Years back
What did the future hold for the world of music software one decade ago?
‘Is solid state technology the future of storage?’ was our Burning Question back in 123 (March 2008). Although some of us still have hard disks clicking and whirring away in our machines, our answer from the future is a definite yes. Shame it’s still a bit pricey, mind.
Speaking of storage space, we were going to need plenty of it to install Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere, which made its debut at the 2008 NAMM Show in front of a “stunned crowd”, according to “Old-school all round, you might say” our slightly hyperbolic newshounds. We also reported on the rumour that Apple were planning on launching a dedicated multitouch MIDI controller, but that never happened, and looking back, we can’t really understand why we ever thought it would.
In the reviews section, we took a look at the Asus Eee PC, the compact ‘sublaptop’ (as one of our readers called it) that helped to kickstart the netbook craze. It wasn’t exactly a powerhouse, and the 7-inch screen was a bit small for making music on, but we still sort of wanted one, if only to feel part of the zeitgeist.
Finally, our chiptune tutorial showed you how to emulate the already vintage 8-bit sound with plugins that themselves now look pretty dated. Old-school all round, you might say.