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Music 2000 (Reviews)

In the dim dark recess of my past I was a musician. I was a chorister and a flautist. I have been in bands, as drummer, bass player and vocalist. I have also been a session singer for other bands. I knew how to read music. But I cannot compose.

Which makes me the perfect choice to take a butcher's at Music 2000 from CodeMasters.

Put simply, Music 2000 is a program that lets you stick precomposed bits of music together to create something new. It's very similar to what a lot of dance acts do when they mix together loops of music, playing around with the order, speed and so on. And on first glance, that's exactly what it is. I managed to put together a dance track in about 2 hours, then spent another 3 tweaking it until I was happy(ish) with it. Simple really.

Back when I first became interested in computer music the digital standard was an Amiga format called the MOD. Players were written to take advantage of the four digital channels that the Amiga supported, and a whole subculture of computer nerd was created who had the ability to create something of beauty using four tracks and sampled sounds. Games were scored using this new technology, and all of a sudden you could get almost-single quality music out of your computer, a fact not lost of the Bitmap Brothers when they sampled and remixed 'Betty Boo Doin' the Do' from vinyl to MOD format and dumped it into a game.

MODs were created by creating a four channel song using sound samples played one after the other, with the tonal value changed by modifying the replay speed giving a range of different notes from the same sample. This was a revolution in computer music, since you no longer had to sample each of the notes from a piano - now you could sample one and change the apparent note by playing with the sample itself.

Where Music 2000 differs is in the way that songs are built up. Whereas with a MOD you would build up the song note by note, Music 2000 uses the concept of 'riffs', collections of notes put together to create sample loops. Working entirely in 4:4 time, the smallest riff, or basic building block you can have is 4 beats long and one channel 'wide'. Each sample must be played individually on a single channel, but with 99 channels to work with, it is unlikely you will run out.

What this effectively means is that to create a song, you must first create a series of riffs, building each riff up from component samples, playing around with the note placement within the riff to create the effect or the melody you desire. riffs themselves can be up to 8 bars long and contain up to 8 sample channels, allowing a remarkable amount of freedom in creating basic song blocks.

However, if like me you are entirely non-musically creative, this package comes complete with more than 1000 pre-created riffs, several thousand samples, and some rather well done sample songs, with guest appearances from LeftField and GrooveRider. LeftField have a very particular style to their music, and it is interesting to see it in it's basic form, showing how the song is constructed from it's component sample loops, and how riffs have been created to fill a certain need within the song.

The inbuilt riffs though contain such a vast array of musical styles that you can create almost anything with just these. As an example, I created a dance track (~2.5Mb) using just the supplied loops, with only minor modification of a couple of riffs to suit what I was trying to achieve. It is by no means a good track - but it was fun creating it. As a counterpoint, I tried creating another track (~2.3Mb) using a different style - which wasn't entirely successful. But it sure was a lot of fun!
The World View of HouseStuff

At first glance using the package can appear daunting, and the usual array of muscle-memory responses don't seem to work - menus pop up in odd places, dialogues aren't resizeable, and listening to samples or riffs within the selection dialogue can be a little awkward. For example, the main riff selector is brought up by pressing F6, showing all the riffs available. It took me a little while to figure out that the horizintal scrollbar moved between riff lists, not something made apparent in the manual.

Playing riffs took a little while to figure out as well, and after a quick trip back to the manual I found that by pressing F1 whilst the mouse was over a riff would play that riff. My first thought had been to right-click on it and select 'play'. The two riff palettes that you will most use are the main program one (selected with F6) and the user palette, containing all the riffs you've already used in your song (select with F5). Now, the obvious thought would be that in the user palette, pressing F1 over a riff name would play that riff, same as in the main palette. This is not the case though - you must right-click and select 'play riff'.

There are a number of areas within the program I haven't yet managed to fully explore - not least of which is the riff editor. I have played with this function only in a limited manner. Every time I try creating my own riffs I get very quickly disillusioned. Mind you, that's because I know I can't compose, not because the editor is particularly difficult.
The Video Editor

CodeMasters have gone to great lengths to ensure this program is easy to use. Each of the major creation sections that I have used - song and riff - have both a program palette, containing all the riffs or samples within the program, and a user palette, containing the samples or riffs you have already used, giving you quick access to already used components.

Also built in is the ability to sample direct from CD or from your microphone, along with a competent sample editor. Most usual functions are included, such as filters, the ability to change the volume envelope, along with a sample mixer, which as the name suggests mixes two samples together.

There is a lot more built in to this program that I have not touched upon, such as the Video Editor, the multiuser 'Music Jam' that lets people collaborate in realtime over LAN or Internet and support for MIDI devices. All around this package is remarkably useful, and is much more powerful a music creation tool than it first appears.

- posted by cro on 27.08.01
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