Our December 1987 issue featured one of the stranger covers in our history, a sort of electronic teddy-bear-in-a-box that symbolized our issue's focus on fun and games.
The entertainment started with Tim McGuinness's article about his journey to Guangzhou (Canton), China, where he gave a series of electronic-music technology demonstrations to an audience that considered the devices to be little short of magical. Next, Matt McCullar discussed the technological development of electronic sound for arcade-style video games, and Jack Orman gave us a crossword puzzle that used electronic-music terms. Terry Fryer got an enviable assignment: EM editor Craig Anderton gave Fryer a check for $256.42 and sent him shopping for toys that used electronically generated sounds. The toys were disappointing, but we had a good time anyway.
The biggest laugh was provided by George Petersen and Jim Jenkins. These two punsters offered a classic spoof of EM's DIY stories in “Wanna Rock? Build This Hot Keyboard Stand,” which explained how to build a keyboard stand out of — are you ready for this? — a brick barbecue! Admittedly it wasn't the most portable keyboard stand, but it certainly was solidly built. For the curious, the story is still available at www.jenpet.com/bbq.htm.
Of course, we offered more serious fare, as well. Patrice De Vincentis showed us how to properly bundle cable runs, Bart McCormick's circuit mod added chorusing capability to the Boss DD-2 digital delay, and Jim Kerkhoff's “Random MIDI” DIY software turned a Commodore 64 computer into a sample-and-hold MIDI processor. Robert Damiano explained how to generate plucked-string sounds on a C-64 or Apple II computer and download them digitally into an Ensoniq Mirage sampler.
The reviews were mostly short and sweet. We covered several patch librarians for long-gone synthesizers and computer platforms and evaluated Dr. T's The Copyist 1.4 scoring software for Atari and Forat Electronics' MSM 2000 memory expander for the Yamaha DX7 synth. We took a more in-depth look at Music Magic's MusiCard for the PC, which offered 256-stage envelopes, used additive synthesis techniques, and eschewed filters in favor of the ability to crossfade among waveforms. We also reviewed Yamaha's TX802 FM synthesizer module and Garfield Electronics' Time Commander, which derived sync from a miked live drummer's rhythm, from an electronic drum kit, or from MIDI Note On messages.