FIFTEEN YEARS AGO IN EM

Jul 1, 2001 12:00 PM, Steve Oppenheimer

           
 

Electronic percussion dominated our July 1986 issue, which boasted no fewer than nine articles on the subject. Our March 1986 cover story was an interview with Howard Jones; in July, we enticed Trevor Morais, who had recently completed a tour with Jones, into writing a cover story about his playing style and equipment. Morais played standing up, and his kit featured 23 electronic drum pads, mostly Simmons pads triggering SDS7 modules. He broke down the kit for us, explaining how he wired and used each pad. John Diliberto kept the beat going by delivering a technical interview with Ultravox drummer, Warren Cann.

Larry Fast's column focused on compositional considerations for electronic percussionists. Fast identified a wide range of styles, including applications of electronic percussion in pop, symphonic, ambient, and “academic” electronic music as well as the precursors of today's underground dance music.

In other electronic-percussion stories, Mark Smith presented practical percussion-controller techniques, including programming, wiring, and MIDI processing; Chris Lucht showed us how to build a quad piezoelectric drum trigger; and Bob Hodas explained how to make electronic drums sound more realistic by applying reverb.

We offered several percussion-oriented reviews. Craig O'Donnell reviewed Roland's DDR-30 and Pad-8 controllers; Larry the O got down with the E-mu SP-12 drum machine; and Tony Thomas reviewed Yamaha's YRM30 RX-Editor, a graphic editing program for the RX drum machine and Yamaha's CX5M music computer.

The July issue also included industry legend George Petersen's first story for us, a review of the Roland PD-10 and PD-20. Petersen, currently the editorial director of Mix and a contributing editor to EM, has been on our masthead longer than anyone.

The July magazine had more than electronic-percussion stories. Digidesign cofounder Peter Gotcher offered tips for editing samples in software, Mark Lewer discussed how to reduce MIDI timing delays, and Allan Tamm helped IBM PC users wade through compatibility problems between music software and PC graphics cards. Scott Morgan showed us how to double the program memory of the Casio CZ-101 synthesizer, and Thomas Henry helped us build an RS-232 interface for the Commodore 64. (The C-64 already had an RS-232 port, but its polarity was reversed and its power output was inadequate, whereas Henry's interface properly supported the standard.)

The July 1986 issue also marked the first appearance of Alan Gary Campbell's popular “Service Clinic” column. During the next 11 years, Campbell presented a wealth of information on how to service and modify electronic-music and recording equipment. The column was discontinued in 1997 and had a brief revival in 1998.

Finally, in his editor's note, Craig Anderton took a strong stand against software piracy. That was the first time an EM editor took a public position on piracy; the most recent are my June 1999 and September 2000 “Front Page” editorials. The more things change, the more they remain the same.