It was like this. We put on those big overcoats with the furry collars. We wrapped the long scarves, snakelike, around our scrawny necks. We got to Frankfurt — and it was really mild. Which just goes to prove that you can never be sure what will turn up in Frankfurt, host city of what remains the world's biggest exhibition of new musical instruments. Over the next six pages, Paul Colbert, Tony Bacon and Jon Lewin report on the best and most interesting new gear from that exhibition - some of which may not reach your music shops for some time. But fore-warned is fore-armed, as the taxi driver said to the overdressed Englishmen. It was like this.

GUITARS

Five days in an open boat... er, Frankfurt Music Messe. All those Germans! Anyway, the general trend in guitar manufacturing, divinable from even a brief wander round the Fair, is for Stratocaster-shaped guitars with angled, pointed headstocks, flat necks with jumbo frets, two single coil pickups, plus a humbucker at the bridge position, and a tremolo of some kind. The whole show was over-run with these clones, from the cheapest Korean models, up to the Jackson/Charvel Super-Strats that started the whole thing off. One particular way of telling the good from the bad was that many of the cheaper models had been deliberately understrung, and either tuned three or four tones too low, or not tuned at all. Easier to play, and no bent necks. Sneaky.

Even Gibson have brought in Strat-shaped models, the US series. Speaking of Gibson, I was given a run-down on their latest models by company President Henry Juszkiewicz. Their most important news is the introduction of a new brand-name. 'Epiphone By Gibson' already covers the lower end of the market, and Gibson have their own expensive models. Now the Oriental-manufactured 'Nouveau' guitars are intended to cover the mid-price, high value range. Featured model was the $600 Spotlight, a very fine looking Paul Reed Smith copy with through-neck, ebonol fingerboard, maple and mahogany body, and Fender-style Bridge. Featured name on the head is Nouveau, with Gibson inlaid in much smaller letters.

Gibson's reissues continue apace, with various Les Pauls and SGs, though I was disturbed to learn that in many cases, larger frets than traditional have been fitted, as a nod to the current fashionability of jumbo frets. New Gibsons include the Les Paul Lite with updated electrics. "Les actually helped us out with the design," Mr J told me. "It's lighter, more comfortable, and more versatile, without any loss of the traditional sound." He also explained the appearance cf the Gibson Chet Atkins Country Gent with Bigsby tremolo we mentioned some issues ago — Chet himself helped Gibson redesign the original Gretsch. "We've only made 15 so far, so they're pretty rare."

It also transpires that Wayne Charvel is now working with Gibson, designing his own brand of guitars which will be made in Gibson's Nashville factory, but will appear with Wayne's own name on the headstock.

Paul Reed Smith definitely seems to be designer of the moment — the new Hohner SG Lions follow his rounded bottom, double cutaway style, with the same beautiful curly maple top. Other new Hohners (including the graphite necked ST Lead) plump for Strat bodies, and most now come equipped with new 'Select By EMG' pickups, also featured on some of the new Washburn guitars.

Replacement pickups generally seemed to be big news, with the all-black EMG style most popular of all, with companies like EMG themselves, Magnetic, Jackson, Seymour Duncan, and OBL (to be distributed by JHS) all showing.

Oddly shaped fingerboard inlays also seemed to be the business this year. Apart from the Jacksony triangular snowdrift, Joel Danzig of Hamer has introduced boomerang inlays that cross the fret; neat. Washburn have already nabbed the design (upside down) for their PRS copy, the RS. This £300+ guitar has Select pickups and a phenolic fingerboard, and looks great.

Away from the run of the mill, there was a goodly number of less usual products. Paul Hamer showed me his Virtuoso guitar, with a 26¼in scale, 36 fret scalloped neck, and single pickup intended for Yngwie Malmsteenish classically influenced stuff. Traditional German, French, and English (Heart, C. Larkin, Manson, G. Smith...) luthiers all displayed beautiful hand-crafted instruments, while particularly weird body designs were in evidence, namely the minimal French Vline metal body, and the futuristic Auerswald bow-shape (cf the Roland GR707), a design which eliminates dead spots, claimed builder Jerry (well, he is German) Auerswald.

Equally German-made were the very fine Hofner guitars, from big bodied semi-acoustics to the modern stereo Alpha electrics.

There were numerous guitar synths on show, from the better known Shadow, Roland, and Ibanez models, to the American Photon. But the biggest interest was not unsurprisingly generated by the elusive Stepp synth guitar. With designer Stephen Randall and player Alan Murphy doing the demos, the Stepp could not fail to impress — great sounds, versatility, and good looks. But it was still being kept out of the hands of the great unwashed — self included. Definitely a hands-off show for them.

KEYBOARDS

We could spend a bucket of words telling you about the DX7ii, since it was lavishly launched at Yamaha's pre-Frankfurt press bash at a cosy Heathrow hotel. But as we're reviewing it on page 30, seems somewhat pointless. So onwards.

Akai's X7000 sampler now comes in a rack version, the S700 with same spec, but no keys, obviously. General good vibes being circulated around the show over Korg's DS-8 — digital oscillators, 100 sound memory, separate MIDI channel for each of the eight voices so you can do that multi-timbral thing from external sequencers. In Japan last year, Yamaha took a controlling interest in the Korg company. Outwardly, the two brands of kit are entirely separate, but a closer alliance of the R&D departments might explain why the DS-8 is FM in all but name. Lots of performance functions, built-in delay, flanging, chorusing effects, and new sounds stored on special ROM and RAM cards slipping in the front. It continues the digital/analogue hybrid sound which Korg seem to have had more success at than most.

Keyteck looked to be promising entrants in the low-priced, sample-based (though not sampling) keyboards. They have a thing called Cross Table Sampling which appears to save expensive memory space by breaking down a sample into sections, remembering only the most significant waveforms, then putting them back together, and passing from one to another using a software based envelope generator. It sounds akin to the wave-sample idea of Korg's DW8000. Largest is the CTS-2000, which is multitimbral and MIDI-ed. But we couldn't get to play it, so none of us are the wiser as to Keyteck's success.

Where does the Human Clock fit into all this? Somewhere under the drummer's right foot, by all accounts. "The Human Clock takes rhythmic pulse output from your drummer, bass player, rhythm guitarist or keyboardist, and through an exclusive Kahler process called Real Time Prediction, calculates live tempo and converts it to a MIDI clock output that moves and changes with your tempo instantly and naturally." So then, a MIDI boss, and yes it is the same Kahler responsible for the wang bars.

Kawai have bunged the essential bits of their K3 synth into a rack expander. The K3m module offers six notes worth of its father's 33 digital waveforms, coupled to analogue filters and envelope generators. Fifty internal memories, another 50 on a RAM pack. £745 now, with more Kawai goodies later in the year — perhaps an LCD equipped waveform editable version. This company has plans.

And finishing with a sequencer, there's the Korg SQ-8, small enough to fit in your hand but handling 6,500 notes on eight tracks, step or real time, records program change, velocity, after touch and pitch bend, and all displayed on a compact LCD screen. And we used to think transistor radios were small.

DRUM MACHINES

New drum machines from Yamaha are the huge RX5, and the less huge RX17. The latter is aimed squarely at the Roland TR505, with 26 straight and latin percussive noises, programmable pan, price of about £300, dynamic response to MIDI, nice looks, and stereo outputs (there was no sign of a TR505 with separate outs, by the way).

The RX5 (around £900) is obviously the new Yammy flagship for hitting-things noises, as it ventures into sampling territory — 24 internal sounds, 12 RAM voices, 28 cartridge voices, including acoustic, electronic, latin, DX, sampled bass, and human sounds. Phew. The noises are tunable, reversible, dynamic, editable, you can use the RAM card as a credit card... 12 separate outputs, and 100 patterns editable into 20 songs make the RX5 a suitably upgraded replacement for the old RX11.

Korg's new DDD-1 proved well popular with visitors to the show. It's now been joined by a smaller relative, the DDD-5 (it stands for Dynamic Digital Drums, by t'way). It has the same touch sensitive programming pads as the DDD-1, 14 internal sounds, stereo outputs, facilities to take the same ROM cards as the DDD-1, and it costs £499 (£300 less than the bigger one).

A new digital drum machine from Kawai, the R100, got the big thumbs-up, with 24 tunable internal sounds, touch sensitive pads, 100 pattern/100 song memory, eight individual outs, and a whole host of other functions too comprehensive to mention. With a price of £645, it looks (and sounds) very competitive. There will be an R50 weeny version later in the year...

AMPS

There were several different themes apparent on the amplificator front at this year's Frankfurt show.

Hi-tech grey leathercloth is particularly 1987, featuring in pale hues on the new Marshall Anniversary models with their chrome fascia and black speaker grilles. Carlsbro are also dressing their models (including the new Colts) in this attractive colouring, as are Ohm, whose stylish PA cabinets go for a smoky charcoal off-black.

Fender proffer their new Champ 18W valve combo in grey, red, and even (gulp) mock snakeskin. Seymour Duncan stick with vintage sepia-toned cloth for their amplifier range, most notable of which is the Convertible, as recommended by Frank of It Bites. Displayed with the Convertible were a range of replacement valves, with inherent sound quality noted on the boxes.

Practical, and popular too, is the hard-wearing woven fabric covering, as noted on the value-for-money Custom Sound amp family, and even on former Fender designer Paul Rivera's enormous stereo carpet-combo, a multi-channel beast of great virtuosity and cost. However, the award for gaudiest amplifier goes to Vox amps, for their Concert 100 with Union Jack speaker cover.

Multi-channel operation is an absolute must for any amplifier that wishes to be taken seriously nowadays, with some of the more elite models, such as the Peavey Triumph combo offering three stage gain controls. Also new in the Peavey enclave were the Minx bass combo (30W, with a 10in speaker retailing at £155), and the Microbass (a 15W version for £110).

One of the newest trends is illustrated by the Roland DAC-15D and XD amplifiers; these portable 15W combo-ettes (the D has one 8in speaker, the XD four 5in speakers) both include a digital effects unit built into the amplifier stage. Delay, chorus, and flanging come with your new Roland combo. The excellent Gallien-Kreuger compact monitor amps, like the 250ML which puts 50W into a pair of 6½in speakers, have had things like stereo chorus and echo for a while, but it's only now that the other manufacturers seem to be catching on to the efficacy of putting effects into your gear.

The hottest development for next year is programmable amplifiers; Peavey's Programmax has been around for a while, but with MIDI now such a popular accessory, this facility has definitely taken off; numerous German makers (Dynacord, Engl, Hughes & Kettner) are offering 'digital' amps with both transistors and valves, and prices far too big at the moment for them to make it across the Channel. Trace Elliot are doing it here...

Amplifier families are also a big feature of music trade shows, all the models in a range, lined up, from the Ross 10W practice amp of Buyer's Bible Fame, up to the keyboard 130 with a 1x15; H/H had piles of amps, Alligator, Traynor, Custom Sound, all had boxes arrayed in ascending order of height.

Replacement parts are also fashionable; speakers in the shape of groovy Electrovoice, Mackenzie; even Session have added a second 12in to their Sessionette 75W. The most prominent replacement valves on display were from Groove Tube, who also had what we thought was the best sounding amp. The GT Studio Tube Preamp is an all-valve 32W amp head, with a built-in output attenuator (power soak) designed to shape the output in the same way that an overdriven early Sixties Celestion Sidewinder 12in speaker would. It sounded like a cross between an AC30, a Fender Twin, and a Marshall stack — stunning. Eddie VH has one, as have a list of other famous people as long as your leg. It's distributed here by Scott-Cooper Marketing, at a price...

EFFECTS

Peavey are now making effects pedals, shock horror probe: four of them to start with, a 12-bit digital delay with 3.2 seconds maximum time; a compressor; distortion; and two choruses. Prices vary from around £180 for the delay, down to £65 for the Hotfoot Distortion, and Peavey claim the quality rivals rackmount units.

Speaking of which, the new rackable GP-8 guitar processor from Roland is pretty spiffing. This long slim box has a dynamic filter, compressor, Turbo Overdrive, distortion, phaser, digital delay, digital chorus, and EQ built into it. There's room to store 128 different patches, accessible via the (optional) FC100 foot controller.

Hot news from Boss, apart from the LM-2 Limiter, and the Bass Chorus, Bass Flanger, and Bass EQ footpedals, is that Boss pedals now come with a five-year guarantee, provided you buy them from a regular Boss dealer and keep your receipt. This generous offer is backdated to 1st Jan 1987.

New stuff from the recommended Ibanez persons includes the BC10 Bass Chorus, FC10 Fat Cat distortion, and a VL10 volume pedal.

DRUMS

To ply or not to ply? Well, Ludwig for one have now made all their six-ply kits available in alternative four-ply which essentially ups the resonance, cut and sharpness. Fewer layers of wood also mean fewer levels of dosh, as proved by comparisons between their Classic and Rocker Two sets. See a Classic configuration you like but can't afford? They'll produce a Rocker Two version which, with a few changes in hardware, matches its inspiration in all but two features — half the amount of wood three-ply instead of six and therefore half the amount of money.

Go to Premier for pretty colours. We liked the pastel pinks, yellows and blues. We even liked them all mixed together on the same kit, but then we're funny. Innovations include a bass drum damper which sits inside the shell and presses a half-moon-shaped foam pad against the inside of the skin. A lot more control than an old blanket.

And Premier were one of several companies showing a legless hi-hat stand specifically designed for double bass drum kits. The pedal goes to the floor, but there are no extendable legs. Instead it bolts to the side of the bass drum so you can squeeze the whole gadget close in to the rest of your kit. They told us about their extra-deep (14x9) brass snare, their Megasonic bass drum heads with two miking holes, and the upgraded APK kits now with a boom cymbal stand, the Prolock 2395 memory-locked bass drum tom holder as standard, and general hardware improvements.

Stopped briefly at the Dynacord stand for what was easily the bulkiest press pack of the show. Clatter, clatter went drummers on their odd arrowhead pads. Racked up at the back were the ADD-one drum computer — eight digitally recorded channels, plus plenty of programming and kit memories — and the ADD-drive. Yes, at last, a disc-drive for drummers which pumps extra memory space into the ADD-one, and acts as a sampler supplying a maximum 20 seconds of sample at a 50KHz rate.

Drummers, do you get backache? Ludwig (again) now have a throne for you — essentially a stool with an adjustable back support for those long, drawn out gigs.

And drummers, are you... er... short? The Ludwig Modular 2 low profile snare stand will get that big eight-inch thing closer to the ground for you.

BASSES

There are only two things that you can rely on at these Frankfurt music fairs. One is that poor old weak journalists' legs will ache for days, thanks to the seemingly endless trekking in the enormous exhibition halls. The other is that John Entwistle will be there.

"Ah, zis is designed by ze John Entvistle," explained the spokeswoman on the Warwick stand when I enquired about their novel Buzzard bass. Ever had that feeling when the brain says, "You want fret five here, son," but the fingers inexplicably leap to fret six? Well, the Buzzard has the number of frets 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, 19, and 21 inlaid into the fingerboard. "It vas introduced in ze 1985," I was told. Well I'd never seen it before.

In fact there was enough never-seen-before stuff to keep many a four-stringer happy. Oh, and quite a few five-strings, too. Like the Gibson V. Now, we know that Gibson have never succeeded with basses, but this V and its neighbouring IV were at least attractive in a pointy but not drooping headstock way. Much less attractive is their new active 20/20 bass, with a small, squared body and a mini-headstock sporting Sperzel machines and signed by Ned Steinberger.

Headless Ned's influence — and in fact his signed handiwork — was to be seen on many basses at Frankfurt. One suspects the man might make more from his licensed ideas than from his own basses these days. Hohner put his body-tuners and headlessness to most impressive use with the potentially wonderful Jack bass. I suppose the shape is Status-like though most of the similarities end there. The single-piece body/neck is made of maple, fingerboard is rosewood, and the two I tried were finished in black or a warm mahoganyish brown. It appeared to be passive. The pair of flavour-of-the-fair Select By EMG pickups we didn't hear, but acoustically the 24 fret neck felt very good. Good news was a hint from a Hohner UK person that the price could be around £200.

The Jack will come from the same Cort factory in Korea as the Hohner B2 basses which we've raved about before, so one is encouraged to expect something good. The only old B2-style Hohner on show with the new Select pickups was a fretless B2AFL, evidently well demonstrated because the white fret-marking inlay was almost all gone. But we are promised all the B2s with Selects soon, including the five-string B2V that also plonked well acoustically.

An Aria person (actually called Arai in Japan, so we should say an Arai person) told us that the company are phasing out their rather long in the tooth SB range, to be replaced by new Japanese-made (=expensive) Integra basses, of which he showed us three models. There'll be a simple passive model at about £450, an active at £560, and an active with phenolic (plastic) fingerboard for close on £700. In a more sensible dosh situation are the new Korean-made Aria XR basses, an active (XRB2A at £250) and a passive (XRB2 about £190).

Astonishing stuff among all the droopy boys was the Fernandes FPB PJ110 (take a breath), which had a traditional Fender headstock shape. Crikey, I said, specially when I was told that it's going to cost £600. A little more... how would they put it... affordable are the new Fernandes FRB55, PJS50 and PJ65, all going for around the £350 mark. We note with relief that these have droopy headstocks.

Oh... must dash, I've just seen John Entwistle.

TROUBLE

A fire at one of the largest guitar factories in Korea could affect supplies to the UK in the next six months.

Rumours about the accident at the Samick factory in Inchon, Republic of Korea were circulating wildly at the Frankfurt fair. For the true story Making Music spoke to Rudy Schlacher, president of Washburn, one of Samick's biggest customers. Samick make thousands of guitars for Washburn every month, as well as for Charvel and Hondo.

"February's fire affected about 30% of the Samick factory," Mr Schlacher told us, "and was restricted to the finishing area where they spray and buff the guitars. The damage will affect Samick's output, initially some 60% down on normal production. But they have assured us they should be back to full production by the summer.

"It won't affect Washburn that much," Mr Schlacher affirmed, "and we may pick up some production from the Cort factory, which currently makes Hohner and Kramer guitars. In fact, the Samick fire could turn out to be beneficial, as they are now planning to install new American spray equipment to replace the damaged equipment."

Washburn UK are expecting supplies of their new models on schedule at the end of April, including three new Force series models, the G-Junior, G8 and G15, and the 'new shape' RS8 and RS10 guitars with EMG Select pickups, Floyd Rose locking trem, arched top, and sub-£350 suggested selling price.

RECORDING

Our exclusive story last month about TOA's 8-track cassette recorder, the MR8T, evidently set a lot of people talking at the Frankfurt fair. So much so that when I went to the TOA stand to enquire further, there were looks of "oh no, not someone else who wants to see the 8-track" from the Japanese, followed by furtive shuffling of feet. When the TOA people realised I was from Making Music, I was ushered into a back room and allowed to see the one and only MR8T; in fact it had to be dragged from a secretive wardrobe.

"Can I look inside?" I asked. No, no, not at the circuitry, at the recording head, I clarified. Well, it looked kosher. Eight little slits. It could well be 8-track. An Austrian TOA-ish person assured me he'd heard tapes on the machine, and that it compared very favourably with a Fostex A8 reel-to-reel for quality. Then it got strange. "TOA are not selling the 8-track in Germany." And the UK? "We really don't know," and they wouldn't be pushed on it. Ah well...

More solidly visible was Yamaha's expanded version of the successful MT1X 4-tracker, called (ready?) the MT2X (about £600, from May). The expansion consists of six input channels, two tape speeds, and the facility of an optional MIDI sync box.

If you wanted something to put in the rack, there was no shortage of les gizmos nouveaux as they say in Belgium. Let's see: the Korg DRV2000 (£499) digital reverb had a swish thing called Multi Modulation, controlling two constituents of each program from input level, MIDI controller or footpedal. We thought Korg's DRV3000 (£999) was a video when we first saw its wireless remote and crowded front panel, but Korg helpfully wrote 'dual digital effects processor' on the front. It stacks and links effects together to get well weird noises, all from the comfort of your fireside armchair.

In the Vesta Fire brochure was the MVR8.8A that theoretically records eight tracks on to Beta video cassettes. I say theoretically, because I've seen a picture of the machine at the last two Frankfurt fairs, and this time I got the usual, "Perhaps in six months, sir, there are difficulties in Japan." I don't believe them any more.

We were grateful to see someone at last putting out a cheap but (with luck) reliable stereo headset mike. Audio Technica's new AT9852 model (£35, available late May) partners their already available mono version (AT9850, £25). Brilliant. GutenTag.

SURPRISE

The Who-would-have-guessed-that award goes to Akai for their Ewee and Evee wind synthesisers — and that's woodwind and brass, not you know what. The EWI 1000 offers saxophone fingering and the EVI 1000 is a trumpet alternative. They both operate the same purpose-built synth module with special attention paid to breath control and other wind-ist matters. Not just MIDI controllers, then.

They certainly look... er... distinctive, the EWI 1000 in particular is an almost square sectioned length of tubing without moving parts. The circuit is made by fingering touch pads roughly where sax keys would be, and sliding your thumb up or down seven rollers at the rear to select the octave. Pads at the back also supply bend, etc. The EVI 1000 has three trumpet contacts and a twist grip at the end.

The EWV10 sound module bulks up with 2 analogue synth channels which can be blended by puffing harder. As far as we could tell, there's no embouchure involved. You just blow. About £1299 for controller and module.