Alex Szalay Music Projects

Early Electronic Music Instruments

In the mid 1970's with my brother Andras we have designed and built several analog synthesizers, some of which are still operational. We used these with our band Panta Rhei as well as in various recording projects on other band's albums. We also bult various guitar effects, sequencers, mixing consoles.

MUZIX81

My brother, Andras Szalay has been the principal designer of the Sinclair ZX81-based MUZIX 81 sequencer and digital audio processor (1981). This was built and widely used before MIDI appeared. About 100 systems have been sold, all over the world. The story of the system appered in March 2009, at the Retrothing website.

The system used a click-track recorded on a tape to synchronize, and enabled a sophisticated hierarchical pattern editor, with its own shorthand language to create and transpse sequences. I helped to write some of the software components of the system. The software still exists, and is described and downloadable from here.

Using the MUZIX81 System

We also got mentioned/reviewed in various magazines at the time.
• Retrothing
• Muzix81 documentation
• Elecronics and Music Maker (UK, 1983)
• Electronic Soundmaker and Electronic Music (UK, 1984)
• Studio Sound (US, 1984), on page 41
• Keyboards (Germany, Feb 1985)
• The story of the system (in Hungarian)
• On the timeline of electronic music (see 1983)

The system was widely used in Europe from Hungary (Gabor Presser, Omega, PR Computer) to Germany (Frank Farian, Boney M etc) and the UK. We also used it on our PR Computer album, which sold over 100,000 copies in the mid 80s. Using this system, Gabor Presser has recorded an LP called "Electromantic", whose title song was the music of the BBC Nightly News intro for more than a year.

Working with Zoltan Jeney