Speaker Sounds & Music On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the sounds from the PC's speaker is 1, but if you don't have a sound card, the music files in the MUS_SPKR directory are better than nothing. The PC speaker normally can only play one tone at a time, meaning that music cannot have chords. Pianoman was the first music program to try to get around this; it alternates between notes quickly to simulate chords, but everything sounds like honky-tonky music as a result. VMUSIC makes the speaker play true chords and gives the best sound you can get on the speaker, although this is still far from the quality of a sound card. -----Music [123_BACH] 1-2-3 Bach! (Moran, Nancy; $0) contains twelve musical selections by Johann Sebastian Bach transcribed with Pianoman. [ALLELUI] Alleluia is a text file containing the words to popular Christmas carols for sing-alongs. Needs to be printed at 12 characters-per-inch. [ANTHEMS] Anthems (Moran, Nancy; $1) is a set of five musical selections that have been used or suggested as alternate national anthems of the United States. Also included is "Stars and Strips Forever" by John Philip Sousa. Created with Pianoman. [BACHED] BachEd (Poschman, Warren; $5) is a set of songs that can be played with Polyphonic Music 1.20. The songs include: "Concerto for Two Violins" by J. S. Bach, "German Dance" by K. D. von Dittersdorf, and "Edelweiss". [BUGLE] Bugle Calls (Sander, Louis F.; $0) lets you play any of 20 well-known bugle calls from a menu or the DOS command line. What better way to let people in your office know that the mail has arrived or that a conference has been called? [CHEYEN] Cheyen is a collection of 17 authentic Cheyenne Indian gospel songs with words and music, transcribed with Pianoman. [CHR_INTL] Christmas International (Moran, Nancy; $0) is a set of 15 Christmas carols from around the world plus two musical works by J.S. Bach and Handel. Lyrics for at least one verse appear onscreen and complete lyrics are in an accompanying text file for printing out. This is a very interesting (and well done) break from the usual Christmas carols. [CHRISTMS] Christmas Concert (Moran, Nancy; $0) is a set of 23 different Christmas carols. The music was produced using Pianoman. The music is well above average complexity and sophistication and songs vary from two to five parts. [DANCES] Dances (Leman, Wayne; $0) is a collection of 31 folkloric and classical dance tunes. Music plays through the computer's speaker. [GOSPEL] Gospel Songs (Leman, Wayne; $0) is a collection of 204 Old Time Gospel songs created with Pianoman. There is a four-part harmony for each song. Words for songs appear on the screen while music plays through the computer's speaker. [HAIL] Hail (Sander, Louis F.; $0) plays "Hail to the Chief". This version was taken from the original 1812 sheet music for the song. [HARMONY] Harmony (Devoe, Leonard N.; $0) includes 16 four-voice musical compositions that were made with Pianoman. The majority of the songs are works known to many people, Chopin, Joplin, Anderson, Brahms and Beethoven. [JPLAY] Jplay (Jewl Tronics; $?) plays five different tunes through your PC's speaker, and shows a graphic representation of the notes on an EGA/VGA monitor. The different songs are accessed via the escape key. Comes complete with Pascal source code. [JMM] JR Music Machine ($0) is an outstanding music program for the PCjr. If you still have an old junior around (and at PsL, we still get calls from people who do), this is a must-have. [MUZAK] Muzak (Priven, Aaron; $?) lets you select a category of music and then play songs from that category. The words are displayed for some of the songs while the music plays. [PRAISE] Old Hymns of Praise (Wayne Leman; $0) is a collection of 47+ old hymns of worship. [BEETHOVN] PianoMan Does Beethoven! (Moran, Nancy; $0) contains five keyboard works by Ludwig von Beethoven: Minuet in G-major, Theme and Six Variations on an Aria from the Opera La Molinara, Theme and Seven Variations on the National Song ("God Save the King"), Adagio cantabile from Sonata Pathtique and Adagio sostenuto from the Moonlight Sonata. [BAROQUE] Pianoman Goes Baroque! (Moran, Nancy; $?) contains ten keyboard works by four popular but now lesser-known composers of the Baroque period: Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777), and Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788). This Baroque music holds up better to the vibrato that Pianoman uses to simulate chords. It cannot actually play two tones at the same time, so it creates "chords" by quickly alternating between the notes of the chords. [PIANOMN] This is a collection of tunes done with Pianoman (see below). The quality is excellent, given the limitations of the PC's built-in speaker. [POPULAR] Popular Old Songs (Leman, Wayne; $10) is a collection of 24 old popular songs, such as Auld Lang Syne, My Old Kentucky Home, Yellow Rose of Texas and many more. Music is played through the PC's speaker. [PSLMUSIC] PsL Music 1.0 (Bernt Figaro; $0) lets you select a tune from a menu and then plays it through your pc speaker. The music uses polyphonics to make the speaker sound like it is playing chords instead of a single note. Sixty tunes are included. [RESURECT] Hymns of Resurrection (Wayne Leman; $0) is a collection of religious hymns. Most songs have a four-part harmony. Words to the songs appear on screen while music plays through the computer's speaker. [ROUSER] Rousing Songs (Sander, Louis F.; $12) includes 35 songs and melodies, from Alouette to Yankee Doodle, played on the PC's speaker. These seem awfully weak in this age of sound cards for the PC, but the military bugle calls may be of interest to some. QB 4.5 source code included. [SPIRITL] Traditional Spirituals (Leman, Wayne; $0) is a collection of 26 traditional spiritual songs.. Songs were transcribed with Pianoman and are played through the PC's speaker. Words for songs appear on the screen while the music plays. [TUNES] Tunes (De Palma, John R.; $0) is a collection of songs that do not require a sound card. Included are Here Comes the Sun, Star Spangled Banner, Mountain King, Happy Birthday, Toccata & Fugue in D. -----Music Keyboards & Composers [MMV30] Melody Maker 3.0 (Datagen Software Designs, reg. fee: $12) lets you create ANSI music files. ANSI music is supported by many BBSs and comm program. Melody Maker features support for the PC speaker and Sound Blaster/Adlib compatible sound cards, three on-screen modes of playback, the ability to save in different formats, and more. [MEL_MSTR] Melody Master (Efros, Alexei A. ASP; $10-$50) is a one-voice music editor that lets you enter notes on a staff and output the finished song in a format that can be played through the PC's speaker or translated to formats usable by Pascal, C, or BASIC. A large collection of music files is included. [MRORGAN] MrOrgan (Lutton, Mark; $?) is a pop-up organ - a keyboard music program that lets you play while you work. [MUSIC_ED] Music Editor (Morgan, Bill; $?) is basically a text editor which plays music. Like PM, music is transcribed as text rather than by "playing" the notes on the keyboard as in Pianoman. An option allows you to covert the text into BASIC commands for adding to BASIC programs. A sample text file has several different music files to try. Although this is not a polyphonic program, the sample programs are well done for single-voice compositions. [MTSII] Music Transcription System II (Kuhn, William B.; $16-$25) is a graphics-based music editor that lets you enter the melody for songs by "playing" the computer keyboard or by placing notes on a staff. It will semi-automatically enter the harmony. It will also let you enter the words to songs and when you play the song, a "bouncing ball" will point to the words as the corresponding note plays. It has special support for MIDI and for Tandy 1000 and PC 1000 computers. It will print musical scores on Epson compatible printers. The program supports songs of up to 550 notes long with lyrics, guitar chords, and basic harmony in any of 15 different key signatures, 12 different time signatures, and 5 different clefs, but only one clef at a time. (The author is no longer in business and does not support this program.) [MUSUTIL] Musical Utilities 4.0 (Armada Software; $20) is a collection of several useful musical programs. The main feature is the Frequency-Note converter, which will convert either a frequency to the nearest musical note, or if you input a frequency it will determine the closest note and octave. It also features a table of musical instrument ranges and a key transposition calculator. The last feature is a staff paper printing routine, which will printout music staff paper with 9, 10, 12, or 18 sets of lines per page. [NBARON] Note Baron (Forben Software Engineering; $25) lets you compose and play (but not save) up to 10 bars of polyphonic (multi-voice) music. Three polyphonic compositions on disk can be played too. [PCMUSIC] PC Music Maker 1.1 (Ronald L. Crabb, reg. fee: $8) demonstrates the capabilities of the PC speaker to make music and sound effects. Several songs and sound effects have been included and sound files may be created and edited using any ASCII editor or by a function included with the program. [PC_MUSIC] PC-Musician & Music2 ($0) are two programs that will allow you to compose one-voice music on the screen with graphics. Fun just to play with. [PIANO] Piano (Abramson, R.; $?) turns the PC keyboard into a keyboard instrument. Flats, normal notes and sharps follow one another on the keyboard, which is not conducive to serious playing. There is no documentation, but all instructions appear on-screen. [PIANO2] Piano2 1.0 (John De Palma, reg. fee: $0) lets you play musical notes using your mouse. QBasic source code is included. [PIANOMAN] PianoMan (Rubenking, Neil J. ASP; $25) turns your PC keyboard into a piano keyboard. It lets you compose and record music and play it back within the program or create self-playing EXE files, combining up to four different "voices" into one. [POLYPHON] Polyphonic Music (GrigaSoft Productions; $20) lets you play music on the PC in three-"voice" arrangements. Like Vmusic, PM has no keyboard-playing method of entering the notes. Instead, the notes must be written into a text file which is then compiled and played by PM. PM is much the same as Vmusic, with the added abilities to play music in a batch file or in C programs (for which C code is included) while awaiting a keypress. [REMAC] REmac (Zobell, Richard E.; $0) will play Macintosh sound files on your PC's speaker. A 286 or faster required. [SNGEDIT] Songedit (Campbell, George; $10) is a music composition editor. You can even let your PC compose its own music. [VMUSIC] VMusic (Holden, Ted; $?) was the first true polyphonic (multi-tone) shareware music playing program for the PC. This is the best music you can get on a PC without special equipment. -----Sounds [SND_EFF1, SND_EFF2, SND_EFF3, SND_EFF4, SND_EFF5, SND_EFF6, SND_EFF7] Sound Effects 7 (Smith, David; $10) is a collection of over 80 EXE's that play sound effects and voice clips through the PC's speaker. These are ideal for use in batch files for an audible system response. Also included are pop-up TSR sound effects and a replacement for the system beep. -----Digitized Speech & Sounds [COMPTALK] CompTalk (Forben Software Engineering; $25-$30) uses digitized spoken words stored in individual files to create speech. Approximately 100 different words are on the disk; they are generally suited for use in batch files to give computer usage instructions. [DVPT30] Digitized Voice Programmer's Toolkit 3.0 (Farpoint Software, reg. fee: $52-72) helps you create, edit, and use digitized voice recordings. [IFWT11] IfWait 1.1 (Tessler, Gary S.; $19) controls a speaker or parallel port device such as the TNT IFBUZZ buzzer to allow sending audible feedback to users. [MT] (Peter Thieberger, reg. fee: $23) is a metronome which can also be used for tuning instruments. [PCSTUDI] PC-Studio 1.0 (Anabicis; $15) is a digitized sound file player that does not require a sound card. The sounds are very good and clear on our test PC's speaker. A full-screen version lets you adjust volume, speed and other elements. A command line version lets you play sound files from within batch files. For example, after doing a CHKDSK, you could play the included HAL sound file that says: "I'm completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly." [PCTALK] PC-Talk (Creative Software Sounds Inc.; $30) lets you reproduce digitized human speech through the PC speaker. It comes with a library of over 100 words and phrases suitable for business and personal applications. The voice command can easily be added to any batch file or menu program. A PCX display utility is also included, for creating talking slide shows. 512K is required, and a hard drive is recommended. EGA/VGA is required for the slide show capabilities. [PIANOINV] Piano Invaders (Rose Labs, reg. fee: $39) is an action game which familiarizes you with musical notes and the piano keyboard. You can print a piano keyboard overlay which can be taped to the PC keyboard. [PSYPIANO] Psychic Piano (Infoscape; $15) is a database of over 650 songs in 30 categories including Broadway musicals, American and folk, Geographic, Names, Movies, Christmas and more. You can search songs by notes (with auto-transposition), title, and category, or you can play the Title-That-Tune game that is included to test your musical knowledge. You can also browse through the database in alphabetical order and play the first few bars from each of the songs through the PC's speaker. [QPROSND] Sounds for Quattro Pro 3. (BC Design; $0) is a sampler of sound files which can be played under Quattro Pro 3.+ [SAMP_02] Sampler #2 (BC Design; $12 per disk) is a sampler of sound files which have been converted to play under Borland's Quattro Pro. Sounds included are "Charge!", "I'll be back", and "Hallelujah". [SW_TALK] SW-Talk (Creative Software Sounds Inc.; $30) lets you reproduce digitized human speech through the PC speaker. This package is akin to PC-Talk, but contains spoken phrases of particular interest to shareware authors. [SPCH_DIG] Speech Digitizer (Jones, Alan D.; $0) contains a schematic and parts list for building a speech digitizer, along with programs to record and play back, including assembler source code, and an explanation of the theory involved. A sample recording of "Daisy" (a.k.a.: HAL's theme song from the movie "2001") demonstrates the fidelity that can be expected. The sound is noisy, but very distinct and natural sounding. [TSR_FX] TSR_FX (Smith, Dave & Cravener, Bill; $0) is a 1k TSR that lets you hit various hot keys to generate different sounds, such as birds, laser blasts, etc. Also included are small TSR's to speed up the keyboard and to add key click sounds.