Last month our interest was focused on Music. The August monthly meeting featured a summary presented by Yahya Abdal-Aziz, the convener of the Music SIG, covering in detail the range of items, computer related and purely musical that are studied and discussed in that special interest group. Following Yahya then Chris Steller from Yamaha Australia made a presentation of software in association with one of that company's keyboards and equipment.
 
The Music SIG has for some time sought a keyboard of moderate cost to use at their monthly meeting. The minimum specification of which was:

1. A portable keyboard with :

   a. Full-size keys 
   b. Five octaves 
   c. Velocity-sensitive (not "after-touch", which is much dearer) 
   d. MIDI In and MIDI Out connectors. 
   e. General MIDI - GM - sounds on board. 
   f. Extensions to GM, such as Roland's GS or Yamaha's XG.

2. A collapsible keyboard stand to suit item 1.
3. A generic "sound card cable" that interfaces the MIDI In and MIDI Out connectors on the keyboard to the SoundBlaster compatible, modified joystick port on the PC sound card.

• 61 full-size touch-sensitive keys
• 64 rhythms
• Style morphing
• Style progression
• 355 sounds
• Layer split facility
• 12 drum kits
• Reverb & Chorus 8 types
• 2 track record
• 512 one touch settings
• Sustain pedal socket

If you have an interest in music or want to extend your knowledge of it - or related computer applications and software - why not go along?

It's 7.30 pm on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Meetings are held in the Main SIG Room on the 1st floor,
27 Dorcas Street South Melbourne. Enjoy the proceedings.

North East Daytime Group

The other event of note was the inaugural meeting on 23 August of the North East Daytime Group. It took place at the Uniting Church 19 Seddon Street Ivanhoe and the group will now meet regularly there at 10.00 am on the 4th Thursday of each month. After introductions some of the members and their friends took the opportunity during a Q&A forum to quiz our president George Skarbek with those computer related questions that are of concern to them.
 
After the coffee break the convener David Matthew made a presentation on Freeware/Shareware and showed the North East Daytime Group's page he has put up on the Microsoft Network Communities newsgroup to be used until a more conventional home page is produced by this daytime group's own members. Our picture shows David demonstrating the page on a new computer that is shared between the two North East groups.