Dear Claire: My mixer hums, my headphones pick up Radio 2 and my monitors have been eaten by a Rottweiler. What should I do?

Lamont announces huge recording studio subsidies! Negative VAT on synthesizers! Council grants for Portastudio insulation! Listed building status for all analogue tape machines! NOT!

The big names have more in common with home recording than you might think — most of this album was recorded in the guitarist's lounge!

A lot of power, a lot of mixer and a versatile digital reverb in a very portable package.

More meaty studio hints and tips to get your teeth into.

Valves and chips combine to produce a compressor that is flexible, flattering and very friendly. But then it's built in Yorkshire, so it should be.

Analogue tape, digital tape or hard disk? All have strengths and weaknesses, some of which are more obvious than others; this comprehensive overview unscrews the inscrutable.

MIDI, metal mayhem and the Marshall logo add up to an impressive package. We find out whether it justifies its price tag.

Studiomaster have at last entered the in-line console fray with this well-specified and attractively-priced desk. RM checks it out.

Nowhere is the correct use of reverb more important than in the treatment of drum and percussion sounds. We reveal all — and we tell you a bit about reverb too.

A practical look at on-stage monitoring for small and awkward gigs.

You can produce vocal pyrotechnics little short of magic with this rackmount version of the acclaimed VHM5 Vocalist. Our reviewer sings its praises.

A complete history of record production accompanied by quotations and anecdotes from no fewer than 18 of the world's leading producers.

This month we scrutinise the master section of a typical multitrack mixing console and ponder the meaning of PFL, talkback and that small grey button that goes "neep neep".

Mike Howlett predicts that the currently moribund state of the record industry is simply a cyclic phenomenon, and that things will soon be on the upturn.