Posted on 05/03/1985
The Roland MKS-80 was launched as a rack successor to the big and beautiful Jupiter-8 synth – the unofficial king of the 80s polysynths. The MKS-80 had several additions to the JP-8, with MIDI and Velocity response as the most important. This made the instrument a lot more expressive, than the sweet sounding but more static […]
Posted on 01/01/1985
Akais first serious shot at a MIDI controlled digital sampler. The S-612 is really simple to operate: It is basically Record, Set Start/End and Play. It records at 12bit, 32Khz, and has a recording time of 8 seconds total. The resulting sample can be player with 6-voice polyphony. It offers a Sound-on-Sound function where you […]
Posted on 18/10/1984
It may seem odd today, but the Roland SBX-80 sync box was a real relief for syncing up MIDI sequencers to analog tape recorders. Released in the mid 80s, it was the perfect companion for e.g Rolands own MSQ-700 and MSQ-100 MIDI sequencers, but could be used with anything that slaves to MIDI sync. After […]
Posted on 29/08/1984
Memory relief The trouble of saving your MIDI sequences onto a standard cassette tape and loading back again, was a real nightmare – especially in a live situation. WIth the MSQ-700 and MSQ-100 Sequencers from Roland there was an audio interface, to record digital information onto analog tape. And it actually worked – when the […]
Posted on 13/08/1984
[gdlr_divider type=”solid” size=”100%” ] A Danish classic A real studio classic, and a classy piece of engineering. The “TC-2290 Programmable Digital Delay and Effects Control Processor”- or just TC-2290 – by Danish company TC Group (formerly TC Electronics) has found a place in most high end studios across the world. Writing the manual Being deeply […]
Posted on 12/05/1984
Handling a new standard In 1983 a new technology swept across the musical landscape, and in very short time sent the CV/Gate based synthesizer gear to the corner. A common standard for exchange of musical data between electronic instruments, first agreed upon between Roland, Sequential and Yamaha. This new standard was called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital […]
Posted on 02/05/1984
Let me say it quickly: This is a seriously well-designed little machine, that performs extremely well and is rock solid. The diminutive size aside, the MSQ-100 can sequence a complete MIDI arrangement (16 channels across a single MIDI wire). It is easy to grasp, and the work modes are quite intuitive and quickly gets in […]