Yes folks, Sound On Sound is now in its second great year - thanks in no small part to your good selves the readers. Whilst putting the finishing touches to the new-look issue you hold in your hands, we managed time to scoff a slice or two of custom-built birthday cake (thanks Auntie Vi it was scrumptious!) and to sink a few glasses of sparkly in good journalistic tradition - if you thought the journalist puppets on 'Spitting Image' were bad, you haven't seen the music press in action!!

Frivolities aside, Volume 2 Issue 1 of Sound On Sound represents more of a fine tuning operation rather than a complete 'change of image' - that drastic step is only necessary when there is something fundamentally wrong with your publication, and that is certainly not the case with this magazine. The overwhelming response to our August 1986 Reader Survey bares that out. The adjustments to the magazine you may notice have been made as a reaction to the views expressed in your survey replies. Many of you, for instance, bemoaned the fact that in some months we 'dropped' the Free Classified section - a popular element of the magazine it transpires. Well let me reassure you that from now on every issue will carry your free ads; if we can't incorporate them directly within the magazine's pages, then we'll print a supplementary sheet for them, as we've done in this issue.

We have also expanded the Edits feature (p70/72), as requested, to bring you even more snippets of news that we would otherwise be unable to publish.

Editorially speaking, the magazine will henceforth focus more attention on comparing and contrasting the equipment it reviews, to better serve your needs when trying to assess which piece of gear you are going to buy. The comparison chart in our Roland S-10 Sampler review (p24) exemplifies this fresh approach. One thing is certain though, the high quality colour and mono photography that you all seem to appreciate is definitely not going to disappear - you can count on that! As they say, a good picture is worth a thousand words...

On the subject of words, I'd just like to welcome writer Julian Colbeck into the Sound On Sound fold. Many of you will undoubtedly be familiar with Julian's work from his regular review column in the weekly music paper 'Sounds' and his comprehensively researched guide to electronic keyboards 'Keyfax 2' (highly recommended) from Virgin Books. Julian will be contributing regular keyboard reviews to the magazine - beginning this month with the S-10 - backed up by his wealth of experience and knowledge of that market area. He is a working keyboards player first, and a writer second, which must put him in a unique position as far as magazine keyboard reviewers go. Read his review and let me know what you think.

I'll take a break now and leave you to enjoy the contents of Volume 2 Issue 1, but before I do let me just say 'thank you' to all 172,463 readers of the past year's magazines for supporting us and for making Sound On Sound the best-selling music technology magazine in the UK. Many thanks.