Over the last month or so, the editorial staff at HSR have been out and about visiting several Trade Shows to discover what sort of new products are soon to be unleashed upon the general public.

At both the APRS Show in London and the NAMM Show in Chicago, there was a very healthy upturn in the number and variety of recording equipment manufacturers beginning to create products specifically for the Home Recording market. A very good move we believe!

Although being a very professionally-oriented audio/recording show, the APRS (Association of Professional Recording Studios) is always of interest to our readers, as the technological developments shown there will eventually filter through to the semi-pro and amateur end of the recording industry to be applied to the more modestly priced equipment that most readers can afford.

One very good example of this appeared in the form of the CMC 24 mixer by Allen & Heath Brenell. This is a 24-16-2 mixing desk offering 40 line inputs in the remix mode which has been developed to fulfill the requirements of Fostex B16 owners, amongst others.

However, the most appealing aspect of this mixer is that it has the novel facility to interface with a home computer. At the moment this is limited purely to the Commodore 64 but other models will be compatible with a broader range of computers in the near future according to an AHB spokesman.

The on-board microprocessor handles the signal routing and monitoring operations which can all be stored in memory for later recall, but linking the Commodore 64 and mixer together increases the scope of the patch routing facilities whilst also providing a visual readout of what's going on.

Although obviously not a Solid State Logic computer-controlled desk (price alone tells you that!), the AHB CMC24 has a rumoured retail selling price around the £2500 mark and most certainly looks to be a good investment if you're looking for a mate for your 16-track recorder. It's also a definite step forward, and a British design to boot! As soon as one becomes available we'll bring you a full review — so watch this space!

Name Change

And finally, an announcement to all readers. The company that publishes this magazine, along with our sister publications Electronics & Music Maker and Guitarist has recently changed its name from Glidecastle Publishing Ltd to MUSIC MAKER PUBLICATIONS LTD.

As such, this will have little or no effect on the contents of HSR except that it'll mean that all cheques and postal orders for previous projects, back issues and subscriptions should henceforth be made payable to 'Music Maker Publications Ltd'. Hopefully, this will ensure the minimum of inconvenience to readers.

In the meantime, enjoy the latest issue and don't forget to enter our FREE COMPETITION - you may win a superb Clarion 4-track cassette recorder.