21 YEARS OF GEAR

21 years is a long time in any technology history and over the life of this magazine, the technology behind music production has changed beyond recognition. Here are 21 products that have defined computer music-making today

The ground-breaking studio innovations that have changed the world of music production

You might well think that the plugin-stuffed computer you use to make music on has been around forever. But when we launched this magazine, a ‘mere’ 21 years ago, such technology didn’t exist, and the world of computer musicmaking was a very different one indeed. You needed hardware to boost your computer processing power, you needed soundcards to plug in to said computers, and you needed cash to buy the bucket-load to afford all of these extra bits and pieces.

Now, in real terms, making music on a Mac or PC is easier and cheaper than ever, and you have a big and evolving history – and one that runs in parallel to the history of this magazine – to thank for that.

Over those two plus decades, there were huge innovations in both hardware and software. There were new platforms, new development tools, the invention of software instruments and hardware controllers, and behind all of it were innovative (and mostly German) companies.

But what ties this history together was a passion for creating products that make music production easy, that make realising our ideas and our imaginations as simple as booting up and recording. So it’s time to praise the innovators, and give thanks to them for creating the slick and powerful musicmaking systems that we use today. Here, then, are 21 innovations that changed the world of computer music-making forever…