Well, if you didn't read last month's leader, I'm willing to bet that some of you were a bit surprised to find out just what's happened to HSR. Welcome to the first issue of Home and Studio Recording. This change in both name and style coincides with the second anniversary of HSR, but now that your magazine has come of age, the overall direction of H&SR is not going to change dramatically. We think we got it just about right first time around, but you will find us going into a little more detail on some subjects than we might have done previously. Let me, however, stress that our policy is still to write in a style that can be understood by the person who does not have, and may not necessarily wish to acquire, an in-depth technical knowledge of how everything in a studio works. After all, you don't need to be able to understand the workings of a car engine to be able to drive. Having said that, I hope that you will wish to learn more about various aspects of recording because now more than ever before, technique makes all the difference between a good recording and a brilliant one, and this means knowing just how far you can push your equipment.

On a different note, we now know the names of the winners of the TDK jingle writing competition, so see inside for the full story. It was a difficult choice as we had to sift through literally hundreds of entries, but it was worth it to find out what you were all up to in your respective studios. Though it was apparent that some of you will never make your fortune writing jingles, the general standard of workmanship, given the limitations imposed by the equipment used in each case, was extremely high and there were some truly excellent entries.

Finally, at the time of writing, the week of the British Music Fair is almost upon us and by the time you read this it will have been and gone, which means that in the next issue of H&SR, you can expect to find out just which of the new goodies on show impressed us the most.