DIGIGRAM MC 5 COMPOSER - A Sequencer That Lets You Connect a Printer to it

via this auction

This one was spotted and sent in via xonox, who translated the recent EEH Zaunkönig article. Note this is the first post to mention the DIGIGRAM MC 5 or rebranded Farfisa MC5.

The following description from the listing appears to have been pulled from Music Technology - October 1987, captured on Mu:sines. It also appears to have been rebranded as the Farfisa MC5 as seen below the ZYKLUS here. [Update: link fixed]

"The Musical Composer from French company Digigram combines sequencing and music printing functions in a single unit. Is it the answer to every composer's dream?

CREATING A SCORE from a musical performance is an area of music production well suited to inclusion in a MIDI sequencing system. The advantages are numerous: a composer can print out compositions, an improviser can print out a performance, an arranger can print out parts. And any musician, regardless of whether or not they can read or write music, can have a printed score of their music for others to play or for copyright purposes.

While an increasing number of MIDI software companies are writing music printing programs for the Apple Macintosh, IBM PC and Atari ST, French company Digigram have chosen to combine sequencing and printing functions in a single dedicated unit which needs the addition of an IBM PC-compatible printer (at around £200+) to become what the manual describes in a burst of enthusiasm as "a high performance tool, a veritable digital MIDI studio". Well, we shall see.

The MC5 Musical Composer has a 12-track sequencer which can store upwards of 11,000 notes recorded in real and step time. Ten of these tracks are polyphonic (each up to eight notes) and the remaining two - labelled Melody and Chord - are monophonic and, er, chordal respectively (more on these later). The MC5 allows you to mix two tracks onto a third empty track, copy a track onto an empty track, chain two tracks together to form a new track, and erase tracks either individually or all together. Mixed tracks can't be edited or printed, however.

Real-time

RECORDING IN REAL time can be at any tempo from 48-252 BPM, and in any one of 12 time signatures ranging from 2/2-15/8. Unfortunately, tempo and time-signature changes during the course of a track are not part of the MC5's vocabulary.

The Composer has an inbuilt metronome, but also allows you to specify any MIDI note to be sent out as an alternative (useful if you're working with headphones on, or just playing loudly). The metronome also provides you with a two-bar count-in for recording.

In both record and playback modes you have to select the tracks that you want to listen to before you can do anything else; individual tracks can then be dropped in and out while the sequencer is running. You start and stop recording by means of a dedicated front-panel button or a connected footswitch. Recording can be either from the beginning of an empty track or a continuation of a partially completed track, while punch-in mode (from the footswitch only) allows you to record from any position but sadly not to drop out again.

More encouragingly, whenever you finish recording you get a message in the MC5's 2X16-character LCD display (non-backlit, unfortunately) asking whether you want to try again. So if you've just played a minor 9th chord when you meant to play a major 9th (well, everyone has off days) you can quickly record the whole passage again before you have a chance to get too depressed.

Each track can have its own record resolution (from a quarter note to a 96th note - or triplet hemidemisemiquaver, if you prefer). Pitch-bend, controller, patch-change and aftertouch recording can be enabled or disabled, while you can choose to disable playback of recorded velocity in favour of a single velocity value (0-127). Each track can of course be recorded on any MIDI channel (1-16), and the MC5 includes the now familiar MIDI Thru feature, which passes on incoming MIDI data together with existing sequence data out of MIDI Out. Once a track is recorded it can be transposed up or down two octaves in semitone steps.

Playback of individual tracks can be delayed in 96th-note intervals up to a value of 999 (more than ten 4/4 bars); you can use this feature to thicken up a part (by copying it to a second track and experimenting with very short delays), or to produce echo effects or specific compositional results.

You can also specify a patch change (0-127) to be sent at the beginning of each track, while a more unusual feature called "drum record" allows you to record (but not to print out) notes of zero duration - in other words, notes shorter than the MC5's smallest resolution."