INSTANT EXCITEMENT

Aphex Type C Aural Exciter

Last month's news that Aphex were to replace the Type B with the Type C certainly generated plenty of excitement. Paul Gilby took delivery of one of the first production models to arrive in the country and checked out the latest psychoacoustic phenomenon.

SAMPLING THE JAPANESE WAY

Akai S612 MIDI Sampler & MD280 Disk Drive

A reduction in price and the introduction of the add-on Quick Disk unit made Akai's S612 MIDI Sampler an even more attractive investment. Paul Gilby was suitably impressed.

SYSTEM POWER

Jellinghaus 12-Track MIDI Studio

In conjunction with the Chase Bit 01 Expander, Casio CZ101 and Akai Sampler, the Jellinghaus 12-Track MIDI Studio software for the Commodore 64 represents the most powerful compositional and recording set-up available under £5000 - and all for just over £2000! Mark Jenkins catches his breath and tells you why.

"... I NEARLY JOINED THE FOREIGN LEGION!"

Dave Meegan: Part 2

The concluding part of Chris Allison's interview with Dave Meegan who is currently carving out a fine reputation for himself as a house engineer at Trevor Horn's Sarm Studios in London.

ART EMPIRE INDUSTRY

The Art Of Noise

JJ Jeczalik, Ann Dudley and Gary Langan are best known in the music industry as programmer, session player and producer. Collectively they are the Art Of Noise. With the release of their first single 'Legs' after leaving ZTT Records,we caught them in full swing talking about life, instruments and sound. Paul Gilby played the game and managed to withstand the opening overs of humorous wit under field conditions.

GUY FLETCHER: European Man

JOHN FOXX

Recording In Mysterious Ways

As a founding member of Ultravox in the mid-seventies, John Foxx helped broaden the appeal of electronic music through accessible synthesizer-based songs. His pioneering work on the second Ultravox LP 'Systems Of Romance' was highly acclaimed and provided a blueprint for the future sounds and styles of artists like Gary Numan, The Human League and OMD. The success of his first solo album 'Metamatic' provided the necessary finances to establish his own 24-track recording facility in London - The Garden Studio. Although subsequent releases failed to catch the attention of the great record-buying public, his new album In Mysterious Ways (Virgin Records) could well change that. The synthesizers are still evident, though the recording emphasis is now firmly on the songs. Ian Gilby talked to John about the background to the recording...

VISION ONE

Vision One: Off The Record

David kirby, of Vison One, lives and works from his home in Oxfordshire where he produces professional Audio-Visual presentations. He readily admits to being a newcomer to the professional audio world but here he tells us how and why he chose his equipment and what he expects from it.

WHAT'S IN STUDIO FOUR?

Brian Gascoigne

Superman, Star Wars, Rambo and Outland are just a few of the feature films that synthesizer player Brian Gascoigne has worked on. He has now established Studio Four at CTS Studios as the most comprehensive electronic music production facility in Britain today, offering a range of top flight synthesizers with immense flexibility and full SMPTE/MIDI sync to film. Ralph Denyer interviewed the man behind the idea and shot the stills on location.

EFFECTIVE AUTOMATION Part 1

Effective Automation Part 1: Creative Mixing With MIDI Controlled Effects

P art 1: With an ever increasing number of MIDI controllable effects units on the market, most people still tend to be using them as normal signal processors and are ignoring the many benefits offered by programmable sound control. Paul Gilby takes a closer look at the creative aspects of such MIDI devices in the first of a new series.

PHOTOGRAPHING SOUND

Art Of Sampling: Part 1

Part 1: Session programmer Paul Wiffen lays the foundations for better sampling by looking at how sound is made up, how sounds are 'captured' and how to overcome some of the drawbacks inherent in sampling as an imitative technique.

SOUND ON VISION, MUSIC & PICTURES PART 1

Music & Pictures: Part 1: An Introduction To The Art Form

Record producer and jingle composer Robin Lumley begins this six part series designed to take the mystery out of writing and recording music for film and television.

TALKING MIDI

Part 1

Part 1: It would be unreasonable to expect any magazine in the field of modern music not to describe, discuss and comment upon the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) in terms of the technology involved and its ongoing effect upon the creation, playing and recording of music. Sound On Sound certainly does not intend to shirk its responsibilities in this area so we commissioned Jay Chapman to provide a series that will hopefully help readers to realise the full potential that MIDI has to offer them. Jay's first article presents a somewhat subjective and necessarily selective overview of what MIDI can now and might in the future offer the musician. Future articles will concentrate on the technical detail of how MIDI does what it does and how you can use MIDI to your advantage.

TIME FOR SMPTE: Part 2

Time For SMPTE: Part 2

Kendall Wrightson rounds off his introduction to SMPTE with a brief look at its applications in the electronic instrument field as exemplified by a synchronisation unit - the Friend Chip SRC.