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Why PAID Software is More Likely Than Free Software to Treat You as “The Product”
A Photoshop installation CD, back at the dawn of the century when it was possible to own a copy, and the main distribution means was the hi...
The Rise of the Guitar Effects Rack
Watch an old live rock performance from the 1970s, and in the backline you’ll see amps. Just amps; no effects. Right up until the end of t...
Death By Digital: How Technology Killed Music
The electric guitar has been one stronghold of pre-digital technology which refuses to die. Just as video killed the radio star, digital ...
K-Meleon: A Lightweight, Low-RAM Browser For Old PCs 2014 - 2015
Since the update of the Opera browser to a Chrome-based architecture, and the continued insistence by major browser providers on cramming...
The House Piano Sound Explained
It’s not rocket science, but the Italian house piano sound , which drove so many iconic dance music tracks from the late ’80s and the ’90s, ...
What Was The First Digital Piano?
I remember being incredibly jealous when a mate announced to me back in the mists of time that he’d just acquired a Yamaha electric piano an...
Cheetah Musical Instruments: Cheaper The Better?
This blog has specialised in unearthing facts about little-known, forgotten or misrepresented musical instruments from the pre-Internet age,...
The Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-550 Drum Machine
Some technology companies of the 1980s were great at ensuring that when you bought from them, you’d never knowingly do so again. Others, m...
The Vesta Fire 4-Track Tape Multi-Trackers
Ask someone for the name of a 1980s home multi-track recorder brand, and chances are you’re going to get one of three answers: Tascam, F...
The Ensoniq Mirage: A Sampling Revolution
What a fascinating time for hi-tech keyboards the mid 1980s was. In many ways, the five short years between 1983 and 1988 would define prett...
The Joy of SoundFonts
If you recorded on a PC in the 1990s and used a Sound Blaster sound card, you’ll probably remember very well the joy of SoundFonts . Whilst ...
The Fostex DCM100 and MixTab: MIDI Control for Analogue Mixing
As was evident in my piece on the R8 and MTC1 combo , early on Fostex spotted the huge significance of MIDI not just in sequencing and inst...
Music Software: What We Did Before The Internet
Once upon a time, shock horror, there was no such thing as Google, and most people had no real concept of the Internet as it tentatively pro...
The Fostex R8 - Time Code Magic
Lately I’ve been digging out a lot of my pre-digital recordings (pre-digital audio, that is, although some are even pre-MIDI!), and it’s pro...
Top Ten Waste of Money Musicians’ Purchases: 1980 to 1990
Above: 1980s stuff. Some of it was quite good. What a decade it was. The period between 1980 and 1990 was full of so many great developm...
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