good things about the system, however, far outweigh its disadvantages. One of these is its user-friendliness: the software is most obliging in providing convenient, obvious exits from one menu or submenu to the others, and it refuses to allow you to screw things up; it will not accept commands that are outside its limits or that are inappropriate. Error messages are clear and non-threatening. It is not so complete as to be usable without the manual, but since the manual is so friendly itself, you don’t mind. Another positive aspect is that the system is expandable — other software written for it, including the alphaSyntauri and Soundchaser systems, allow for the Mountain hardware to be played in real time using a keyboard. Overall, the Mountain system offers a tremendous amount of flexibility, and it will certainly keep the hobbyist happy, and busy, for a long time. This, combined with its value as a composer's tool, its capabilities for modifying sound, and its expansion possibilities, make it an extremely attractive in- vestment for anyone interested in the possiblities of digital sound synthesis. Decillionix DX-1 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 732-7758 The Decillionix DX-1 ($239) is a digital sound-effects pro- gram, intended for use by anyone with a hankering to play around with real sound. The system comes with a circuit board, an owner’s manual, and a floppy diskette. You supply an Apple II with 48k of memory and Applesoft Basie, at least one disk drive with DOS 3.3, plus a microphone and a speaker or stereo system. The microphone is connected to a miniature phone jack on the board (an adapter is supplied for quarter-inch phone plugs). You can also use a high-level signal, such as a syn- thesizer or tape recorder, for input, and a switch on the board December 1983 17 provides the proper sensitivity. The input level can be further adjusted with an onboard potentiometer, and a filter switch helps to minimize high-frequency distortion. Essentially, the hardware consists of one analog-to-digital converter and two digital-to-analog converters. These re- spectively convert input signals into digital data and then back into sound. And that’s it; all other functions are con- trolled by the software. The software comes with 22 preset sounds, stored in three “Soundbases”. A soundbaseis a collection of sounds stored in the computer memory, and when you boot the disk, the pro- gram automatically loads Soundbase 1 for you. In this sound- base are eight digitally-recorded drum sounds of excellent quality. Soundbase 2 contains eight miscellaneous sounds, including burps, finger snaps, and “boings”; while Sound- base 3 contains electronic sounds, described in the manual (rather accurately) as zap, sting, warble, spindown, spring, and wow. The software basically accomplishes two things: it lets you record and play back sound, and it lets you sequence the sounds in various ways. Ninety-six pages of Apple memory are available to load a soundbase. The software allows you to choose a “mode” for dividing up that memory into from one to eight sections. The length of the sounds you want to record will partially determine which mode you choose; longer sounds need larger areas of memory. After you have selected a mode, each section of memory is assigned a pair of keys. When you press “R”, pressing the left-hand key of the pair turns on the record function. The right-hand key can be used to hear what you’ve recorded. Pressing “R” again turns both keys into playback. The sound volume that will trigger the computer to record is adjustable, which is useful in eliminating low-level noise that otherwise might get recorded. When the memory is full, the computer stops recording, and beeps at you through the Apple speaker. Before you start you can adjust the “record rate,” which changes the sampling rate of the system. For the same amount of memory, a slow sampling rate allows for the recording of long sounds, while a faster rate means that sounds must be shorter, but are recorded with better fidelity. A“freerun” function allows you to monitor the sound as it passes through the circuitry without actually recording it. The play rate is also adjustable, which changes the pitch, as is the volume. You can also play the sounds backwards. When you have completely loaded the memory, you have created your very own soundbase. You can then save it on another disk, onto which you have previously copied the pro- gram. Each disk has room for three. Then there is the Autosequencer, which lets you sequence sounds and adjust the playback parameters of pitch, volume, and direction. You can enter information for up to 32 sound “events” in four groups of eight. A fifth group lets you sequence the other four. For each of the sounds in each group, you plug in numeric values for the address in memory of the sound you want, how much of the sound you want (you can choose all or part of it, starting at the beginning or anywhere else), and the duration, pitch, volume, and direction. A table in the back of the manual provides the address locations for each sound in each mode. Sequences you have created can be saved on disk, and reloaded to be used with any sound- base. 18 Apple Orchard Also available are various preset sound patterns. One menu selection calls up eight routines which sequence and process sound in various ways. For instance, “cycle sounds” takes each sound in the soundbase, and repeats it five times, increasing its pitch each time. “Random” (fast or slow) chooses sounds at random and assigns them random pitches. Then there is a selection of preset musical rhythms, like Samba, Shuffle, or Country. Again, you can assign different values for pitch, tempo, and volume, or listen to the sounds back- wards. These patterns were designed for the “drum-set” soundbase that comes with the package, but they are just as effective with burps, whistles, and boings. The DX-1 is a charm to use. The manual is clear and con- cise, offering both detailed explanations and thoughtful over- views, along with lots of charts to go along with what you are seeing on the screen display. It is pretty difficult to serew things up, and in spots where you might be able to crash the system, information is provided on how, why, and what you can do about it. In fact, it actually invites you do try out some system crashes, to take the fear out of it. The software is very user-friendly, with clearly organized menus and submenus, and entering information and loading and saving programs is quick and easy. Its main limitation is that the sound quality of all but short sounds is not very good; aliasing effects tend to creep in when you record long sounds. Recording sound information gob- bles up huge numbers of bytes, and so lots of high-fidelity storage is just not possible within the memory of an Apple. Also, because the system records samples that are only eight bits in length, the resulting signal-to-noise ratio is 48° dB, about equivalent to a cheap cassette recorder. Another pro- blem is that the microphone input is unbalanced—again, like a cheap cassette recorder. This allows annoying amounts of electrical noise (like the Apple’s clock) to get into record- ings. These drawbacks aside, the DX-1 is great fun for anyone, professional or otherwise, interested in playing with digital sound processing at home. For $79, the company will sell you four more disks (12 soundbases) of interesting, well-record- ed sounds. A fascinating, although minimally documented, program available from Decillionix is called “Echo” (one disk and a paddle-like “feedback” control, $149). This program takes sound from the DX-1’s input and loops it back to you, while allowing you to process it along the way. There are 49 dif- ferent routines built into the software, selectable from the keyboard, ranging from straight repeat to complex triple- loop pitch-changing space echoes. The manual tells you briefly which keys do what, but after that pretty much leaves you on your own to explore. Parameters within the routines can be adjusted by the feedback control and a joystick or pair of game paddles. A quick-reference chart provides a concise summary of possibilities, but it helps a lot if you are at least acquainted with the basics of digital sound processing. But even without such knowledge, if you are willing to explore and use your ears, you can have quite a good time with this, although the same limitations on sound quality mentioned above apply. Julie White is a musician and journalist in the Boston area who is just beginning to explore the wonderful world of micros. @ KEYBORED? How about a musical interlude? With Simply Music” you can learn, compose, perform, even teach music right in the privacy of your own Apple. Bye, bye, keyboredom! From $995. Syntauri™ SPECIAL CHRISTMAS PACKAGE! Simply Music, the microcomputer based synthesizer soft- ware and hardware system. For the name of your nearest dealer call (800) 227-1817 Ext. 65. Syntauri Corporation, 4962 El Camino Real, Suite 112, Los Altos, California 94022. c A F 0 B 8 6 € ic A F 0 8 6 E c A ALBUM: COUNTRY FAUORITES COUNTRY ROADS “WisTR WLAY/REC Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Incorporated. Simply Music is a registered trademark of Syntauri Corporation. Cirele HelpCard No. 59 “T Wish I Had More Time...” for Home Music Synthesizers hey love it and they wish they had more time to play with it. That’s the common theme run- ning through the talk of a diverse sam- ple of home users of the Apple-driven music synthesizers made by Syntauri Corportation (alphaSyntauri) and Pass- port Designs (Soundchaser). I recently talked with six amateur musicians and a retired professional about their reactions to digital syn- thesized music. The group ranged from a podiatrist in Tucson, Arizona, to a computer profesional in Chicago to a college maintenance man in the San Fer- nando Valley of Southern California. I also interviewed a former globe-trotting symphony conductor in Westport, Con- necticut, a piano teacher in Odessa, Tex- as, an educational sales specialist in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a technical editor in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Nancy Norman, 31, is a computer pro- fessional, working for a railroad in Chi- cago. She has played the piano since age 7. She chose an alphaSyntauri, she says, “because of my computer background. The notion of combining music and my computer interest fascinated me.” After using it only 3-4 hours per week for 18 months she says, “It’s working out real well. The more time I spend on it the more time I want to spend on it.” Nancy praises the alphaSyntauri for help- ing her discover new musical abilities. “T started out just playing songs and recording them. Then I did some orches- tration, deciding which instruments sounded best with what kind of song. Now I have evolved to my own com- positions, something I never knew I was able to do. “The synthesizer helped me to dis- cover that. I never went to music school and I never knew anything about orches- 20 Apple Orchard by Dennis Briskin tration or arranging songs or compos- ing. By just playing around with it I was able to discover some abilities. It’s been areal pleasant surprise.” Nancy also credits the synthesizer with helping her improve her keyboard skills. “I have been motivated to spend more time on my music,” she says. “Before I got the synthesizer I would have labeled myself a ‘has been’ piano player because I stopped taking lessons 8 years ago. I lost a lot of technique. Any time I sat down at a piano it was very frustrating. “The computer really picks up a lot of the slack. It makes music making more of a creative skill that doesn’t need the manual ability of your fingers. For ex- ample, on the alphaSyntauri I can play something relatively slow and as long as Iplay it timed accurately I can have the computer speed it up to the tempo I want. It can play something much faster than my fingers are capable of doing.” What kind of music does she play? “That's a real hard question,” she says. “The stuff I am composing might be labeled ‘Romantic Synthesizer.’ It’s sort of easy listening stuff. It seems to fit a wide variety of musical tastes. It could also be called adult contemporary.” Although she has done well with the synthesizer, she says it should be easier for non-musicians to use. “You have to have a keyboard back- ground to use it effectively. Someone without a keyboard background could use it only if they have a lot of time and are very patient and read up a lot. Or if they have someone guiding them through it. It could be improved if it had software written for non-musical types. “Treally do wish I were able to spend more time with it,” she says. Kay Mains, 34, is a homemaker and piano teacher in Odessa, Texas. She uses both the alphaSyntauri and a reg- ular piano to teach a range of musical skills to children. “My kids write songs from their first lesson,” she says. “They are very primi- tive songs, but I have a little five-year- old who is beginning to be creative with it. They pick out what instrument they want to work with and they begin writ- ing their songs. We record it on the com- puter and play it back on different instruments. They can hear what their song sounds like on strings or an organ or a trumpet. And they get to watch the notes on the sereen, too. So they hear it and they see it. “T have always felt there is more to music than reading notes off a sheet of paper,” she says, explaining why she uses a synthesizer for music instruction. “To be a complete musician you have to be able to do acertain amount of playing by ear, as well as composition, to be creative on the instrument. You really can’t do that well on a piano. To be able to doon the piano what I doonthealpha- Syntauri would take probably twice as long. I don’t have much time with my kids.” Kay also uses the Syntauri to help her students learn about chord changes. “With the alphaSyntauri I program in melodies and then the students start hearing these chord changes come up, listen to the melody, and start anticipat- ing the chord changes. All they have to concentrate on is the chords. That has been phenomenal in giving them the feel for the chords.” Incontrast to her current enthusiasm, Kay was computer resistant until she saw a demonstration of the alphaSyn- tauri in a computer store in Midland, Texas. “My husband was wanting an Apple but I didn’t think a computer would be necessary to have around the house. Then I saw a demonstration and I said, ‘That’s what I want. I want to get it and learn how to use it for my own enjoy- ment. I want to teach kids, too.’ ” Inthe year since she boughtit, she has particularly enjoyed using the syn- thesizer for arranging. “Tlike to sit there, get a piece of music, and start working with the instruments and combining them and get my own arrangement of it as I want to hear it. That's what I really enjoy about it. I could never play strings and trumpets and bells, but on the alphaSyntauri I ean. I’ve always thought the marimba was one of the most beautiful instru- ments. On this I can have a marimba. I just enjoy having that creativity.” Like Nancy Norman, he uses the tem- po control feature to record a song slowly and play it back at normal speed. “T can play things that are beyond my technical capabilities. I can key in note by note in half the time. I’ve been play- ing a lot of Baroque stuff, like some of the Bach fugues. If I can’t handle three or four parts, I can key in a couple of the parts and try to keep up just playing one part. So I make musie with myself.” Although he averages less than an hour per night, he wants to spend a cou- ple of hours per session. “It’s easy to get wrapped up in it. I've only had it two months,” he says, “‘so I really haven’t explored everything I can do with it yet.” He also describes his Soundchaser as well documented and easy to use. Dr. Nyberg’s musical training as a child consisted of six years of piano lessons beginning at age 8. “I try to play the keyboard repertoire, Bach and Beethoven, things that I couldn't play when I quit taking piano lessons 30 years ago.” His enjoyment aside, he says the syn- thesizer has little effect on his creativity. “Thaven’t had it long enough to do all it can do. When I get some time I want to play around with it. All those possibi- lities are built into the thing. I’ve always liked harpsichord music and I could never afford one. And I don’t have the time to build one. It’s let me have a variety of keyboard instruments that I couldn’t have otherwise. It’s just a ques- tion of getting around to playing with the thing.” Robert Nyberg, 34, is a podiatrist in Tucson, Arizona. He bought a syn- thesizer for an unusual reason: the weather. “The problem with keyboards in the Southwest is you get such a range of humidities and temperatures that I felt I would be tuning a piano once a month. Plus, when I heard what the Soundchas- er could doI was really impressed. It lets me own a harpsichord as well as a piano, as well as fooling around with other sounds.” While Bob likes the synthesizer’s broad range of sounds, it does have its limits. “Nothing is as good as an instru- ment,” he says. “It’s not an instrument. Ifyou want a piano, buy a Steinway. But for what I do, I’m satisfied. Ray Biernat, 36, lives in North Holly- wood, California, and does maintenance work for a college. He likes his Sound- chaser primarily for its ability to mani- pulate sounds. “T can mix some avant garde sounds or sound effects and create a whole new effect,” he says. “I enjoy that. It’s not something that’s hard to do, either. With just the press of a button you can change the whole thing around.” Unlike the others, he did not study piano as a child, but derived his musical knowledge through the guitar. ‘““What- ever I learned on guitar, I just applied it to the keyboard. I guess I have some natural ability as a musician,” he says. His musical taste runs to popular and jazz. “‘There’s a good and bad in every- thing. I like a little of everyone. All dif- ferent types.” “That's one of the reasons I wanted to get the Soundchaser. You can write music on there. It can be edited and transcribed. It can be saved, recreated, put on multiple track recordings. These kinds of features all grabbed me.” Having bought the equipment only two months ago, he says he has played it only periodically and is still learning to use all the different features. He thinks the synthesizer is “defintely” helping him become a better musician and en- hancing his creativity. “You can play things on it that you couldn’t play if you don’t have the chops. You can change the tempo. You can change the instrumentation, like if you're doing multitrack recording. Every time you play you're layering the sound. What if you don’t like the way the total arrangement sounds? Maybe you think the lead line should be played by an organ sound. With Soundchaser you change the instrumentation. Every in- strument can play the different parts of the melody or the different parts of the harmony. I find that very interesting.” “T like all this technology and the things it allows a person to do.” William Strickland, 69, is a retired orchestra conductor living in Westport, Connecticut. “After 44 orchestras in 26 different countries I decided to quit,” he says. He describes himself as a wandering mis- sionary for contemporary American music. “One day I woke up and decided to quit it all. I spent 21 years in hotels and on trains and planes and boats. Now I've bought a house in Westport, and noth- ing can get me out of it.” Of his Passport system, which he has had only 2 months, he says, “This new Turbotrack system is unlike anything else I have ever seen. It’s absolutely remarkable. The quality of the sound is the finest I’ve heard.” He is tight-lipped about his use of the synthesizer. “I’m trying to recreate some (classical) pieces of music that I think need electric sounds to back them up. I’d rather not tell you what they are because that’s a competitive field.” As to what he likes best about digital synthesis, he says, “That’s a hard ques- tion because digital does one thing and analog does another. They both are valuable. Digital is tremendous because of its complete accuracy. The analog isn’t quite that good because is has oscillators. “Digital is a pair of steps going up and analog is aramp. The digital is very pre- cise and very exacting. The analog can drift all over the place. That was one of the disadvantages of it.” He also composes on his synthesizer. He has worked with synthesizers for the past ten years. “I started with a mini- Moog and moved up the scale. It’s de- veloped so fast.” Of digital synthesizers he says flatly, “They have absolutely infinite possibil- ities.” Deac Manross, 33, is an educational sales specialist with Apple Computer, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio. December 1983 21 SELL IT Be. OVER 600 TITLES GAMES*ADVENTURE*HOBBY CALL NOW (215)967-3300 Or Write for More Information Black Sun Program Exchange P.O. Box 406 Emmaus, PA 18049 [| MLA C Ns 9 SQW ry ( / V Cirele HelpCard No. 6 22 Apple Orehard He bought a synthesizer because he already has a piano. We're somewhat of a musical family. I’ve always been in- terested in music. My mother was a music teacher. I play guitar. The kids take piano lessons.” “The first time I heard of the alpha- Syntauri was back in ’79 at the National Computer Conference in New York City. It blew me away and I said to myself, ‘Some day I’m going to have one of those’, because of the features and the capability. “Unfortunately, as fast-paced and busy as my job is I don’t have the time to spend with it. I end up using it more for business than for personal pleasure. “It’s a real show stopper. When I do an educational presentation I usually take it along with me. It’s one of the more humanizing uses of personal com- puters.” When he first got his alphaSyntauri he spent a lot of time on it. Over the last 9 months he estimates he’s used it for him- self 15-20 hours. “It’s not for not wanting to,” he says. “T still have all these grand schemes and designs. One of the reasons I got it is I have always been taken by the idea of doing multi-tracking and then putting compositions together. I love the idea of being able to be a one-man symphony. Deep inside I think when I have some time I'll sit down and do that.” Organ or synthesizer? Which does he prefer? “Different things for different times,” he says. “I like them both. I would take the alphaSyntauri over any organ on the market.” How about a piano versus the alpha- Syntauri? “I like the piano an awful lot,” he laughs. “It’s a different kind of sound and a different kind of thing you can do on it.” While he praises the alphaSyntauri, Manross says it’s difficult for the first- time user. “I think they are overwhelm- ed,” he says. “The manual, good as it is, is still geared toward the person who has been through years of college and has a basic intellectual curiosity, as opposed to the person who just wants to turn it on and have it play something. They need to bridge that gap between what the alphaSyntauri is today and what that first-time person is using.” Manross would also like to see other improvements. “The touch of the key- *DOUBLES DISKETTE STORAGE SPACE! REDUCE YOUR DISKETTE COSTS BY 50% “The back of your 5%" single sided diskette has recording medium. All you need is an ACCURATELY placed “write enable notch” to use it, on many systems. MIBBLE NOTCH™ is a precision engineered tool designed for his purpose. IT’S A MONEY SAVER! IMMEDIATE SHIPMENT! ony $14.95 Add $1.50 Postage/Handling ($4.50 Foreign) — Florida Residents Add 5% Sales Tax — DER TODAY! OR SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO: MWBBLE NOTCH” Division of Cortran International 4211 N.W. 75th Terrace, Dept. 10 12 Lauderhill, Florida 33319 PAT. PEND. | Cirele HelpCard No. 10 We Help Bring Your Family Together 6 Types of Charts and Sheets Indices User Fields Notes, Footnotes and Sources No Limits Adapts to Your Hardware Comprehensive Easy to Use And Much, Much More Send for brochure and sample printouts. ‘amily Roots includes detailed manual and 2 full diskettes of programs for your Apple II* or IBM PC ** Other genealogy software also available. Price: $185 plus $3.50 Postage American Express, Visa & Mastercard Accepted a < . J Family Roots QUINSEPT, INC. P.O. Box 216, Lexington, MA 02173 TM Apple Computer Inc TM ternational Fsiness Machines (617) 862-0404 Cirele HelpCard No. 49 board. It would be nice to get the ex- pressivity you have on a regular com- mercial organ. Or an easier volume con- trol. Itseems like everythingis played at the same volume level. It’s kind of one- dimensional.” “But beyond that I’m thrilled to death with it. I just wish I had more time.” Gregg Williams, 29, is a senior techni- eal editor at Byte Magazine in Peter- borough, New Hampshire. He bought his alphaSyntauri 18 months ago on special at an Applefest. “I always wanted one, but when I saw that dis- count of one-third off staring me in the face I just stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. But I waited until the end of the day. I did all the work Thad to do for the magazine and then I came back and wrote out a check for over $1,000 without blinking any eye. And I’ve never regretted it.” Like William Strickland, Gregg prais- es the digital synthesizer for its accura- cy. “Anything that is digital has infor- ation that can be stored on a disk,” he says. “Digital makes a recording more repeatable.” He also likes the alphaSyntauri’s variety. “I decided this would give me a far more versatile instrument than a piano. This can be an organ, a piano, a flute, plus some weird sound you never heard of.” He also went for the portability. “I live in an apartment. A piano would have been a major investment and a major task to move around. I can pick up the alphaSyntauri keyboard with one hand and tuck it under my arm.” “T want to build keyboard skills,” he adds. “I'd like to be able to sit down and play asimple melody with my right hand and the correct chords with my left hand. That’s my minimum goal. I’d like more than that. I’d certainly like to play jazz, especially boogie-woogie piano. That’s my secret desire.” He adds that a synthesizer won’t help him learn keyboard skills better than a piano. “When I am teaching myself basic skills, I’ll just configure the syn- thesizer to be an ordinary keyboard.” He finds an important difference in the keyboard feel between the alpha- Syntauri and an ordinary piano. “A piano has what you would call ‘force sensing.’ The harder you hit a key the louder it sounds. The alphaSyntauri tries to dup- licate that with what's called ‘velocity sensing.’ The faster you hit a key the louder it sounds. But they are not identi- cal, so you lose something.” “There is a difference between play- ing the piano and playing the syn- thesizer. If you are getting into the fine points of a piece and playing for expres- siveness, it’s possible on a piano to play anumber of notes very quickly and very lightly. On the synthesizer you can’t because if you play them quickly that also makes them loud.” Still, he would not change his synthesizer. "I am more than satisfied with it as it is. I could spend years just playing around with the sounds (although) I’m more interest- ed in playing something than playing with it. Gregg is the only user, but he loves to show it off. “When I have a party I demonstrate it to people. I’m always delighted to have a chance to show the alphaSyntauri to people who know how to play the piano. They play me a little something and I save it as a recording. It’s really nice to take someone with real talent and sit him down at the alphaSyn- tauri and say, ‘Look, you can do this.’ ” The time he spends with his synthesizer fits the pattern of the others I talked with. “Alas, not as much as I would like,” he says. “It sometimes goes without use for weeks on end, which is a shame be- cause I really like it. I just don’t have time for it.” Dennis Briskin is a freelance writer in Palo Alto, California. He has a Master of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri and has written for numerous computer magazines. e ing recipes that, ah, bomb. Kitchen a breeze. (reies Wier Co [oiana Apple ea pecfy computer anda 2 handling Because our new Micro Cookbook makes it easier than ever for you to ake, broil, roast and fry ‘em. 2} 150 recipes—which it does. But by messy, confusing recipe files. Instead you simply insert our program into your computer and select any recipe your heart, or stomach, desires. Ask for a recipe by name, ingredients or category. ‘The recipe you select can be one of the mouth-watering dishes we include—or you can create a diskette of your own favorites. And youcan constantly modify your selections, adding new triumphs and remov- ‘These, and Micro Cookbook’s other features, will make your life in the With this in mind, is it any wonder Micro Cookbook makes this guy rparations and Micros tn. respectively. Why fish are terrified ol our soitware. Not only by giving you more than simplifying the whole art of cooking, You see, Micro Cookbook eliminates VIRTUAL COMBINATICS P.O. Box 755, Rockport, MA 01966 (617) 546-6553 Circle HelpCard No. 65 December 1988 23 Seven Steps to Buying Your Music System by Tony Dirkson wo types of people buy computer-based syn- thesizers: computerphiles looking for the ultimate peripheral, and musicians looking for the ultimate sound. Let’s start with a few words of reassurance for each. First, for musicians. Buying a computer-based synthesizer is a lot easier than you may have ever imagined. Choosing the right system isn’t much different than deciding between a Steinway and a Baldwin, or between a Martin and a Guild. And you don’t have to go to a pin-striped computer store to test out music systems, since more and more music stores are featuring Apple-based keyboards in their synthesizer rooms. Next, a few comforting words for computerphiles. Today’s synthesizers are all pretty solid products, so you can’t really go wrong, even if you don’t yet know a lot about music. Each system offers its own price and performance features, giving you some basis for making an intelligent decision. No matter which language you speak, computerese or musicianese, you can select your system among like souls who can show, sell, and support your synthesizer. If you've read this far, you’re probably interested. What to do next? Well, I've got your next three months all mapped out... STEP 1, Explore what’s available. Guess what? You've al- ready started. This issue of Apple Orchard has been de- signed to answer most of your questions about Apple-based music synthesizers. But you may want to explore a little farther before visiting any stores. You have several options: write to manufacturers for product information; check out old copies of Keyboard magazine for views and reviews of different systems; find out from the grapevine what other musicians are using, and what they like and dislike about their systems. STEP 2. Find a dealer. A few phone calls to local computer dealers or music shops should suffice. Or you can contact a manufacturer to find outlets in your area. Two years ago, finding a dealer might have represented a. mighty task. But computer-based synthesizers have found 24 Apple Orchard their way into many new stores recently. Music stores, in particular, have discovered that these systems can offer real value for their customers. As Alan Levin, manager of Chuck Levin’s Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland, notes: “Some musicians and dealers are still seared to death of these things. When I took them on, everyb