''Music'' is a 1998

music sequencer A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling Musical note, note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed by Jester Interactive and published by

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer and former publisher based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts and managed under the EA Sports ...

for the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

. It was initially released only in Europe. A sequel, '' Music 2000'', was released in 1999.

Gameplay

''Music'' is a song creation tool. The main screen has 16 channels, where premade sounds called "riffs" can be layered together. There are different riffs, including

bassline Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, Dub music, dub and electronic music, electronic, traditional music, traditional, and classical music, for the low-pitched P ...

s, drumbeats, samples, vocals, sound effects, and instruments. There are also tools for music video creation.

Development

''Music'' was developed by Jester Interactive, based in

Flintshire Flintshire () is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, the Dee Estuary to the north-east, the English county of Cheshire to the east, Wrexham County Borough to the south, and Denbighshire to the west. ...

, Wales. It was founded by Tim Wright, who left Psygnosis to develop the game. ''Music'' had a small development team and nine months of development time which lead to extensive crunch time. After seeing a working demo, Codemasters cancelled their own similar product and published ''Music'' instead.

Reception

Computer and Video Games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') is a British-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot web ...

'' said that it's easy to use and possible to create very impressive songs but disliked the quality of the vocal samples. ''Meristation'' liked the riffs section but wished there was more music genres in the game than just dance. ''Video Games'' said that sound quality is good but criticised that you can't include your own samples. ''Consoles +'' called it "a very, very interesting product". ''Music'' and '' Music 2000'' have sold combined over a million copies.

References

{{Music series 1998 video games Audio mixing software Codemasters games Europe-exclusive video games Jester Interactive games Music (video game series) Music video games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation (console)-only games Single-player video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom