Pocket Synth 1.1

Now as I am sure you are all well aware of by now your Pilot is not the most musically gifted of machines , so what is a "Synthesiser" doing on it? It is going to be tad difficult to get the Pilot to start reproducing full orchestral sounds complete with Dolby NR and Surround sound, despite how wonderful a gadget it may be in many other respects. Despite all this the author of Pocket Synth makes a brave attempt at a good idea.

When started you are presented with a screen displaying various functions:

We will deal with each of them in turn before coming back to a musicians overview of the whole thing (even the ED has to admit he is not one when it comes to Music so an external tester who knows her semi-brieves from her minims was brought in :-))

Note Selector

This is a line of boxes enabling you to select the type of note you wish for (ie its length). There are 7 boxes, six of which cover the major notes, with the other one acting as the "dot" which appears above some notes to make them half as long again. It is all fairly basic but it surfices for entering simple to medium tunes.

Keyboard

A rather nice little representation of an octave on a piano or keyboard is used as the main input form and enables some extent of free hand playing. The first key is middle c and the rest work from there. You have the option of using sharps (displayed in the same way as a piano). As you enter the notes on the keyboard they appear as the tunes "score" in the text entry lines.

Octave Selector

This enables you to switch between three different octaves - not amazingly sensitive, but one would imagine that has more to do with the hardware limitations of the Pilot's buzzer than anything else.

Tempo

A line with a small "bar" on it is used to control the tempo at which your musical masterpieces are played back. The further right the bar is moved the faster the tempo, and conversly, the further left, the lower the tempo. This can provide some rather amusing renditions of various creations if little else.

Text Lines for manual note entry

This is a very good idea for people who wish to use this program on a serious basis. Once you have mastered what the various codes mean when "suffixed" onto the end of the note sign you will probably find this the fastest method of input. It also means you can prepare tunes on your PC using the coding and then transfer them via Memopad and the cut & paste functions to Pocket Synth. Perhaps someone will write a conduit to make this more practical?

Rest Option

Allows your tiny musician beside the buzzer inside the Pilot a breath every now and again :-))

From my own point of view I have little use for the application. It is a great laugh for messing about on now and again, although not something you can do on public transport unless you want to face a lot of annoyed fellow travellers (the Pilot's buzzer is not the most relaxing of sounds at 8:00am). However, as a musician or producer, you may find it extremely useful should you be caught somewhere with a need to jot down a bar or two and test it as well.

One or two of the comments the author has listed on his Internet page point to this market for the product.

Technically, the product is superb; to manage to get even the slightest of sounds out of the Pilot in a controlled fashion is a feat in itself and to base an entire program on it truly is an excellent achievement. Tunes, when replayed, are certainly recognisable, and usually quite acceptable for a small test. Our tester commented:

"The wealth of functions, on so small a machine, was amazing. Although it is difficult to master it quickly, after one has had time to explore all that is available, it becomes clear this could be a very useful and clever tool."

For information and downloads see: Eric Cheng's Homepage

To mail the author: Eric Cheng

All information contained within the magazine is ©PMN Publications 1996.