The Acorn User Show, Barbican, London 24th - 26th July 1987

For users of the Music 500 and 5000 this was to be more of a showdown than a show. After several months of competitive and sometimes acrimonious advertising between newly divorced designers/manufacturers Hybrid and distributors Peartree Computers, this was to be the place where both were to stake their claim to the Music 500(0) market.

Peartree's campaign had something of a false start when Hybrid objected to their use of the name Music 7000 to promote their synthesiser and software package.

In the flurry of assertive press releases and advertising that followed neither side could bring itself to name the other - Hybrid referring to Peartree as 'the advertiser' and Peartree to Hybrid as 'other manufacturers'.

Both sides had chosen the Acorn User show to demonstrate the superiority of their product. Peartree promised to 'solve all the old problems' of the Music 5000 for almost half the price. Hybrid promised a host of new hardware and software to expand the system.

Over at the Peartree stand things looked a little awkward. Their somewhat defensive attitude was perhaps understandable in the light of their enforced change of product name (the advertised Music 7000 had now transformed into the Music 87) coupled with the fact that they hadn't actually got the software available as promised. They were reduced to blaming the software house writing the software for the delay, whilst trying to sound as if everything was really under control and that there was no reason not to buy the hardware.

A working demo of part of the new Peartree software was on display but perhaps the most interesting question - whether and how it could interface to AMPLE - could not be answered by the staff on the stand.

Over at the Hybrid stand things looked a lot more promising. Although, as usual, it was difficult to do more than peer over someone else's shoulders at Chris Jordan amidst a stack of hardware, the promised MIDI interface and amplifier were there - though there was little to learn by looking at them.

More details could be gleaned, however, from a glossy eight page hand-out which was distributed at the show and had details of all the new hardware.

The Music 2000 MIDI interface is housed in the standard Music 500(0) sized case with three LEDs on the front. These indicate activity on the three MIDI output channels which, along with a fourth pulse clock output, have sockets at the back of the unit. The Music 2000 connects to the back of the Music 5000 via a ribbon cable and draws its power from the computer.

The software driving the MIDI interface is loaded as a module into the Studio 5000 environment and allows up to 32 MIDI voices to be controlled via AMPLE. New AMPLE words allow the assignment of voices and parts to attached MIDI instruments and the control of the instrument's settings.

The Music 2000 on the stand was hooked up to a Roland CZ505 drum machine but there seemed to be a lack of music software to demonstrate its integration with the Music 5000.

The Music 1000 amplifier (again in a Music 500(0) sized case) seems to have been designed with school users in mind, providing three headphone outputs in addition to its 8 watt outputs for speakers. At the show it was being used as a pre-amp for a larger amplifier via an output designed also to feed into tape recorders and mixing desks.

The only disappointment was the absence of the waveform/envelope designer which was not ready for the show and for which no release date or price was given.

Printout from the new Staff printing programme was to be seen, and was being offered to Keyboard 4000 owners as an upgrade for the 'nominal' fee of £5.00 (see review elsewhere in News & Reviews section).

The AMPLE Programmer's Guide was not available at the show, but was promised for September. Pilgrim Beart's COSMIX album of AMPLE music on disc was being used for most of the demonstrations with the man himself helping behind the stand.

The prices of the new Hybrid products (including VAT and P&P) are: