Industry Talk

SOS writer Craig Anderton is all for musical literacy, but sees no benefit in instant gratification.

Disaster strikes! Your most essential piece of gear dies on you mysteriously. What should you do? Take it to the professionals, of course. In the first of a two-part feature, Debbie Poyser and Derek Johnson talk to some of the engineers who service with a smile — and find they have some amazing tales to relate from the inspection pit of the music industry.

To the budding pop star, A&R managers hold the power of life and death — and it's not much easier for the producer. David Mellor explains how to win friends and influence people

Having resolved the nebulous role of the record producer in Part 1, this month David Mellor addresses the practical matter of pre-production.

Time was when synths weren't all weedy presets and wheyfaced copies of real instruments. Regular SOS contributor Paul Nagle is living off his memories...

SOS reader Eugene Romain frankly faces up to the embarrassing problem of gear lust, and asks: do we really need the next 'big thing'?

A record producer's career is seen as glamourous and exciting, but what does the job actually entail? Over the next few months, David Mellor will be talking to top producers about the whole process, from initial concept to final pay cheque. This month he looks at the different types of record producer in the music business.

During a fleeting visit to SOS headquarters, Paul White managed to soften up DOD/Digitech's Product Development Manager, Randy Thorderson, with a tasty curry before pumping him for info about products and future developments.

London's famous Turnkey music store was recently completely redesigned to offer instant hands-on access to virtually every major product in stock. SOS checked out the new facilities.

Sound On Sound's first decade has been graced by synths that were revolutionary, synths that were fascinating, synths that were seminal, and synths that were simply loved. Julian Colbeck takes a personal look at 10 of the best from synthesizer history.

Martin Russ takes a look at the changing face of technology during the first decade of SOS.

Regular SOS contributor Martin Russ returns to the back page with some rabid thoughts on software updates.

Brian Heywood traces the development of the most popular computer platform in the world, and examines its application in music.

What do you do if the expensive piece of gear you've just bought doesn't do what it's supposed to? Here, producer and studio owner Mel Simpson bemoans the fate of the reluctant guinea pig...

Nick Rothwell had a problem; although he owned an impressive MIDI setup, he found much of it useless when his musical project Cassiel came to provide the music for live dance performances. Here he explains how he solved his problems and adapted his setup to fit in with new requirements.

There's a revolution taking place and it's heading your way! David Mellor explains the increasing importance to musicians of optical technology for data storage.

Canadian company QSound Labs were among the third-party TDM developers present at Digiworld, the recent Digidesign-hosted event in London. Paul White chatted to QSound's head of technical support, Scott Willing, about the latest developments in their 3D processing technology.

Paul White trips off to California to discover the inside track on sampling, resynthesis, Darwin, and the future power generation of musical instruments from industry pioneers, Emu Systems.

Thanks to MIDI, modern musicians can achieve effects that would have seemed nothing short of magical only a few years ago — but it can still seem like mumbo jumbo to the uninitiated. Regular SOS contributor Paul Ward believes it could be so different with just a little standardisation.

We think nothing of using computers to help us create music via the wonders of MIDI — so why not use the computer to generate the actual sounds, and take entire synthesis systems into the realm of computer software? Paul D. Lehrman puts the case for and against this move and talks to some software synth developers.

Spain's annual Sonar festival, held this June in Barcelona, is one of a growing number of European events devoted to electronic music of all types. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser were in attendance.