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Article from Electronics & Music Maker, July 1984


If there is one theme that runs through this month's E&MM (or most of it anyway), it is that money doesn't necessarily bring musical nirvana.

Nobody can deny the awesome power of instruments such as the Fairlight and Synclavier, and the ways in which they can benefit the modern composer or arranger, but what a couple of this month's interviewees have brought home to us is that no musical instrument is perfect, no matter how high its price-tag or massive its reputation.

It must also be apparent to all but the most stubborn of musical hardware snobs that only a tiny minority of today's musicians can even hope to afford the Synclaviers or Emulators of this world, and that aiming one's sights a little lower doesn't necessarily involve vast amounts of musical compromise. This month's Synthesis on a Budget feature came about as a direct result of our receiving impassioned pleas from readers just starting out on the road to synthesiser fulfilment and happiness - few of them can afford a basic polysynth, let alone a computer-controlled instrument costing rather more than a decent-sized house - and one fact that does emerge from the survey is that the generally downward trend exhibited by new synth prices has had its effect on used synth values as well. To the extent that, say, £350 now buys the young musician what would have been considered quite a sophisticated instrument only a matter of a few years ago. And yes, that instrument is capable of providing said musician with a good many hours of musical enjoyment.

Even if the sonic capabilities of a modest synthesiser aren't in themselves particularly riveting, the vast range of budget effects units currently available enables its audio horizons to be broadened in interesting and original ways, and in many cases their acquisition makes purchasing a more expensive keyboard instrument less of an attractive proposition, at least in the short term.

So, if the possibilities open to the electronic musician on a budget are so great, how come most media attention is still focussed on the wonders of the Big League? Because the technology used by Big League instruments is generally more interesting and further towards the forefront of hardware development. This is a point even E&MM finds hard to ignore (which is why next month's issue sees the start of a special feature on exactly how the Fairlight does its job), but there are already plenty of signs that the Big League's technology is working its way downwards into more accessible territory.

This issue highlights a number of products that use state-of-the-art technology without their makers charging the earth for them. TED's Digisound modules bring sampled percussion (albeit at a fairly basic level) within the reach of almost everybody, Yamaha's MK100 uses a 3.2kByte RAM to store solo and accompaniment variations of the user's choice within its Multi Menu module, Korg's Super Section brings PCM-encoded sounds within reach of the solo performer, while the Ibanez DM1100 gives a greater maximum delay time than any other budget unit, without even so much as a hint of passing on any price penalty.

What all this boils down to is that, despite the fact that almost all today's most successful electronic music acts use Big League instruments of some description, to ignore the more realistic side of things would probably take us back into the situation that existed ten years ago, when a musician new to the world of synthesisers firmly believed he would not succeed in a professional capacity without buying the latest state-of-the art equipment, and synthesisers struggled to gain mass acceptance as a result.

And that's a situation that should never be allowed to arise again.



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Publisher: Electronics & Music Maker - Music Maker Publications (UK), Future Publishing.

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Electronics & Music Maker - Jul 1984

Editorial

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