US company Ensoniq had a lot to live up to in 1988. Its price-busting Mirage had put sampling into the hands of 30,000 workaday musicians, albeit with rather compromised 8-bit fidelity. Still, such lo ...

Ah, the '80s! A decade drenched in hairspray and carried aloft on the padded shoulders of the first wave of MTV video idols. New wave and synth-pop ruled the airwaves, and hip-hop was maturing into a ...