ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER APRIL 1991
 
          MUSIC PRO VS. MUSIC MAKER  
         ^By:  Andy Frueh, Lima UG 
 
     This is the "music titan faceoff."  I've been asked to compare both TI's
MUSIC MAKER and ASGARD's MUSIC-PRO.  Why bother with the $18 Music-Pro when you
can have the relatively cheap Music Maker, which I've seen from $3 to about
$12? 
 
     Well, Music-Pro offers many of the advanced features that TI seemed to
have "forgot" to tell us about.  Music-Pro uses a very unique "compiler"
program that really has me sold on it.  More on this feature follows. 
 
     The one true advantage that Music Maker has over Music-Pro is that, being
a cartridge, it loads lightning quick.  Music-Pro does take a while to load,
but it is well worth a couple of minutes.  However, when looking at a program
that should let the user demand a lot from it, the speed factor can be ignored. 
 
     Even though you seem to have more control over the actual piece with Music
Maker, setting up all of the options is both too time consuming and way to
complicated for me.  I consider myself a guy of average intelligence, and the
Music Maker manual seems more complicated than the Editor/Assembler manual.
Most of you know what I mean!  It seems to me that this manual was written by
one programmer of the cartridge talking to another one!   This book was not
designed for "users", as ANY manual should be. 
 
     Both programs are identical in that you can see the score you are
currently working on, you can select a play mode, and adjust the speed of the
song.  Music Maker has more settings for the speed of the song, but Music-Pro
displays much more of the screen (which looks better, and helps a LOT in
finding a wrong note), and has a special "piano" mode, which lets you try
different notes BEFORE you place them on the screen.  Very handy when you want
to experiment! 
 
     Music Maker uses icons to select the various note lengths.  This may have
seemed like a wonderful idea, and it does make sense visually, but it is too
hard to write music that uses several different note lengths one after the
other.  You must keep moving the cursor back and forth from the icons to your
actual score.  With Music-Pro, you simply hold down the note key and it cycles
through all the various lengths. 
 
     If there is one thing with Music Maker that is very simple to do, it is
enter the actual note on the screen.  With this program, all you need to do is
move the note up and down the scale with the joystick.  With Music-Pro, you
need to press a key on the keyboard.  This means you must print out the diagram
showing which keys are which notes. 
 
     A very good and strong point of Music-Pro is the inclusion of examples.  I
feel that all utilities of this sort should include several examples, both as
aids in using the program, and as demonstrations of its power,  The sample
songs in Music-Pro demonstrate the program very well (by the way, if anyone
knows who did the examples, please tell me!  I'd like to credit this person!) 
 
     Both programs feature a hardcopy print out option.  This lets you print
out the score.  Music Maker requires that you have a Thermal printer (I suspect
that if you can get a disk copy of this program, you could use a sector editor
to change the default printer name.  Does anyone have such a copy of this
program?) which is now very obsolete.  The printout can't even display the
whole screen (the manual admits this).  With Music-Pro, you can use a "regular"
(dot matrix/EPSON combatible) printer and obtain copies of your whole song.
The only drawback is, you can only print out one voice of the three at a time. 
 
     Now, if any of you still thinks price outweighs all of this, here is the
one feature of Music-Pro that blows Music Maker out of the compitition.  The
compiler.  TI failed to use the full capabilities of its wonderful machine!
With Music-Pro, you enter in one voice at a time, and can save each (total of
3) as a file with a number prefix.  For example, if I was writing "Yankee
Doodle" in three parts, I would name the first voice YANKEE1, the second
YANKEE2, and the third YANKEE3.  Then, the compiler will ask which filename to
use.  You simply enter YANKEE and it scans the disk for that string.  It then
loads each file into memory and compiles them on top of each other. 
 
     Why is all this compiling an advantage?  Although Music Maker allows you
to enter three voices onto one score, instead of spliting them up, it's a lot
easier to debug a score split as Music-Pro has done it.  With Music-Pro, you
get a lot less screen clutter, and you can find wrong notes easily.  They don't
get lost among all the other right notes!  Also, Music Maker color codes the
various voices (voice 1-blue, 2-red, 3-green).  But tell me, what does this
colorization mean to people with a monochrome monitor or black and white TV? 
 
     Some of you may be saying, "Music Maker has the neat `Soundgraphs'
feature."  So what?  Really, I haven't found any useful purpose for it.  It
seems to be more of a cheap gimmick than a programming aid. 
 
     To contridict mayself for a second, those just beginning to music
programming may want to obtain a copy of the Music Maker manual.  Why?  Becuase
it contains a wonderful appendix.  I applaud this feature of Music Maker
because it helps you start out.  You may also want to get a copy of the music
tutorial from Tigercub Software or the one from the Tidewater Users Group.
Both of these are good, but the Tidewater version is more expansive (it over
fills one SS/SD flippy!) 
 
     All in all, there are quit a few bad or useless features that make Music
Maker a bad choice.  Maybe if someone took up the task of writing a new and
easy to understand manual, I could learn to like Music Maker.  However, there
are very few Music Maker users that I know of, and I stronly recommend
Music-Pro.  Music-Pro has the terrific manual typical of most ASGARD products.
I have yet to be confused by an ASGARD manual.  I say just spend the $18 on
Music-Pro and get someone with a Music Maker manual to photocopy the appendix
section.  You can see for yourself if you like, but Music-Pro makes me glad I
put off buying Music Maker. 
 
     I hope that this article has helped clear up questions that people may
have had over the differences between both music composing programs.  Keep in
mind that I am not trying to take sales away from dealers selling Music Maker,
nor am I trying to boost the sales to ASGARD.  I'm sure that TI has produced
programs that are better than similar ones from ASGARD (but I sure haven't seen
any yet!!) 
.PL 1