By way of coincidence this month's IN TUNE is almost a double-headed music show special. The massive Frankfurt Trade Fair opens on February 14th, and as it's the international showplace for new gear from just about every major instrument and equipment maker in the world I make no apologies for having afforded it an extensive preview. What gets shown at Frankfurt won't always reach the U.K.'s music shops for several months (though some of it will, of course), but we think you'd like to know what's coming, so we've compiled this advance view.

Our other show feature covers the British Guitar Weekend - yes, it does seem a while back, I know. Our feeling, however, was that it was far too important an event to dismiss in a few lines and just two or three photos. Bearing in mind that the vast majority of British guitar makers used it as their sole public show, we've felt justified in holding it back until we could do it justice. Again, we think you'll find the information good enough to have been well worth the wait.

And now - IT proudly presents another 'soapbox corner'!

Do you believe what you read in the musicians' Press? I'm not asking this so that I can follow it with a hearty blast on our own trumpet (I can't play the damned thing anyway!), but because a possible warning might be in order, against those of us who've set up as equipment and instrument reviewers, pundits, experts or whatever we like to call ourselves. The difficulty is that if you ask three experts, you'll most likely get three different answers — and, what's worse, the chances are they'll all be right! There can't be any absolute truth in opinions on musical instruments. Brand X might suit me, but might drive you to distraction, and anyone who believes that their opinion is right for everyone else is not only a fool but a dangerous fool!

Just to point out that none of us is immune from the sort of possible confusion caused by product reviews, let me use another field entirely to illustrate what I mean (if only to avoid having to be specific about musicians' mags and then being told I have an axe to grind).

Apart from being personally interested in photography and photographic equipment, I use a camera and its associated gubbins in my work, and necessarily get through quite a lot of materials and equipment during the course of a year. But when I need a new lens, pack of film, camera or whatever, how do I decide what brand or model to buy? When it comes to buying a new musical instrument, I've got a fair amount of inside knowledge and — if nothing else — get to see and try a lot of what's on the market. But when I need new photographic gear, I'm in just the same position as the majority of musicians' mag readers. In this field I have no 'inside knowledge', and have to make my decisions based on what I hear from retailers (who often have their own reasons for trying to sell me the latest Yakiwahaha or whatever) as well as from the photographic Press.

Being a bit cynical by nature (who, me?!), it didn't take me long to realise that quite a few of the photo mags could be discounted almost immediately. They so obviously pandered to their advertisers that I couldn't bring myself to place any trust in their opinions at all - even some of their news was a bit suspect! On the other hand, one or two of the mags seemed at least fair with their opinions; you didn't inevitably find a gear review 'coincidentally' nestling right beside a four-page full colour ad. for the same product! It wasn't that I was looking for a mag that destroyed every product it reviewed — as with today's musical instruments, there aren't many cameras and lenses around that are utter rubbish (most have their good and bad points): what matters is whether they suit you personally. Unfortunately, I still couldn't agree with what many of the reviewers said. One writer would obviously be a nut for any and every electronic gizmo that came along (yes, they're dominating cameras too!), another would have me believe that nothing short of a £4,000 set-up would do what I wanted. In the end, of course, I found the one or two mags worth taking some notice of, and the handful of individual writers whose general tastes and ideas seemed more or less along the lines I could generally agree with. Armed with my own discretion, and guided by the reviewers' opinions, I at least had some idea of where to start looking when on the prowl for something new.

What I'd suggest is that musicians should take much the same attitude when reading reviews in their mags. Fine I may like a certain guitar, Nick Graham might favour one particular keyboard or whatever, but these are only personal opinions. True, any fair minded reviewer must always take into account that he or she is writing for a large number of readers, all of whom will have different tastes, amounts of money, styles of music and so on — but, however hard we try, an opinion is an opinion, and in the end it's your opinion (the prospective buyer of that instrument) that counts, not ours!

Ideally, an instrument review is a guide to the features and facilities a product offers, an attempt to describe how it sounds, and an assessment of whether it seems like good value for money against competing goods. It isn't holy writ, and no responsible writer or editor would ever claim that it is. What IN TUNE tries to do with our reviews is act as an informed friend whose opinion is at least honest, and who can (all being well) point you in new and interesting directions.

Anyway, there's plenty of our unique blend of news, reviews and info in this month's IT, so I'm going to push-off now and let you get on with it. Now, where did I stash that bribe money from....