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Although Spectrum sound production may seem limited, you can actually use it to produce many interesting and complex effects, and Auto-Sonics is a package designed to help you do just that.

Written in Basic, the program presents you with a selection of 26 predefined effects which can then be bent and twisted to your requirements. Once a sound has been created, the program assembles and prints the line of Basic required to produce that particular effect.

For each of the 26 sounds, the sound specification can be called up on a data-screen showing tone, repeat, pitch values etc. These can be easily altered as necessary. At any time the sound can be played back and the Basic line printed.

This cleverly-written program is relatively easy to use. The screen is well laid out with 'slider' displays showing the components of the sound, and the documentation is extensive and clear. Users may, however, find that some sounds are difficult to obtain, due to the slug-gishness of ZX Basic.