the development of synth electronics

Martin Russ reveals the hidden features of Yamaha's budget digital multi-effector and explains how it can be coaxed into supplying more than one effect at once.

Power Station, NYC

We visit the world-renowned studio, and talk to owner and producer Tony Bongiovi.

Dbx 'X' Processors

Apart from noise reduction systems, dbx make a studio quality range of 'budget' signal processors. Engineer Gareth Stuart put three of them - the 163X compressor/limiter, 263X de-esser, and 463X noise gate/expander - through their paces.

Dynamic Bitimbric Polysynth

It boasts a list of features as long as your arm and a price tag that makes it one of the most accessible MIDI polysynths, but does the musical reality fulfil the paper promises? Trish McGrath reports.

Sold on the 3-Minute Song

Erasure's fifth album sees the duo of Vince Clarke and Andy Bell going from strength to strength, delivering electro-pop at its finest. But the doyens of synthesizer pop recorded Chorus with almost no MIDI instruments at all. Vince Clarke tells Paul Ireson how he made a hit album with 10-year old technology.

Mick McKenna

Engineer Mick McKenna provides an insight into recording with the Rolling Stones Mobile.

Offering 32 inputs on mixdown, four auxiliary sends, flexible EQ and the added benefit of a MIDI-controlled muting option, Studiomaster's ProLine 16.8.16 mixer has a lot going for it. Gareth Stuart checks it out.

True Stereo Reverb & Effects Processor

Jethro Tull's main man takes us behind the fish farmer exterior and into his home studio.

Mark Jenkins pins down the expert synthesist/programmer best known for his work with Peter Gabriel, and discusses the release of his eighth solo album - 'Metropolitan Suite'.

Zenon Schoepe gets to grips with the latest jewel in Soundcraft's crown, a personal desk with top-flight facilities and quality.

Jay Chapman sets the scene for a regular series written to help you better understand the practicalities of life with the Musical Instrument Digital Interface.

A long-time member of the MIDI establishment, Jeff Rona is a musician who gets more mileage out of computers than most. Scott Wilkinson listens in on Mac, PAN, digital editing and Jon Hassell's latest LP.

Ralph Denyer reports on London's prestigious CTS Studios and keyboardist Brian Gascoigne who recently teamed up to establish a MIDI/SMPTE-based electronic musicstudio purpose designed for the post-production of film music.

The first in a major series of articles describing the design, construction and applications of the Programmable Digital Sound Generator, a music hardware add-on for the BBC Model B. Introduction by Alan Boothman.

Modular Mixing Console

Does Soundcraft's new 200 Delta mixer succeed in being all things to all men? David Mellor finds out...

All the latest hi-tech goodies, brought to you in glorious technicolour.

Fun In The Waves

A chance to catch up on the new products you may have missed at last month's British Music Fair.

Tubular Bells, Bayou Moon and other stories

Apart from his claim to fame as the co-producer of Mike Oldfield's hugely successful 'Tubular Bells' album, engineer/producer Tom Newman has most recently been making his mark in the New Age music field with two beautifully recorded albums. Mark Prendergast reports.

Part 2 completes this unique project unit with details of the LED Pitch Ratio Display

Meat Beat Manifesto are to music what Andy Warhol was to art - but they've already been famous for longer than 15 minutes. Phil Ward follows them to a Peel session and to their studio in Swindon, and finds that Meat is not, in fact, necessarily murder.

Is the future Linear?

Does Roland's new LA synthesizer mean the end of FM is in sight? Martin Russ falls in love with the world's first ever Linear Arithmetic synthesizer whilst trying to find out...