The Hybrid Music 5000 synthesiser unit is a powerful stereo digital synthesiser for the BBC Micro. It is capable of a vast range of sounds that includes natural-sounding, synthesiser-type, and new abstract instruments - up to eight different ones playing together. You can make your own instruments by modifying any of the standard selection, or designing new ones from scratch, choosing from hundreds of waveforms, envelopes and sound control settings.

The Hybrid Music 5000 synthesiser hardware is almost identical to the Acorn Music 500, which was made for Acorn by Hybrid, the only change is to the 1MHz bus which ensures compatibility with the Master. The Music 5000 can be used with any BBC model B or B+, the Electron or the Master. The Music 5000 has its own power supply and plugs into the 1MHz bus and includes a pass-on socket so other equipment can be connected. Audio output is via a 5pin DIN socket. The software for the Music 500 and Music 5000 however is quite different.

The Hybrid Music 5000 Synthesiser was the heart of a suite of hardware and software components that turned a BBC Micro into a fully fledged synthesiser and sequencer. The entire suite consisted of the Music 1000 which was an audio amplifier, the Music 2000 which was a MIDI interface, the Music 3000 which added more voices to the Music 5000, the Music 4000 which was a 4-octave keyboard, the Music 5000 which provided the synthesiser functionality and the rare Music 6000 which allowed users to interact with the Hybrid system using their entire body.

The Music 87 from Peartree Computers is similar to both the Music 5000 and Music 500, the only major difference between the three being the software. It was originally marketed as the 'Music 7000' before Peartree Computers got into trouble with Hybrid over the name. After the change in name, Hybrid Technology restricted all use of the 'thousand' series numbers to official Hybrid hardware and software.

Kindly donated by Chris Whytehead.