Although the Hybrid Music System is very popular with home-based musicians, it is even more popular in education where it is the de facto standard computer-based music system across the music and IT curriculum. This is not without good cause as it suits the needs of education particularly well and is very cost effective. There is also a growing range of music discs available, for example from Hybrid itself and from Panda Discs (see the review in Beebug Vol. 8 No. 10).

But it isn't the only music system for the BBC micro. There are now well over 50 programs which use the Beeb's sound chip, the majority of which were designed with education in mind. If you've dabbled with any of these you'll have realised that, no matter how excellent the program may be in concept and execution, the BBC's sound chip represents a very real limitation both in terms of sound quality and pitch control. And since the sounds produced by the chip do not adhere to the standard tonal range, this is a positive disadvantage when it comes to aural training programs and instrument tutors.

The Music 5000 Synthesiser Universal means an end to so-so sounds. It intercepts the commands directed at the sound chip and plays them through the Music 5000. The complete package consists of a Music 5000 Synthesiser, the Ample Nucleus ROM and software which loads into sideways RAM. The system was designed for the Master, however, and will not run on a BBC B, even one fitted with sideways RAM. The Master's numeric keypad acts as a set of hot keys to control the program and a Key Card fits over them to remind you of their functions.

After generating a Start-Up disc from the Hybrid Issue disc (in usual Hybrid foolproof fashion), the software loads into sideways RAM and you are presented with a graphic control screen. Sixteen instruments are available including piano, glock, flute, organ and strings along with four drum sounds. You can assign any sound to any of the BBC's four voices using the numeric keypad and you can test the sounds by playing the QWERTY keyboard.

You can raise and lower the pitch of a voice in octave steps which is useful as many programs actually sound an octave higher than they should. There are fine tune controls, too, which let you tune the Universal to other instruments. An indicator on the screen displays the pitch graphically.

There are two other controls: Ensemble adds a second voice, slightly detuned, to the first, thus producing a fuller sound. Sustain also adds a second voice but with a delay to produce a reverberant effect. These extra voices come from the Music 5000 (which normally can play eight voices at once) so no voices are lost from the program.

The effects can be set individually for each voice by holding down the corresponding key on the numeric keypad (for example, key 1 for voice 1) and tapping the Sustain or Ensemble key. The screen shows the instruments and effects selected for each voice and you also get aural confirmation as you make a change. This is important as it means you can effectively control the Universal blind, allowing you to change the settings within a piece of software while it is running.

Once you're used to the system - which shouldn't take long - you can try it with some software. Select Run on the main screen and insert a music program disc. The Universal reads the disc for a fingerprint and asks for the Start-Up disc again. The fingerprint reading is quite clever as you can write to and delete from the disc without altering its fingerprint.

A list of around 50 music programs appears - which covers virtually all the commercial music programs currently available - and you select the name of the one whose disc has just been read. If the program name is not there or if you are using a program of your own, you supply the name and it will be stored on the Start-Up disc. If the name is there, the program loads a set of default settings which will complement the program. These can still be altered using the hot keys but their provision at the start allows you to plug in and go.

Many of the program settings also produce helpful information about the programs, for example how many voices it uses or how they are arranged. You can save a group of settings to disc, or delete them. You can also print the current setting on an Epson-compatible printer. This produces a small dump of the control portion of the screen.

Some programs use just one or two voices; to enhance the sound further with such programs, a Link facility links unused voices so that they play alongside each other. You can alter the octave and instrument of linked voices.

One of the options which appears on the instrument list is Auto. If you select this, the program automatically substitutes the 16 Music 5000 voices for the 16 BBC envelopes. This is especially useful if a program lets you select 'instruments' (i.e. alternate envelopes) within itself.

You've probably realised that the Universal will work equally well with your own Basic programs. Although it only supports four BBC voices - as this is all the BBC has! - with Sustain switched on it can actually sound eight Music 5000 voices at the same time. This can be accomplished in Basic using the Sustain option by playing two-note chords on the same channel. Obviously, none of the existing commercial programs uses this, but it opens the door to some heavyweight music software. The system is even clever enough to analyse the envelope's amplitude values and convert them into dynamics.

The Music 5000 supplied with the Universal is fully compatible with the Music 5000 supplied with the Hybrid Music System except for the addition of a special audio plug. When inserted, it re-channels the Music 5000's output to the BBC's internal speaker. How? Well, there is an external sound input on the BBC's 1 MHz bus. Not a lot of people know that.

In fact, the whole operation of the Universal is based around hooks which were designed into the BBC's sound operating system - that's what you call forward planning. The Universal works with all legally-written software; however, commands which poke the sound chip directly cannot be intercepted. The Island Logic Music System, Peter Beater's Music Games and Duette are the three main (and possibly only) programs which aren't compatible.

I initially had a problem running the software and traced this to the SpellMaster ROM, which is known to cause problems with other software sometimes (though it doesn't appear to interfere with the normal Hybrid Music System). A *UNPLUG command solved this.

The Universal makes a tremendous difference to all music software and it seems almost a crime to go back to the BBC's beep. It will, of course, work with all correctly written software which uses sound, not just music programs. As the package includes the Music 5000, you can upgrade to the full Hybrid Music System at any time.

The Universal will undoubtedly be of greatest benefit in education, for which it was primarily designed. Its ease of use coupled with its ability to play the excellent Music 5000 sounds without resource to any external amplification or music centre must make it an extremely attractive proposition. It's altogether an original, imaginative and fascinating product.