the central council of church bell ringers

BELTOWER

Version 11 now available

BELTOWER (version 10)

[Review available on-line]

What it runs on

PC running Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista or 7 (32/64 bit), with a CD drive, a fast 80486 processor + sound card for sound, or a P100 with 16mb RAM for moving ropes, although configuration can also affect performance.

What it does

BELTOWER lets you practise, edit, prove or print any method, principle, touch, peal or longer, from plain hunt and call changes to spliced surprise, on 3 to 16 bells. Select a method or composition from the sortable library or from microSIRIL files. Preview the blue line of method(s) or touch/spliced. Watch the moving ropes or hand bells and the scrollable display, with red and blue lines. Ring any or all of the bells from the keyboard, mouse or bell sensors, with independent hand/back strokes and interactive animation, while Beltower rings the other bells, with perfect striking, and monitors your accuracy.

Natural bell sounds (incl. muffled and MIDI) and voiced calls can be played, and there are various display/key-in modes and animation layouts. When ringing a touch, you can start with call changes or even part way through a touch. Record and play-back includes a graphic striking report with fault assessment. The Challenge can ring random numbers of bells and a variety of striking/method errors, to test your listening and conducting skills.

Edit methods intuitively, using place notation, blue line or bell numbers. You can use a variant of place notation which includes x in doubles, and user-definable calls. The method, calling positions, touch and call changes editors should satisfy every need.

Call your own spliced touches (or call changes), create them with the composer (incl. mixed stages), and edit them the way you write them, using calling positions (for any conductor's bell), or call events (lead ends), with splice at half-lead, and call Rounds or That's All at part leads. They can be listed and printed with all changes, lead heads, call heads, course heads or coursing orders. The prover includes a false rows, flh or fch report, and musical analysis reports Queens, Tittums, CRUs and LBRs, and checks each bell for 'all the work' and their respective calling positions.

Methods/touches/spliced can be printed with preview, as numbers, lines, grid, or combinations, any size, or output to file, all with simple selections and/or templates. Full context-sensitive Help, with tutorials, is included in software, in handbook format and printable in full or in part.

Library used

Own method library supplied, plus microSIRIL library of 11000 methods.

What it costs

Price: £40.00 including P&P, upgrade discounts available (+ £1 for delivery outside Europe).

Where to get it and/or more information

Normally supplied on CD, but 3½" floppy disk version also available.
Order by post from: D. J. Ballard, 23 Laurel Road, Honiton, Devon EX14 2XN, UK
(01404) 42732

www.beltower.co.uk