Music Machine at Spectrum Computing - Sinclair ZX Spectrum games, software and hardware

Your Sinclair Issue 12, Dec 1986 page(s) 36

FAX BOX
Device: Ram Music Machine
Price: £49.95
Publisher: Ram Electronics
Contact: Ram Electronics (Fleet) Ltd, Unit 16, Redfields Industrial Park, Redfield Lane, Church Crookham, Aldershot, Hants. GU13 0RE

The Ram Electronics Music Machine is less of a sound sampler, more a way of life. At least, that's what it feels like after you've used it for a while. It's more of a MIDI equipped Sound Sampling Sequencer, actually. You can sample sounds and sequence them, at normal pitch like drums, or sequence them in a piece of music, on a musical stave. All the facilities are very easy to use, and have a lot of potential for musicians, as well as complete novice users.

All the functions are accessed by single key presses, indicated by the Main Menu. There's a superb editing facility whereby you can cut the sounds to fit your memory and reverse or fine edit them via the zoom function. The Tune Editor allows you to write music on a stave, and play it back using on the sounds in memory. The Drum Editor enables you to make drum patterns on a sixteen beat bar, just like professional drumboxes. Sampling is easy, with a visual display of the sound as you're sampling it, removing the possibility of overloading and distorting the sample.

Mike: I liked the on-board drum sounds, but what I might do when I remix the track is sample some of my friend's drum kit instead. That sort of thing's very easy to do, too. Being able to play the keys on the Speccy like drum pads is fun, although they're a bit close together for really fast playing. Oh, and I don't like the fact that you have to type a long line of 1's if you want patter 1 to repeat over and over again!

Kay: Being able to play the sounds from a MIDI keyboard would be great fun, but we couldn't get it to go. I haven't got a synth anyway, but I might like one in the future, so it's very nice to have it there. It's a good all round machine. For fifty quid you can't go wrong. Brilliant.

WE'VE GOT A SPECTRUM*

YS MAKES IT BIG SPECIAL

Three months ago, Black Mist, a band from Manchester, sent YS a demo tape containing songs they'd made using a SpecDrum. Impressed? Not half. But could the Spectrum catapult a band to fame and fortune? And could you, with the use of your favourite computer, use the Ram Electronics Music Machine, Cheetah SpecDrum and Sound Sampler, and the Data-Skip Video Digitiser to put together a package that would impress a record company? Only one way to find out. So, one day last month a Black Mist descended on YS. Resident muso, Phil South, reports. Photos by Tony Sleep.

8.30am - I arrive at Castle Rathbone and slap myself awake. Spot two shady looking figures dressed in black, silhouetted against the wall. They're carrying guitars and are accompanied by an evil looking smurf... must be the band. I take a hard swallow and approach them. Black Mist introduce themselves as Mike and Kay. The smurf says nothing, and I leave him to it. They seem friendly enough, though. We work our way down into the dungeon and put the coffee on.

9.02am - A couple of cuppas later I'm feeling more human, and Black Mist are looking more chipper too. The smurf doesn't have any, so he's looking as miserable as ever.

9.25am - A phone call to our local friendly Turnkey Shop, in Percy Street, secures the loan of a 4-track recorder for the day. Phew! I leave Mike setting up the gear (and Kay searching for some paracetamol 'cos she's got a headache) and nip round to Turnkey. The 4-track's a brand spanking (ow) new Yamaha MT1X tape recorder. Sounds technical? Not really. If you can use a Spectrum, you can use a 4-track tape deck. I sign in blood and leg it back.

9.28am - After more coffee we connect the 4-track into the setup and turn the power on. Good start. Nothing blows up. Okay, let's boot up the Speccy. We resolve to try the Ram Electronics Music Machine first, plugging it into the user port and loading the driving software. It doesn't take long, and soon we're listening to the demo tune. Mike listens closely to the drum sounds. He's a veteran SpecDrum owner, and looks suitably impressed. "That's not bad. I like that. Can we program it?" I select the Drum Editor screen and tap a few pads experimentally. Mike taps in one of his own rhythms and we listen to the bar over and over again. It sounds good so we resolve that it'd make a good start for our tape. By now it's after ten so we have a sound check and prepare to lay down the first track.

10.12am - We begin to record the first sounds, the drums from the Ram Music Machine, onto track 1 of the 4-track. Mike programs a rhythm that has a lot of cowbell in it. "Hmm. Why do sampled cowbells always sound like saucepans being hit with a wooden spoon?" he says, wincing. So, we decide to sample a sound and incorporate it with the sequence. After much experimentation, we settle on the sound we get from tapping the TV screen with the tip of a pair of scissors. It takes a few seconds to set up the Music Machine to sample the sound. Then, with a bit of judicious editing a new cowbell is born, and not a vet in sight.

11.00am - Mike wants a special drum effect (called a 'fill-in' in the trade, 'cos it fills a gap). He's going to do this fill using the SpecDrum, so he sets up the pattern he wants, using a specially edited kit from the Kit Editor, and triggers it at the appropriate beat. The speed of the two drum patterns is easily synchronised by matching the beats per minute figure, in this case 140. Then when the end of the bar comes around again, press the button and brrrum buh bum bum ba bup bup bup b-b-b-b-b', instant 'thumbs aloft worra nice geezer' Phil Collins!

11.52am - In the absence of a bass guitar, we decide to do the bass line on the Casio CZ-101. Nice little synthesiser the CZ-101; digital, cheap at £300, and lovely sound, what more do you need? We thumb the preset buttons and select a bass sound. Hmm, not quite right. I change the sound a little to make it more percussive and thumpy, like a guitar. In the mix it sounds just like the real thing. I play the riff through the entire track just to try it out, and record it so we can hear it back. It sounds so neat (breathe on fingernails and polish on shirt) Mike decides to leave it in.

12.30pm - Kay's been working on a lyric all this time, with the title of 'Too Late Mary'. She writes her lyrics as poems, with no thought of scanning the words to fit specific lines, preferring to mate the words to the music as she sings it.

1.45pm - We break for lunch. It's been a long morning, and Kay and Mike's pasties have been crushed to debris (by a fat lady on the bus).

2.30pm - Much refreshed, we troop back into the studio and link Mike's guitar into the system. A few experimental wangy twangs later, we have it sounding right in the headphones, and Mike's left strumming his guitar while I steal Kay away to the video room. We're going to lace together images from the digitiser to make a video to accompany the music; some stuff from old horror movies, Frankenstein and King Kong, plus some magazine pictures.

3.15pm - Mike has recorded the guitar track and we sit and listen to the finished 'backing track' (a track without the vocals and twiddly bits on) with looks of awe. It's amazing how different a piece of music sounds when you've put all the different parts in it. Having nodded approvingly at the quality, we commence the 'mixdown'. This is where you mix a track down in stereo onto another tape, and then play it back in stereo onto two tracks of the 4-track. You then have two tracks of the 4-track playing all the music you just had on four, leaving two tracks free for extra 'overdubs'.

4.10pm - Vocals time! Kay clears her throat and carefully positions the headphone strap into her hair. (Fashion hint: v. trendy pop stars use headphones upside down, so as not to ruffle their quiffs!) The searing vocal is fed, via the Ram Echo function to provide some 'slapback' echo, into the first of the spare tracks. Was Mary too late? Was it all her fault? Is she to blame? I dunno, but it sounds brilliant.

5.00pm - Mixdown! The final act in a recording session is to mix down your tape in stereo onto a 'master' tape. Mike looks worried. "I dunno. It sounds a bit rough to me." Maybe it's the 4-track, we're not used to it? "Possibly. I might have to redo it on my own 4-track." Well you could take the 4-track tape and the stuff and remix it, Paul Hardcastle style? Mike grins. He reckons it'd be a good idea.

5.55pm - A few piccies later, I'm helping Black Mist get their gear together. (Sniff) I even wave my hanky as they run up the street to get the bus!

If you want to hear how the Black Mist megamix turned out, you can hear it on this issue's Digi'T'ape. Their own demos, containing six of their hits including Dead Mouse, Shade Shade and Hurry Along Timmy can be obtained by sending a measly £1.25 (inc p&p) to Black Mist, Flat 3, 28 Catterick Road, Didsbury, Manchester, M20 0HJ. Cheap at half the price!

*and we're gonna use it!

REVIEW BY: Phil South, Michael Jones, Kay Ann Helen

Blurb: MULTITRACK? If you're not familiar with multitrack recording, let me explain. On a stereo tape recorder you have two tracks running side by side, one for each speaker. But some bright spark reasoned that if you made a recording head with four pickups instead of two, you could make an elementary multitrack tape recorder, like a scaled down version of the 24 track machines in pro recording studios. The upshot of all this is that you can record a voice for instance on one track, on the next track a guitar, on the next a bass, and on the last track a drum kit. Then you can play them back simultaneously, making it sound like they're all playing together! Brilliant, eh? Especially if you don't actually have a band at your disposal. Recording all the parts yourself, you can then hear them carefully blended together.

Blurb: ON THE RECORD Having written the next Number 1, what then? How do you approach a record company with your product? What do they want to see? We asked an A'n'R Man (talent spotter to you). "It's a common mistake for bands to send three songs which are all different, to sort of show off how versatile they are. This isn't what your average Artists and Repetoire Man wants to hear. He wants three songs which show the band can produce a recognisable style time after time. He will also, before he lets any band near a contract, want to hear them play live, even if it's just a rehearsal. A video is an asset, because it demonstrates that the band have an image they want to project, and can do so. Build up a relationship with one record company and, if you can blag your way through the receptionist, ask to see the A'n'R man personally. Most will agree to see you." What receptionists say to you off speaking to A'n'R men: "He's in a meeting..." (He's not. Try again.) "He's on the other line at the moment..." (They haven't got one.) "Can he call you back?" (He won't! You call him.) "He's gone to lunch..." (He has. Phone back.) "What was it concerning?" (Don't tell her. Say you'll call again.) "Could you send your tape to us?" (You might as well bin it.) "We like your stuff, please keep in touch..." (You're amateur.) "Can I take a message?" (No, you'll call back.)

Blurb: HOW TO MAKE A VIDEO In order to make a video using graphics from your Spectrum you must connect the output from the Speccy to the BNC (Video in) bayonet style plug at the back of the video recorder, taking the video signal from the user port, not the RF output which usually goes to the TV. (See diagram). The images were moved by two methods: 1 Using Andrew Pennell's Movin 'n' A'groovin' program from Your Spectrum (Issue 19), and 2, a specially written program by Max Phillips which flips four screens. The resultant sequences were videoed on a Ferguson Hi-Fi video recorder, and the track dubbed onto the soundtrack in Dolby stereo.

Blurb: GLOSSOLIA 4-Track: Tape recorder which can record on four tracks. Demo: Demonstration, especially of a band's rough tapes. Sound-Check: Quick test to see everything's working. Lay Down: To record an instrument on a track. Track: Either a channel on the tape recorder or a song. Sample: To digitally record a sound into the computer. Fill-in: A beat on the drums that fills a boring space. Drop-in: Add a short section to an already recorded track. Mix: To blend the tracks together. Remix: Re-blend already mixed track with new sounds. Mixdown: Mixing the four tracks into finished stereo tape. Riff: Any musical phrase. Digitiser: Scans TV picture and reproduces it as SCREEN$. Overdub: Record something whilst hearing previous track. Slapback: Strong echo with audible heavy repeats. Retrig: Retrigger; sound restarts when key pressed again.

Blurb: Name: Michael Jones Age: 20 Place of Birth: Cardiff When did you get your Speccy: January 86 in an effort to give up smoking. (No luck) Musical Influences: The Cure, Birthday Party, Big Flame, Three Johns. Why you use computers: Because there aren't many drummers in Cardiff, and it's quieter to use a drumbox. Name: Kay Ann Helen Jones Age: 21 Place of Birth: Cardiff Musical Influences: The Cure, Siouxie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen, Cocteau Twins. When did you get married: One year last August. What do you think about sampling: We must play the machine, not the other way around.

Transcript by Chris Bourne