Synthesizers

Walk inside Philip Taysom's studio and you will find classic synths in abundance, all connected and all ready to play...

As a member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, a composer for film and TV and a performer in his own right, Jan Hammer helped to define the role of the synthesizer player in rock and jazz.

I bought some CDs of new sound banks for my Korg Wavestation off eBay recently, only to find that most of them are in System Exclusive (SysEx) format rather than MIDI files. I have loaded sounds into my synths from MIDI files before using Cubase, but I don't know how to do it with a SysEx file. Can you help?

I'm considering buying a second-hand Roland D-series workstation to get those classic D50-type sounds. I recently borrowed an old D-series synth from a friend and was using it in multitimbral mode, hooked up to my computer sequencer, but I  experienced some problems with the sounds, so I'd like to get your advice before I shell out any cash.

I have just purchased the new Novation KS4 keyboard and want to have a complete drum kit playing in performance mode but there's nothing in the manual explaining how to do this! Can you program full kits to sound like the keyboard demo or must you use an external sequencer?