Although in the past the Frankfurt Show has been primarily concerned with musical instruments, there were quite a few exciting new products for the recording world.

It was among the manufacturers of studio outboard gear that many of the 'leaps for mankind' could be found this year. Alesis had their excellent new XT:c digital reverb on their stand as well as their latest stunning product, the MIDIverb. This is a preset stereo digital reverb in a case that could quite easily sit on a mixing console à la Larc remote. Although it is a preset device, it has no less than 63 preset programs consisting of plates, halls, four reverse programs and nine gated settings — all in a stereo-in/stereo-out configuration, and costing an un-real £395 including VAT! See elsewhere for full review in this issue.

The Vocoder has been reincarnated by Korg in the guise of their new DVP-1 Digital Voice Processor. This is a rackmounting unit which will operate as a Vocoder, as an automatic vocal waveform generator, and as a harmoniser. The DVP-1 should be available now and will cost £899.

Another exciting new product from Korg is their SDD-1200 Dual Digital Delay. This, as its name implies, is two digital delays in one 19" rackmounting 1U unit. Each delay line has its own set of delay time, modulation, feedback, filter and phasing controls, as well as sampling circuitry. Therefore, not only is this one unit capable of very rich chorus effects, flanging effects and stereo repeats (with a maximum delay time of 1024mS with a 16kHz bandwidth), but it can also hold and replay two samples at once. The SDD-1200 should be available this Autumn and will cost around £450.

Lexicon had their latest product, the PCM70 effects processor on show (which we reviewed last month), and it was interesting to see that a large percentage of the other manufacturers who were demonstrating electronic instruments chose to use the PCM70 in their PA rig.

Rockman have developed studio quality versions of their popular guitar signal processor and have put them into a 19" rack-mounting housing. These consist of the Sustainor and the Chorus/Delay which can both slot into the same 1U 19" housing, and will cost about £300 each.

Roland were showing the two new units for their micro-rack series reviewed in last month's issue. These are the Digital Sampler/Delay, and the Preamp/Parametric Equaliser. The sampler can store up to two seconds with a 7kHz bandwidth and can also operates as a conventional digital delay line. The Preamp/Parametric eg has two eq circuits each with variable frequency, Q and level.

TC Electronic have a new digital delay called the TC2290 Dynamic Programmable Digital Delay. It is a programmable sampling MIDI DDL which can hold up to two seconds at full bandwidth, and can be expanded to hold up to 32 seconds. When this becomes available, it should cost in the region of £1,200.

Ursa Major had their latest Digital Reverb/Effects Device — the ADR-68K — on show. This would appear to be a direct competitor for the Lexicon 224X as it is said to provide high quality digital reverb and special effects. It is also similar to the 224X in that it consists of a rackmounted 'brain' with a remote control. The difference would appear to be in its price tag of around £3,700, a third of the price of the 224X. It remains to be seen what it really sounds like.

There were several new studio-based samplers this year, the highlight of which, for me, was Akai's latest rack-mounted job, the S900. This little beauty's features include a built-in 3.5" disk drive, 12 seconds sampling time with a 16kHz bandwidth (or 63 seconds with reduced bandwidth), eight voices, 32 sampling points, velocity cross-fading of samples, and all for £1,599. Whilst this unit is certainly not limited just to studio use, its spec is such that it would be welcome in my studio anytime! The sounds that I was able to try on it sounded as good as anything — once a disk was loaded I had three different multisampled acoustic pianos to choose from. Switching between the different samples on the same disk is instantaneous, whilst each new disk takes 40 seconds to load. I can't wait to get my grubby hands on this one, and we hope to bring you a full review next month.

Bel also had two very interesting new DDL/samplers. Called the BDe2400 and BDe3200, these two new units have much greater control over the samples than any of their previous samplers. Now with 99 parameter programs (10 non-volatile) these two units can edit, re-assemble, reverse, sequence and pitch-shift samples at will. All these functions can be controlled from an optional remote control and can also be played from a MIDI keyboard. Other functions include automatic or manual de-glitching and dumping of the samples to an optional disk drive.

Yamaha's SPX-90 caused quite a stir. This is a single effects processor which can produce stereo digital reverb, stereo delays, chorusing, phasing/flanging, sampling, compression, harmonising, noise gating and auto-panning. There really isn't very much that the SPX-90 can't do. Add to that its price tag of £599, and it looks as if Yamaha have done it again.

There were a few new portastudios to be seen at this year's Frankfurt Music Fair. Cutec had their new MR404 four-track, full spec, two-speed unit on show, and this will be selling for £481.

Fostex also have a new four-track portastudio called the 260. This is a very smart-looking unit with a slanted top panel and all-black fascia. It runs at 9.5cm/sec, has built-in Dolby C noise reduction, two-band parametric eq on the four input channels, LCD tape counter, very responsive logic tape transport controls, connections at the front and top of the unit (no more reaching behind to try and find the headphone socket), and quoted noise figures of 70dB with a frequency response from 40Hz to 18kHz. The 260 is available now and retails for £698.

Vesta Fire had the cheapest new portastudio on show. Their MR-10 'personal multitrack recorder' is the size of Fostex's X15, yet with four VU meters and dbx noise reduction for only £285. Review elsewhere in this issue.

A bit more upmarket was Akai's new version of their MG 1212 12-track recorder/mixer called the MG 1214. This has several improvements such as new faders, SMPTE, dbx noise reduction and a much more attractive white control panel. A rackmounted version of the recorder is now available called the MG 14D. Using the same video-tape format as their MG 1214, this will be retailing at £3,200 including a remote autolocator with nine memories and automatic cycling functions.

There were quite a few new high quality power amplifiers to be seen this year, several of which were British.

Cambridge-based C-Audio were showing their new SR range for the first time, including what could be the most powerful MOSFET amp yet, the SR808. This will pump out a mere 2500 watts when bridged in mono or a more civilised 850 watts in stereo...

Harrison (not to be confused with the US mixing console manufacturer of the same name) also a British manufacturer, and they were showing their first successful Digital Power Amps on their stand (much to Peavey's annoyance). By using digital technology, these amps are both compact (19"x2U) and very efficient, operating with 90% efficiency as opposed to more normal figures of 50% efficiency for normal Class-B amplifiers. These are the DSA-800 and DSA-1200 stereo power amplifiers which will be available from March onwards and will retail at the very reasonable price of £780 for the 400 watts per channel DSA-800 and £930 for the 600 watts per channel DSA-1200.

Well known guitar and bass manufacturers Rickenbacker have also now entered the power amp business, with two high quality models, the RA 300 and the RA 600. These are extremely well built and bear a new trademark — 'RIC'.

The advent of cheap automation was quite apparent this year. Akai have been hard at work developing an inexpensive automated mixing console. Called the MPX820, it consists of a 19" rackmounting 8:2 mixer with full programmability on every control (three-band eq, effects send, panning, fader settings, etc.). The front panel control settings can be stored into any of the 99 memory locations which can not only be recalled instantaneously via the front panel but also via the MIDI bus, via footswitch or via sync tones on tape. Up to eight MPX820s can be slaved together via the MIDI bus, thus providing up to 64-track automated mixing. Even more amazing is the MPX820's bargain price of £1,299.

Allen & Heath, the Brighton-based mixing desk manufacturers, have also come out with a programmable, modular, rackmounting mixing system called the Keymix. The Keymix will allow effects send routing, channel mutes and effects return mutes to be programmed either by its dedicated remote control or by a Commodore 64/128 computer. Although primarily designed to be used in live situations the Keymix could also be incorporated in recording studios to provide pseudo-automated mixing. The basic eight channel unit with computer interface will cost under £1,000, a price tag which is bound to make it quite a popular unit.

Platinum are a new name in British mixing consoles. They have a series of more conventional mixers called Level IV which are reasonably priced in-line modular desks. The Level IV mixers are configured for eight to 16-track situations and have some very useful features such as six aux sends and bar graph metering.

RAM have several new mixers of varying configurations, which should be able to cover most applications. Their new PICO mixers are in 12/2 or 16/2 formats and are designed for keyboard mixing, PA and stereo recording. Their new MEGA range, though, is designed for eight and 16 track studios and comes in 18/8/2 or 24/8/2 formats.

Studiomaster unveiled their Series II desk. This is a 16:16:2 desk which offers features such as phantom powering, four-band eq, six auxiliaries and MIDI in a very compact size. This desk will retail for £3,060 plus VAT, and is undoubtedly a bargain at that price.

There were a few newsworthy items in the microphone department. AKG were showing a new version of their universally acclaimed D12 microphone at this year's Frankfurt show. Looking very trendy in grey and green this looks a bit too good-looking to make any lasting impression on the recording world. We shall see.

Beyer too had a few new mikes on show, including a new PZM called the MPC40 which will be out in Britain in May.

Crown have a couple of very smart new Lavallier-type microphones called the GLM100 and GLM200. These claim to have a smooth frequency response with the sound of an expensive condenser recording mike and are amazingly small. All the electronics are built into the XLR jack which is connected by a thin but tough eight-foot cable.

Toa have a couple of very good new headset microphones/headphones. Different capsules are available for each for male or female vocals, and it will sell at quite a reasonable £160.

In the realms of studio gear, the highlights of this year's Frankfurt Music Messe were found in ever cheaper and ever smaller boxes. The Alesis Midiverb was one of the most pleasant surprises — a great sounding digital reverb for under £400. Akai had several exciting products — their programmable mixer, and especially their brilliant new S900 sampler. Yamaha's SPX-90 digital effects processor looks pretty good, but it remains to be seen whether it turns out to be a Jack of all trades and master of none. Fostex's 260 portastudio looks quite nifty, as does Korg's Voice Processor.

However, let's wait and see what the more in-depth product reviews over the next few months reveal.