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Category: Hardware Heroes

Beginners Guide to Multisampling!

12-05-2012

This week, we need to have a look at the world of multi-sampling. And we don’t mean using two different acapellas in the same track. No, this is a much more useful technique, and one that can help you get the best out of your old analogue gear – or a synth that you’ve just borrowed off a friend. Interested? Then read on… So what is multi-sampling? In essence, it’s ...

The Ups & Downs of Analogue & Digital Synths!

10-16-2012

Since the very first synthesizer was introduced in the 1930’s music has been transformed and revolutionized time and time again. The development and progression of these remarkable devices have empowered music makers, songwriters, sound designers, film composers, sound engineers and bedroom producers to continue to create unique, distinct and exceptional sounds for the world to revel in....

Reminiscing About the Korg M1

10-10-2012

I’ll never forget how I felt in 1991, reading Sound On Sound magazine for the first time. I could hardly understand a word, seriously, it felt like I was reading a scientific journal. The one thing that kept me going though was the picture heavy adverts, with one in particular always catching my eye on the back cover where it regularly sat. This monolithic monster in black, the Korg M1 ‘Workst...

Hardware Heroes: The Mellotron

01-25-2012

In this next installment of Hardware Heroes we look into the next development of sampling machine history! The Mellotron… This scandalous regeneration of the Music Master was limited to the UK market in 1965 when Harry Chamberlin took legal action against Steely Electronics, who had based it heavily upon one of the two Music Masters that arrived on the boat from America with the elusive Bill...

A New Look At Hardware Sequencing!

01-06-2012

Do you get screen-blindness when producing sometimes? Ready to write that killer track but every time you reach for the mouse, somehow all the ideas seem to fall out of your ears? Maybe a change in approach is needed. Ever tried writing on hardware? Hardware sequencers have been around for the longest time; the iconic Alesis MMT-8 was a staple for artists such as Orbital and Moby straight from its...

Hardware Heroes: The Music Master

01-01-2012

This weeks blog explore the next chapter of Hardware Heroes… The Chamberlin Music Master was the world’s first basic production tape replay keyboard; created by American Inventor Harry Chamberlin in the late 1940s, this prototype of an impending legacy in sound was not without its faults. Its unreliable electronics were hot-wired, usually delivering a sizeable shock when tampered with! The...