Two new low cost processors from Accessit, the new Aphex Aural exciter which is basically a real Aphex unit with less controls in an Accessit box, and secondly an auto-panner. In conjunction with Ashworth Electronics, AHB have developed a range of five very small, stick-on contact transducers capable of putting out a line level signal with no preamp. Quality is said to be good and prices range from £15 to £33. AKG now produce a programmable delay line with 10 memories and up to eight individually adjustable outputs, designed for time correction of PA systems. No price available at present.

AMS were showing their 'Audiofile', a hard disk-based 16-bit (48k sampling), stereo digital audio recording system with advanced editing and lock-to-picture capabilities and a potential maximum record time of many hours. At present it can only record two tracks at a time and play back eight tracks.

Audio Technica had several new products at the show including a new four-track cassette system, the AT-RMX64, with a built-in six-channel mixer featuring balanced mike inputs with phantom powering, two-band sweepable Eq, one aux send, 1-7/8 ips or 3-3/4ips tape speed and Dolby B and C. Depending on the exchange rate, the price should be in the region of £1,099. By popular demand the Bel BF20 rack mounting flanger has returned, this time in a smaller 1U package with a quieter noise figure and at £450, a slightly smaller price tag. The success of the current Bel BD80 delay has given rise to two new models, the BD320 giving 8-32 seconds delay at 15kHz bandwidth, and for the golden eared, the BD240 offering an extended 18kHz bandwidth with a maximum of 24 seconds delay.

All three models now come complete with keyboard interfaces allowing sampled sounds to be played over a two-octave range. Prices range from £695 for a two-sec BD80, to around £2,500 for a 32-sec DC320. Dolby Labs, who have for so many years been making a fortune from the limitations of analogue recording, are making valiant efforts to keep the credibility of the C format cassette alive in the face of the much revered compact disc. A new professional version of their HX headroom extension system has been designed in partnership with hi-fi heros, Bang and Olufsen which greatly extends the effective high frequency response of the tape. In conjunction with Dolby C, the results are very impressive.

From Drawmer comes the T102 interface, which at £195 provides for complex time related triggering of external processors such as delay loops, reverb, noise gates, auto-panners etc. Also a new two-channel/stereo valve compress, the 1960. Designed with the performance of the famous and rare Fairchild unit in mind the 1960 includes a balanced mike amp with switchable 48v phantom power, a guitar amp and a performance which is both quieter and more flexible than the £2000 Fairchild. The price: £795.

From E-mu, a pre-production model of a powerful new 12-bit sampling drum machine, the SP12: sampling 2-15 seconds, dynamic pads, MIDI, a full range of factory sounds, comprehensive editing, dump to disk. Prices are uncertain at present but a two sec model should be around the £2,250 mark. Also from the same company, new eight-track, real-time sequencer software for the Emulator II which comes free to existing Emulator owners. It uses the instrument's RAM to store sequences where one sec of memory equals 5000 notes; thus it's a sample/sequence length trade-off, with up to 99 dynamic sequences storable. It's MIDI capable and a step-time update will be available soon.

Fairlight were showing the new CMI Series III containing no less than two 32 bit 68000's and 10 16-bit 6809 microprocessors. A full review will follow shortly, meanwhile a few features: 16 voice channels, up to seven Megawords of RAM giving 140 seconds of 16-bit sampling at 50kHz, which can be more than doubled using eight-bits at 44.1 kHz sampling rate, up to 60 Meg sampling to and from disk, external time code control, infinite keyboard split or multi-sampling and a real-time sequencer capable of controlling up to 80 instruments simultaneously via the Fairlight's 16 voice slave racks or its four MIDI ports.

New from Giant Electronics the Window Recorder offering six second sampling at full bandwidth, 44.1 kHz quantisation at a price of £3,162.50 or 12 seconds for £3,622.50. In November a new memory board will be available at a cost of £690.00 which will multiply these sample times by four. Facilities include loop editing, overdubbing, mid-sample drop in/outs, MIDI control and disk storage.

As suggested last month, Fostex were showing new versions of their famous A-8 eight-track and A-2 two-track machines. Known as the Model 80 (£1,575.00) and Model 20 (£803.00), respectively, they totally supercede the previous models. Apart from a new matt black appearance both machines feature LED bargraph metering, better electronic cross-talk (same heads), an additional search to cue facility with repeat function and a motor speed control port for syncing to other machines and VTR's for video audio post production. There is also now a 8:4 Model 450 mixer which supercedes the 350 and offers substantially better facilities including two-band sweep Eq, LED metering and in-line monitoring which doubles to give a stereo aux send in mixdown plus a second mono send. Price: £652.

Available in the Autumn from HH, a new range of MOSFET power amps, the VX Series, ranging from the VX-150 offering 75w stereo, to the VX-1200, fan cooled 600w stereo. Prices range from £392.15 to £980.38. New rack mounting effects units from John Hornby Skewes include the SL1310R digital echo/reverb unit at £249.00 and a spring reverb at an unusually low price of £69.00. At £3,770.00, the new Klark Teknik DN780 digital reverberator uses 16-bit quantisation with 32-bit internal processing which apparently allows the generation of natural sounding "added density" reverb with very rapid build-up of early reflections. It has 20 factory presets and 50 user programmable memories and is capable of the whole range of reverberant effects.

The MadrackDJ is new multitapped analogue delay unit with seven fixed delay taps which can be mixed and manipulated to give a wide variety of stereo effects from reverb to flanging. Good value at £482. A new equalisation system from Meyer is threatening to revolutionise the notion of acceptable quality in the PA industry. It's called SIM (Source Independent Measurement) and works by comparing the final output of the desk with the output of the speakers as received at a given number of points by B&K reference mikes, using a dual FFT analyser. Based on this information the specially developed Meyer CP10 parametric equaliser is used to effect 'complimentary equalisation', correcting both the frequency/amplitude distortions and those of phase (time). The real beauty of this system is that the analysis can be based on normal music programme averaged over about 30 seconds, and therefore it can go on throughout the evening while the audience density and humidity, and therefore the acoustic conditions, change. This has obvious advantages over an analysis of an empty venue before the gig. To take this system plus its qualified operator on the road costs a lot of money, but I have heard it from a few reliable sources that it is capable of working near miracles with bad acoustics. Keep your eyes on the PA Column pages for more information.

MTR launched a new 1200 watt MOSFET power amp capable of various configurations from 600w into 4ohms stereo, to 1,560w into 4ohms bridged mono: £848

Neve were showing a working example of their new Necam 96 automation system (the one with moving faders). It offers the operator 'an unparalleled level of control, freedom of operation...', and it costs far more than most of you will ever see. A new module from Rebis is the RA226 sampler offering eight secs sampling (expandable to 32 secs) at 12kHz with start/finish editing, forward/backward playback and full remote control. Price: Under £500.

A new 12 output monitor console from RSD, the Studiomaster 12M, will soon be in production with either 16, 24, 32, or 40 input channels with such professional facilities as phantom powering, four-band sweepable Eq with LPF and HPF, LED metering and 100mm Alps faders. Also soon to go into production, the Studiomaster MOSFET 2000 power amp which further expands the existing range. No prices were available for either product.

A small but significant addition to the Shure range of microphones is the SM98 unidirectional electret condenser. Without its separate preamp it measures only 1-1/4" x 15/32" diam, has an excellent response and can take up to 153d8 SPL making it ideal for sticking inside drums and attaching to other instruments, etc. The price is £291.

In competition to the Fostex 816, SML have launched a 1/2" 16-track machine costing a mere £3220.00, running at 15ips with their own design of noise reduction, they claim a better overall performance. The SML 1216 is considerably larger than the B16 but offers easy access to the audio electronics for alignment and maintenance.

Soundcraft launched their new 2008 mixer which is basically an improved version of the 200 with better routing, built-in talkback mike and test oscillator. It is to be available in 8, 16 and 24 channel versions. The SMS2 is a new hardware/software interface available from Soundtracs to expand facilities of the CM440 mixer by making it talk to a Commodore 64 computer. In this way channel/track routing can be controlled from a SMPTE/EBU time code on tape, and at the close of a session, all the data can be stored on disk for future reference.

Also new from Soundtracs, the T Series expandable mixers with configurations from 16:4:2 to 32:8:2 including many sophisticated features such as balanced mike inputs, phantom powering, three-band Eq (sweepable mid), four aux sends, group fader reverse and, of particular significance, expandability through four-channel add-on group and channel modules. There were also two new consoles under the TAM banner: the 10:4:8:2 at £1,D50 and the 16:8:16:2 at £1,600. Both include balanced mike inputs with phantom powering, flexible three-band Eq, three aux sends and channel insert points.

Tannoy were showing their new DTM-8 desk top monitor using a recently developed 8" dual concentric driver providing a uniquely compact, full range point source system. Price: £345 per pair. Look out for a review in a future issue. Owners of large studios will also be interested in an addition to the SRM range, the FSM which features a 15" bass and a 15" concentric. Price: £2,760 per pair.

Three new products from TC Electronic-, dual, in-line stereo flanger; a 20kHz bandwidth programmable delay line claiming a 100dB S/N ratio and with 100 programmable memories, and thirdly a range of new modules for their modular broadcast mixer, the MBM 6200. There was a lot of excitement at the Teac stand over the new Portastudio Model 246 (see News page for details) and the Model 388, eight-track Portastudio, a review of which can be seen on page 119 of this very issue.

The world is blessed with yet another four-track cassette system, this time from Teczon, in the form of the Dub Multi 4X4 and at a low price of £429. It has a very basic four-channel mixer with two-band fixed Eq, no aux sends, their own noise reduction and a tape speed of 1 -7/8ips.

A few new things from Vesta Fire including the DIG-411 digital delay; 1,024ms at 15kHz bandwidth, hold, full modulation for effects: £213. DIG-420 sampler/delay: 1sec sampling/delay, 7.5kHz bandwidth, 95dB S/N, keyboard pitch control, overdub. £338.00. A new 19" rack mountable four-track cassette system the MR-1, with six-channel mixer, built-in limiter, dbx noise reduction and a 3-3/ips tape speed: approx £689. Also new of interest, the REV-3 spring reverb, £215, effectively replaces the REV-1; the SL-200 dual compressor limiter, £283 and the DIX digital delay foot pedal with optional bolt-on LFO unit, prices: £176/£51.

A new highly sophisticated mega console originally designed by Westar for use in their own studio has a whole list of features including a compressor, gate and delay in each channel. Although it has no 'Total Recall' system, it is intended to challenge the SSL consoles for facilities, and costs about half the price. Fitting neatly in between the REV-1 and the R-1000, the Yamaha REV-1 MIDI digital reverb system weighs in at around £1200 and features 6 early reflection modes involving up to 9.9 secs delay, 30 factory presets, 60 user programmable quantisation at 31,25kHz (note this is the MIDI baud rate) with a bandwidth of 12kHz.