Archived news from Retro-Kit

The Stardot community does it again

The latest pre-release of the Acorn BBC Micro family emulator, B-em now includes support for the Hybrid Music 3000 Expander hardware.

The hardware was intended to augment the original Hybrid Music 5000 Syntrhesiser by essentially duplicating the same hardware on a different address on the BBC Micro's 1MHz bus. By doing this, the Hybrid Music system effectively doubled its capabilities allowing for richer synthesised voices, extra audio tracks and generally more depth to arrangements created with the system.

The video showcases the capabilities of the Hybrid Music System when it employs the extra capabilities that the Hybrid Music 3000 Expander delivers.

You can compare the recording above with the same arrangement tailored to using the Hybrid Music 5000 synthesiser on its own in the video below.

You can get involved with the Stardot community and contribute to B-em by downloading the source from Github.

Posted on: 10-Oct-2018@22:18:55, updated on: 10-Oct-2018@22:18:55.

Attic find re-discovers Hybrid Music documents

A recent attic find by Kevin Doyle turned up over 35 documents related to the Hybrid Music System, of which 28 were previously lost.

The discovery of these documents covers flyers, advertisements, installation documents, hardware specifications, commercial and education pricelists and newsletters providing an excellent historical view of all things Hybrid Music!

• Did you know the "Music 87" was originally marketed as the "Music 7000"?
• How about the fact that the Hybrid Music System was used to compose pieces for the very popular contemporary TV show, Granada TV's "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" for the episode "The Man with the Twisted Lip"?
• What about the Music 2000 being developed for the PC186?

Well, these documents reveal all in a veritable treasure trove of Hybrid Music history!

So many thanks to Kevin for sending me all of his scans so that I can put them on the site for everyone to enjoy!

So please browse around the Hybrid Music System pages to discover these fantastic resources. 

Posted on: 18-Apr-2018@21:03:57, updated on: 18-Apr-2018@21:03:57.

Hybrid Music 2000 Installation guide pdf surfaces

I was recently contacted by Kevin Doyle who discovered a copy of the Hybrid Music 2000's installation guide in his possession. He kindly scanned it and has provided a PDF of the document to add to the information about the Hybrid Music System.

Posted on: 18-Mar-2018@22:47:16, updated on: 18-Mar-2018@22:47:16.