This year the prestigious British Music Fair took place under one roof in London's Olympia 2, and was greeted with unanimous enthusiasm for being a far superior venue for the annual event than the previous locations of hotels dotted around London's West End. The stands were spread out over three floors and the atmosphere was quite serene for the trade days, and like a party for the public ones. Here are some of the more exciting new products that were on show this year.

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Akai's excellent S612 polyphonic sampler was finally seen at the BMF with its accompanying disk drive, and was convincingly put through its paces by Akai's globetrotting demo team. Unveiled in 19" rackmounting format were Akai's various MIDI accessories such as the Digital Delay, Dynamics Controller and Arpeggiator (all working on the MIDI signals rather than audio signals), and yet another new synthesizer, the AX60, which incorporates amongst other things a digital delay, split keyboard, and MIDI functions designed to control and filter their S612 sampler for £699.00.

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Bel had their 'new look' sampling digital delays with grey facias, expanded memory capacities and a new model with full bandwidth and up to 24 seconds sampling time called the BD240, which we will be having a close look at in next month's IM&RW.

One of the more interesting newcomers on Beyer's stand was the M380 microphone — a specialised mike designed for instruments with high sound pressure levels such as brass or drums as it is highly 'blast-resistant', with a bass response ranging down to 15Hz (and up to 20kHz).

Blue Suede Music, the importers of the once controversial range of Tokai guitars, have several new additions to their range of guitars and basses, unusual in that they are extremely pricey (contrary to Tokai's trend until now). Called the MAT series (Most Advanced Technology), these guitars are constructed from Carbon fibre, look amazing and cost a cool £1400. If that's out of your price range then the more conventional additions to the Tokai range are looking, playing and sounding better than ever; as are newcomers to the Blue Suede Music team — old favourites Hi Watt amplification with a few internal and external refinements.

Meanwhile on the Bond stand... oh, there wasn't a Bond stand. Maybe next year then...

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The C-ducer people have come up with an exciting development of their C-ducer mike system called the APT (Acoustic Percussion Trigger). In addition to miking up a drum kit in the conventional way with their tape mikes inside the drum shells, the APT system also produces audio trigger pulses in addition to the audio signal of the drum itself, to trigger any triggerable drum machine or electronic kit such as the Linn, Simmons, Drumulator, Roland drum machines, etc from your own acoustic kit. Available in both two and five channel formats, the APT would appear to be quite an exciting and useful system. (British made, too).

Casio had as impressive a demo as ever, with the first showing of their new SZ-1 four-track MIDI sequencer. This is designed to not only record four tracks of sequences but also (when connected to a single CZ-101 or CZ-1000) to control four separate sounds on four separate MIDI channels. Polyphonic assignment is also possible on any of the four channels and the SZ-1 will retail for £295.00. We got to see the touch sensitive CZ-5000 for the first time in this country, incorporating a very versatile eight track sequencer with a maximum note capacity of 6800 notes programmable in either real or step time. Of course it uses Casio's 'phase distortion' as its method of sound generation and best of all it will be retailing at £955.00.

A useful headphone splitter box was to be found amongst the MIDI cables, custom leads and connectors on the Connectronics stand. It simply has the six mini headphone jacks in addition to six 1/4" jacks — very handy for portastudio-type set-ups and costs a reasonable £25.00.

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There were quite a few new additions dotted around FCN's extensive roster of products. A new compressor, distortion and guitar tuner as well as a pedal board have been added to their Arion range of effects, three new hi-tech looking basses have been added to their Westone range — the Rail Bass, Quantum Bass and Dimension IV, with prices ranging from £295.00 to £365.00. FCN had a new range of acoustics called the Pilgrim Guitars — these are quality acoustic and classical guitars whose prices range from £399.00 to £599.00 and also on show were a whole new range of the cheaper Mas Y Mas range of classical guitars with prices ranging from £55.00-£465.00.

The highlight of the show for me was to be found among Fenders new range of guitars. Their latest 'contemporary' Stratocaster range with the series III tremolo system sent me back to the days of drooling over Fender or Gibson catalogues when all I owned was a cheap and nasty Strat copy. The series III tremolo has to be the cleverest and most inspired tremolo system ever devised by mankind — in addition to having a free floating bridge with fine tuning low profile tuners, the tremolo arm snaps in and out, its end unscrewing to reveal Allen keys for adjustment of intonation and bridge height (through a little hole below the rear strap holder) and the nut doubles as a string clamp which is cam operated to clamp and release the strings without any tools and without affecting the tuning. The feel, sound and finish of these guitars is immaculate.

Fostex are going black. That's the colour of their latest tape machines and mixers — they have a new eight track recorder called the Model 80 which is very similar to its predecessor with the addition of being able to record simultaneously on all eight tracks, and a new ¼" two-track (or rather three track) machine called the Model 20 with an extra track for SMPTE time code. The Model 80 retails at £1575.00 and the Model 20 retails at £799.95.

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HH Electronic had many new lines of amplification on show at this year's BMF. In the power amplifier department they have the new VX Series — seven stereo power amps ranging from the 75watt/channel VX150 to the awesome 600watt/channel VX1200. The VXs are all MOSFET powered, relatively compact and range from £392.15 for the VX150 to £980.38 for the VX1200. In the backline department HH have an extremely accessible (pricewise) and versatile (facility-wise) range of combos and stacks in the '100 Series' - all 100 watts and sporting multiple effects sends, dual channels and built in reverb on the guitar and keyboard models, and the bass top and combo had six-band graphic, compression and a bloody punchy sound (if you pardon that superlative). The 100 series are very reasonably priced at around £300 for the guitar, bass and keyboard combos and a bit more for the bass and keyboard stacks. Well done HH...

Hohner had some superb new guitars and basses on display at truly bargain prices. Very good Steinberger guitar and bass copies (under licence from Steinberger) are now bearing the Hohner name with retail prices of £225.00 for the basic models of guitar and bass, and only £249.00 for the active bass and guitar with genuine Steinberger tremolo. If it wasn't for the presence of the words 'Recommended Retail Price' on the top of their price sheet I would have strongly questioned these ridiculously low prices. Their standard series of Fender, Gibson, etc. copies are equally cheap but still well made and with some quite spectacular finishes. I subscribe to the notion that looks and price are 95% of what it takes to have a successful electric guitar or bass, and based on that exorbitant generalisation I would be very surprised if Hohner's latest range of guitars and basses don't prove to be a huge success...

One of the more interesting items among JHS's impressive range of products was yet another guitar transmitter, this time being both relatively affordable and relatively legal. JHS also had on show Audio-Technica's AT-RMX64 4-track cassette/mixer which we first saw in February at the Frankfurt Music Fair and will be selling for about £1,100.00

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OHM Industries were doing big business with their ME228 300W compact cabs. With several of these units capable of being mounted on one stand, they would appear to be fulfilling many dealers dreams (good, solid British know-how, that's what I say... )

On the Pacifex stand (the distribution limb of Syco) were being shown Ensoniq's Mirage, the new E-mu Drumulator — the SP-12 for the first time in this country, and loads of MIDI goodies from Sycologic — the PSP Percussion Signal Processor, AMI Analogue to MIDI interface and the essential accessory for all DX7 owners — the MX1 expansion board. (I've got one, so there...)

There were no less than 43 new products to be found on the Peavey stand — new power amps, cabinets, signal processors, guitars, basses, mikes, mixers, combos, stacks and accessories. For me the most exciting of these products had to be the 210 watt 'Programmax 10' programmable MIDI guitar combo. Its programmable circuitry is able to recall every front panel parameter at the touch of a button or via a MIDI signal. In this way the Programmax could be used with Roland's MIDI guitar synth, and as a patch on the guitar synth is changed so too are the front panel settings on the combo, all for £750.00. A whole host of both tasteful and tasteless new guitars were also on show in all shapes and sizes from Peavey, generally maintaining a very high calibre of workmanship and style.

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Rhino Music Spares have several new additions to their Digitech range of pedal effects — a programmable distortion pedal, programmable delay, and a pedal reverb which I found to be extremely useful in the shortest reverb times for thickening up your lead guitar sound.

The highlight of Roland's extensive stand was their new Bass guitar synthesizer. Using the same sound generator as the JX8P (much fatter and more versatile than the JX3P's sound generator) its tonal range and versatility is superb and bound to take off in a big way when it hits the shops in the next few weeks. A new scaled down verson of Roland's SBX-80 Sync box appeared in the form of the SBX-10 — very similar to the SBX-80 yet without SMPTE compatibility. We caught a glimpse of their lastest MIDI sound module which will generate sounds of 'anything'. The PCM percussion voices of Roland's TR707 as well as the JX8P can be had from this one unit; however the pre-production model was not quite fully operative, although it did show a lot of promise.

On the Rose Morris stand were to be found Korg's newest flagship keyboard, the DW8000 Digital Waveform Synthesizer with 16 waveforms, built-in programmable digital delay, arpeggiator and touch sensitivity. The preset sounds on the DW8000 were excellent and it should be in the shops shortly with a price tag of a little over £1000.00. Korg also had their extremely powerful 15,000 note, two-track MIDI sequencer with built in disk drive, the SQD-1. It will have a relatively cheap price tag of £599.00 and I'm sure this too will turn out to be a big seller for Korg. Also spotted on the Rose Morris stand were a rackmounted DW8000 sound module (the EX8000), a 19" rackmounting spring based 'gated reverb' unit (the GR-1), a new and quite posh cassette-sized digital tuner and the new Clarion XD-6500 four-track portastudio using dbx noise reduction, double tape speed, LED ladder metering, compact-ish size and as yet unannounced price tag...

Rosetti have a very exciting news product from Canada — the Pitchrider 2000 pitch to MIDI converter. This simple looking unit will convert any microphone signal it receives into MIDI information, which can then be used to play, a DX7 from a flute (as was demonstrated at the Rosetti stand). The 2000 will sell for around £300.00 and although it simply produces MIDI on/off information without velocity info, there will be two posher units coming out shortly which will be velocity sensing as well as polyphonic.

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Sennheiser have a very smart new radio transmitter system in the form of the 'Soundcaster'. This can be in either single or multichannel configurations and prices starts a little below the £1000.00 mark. Additionally, Sennheiser have yet another new mike — the MKH 40 condenser mike which, although not looking too similar to the heavyweights such as Neumann's U87, will be aiming for that particular area of the microphone market.

Shure's new Prologue series of budget mikes, as well as the re-released classic SM58 harmonica mike, was to be found under the auspices of HW International's stand. This is possibly one of the ugliest and yet most characterful of mikes to have been produced in the past few decades, soon becoming a collector's item after production stopped many years ago.

SIEL had several new keyboards to add to their range — the MK370, MK490 and MK610 which will be selling for £169.00, £250.00 and £325.00 respectively. They are all computer compatible via an RS232 port and all have auto rhythm and accompaniment, split keyboard and built-in speakers. The posher models also have PCM sound sources, on board sequencer and stereo sound.

Simmons' new demonstrator Baz put together a show-stopping demo of their SDS9 using its MIDI ports to the full. With a repeat from the brain put on the bass drum and linked to a bass sound on a TX7 a sequencer-type pattern was set to play to, with the toms tuned in to add the melody. Stepping through programmes via the footswitch changed the pitch bringing new life to the drum solo. Product-wise there were no big surprises, but now the 9 is available with the black rack hardware at an extra £200. Also there's possibility of an excellent case they may bring into the country from France which holds all the pads and the brain and can be slung over your shoulder.

Brighton-based String & Things had several new additions to their extensive range of strings, and under their 'Things' banner came a complete new range of competitively priced effects pedals from Frontline. These consist of 10 different pedals — stereo chorus, stereo flanger, stereo delay, four different distortion pedals, a four stage phaser, compressor, and a mono chorus, all very well designed to provide click-less switching and easy battery access without battery connectors. Their prices range from under £30.00 for the cheapest overdrives to £82.95 for the stereo delay.

Syndronic Music (to be found on the Siel stand) had their £65.00 Syntron Digidrum package for the Commodore computers on display with 40 new percussion samples on one extra disk. The sounds themselves are as impressive as ever and I would certainly recommend that Commodore 64 owners who are tired of the plink-plonk sounds of the CBM-64 take a good look (listen) to this very reasonably priced package.

A new legal radio transmitter for guitar waste be found on the Toa stand. It will be retailing for under £600.00 and looks to be one of the highest standard. Lightweight yet tough, Toa's guitar transmitter will give up to 30 hours of continuous use on one set of batteries and can also have two aerials to eliminate 'dead spots'. Also new on the Toa stand was an exciting three-way loudspeaker with 360 watt continuous power capacity specially designed to handle the transients and dynamic ranges of today's most sophisticated and demanding keyboards, with a retail price of £750.00.

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Washburn have several new additions to their range of guitars — the oh-so subtle and stylish 'Heavy Metal' series of electric guitars and the new headless double neck 'Bantams' bearing a strong resemblance to the Steinberger-look.

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Yamaha unveiled their latest FM keyboard, the DX21, at the show. Essentially consisting of two CX5M sound generators which can be split, layered or played individually over the DX21's five octave keyboard, the DX21 will have a retail price of only £699.00 and looks like becoming as popular as its predecessors. Yamaha also have a new digital drum machine in the form of the RX21. This uses eight of the sounds found on the RX15, and gives you three songs, 44 preset patterns and 56 programmable patterns, all for a bargain £249.00.

It could possibly be due to a saturation of the market with hi-tech products from every corner of the globe that I am becoming less and less impressed with manufacturer's "latest billion-note capacity sequencers" or MIDI this or thats. Consequently, I found the highlights of the show to be found amongst the 'conventional' products — Fender's latest Strats with Series III tremolo were a knock-out and a true pleasure to find Fender not only doing something right but also to show that they are still capable of innovation.

The bargain of the show had to be Hohner's excellent Steinberger, Fender and Gibson copies retailing at around the £200.00 mark, and the highlight of the hi-tech side of things was again in the hands of the guitar player with Roland's superb bass guitar synthesizer using the JX8P's sound generator.

Lookout for in depth reviews of these products in forthcoming issues of IM&RW.