EMR MIDI Interface

ZX Computing

COMMAND PERFORMANCE Electro Music Research £129.95 (MIDI interface and software package) The MIDI interface connects to the back of the Spectrum and attached to it by a ribbon cable is the main unit. This fitted with five 5 pin din sockets, a MIDI IN, three MIDI OUT's, and a clock start/stop. These are for connection to a keyboard or syntheziser that is fitted with similar MIDI sockets. INSTRUMENTS I think a brief description of the suitable instruments is in order. Provided the instrument is titled with the MIDI interface it could operate in one of three ways: OMNI mode. All information over all 16 channels is accepted and acted on if the instrument can do so. POLY mode. Only information on the channel selected is accepted and acted on. MONO mode. Only one single voice is sounded per channel. There are 16 midi channels and depending on the mode, as many voices as the keyboard or synth can play can be sent on each channel. Keyboards, such as the JVC KB600 or Yamaha PSR series tend to operate in OMNI mode only and cost from around £500. Synths such as the Siel DK80, Korg POLY 600, Yamaha DX and Casio CZ series tend to operate in either omni or poly mode with only the most expensive, and curiously the CZs featuring mono. The CZ101 at around £250 is one of the cheapest and best instruments around for home use. EMR PERFROMER The performer program provided with the interface gives you the facilities of an eight track recording studio, except of course, the "music" is recorded as digital information. This can be replayed back through the instrument(s) and here there is more flexibility than on a tape recorder. Tracks can be shunted round to different instruments by altering the channel assignments, different patches and sounds can be tried and speeding up and slowing down doesn't cause the tone to shift from Paul Robeson to Pinky and Perky. Most functions are controlled from the main display and are cursor selected. Some options - save, load, tempo, channel, pitch, transpose etc need specific inputs and you are cryptically prompted for this. A tremendous selection of control features are provided and this is a very powerful tool indeed. Even bounce down of up to 7 tracks into one can be done. The main fault is that there is no "punch in" or "drop in" function and it is most frustrating to make a mistake at the end of a long sequence and then have to replay the lot! Due to this I would say that this program is essentially for the experienced or competent musician. I believe they market a step time program for those of us that are not so able and maybe we'll review that sometime. Two minor grumbles are that sometimes input prompts seem obscure until you become used to the program, and secondly it is possible to crash it unintentionally. If the display has been corrupted and a lot of music has been stored then it is a case of reload from the start. On the positive side, this is the only I/F and software which I have used that will trigger my RX21 drum unit. OVERALL A superb unit for the expert musician and the benefits far outweigh the negative comments. I have also used their DX7 (and TX7!) software and highly recommend this as well, I would like to see their composer and print program sometime!

ZX Computing

MICRO MUSIC This month we look at a Midi interface and an alternative system for Casio and Yamaha owners. In our last issue we featured a large section on Midi - Musical Instrument Digital Interface - but unfortunately there was one unit that didn't arrive in time for that article, but now, as promised, here is our assessment of it. ELECTRONIC RESEARCH MIDI INTERFACE This well made and robust unit, which is distributed by Rose Morris, consists of two neat units connected by a ribbon cable. The smaller of the two units connects to the Spectrum port at the back of the machine and the other box attaches, via a five pin Din plug, to a suitable keyboard. This is a good system as it enables Din leads to be swapped or connected without risk of damage to the computer when it is operating. I tested the interface with a SIEL DK80, KORG POLY 800 and a JVC KB600, the first two being true synthesizers and the JVC is a typical home keyboard with built in drums and rhythm unit. All these are in the £650.00 price bracket. Four sockets are provided on the computer. Clock Start/Stop, Midi In, and Two Midi Outs. Two flashing LEDs indicate data in/out state. SOFTWARE Five software programs are available from EMR, three are for the Yamaha DX7, one for the DX9 and one for general purpose use. As the Yamaha synths are expensive, professional instruments, we concentrated on the general purpose program. The PERFORMER is an exciting program aimed at the experienced musician, but which also has much to offer the less able as well. It simulates a full eight track tape recorder and operates in real time - ie. records what you play as you play it directly from the instrument. There are many features to this program, speed control, track merging, mono/poly modes, transportation, sync and full polyphonic recording of all Midi data including note events, dynamics, modulation controls and voice changes. The manual is well written and easily understood, and this, combined with a well laid out screen format, made me feel confident in the use of the program within about half an hour of starting. A screen dump is pictured elsewhere on this page. I put track one into record mode and, after an eight beat count which could be altered as desired, recorded a short bass line. The optional metronome kept me in time. I turned the metronome off, put track two into record mode and recorded a rhythm track as the first track was being replayed. Finally, I recorded on track three a lead line while listening to the other two tracks replaying. Each of the tracks could be assigned to individual Midi channels and the end result was quite impressive. A tape recorder to give similar results would cost over £1200.00! This interface was the only one out of all those tested which triggered the JVC drum unit and allowed external control over it. For the experienced player this is a very powerful tool indeed. and the ease of use and variety of re-record and editing facilities make it valuable for those of more limited ability, although as it is all in real time it can be frustrating. There are obviously limitations and one is the massive amount of memory used when full data recording mode is used, it could cut your recording time to as little as two minutes. However, in partial data recording mode compositions as long as fifteen/twenty minutes can be achieved. During a conversation with Mike Beecher of EMR I asked if he had plans to produce Microdrive/Wafadrive/Disk drive versions of the program as I consider the program much more useful with fast access. He was not certain at first but when I told him how much better it was when I'd converted it to run on the Technology Research disk drive he was very interested and I promised to supply him with a version to convert to all these systems (by now he may have decided to use it). Drop him a line if you are interested. Electronic Research, [redacted] (also available from Rose Morris distributors). EMR Interface (approx) £79.90, Performer Software £39.95.