USEFUL FACTS ABOUT THE BRITISH MUSIC FAIR
1. Red Ted Heath will be opening the show on Tuesday 29th July at 11am.
2. It's being held at the Olympia exhibition centre, but you knew that.
3. It's open to the punters on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of August from 10am.
4. To get in will cost £3.00 or £2.00 for MU or ISM members.
5. Used fivers and crispy dollar bills to the OTT stand.

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As with the Frankfurt show, it looks as if there will be loads of manufacturers with a 'heads up the bum' policy. Like sheep they continue to produce Steinberger lookalikes, Simmons clone drum kits, five string basses, samplers that are out of date before they're released, sequencers that chop notes and not pull them into time and now it seems that there is a new breed of beast to rush out, no make that three. Everybody and their Uncle seems to be about to release; a MIDI mixer, a MIDI guitar and lastly, all-in-one little effects boxes.

Don't call OTT luddites, we thoroughly approve of new gear being released, when its good, but it gets up our noses when manufacturers release things that could easily be twice as good given more market research. The motto in this rant is to check carefully before you buy any new piece of 'Hi-Tech' gear as it could well be out of date before you've finished the HP instalments. Anyway, enjoy the show, it's open to the public on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of August and is at Olympia, if you didn't know.

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It seems as if the Akai mega-sequencing package won't be on display, as the R&D chaps aren't convinced that it's the 'bollocks' yet, but the equally mega S900 multi-sampler will. The MPX820 MIDI mixer will be showing SSL where to get off, both pricewise and because we hate big flash mixing desks that only fat rich rock stars can afford to use.

All the truly wonderful things that Akai showed at Frankfurt will be on display and possibly some new goodies. We hold our breath.


Alligator, the company who used to flog amps of a shocking green hue have now turned 'Gothic' with their amps now all moody and black, called Ebony Amps. They have a 200 watt bass amp, an all purpose 100 watt combo, a 175 watt bass combo and join the queue with a 200 watt electronic drum combo. The one we are looking forward to hearing is the 'Black Dwarf' PA sytem, designed for the Heavy Metal dwarf we saw at Frankfurt?


Fender, who masquerade under the Arbiter name, will be showing a range of geetars made in the USA, which are copies, no, sorry, made to exactly the same specs as the original designs, even down to using the same wax for the pickups which must be pretty smelly by now. The range covers Strats, Tele's, Jazz and Precision basses and will be far from cheap. The Sidekick amps will be there, desperately trying to be turned up loud, as will the Fender acoustic guitars which will probably be much quieter.

We've decided not to tell you about the JVC keyboards Arbiter do because we don't think much of them, but we will let you know that Remo drum heads and Rogers cymbals will be there.


Atlantex, who also masquerade under the Turnkey name will be showing a couple of strange new items from Fostex, the E series of pro quality mastering machines. Strange in that they are remarkably pricey. The E2 is a quarter inch 15 ips mutha, and the E22, a half inch 30 ips mastering machine, at somewhere between three and four grand. Will they be taken seriously by the notoriously snobby world of high class studios?, we will see. In a slightly lower price range (£50ish) Accessit will be making people's heads spin with their Autopanner, while the new 12:8:2 mixer from Seck, which is designed for eight track work, will be snapped up by the truckload, being priced at roughly £1000.


Cable Technology, what an interesting subject, what an interesting company; however, some poor git has to sell and make guitar and multicore leads, and these are the poor gits to see. They are the UK distributors of Klotz cable, and also supply loads of flash studios with custom built wiring looms for multitracks and the like, stageboxes and cable drums under their own name, yes, that's correct, Cable Technology.


Hop along to the Capelle stand and talk to the man with the cool cool French accent Gerard Barte, he's responsible for many European thaangs appearing over here. Such as Vigier, Lag and Europa geetars. Talking of Europa, they just happen to have a MIDI guitar for under a grand on show. For less than £300 they will be happy to sell you a complete drum kit, similar to the Remo cheapie, called the 'Purecussion'. Also on a sticky note is the 'Superbat', a MIDI interface for electronic drums that's similar to the MTM from Simmons. It's rackmounted, has a built in 5000 note sequencer, eight pad inputs, sixteen memories, all the stuff you want and best of all, will be £395.


Carlsbro, the stalwarts of British amplification have six new amps and combo's to preview this year. If you fancy a 60 watt lead combo or a choice of three 150 watt bass combo's, or one of their Mosfet power amps (yes we know power amps are incredibly boring), then go along to 'rock and roll' in their sound proof box.

Casio are certainly going for it in a big way in 1986, after releasing the RZ1 (their sampling drum machine) after the Frankfurt show, they have four new products to preview at the BMF. As predicted by OTT, they have produced a touch sensitive phase distortion synth, the CZ-1, that is basically the same as their CZ-3000, but enables you to store 64 performance memories. Also new for the show is the AZ-1, a remote round-the-neck MIDI keyboard that can send both initial and aftertouch for a wicked £300-ish. It seems that the little ones still haven't cured the triggering problems on their EDC (electronic drum kit for short), however, the DZ-1 that produces MIDI outputs from drum pads will be on display, as will a new Piano, the CPS-2000. This has 76 weighted keys, 12 PbM auto rhythms and no mention of the dreaded MIDI, mmm.

Will Ensoniq be making Radio three type noises on their stand like they did at Frankfurt? probably. It's a shame really because the new ESQ1 synth does sound pretty good, having 8 voices, some pretty groovy waveforms and an inbuilt 2400 note sequencer. We hope that the SDP1 doesn't crash in mid-demo, (as it has been doing on the Ensoniq road shows) as this sampled Piano has a particularly good Marimba sound that we'd hate to miss. The hacksaws have been busy recently as the Mirage expander is now in full production and in the shops, the question is whether anyone is buying them though.

Gigsville (read Aria) have two new guitars to add to the ever expanding RS series. The RSB performer is an active bass with Hi and Lo EQ and a balance control to vary the treble and bass pickup mix at an RRP of £389. The RS Straycat geetars are Strat and Precision-ish shaped, the geetar having humbuckers, a coiltap and a whammy bar, while the bass is a single double coil pickup job at £189 and £209 respectively.


Hayden Labs, namely the Sennheiser distributors in Blighty have all the range of radio and not, microphones on show including the new MKH 40 condenser which has been developed especially for digital recording and bound to be extremely cheap. Quite why they call themselves Hayden Labs and not Sennheiser is beyond us.


Hands up all who thought H/H had bitten the dust. Apparently not as they have three new 50 watt combos to show, lead, bass and keys, along with some new PA speakers and power amps. Hands up anybody who knows a more boring subject than power amps: no takers then.

Hohner, along with the rest of the world, continue to produce Steinberger type geetars, with a new bass and lead, the geetar having a whammy bar and the bass in any colour as long as it's black.

The same chaps have a 250 watt flight-cased bass amp and matching cab, with a five-band graphic, and will also debut the STK 9, a stereo four input keyboard mixer. The old faves like organs, harmonicas and accordions will be there too, heady stuff indeed.


Apparently JHS, or John Hornby Skewes for short, will be introducing no less than 68 new guitars this year, perhaps they don't know that other exhibitors will be at the BMF. Anyway, they have a horrendous Hondo with a dragon design on the front, a cunning Charvel, some with Kahler whammy bars, and exotic Istanbul cymbals which are made in Turkey.


On a loud ('our amps go up to eleven') note, Marshall will be showing the complete Integrated Bass range, which are capable of making a phenomenal racket in the wrong hands, and will have new lead models as well. Of special interest will be the 3005, a 12 watt mini stack, and new split channel amps and combo's making even more horrible noises even in the right hands. Spinal Tap would be proud.


Bill Lewington, the suck-and-blow merchants of long repute have Yamaha, Noblet and Le Blanc (nothing to do with the mad DMX man) puffers on show. Star of the Yamaha lot will be their compensating Tubas. Who they compensate we don't know, but we are informed that it's a type of tubing system new to the Nips, thats used in the construction of said Tuba. Also new is a valve Trombone. Ogle, suck and play with it at your leisure.

Laney will have twelve, yes twelve new amps and combos, the Linebacker series on display. At the small end we have 30 watt bass and amp combos, getting louder are the twin channel ones in 50, 65 and 100 watt configurations, with the 100 watt babies available as amp tops. We then reach the bottom end of the lot, not those bottoms but the bass end, again in 50, 65 and 100 watt versions, this time with one channel. That sounds good to us.


Rose Morris, distributors of things musical will be doing their best to impress punters with the new Korg sampling keyboard, the DSS-1... We wonder if it will be encapsulated in a glass case as at Frankfurt. Hopefully we will be able to get our sticky fingers on it, being a polyphonic job allowing one to sample, transmogrify and save sounds onto the disc drive and will presumably have some decent library samples with it. Two-and-a-half thousand quid apparently so it should be good.

Also on display will be a MIDI guitar system by Ovation and Takamine, more than the fact that it exists we can't tell you any more as details are more than hazy; they're nonexistent. Vox will be there to impress and amaze with their range of valve 'Concert' and tranny 'Venue' series of amps.


If you're at all interested in Vesta Fire, MTR, Cutec, Aries and McGregor thingies, then boogie on down to the MTR stand where all will be revealed. Of interest is the DIG-412 digital delay with MIDI, and the Space Commander, (where do they get these names from?) which is a stereo flanger/chorus/enhancer from Vesta Fire, and the new 24:8:16 mixer and 10 watt powered monitors from Aries, silly names and silly prices. Peavey seem to have an endless supply of new products to ply to the punters, this year being no exception. They have new Monitors, Keyboard amps, graphic EQ's, mixing desks, massive great speaker systems and a bass guitar. To amplify this, you will obviously be making a bee-line for their 'Mega Bass' amp, being 200 watts, having a graphic equalizer, can be biamped and sounds just right for the bottom end freaks. Phillips, an auction company will be displaying mucho-info about their services. These are the people to go to if you happen to be interested in purchasing eighteenth or nineteenth century stringed instruments, so if violincellos, violas violins and antique bows turn you on, pester them. Most impressive when you realise they were selling musical instruments before Beethoven wrote his first symphony.

The bad news on the Roland stand is that Marillion, pomp-rockers extraordinaire have bribed somebody and will be playing at the BMF. The better news is that both the samplers, the S-10 and S-50, will be there as will the new soon-to-be-released MC-500 sequencer that had its software promptly re-written after Frankfurt. Could Roland be accused of plagiarism? Possibly, as they have a new digital do-it-all box just a teeny bit similar to the SPX-90 from Yamaha, in that it does most of the things the flash SRV 2000 reverb does but can do reverb, chorus and parametric EQ simultaneously, is called the DEP-5 and we have no idea what it will cost. Other newies like the RPS-10 harmoniser and DAC-15B bass amp will be there to make up the numbers, we just hope Marillion have a flat tyre on the way.


Rosetti have two stands this year, with one devoted to a new range of Petrof Pianos, about which 'we know nothing'. The other stand will offer a new range of Epiphone guitars and basses made by Gibson, both electric and acoustic. They also have the Vision brand of geetars, effects pedals and geetar strings.


KMD amps, "already highly succesful in the USA" apparently, will be on display doing their thang and if blowing and sucking is your bag, check out the range of Cotton and Yanagisawa brass and woodwind tubes


Simmons, the people who brought drummers those funny shaped pads will be previewing two new products. The MTX9 is a digital tom-tom expander for use with the SDS 9, and has programmable routing and mixing, enabling a combination of sampled and analog sounds. The other newie is the SPM 8:2, a MIDI controlled mixer in a rack mounted box. This has two onboard digital delays, 30 user memories and a unique facility called dynamic panning on each channel. You can program EQ, delay settings and patch changes into the onboard computer. It also has the obligatory effects sends and returns with just about everything being controlled by the ubiquitous MIDI.


Sound Technology, those chaps who brought us the wonderful Midiverb, are now bringing us another treat, the Midifex. Details are sketchy but it apparently has multitapped delays and stereo simulation plus more. The very same chaps also import the Oberheim, Bokse and Aphex range of doobries. Oberheim have the Matrix 6, 12 and Xpander synths as well as the new percussion sampler, imaginatively called the 'Prommer Programmer' which will blow chips of the digital kind for most flash drum machines.

Bokse make timecode related synchronisers, that will sync most things to most other things with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of cash, checkemout.


We spoke to the wonderfully named Mr.Bogin of Stentor Music Company, who informed us that they will be selling a new drum kit, the Tacton. This is a five piece and comes complete with cymbals and stands, sticks and brushes for a very reasonable price, so reasonable we forgot to ask. From the same people you can savour the delights of Schaller machine heads, Double Eagle necks and bodies and Brand X drumsticks, as well as the Kawai range of Aquarius guitars, from £145 to £798.


Strings and Things, will be showing the latest range of Frontline effects and have a new rackmounted 8 channel stereo mixer with a built in reverb, and a new effects pedalboard, which is in fact a carrying case and power supply. If you get hot and sweaty over strings being made (they will be making Picato strings at the show) gigbags, drum sticks, pickups and Music Man basses then these are the chaps to grab.


Studio Equipment Distribution Ltd, who are cunningly disguised as Don Larking, will be doing their best to flog Bel, Soundcraft and other studio gear. Bel have two new delay/samplers, the BDE 3200 and the BD 2400 that give you 32 secs of sampling at a bandwidth of 15kHz and 24 secs at 18kHz respectively. These enable samples to be edited into 'windows' (small sections of the sample) and then sequenced in any order, using the 99 memory locations, costing £2995 each. An optional double disc drive is also available, AMS crossed with an MDB window at half price?

TOA also have a new MIDI mixer released at the BM-of-F, the D4. This has four channels, phantom powering and eight MIDI thru's. There is an expander, the D4E for use in tandem, giving another six inputs. No price or other details as yet.

Also from these chaps are new ranges of speakers, PA systems and non-radio headset microphones, all at smashing knock-down prices as they say.


Washburn, the people who continue to make really stupid looking 'HM' type guitars have on show their macho, wimpo and semi-macho range. They also do the Dynacord stuff, the silliest being the 'Rhythm Stick' for all those frustrated drummers with pretensions of being ace bore, Mark-slap-King, we predict it will be a dismal flop. On a better note is the ADD1 digital drum system, having 20 second length samples with loads of editing permutations and 128 kit combinations, and their well pricey Dynacord Reference series of programmable amps with MIDI.

Have we ever seen an electric bass with no visible pickups like the new Bass Maniac range? the press release asks. Actually we have, the Hofner Slap Bass previewed at Frankfurt, stupid idiots.


Yamaha will be doing their best to flog you a personal MIDI system that enables one to "create any sound and any sort of music", they gushingly state. This comprises the RX21 ringo, the QX21 note rememberer, the DX100 digital-noise generator, the YMC10 MIDI convertor, the MT1X portastudio and lastly a pair of self-powered KS10 monitors, all yours for a package price of £1800-ish. Also on display will be a new range of microphones, priced between £89 and £115, some (the more expensive ones) have Berillium diaphragms, which we hope DO NOT make unsuspecting vocalists sound like that prat in Marillion. We will see. All the obvious doobries like the new PF70 and PF80 pianos will be there, waiting for sweaty mits to descend.