As we write this, Sound On Sound is hurtling towards its 35th birthday. The world's changed a lot since 1985, certainly in the sphere of music technology, and the magazine is a very different beast to the staple-bound edition that hit the newsstands all those years ago. We've had to change — and keep changing — to keep pace with a subject that is constantly and rapidly developing. And it's not just the subject matter that's changing, it's the way we cover it too. We've seen some big changes in 35 years: full-colour photography, computer-aided design, the Internet... each of which has helped us to develop into the magazine we've become, with a website that hosts thousands and thousands of free articles. But there's one thing that's remained constant and that's our commitment to producing the best music technology magazine in the world for you, the reader.
Sound On Sound is fortunate enough to have been independently owned since day one. This means that it's driven by editorial: not by advertising or market forces, but by what we as music technology enthusiasts find most exciting about this ever-changing subject. We're free to review whatever we want, whether it was made by a global corporation or someone in their shed. It's this independence and the expertise of our authors that makes SOS the magazine it is.
Some may question the role of a print magazine in an age when new product information appears online within minutes of the product being released, but as many of us have discovered to our cost, online information from forums and social media is not always accurate, complete or unbiased. As a means of learning about the existence of new products online resources — including our own website — are invaluable, but to really find out how a new product works you have to spend some time with it and really dig beneath the surface.
For the last 35 years we've striven to make the magazine that we think the readers want to read, and that's why we would urge you to complete our new Reader Survey.
Ian Hislop, Editor of British satirical magazine Private Eye, was recently asked whether in an age of 24-hour rolling news coverage being published once a fortnight was a hindrance. He replied that on the contrary, it gives them time to think about what they write, a luxury few in the media can now afford. It's the same with SOS. We have the luxury of being able to properly evaluate the products we review. A comprehensive review might lack the excitement of a frenzied unboxing video of a product that was announced four minutes earlier, but it'll certainly give you a better idea of where you should spend your cash. And that's also the ethos we try to bring to our digital and video content: calm and considered rather than rushed and reactive.
For the last 35 years we've striven to make the magazine that we think the readers want to read, and that's why we would urge you to complete our new Reader Survey. We need to know who you are and what you want, so we can make the magazine that you want to read and continue the development that started all those years ago. The survey can be found at https://sosm.ag/survey.
The SOS Team