New technology takes Music Technology into the realms of desk-top publishing. A new era and a new look for the magazine that takes music and technology on its own terms.

New software developments from C-Lab, a new MIDI-to-CV unit from Philip Rees, a host of goodies from Groove Electronics... News is in abundance on the eve of the British Music Fair.

Offended by the contents of Tim Goodyer's editorial? Think MT's music coverage should be extended to cover amateur musos? This and other readers' points covered in this month's letters pages.

Roland's U110 sample reading module proved popular enough to make a second appearance, complete with keyboard, in the U20 - but there's more. Simon Trask checks out Roland's RS-PCM keyboard.

This new series on drum machine programming is intended to provide an understanding of the drum patterns which form a wide range of music. Nigel Lord starts close to home with basic pop and rock patterns.

Do you need a MIDI patchbay in your studio? Or a MIDI merger? Or both? Vic Lennard discovers that the XR400 solves more problems than he suspected. How's the software-reviewers elbow, Vic?

Currently proving to the world that there can be more to metal than breakneck guitar riffs and sexist lyrics, Living Colour's Vernon Reid talks samples and technology with Lars Lofas and Nick Armington.

With algorithmic composition sotware finding commercial use at last, the question has to be asked "will it write a tune?". Greg Truckell takes a close look at the applications of M.

From the New York roots of hip hop, KRS One talks about street-level production values and samples as the poor musician's alternative to real musicians. Simon Trask listens to the Music of the Spheres.

In the final part of our look at the latest models of the state-of-the-art Synclavier, Scott Wilkinson homes in on the Direct-to-Disk recording system.

It's the talk of Paris' hep musical set, Peter Gabriel set up a new record label for it and Ray Lema is one of its greatest exponents - Simon Trask discovers hitech ethnic music is about to make its mark on popular culture.

Roland's latest guitar synthesiser is quickly earning a reputation as the most playable guitar synth yet built. Aaron Hallas turns from widdly-widdly merchant to MlDdly-widdly merchant.

They gave us the first industry-standard sequencing software for the Atari ST in Pro24, now Steinberg are making a second bid for Atari domination with Cubase. Nigel Lord says "part two next month...

The ability to accommodate microtonal tunings may look good on the spec sheet of your favourite synth, but what use is it to you? Scott Wilkinson reads between the lines.

What's the size of a fag pocket, comes in enough varieties to ease almost any studio problem and isn't covered by British drug laws? Vic Lennard investigates a new line in MIDI effects.

Popularity is the password to this month's selection of readers' synth patches - the stars of the show are Korg's M1 Music Workstation and Casio's CZ synths.

Following on from the success of the Trackman sequencing software, Hollis Research have released a universal patch editor and librarian for the Atari ST. Ian Waugh finds the universe at his fingertips.

You want to sync your sequencer to tape but the budget's tight and you don't know if FSK code's smart enough or SMPTE code's cheap enough - let Vic Lennard introduce a budget synchroniser that handles both.