Word: mcs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Music Construction Set (MCS) program ($40 for the Apple II, with Atari and Commodore 64 versions to come), the joy stick controls a movable hand on the video screen that picks up notes, sharps, clef signs and other music symbols, and sets them down on a staff. At any time, the computer will play them back so the user can hear how they sound. Up to 1,400 symbols can be displayed on two staffs, from whole notes to 1/32 notes, from simple melodies to six-voice chords...
...took me about three seconds to decide I wanted it," says W.M. ("Trip") Hawkins, president of Electronic Arts, the software publishing house handling Harvey's program. Hawkins calls MCS an example of software that is "simple, hot and deep," by which he means it is easy to use, appeals to the senses, and will hold the interest of the user, no matter how sophisticated he becomes. Jeanie Chandler, a professional flutist and music teacher from Marin County in Northern California, who was hired by Electronic Arts as a consultant on the project, says she is using MCS to play...
...MCS is not without its flaws. To improve on the tinny speaker that comes installed in an Apple, users must invest an additional $100 for a plug-in sound-effects generator called a Mockingboard. (The Atari and Commodore versions will play three and four voices without any additional equipment.) Serious composers will find that the program's 1,400-symbol capacity allows them to write only about 70 measures at a time, requiring them to print out long pieces in sections. Moreover, using the program at full capacity causes the tempo of the machine to slow down, while short...
...sound that invites deejays at local dance palaces to "scratch" the surface. The deejays set the needle down in the groove of a record, turn the disc back and forth and get weird, repeated percussive effects, then jump quickly to another groove, another record, while some rap groups, called MCs, singsong over the music. The result, besides being danceable and extremely def, is familiar and disorienting at once. Just like the clothes...
...premier deejays of the rap scene is Grandmaster Flash, who, with his MCs, the Furious Five, turned out one of 1982's best singles, a seven-minute-long and atypically political number called The Message. Flash and the crew are treach, which is short for treacherous and slang for what a decade ago would have been called superfine. Grandmaster favors leathers, tip to toe, and has FLASH spelled out in lightning-bolt letters on the back of his jacket. Mr. Ness, of the Furious Five, favors metal studs, while his compatriot, Melle Mel, currently opts for fur. This...