Life's like that, you think you've got the best bit of software around for your particular purposes and suddenly another product appears which changes your ideas.

Until I received this program, I thought that my Activision music package was all I would ever need. How wrong I was. Interestingly enough, this program fills and enhances the gaps left by the other products, it is not for the serious composer intent on creating an accurate score and nothing more.

Instead, Music Master converts your C64 into a synthesiser with a powerful three voice sequencer. Rather than entering music in accurate note values, a real time element is provided allowing a certain amount of feeling to be put into the music.

The program has two main models, immediate playing mode and the sequencer. In immediate mode you can use the C64 as a keyboard and simply mess about. All operations are controlled via menu screens and two help screens enable you to get about. In immediate mode, you can play any of the three voices in any combination. The voices, which are active, are played in unison monophonically. This is the only really poor feature of the system. A simple polyphonic option would have been handy.

Each voice has its own menu enabling you to alter all features of the waveform, frequency, filtering etc. Special effects are sorted via an effects menu and a filter menu. The special effects menu allows you to set up cross modulation and synchronisation between voices giving some really bizarre sounds. If you invent a really amazing sound which you must use again, there is the option of creating pre-set sounds which can be saved on tape or disc. If you want to impress your friends. there are 17 pre-set rhythms over which you can play your own tune ... eat your heart out Phil Collins.

If you want to create and replay music, the sequencer is the way to do it. This section lets you compile three part masterpieces - and really amaze your friends. A word processor type approach is adopted enabling you to enter and edit music. Sections can be repealed making life fun. The music is stored in terms of beats rather than accurate notes. This means that you can use slightly lengthened or shortened notes to give expression. The score can be saved for future use.

The disc was bursting with demonstration pieces, some to a very high standard. One huge piece called "Sing-along-a-Sa" reminded me of the days when I used to play gigs at the local British Legion - quite tear jerking really. The instruction booklet is detailed and has a number of examples to enable you to get to grips with the package.

This is a first class package which operates faultlessly and is tremendous fun to use. At the price, it offers a genuine budget alternative to the more expensive MIDI-based systems.

A.W.