Ah, it's May, and young folks' thoughts turn to … MIDI? It sure seemed so in our May 1986 issue, which featured a wealth of MIDI-oriented features. We got the ball rolling with an article by Walter K. Daniel about incorporating MIDI into the home studio. Daniel discussed the still-new specification's impact on musicians' approaches to sequencing, synchronization, effects processing, and synths.
We followed that with a Craig Anderton tutorial about the MIDI parameters found in synthesizers, including definitions, concepts, and applications tips. Terry Fryer then stepped us through the process of using MIDI-controlled synths to create ambiences in an era before synths had onboard effects. Then it was Anderton's turn again, as the Jedi master of MIDI presented his favorite tricks for using the IVL Pitchrider 4000 as a guitar-to-MIDI converter. Pauline Strom added her inspirational ideas for sound programming with MIDI synthesizers, and Tim Dowty topped it off with a DIY project for building your own Commodore 64 MIDI interface.
Of course, we had plenty of other goodies in our bag. Digital-audio recording using pulse-code modulation (PCM) was fast becoming a practical option for home studio, even though you could only record two tracks at a time. Freff gave us a complete roundup of PCM encoder/decoders, including products from consumer-electronics powerhouses Sony, Sansui, JVC, Nakamichi, Aiwa, and Technics. Sony and Nakamichi offered the only 16-bit encoders; the others were 14-bit.
Anderton delivered yet another winner with one of the early stories about how to sample and process analog synthesizers. DIY stories also included Glenn Flood's low-impedance, balanced to high-impedance, unbalanced signal converter, and a slick Thomas Henry modification that added a polyphonic organ to monophonic synths.
After all that, the cover story could have been a letdown, but it wasn't. Robert Carlberg gave us a fine interview with Weather Report's Josef Zawinul, discussing how this all-time keyboard great approached his music, gear, song structures, musical concepts, and life in general.
As usual, we published several interesting reviews. Alan Gary Campbell test-drove the E expansion board, which added important features to the super-hot Yamaha DX7. Geary Yelton examined MacNifty's $130 SoundCap software sampler for the Mac; Richard Einhorn checked out Magnetic Music's Texture 2.0 pattern-based sequencer for the PC; and Dean Heinbuch gave us the lowdown on Fostex's Model 80 2-track, open-reel tape deck, which became hugely popular in personal studios.
Departments included a short section called “Operation Help,” in which readers wrote in with appeals for help, and other readers offered the answers; a glossary titled “DataBank”; and an opinion piece on industry trends.
Among the new tools we unveiled were Ensoniq's classic ESQ-1 synth; Korg's DVP-1, which was one of the first digital voice processors; and two very different digital reverbs: Alesis's budget-friendly MidiVerb ($399) and Ursa Major's high-end ADR-68K ($3,995).