Over the last few months, I've started to detect a kind of fast food mentality creeping into equipment design, especially keyboards. Top-of-the range workstations are starting to become high spec GM sound generators, with which a finished product can be produced quickly and painlessly. Though we've been asking for more user-friendly gear for years, I'm wondering if today's equipment makes it just a bit too easy.

Using the food analogy, you might go into a nice restaurant and spend several hours eating a meal, in which time you agonise over the menu, savour each course, and enjoy the finishing touches of the mint, the port, and the coffee (not necessarily in that order). Alternatively, you might nip down to McDonald's and stuff yourself with a quarterpounder, large fries, large shake and blueberry pie. Either way, the end result is the same — you're full up! But what with? After the á la carte meal you'll feel mellow and satisfied, whereas after the fast food, you might feel more like a sack of potatoes has hit the pit of your stomach...

It's just the same with music. Okay, so you might have a nice little ditty going after just a few minutes on your state-of-the art GM-GS-XG turbo-charged workstation, but isn't it just really the equivalent of fast food in musical terms? Sooner or later, it'll start to pall. The real gourmets are the musicians who take care in selecting their ingredients from a range of sound sources, mixing them up together and adding a little spice of effects and EQ in the mix. This way you not only enjoy the meal, but are also left with a satisfying aftertaste...