Frankfurt. What does it mean to you? Yes, it's in West Germany. But say the word Frankfurt to anyone in the musical instrument industry and you are immediately indicating the annual European marketplace where all the new and shiny musical paraphernalia is put on show under cover of several gigantic barns.

So your own One Two, the most exciting thing ever to happen in instrument publishing, is at Stand 80 A51. We'd be happy to see you. To be honest, after a few hours we'd be happy to see anyone with a vaguely English accent. Even Americans have been known to cheer us up.

But, of course, you won't be there, you impoverished artist, you, so here's the best guide to Frankfurt's fab new gear.

To enliven things still further, we've personally contacted ten of the most exceptional pop-shaped musicians and had them rabbit on for a while about their favourite instruments of 1984 and, crucial to the Frankfurt knees-up, what they'd like to see in 1985. And what a fascinating racket the lot would make. Read on, and discover the noises for a new year.

Somewhere in N22, the Musimex sales computer tells us that Session amps are their fastest growing line. The neat and versatile combos have done well, mainly through word-of-mouth publicity among musicians, also helped by frequent appearances behind Deirdre Cartwright's guitar on Rockschool. Latest development in the series is the inclusion of MOS/FET power stages to increase reliability.

Another of Musimex' amp suppliers is less often seen dotted around stages, but almost as hotly discussed down the pub. ENGL digital amps can store eight tone control and effects settings within the combo's memory bank. They can be called up remotely for instant changes. More of the amps should be available in this country after the show.

As the quality of amp, recording and effect hardware grows, so does the demand on leads to be tougher, quieter and more reliable. Super Shield are a new line to contend with the existing high-class cable names such as Whirlwind. Super Shield comes in 3, 6 or 9 metre, pre-cut lengths, with solid brass jack plugs at the ends. Each lead promises low noise and carries a ten year warranty.

Volume makes the world go around, but small bits of plastic hold your amp together. Many of those knobbly, essential bits like grilles, handles, terminal posts and corners, are supplied by Cliff Electronic Components of Surrey. Their new baby at Frankfurt will be the CF-5 Cabinet Edge System. Extrusion strips can be fitted along the edges of the speaker cabinets (saves on finishing costs), and the corners act as solid, plastic feet, or will lock with their opposite numbers on another cab.

Remember the Octette? Mock ups of this, the world's first eight track cassette recorder, were shown at our very own British Music Fair in August when we learned that it performed its magic by using Betamax video cassettes. It's said that completion of the Octette was delayed while Cutec, the manufacturers, sorted out the last details of the noise reduction system — now changed from the original Dolby C to DBX.

But in Germany we will see the finished goods. The machine runs at 3¾ips, has DBX, and can record on all eight tracks at once. Controls are limited as you'd expect anyone contemplating eight track recording to have at least an eight channel mixer of their own. The Octette offers a seven level, LED meter for each track, plus a record level control and switches to convert the track from record-to-play-to-send for 'ping-ponging'. The price will be approximately £899.

Cutec are similarly launching the CX230 variable, stereo, two-way crossover at £142; the CX350 three-way crossover at £258; the TFE1531 switchable, 15 band stereo 31 band mono graphic eq at £242; the GE201010 band stereo graphic at an alluring £96 plus the 27 CDM-3 dynamic cardioid mike.

Reunion Blues Leather and Cordura musical instrument bags are now available in shapes ready to cart about such modern instruments as Yamaha's DX synths, headless guitars and Euphoniums (upright and forward facing bells). A relief for us all.

Fresh to the European market from Turbosound are the TMS-2 and TMS-4 sound reinforcement enclosures. Heaviest of the additions is the TMS-4 — a two-way active, three-way line array loudspeaker module. TurboBass and TurboMid are (no prizes) Turbosound's patented and trademarked enclosures.

At last, a locking guitar strap that doesn't further deplete the world's supply of chrome. Terry Gould's new 'Safety Belt' straps have their lockable bits made of leather and built into the strap itself. Patents pending all round. Are we instead depleting the world's supply of cow? Apart from their usual wide range of loudspeaker enclosures, Leech will be unveiling a compact, 500W, full range PA cab and, what they promise to be 'competitively priced' rack cases.

Pearl's electronic drum kit has been spotted in the far flung ports of America and Japan, or at least their trade fairs. Germany gets a squint this month. Not digital, as far as we know, but not expensive either. Acoustically, there are the latest Deep Export Drums to be examined.

Introductions and rationalisations from loudspeaker manufacturers, Fane Professional. First there's a new 1in full range, compression driver with a frequency response "smoothly maintained to 20KHz at an average sound pressure level of 105dB". And from now on, the Crescendo and Studio series of speakers, which used to share some customers, are clearly divided. Crescendo is for instruments, Studio is for sound reinforcement and, amazingly, studios.

The restructuring has resulted in the introduction of 5in and 8in types. Meanwhile the Classic and Specialist ranges have been extended by an 8in, 50W driver and two high output 12in models, both designed to recapture the sound of 60's rock. Thought they had whispering Bob to do that.

The Vesta Fire RV-1 reverb, a fave with reverberant-type people, is being updated and replaced by the RV-3 which has a built in noise gate and limiter, three band reverb eq, and is full two channel stereo. Remarkably enough it's less dosh, weighing in at £215. Such delight. Also in the Vesta Fire range, distributed in this country by MTR, is the SL-200. This dual compressor/limiter replaces the SL-020, also costs less (£290) and has extra balanced XLR connectors and new visuals — had no idea compressors were short sighted.

Moving away from the rack stuff, Vesta Fire promise a fresh batch of stereo and mono foot-pedals including chorus, flanger, delay, phase.

X marks the spot for keyboards. That wonderful letter continues its take over of the synth business. Roland are extending their JXs by adding the JX8P — a five octave, six voice, programmable, touch sensitive poly at £1250. The JX8P keys also have a second touch facility to control vibrato, brilliance and volume.

There are two DCO banks, cross mode, phase sync, and, unusually, a voltage controlled mixer that lets an envelope generator determine how long DCO2 is allowed to pass through.

The JX8P has 64 presets that can be fiddled with and the results slotted into 32 of the player's own presets. A Ram cartridge provides space for another 32 memories. The sounds can be named in a 10 character LCD window (similar to the Super Jupiter rack unit), and the JX8P can be linked to Roland's existing PG200 programmer for faster tweaking. Roland claim that the MIDI functions 'are the most comprehensive yet', and MIDI options can be written into the patch programme.

Elsewhere from Roland there's a new range of Super Cube amps — lead and bass — a mini version of the famous JC120 chorus amp called the JC77 and a range of compact speaker enclosures for pubs, clubs and studios. Speaking of chorusey stuff, there's a rack mounted CE300 Super Chorus available, plus three new home pianos and 'a further 24 new lines as yet unseen'. Last minuters: A digital waveform based poly from Korg called the DW6000 with eight basic waveforms and 64 programs plus a full kit from ddrums with pads connecting to a rack unit.

The synthesiser business continues to give birth to strange descriptions. This time it's 'Bi-Timbric' which Siel apply to their programmable DK 80. Like the MK900 we checked out recently, it has two sound generation sections so programmes can be over-layed or split across the 61 note, key velocity sensitive keyboard. Each patch can be set up on 74 parameters, and the DK 80 has a two channel sequencer on board where each track or voice can be allocated its own MIDI channel for expansion.

The single generation, programmable Expander 80 wilL also be shown. That, too, has a sequencer.

On the software side, Siel launch the Graphic Sound Editor which works with the DK 80 to display and determine those 74 parameters. A zoom feature supplies a close up of each 'imaginary' control plus high res graphics for envelope and waveform display.

And a couple of new developments — a keyboard which can use the Commodore 64 SID chip for sound generation (40 presets on software with the possibility of 99 sounds in one sound library), and the promise of new, low cost digital keyboards for the computer, education and home markets with RS232 connections', so there.

New models of Alligator amps will feature a tone select circuit called 'Sound Shaper' which lets you pre-set the tone control settings for three different instruments — bass, keyboards and guitar, suggest Alligator. Each instrument can have its own tone control patch and you can either select them via a rotary switch on the front panel or swap between two of the three possibilities using a foot switch. New amps to be seen at Frankfurt include the A60 and A100 combos with reverb, and the A120 and A150 Super Combos. Additions to speaker cabs include the A200, a 2 x 12in, 200W cab with tuned bass ports. And the A215, a 1 x 15in, 150W cab with tuned bass ports and a wide range speaker unit.

Predictions have been plentiful about Yamaha's next step with FM synthesis. But they're a tricky company to second guess. Last year everyone was expecting a cheaper poly underneath the DX9 and look what they gave us — the CX5 computer. Today, perched over our pens of clairvoyance and our notepads of second sight, we can bet our dosh on a programmable polyphonic somewhere between the DX7 and DX1. Now, let's see how many odd numbers are there between seven and one. To go below the DX9 would still seem a logical step, but in their press release Yamaha merely say "there will be new models using FM digital synthesis both in keyboard and modular form."

They're more definite about the new Yamaha electric guitars, many of which were pre-launched in the UK in August at the British Music Fair. The familiar SGs are updated, naturally, but more intriguing are the SJ550HM and SJ550HR, physically akin to a certain America cross between Television and newscaster, but with humbuckers.

Yamaha's 9000 Recording Series Drums have snarled a good percentage of the top end of the drum market, and at last are to have mid-priced partners for the semi-pro.

A flurry of activity from the Vox camp including some blasts from the past and some crates from the States. The Vintage Vox guitars (predicted in One Two last month) will make their first appearance in the shape of six-string versions of the old Teardrops and Phantoms. Twelve strings alternatives are on the way, but the British and Japanese ends of the Vox empire are presently slaving to keep the costs as low as possible.

A fresh stock of Vox valve amps will be appearing under the generic title 'Concert'. They'll use the American 655/50 tubes — a bow to the American popularity of Vox, perhaps — which have been described as 'meaty', 'reliable' and similar to KT77s. Vox say that the bottles are also readily available in Britain.

The first Concert 50W will be in 1 x 12 and 2 x 12 forms (Fanes, of course), featuring dual, switchable channels, each with three band eq, reverb, effects loop and variable DI output. Around £350 for the 1 x 12 and £400 for the 2 x 12.

Three additional Proamps are to join the family. First the popular Demon 45 with its pre-gain, postgain and 10in Celestion is to be produced as a reverb version at £179. Then, somewhat dramatically titled, there are the Voodoos — a 1 x 12 and a 2 x 10, both again using Celestions and this time kicking out 75W. Accutronics reverbs and toroidal transformers for low noise are part of the deal at £249 and £269 respectively.

Allen and Heath Brenell made a brave sally into computer aided mixdown in '84, aiming to make it affordable for the budget recordist. Their endeavour should pay off in two new interface units unveiled at Frankfurt — the CMI 64 and CMS 64, both for the Commodore 64 computer. The CMI expands Allen and Heath's existing CMC computer mixer making available a channel index, track index, 56 route pages, 1023 mute patterns and a 2048 event sequencer. The CMS expands the CMC's sequencer functions allowing you to sync-up drum machines and generate, or read, time code.

Give it a few years and Frankfurt will have to organise its own software hall to nestle among those for guitars, synths and 'Grosse instrumenten'. No, we've never been sure what they mean, either. Potential exhibitees would be Rosetti who have enlarged their selection of JMS MIDI software for the Spectrum and Commodore. We now have the RMS-28C Score Writer program which boasts 'accurate transcription of music recorded with MIDI equipment in real time. A powerful preprocessor compensates for playing inaccuracies and estimates note values according to musical context.' Our interpretation is that you play and the computer prints out the score. How fast, and how rock'n'roll it may be, we'll find out.

There's also a MIDI synchroniser to accept 'any clock or sync pulse', and the CG-X Interface which can apparently hook your old CV and gate analogue synths into MIDI. 'You can even send key velocity data to your Minimoog', say Rosetti. Now that we'd like to see.

Only to be expected that lighting engineers are going to expect pretty, shiny bulbs on the control boards they work with. Celco's new Graphics Display System is no fireworks' exercise, however. It presents a full, visual display of how the lights in the show are patched, alongside information concerning control board, dimmer and luminaire circuits. Celco humbly admit that this on screen display technique isn't fresh off the trawler. Other manufacturers have used similar ideas, but Celco claim theirs, alone, can be highly useful in originally planning a stage light design.

Last Frankfurt, Analog Transducer Coils whipped the blankets off some prototype speakers called Pilots. In the next 12 months they "experimented with new glues and materials" and found techniques for winding more coils. Such late night tinkerings have produced the 125W Pilot 8 and the 250W Pilot 15, also partnered by an extended bass version with long throw coil and a low mid model for PA application.

Now there's the 350W Pilot 18 for recorded music and sub-bass uses, boasting a three inch, long throw, edgewound coil. Less brain damaging is the 150W Pilot 12 and 250W OEM PA unit, both with aluminium cast chassis.

Distinctive British guitar makers Manson originally made a name through their made-to-order multi-necked guitars and basses — anything up to four necks on one body. In recent years they've impressed many guitarists with their more conservative electrics, latest of which is the Falcon which comes with a ready-fitted, Kahler tremolo in chrome, brass and gold, or black hardware.

High technology, like history, tends to arrive in 'generations', and Soundtracs bring tidings of two new ones for Frankfurt. They claim that their fresh, 'M' series, modular mixing console and a 'surprise' product for the PAM and 8 track home market are both departures in desk science. The M is aimed at 8 track studio or sound reinforcement purposes. Each module has four band eq concentrated on the difficult areas of vocal and drum equalisation, they say. There are six auxiliary sends (switchable pre/post), eight buss and master routing, and 100mm SPL faders. The output sections feature switchable eq for either group sends or tape returns, tape returns to group and masters, stereo return to masters, six auxiliary sends switchable from group to a tape return and, for most theatre applications or studio monitors, an inclusive x 4 matrix for each group. It comes in a steel frame using aluminium extrusions and is available as 24 into 8 or 32 into 8 with any permutations in between using the Soundtracs blanks to fill the gaps.

As promised in our review of the Casio CZ-101 programmable, digital mini-synth (surely you remember that), there IS a full sized version. It's called the CZ-1000 and all other programming and MIDI features remain the same. For the rest of the newcomers dip in as follows: the MT-85, a mini keyboard with built in teaching facilities using music on a ROM pack to light LEDs above the keys you should be playing; the MT-100, a development of the MT-68 offering 768 accompaniment variations and many preset sounds and rhythms; the MT-210 with stereo sound and Pulse Code Modulation drums for extra realism; the CK-10, a programmable keyboard and a built in stereo AM/FM radio; and the CK-500 which offers (deep breath and down-in-one), a polyphonic, mini keyboard with four-track, twin-cassette recorders with radio. Where's the tele?

We at One Two are placing bets on some form of Casio sequencer at Frankfurt and more pro keyboards, but no news yet.

Soundcraft is ready to bring its experience with top flight mixing consoles within range of smaller studios and the home recordist. Europe will get its first glimpse of the new 600 and 500 series desks in this first week of February.

The 600 is designed for 8 and 16 track studios and comes in 16, 24 and 32 input configurations, fitted with full, 16 track monitor sections with returns normalled to the input channels for mixdown. The 500 is Soundcraft's most recent addition to live desks featuring eight busses, selectable in pairs, with six auxiliary sends and individual channel outputs.

Those considering a budget 16 or 24 track set up could investigate what Soundcraft called their 'Producers Package' — a combination of the Series 1600 console and Series 760 Mk III multitrack.