Observations after revisiting 80s Keyboard Magazine articles in 2024

[Franz Schiller]

Inspired by another thread, last night I opened up a few issues of 1980s Keyboard Magazine from my childhood. I got hooked on synthesizers at a very early age because my dad played piano, and had gotten a Roland JX-8P...only for me to totally monopolize it. And while some kids liked comic books, I liked Keyboard Magazine.

 

So I noticed a few things from those issues.

 

The January 1987 issue always tickled my imagination. It was a special issue on experimental music, and featured a captivating image of cracked piano keys on the front. All the interesting artists it discussed always sounded so cool and interesting. Also had a great interview with Brian Eno. But this made me realize that the Keyboard Magazine in general was very open minded with columns from Freff that was pretty abstract, about concepts, and thinking. Moreover, I recall another article from Freff in the special sequencer issue on all the different weird ways and ideas using sequencers. Also the regularly occurring column called "Notes from the Underground."

 

Looking at an issue from 1989, an artist referred to their "old DX7." Old! Wow! The original DX7 was only 6 years old! That made me remember that there was a book (published by Keyboard Magazine) called "Vintage Synthesizers" put out around 1987, and among the many instruments included was the Prophet 5. Again, a synth that was only 9 years old at the time. Even the inevitable Minimoog was only 15 years old, max, I think?

 

It's funny, I think maybe in the 80s progress was so fast, that objects were considered old very quickly.

 

Here in 2024, people are obviously still using the DX7, the Prophet 5, the Minimoog. I would not consider a synth released 6 years ago (2018) to be old personally, maybe not even 15 years old (2009); But also consider the Waldorf Blofeld. That synth was released in 2007, and is still being made 17 years later. So it's kind of vintage, but also not?

 

This demonstrates that terms like "old" and "vintage" are slippery.

 

What are your thoughts?

[eric]

When I first started reading KB Mag in the early '80s, I found each issue to contain such rich and helpful content. I would read them cover to cover, including ads and articles that were less relevant to me. I would rush to the mailbox each day, hoping to find the newest issue.

 

One of the issues that stands out for me was the feature on INXS (can't remember the date off the top of my head). There were very detailed graphic depiction of the onstage and offstage keyboard rigs, including racks and everything. The same thing was done in the David Bryan Bon Jovi feature and the Michael Jackson tour (three keyboard players, if memory serves). Among others. I used to completely geek out over these diagrams that often included huge racks with all kinds of processing gear, MIDI patchbays, a wide array of rack modules, vintage and modern synths, controllers, pedals, etc. There was also a cool one I remember on Night Ranger's keyboard player, who had a custom rack version Korg CX-3 (analog version) that had been involved in a fire, so that's how its innards found their way to a rack. I would get even more excited if a famous touring keyboard player had some of the same gear as me!

 

Somewhere in the '00s (I think), I didn't get that adrenaline rush when I found the monthly KB Mag in the mailbox. This was related to the focus on a lot more soft synths, drum machines, and things that I didn't really use and I lost interest in reading cover to cover. This was also after the internet was pretty much ubiquitous and things started moving more online and less for magazines to cover. If I look at my full collection of KB Mags (I have every single issue in chronological dividers on a single shelf), it it clear that the later magazines kept getting thinner and thinner. In the '80s-'90s, I could only fit one year of KB Mag into a divider box...in the '00s and beyond, it wasn't hard to fit 2-3 years of KB Mag in the same sized box.

 

I think the '70s and '80s were the golden age of KB Mag. This probably tracks along with most any other specialty industry in terms of print media being much more robust in the pre-internet days.

 

I hadn't noticed how "vintage" and "old" were used then vs. now. Interesting observation!

[Tusker]

👆 love that pic.  I read every Keyboard Magazine ever published. Fond memories.

 

The editors also released compilation books, of which I had two and I found them very useful. One was about sound design and the other about synth performance techniques. The articles were authored by the luminaries: Bob Moog, George Duke, Craig Anderson and others. 

 

There was so much helpful information and a very forward looking attitude and perhaps that attitude is what caused a 9 year old analog synth to be considered vintage? Digital had arrived. $50,000 Fairlights and Prisms and Synclaviers were pushing synthesizers into new orbits. We were looking to the future.

 

But today the future is not what it used to be.

[The Real MC]

1 hour ago, eric said:

I think the '70s and '80s were the golden age of KB Mag.

 

Have to agree, also true of EM.  Besides the golden age of synths (now vintage), the genre of artists was more diverse and there were a lot of timeless articles.  I still go back and read them the back issues, I come across articles that are more interesting to me now than 40 years ago.

 

After the 1990s there was less material on classical and others.  The later issues got less interesting, I let my subscription lapse about 2002.  After that I would occasionally buy an issue from the newsstand.  The last issue I bought was about 2015.

During my major relocation, I purged a lot of books and magazines.  Keyboard/EM (mostly complete sets between 1978 and 2005), some Mix, SOS, Prog/Classic Rock magazines were the only ones I kept.  My shelves are officially full.

[Paul Woodward]

Slightly off topic, but such nostalgia led me to grab a copy of Keyfax last year, just to read about the gear I used to lust over when it was relatively 'cutting edge' 😜

[Mr -G-]

Sorry if I am also contributing to go off topic... In the KM there used to appear (if memory is not playing tricks) one puzzling (to me) ad for a single (!) DX7 acoustic piano patch which claimed to be very realistic. It wasn't a collection of patches, but a single one. Does anybody remember that? And has anybody ever heard that sound? That should have been around the late eighties.

[ABECK]

2 hours ago, eric said:

 I would read them cover to cover, including ads and articles that were less relevant to me.

100%

I would also read every word....multiple times.  I memorized all those glorious pics.   I kept my collection for years, but eventually and regrettably got rid of them.

[eric]

9 minutes ago, Mr -G- said:

Sorry if I am also contributing to go off topic... In the KM there used to appear (if memory is not playing tricks) one puzzling (to me) ad for a single (!) DX7 acoustic piano patch which claimed to be very realistic. It wasn't a collection of patches, but a single one. Does anybody remember that? And has anybody ever heard that sound? That should have been around the late eighties.

Yes! It was advertised for $19.95 in a small ad near the back. I’ll try to find it. 
 

I believe I heard the best of the best of the DX acoustic piano sounds and the Mirage and later M1 were way better. 

[ProfD]

IMO, the 1980s through mid-1990s was an excellent time for KB gear technologically because despite its limitations, folks were using the gear to explore sound design and incorporating it into music composition and production. You had to be there.😁

 

Keyboard Magazine captured it every step of the way. I've still got a couple of boxes filled with back issues of those magazines.  

 

Today's musicians are fortunate because any ROMpler or KB workstation has 1) all of the sounds and 2) more power than a rack full of MIDI gear.

 

The downside of today's technology and advertising media is that lacks the euphoria of opening a new issue of KB magazine and reading the articles and gazing at the full page ads.  YouTube videos and online reviews do not have the same effect.

 

The technology was fun back in those days.  Thank goodness I'm just an old piano player nowadays.🤣😎

[Franz Schiller]

The tone of that time, is there was a whole realm of possibilities and it seemed like there was a vein of super weird, experimental music around.

 

Now, it seems like the gear can do literally anything, but everyone uses it for the same thing.

 

For me this is probably a case of rose colored glasses, and "Things were better back when they were worse." 

[YashN]

The span of 80's to right before 00's is certainly a super interesting period.

First there was the 80's with the DX7 displacing poly analogues (where did our knobs and sliders go?!), then the Roland D-50, followed by the Korg M1, etc...

 

This really put digital in the minds of people, users or manufacturers.

 

The 90's hosted a slew of interesting gear with Samplers being perfected and made more affordable than the big counterparts in the 80's, and other DSP-based Filtering and Synthesizing options, sometimes in the same box (Akai, E-Mu especially the Z-plane ones, Waldorf, ...)

 

I believe it was '92 when the first Digital (semi-)Modular in the Kurzweil K2000 was released. This is a very important point in Synth history. It was even marketed at one point with the tagline 'Sell all your synths' and this aspect isn't explored enough. Around the end of 90's the Kurzweil KDFX was also released, an option for the K2500 but a default FX section in the K2600.

 

A few years later, Yamaha released the VL1, and for pure DSP Expressive madness, has still not been surpassed by anything in a single synth.

 

Read on another forum that people were buying up all the 90's rack gear. Makes sense to me!

 

[ProfD]

21 minutes ago, Franz Schiller said:

The tone of that time, is there was a whole realm of possibilities and it seemed like there was a vein of super weird, experimental music around.

 

Now, it seems like the gear can do literally anything, but everyone uses it for the same thing.

 

For me this is probably a case of rose colored glasses, and "Things were better back when they were worse." 

I don't believe it's a case of rose-colored glasses or generational nostalgia or such. 

 

I truly believe gear limitations forced creativity. 

 

Sit down at a piano or organ and one has to play music.  If nothing is happening, get up and come back later.

 

Pull up an initialized synth patch and a musically useful sound has to be programmed.

 

A sampler has to be fed data in order to produce sound and compose music.

 

Today's technology whether it is a ROMpler, KB workstation, DAW or drum machine has so much sh8t happening underneath the hood, it either leads to 1) analysis paralysis or 2) a whole bunch of the same thing. 

 

I'm not hearing the same creativity leading to musicians with a signature voice/sound or whole new styles of music. 

 

Musicians are either playing the same tired cover tunes or producing similar sounding songs. 

 

Non-creative and unoriginal artists and musicians are gonna get kicked in the azz by AI.🤣😎

[kpl1228]

6 hours ago, Franz Schiller said:

It's funny, I think maybe in the 80s progress was so fast, that objects were considered old very quickly.

Absolutely agree. OB-XA to DX7 to Mirage to D50....non-MIDI analog to FM to mainstream sampler to sample-based synth....1980 to 1987. Incredible!

[David Emm]

I stared reading Contemporary Keyboard from issue 3 onwards, until KB turned into a pamphlet and expired, so I followed it all the way through. It taught me what GAS was all about. I bought things based on Keyboard Reports and only got stung a couple of times. I especially loved the 80s era where each issue was loosely over a quarter-inch thick, with a page or three dedicated to just one artist or institution. I learned about a lot of lesser-known yet excellent musicians that way. 

 

I didn't keep the magazines, because they're stashed in my head like a major flash drive. I enjoy the nostalgia, but keeping a grip on current technology is more than enough work. All of that early MIDI madness was about getting to Now. I'm pretty well satisfied. 

[Old No7]

I've kept only those copies that dove into pages of details on Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman, and I especially liked all the info about the stage rigs and how they were set up, and background info on the songs, patches and bands and all.  And it's really a "hoot" to review all those old ads nowadays...

 

But I LOVE the low prices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Old No7

[ABECK]

19 hours ago, ProfD said:

 

I truly believe gear limitations forced creativity. 

 

Agree!  Try limiting yourself to 16 or even 24 tracks now!  Impossible, yet soo much innovative and well crafted works were done with that and less!  (A moment of silence for all the hi-hat tracks that were sacrificed in the name of more important needs.)

 

[zxcvbnm098]

The first issue of Contemporary Keyboard came out just as I started playing keys and playing in a band. I was 15, and if I recall CK was only every other month, or maybe quarterly? Eric would know for sure..

 

I bought it at Heck Music in Ventura CA, and I remember looking at the cover and wondering who the heck Chick Corea was? By the next year, I certainly knew who he was. 

 

But that's an important point; I learned so much about artists I had never heard of through the magazine. Plus the overview of programming and interviews with the famous names in synths and keyboards (Moog, Rhodes et al). It was all so well done, and just opened a ton of doors of my knowledge.

 

I too had all of the issues for a time, and like Eric I couldn't WAIT for the next issue to arrive. Damn it was great!

 

Once I got my driver license, I started driving down to LA to Goodman Music, the go-to keyboard store in the late 70's and 80's. Finally I could see the things I'd been reading about in CK in the flesh! 

 

The good ol' days.....

[mcgoo]

 

On 6/6/2024 at 11:14 AM, eric said:

  

 

I took a similar approach to Eric with my collection, although his definitely looks cooler. Mine is also complete. I remember in the mid 80's, I had a retail job and in the sales training, the trainer pushed the idea of having a reference library. To me, this is and has been my reference library. 

[The Real MC]

10 minutes ago, mcgoo said:

 

 

I took a similar approach to Eric with my collection, although his definitely looks cooler. Mine is also complete. I remember in the mid 80's, I had a retail job and in the sales training, the trainer pushed the idea of having a reference library. To me, this is and has been my reference library. 

 

Those brackets are screwed to studs, yes?  Even if they are, I'd be hesitant to put that much weight on those shelves...

[The Real MC]

This is part of my magazine library.  They are stored two bins deep.  That Metro shelf assembly is REALLY strong, the shelves don't show any sign of warping under all that weight.  I got that assembly somewhere used, but I don't remember where.

 

Those big notebooks underneath are filled with schematics of gear.  The shelves above hold my guitar amp heads.  Very handy for the 3rd bedroom repurposed for the guitar/hammond/rhodes room.

[mcgoo]

13 minutes ago, The Real MC said:

 

Those brackets are screwed to studs, yes?  Even if they are, I'd be hesitant to put that much weight on those shelves...

Yes. For that top shelf I have additional L brackets that you can't see in the Pic. Seems secure... I think... 😂 

[Konnector]

I still have a stack of my old Keyboard & Electronic Musician mags in a closet. Like some others here, I gradually lost interest as they seemed to dwell more on software than hardware - Not to mention about 50% less pages to flip through. In the end, the internet offered all the info and a whole lot more. I no longer had to read a magazine, go to a music store and hopefully audition the gear I had my eyes one. The only hands-on required now is to test if the keys feel like crap or not.

[zxcvbnm098]

While we're talking about magazines, my other favorite of roughly the same era that I also loved and could hardly wait to get the new issue was MUSICIAN magazine. 

Very well written, with insightful articles with artists as well as gear reviews. 

 

https://www.preservationsound.com/2011/03/musician-magazine-1976-1999/

[Tom Williams]

On 6/6/2024 at 2:15 PM, eric said:

I believe I heard the best of the best of the DX acoustic piano sounds and the Mirage and later M1 were way better. 

...Which is why I bought a Mirage instead of a DX7. 

[kpl1228]

On 6/7/2024 at 5:18 PM, The Real MC said:

This is part of my magazine library.  They are stored two bins deep.  That Metro shelf assembly is REALLY strong, the shelves don't show any sign of warping under all that weight.  I got that assembly somewhere used, but I don't remember where.

 

Those big notebooks underneath are filled with schematics of gear.  The shelves above hold my guitar amp heads.  Very handy for the 3rd bedroom repurposed for the guitar/hammond/rhodes room.

"tell us you're a Boomer without saying anything"

[HammondDave]

Someone needs to digitize all those pages and post them up on the web for research. (And make sure they get copyright clearance)

[John Tweed]

I have an almost complete set of Keyboard mags. Every so often I pull one off the shelf and reread the interesting bits, check out the playing tips for practice ideas. The iPad experience does not compare to holding a magazine in your hand, jumping back and between pages and just leafing through. I don’t know what will become of them when I most likely have to downsize one day. I fear they’ll just go out with the rubbish :-(.  Hopefully I’ll find someone to take them on.

[ProfD]

Digitizing printed material, audio and video is a great repository especially for the environment.

 

Besides, current and future generations of folks will be pulling information and entertainment from a USB drive or Cloud.

 

They won't be thumbing through books and magazines or listening to vinyl, tapes and CDs or watching DVDs.

 

As I type, I'm thinking about my own personal collection of stuff that needs to be archived digitally.😁😎

[eric]

2 hours ago, HammondDave said:

Someone needs to digitize all those pages and post them up on the web for research. (And make sure they get copyright clearance)

 

This is a project that a number of folks have pondered over the years. Way back in the early-mid '00s when I had first started writing freelance articles for KB Mag, I was in conversations with a few editors at the time to assess feasibility of scanning and creating a digital asset. It's a lot easier said than done. We never got any traction on it and probably good that it didn't happen under the guise of KB Mag proper, given that future owners of that establishment have more or less eradicated most, if not all of the "internet era" content that was published online.

 

I've chatted with a few others about doing this and it's definitely time consuming, potentially destructive as well...if we wanted to do a more automated high speed scan of 35+ years of magazines, it would require cutting the binding to separate the pages. Otherwise, it is just a page by page manual effort. 

 

While I'd be hip to doing this just for the goodness of doing it (perhaps a retirement project if no one beats me to it?), there are lots of complexities in terms of copyrights, who owns the content and some folks might want to try and monetize such an effort. I don't have energy to run all of that down and the notion of asking people to pay for digital copies of my magazine collection feels weird and not right, as the content was created by so many different contributors.

[ProfD]

35 minutes ago, eric said:

This is a project that a number of folks have pondered over the years.

 

...there are lots of complexities in terms of copyrights, who owns the content...

Right. 

 

Short of giving it away outright, it's not easy to unload the hard copy collection of magazines. 

 

Beyond the brilliantly written articles and columns, interviews, transcriptions, playing tips and tricks, etc., I doubt there is much interest in the full page ads and gear reviews of old KB technology that has been replaced with newer and more powerful tools.  

 

The internet and YouTube provide the current and future generations of musicians with everything they need to know about about gear and music from past to present and beyond.  It's a different experience but in terms of knowledge base....forward.

 

Keyboard magazine and others were our pre-internet exposure to the stuff they can get for free at the click of a button nowadays. 

 

Just like the mimeograph which smelled great was replaced by Xerox copy machines.🤣😎