I have a friend called Zarg, who, being a forward looking sort of guy, decided that MIDI was the place to be in '86. Duly he spent all his money on keyboards, drum machine, expanders and a sequencer. All being strikingly up to date had the requisite MIDI holes on the back, but this left him with a problem. Let me, the fly on the wall, tell you about it.

Now Zarg, having all this gear, found that not all keyboards have a MIDI thru (let's use the USA spelling, it's the hip thing to do) which meant that he came across a problem or five when trying to connect all his gear together. I recall creasing up in the corner one day, at the sight of Zarg crawling around on his knees, vainly trying to work out which MIDI output should be plugged into where, all the time desperate not to lose his inspiration. A flash of cosmic light, a bang on the door, and what should enter but a great man bearing gifts from afar. He had two gifts to save inspiration, the Akai MIDI effects priced at a very reasonable £99. Let me, the aforementioned fly on the lightbulb, tell you how they helped.

The first one that caught Zarg's attention was the catchily named ME30P, being a 'Programmable MIDI Patch Pay'. Now this little gem enabled him to connect all his keyboards, drum machines etc together with a minimum of fuss, having four MIDI inputs, and eight IDIM outputs. Zarg proceeded to connect all his stuff to the little grey box, with ease, as he couldn't be bothered to read the accompanying manual. What the ME30P let him do was to play into his sequencer from his DX7, whilst at the same time, hearing his drum machine and his little Casio CZ101 that unfortunately doesn't have a MIDI thru. To see the look of joy on the face of Zarg made it all worthwhile.

Having 15 patches, or MIDI routing configurations, meant that he could record his cosmic thang into his sequencer, and at the touch of a button, hear his music played back on all his connected MIDI-things. Zarg kept muttering to himself 'how come all the other MIDI patch bays are so bloody expensive, and this one isn't?'. I for two was unable to furnish him with an answer. To select which input to use, Zarg simply pressed one of the four input selectors, handily named A, B, C and D. He had his DX7 connected to input A, with the output to the sequencer connected to output 1. To get them to have a meaningful conversation all he had to do was to hit the bank switch to decide which of the 15 banks he would store the setup in, hit the output channel to read output 1, and then hit the input button to read input A. It's a lot quicker to do it than to write it.

Basically, it kept Zarg very happy, it stopped him crawling all over the floor, and meant that he could concentrate on his cosmic groove rather than on the jungle of MIDI leads that had appeared with the purchase of his gear. Zarg went out the next day to show his gratitude for the little box that decreased his perspiration quotient, and let him play his keyboards with little or no fuss and bought the ME30P. The salesman informed him that they were 'selling like 'ot cakes guv'. No wonder, thought Zarg, if only they let me split my DX7 so I could have two sounds going at once.

Arriving home, Zarg saw the other little grey box, that also fitted into his expanding collection of things rack-mountable. This was catchily named the ME25S, being a 'MIDI Programmable Note Separator'. This time Zarg had a look at the manual. I laughed as he started to dribble in a most uncool manner, when he saw that this little box did enable him to use his DX7 as a master keyboard, allowing him to have four separate splits to play four separate sounds. Perspiration quotient rising rapidly, Zarg hastened to grab more MIDI leads and put theory into practice. Chuckling, I watched as the look of delight started to get larger by the nanosecond.

In no time at all, Zarg had sussed that from his DX, he could send out four different MIDI channels from the four splits he had set up, to play four connected sound modules/synths. Deep joy. I buzzed around to the back of the unit and found that the ME25S had two MIDI out sockets, one In and one Thru. Startled, I buzzed over to Zarg who was reading the details, and I, the humble fly, found that you can have sixty four keyboard split programs stored in the box for all your favourite combinations. Deep joy part two. Each section of the aforementioned split sections can be transposed up or down three octaves, and Zarg had tremendous fun moving, copying and playing with the myriad of splits and combinations the unit gave him.

One handy little feature that was tucked away inside, was the ability to let the unit change MIDI output channels from his synth which could normally only transmit data on channel one. Zarg was chuffed to say the least. Going completely over the top, he split his DX so that he was playing the internal sound on the synth for the bottom octave, he played his sampler on his favourite road drill sample on the next octave (on a different MIDI channel), his Casio for just two notes, and finally, his sound module (of the Roland sort) on the remaining keys. Deep deep joy part five.

A humble fly-on-the-MIDI-effects-units can only take so much noises at once for short periods these days, but Zarg rushed out the next day to duly part with more cash and bought the ME25S at his local shop. The man in the shop informed him that 'most bloody music journalists haven't even plugged the thing in when they reviewed it'. Zarg found this hard to believe, as the unit was so versatile, and had saved him great expense. After all, who else makes a MIDI effects unit for the same price that does what the Akai can do?

You see, Zarg was planning on buying a Master keyboard to enable him to have keyboard splits and all the other gubbins, but for a total price of £198, he had got a programmable patch bay and a master keyboard into the bargain, for about the same price as he would have had to pay for just a patch bay had he bought one from A.N. Other manufacturer. Basically both units are 'well hard' (we like to use technical terms where possible), are amazingly cheap compared to the competition, and made Zarg a very happy chap. As they say in the trade: How do they do it Brian, how do they do it?'

ME30P: £99.00
ME25S: £99.00