It is a pity that the rather brash, somewhat tasteless adverts for the Island Logic Music System strike a bad note in this otherwise excellent software package for the Beeb. The style continues in the small introductory leaflet and is a discordant contrast with the superbly-written manual.

After using the system for some time, I can honestly say that it is the best music software package for the Beeb, using the internal sound chip, that I have ever seen. Icons and windows are used to great effect, and make it a joy to use. The main manual is excellent and the graphics are impressive. The system has five major options, the first of which enables 1-4 part songs (the 4th being percussion) to be composed, edited and played, as individual parts or combined. The screen displays the voice being edited at the time in normal stave notation, and the insertion or deletion of notes/rests is very easy. Repeats, first/second time bars, triplets, etc. are all possible, and a large number of control keys are available to speed up the process.

Swapping to the other lines to check alignment is simple, and the volume and envelope can be modified for each note if desired.

The second option converts the keyboard to a quite sophisticated musical keyboard and part of the screen shows controls similar to a tape recorder. A part can be recorded, then played back whilst the next track is added. The graphics display indicates how much 'tape' is left, and there is even a tape counter, fast forward and rewind, and a moving metronome icon. The complete recording can then be saved, and loaded into both the editor for modification, and the printer for a printed score.

The third option allows musical files to be linked together to produce lengthy compositions. This option is only available on the disc version and enables up to 10 files to be sequenced together in wup to 16 different steps. The 'linker' file can then be saved as a separate file. A minor criticism here is that it is impossible to move back from the 'sequence screen' directly to the 'file screen'.

The fourth option allows a printout of the musical files, an example of which is shown. This is of the best quality I have seen to date, including even the printout of other systems costing hundreds of pounds! Any or all of the parts can be printed in either high or low (slightly quicker) resolution mode and the parts can be aligned or non-aligned, the latter alternative saving some paper. There was one problem: as I had set my Epson RX80 to generate a linefeed character, rather than trying to remember *FX6 every time, and the dumpout also generates one, double line-spacing occurred. There ought to be a choice available within the program.

The final option allows the pitch and envelope parameters to be loaded, altered and saved, with superb graphics. Windows and icons are again used extensively and the overall effect is to make sound creation simple. Frequency modulation is programmable, and the sounds thus created can be saved, then loaded from within the editor or keyboard options. A minor improvement would be to enable the sound and envelope graphs to be dumped on the printer.

The manual is very well illustrated, with summaries at the back to show all the command key functions. It would be extremely difficult to improve on this package without introducing an external keyboard or sound production hardware. It is extremely 'user-friendly', and sensible default values are included everywhere to save unnecessary typing.

Excellent, but the advertising copywriter ought to be replaced.