Stephen Delft improves his guitar routing box

Ever since the invention of the wax cylinder, listening to recorded music has been a passive experience; now CDs are capable of holding MIDI and other performance data. Bob O'Donnell looks at the changing face of music.

'Can you benefit from something that doesn't make a noise?' asks Paul Gilby in his in-depth review of this interesting MIDI trigger device from the pioneers of the electronic drum. It might not generate sounds of its own but this unit certainly makes possible some marvellous effects when MIDI'd up to synthesizers. Check it out.

The more imagination you apply to signal processors, the more you can get out of them. Craig Anderton presents 49 tips that take you beyond stock effects and into new ways of creating your own sonic signature.

The story of a CD

Not many people would have the courage to give up a lucrative career in the jingles business in order to record and release their own CD. But that's precisely what Simon Renouf has done, and this is his story...

RCM Synthesizer

The DX7 captured musicians’ imaginations like no other synthesizer before or since. But the legacy of releasing endless variations on the DX theme has turned some musicians away from FM synthesis and into the waiting arms of a new generation of 'sample plus synth' keyboards. Now Yamaha are back with a vengeance, an even more powerful method of synthesis (Real-time Convolution and Modulation), and a spanking new flagship synth. But has the SY77 got what it takes to regain the hi-tech musician's vote? Martin Russ finds out.

Roland SRV330 Dimensional Space Reverb

Can Roland's latest gizmo really add another dimension to your recordings?

Sampling Percussion System

Not just a sampling drum machine, more a solid state tape recorder! As things start to heat up at the top end of the drum machine market, David Mellor gives E-mu's successor to their popular SP-12 a thorough pounding.

Milton Keynes adman draws up Draughtsman's Contract

Playing Live

Electronic music live - a special focus

Full circuit design for this very high quality, low-noise preamplifier.

MIDI has been with us for almost a decade, yet most users still labour under Misconceptions about what it actually can and cannot do. Paul D. Lehrman explodes some of the more common myths about MIDI.

Henry Priestman: the word

Akai S612 MIDI Sampler

A reduction in price and the introduction of their Quick Disk make Akai's S612 MIDI Sampler an even more attractive investment. Paul Gilby was suitably impressed.

Who wants a programmable modular mixer and three-band sweep EQ system that offers full MIDI control of channel routing/muting and all fits neatly into a 19-inch rack? "I do!" shouts Paul Gilby. Read why...

Neville Unwin attempts to shed some light on contemporary production and arrangement.

Dual Compressor/limiter Gate

A compressor/limiter with programme dependent characteristics.

Apple Macintosh Software

One of the leading Macintosh sequencing packages has recently undergone another of its periodic face lifts. Ian Waugh checks the state of the performing art.

Part five of our series on basic MIDI applications turns its attention to MIDI-controlled effects; Bob O'Donnell patches in the 19" rack-mounts with maximum delay.

Sequencing

The theory and practice of MIDI sequencers, explained in simple terms.

how to liven up your music by being open to improvisation

Alan Hoida looks into the postproduction stage of making a pop video.

The Old Workhorse

We take a close look at this studio stalwart in all its various forms and point out what to look for when buying one second hand.