COME TO THE BMF and you will see lots and lots of instrumental goodies, both in an on-stand display situation and in ongoing up-and-running concert modes. For the British Music Fair takes place at Olympia in Hammersmith Road, west London, at the interface of July and August. It's open from Friday 31st July to Sunday 2nd August, 10am to 7pm each day. It'll set you back £3.50 (£1.75 for under-14s, £2.50 for MU cardholders). If you're keen on gear, it's the place to visit. Four-eyed producer Trevor Horn will - he's opening the BMF to the trade at 11am the previous Tuesday. Earliest he's been up for a bit.

The most important stand to visit as soon as you come through the BMF door is the Making Music abode, stand N86, where you will find our BMF newsheet, our hot-off-the-press recording book, groovy new t-shirts, and some deeply fab people (us, in fact). We're near the bar, too. A big event on our stand is the appearance of the Guitar Guru, in person, to answer your vintage guitar queries. He'll be there on the Saturday from 1-3pm and 4-6pm. Remember, Stand N86.

Other events overshadowed by the Guru's earthly manifestation are numerous. Note these; the BBC "Rockschool" people will be signing new tutors on the Music Exchange stand on Friday and Saturday afternoon - say hello to our Geoffrey... our own Andy Duncan demos for Ludwig in the Club Room at 4.30 (Fri) and 1.30 (Sun)... Simmons and Sounds present three mega-drummers in the Apex theatre: Chester Thompson and his gorilla (Sun 5.45), Billy Cobham (Sat 7.0), and Billy Bruford (Fri 7.0)... the final performances of the BMF/Yamaha competition are in theatre 3 on Sunday at 12 and 1.30... Ensoniq promise an "entertaining" keys demo in theatre 3 (Fri 1.30, Sat 6.0, Sun 3.0)... Charlie Morgan and Pete Jupp (at least) will be demoing on the Premier stand (Fri 12, Sat 4.30, Sun 12)... beezer bassist Joe Hubbard demos new bass gear on the Peavey stand on Sat and Sun... And IQ do their stuff for Tama and Westone in the Freight Bay theatre (sounds romantic) - Fri 6.0; Sat 3.0; and Sun 4.30.

Last, don't forget the "alternative" show - the Guitar Extravaganza. It's at the Hand & Flower Hotel, opposite Olympia, from Wednesday 29th July to Sunday 2nd August (9am to 5pm). Lots of interesting guitar products, we're promised. Be seeing you.

Biggest fishy-wishy in this month's selection of new stuff (which might or might not be on display at the BMF) has to go to Roland's TR626 drum machine: it looks like a 505, but has eight separate outputs, 30 different pitch-tuneable sounds, plus the 96 preset and programmable patterns, and still only £350 to you. We hope they can make sufficient of them... also fresh up from Mr Roland's shed at the end of the garden will be the S550 for £2300, a rack-mount S50 with twice the memory of the keyboard version. Then there's a rack-mounting D50 for £1250 called the D550, and the RPD-10 micro-rack panning delay (BMF stand N28)... newshounds will be looking forward to meeting the Prophet 3000, which Sequential are argumentatively claiming 16 bits for (<13282>see Front End Story).

Vesta Fire are launching a range of foot pedals, to go with their chicken chow mein. There'll be DDL with modulation for £79, a digital reverb for £158, and compression and overdrive for £37 each. There's also a 16-bit rackmount reverb for £299. These will be sharing the Arbiter stand at the BMF (N82) with Fender guitars like the Strat Plus... the new Gibson and Epiphone guitars that we spotted in Frankfurt in February should be on show on Rosetti's stand (N66) at the BMF - watch out for the anorexic Les Paul Lite...

Session have some new amplificators on the workbench: the Rockettes have been redesigned to include a 15W model, the new Duette series come in 30W and 60W footswitchable boxes with 10in and 12in megaphone things... Marshall have introduced (hello) 300W and 600W bass amp heads for deaf gits (BMF stand N38). Steve Fisher of Elka tells us that Ampeg amplifiers are about to become available in Britain again. Elka themselves have some new gear coming. Apart from the ER33 module we reviewed last month, there's an ER44 for £999, which is two ER33s in the same box, giving 18 voice polyphony, 64 presets, 32 programmable memories, and 16 Performance memories. There will also be two Elka mother keyboards (the MK55 and MK88), and... Kawai's beezer looking K5 synth with realtime fiddly waveform analysis should be on display at the BMF (N32), as will be the new R50 tuneable digital drumbox, which we've played and like... all that fabby Yamaha stuff Robin Cocteau told us about last month, like the REX50 multi-effects, the TX802 module, and the DX7S will be on view at the BMF (G25)...

Carlsbro have a new range of 50W amplifiers, somewhat inaccurately titled Colt 45. In true Carlsbro equal opportunities style, there'll be one each for lead, bass, and keys. They're also introducing the Scorpion 20W series, and a Wasp 10W lead practice combo. We await the Cockroach range with interest (BMF stand N10)...

John Hornby Skewes (N12) have stolen Carlsbro's thunder with their new Flyspeck miniature 'eadphone hamplifier, which is about the size of two 9V batteries. Only £15, including headphones... not only do Hohner have their new Professional guitars (see SG Lion review, p. 48) now in the shops, but there's a load of new Arbours coming at £145, with locking trems. Select/EMG-type pickups, and shiny colours (BMF stand G40)...

Peavey's long-awaited high quality foot pedals should now be available - Digital Delay, Dual Clock Stereo Chorus, Companded Chorus, Distortion, and Compressor/Sustainer, all with MIDI capability, which explains their rather high price (from £65 up to £180) (BMF stand N50)... musicians with vocal chords could conceivably be interested in the plethora of new microphones turning up at the moment (like at the BMF, yeah?). Beyer have their robust MC700 dynamic vocal jobby, the MCE80 electret condenser, and the unusual MCE81 vocalists' condenser. Ramsa have three new dynamic vocal mikes and two new condensers for between £70 and £150. AKG are plugging the dynamic vocalists' D321, amongst others, while Shure have not only their new SM15 headset mike, but the new W1020 wireless system, and the Shure Audiomaster 200W powered mixer and speaker PA system. All these singing items will be at the BMF, we are promised...

ELKA ER33 EXPANDER

Correction.

Yes we are human. Last month's review of the Elka ER33 Expander let slip a few boo-boos, none of which was down to reviewer Alastair Gavin, but they did work their way into the wonderful publishing machinery, and we never caught them. Principally Elka tell us it's £599 NOT £799, the figure we originally had to work on. That somewhat reflects on Alastair's final comment "at £799 this product seems to be priced a little high." At £599, it isn't. And it's the ER33 not EK33. Sorry about that.