Already the international leaders in electronic percussion, Simmons seem determined not to make the mistake committed by many previous British market leaders, who've let foreign competitors overtake them in new product design. A few weeks back IN TUNE received a mysterious invitation from the St.Albans based company. Would we like to spend the day with them, first at their factory, and later at Brocket Hall, one of the country's finest stately homes? A quick look round the office revealed the one person who wouldn't look out of place in Lord Brocket's palatial gaff - IT's resident percussion expert Pete Randall. Borrowing the office suit and tie (we even let him use the company roller skates to get there!), the great man set off to find out.

The day started at the Simmons factory in St Albans at about 11 a.m. with a short tour round the factory, accompanied by product manager Jim Pinnock. Most of the people who work for Simmons seem very young, and perhaps the most interesting part of the tour for me was the testing department, where we saw two industrious young men testing the SDS7 range before the equipment was packed and readied for despatch.

After the factory tour it was off to Brocket Hall, an imposing stately home set in 1,000 acres of Hertfordshire countryside. Eventually we gathered in the main drawing room to meet the Simmons team, including the ingenious Dave Simmons, who was looking very pleased with himself - and so he should be, if the new products (which we were next treated to a look at) are as successful as the previous ones!

A trip to the ballroom followed next (honestly!) where we saw a video film explaining the history of Simmons and showing us something of the new products (GET ON WITH IT! - Ed.). Then it was the 'real thing' - a live band led by Charlie Morgan, who demo'd what we'd come to see - the new SDS9, the top of the range in these new products.

As we've probably all long expected, Simmons are now fully geared-up to the MIDI system, but before going into that area, there are plenty of other new features on the SDS9 which are bound to increase the appeal of Simmons even further.

The SDS9 has many new features that previous Simmons kits haven't been endowed with, the first of which is described as 'Matchless Memory Capacity'. 20 user-programmed drum kit sounds can be stored in this, along with 20 more factory programmed sets, and tape dump can be added to the arsenal if this isn't enough for you. Changing between these different sounds is via a single footswitch. Although the pads follow the traditional Simmons hexagonal shapes, they have now introduced a 'floating head' system which has a better feel than even that on the previous generation of Simmons pads. I remember, when the SDS5 first appeared, that I was initially put off playing the kit by the extremely hard playing surface - but those days are obviously long gone now, as these new pads feel fantastic. I'd reckon that the dynamics and sensitivity of the new kit are a 50 per cent improvement over the previous types, as the drum pad triggers are read by a microprocessor and then by logarithmic expansion, instructing the drum voice to sound instantly and in sympathy with the way the pad is struck. In other words, the pad will reproduce subtle sticking in the same way as a normal acoustic drum would.

On the snare, three digitally recorded acoustic samples give you snare, rimshot and cross-stick effects, and you generate these by playing in the normal way, just as you would with an acoustic drum. There's programme control over filter pitch, sweep and resonance, pitch, pitch bend (up and down), drum decay, noise level, choice of rim sound and balance between snare and rim. Simmons can supply you with extra chips to expand the sounds further and, of course, if you own an Eprom 'Blower', you can record and then fit your own sounds.

Moving on to the bass and toms, these are replicas of real drum sounds, with control over qualities like pitch, click level and decay on the bass drum, with pitch, pitch bend, filter pitch, sweep decay, noise tone balance and click level on the toms. There's also an auto-trigger, which automatically activates the sound of each drum dynamically, starting with the lowest and working up to the highest. This allows you to select a sound very quickly, before deciding which to play.

An interesting addition to the sounds on this kit is 'slap-back' echo, via a fully programmable digital delay, which sounds especially effective when used on the snare.

Now back to that MIDI capability! Although most keyboard readers will already be familiar with the MIDI system, it may be a new name to drummers - or at least, one which they've heard but not yet understood or worked with. Well, put very simply, it means that you can, with the Simmons system, trigger a drum machine (like a Yamaha RX11 or Roland TR707) directly from your Simmons pads - but if sounding like a drum machine isn't your bag you could link your kit straight to a keyboard synth like a JX8P or DX7 for some really exciting sounds! Charlie Morgan demonstrated this feature with various percussive voices on a DX7. You can, of course, mix the sound to give any degree of synth/drum machine or Simmons, by adjusting the levels on the SDS9.

But there's more than the SDS9 coming from Simmons, as we saw that day. The SDS200 (2 tom channel system), SDS400 (a 4-tom channel system) and SDS800 (4 channels with two toms, bass and snare) are here too. They all feature the new soft pads, along with some of the extras which you find on the SDS9 - except that you can't put digital chips into these, as you can with the SDS9. The SDS400 and 800 have a 'run generator' which allows you to play multi-tom fills from one pad, which is a very handy idea. Headphone outputs are standard on all these units, and I can well see the SDS200 being the ideal answer for the drummer who doesn't want to sacrifice their acoustic kit. It's not too expensive, either.

I could spout on for hours about this new Simmons gear, but space is short this month (so the Ed. says!). I'll hope to be able to bring you a full review of this new gear in the not too distant future. In the meantime, leaflets, videos, advice and help of any sort are available to dealers and players alike and, while the new products don't make either the SDS8 or SDS7 obsolete, they represent an expansion of the existing range - and one that everybody I spoke to on that day (dealers and players alike) all agreed they were impressed by.

Prices of the new Simmons gear are to be as follows: SDS200: £359.99, SDS400: £549.99, SDS800: £629.99 and the SDS9: £1,199.99.

More details of all Simmons products can be obtained direct from them at Simmons Electronics, (Contact Details).