Roy Follett
For users of the Music 500 and 5000 this was to be more of a
showdown than a show. After several months of competitive and sometimes
acrimonious advertising between newly divorced designers/manufacturers Hybrid
and distributors Peartree Computers, this was to be the place where both were
to stake their claim to the Music 500(0) market.
Peartree's campaign had something of a false start when
Hybrid objected to their use of the name Music 7000 to promote their
synthesiser and software package.
In the flurry of assertive press releases and advertising
that followed neither side could bring itself to name the other - Hybrid
referring to Peartree as 'the advertiser' and Peartree to Hybrid as 'other manufacturers'.
Both sides had chosen the Acorn User show to demonstrate the
superiority of their product. Peartree promised to 'solve all the old problems'
of the Music 5000 for almost half the price. Hybrid promised a host of new
hardware and software to expand the system.
Over at the Peartree stand things looked a little awkward.
Their somewhat defensive attitude was perhaps understandable in the light of their
enforced change of product name (the advertised Music 7000 had now transformed
into the Music 87) coupled with the fact that they hadn't actually got the
software available as promised. They were reduced to blaming the software house
writing the software for the delay, whilst trying to sound as if everything was
really under control and that there was no reason not to buy the hardware.
A working demo of part of the new Peartree software was on
display but perhaps the most interesting question - whether and how it could
interface to AMPLE - could not be answered by the staff on the stand.
Over at the Hybrid stand things looked a lot more promising.
Although, as usual, it was difficult to do more than peer over someone else's shoulders
at Chris Jordan amidst a stack of hardware, the promised MIDI interface and
amplifier were there - though there was little to learn by looking at them.
More details could be gleaned, however, from a glossy eight
page hand-out which was distributed at the show and had details of all the new hardware.
The Music 2000 MIDI interface is housed in the standard Music
500(0) sized case with three LEDs on the front. These indicate activity on the three
MIDI output channels which, along with a fourth pulse clock output, have
sockets at the back of the unit. The Music 2000 connects to the back of the
Music 5000 via a ribbon cable and draws its power from the computer.
The software driving the MIDI interface is loaded as a
module into the Studio 5000 environment and allows up to 32 MIDI voices to be
controlled via AMPLE. New AMPLE words allow the assignment of voices and parts
to attached MIDI instruments and the control of the instrument's settings.
The Music 2000 on the stand was hooked up to a Roland CZ505
drum machine but there seemed to be a lack of music software to demonstrate its
integration with the Music 5000.
The Music 1000 amplifier (again in a Music 500(0) sized
case) seems to have been designed with school users in mind, providing three
headphone outputs in addition to its 8 watt outputs for speakers. At the show
it was being used as a pre-amp for a larger amplifier via an output designed
also to feed into tape recorders and mixing desks.
The only disappointment was the absence of the
waveform/envelope designer which was not ready for the show and for which no
release date or price was given.
Printout from the new Staff printing programme was to be
seen, and was being offered to Keyboard 4000 owners as an upgrade for the
'nominal' fee of £5.00 (see review elsewhere in News & Reviews section).
The AMPLE Programmer's Guide was not available at the show,
but was promised for September. Pilgrim Beart's COSMIX album of AMPLE music on disc
was being used for most of the demonstrations with the man himself helping
behind the stand.
The prices of the new Hybrid products (including VAT and
P&P) are:
Music 1000 Amplifier
£161.00
Music 2000 MIDI interface £161.00
AMPLE Nucleus Programmer's Guide £16.00
COSMIX disc £4.95
Ample Bytes Back disc £4.95
Music 2000 MIDI interface £161.00
AMPLE Nucleus Programmer's Guide £16.00
COSMIX disc £4.95
Ample Bytes Back disc £4.95
More details can be obtained from:
Hybrid Technology Ltd
Unit 3
Robert Davies Court
Nuffield Road
Cambridge CB4 1TP
(0223) 316910
Unit 3
Robert Davies Court
Nuffield Road
Cambridge CB4 1TP
(0223) 316910
As we went 'to press' Peartree Computers were promising
shipment of the first Music 87 software by Friday 18th September. If any member
has a positive sighting (or better still a review) before the November issue of
AMPLINEX please get in touch.
Published in AMPLINEX 001,
September1987
