$2.50 M ^ p h o a y ELECTRONICS-MUSIC-HOME RECORDING A p ril 1985 SEQUENTIAL’S SIX REVIEWED ESIZING IC PIANO BUILDf A VOLTAGE STATE V MIDI IUM URE NEW! VIDEO FO BY DO RTED WITH 4534 t TASCAM, we’re obsessed with your music. We’re A driven to providing the technology that will give you back everything you put into your sound. With advanced recorder/reproducers that focus on your At Tascam, specific needs, delivering the ultimate in signal quality, dependability and multi-track versatility. We built our 8-track 38 for the professional who demands uncompromising quality at a very economical Your M usic price. You get full 8-track flexibility, plus the exacting precision of TASCAM-built heads, with sync response equal to repro response. If your next step in audio is video, our SMPTE- Drives Us to compatible 8-track 48 can move your music right into the picture. Balanced/unbalanced, the hard-working 48 features full microprocessor 3-motor servo control for fast recording and editing. E xtrem es. For rugged sophistication, our SMPTE-compatible 58 is built for rapid, high-torque tape shuttling. The 58 is the industry’s first V2” 8-track with the engineering depth of a 1” machine. Its unique Omega Drive provides the ultimate in tape to head contact, assures superb tape path stability and eliminates tape stretch and bounce. Each TASCAM 8-track is part of its own series, allowing you to easily build a complete system with outstanding half-tracks and four-tracks engineered to the same stringent TASCAM standards. For even broader needs, our 85-16B moves you into full 16 track production. We’ve carried our technology to extremes, so that wherever you want to go with your music, we’ve got a system to take you there. See your TASCAM dealer today, or write TASCAM, TEAC Professional Division, TASCAM 7733 Telegraph Road, Montebello, CA 90640, (213) 726-0303. Copyright 1984-TEAC Corporation of America Nobody makes a broader line of professional recorder/reproducers than TASCAM. STAFF CONTENTS---- PUBLISHER ISSN: 0163-4534 John S. Simonton, Jr. Po^ptumy EDITOR VOLUME 10, NUMBER 2 Craig Anderton APRIL, 1985 EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Vanessa Else Covering the months of February and April, 1985 MANAGING EDITOR Linda Kay Brumfield PRODUCTION MANAGER Add a Noise Generator to your Organtua TECHNICAL ILLLUSTRATOR By: Ron Oberholtzer ..............................42 Caroline Wood CDs CIRCULATION By: Robert Carlberg .............................. 28 Ramona French Grounding and Shielding Seminar: A Review Peggy Walker By: Vanessa Else ................................. 40 BOOKEEPING Justly Tuned Guitar Cathi Boggs By: David B. Doty................................. 38 MIDI: Recording Medium of the Future PRINT PRODUCTION By: David Albin .................................. 6 SEMCO Color Press Optical Disk Drum Machine By: James Lisowski .................... 22 POLYPHONY (ISSN 0163-4534) is published bimonthly at 1020 W. Wilshire Blvd., Sequential Circuits 610 MIDI Six-Trak Review Oklahoma City, OK 73116, by Polyphony By: Chuck Pogan .................................. 32 Publishing Co. Entire contents copyright (c) 1984 by Polyphony Publishing Co. All The Man Behind Musicom: Felix Visser rights reserved. No portion of_ this By: Craig Anderton ...... 18 publication may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from Twin-T Test Oscillator the publisher. Second Class postage is By: Jack Orman ...................................14................................... 14 paid at Oklahoma City, OK 73125. ADVERTISING rate card and deadline schedule is available upon request. Contact Linda Brumfield at (405) 842-5480. Applied Synthesis: Once Again Upon a Piano DEALERS & DISTRIBUTORS bulk prices are By: Bill Rhodes .................................. 12 available upon request. Contact Linda Brumfield at (405) 842-5480. Editorial The Last issue of POLYPHONY SUBSCRIPTION rates: BY: Linda Simonton............................... 15 American 1 year $12.00 2 years $22.00 On Location: Foreign 1 year $14.00 Musicom 84, Holland 2 years $26.00 By: Craig Anderton ...............................16 We now accept MasterCharge and Visa payment for subscriptions, back issues, Practical Circuitry ana PolyMart items. Foreign payments Build a Voltage-Controlled State Variable Filter must be by charge card, money order, or By: Thomas Henry........... 8 certified check in US funds drawn on a US bank. Re-View By: Robert Carlberg ............................. 5 BACK ISSUES are available at $2.50 each ppd. Send SASE and request 9 ur 'Back Video Focus: Issue List' for a complete index of The Forgotten Technology issues and their features, or see the By: Don Slepian .................................. 30 back issue ad in this issue. CHANGE OF ADDRESS notifications must include your former address and zip code, and any numbers from the mailing label, as well as your new address. When you move, be sure to notify your Advertiser's Index............................. 42 post office that you DO want second class and controlled circulation Current Events ............. 26 ublications forwarded. This will save fost or returned issues. Polyphony is DataBank ...............................................37 not responsible for replacement of lost or returned issues when we have not been Equipment Exchange .................................... 42 supplied with change of address information. Letters ............................................... 4 TO POSTMASTER, send address changes to: NOTE: Subscriptions are fulfilled by volume and issue POLYPHONY numbers rather than months. This combined month issue counts PO Box 20305 as one volume and issue on your subscription fulfillment. Oklahoma City, OK 73156 Ph. (405) 842-5480 ON THE COVER: A Silk Screen Print by: Piet Jan Blauw P o lyphony April 1985 3 WIND PLAYERS VOCALISTS You can use yo u r own instrument or voice to control any standard synthesizer, with more expressiveness than C-64 MICRO-DRUMS! I was just reading the August the vocoder/Stringz combination '84 issue of Polyphony (excellent, would be your most cost-effective as usual) and thought I'd cast my option. vote in favor or a C-64 implemen­ tation of Micro-Drums (I'm sure many other Polyphony readers are MORE GUITAR! Commodore owners). I am an electric guitarist Mike Dolan and a very interested reader of Bristol, TN Polyphony. Although I realize that the electric guitar has lit­ tle to do with synthesizers (un­ OOOH...AHHH! less you have a guitar synthe­ sizer), I am annoyed by the fact I have read and thoroughly that most of your projects are enjoyed "Electronic Projects for written with only the keyboard Musicians” and "Home Recording for synthesist in mind. Is it assumed Musicians". I have also built that there are too few guitar qentle electric several of the Craig Anderton PAIA playing readers out there to con­ U D ept p projects, to my complete satisfac­ sider? P.O. Box 132, Delta, CO 81416 tion. Now I have an interesting A super envelope follower 3 0 3 - 874-8054 / 3 0 3 - 874-7171 idea for a project. Would it be project would be nice. It would possible to connect a keyboard enable an electric guitar, bass, with oscillators and chorusing or microphone to use and control SAVE BY BUILDING circuit to a speech synthesis chip many of your past projects: VCFs, to produce a keyboard that could VCLFOs, etc. that are voltage OUR R A C K M OUNT sing oooh, ahhh, la, da, etc.? controlled. Also, in future arti­ Such a unique keyboard would be cles where a guitar might be ap­ STUDIO very useful for my home studio. plicable, a mention of some sort Even better, could such a circuit as to how the guitar can be ap­ EQUIPMENT be added to a Stringz 'N Things? plied would be appreciated. Any thoughts or opinions would be I enjoy Polyphony and plan to QUADRAFUZZ — four separate fre­ greatly appreciated. continue receiving it. I have quency bands of distortion are mixed learned many things I would not for the smoothest fuzz you’ve.ever Jon Hand have learned elsewhere. heard, no.6720..........*..........$39.88 Pulaski, TN HYPERFLANGE/CHORUS - the Tom Carter cleanest, widest range, most versatile Jon — Actually, there are San Carlos, CA flanger anywhere at any price. • several ways to do what you want no. 6750.................................$149.95 to do. A speech synthesizer chip Tom — We are always looking would probably not be satisfac­ for guitar-oriented articles, but VOCODEJR — unmatched perfor­ tory, as these have a kind of "Mr. don't receive too many from read­ mance in a versatile, low cost rack Roboto" timbre which tends to ers. I would write them myself, package, no. 6710.................... $99.95 grate after a while — certainly except that I already covered the subject of guitar interfacing HhOT^SPRiNGS ■— user’s agree, short not the dulcet tones of a choir. fairly thoroughly in DEVICE (see of studio plate systems, you won’t I have had very good results using vocoders with Stringz 'N Thingz to Polymart). DEVICE contained an find a better reverb at any price.- no. 6740.................... $59.95 produce vocal/choir effects; in ongoing series on the AMS-100, a ADD $3 SHIPPING fact, PAIA has just come out with trigger-oriented audio modifica­ FOR EACH KIT ORDERED an under $100 vocoder which would tion system for guitar and other probably give the exact effects electric signal sources (I still Innovative, cost effective designs by use the AMS-100 all the time in my Craig Anderton in easy to assemble which you seek. If you want to kits from: invest some big bucks, the Emula­ own studio). The AMS-100 inter­ tor II can do fantastic vocal faces guitar to many existing IB iA Electronics, Inc. simulations via sampling; Ensoniq modules, as well as custom Direct mailorders and inquiries to: Dept. 11Y has also just released an under- modules. Older issues of Poly­ 1020 W. W ilsh ire , O klahom a City, O K 73114 (405)843-9626 phony also contain some AMS-100 ______Ask for your free catalog. $2000 sampling keyboard, although add-ons.