Eccentric Swiss pioneers Yello follow 1989's Flag with another long playing sound fantasy. Simon Trask talks to Boris Blank about his old Fairlight and his new Baby.

Synth Techniques

improve your keyboard chords

...while Tim Goodyer checks out the production version of Akai’s contender and cocks an ear in the direction of some factory sound disks.

Psychedelic psecrets psussed

puzzle page entertainment

Here’s your ticket to Amsterdam, Vince will meet you at the studio and show you all his favourite classic synths. A dream? No, a reality, thanks to Ian Masterson and Music Technology. Ian gets an exclusive guided tour around Erasure’s secret analogue powerhouse, just for you. You can almost taste the Amstel beer

Wilf Smarties gives a new batch of CDs a spin.

Drumcheck

Looks like a heap of Teflon saucepans, sounds like a million dollars

Guitarcheck

Three of the new breed vetted by Dave Burrluck

Paul Freeman gets composing with this notation package for the Amstrad

Roland SC88 Sound Canvas

Most powerful Canvas yet

Coldcut, David Ruffy

Wilf Smarties looks for the perfect beat in two new HitSound sample CDs, from production team Coldcut and drummer David Ruffy.

Arise Elite — Editor tests the new Fender Elite Strat

Bill Nelson, Magma

It's the biggest! It's the best! It's the 1986 British Music Fair! Our man on the inside, Tony Mills tracks down the hottest gear of the year

It's no stay-at-home

Kurzweil PC88

Master keyboard with sounds

Guitar Synth

Is it a guitar? Is it a synthesiser? Steve Shepard straps on Casio's combination of hi-tech sounds, MIDI facilities and old-fashioned guitar playability.

Sound Module

Take 20 classic keyboards into the shower? Now you can just trigger and go with E-mu's Vintage Keys sound module, provider of sampled keyboard sounds from the Minimoog to the Mellotron. But who would you have in goal?, asks Peter Forrest

What is 1¾" high, has 31 voices, plays the piano, vibraphone and sax, and has its own library? Simon Trask checks out Roland's latest PCM sample module.

The shape of things to come

Tony Reed goes back to the future for the Frankfurt forecast

A glimpse of the equipment you could well be buying in the forthcoming year