Thanks for the shoutout and kind words, Doc.
Because you brought it up, I'll comment a bit.
The great part about this assignment, for me as a musician obviously, was
spending a solid month listening to and writing about analog synths. (Not
counting the hours spent at the AH booth at NAMM, or the hours spent at
Sooperbuth in Frankfurt bugging all the synth designers about their
products.) Frankly, I was floored when my boss suggested we make this the
cover story. How often do you see a patchable analog synth on the cover of a
music magazine? Certainly not enough for my tastes. Needless to say, I was
very excited to see the field get this much exposure.
The difficult part was, as always, to fit as much info as possible within a
specified word count (and page count). That's why this particular piece was
narrowed down to just the companies and product lines that have sprung up
since 2001 (when I last covered the field). This piece included 11 product
lines, which is a healthy number when you think about trying to write
succinctly about them.
Add to that number the companies that are going strong (still releasing new
modules, etc), but haven't introduced new product lines (.com, Doepfer,
Asys, Asol, etc) and you can see that musicians have a wide range of choices
when it comes to modulars.
My goal was to not necessarily preach to the choir, but to inform the
younger musicians who are growing up with soft synths and sequencers that
haven't experienced the joy of patching and tweaking a hardware synth, and
hearing how good REAL analog synths sound. Consequently, the tone of the
article is aimed at the reader who is new to this field, not to the readers
on this kind of list who know which end of the soldering iron to use. So if
something seems over simplified, bear with me.
Also, Doc wrote:
>While we may quibble endlessly about the details or emphasis... >>
Feel free to send me your endless quibbles. I'd like to know what I missed
or misconstrued. Although I fact checked each section with the
manufacturers, sometimes inaccuracies get through, and I want to know if
they did. Heck, I'd like to hear differing opinions too.
One last thing, based on what the good Doctor said below:
> Call me old-fashioned, but
> speaking for myself, i get tired of being spoofed month after month by
> sexy panels in these mags only to discover that they're screenshots of
> software.
A word about what it's like to work at a magazine like EM: don't forget that
the editorial staff of EM (and SOS, and Keyboard, etc) is populated with
musicians who love the topics we cover. Typically, each editor has their
specialty and interests, which he or she has to balance against the
interests of other staff members, as well as the interests of the readers.
Consequently, feature articles have to appeal to a large portion of the
readership so that people feel like they're getting their money's worth.
The topics that EM (and SOS for that matter) cover are wide ranging:
recording and mixing application stories (How-To articles); product roundups
of everything from mics and preamps to monitors and MIDI control surfaces;
and reviews of products from major companies (Roland, Yamaha, M-Audio) and
one-person organizations (Dave Smith, Metasonix, Doepfer, Wiard, etc).
Obviously, the big guys advertise, and our sales staff loves it when we
cover advertisers. But our editorial approach at EM is that editorial and
sales are like church and state: I'm free to assign what I want for review.
And every so often we get to feature something nifty like analog modulars,
or interview someone like Gary Chang!
So for me, the fun of this job is focusing the review spotlight on the
boutique items, whether it's a stand-alone tube filer, freeware softsynth,
or quirky stompbox.
Re DIY: I've been pushing for renewed coverage of DIY projects, but far
fewer people do it these days than back when Craig started EM, or when John
S. ran Polyphony. Consequently, the editorial space (page count) is
allocated elsewhere.
However, I am going through our old DIY sections and plan to put up some of
them in pdf format on our Web site. For example, I have a nice one by Thomas
Henry about filling blank panels with useful, space saving modules (like
mults). Perfect for the person who's just getting into this field (or
perhaps just bought the new Nic Collins book and is getting into circuit
bending). Unfortunately, some of the older projects are woefully outdated.
Feel free to suggest any particular archive article you remember fondly and
I'll try to get it online.
Also, always feel free to contact me directly if you have article ideas or
comments. I'll share them with my colleagues.
Okay, now I'll take off my work hat and go back to being a civilian Wiard
user...
Cheers,
g
On 5/23/06 9:48 AM, "drmabuce" <drmabuce@yahoo.com>scribbled:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
> Hi all
> (i know Gino is a member so i'll adress him directly herein)
> i just read the EM cover story on 21st century analog modules and i
> want to say thanx to Gino. While we may quibble endlessly about the
> details or emphasis, i urge everyone to take a step back and consider
> that EM put this story -- on the cover---. Call me old-fashioned, but
> speaking for myself, i get tired of being spoofed month after month by
> sexy panels in these mags only to discover that they're screenshots of
> software. It was a treat just to turn pages and see photos wherein
> real light reflects off REAL knobs, and real aluminum
> - Long overdue and much welcomed!
> i applaud the editors and author for the ecumenical coverage of the
> WHOLE field. Units sold is an irrelevant factor to the reader. The
> only thing that matters to me is what's in MY rig. Obviously EM gets
> that. Bananalogue & Mankato are standing shoulder to shoulder with
> MOTM & Modcan. The focus clung to form and features. Gino's diligence
> really showed in the exposure he gave to the lesser-known designers.
> Musicians looking into our world from the outside got the benefit of
> Gino's insider-perspective and experience. THAT's what good
> gear-journalism is all about.
> i also want to mention that i was delighted to see Ken Stone
> credited . The Anime panel and 'man behind the curtain' angle elicited
> a sincere chuckle from a even such a crusty old curmudgeon as myself!
>
> Bravo Gino! i recognize that it was a lot of work but speaking as
> a guy who still has Craig's EM issue #1 (when the mag still had
> schematics! YOWZA!!!!!) the effort really paid off!
>
> I could even tell that JAG's LEDs were different colors!
> =)
>
> -doc
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