For all the surface similarities between the United Kingdom and the United States (same language, same social structure and so on), the two nations' modern music scenes are poles apart.

For instance, we Brits would probably consider ourselves ahead of the Yanks in terms of accepting new technology and adopting it to achieve new musical ends. The Americans, on the other hand, can rightly point to a greater acceptance of computer music systems and a greater preponderance of session synth players as evidence that they are the ones most likely to boldly go where no musician has gone before.

Whatever the ins and outs of the argument, there's no denying that American musicians are no longer the conservative, small-minded bunch of virtuoso snobs that British pre-conceptions suggest they should be. These days, you're just as likely to find a broad-minded application of new musical techniques in Cambridge, Massachusetts as you are in Cambridge, England.

With this in mind, the publishers of E&MM are launching a sister magazine in the States this summer. Taking its cue from this magazine's front-cover strap-line, it's called simply 'The Music Technology Magazine'. The official launch is at June's summer NAMM show in Chicago, which will have taken place by the time you read this. After that, America's modern musicians will have access to the kind of magazine their British counterparts have been enjoying for years — suitably adapted to suit Transatlantic tastes, of course.

For E&MM readers in this country, the impact of our American offshoot will he understandably small. But in an indirect yet very useful way, the setting-up of a Music Maker office in California (the full address is at the bottom of this leader) will mean E&MM gets news of American happenings well before any other British publication. And that will be particularly true of events in the sampling and software fields, where despite the ever-rising Yen, Silicon Valley still leads the way in innovation.

Look forward, then, to plenty of exclusive reports from our American correspondents (regular contributor Paul Wiffen among them) in forthcoming issues of E&MM. If it's happening Stateside, you'll read it here first.

In publishing, as in many other fields of 20th Century human endeavour, there are some people who take all the glory when success comes to a magazine, and others who stay out of the spotlight. Yet very often, the staff behind the scenes are just as important as the names that grace the magazine's pages in big, bold print each month.

One man whose name rarely appears in big, bold print is that of Tony Halliday, E&MM's Advertisement Manager. Every month, Tony rings around this industry, offering to sell advertising space in the magazine to people who probably have a dozen more important things to do than talk to him. It's a thankless task, so Tony's main reward (apart from the money) lies in the knowledge that, since taking over space-selling on E&MM in September 1982, he's helped take the magazine from a humble pioneer to the successful flagship title in one of the most go-ahead publishing houses in the business.

This month, after nearly four years in the Ad Manager's hot-seat, Tony is leaving E&MM for pastures new (and more money), selling technology to the recording industry worldwide. He'll certainly be missed by the editorial staff, not to mention the hordes of music distributors and dealers who've had to put up with his perpetual phone calls over the years. Good luck, Tony.