This isn't the first (or last) time for this tip, but as we add many thousands of new customers yearly and more people subscribe to inSync, it's one that's worth repeating. While the original synths of the 1970s were mind-numbing for keyboard players used to only having an electric piano (a Rhodes or Wurlitzer) and maybe an organ (a Combo or a big B-3), the arrival of the DX7 was an even bigger challenge to learn (which is why companies sprung up like weeds offering programs for it at the time). Most programmers learned the DX7's ultra-complex architecture by dissecting the onboard presets. Today's synths, whether hardware or software, can be even more daunting than the DX7. But listening to your favorite factory presets and then opening them up and seeing how the "magic" was created is still the easiest and quickest way to learn to program your favorite synths/samplers.

Originally, some companies spent a lot of money producing video tapes "manuals" or "tutorials," which had to be commercially duplicated. Today's DVD versions can be duped using fairly inexpensive duplicators, making DVD tutorials easy to produce and distribute. Here at Sweetwater, we are constantly reviewing and evaluating such tutorials, and ultimately, if they pass our stringent review process, we carry them or in some instances, refer customers to companies that are doing the best of them. Propellerheads is the latest of a growing number of companies offering free DVD tutorials to purchasers of their products.