A plethora of new hi-tech products to whet your appetite.

Removable hard disks represent a cost-effective solution to data backup and storage problems for sampler owners. Kendall Wrightson takes a look at the PLI Infinity Turbo Drive in use with the Akai S1000.

Let's face it, every studio needs a master cassette deck. Paul Ireson takes a look at Tascam's new mid-priced two and three-head machines.

Ever since the dark ages, prophets and soothsayers have been forecasting the Big One. Well here it is - Tascam's 24-track on one inch tape recorder. David Mellor investigates.

PART 2: Microphones. David Mellor cuts through the mythology of microphone techniques with some practical advice.

Following on from the success of their extremely popular K1, Kawai have gone upmarket with the 16-bit K4. Tony Wride looks at the company's new flagship synth.

Al Hospers, chief executive officer of Dr.T's Music Software in Boston, paid a flying visit to the recent PC Show during a whirlwind tour of Europe. Paul Gilby asks him about the past, present and future activities of this prolific music software house.

The DX7 captured musicians’ imaginations like no other synthesizer before or since. But the legacy of releasing endless variations on the DX theme has turned some musicians away from FM synthesis and into the waiting arms of a new generation of 'sample plus synth' keyboards. Now Yamaha are back with a vengeance, an even more powerful method of synthesis (Real-time Convolution and Modulation), and a spanking new flagship synth. But has the SY77 got what it takes to regain the hi-tech musician's vote? Martin Russ finds out.

Another ST sequencer? David Hughes looks at the Gajits Sequencer One, and finds out how it measures up to the competition.

Just as MIDI itself has gone far beyond what its developers imagined, so MIDI Time Code has the potential to take MIDI technology into areas quite removed from the synthesis and sequencing worlds in which it has become so familiar. MTC user Paul D. Lehrman explains how.

PART 5: In this final installment of the series, David Mellor looks at sophisticated timecode generators and readers in the Fostex range, and at complex timecode systems.

This latest release from the purveyors of low-cost signal processing is more a reverb unit with supplementary effects than a full-function multi-effects processor. Paul Ireson journeys into deep space to check it out.

PART 10: Martin Russ continues his in-depth demystification of these powerful MIDI messages with a look at 'handshaking'.

There can be few home recordists who haven't spent a few idle moments thinking about how nice it would be to run their own professional 24-track studio, Mick Belford of Patchbay explains how determination can turn such a dream into reality.

More hints and tips from the world of music software.

This month, Andy Robinson judges the case of Musical Theory versus Musical Reality.