Commodore's Music Maker kit contains a 24-note overlay plastic keyboard, a program disk or cassette, and a brief manual. The keyboard offers a brilliant alternative to the expensive, professional stuff, with the advantage of having no electrical connection to the computer. This ingenious device sits on top of your C64 keyboard, the action of pressing a keyboard key is transferred to the 'qwerty' key underneath.

The software is fairly straightforward, and you should find it easy to get to grips with. Most of the functions and operations are selected from the function keys, accessible through a cut-out in the overlay keyboard. The screen displays the various modes at the top, while the notes scroll across the stave as you play.

As editing of your music is restricting to deleting the last note played, you can't go back and correct a note in the middle of a composition. At this point, all the notes are assigned the same length, but selecting the 'time' option allows you to tap in the rhythm on any key. When you are satisfied with the rhythm you can play back the whole sequence in full.

Load and save options are provided, and a number of rhythm and bass accompaniments are also thrown in to let you produce a really polished performance.

In conclusion, an excellent package aimed at making music simple. The overlay keyboard is definitely a winner; especially when you consider the price of the overall package.

Stave notation: yes Record modes: step MIDI: no Edit rhythm: yes Load/Save: yes Printer: no Tempo: yes Transpose: no Tuning: no Edit sounds: no Graphics: 8 Easy use: 6