It has been a long wait for the Music 4000, but this keyboard to accompany the Music 5000 is at last here. Ian Waugh, our music expert, has been playing with the new device.

Hybrid Technology's Music 5000 was reviewed last November in Beebug Vol. 5 No. 6. It is still the only currently affordable alternative to making music with MIDL But whereas MIDI is basically performance orientated, the Music 5000 is more compositionally based. Many musicians find this the ideal way to work, but others prefer to compose at the keyboard. In fact, there is a case to be made for both methods, and I switch from one to the other depending upon the application.

The Music 4000 adds a 4-octave full-size keyboard to Hybrid's Music System. It's Italian, has a light springy touch and is nicely finished in slate grey plastic-coated steel. A generous length of ribbon cable plugs into the User Port and a footswitch plugs into the keyboard. It must be used only with the Music 5000, so do refer to November's review for compatibility. That review also describes Music 5000 modules which will be referred to in this article. The software on disc contains new keyboard modules which are fully integrated into the AMPLE system (the programming language for the Music 5000). A software upgrade kit is available for owners of ATPL's Symphony Keyboard.

The disc also contains six music demos - you'll probably play these first - which show what Hybrid's Music System can do, at least in part. They certainly prove that the 5000 can produce full, heavy sounds.

MIDI: The acronym MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. This has become something of a standard for connecting and linking various electronic instruments and a computer like the Beeb, and the MIDI interface is produced by Electromusic Research. For more information refer to the article "Music System Update" in Vol. 4 No. 10. The 4000 adds three main features to the system: real-time recording, step-time recording and the ability to play Music 5000 sounds from the keyboard. Two files contain over 80 new instrument sounds and special effects. These can be called up, played and edited directly from the Keyboard module and in this mode the footswitch acts as a sustain pedal. Some of the sounds verge on the brilliant: lush strings, honky-tonk piano and all manner of instruments and effects.

You can use the keyboard to enter music directly into Notepad or the Staff Editor in step-time, that is one note at a time. The pitch is determined by the key you play and chords are entered simply by pressing more than one note. In the Staff Editor they appear in the same order that you play them, so if you enter chords from the bottom up you can easily give each line of notes its own voice and process them independently in the Mixing Desk. The duration of a note or chord in Notepad can be increased by pressing the foot-switch. In the Staff Editor the footswitch increases the duration and smaller values can be entered as usual with Shift and the cursor keys. In both editors you can use a combination of the keyboard and the full range of Music 5000 editing commands.

In the 'Recorder' module you enter parts in real-time, that is to say that they are recorded live as you play. You must decide how many voices each part will have, and assign the eight available voices accordingly. There is a sample mix on the disc to start you off, but it's very easy to create your own mixes.

Six special keyboard effects are shown on screen, and two affect pitch: 'Trans' transposes the keyboard range up or down in semitones and 'Scale' affects the pitch scaling in 16th of a semitone units. The default is 16 which sets adjacent notes a semitone apart - like a normal keyboard. Negative values invert the intervals: - 16 turns the keyboard upside down with the low notes at the top and vice versa.

'Expand' can turn a single key-press into a short sequence of notes, a full chord or an echo effect. The pattern is programmed by pressing the footswitch and then the required notes. During play the pattern responds to the pitch of the note played and the time interval between successive key-presses. In instruments with more than one voice, 'Reduce' will reduce the volume of successive voices as they are played. In conjunction with Expand, Reduce can produce echoes and decaying arpeggios.

'Spread' is similar to Reduce except it alters the stereo position of each successive voice rather than its volume. Many stereo effects are possible including sounds which spread from one side to the other and which alternate between left and right positions.

Finally, 'Split' assigns each note in each of the four octaves to play a different voice rather than the corresponding pitch. It would be used with a mix, perhaps of special sound effects, rather than as a single instrument.

In the Recorder you can alter the tempo, specify the number of beats per bar and their duration. There is a 'quantise' function which sets each note onto the smallest specified division of a bar. With this facility and by recording at a slow tempo you can produce quite exact recordings. You can get a two-bar count in, and alter the metronome volume. Any of the parts can be put in a 'Backing' line which means they will play as you record other parts. This is just like traditional multi-track recording but not always possible from MIDL It's very helpful. You can also boost the volume of the keyboard against the backing while recording.

Just as you can construct parts in sections in the Notepad, you can record sections of parts in real-time, too. More than that, the system can convert your real-time performance into AMPLE notation in the Notepad or traditional notation in the Staff Editor. This is no mean programming feat and there are few pieces of software which can perform this task and none, as far as I know, for the BBC Micro. It just shows how powerful and fully integrated all the modules are.

The manual is similar in style to the 5000 manual and leads you fairly painlessly through the operation of the new modules. It helps if you have a working knowledge of the 5000 and you are referred to the User Guide occasionally to avoid duplication of information.

The 5000 and 4000 together form a complete, fully integrated music system. AMPLE gives you a most powerful and flexible composing environment, and the variety of modules means you can use those which most suit the music you are writing and the input method you prefer: AMPLE notation, traditional notation and now real- and step-time keyboard note entry.

The facilities the system offers still far outweigh any other system at the price. If you're a Beeb owner with a bent for music it really deserves serious consideration and I can see many uses for it in education. Hybrid are committed to developing a totally integrated music system and the Music 4000 is the next step up.