Digital music technology encompasses digital instruments, computers, electronic effects units, software, or digital audio equipment by a performer, composer, sound engineer, DJ, or record producer to produce, perform or record music. The term refers to electronic devices, instruments, computer hardware, and software used in performance, playback, recording, composition, mixing, analysis, and editing of music.
An analogsynthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically.
The Fairlight CMI is a digital synthesizer, sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight. It was based on a commercial licence of the Qasar M8 developed by Tony Furse of Creative Strategies in Sydney, Australia. It was one of the earliest music workstations with an embedded sampler and is credited for coining the term sampling in music. It rose to prominence in the early 1980s and competed with the Synclavier from New England Digital.
Akai is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946.
A music workstation is an electronic musical instrument providing the facilities of:
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument that records and plays back samples. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music.
The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 909, is a drum machine introduced by Roland Corporation in 1983, succeeding the TR-808. It was the first Roland drum machine to use samples for some sounds, and the first with MIDI functionality, allowing it to synchronize with other devices. Though a commercial failure, it influenced the development of electronic dance music genres such as techno, house and acid house.
The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. It was originally marketed to amateur musicians as a budget external synthesizer with an original list price of $695. However, it became more famous along with its compatible modules as an early de facto standard in computer music. Since it was made prior to the release of the General MIDI standard, it uses its own proprietary format for MIDI file playback.
The Akai S900 is a 12-bit sampler, with a variable sample rate from 7.5 kHz through to 40 kHz. It was common in recording studios until it was superseded two years later by the S1000.
Simmons is an electronic drum brand, which originally was a pioneering British manufacturer of electronic drums. Founded in 1978 by Dave Simmons, it supplied electronic kits from 1980 to 1998. The drums' distinctive, electronic sound can be found on countless albums from the 1980s. The company closed in 1999 and the Simmons name is currently owned by Guitar Center.
The Korg DSS-1 is a 12-bit polyphonic sampling synthesizer released in September 1986. It came out at a time when many of the popular synthesizer companies were beginning to get into sampling, an area of sound design that had previously been left to a handful of fledgling companies such as Fairlight, E-mu, and Ensoniq. Like Yamaha and Casio, however, Korg did not stay long in the sampling arena. The DSS-1 was the company's only sampler until 1998 when Korg introduced sampling options on their Triton and Trinity series of workstations, and on their Electribe series of drum-and-phrase samplers.
A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI.
The Roland TR-707 Rhythm Composer is a drum machine released by the Roland Corporation in 1985.
The Prophet 2000 is a sampler keyboard manufactured by Dave Smith's Sequential Circuits (SCI) and released in 1985. It was the company's first sampler, and, despite its low audio fidelity and technical limitations by modern standards, marked a shift toward affordable samplers with better audio quality than its predecessors. It is also considered to be one of the earliest multitimbral samplers.
The Forat F16 is the first 16 bit digital sampler optimized for use as a "drum brain" or electronic drum module. It dynamically responds to trigger inputs from MIDI and/or audio signals. With a response time of 0.1 milliseconds, the F16 is the fastest audio triggering digital sampler ever sold. It was manufactured by Forat Music and Electronics, introduced in 1987 at a list price of $5200 and was discontinued in 1994. An optional Remote Control and SCSI capability was available for $1385.
The Roland S-50 is a 61-key 12-bit sampler keyboard produced by the Roland Corporation in 1986. It featured a 3.5-inch DSDD floppy disk drive and had external CRT monitor support to facilitate editing of samples. It could hold up to 32 samples. A rack-mounted version was also available, which featured expanded memory.
The Akai X7000 is a 61 key sampling keyboard from Akai. It was released in 1986 and one of the first major samplers released by Akai. It was a 12 bit sampler with 6 voices of polyphony, and included functions such as sample tuning, truncating, reversing and looping. The unit features both microphone and line inputs, and a one line, 16 character LCD screen. For storage, the X7000 uses 2.8" Quick Disks to maintain backwards compatibility with the S612.
The Kawai K4 is a 61 key synthesizer manufactured in 1989 by Kawai. It contains several features beyond those offered on Kawai K1, adding resonant filters and a DAC PCM wavetable. The K4 incorporated a new type of synthesis called Digital Multi Spectrum.
The DDD-1 is a sampling drum machine introduced in 1986 by Korg. It offers more features than the DDD-5, and is highly regarded for its sounds and sequencer. The unit also features a limited sampling option, for adding sounds to the drum machine. It also has fully featured MIDI implementation, six assignable outputs, and a backlit LCD screen.
