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Changing Face Of Technology: The Last 10 Years

Exploration By Martin Russ
Published December 1995

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

I didn't quite make it as a contributor into the first issue of Sound On Sound, but I was there in Issue 7 of Volume 1 and have been contributing fairly regularly ever since. So what's happened over the last 10 years? Here are some fascinating snippets of trivia from SOS, together with some scene‑setting facts to put everything into perspective.

Trivia Question 1. Which issue of SOS had Phil Collins and Midge Ure on the front cover?

Pages Per Issue

As you may have noticed, the page count of SOS has gradually increased over the years, although something really major must have happened in 1991, because the size almost doubled. And this current issue is the biggest so far (304 pages) — any resemblance to a telephone directory has nothing to do with the advertisers index that also lists their telephone numbers! To try and put the SOS cover price into context, here are some measures of what things are really worth after 10 years of inflation. Graph 1 highlights the price of a secondhand DX7, Graph 2 the value of a 1985 pound over the last 10 years, while Graph 3 shows inflation over the past decade.

As might be expected, the secondhand price of a Yamaha DX7 has fallen over the years, although the usual trend with old synthesizers is that they don't fade away, they become 'vintage' and suddenly collectable once more. It has already happened with analogue machines as 'retro' has become popular, and countless old monosynths have been hastily resurrected from dusty attics and corners of studios to be sold on to eager users raised only on digital synths, and who have never known the joys of tuning drift and interfacing conversion boxes between linear and exponential control voltages. Judging by the recent upturn in DX7 secondhand prices, the same might be about to happen with FM. There again, prices can fluctuate quite a bit, especially down at the lower price range.

To put the inflation graph into perspective, you need to remember that in 1980, inflation peaked at just over 13% per year, and from 1972 to 1982, inflation was always higher than 6% per year. The trend over the last five years has been downwards, with the current inflation rate somewhere between two and three percent (depending upon whose statistics you believe!). The total inflation over the decade is a mere 44%, which doesn't seem enough to me — prices feel like they have gone up far more than that!

The pound today is only worth about three‑quarters of what it was in 1985. Assuming total inflation over the last 10 years to be 44%, the buying power of your pound has almost halved. That 25p Mars bar was probably only about 12p when SOS first appeared.

Trivia Question 2. Which Computer Notes column regularly featured a man in a cap?

Buzz Of The Year

What was making the news in each of the last 10 years? What were people talking about, and what did they want to buy? Table 1 (see page 210) lists some of the product highlights of each year.

The passage of time is unkind and technology suffers rather badly in such a listing. I'm not sure that a Yamaha CX5 MSX computer would have much street‑cred these days, although in 1985 it was giving the BBC B and Commodore 64 serious competition. Conversely, some familiar names may surprise you with their longevity: are Studio Vision and the Wavestation really five years old?

Trivia Question 3. Whose picture regularly featured an unusual guitar chording technique?

Price Drops

One aspect of technology that is certain is the rapid price drop. Yamaha's GS1 FM synthesizer prototype cost £12,000 in 1982, and the DX7 a year later cost just over 10% of that! Over a decade, the changes in technology and price can be enormous, and they are often so large that no meaningful comparisons can be made. For example, hard disks. If I choose a midrange current size, 540 Megabytes, and look back a couple of years, today's 'under £200' price would have cost over £1,000 a mere three years ago, and I couldn't even find a price for that size disk four years ago!

Table

520Mb HARD DISK PRICE
1992 £1018
1993 £625
1994 £349
1995 £179

So how about something a little more stable? Memory (RAM) seemed like a good idea, so I investigated prices for 1Mb SIMM memory modules, the sort of thing that plugs into the motherboard of most PCs and Macs. Much the same thing happened. Only a few years ago, 1Mb SIMMs were just arriving, and smaller 256Kb SIMMs were popular — nowadays a 256Kb SIMM is almost worthless. The conclusion seems to be that computers change so much in just five years that any meaningful comparisons are not possible. It also means that you can expect to throw away your computer at least once every 10 years — three times in my case (BBC B, Atari ST, and my Mac IIsi is looking rather tired...). Does Vince Clarke still use his BBC B/UMI system, I wonder?

One thing that has changed considerably in the lifetime of SOS is the complexity of the microprocessors at the heart of most hi‑tech equipment. Some programmable analogue synthesizers have used 4‑bit microcontrollers, but the majority of polysynths and computers back in 1985 employed 8‑bit chips like the 6502, Z80 and 6800, with a maximum of 64 Kbytes of RAM memory, and clocked at a speed of 2 or 4MHz. By around 1990, this had changed to 16‑bit chips like the 68000, typically with 1Mb of RAM, and a clock speed in the 'teens' of MHz. Currently, some devices use 32‑bit RISC processors with 8Mb or more of RAM, and clock speeds in the 40‑50MHz range — and several computers have Pentium or PowerPC processors with clock rates over 100MHz.

Samplers have changed over the last 10 years too. In 1985, you might be using an Apple II computer with a plug‑in card offering 8‑bit samples and a sampling rate of about 8kHz (nowadays politely referred to as 'telephone quality'). 12‑bit systems with sampling rates in the 20kHz region were quickly replaced by 16‑bit sampling at 44.1kHz: the so‑called 'CD quality' specification which has become almost standard. Hence, sampling at 48kHz, or with 18 or 20 bits, is always referred to as 'better than CD quality'!

Outside And Inside

Front panels have changed. By the late 80s, 7‑segment LED displays were being augmented by 2‑line LCDs or green discharge displays, which enabled the naming of sounds — you no longer needed to remember that bank 3, number 11 was the clicky lead line sound; instead you could call it anything you liked: provided you could fit it into the eight or 10 characters. Names like 'E.Piano 1a' became as familiar as all the other hi‑tech jargon. LCDs even began to appear, some of which were actually back‑lit — quite an advance in their time! These days graphic displays are becoming more common and the very latest are touch‑sensitive, making them even more the focus of attention of the front panel.

In 1985 you could look at the front panel of a piece of equipment and figure out what it did, and gain some idea of the functions of the controls, because everything would be labelled. In 1995, the typical LCD display, soft‑keys, and dials give almost no idea of what goes on inside at first glance. Front panels may look neater and tidier, but the more sophisticated they become, the more it seems you need the owner's manual to put them into context.

Inside musical equipment, a quiet revolution has taken place. Hand assembled circuit boards with crimped connector cables have been replaced by robotic automated assembly and insulation displacement connections. Chip sizes have shrunk as the pitch of their pins has dropped from 0.1 inches down to 0.02 inches, with a corresponding increase in the number of pins: 40 pins in 1985 and several hundred pins in 1995. Some chips have even abandoned pins altogether and provide lots of small circles on one side which are soldered directly to the board. In fact, pins which poke through circuit boards and are soldered into place have largely been replaced with 'surface mount' technology, where the chips are held onto the board by the solder, allowing two sets of circuitry: one on each side of the circuit board.

So has all this soaring technological progress made any difference to music making? Curiously, as the power of computers and synthesizers increase, the complexity increases with them. So, although music making is now more sophisticated, the level of skill required has remained about the same — although the types of skill required may have changed considerably. The 'it will do' point has moved as the quality of recording has improved: you can't depend on that bad edit being hidden in the mix or surface noise any longer, or hope that the hum and noise on the output of the analogue synth will not be noticed.

Trivia Question 4. When did an Emu modular synthesizer appear on the cover of SOS?

What Next?

MIDI has come, and nearly gone, if you believe some of the rather over‑eager reports of its demise. Analogue has faded, trundled along in the doldrums, and then bounced back with a vengeance. Rap has changed from an obscure musical chant into mainstream pop, and almost all of the rock 'dinosaurs' of the 70s have vanished, with only a couple of notable exceptions who carry on regardless.

So what does technology offer the SOS reader in the future? Obvious answers like 'the Internet' or 'cheaper hard disks' aren't really much help. I reckon that the bulky TV monitor will vanish in the next decade, opening the way for computers to leave their fixed positions and become far more mobile. Computers will probably be used less as pure computers, and much more as tools to carry out a range of tasks. It may well be that your instruments become easier to use because of new technology embedded inside them. Hi‑tech music will continue to move downwards in the market — if you think computers with soundcards are cheap now, then just wait a few years. This does mean that the one thing that will still differentiate the pseudo‑intelligent, computer‑assisted flute from a musician is creativity and originality. The flute may well turn a complete novice into a James Galway sound‑alike, but it will take a little bit more time before it can compose a tune that can stir you emotionally. About 2015 should do it, by which time SOS will be heading for its 30th birthday. See you there!

Hi‑Tech Highlights

1985

  • Yamaha CX5 computer
  • Yamaha QX7 sequencer
  • UMI 2B sequencer

1986

  • Ensoniq ESQ1 workstation
  • Steinberg Pro24 sequencer
  • Ensoniq Mirage sampler

1987

  • Roland D50 S&S synthesizer
  • System Exclusive Iconix ST sequencer
  • C‑Lab Creator sequencer

1988

  • Akai S1000 16‑bit sampler
  • Steinberg Pro24 V3
  • Korg M1 workstation

1989

  • Emu Proteus multitimbral module
  • Hollis Trackman ST sequencer
  • Steinberg Cubase

1990

  • Waldorf Microwave
  • Opcode Studio Vision sequencer
  • Korg Wavestation

1991

  • Yamaha SY99
  • C‑Lab Notator 3.1
  • Digidesign Pro Tools

1992

  • Yamaha TG500
  • Steinberg Cubase Audio
  • Kurzweil K2000

1993

  • Korg X3
  • Digidesign Session 8
  • Emu Morpheus

1994

  • Emu ESi32 sampler
  • Emagic Notator Logic
  • OSC Deck 2.2

1995

  • Korg Prophecy
  • MOTU Digital Performer 1.6
  • Emagic Logic for Windows

Trivia Answers

1. Volume 1, Issue 1: November 1985. The promotional 'dummy' issue flier featured Phil Collins on its cover, whilst Ultravox's Midge Ure appeared on the real first issue cover.

2. Amiga Notes used to feature a line drawing of a man in a cap, from November 1992 to May 1993.

3. Dave Lockwood's Night of the Demo tape review page in 1992 had a picture of him barring a chord, but from the front of the guitar!

4. The February 1987 front cover showed Frank Zappa in front of a large Emu modular synthesizer (in glorious black and white!).