Another round-up of new products, plus news from the world of hi-tech music.

Martin Russ continues his in-depth look at Emu's new keyboard.

Zenon Schoepe gets to grips with this 16-channel MIDI controllable gate/mute processor.

Or Everything You Need To Know About Buying A Sampler, But Didn't Know Who To Ask. Julian Colbeck is your guide.

D'Cuckoo are hardly your average MIDI band: they build their own instruments; they're all women, and they play "post-industrial cyber-tribal world-funk". Paul Tingen investigates.

Yamaha's new MT120 cassette 4-tracker improves further on their successful MT100, offering excellent features including 5-band graphic EQ; Dave Lockwood boldly goes where even the manual hasn't gone before.

If you're spending hundreds or even thousands of pounds on studio equipment, you might as well spend a little time to ensure that it's actually connected up properly. Wilf Smarties explains how to avoid hums, buzzes, earth loops, and all those other nasty shocks...

Korg add new samples, a vocoder and a pair of audio inputs to their highly acclaimed Advanced Vector synthesizer, and put the result in a rack. Kendall Wrightson says the Wavestation A/D is a TV/film composer's dream machine.

There's an S1000 in every studio — almost. David Mellor presents an introduction to this popular sampler.

Despite the fact that Standard MIDI Fil es have been about for quite a while there is, for many users, still more than a little confusion about their purpose and use. Paul Overaa sheds some light on the subject...

Need to keep track of your tracks in the studio? Opcode's Track Chart offers a package of handy utilities for engineers; Mike Collins tries it out.

David Mellor tastes a hot product from the London Sample Workshop.

Martin Russ takes a break from programming sounds and auditions someone else's instead.

Martin Russ looks at a program that generates music from chaos.

You've tried the mouse; now check out its computer-friendly feline counterpart, which offers remote control of Atari keyboard equivalents. Martin Russ prowls around the Friend-Chip K..AT.

The Sessionmaster spurns unnecessary extras best left to other effects units and concentrates on producing a quality DI guitar sound. Dave Lockwood approves.

Your chance to win Roland's studio-quality stereo effects processor!

We have a Steinberg Studio Pac (Cubase 3.0 with a Midex+), plus copies of Cubase 3.0 and Cubeat 2.0 to give away!

More hints and tips from the software publishers themselves. This month: Steinberg; Passport; Opcode.

Why 16-bit/44.1 kHz sampling doesn't necessarily equal CD audio quality.