The do-everything effects box: does it really?

Multi-Effects Unit

Yamaha's rack effects box to end all rack effects boxes. Tim Goodyer finds out why you might want two.

£600 (almost) buys you this boxful of MIDI-controlled digital effects processors. But can they be good quality? Ian Gilby dragged himself out of the studio long enough to give us his opinions.

David Mellor offers advice to the studio newcomer on the original multi-effects unit.

Yamaha SPX90

With the help of new software technology, Yamaha's new multi-FX unit does the job of a half-dozen outboard machines. Paul White gives a rundown of what it can do, and how well it does it.

Yamaha SPX90

Is it a reverb? Is it a sampler? Yes and no; it's Yamaha's new digital Jack of all trades and it offers surprising value for money.

Studio Test

A multitude of digital effects in a single box for only £600

Using System Exclusive Bulk Dumps

Have you ever wished you could save your SPX90 effects programs to disk or into your MIDI sequencer for instant recall at the right point in your music? Using the power of MIDI’s System Exclusive Bulk Dump commands, Mike Collins explains how it can be done.

Your chance to send in patches for your favourite effects units.

You thought multi-timbral MIDI was only for synthesisers and samplers? You thought wrong, as Paul Wiffen proves with his analysis of Mode 4 on the Yamaha SPX90 effects processor.

More readers' queries are answered by the expert teaching staff of London's Gateway School Of Recording & Music Technology.

What were the best products of 1987 according to Sound On Sound readers? Here are the long-awaited results of our poll.

From SOS to 8-track

Another chance to see who bought what, why they bought it and how pleased they are now that it's too late to send it back.

Ibanez are late entrants to the fast-moving field of digital reverb products, but their new SDR 1000 unit has something different about it that caught the eye of reviewer Mark Jenkins. Read the review to find out what...

Birmingham's Triangle Media & Arts Centre houses what is probably the largest 8-track recording facility in the country. It also runs some interesting extra-curricula activities in the form of a Rock Recording course. We asked the man in charge, Bruce Hart, to tell us more about it.

Our regular monthly exploration of upcoming new products.

Big in America, big in rehearsal rooms — but why isn't this dead good pop group dead big here?

Roland DEP5

Roland's long-awaited multi-effects unit turns out to have a great deal to offer.

Infra-Red Guitar Pickup

It sounds like sci-fi, but someday, all guitar pickups may work by sensing shadows along the frets with an infrared detector. Rick Davies again.

Put two Lexicon 224Xs in one box, add a sprinkling of new features, and you have the reverb-based effects unit to beat them all. Paul Wiffen has the advance details.

Noise Reduction System

There are more sources of noise in a studio than recording tape -and a noise reduction unit ought to be able to cope with all of it, right? Vic Lennard thinks he's found one that does.

...while Kendall Wrightson reflects on a Mac world...