Remembering MT
by Tim Goodyer (former MT Editor)

When I pitched up for my first day on the staff of Music Technology in 1985, I had been running a keyboard rig characterised by a Minimoog, Jupiter 8, Clavinet and Wurlitzer piano. I was also using a good selection of footpedals. I had a TR808 and TR727, and my Atari ST/Creator sequencer setup. I’d been in numerous recording studios, from the demo studio/big room tradition, and had glimpsed the possibilities of the personal multitrack recorder.

The keyboard player’s world was changing. It was exhilarating and it was scary.

Two years as MT’s Music Editor put a succession of artists in front of me – from synth-pop bands, through studio recluses and ‘non-musicians’, to modern classical experimentalists – many of whom were shaping both the music and the tech. A further five as Editor proper gave the best seat to watch technology and music go through some truly seismic changes, and I shared it with truly great staff and contributors.

Together, we watched the birth, adolescence and evolution of MIDI. We watched ‘alternative’ synthesis architectures join subtractive synthesis – FM, Linear Arithmetic, additive... We watched sampling imprint its schizophrenic character on replacing both traditional instruments and traditional means of making music. We watched the economics of music making turned over. We watched major recording studios close, and sequencers become digital audio workstations. We watched the reinvention of the DJ and the ascent of dance music.

And we wrote about it, at length and in detail. Before MT, magazine work was unexplored territory for me, and without the faith (and subsequent tuition) of editor Dan Goldstein, I wouldn’t be writing this now. I also had the pleasure of working with and learning from the greatly missed Simon Trask. Seeing my work and that of the MT team live on as a historical resource is a great thing.

Tim Goodyer
Fast-and-Wide.com