FIFTEEN YEARS AGO IN EM

Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM, by Steve Oppenheimer

           
 

For a music-technology magazine, we were obsessed with video and film in some of our early issues. The June 1986 issue included no less than four video-oriented stories and one film-oriented article. Most of those articles involved electronic music, but not all.

We started with Jack Orman's story on how to take advantage of local public-access cable television. David Carr offered a step-by-step tutorial on shooting a music video. Don Slepian left the music world behind in his story on video synthesis, and Orman provided a DIY project on building a simple video-distribution amp. Finally, Robert Kraft brought music back to the fore by discussing how to score a film, using MIDI gear.

Our computers and software section focused heavily on the Atari 520ST, the first computer with a built-in MIDI interface. Malcolm Cecil introduced the 520ST, which was based on the same 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor found in the Macintosh and Amiga computers of the day. The Atari machine was fast for its time and featured a decent onboard sound generator. Its clock timing was more accurate than that of a Mac, PC, or Amiga, so a well-written sequencer for the ST could be impressively precise. All that made it a popular computer for musicians, especially in Europe. To get us started, Eric Barbour demonstrated how to program a MIDI sequencer for the ST.

Our June issue had two other DIYs. Tim Dowty showed us how to build a MIDI Program Change footswitch, which was perfect for guitarists who wanted to control their effects onstage. Thomas Henry offered an assortment of small modules you could add to a modular analog synth to fill the empty panel slots, including a multiple (signal splitter) and a pulse extractor that recovered timing pulses from a taped clock track.

We returned to the Atari 520ST in our reviews section with EM founding editor Craig Anderton's evaluation of Hybrid Arts' DX Droid editing software for the ever-popular Yamaha DX/TX — series FM synths. Patrick Hubbard checked out the Fostex 4050 SMPTE/MIDI synchronizer, and Paul Grupp reviewed the Intelligent Music OP-4001 MIDI interface for PC-compatibles.

The June 1986 issue also featured one of the most questionable decisions in our 15-year history: David Doty reviewed Anderton's book about digital delays, The DDL Handbook. Doty was a qualified and honest reviewer, and Anderton gave him free rein. Nevertheless, in my view, it was unethical, and we shouldn't have done it.

I saved the best for last: our cover story about a beret-clad guy you may have heard of who recorded a piece called “She Blinded Me with Science,” scored Howard the Duck for LucasFilm, collaborated with George Clinton, produced a Joni Mitchell album, and generally worked on the cutting edge. Even then, Thomas Dolby was a fascinating man, and Anderton obviously enjoyed interviewing him. They discussed Dolby's gear, his approach to composition, his various collaborations, how he structured his recording sessions, and much more.