Peter Worlock becomes a Mac virtuoso with Musicworks

From the moment the Macintosh was unveiled its outstanding graphics talents - typified by the icons and Macpaint - received all the attention. I suspect there are many who are unaware that the Mac has considerable sound facilities too. Now, after several pictorial software packages, comes Musicworks and, as has been the case before, the Mac has brought out the best in its programmers.

Musicworks allows you to compose and play back music compositions for up to four voices, adding a choice of nine instruments and a variety of ADSR envelopes. The bulk of these are preset with two exceptions - on the instrument list are two synthesisers and you can define your own waveform for these.

The choice of instruments is a little unadventurous - fairly easy waveforms like piano, trumpet, flute and chimes - but the sound output is of exceptionally good quality - as the catalogue of dozens of classical pieces demonstrates.

The real power of Musicworks comes from the composing facilities where the control is in keeping with the Mac philosophy of icons and mouse movements. Using an on-screen stave and a toolbox of notes and rests, you simply select the type of note you want, position it on the stave using the mouse, then draw in the next one. There are comprehensive editing facilities, too - Musicworks is a 'music processor' in the way that Macwrite is a word processor and Macpaint is a picture processor.

To wrap things up, you can also select a variety of time and key signatures.

If you have any facility for music, Musicworks is extremely easy to use. If you don't, then the going is a bit tougher. The major criticism of the package is that there is no way to sound a note immediately, so those of us who like to - or must - play it by ear are at a disadvantage. There are ways around the problem: you can select the current bar and have it repeat while you edit so you can hear what you're creating, but it's a fairly clumsy process.

If, however, you can read music, composing is a dream. Musicworks takes all the hard work out of the job, automatically making your piece fit the measure by inserting spaces where necessary, or typing notes across a bar. Using the cut and paste facilities makes repeated sections - especially bass lines - easy. Simply write the section once, copy it to the Clipboard, then paste it into your score where you like.

You work on one of the four parts at a time, but you can choose to hear either that voice alone, or any combination of the four together.

Having got the music right, you can then fool around with different instruments and envelopes to get the sound you want, and you can change your mind at any time. The Mac multi-tasks to a certain extent too, so you can have the music play while you edit.

The different instruments sound like their namesakes, and the preset ADSR envelopes are useful. They are presented in non-technical language so if you don't know anything about attack, decay, sustain, release, you can make sense of Soft-Short, for example. In addition, there are two percussive sounds.

If you're a non-music-reading musician, a second composing option might be better. This is the Grid, which works like the traditional stave but doesn't require knowledge of crotchets, dotted minims and the like. Down one side of the grid is a piano keyboard and filling in a square next to your chosen key will create the correct note. If you know your way around a keyboard, the Grid will work well for you.

Finally, when everything is the way you want it, you can print out the score showing all or any of the four parts.

The illustrations on this page were produced using a Brother M10009. The Mac is only designed to drive Apple's Imagewriter, but various products allow you to drive Epson compatibles. We used Epstart from P&P Micros (0706-217744) as a software driver. However, we've not been able to get other applications on the Mac to drive the Brother with Epstart. This may be because there are two versions of the printer; one doesn't support the no-parity protocol demanded by the software.

P&P also sells the Hanzon serial board for the Epson RX-80 and MAC Epson Connection for all dot-matrix Epsons. We'll be taking a much closer look at these in the near future.

While the actual sound output of Musicworks doesn't compare with what can be achieved with some of the music packages available for the Commodore 64 or the BBC, as a way of using a computer to create music it is outstanding. The combination of the Mac's hardware facilities and the imagination of the programmers has created a program that is fun to use, and a powerful tool for serious musicians.

Features 4/5
Documentation 4/5
Performance 5/5
Overall value 4/5