The Fantastic Music Machine and Light Show

The Fantastic Music Machine is a unique program that transforms your computer keyboard into a 3-octave musical instrument with reasonably good tonal quality with 16K it can handle up to 7000 notes.

I approached this program with a very skeptical attitude. After all, how fantastic a music machine was possible on a $9.95 cassette? To say I was surprised is an understatement. This package really is fantastic!

The manual takes you through the art of composing music, right down to sharps and flats, reading musical manuscripts, and transferring them to the computer, writing music via score sheets, editing, and a basic understanding of musical notation. You do not have to be familiar with musical notation to use this package, but it is certainly helpful. The average person, supplied only with the excellent instructions, can begin making music in a few minutes.

Once the program is loaded, the keyboard is under program control. Each key represents a musical note or a special function shown on the keyboard overlay. Each of the top three rows starts and ends with a C note but in a different octave.

Another interesting feature of the program is that, as you press a musical note key, the screen displays lines similar to the LOADing lines, I found this helpful in composing and in editing.

The music is played through a TV receiver or a radio situated nearby. I tried it both ways and found the sound through my TV satisfactory. The tonal quality was quite good, and it can be adjusted higher or lower. It is also possible to change the tempo and cause the pitch of individual notes to rise or drop. A myriad of strange noises can be created by the special effects function.

When you have completed writing or transferring a piece of music, you can record and play back the results.

This package is a more complex and much more versatile version of Composer, originally designed for 1 K and up to 400 notes, expanded to 16K and up to 7000 notes.

I decided to transfer a musical piece from manuscript to the computer. Within an hour I completed the entire piece and was able to play it back. I discovered a few errors in my input, but with the editing function I could go backward and forward through the data at will and make the necessary changes in about 10 minutes. I then replayed the piece and was pleased with the results.

The Fantastic Music Machine is the type of package that will wear out long before you lose interest. The uses are almost endless. Young and old alike will delight in playing with it, and the educational aspects are appealing as well.

The Light Show is a unique program that creates kaleidoscopic patterns which continue indefinitely until you press the ENTER key. The printer will capture the pattern in copy.

Using the menu options, you can go back to simply viewing the ever-changing display, or you can create your own repeating patterns. The patterns change almost instantaneously and the designs produced are entirely random. You can come up with some rather outrageous designs which can be SAVEd.

Simulsion offers a sophisticated and highly entertaining line of software, and this new offering is well worth the price.