![]() ![]() Will they do a Yamaha and start making musical instruments and motorcycles next? But if Sony have the expertise to design everything else in their impressive product range, then undoubtedly they must have something to offer to users of digital effects. But for some reason Sony has not really entered whole heartedly into the effects unit market, although you will find Sony effects and even mixing consoles tucked away in professional catalogues. Sony, that well known Japanese electronics company, has acquired something of a reputation in televisions, video cameras, hi-fi, portable stereos - pause for breath - compact disc players, digital tape recorders, digital multitrack recorders and the odd one or two other items. The other point is that it is made by Sony. It's a digital delay, and apart from some more esoteric functions it does everything, and provides every accessory as we shall see later, that a digital delay should. Count number one is that the DPS-D7 (there's also a DPS-R7 reverb on the way) looks like being the first in the new order of single effects units. What we have here, the DPS-D7, is interesting on two counts, well three if you include the fact that it's a damn good piece of equipment. Shock, horror, jump in the air and do a double back somersault! And I want to be able to run my fingers across the control surface and edit the parameters of my chosen effect quickly and with a satisfying response from the machine - that could mean a knob interface. ![]() If you are in the manufacturing business, just think how many extra boxes you'll be able to sell! And I for one will love it because I do want a choice of dedicated units which I can add to my personal studio and use in conjunction with my existing multi-effects unit and sundry toys. Not that the multi-effects unit will go away, but manufacturers will soon be trying to persuade us that their XYZ100 is the ultimate reverb, or the ultimate chorus. I predict that we will see more and more single effects units coming onto the market. In that case wouldn't you be better off if you could buy a unit that was dedicated to the function you wanted? You can see what I'm leading up to, but I'll just add another point by saying that if you are already the owner of a multi-effects unit, why might you want to buy another one? The only reason can be that it has a better chorus or distortion or whatever. I'll make an exception in the case of the Zoom 9030 because for a multi-effects unit it is very easy to deal with, but by and large I think that multi-effects units have gone as far as they can. Since the introduction, by Yamaha, of the multi-effects unit in the shape of the famous SPX90, and the later introduction by other manufacturers of units which could provide several effects at the same time, multi-effects units have become more and more powerful but at the same time they have tended to become more and more difficult to use. The colour scheme of equipment won't be the only thing to change. Just imagine having front panel legends that you can actually read rather than the current fashion of grey lettering on a black background! ![]() Or perhaps it will be a subtle shade of off-white, but sooner or later manufacturers will tire of spraying their front panels with that particularly light absorbing non-colour which may have looked chic in the designer '80s but is being regarded as unnecessarily impractical in the user-friendly '90s. One day, mark my words, white will be the new black. ![]()
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