Following last month's list of synthesis casualties, David Ellis delves deeper into the archives and finds yet more mysterious products of human ingenuity. Some of them are quite spectacular.

From artistic oppression under Stalin to contributing to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, György Ligeti has remained a true music pioneer. Simon Trask talks to a musical legend.

Guitarcheck

A dream come true? Dave Burrluck pinches himself

Part 6: The final episode of our series for FM synth owners, in which Martin Russ removes the mystique from FM programming. Operators at the ready!

SamplerCheck

Paul Fishman gets weird — again

BBC Radiophonic Workshop

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop's network of Macintosh computers handles everything from music programming to looking after the tape library. Richard Elen talks to Brian Hodgson, the head of the Workshop, about their musical Macintoshes.

The Musical Micro

More packages picked apart by Tony Mills

Systemcheck

The Greengate goes loopy

Over the last three decades John McLaughlin has done more than anybody else in popular jazz and rock music to explore the potential of the guitar, both acoustic and electric. Here he talks to Mark Prendergast about his eclectic career, pioneering use of guitar synthesizers, and the Synclavier.

Eight-track MIDI Sequencer

MT new boy Bob "I'm Confused" O'Donnell checks out the cutest eight-track sequencer available. Have too many corners been cut to reduce the cost?

Mark Prendergast begins a two part in-depth appraisal of the thoughts, words, music and art of one of the most influential artists of the last decade: Brian Eno.

why the beatmasters make a mess with their lunch

8-Track Digital Tape Recorder

Tascam's digital 8-track recorder is designed to meet the needs of professionals, yet is costed to appeal to the home studio market.

(But Were Too Afraid To Ask!)

PART 4: Martin Russ provides some solid examples of how to utilise the hidden power of MIDI’s SysEx commands to reprogramme synths on-the-fly and to store snapshots of all your synth and effects patches on disk.

Eight-track cassette recorder

When the first Portastudio was launched, it caused a revolution in the recording industry - now you can put eight tracks on the same tape. Vic Lennard punches in.

sampler

A mid-priced sampler with a spec that'll worry the high-priced competition

guitars and stuff from New Orleans

Brian Eno

Korg's very latest keyboard is non other than a touch-sensitive, sub-£1000, 8-voice FM synthesizer! Mark Jenkins managed to catch a sneak preview.

MIDI is more than a means of sending note data to a couple of synths and changing settings on a reverb unit. Ernie Tello looks into the real-time applications of MIDI.

Opcode Vision

Sequencing software for Mac

BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Radiophonically speaking

how to stay at the top for two decades, and still not get noticed