This month, E&MM’s unique equipment round-up turns its attention to the rhythmic world of drum machines and electronic drum kits.

Bedroom recordists Ad Lib engage in pillow talk with Paul Benson

This month’s Checklist turns its attention to the world of electronic drum kits and drum machines. Price guides will never be the same again.

To Call It A Drum Machine Would Be An Insult!

The pace of change never slackens at the Nippon Gakki factory. The piano makers turned motorbike manufacturers roar in with a new digital rhythm machine, the RX5. Review by David Mellor

Electronic Percussion Buyer's Guide

If you can hit it or make it sound as if you have, you'll find it listed in E&MM's exclusive rundown of what's available in the world of drum machines and electronic kits.

From SOS to 8-track

Another chance to see who bought what, why they bought it and how pleased they are now that it's too late to send it back.

Mike Collins investigates the magic behind Enigma Studios, a MIDI-based recording facility in London's East End.

The price guide to end all price guides. This time, we return to drum machines and electronic drum kits, and find a lot has changed in three months.

Like many keyboard aces of the Seventies, Rod Argent too has turned his talents toward writing music for films and television, his most recent venture being the music for the highly acclaimed BBC TV series 'Soldiers'. Here he explains to Ian Gilby the procedures involved.

baby ford, golden boy of british acid, drops hints on getting the dancefloor moving

Fun In The Waves

Sheer XTC

A truly classy digital reverb at a sensible price.

In which five of E&MM's writers pick their fave things of the year. If your personal preferences aren't there, don't take it out on us.

Goldsmiths' College, University of London

Goldsmiths' College in London was the first higher education institute to set up its own electronic music studio and offer a course. That was back in the late 1960s. Today, it has an even wider range of specialist courses and a much better equipped complex of studios to offer prospective students the training facilities necessary for a longterm career.

Pinning Down Blancmange. Chris Jenkins attempts the implausible and gets his just dessert

could make a star of you

Behind the classic 'Imagination' single lies a sensitive songwriter with a keen ear for melody and a fascination for modern technology. Tim Goodyer talks to Neville Keighley and his session keyboardsman, Peter Oxendale.

From the Midlands' techno culture comes the hardcore sound of Rhythmatic. Simon Trask investigates one of the bands on the ground floor of Britain's fastest-growing musical movement.

Gordon Matthewman's interests in hi-tech and his horn have found him in some of the most unlikely musical settings with his project Blow. Simon Trask blows another man's trumpet.

Take two classically trained musicians, a studio full of hi-tech gear and a will to survive in the commercial world of music and you've got WBTM Music. Claire O'Brien learns how to be a musician and eat.

news from the front

How can you set up a home studio, write, produce and perform hit singles, and have a good time doing it? David Mellor asks Galaxy's Phil Fearon that very question and more...

As their hit single 'Perfect Beat' proves, Bronski Beat are more than capable of producing enjoyable, dynamic electronic pop. Mark Jenkins talks in depth to Bronski's Larry Steinbachek about how they encompass modern technology in their recordings and live performances.

A CD standard 16-bit drum machine? Things have progressed a little from those 8-bit Linn Drum days, passing through 12-bit standards on the way, and now reaching the ultimate level in consumer digital fidelity. Whether excellence or overkill, Alesis have gone the whole way with the HR-16. David Mellor gives it the long-awaited ear test.

'When I Think Of You' by Janet Jackson

One good means of learning your way around the equipment you own is to use it to recreate somebody else's music. That's exactly what Mike Collins did last year whilst working at Yamaha's Research & Development Studio in London. Using nothing but Yamaha gear, he set about reproducing a Janet Jackson hit in full, by himself. Here, he recalls what was involved.