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Contents of DEVICE 1979-1980

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3/22/1997 1:28 PM

Contents of DEVICE 1979-1980

This is a listing of the contents of DEVICE, a newsletter for electronic
guitarists which was editted/published by Craig Anderton and Roger Clay
from 1979-1980. DEVICE was pitched at the DIY person, the burgeoning
guitar synth market, and garden-variety stomp-box afficionados. It only
lasted for a year, after which Craig took over the helm of POLYPHONY
- PAiA Electronics' mag, which later turned into Electronic Musician -
continuing to publish much the same material, on top of the keyboard,
synth, and home recording material that Polyphony covered. One of these
days, I'll plow through my back issues of Polyphony and do a similar
issue-by-issue listing. Although DEVICE has evaporated, many back issues
of Polyphony are still available from PAiA (www.paia.com).

This listing is not especially detailed, but includes material which is
useful reference, and is unlikely to exist elsewhere or be of a similar
slant elsewhere. The reviews, in particular, provide useful info for
people who like to get inside and tinker. Omitted from the listing are
the little tidbits about new chips, products, sevices etc., which were
VERY helpful in them days but simply a pictureless ad for old technology
at this point (although sometimes it's helpful to identify obscure chips,
or answer newsgroup questions about older products). Also omitted are
the letters from readers.

Vol 1:1
- Review of ARP Avatar guitar synth
- Pt 1 of AMS-100 guitar processor system (Craig Anderton)
- gate/trigger extractor and envelope follower

Vol 1:2
- Review of Godley/Creme "Gizmo" (Guitar string bowing device)
- Review of Intersound IVP guitar pre-amp
- Pt. 2 of AMS-100 guitar processor
- envelope generators
- Troubleshooting effects

Vol 1:3
- Review of Electro Harmonix Micro Synthesizer (for guitar)
- Pt. 3 of AMS-100 Packaging and power supply
- Telecaster wiring for Schecter multi-tap pickups, series-parallel
- Review of Schecter Telecaster pickups
- Interview with Steven St. Croix (inventor of Marshall Time Modulator)

Vol 1:4
- Review of A/DA Harmony Synthesizer (floor box with 9 knobs + 4 ft-sw)
- Results of reader opinion poll on commercial effects
- Pt. 4 of AMS-100 guitar processor
- voltage-controlled phase-shifter module (based on SSM 2040)
- Troubleshooting effects

Vol 1:5
- Modifications for EH Electric Mistress (add mix + init. delay controls,
increase regeneration, add status LED)
- Review of Yamaha E1010 Analog Delay
- Cable capacitance; issues and measurement
- Pt. 5,6,7 of AMS-100 guitar processor
- control voltage processing modules

Vol 1:6
- Review of Blacet Music Research Phasefilter
- Double-coil pickup modifications
- Modifying the EH Micro Synth (for guitar), adjust Attack Delay,
increase input impedance, improve octave above, add filter trigger
indicator LED, add heat sink to regulator, improve suboctave high
end
- Pt. 8 of AMS-100 guitar processor
- voltage controlled filter/phase-shifter (based on SSM2040)

Vol 1:7
- Review of MXR rack mount Digital Delay
- Adding series parallel switching to the Big Muff Pi Deluxe (BMP +
Soul Preacher compressor)
- Making circuit boards
- LED Bar Graph Voltmeter for guitar synthesis
- Theory: series-parallel switching for effects

Vol 1:8
- Review of KORG SE-500 Stage Echo (tape)
- Review of EH Memory Man Deluxe w/Chorus
- Mods for EH Zipper, Blacet Phasefilter, Anderton EPFM Super Tone
Control
- Volume/Overdrive pedal
- Pt. 9 AMS-100 guitar processor
- voltage controlled amplifier/distortion (based on CA3080)
- Theory: bandwidth and noise in non-inverting op-amps, comparison of
noise figures for assorted op-amps
- Long letter from Jim Furman on history of effects packaging

Vol 1:9
- Pt. 10 of AMS-100 guitar processor
- SAD1024-based voltage-controlled flanger
- Review of Echoplex EP-3 and EP-4 tape echo units
- design standards for special effects pedals
- Theory: using inverting op-amps, offset voltages, comparing inverting
and non-inverting op-amps
- Using one 9v battery in bipolar-supply effects

Vol 1:10
- Pt 2 of Steven St. Croix interview
- Review of DOD 680 Analog Delay pedal (including detailed bandwidth
comparison of 680 and EH-Memory Man)
- Mods for AMS-100 Flanger
- DIY Power amp (using STK-054 power amp chip)
- Pt. 11 of AMS-100 guitar processor
- Rhythm generator (wierd module generating gate pulses from
MM5871 rhythm generator chip)
- Theory: 2nd order Butterworth filters
- Mixing outputs from TI 76477 sound effects generator chip

Vol 1:11
- Review of EH Polyphase pedal, DOD 401B Phasor, TL061 low power op amp
- Filtering pedal-board power
- Mods for EH Small Stone & BOSS PH-1 Phaser, wah/anti-wah pedal
- Info about RFI
- Pt. 12 AMS-100 guitar processor
- pluck follower (sums successive trigger pulses to give CV
proportional to speed of playing)
- Theory: differential amplifiers
- Index to guitar/synth-related articles in Elektor magazine (1975-79)
- Detailed specs and evaluation circuit for Matsushita MN3005 BBD chip

Vol 1:12
- Designing with the SAD1024 delay chip
- Review of PAiA "DRUM" kit/project
- Pt. 13 AMS-100 guitar processor
- using junction boxes and "multiples"
- The "Intelligent Guitar": overview of - comment on - state of onboard
electronics for guitars (by yours truly)
- Low noise onboard guitar preamp
- Detailed specs and evaluation circuit for Matsushita MN3010 BBD chip
- Cumulative index of DEVICE

3/22/1997 6:40 PM
Steve Morrison	Thanks, Mark! I don't know where all my issues of DEVICE are, but now at least I know what's in them. I've taken the liberty of imortalizing your post on a http://www.aros.net/~tboy/ampage/docs/devcont.html" TARGET="_top">web page of its own, and added a link to it in the http://www.aros.net/~tboy/ampage/resources.html" TARGET="_top">AMPAGE database of cool-and-useful stuff.

3/23/1997 9:39 PM

De nada!

Nice to know all the crap I've been paying to
move from one end of Canada to the other is
finally of some use! Who knows, maybe Craig
or John Simonton or Tom Henry (much of whose
work appears in its pages) will see fit to
reproduce the content in its entirety one day.
I also wonder about material which was received
for publication but never made it to press. Did
it show up in Polyphony or some other place?

Incidentally, if somebody wants to collaborate,
a cumulative index of things like Craig Anderton
columns in GP, projects in (now defunct) Modern
Recording, Elektor (and other European mags),
and other sources of useful info, would be a
great archival source. You'd be surprised how
many schematics have appeared in mags and books
over the years. There is a schematic for a
fuzz in one of the Rudolf Graf circuit
collections, and another in Electronics Today,
from the early 80's that is identical to the
Arbiter Fuzz Face with only a few cosmetic
changes to capacitor values. The Graf circuit
even uses BC108C transistors and lists the
circuit as simply another fuzz. Lord only knows
what other schematics and project articles are
out there, and easily found in your public
or university library.

3/25/1997 1:41 PM

When DEVICE folded Craig Anderton sent out a letter to all the subscribers explaining the problems that lead to its demise (he basically blamed it all on Roger Clay, as I recall) and announcing that all subscriptions would be fulfilled with issues of Polyphony, where he'd be filling the shoes of its departing editor, Marvin Jones. Those with articles pending publication in DEVICE (myself included) received an extra, personal note stating that their material would appear in upcoming issues of Polyphony, which had a much larger circulation and actually paid its authors for published articles. Needless to say, that was fine with me!

An online bibliogaphy of music electronics articles would be great, and I'd certainly be willing to participate. What I'd really like to see is the articles themselves online, if permission could be obtained from the copyright holders.

3/25/1997 3:38 PM
CJ Landry	Count me in. I will pay for info like this. It is right up my alley and would add even more ideas to the ones I am already working on. Christian

3/27/1997 2:11 PM

I may have a bit of time this upcoming long weekend to type up a bit of the listing of contents of Polyphony. My collection ranges from 1980 to 1984 with some issues prior to 1980.

I'll draw the reader's attention to an excellent article on adding a tone bypass to Fender Amps, which appeared in Polyphony. It took me 15 years to figure out the connection, but now that I've made the connection, thanks Steve! I never realized you were the one who wrote the article. I installed the bypass mod in a blackface Tremolux, and was impressed. Talk about your bonehead mods! Ultimately, I sold the Tremolux, but the warm memory lingers....

Incidentally, today I stumbled onto a magazine I had never seen before: Performer's Audio. It's a relatively inexpensive ($3.95US) that comes out bi-monthly, and seems to be produced by the same folks that put out The Audio Amateur. The current issue contains a Dan Torres column on amp mods, a couple of articles on building PA speakers and monitors, a couple of build-a-tube-amp articles, a project for a tube-based compressor, and plans for a high-quality stomp-box power supply. I can only assume that this appeals to the typical Ampage reader. The current issue is Vol.1 No. 2, so there is little in the way of a cumulative index to be had at the moment. If anyone wants to accumulate one as the months go by, it would be a welcome service. Any similar indices for similar publications (Modern Recording, Sound on Sound, Glass Audio, etc.) would be similarly appreciated.

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