15 Years Ago in EM

Jul 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Steve Oppenheimer

           
 

Our July 1987 issue focused on live performance and sound reinforcement. In the cover feature, John Diliberto interviewed guitarist David Torn, covering lots of ground, including Torn's emphasis on improvising onstage not only with his guitar but also with his electronics — no preprogrammed effects allowed. In a more technical story, keyboard ace David Rosenthal discussed in detail the MIDI rig he used for Cyndi Lauper's 1986-87 world tour, including not only the gear — several Yamaha DX-series synths, a Moog Memorymoog Plus, a Roland Juno-106, an Emu Emax, and Lexicon digital delays — but how everything was routed and why. He even described his surge protector!

Mike Sokol addressed one of my pet peeves: using a pair of large front-of-house stacks and blasting the volume to reach the back of the room. Sokol explained how to create a compact, wide-dispersion system with multiple satellites to provide superior coverage at lower sound-pressure levels.

Back in the studio, sound-design guru Frank Serafine gave us a practical article on ergonomic studio design, and Jim Johnson offered a class in imitative synthesis, in this case emulating bowed stringed instruments (especially violin) using analog synths. Jeff Burger's story on buying your first sequencer explained the basic issues of the day. George DaNova provided a tutorial on effectively using MIDI Program Change messages at a time when many synths still had less than 128 programs and used screwy numbering schemes.

We offered several DIY projects. The Roland MPU-401 — for years the standard MIDI interface for IBM PCs — had its own microprocessor and memory, and you could program it to do a number of tricks. Les Penner provided a routine that created a keyboard split point, something many keyboard synthesizers lacked in those days. Meanwhile, Charles R. Fischer showed us how to build custom expansion boards and “RAM sandwiches” to expand the user RAM on many 1987-vintage synths, and Alan Gary Campbell's “Service Clinic” column explained how to install firmware ROM updates and discussed the latest firmware for a variety of instruments.

Our product reviews included the Ibanez SDR1000 stereo digital reverb, Countryman Isomax headset mic, Alesis Midiverb II effects processor, Grey Matter Response E! Revision 2 memory and function expander for the Yamaha DX7, and Dr. T and Compu-Mates editing software for the Kawai K3 synth and Atari ST computer. All but the Compu-Mates software earned a thumbs-up.

“What's New” included E-mu's Emax Rack sampler, Dr. T's The Copyist scoring program for the Atari ST, and Boss's LM-2 limiter stompbox. Opcode Systems announced a new Patch Factory random patch-generation feature for its MIDI patch-editing software for the Mac; Patch Factory quickly became a favorite for many users.

We also offered several useful extras, such as our DataBank glossary of terms and an extensive list of user groups (in the pre-Web era). Finally, music reviewer Robert Carlberg introduced us to a wide variety of new releases, from Wendy Carlos (Beauty in the Beast) and Larry Fast's Synergy (Metropolitan Suite and Computer Experiments, vol. 1) to many unknowns.