What does a music editor do? What can it be used for?

A music editor should let you, the composer, enter music scores quickly and easily and allow the music to be played back in varying ways, particularly where timing and/or speed is critical.

System Software's package is designed for this purpose, and provides some interesting extras. Once the program had loaded, which was difficult, it asked for the key of the music, the tempo and number of voices (maximum three). It divides the number of notes available to each voice so that when three voices have been picked you have just over 300 notes for each. This could be a major drawback if you want to enter long tunes.

After picking these parameters, you are presented with a well laid out editing mode, with which you enter the notes. At the bottom of the screen is a treble and bass clef, complete with the key signature picked earlier on, and at the top are the types of notes available (quavers, crotchets, dotted crotchets etc). These are picked by moving a box over the required note, a particularly nice method. To the right of this are the amplitude levels and a remarkable sixteen available envelopes, selected in the same way as the notes. The choice of envelopes allows, together with the fifteen levels of amplitude available, 31 variations in the quality of each note. A choice such as this makes possible much more creative use of the Beeb's sound capabilities.

The program provides sixteen envelopes to begin with, but any one of these can be changed to those you have designed and these can be saved and loaded back every time you need them. This is probably the nicest feature of this software.

The pitch of the note is picked by moving a cursor up or down the staves, and the note entered by pressing one of a choice of keys - for example, one for a sharp, one for a flat, another for a rest.

Bar lines help to make things clearer and are easily put in.

So once the tune is entered you are presented with the main menu. From this you can edit, play the piece, change envelopes, save the tune, save the envelope parameters or restart the program.

I found editing particularly laborious. For instance, you can't erase a whole phrase and erasing note by note takes a long time. But you can insert and delete notes, which is very useful. A tracking system allows you to see the amplitude or envelope, duration and pitch of the notes as you move the cursor over them - again very useful.

The Music Editor system allows creative use of the Beeb's sound capabilities, but the major drawback is the time and effort needed to enter and edit a complete tune, so this program is not for the easily bored.