How many bits is 16? Well... er... 16 if you're Casio and own the FZ-1 sampler, only 13 if you're Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits and are spoiling for a punch up. The Sequential Chairman and Chief Engineer savaged the FZ-1's performance in the summer edition of Sequential's newsletter. Independent test figures even compared it badly with older 12 bit samplers, he claimed. "We measured an FZ-1 earlier this year and also found that though it may have a 16-bit data path, its actual performance wasn't close to 16 bits at all." They knocked out three bits of the Digital/Analogue converters (essentially making it a 13 bit sampler) and saw no difference, "...obviously nowhere near 16 bit quality." Smith is naturally keen to promote the excellence of the 16 bit Prophet 300 sampler, but such a public attack on one manufacturer from another is rare. Casio say they'd rather stay out of a slanging match, thank you.

What the hell was that on page 37 last month? It was the Bond Electraglide guitar, and first correct entry was from S Hodgkinson of Denton, Manchester, who wins one year of Making Music.