Early Sound On Sound Issues...

[muzines]

There is occasional talk in the forums about accessing the valuable content from the early Sound On Sound issues that were published before SOS's own online archive, and I'm pleased to announce that finally this is becoming a reality.

This has been a long-time "someday" project that I kicked into high gear sometime last year to get it into a state to launch - and we're now up and live.

mu:zines
www.muzines.co.uk

mu:zines is a searchable archive of old, out-of-print UK music production magazines, including Electronics & Music Maker, Music Technology, Home & Studio Recording and, of course, Sound On Sound.

SOS Publications have kindly given mu:zines permission to re-publish the early, pre-archive ('85-'93) issues of Sound On Sound.

If you have SOS issues (or MT, E&MM, H&SR etc) that we are missing, it would be a great help to donate or scan them for mu:zines, so we can ultimately end up with a complete archive of issues.

We have a long way to go of course, but I will be adding issues to the site regularly until they are all archived. With what we have already at launch we have collected basically two-thirds of the early SOS issues, two-thirds of the complete MT run, nearly all of E&MM, and a variety of other issues.

Other publications will hopefully be coming to mu:zines as I can find the rights holders and get permissions, which I continue to work on.

Anyway, more details can be found on the site.

The "press release" can be found here:
SOS News item

http://www.muzines.co.uk/press.html

More info:
http://www.muzines.co.uk/blog_display.php?id=9
http://www.muzines.co.uk/about.php
http://www.muzines.co.uk/faq.php

Enjoy!

[Kwackman]

Looks great Desmond.
I need to get large coffee and have a closer browse soon.

[The Korff]

Very slick web site!

[Mixedup]

Thanks for this. It's useful and, as others have said, it looks great.

But more importantly, it makes my pair of REV7s look incredibly valuable...

[Scramble]

Well done Desmond.

You avatar looks like an ad for the Musician's Union, though!

[Mike Stranks]

Excellent stuff! Well done!

Some lovely 'memory lane' stuff found already...

[muzines]

You avatar looks like an ad for the Musician's Union, though!

Nah, their's is yellow and swooshy!

[muzines]

Some lovely 'memory lane' stuff found already...

Indeed, lots of gems and great content - I intend to blog occasionally about interesting things I come across.

What's also really great is that now you can read a lot of this stuff with a whole new context - you can read about some bands making new technology to make a video piece, and call up the exact piece of youtube to see what they are talking about, or read an interview about an artist or album, and call it up on Spotify or iTunes to listen to the pieces directly, or read a synth reivew and pull up demos of the synth sounds while you read etc - you could never do this stuff this easily back in the day.

[Scramble]

You avatar looks like an ad for the Musician's Union, though!

Nah, their's is yellow and swooshy!

Maybe, but nobody knows that, do they?

[Mike Stranks]

One of the things I've already noticed from the H&SR issues is that it was then much more assumed that we'd be reaching for the soldering iron quite often - eg 'how to wire XLRs' etc.

As I've said before, in the 70s and early 80s there was often a giveaway reference card included as a free gift (!) in mags of the era showing how to wire-up plugs for balanced, unbalanced, stereo and what have you...

[zenguitar]

A big WELL DONE for Desmond

Andy

[Hugh Robjohns]

One of the things I've already noticed from the H&SR issues is that it was then much more assumed that we'd be reaching for the soldering iron quite often - eg 'how to wire XLRs' etc.

Yes, it was the end of an era. Going back to the equivalent mags of the 60s -- Tape Recorder and the like -- a lot of coverage went into the DIY building of microphones, mixers, tape recorders, speakers and more. In those days you really had to build the things you needed because there were no (or only very few) commercial manufacturers.

That changed through the 70s and DIY became more to do with system and cable wiring rather than building major items of equipment. You could buy reasonable mixers and recorders by then -- although many of the mags in the 70s and early 80s still carried DIY projects for guitar effects pedals, synths, digital delay lines and other esoteric audio tools.

I think it was really the advent of the home computer in the late 80s and early 90s that killed off the DIY constructional articles. That, and the fact that it was possible to buy almost everything you could ever need, at reasonable prices, and with a quality that matched that of pro studio gear from only a decade earlier.

Maybe in the years to come DIY coding will become the big thing, and we'll all be designing and writing our own plugins... some here already do!

H

[Forum Admin]

...many of the mags in the 70s and early 80s still carried DIY projects for guitar effects pedals, synths, digital delay lines and other esoteric audio tools.

I still have my Practical Electronics Joanna electric piano in my Dad's loft (unless he's scrapped it?) along with my Powertran Digital Delay rack mount unit here in Cambridge; I sold my Powertran Tim Orr-designed Transcendent synth kit -- my first synth -- to part-fund my Pro-One purchase when it first appeared (still got it).

I think it was really the advent of the home computer in the late 80s and early 90s that killed off the DIY constructional articles. That, and the fact that it was possible to buy almost everything you could ever need, at reasonable prices, and with a quality that matched that of pro studio gear from only a decade earlier.

And don't forget the appearance of Behringer products, which whether you love 'em or hate 'em, did democratise equipment, and reinforce GAS for many musicians.

[Mike Senior]

Bravo that man! Great to see this stuff becoming available again. Thanks for giving it the impetus!

[ConcertinaChap]

Brilliant! I'm looking forward to seeing the first issue I ever bought, sometime in late 1989 (although at the time I was interested in synths and things and mostly found all the studio stuff irritating intrusions. Hey ho ...).

Many thanks.

CC

[tea for two]

A site to add to my small list of favourites to read on travels.
What a treat to recall fondness.

Des your dogged devotion to this is Much appreciated.
You really deserve a treat.
Already sent this months (to [email]donate@muzines.co.uk)[/email] just the basic £5 I'm afraid.

I didn't have spare pocket money for these magazines, at the time I wasn't aware.
Arcades 10p 20p a pop, CurlyWurlys ate up coin.
Looking forward to May 1990 first SoS I purchased.

[muzines]

Thank you t4two - that is very much appreciated!

All donations will go to hosting costs and if we have some stuff left over I'll use it to benefit the site in other ways, such as purchasing issues we need if they are available (and not ridiculously priced!)

I've already spent far too much on picking up issues that were too good an opportunity to be missed, so I've told myself not to buy any more, but it's really hard to ignore good, difficult to get stuff that otherwise might not be able to get archived - such as the Home Studio Recording collection that's just listed on ebay now...

[Goddard]

Thanks very much for making this resource available. Well done!

If you're interested, I believe scans of a few old E&MM project articles may be found amongst the various (mostly guitar and synth electronics related) articles archived here.

Btw, also available there (at pp. 10-12) are scans of all issues of the Device guitar electronics 'newsletter' published by Craig Anderton and Roger Clay in '79.

(I've links somewhere to some old Polyphony (forerunner of EM) scans as well but will need to dig them out).

[Guest]

Fantastic job, donation made. Now down to some reading...,,

Andy

[muzines]

If you're interested, I believe scans of a few old E&MM project articles may be found amongst the various (mostly guitar and synth electronics related) articles archived here.

Thanks - scans of the odd article are not really that useful for me, as I need the complete issue to be valuable - except where an issue is complete apart from one article is damaged. But even so, I can't just take other people's scans, even if it is their content.

So we'll see what we can do in crowdsourcing complete issues, and then deal with the really obscure stuff then, I think!