Monday 3 September 2012

The Shape of Things That Were

I've just binned over two decades worth of magazines. It broke my heart, but I don't have the space for the paper mountain it had become. Among the disposed were Electronics & Music Maker, Music Technology, The Mix, Future Music and Sound on Sound.



I went through as many issues as I could, looking for interesting articles, keepers. The above question from a bewildered Mathew in Camberley warmed my heart. Peter Forrest's scoop on the Doepfer A-100 in December 1995's The Mix is presented below as a historical document. Dieter's system, which then sought to provide a modern alternative to vintage Moogs and Rolands, is now itself almost 20 years old and still growing.

A few observations from my purge: the death of small ads due to the internet, musicians should leave video and graphic art to the experts, computers today might be faster and software better but the rate of genuine change seems to have slowed in the last ten years, DJs have a lot to answer for, Paul Farrer's 'Notes from the Deadline' is the first thing I jump to when I get my copy of SOS, Future Music is throw-away and the writing is shit.

Peter Forrest's review of the A-100 in The Mix 12/95
The Mix, Feb. 1997, Doepfer A-100 Review 2
Future Music, Feb. 2002, Peter Forrest Interview

For future scan updates, click on the media tag.

On the subject of clear-outs, I notice Schneidersbuero are having an end of summer sale. Might be something there to fill my now empty shelves. And, of course, there is one last question: did Mathew from Camberley ever figure out how to use his modular?

1 comment:

Brian said...

Nice. Archival music magazines are fascinating. I recently read about fifty TapeOp magazines from 2000 to about 2008 and those, mostly about recording gear, age pretty well. The "analog vs digital" hand-wringing is dated, and anything (including adverts) that are about or for anything digital is also out of place. It really highlights how some (most) digital gear is, like FutureMusic (and I so agree with you about FutureMusic), almost disposable.
Good pullout also. I admit that that question was my first question about modulars as well, back in the old days of 2009. (I haven't read a FutureMusic since.)