THERE'S SOMETHING FUNDAMENTALLY wrong with a magazine that deals with the issue of music. The problem is obvious: it's all those words sat silently on a page trying to tell you how your ears are going to react to sounds they might hear. (I wonder if anyone's thought of making a silent movie about the way things smell.) This problem of words and sounds isn't limited to Music Technology of course, it covers the entire music press from the weekly pop papers through classical music magazines to the hi-fi glossies.

Concentrating on hi-tech music, however, it's all very well reading about the sound generation system of a synth or the sampling rate of a sampler - it can be invaluable information when it comes to selecting an instrument best suited to your needs and your pocket - but it falls well short of allowing you to hear what the damn things sound like or feel what they're like to play. So what are your alternatives to reading? Well you could (and should) visit your local music shop once in a while - but you might run the risk of being "sold" something, rather than being advised about it. Is there anything else to help you out of this dilemma? As a matter of fact there is - there's the Music Recording and Technology show, for example.

While it's not the only musical instrument show you may care to visit (over 18,000 turned out for the recent International Music Show), the M-RAT show has been designed with the specific requirements of the MT reader very much in mind. The show actually began life a good few years back as the Hands On Show - a tactile extension of MT's sister mag Home & Studio Recording. But as recording technology and musical technology experienced a head-on collision, it became increasingly difficult to avoid having to deal with both. So why not cover the technology behind recording music and making it and allow you to become better acquainted with both? No reason, I'm sure you'll agree.

As a result, at the M-RAT show you'll find the major forces behind the British hi-tech music scene under one roof, eager to show you what you've been reading about and answer those problems which have been distracting you from your music lately. More than this, though, the show offers technical seminars and demonstrations of equipment intended to help you decide exactly what technology offers you, and how you should go about using it. As well as "structured" presentations, there will be a question-and-answer session towards the end of each day, giving you direct access to a panel of experts including some of the staff of both MT and Home & Studio Recording. To some regular visitors to the old Hands On Show, these sessions alone became worth the price of admission.

Taking a cue from some of the letters which have appeared in Communique over recent months, I should also point out that the show gives you the opportunity to make contact with other followers of the hi-tech faith - perhaps more so than at any other event on the face of the earth. After all, if you've all been brought together by a common interest in music and high technology, why not talk to each other about it?

I'm not going to fire dates and prices at you in this editorial, because I'm not trying to do the job of an advertisement (you'll see those elsewhere in the mag); instead I've attempted to address one of the problems inherent in the format of a written magazine. I recognise it as MT's editor and I'm sure you recognise it as the magazine's readership. This, then, is an opportunity we both have of overcoming the shortcomings of the printed word to the benefit of our music and the industry which makes it possible for us to make it - the hi-tech aspects, anyway. I know I shall be seeing a number of "name" musicians there (after all, it's their bread and butter), I hope I shall be seeing you too.