This was supposed to be a trade-only show, but security was less effective than ever at Frankfurt this year, and local musicians outnumbered bona fide businessmen by about two to one. In some ways that was no bad thing, as many music traders aren't actually musicians at all, and are therefore unlikely to derive much benefit from the endless run of demonstrations, seminars, lectures and concerts. On the other hand, the additional influx of German musos made the Messes vast network of aisles and corridors seem positively claustrophobic, and on the second day (Sunday), you had to have the stamina of an American footballer to push your way through the crowds.

Those crowds had plenty to see, hear, play with and trample on, and at the hi-tech end of things (the Frankfurt Musikmesse covers everything from baroque organs to laser harps), there was simply too much to take in, even for an experienced hack.

This year's fair witnessed the consolidation of old trends rather than the setting of new ones. As in '85, there was an abundance of new electronic drum systems, another surge of interest in rack-mounting effects units, new software for a variety of host computers, and MIDI on the back of everything. Most of all, there were samplers. Hundreds of them (well, almost) at varying stages of development and/or production, but all on demo to the hordes of sample-hungry dealers, punters and press people.

Paul Wiffen has already commented on most of the sampling keyboards on show at NAMM, so I won't go into unnecessary details here. Suffice to say, though, that the most impressive of the new breed to these ears is the Roland S50, which, along with most of the other Frankfurt goodies, was being demonstrated more sympathetically than it had been two weeks earlier in California. The Roland follows current sampler fashion in supplying a host of keyboard-splitting options for real-time playing of several different samples at once, and also offers some Sequential-style multi-timbral MIDI facilities. But its most noteworthy feature is its ability to send sound and graphics data direct to an external colour monitor for on-screen voice-editing purposes, without the need for any awkward computer keyboards or costly external software. You can even connect an MSX computer mouse to make screen manipulation even easier. Price of the S50 will be under £3000, which puts it in the currently unoccupied middle-ground between the Prophet 2000 and the Emulator II.

Occupying a similar price position is the Korg DSS1, which has considerably less memory than the Roland, but offers more in the way of sample editing facilities, a more comprehensive analogue sound-manipulation section (VCFs and VCAs) and two programmable digital delay lines.

The DSS1 sounded excellent under the capable hands (and feet) of demonstrator Don Muro, whose ability to sound like a full orchestra under the hectic, sweaty conditions of Korg's demo room impressed everybody who saw him, flitting slickly from the astonishing DVP1 voice processor (E&MM review soon) to the sampler prototype via a huge set of MIDI bass pedals.

Korg weren't the only company lucky enough to have recruited a professional, versatile demonstrator. Akai, for instance, employed the services of American singer/musician Sally Towns, who made what could have been a very technical, schoolteacher seminar into an enjoyable musical event, and followed that one evening by joining a jazz band on stage in a Frankfurt nightclub. There should be more like her.

Of the machines she was demonstrating, it was again a new sampler — the S900 — that stood out as being worthy of special attention. The new machine takes over from where Akai's S612 leaves off, with a massive maximum sampling time of 48 seconds at 20Hz-4kHz bandwidth, or 12 seconds' worth with a bandwidth of 20Hz-16kHz. In common with most other new-generation samplers, the S900 is a multisampling device, capable of storing up to 32 (fairly short) samples and letting you play them from different sections of a MIDI keyboard.

The 900's built-in 3.5" disk drive isn't just a means of storing samples; it will also be used as a means of loading up alternative operating systems in software, so that the module can be used as the nerve centre of an eight-voice sinewave synthesiser, a digital multitrack sequencer, and a comprehensive waveform editing system. The S900 is due to have an RRP of £1599 when it becomes available in the UK in April/May, which is cheap enough as it stands simply as a sampler, even without any of the additional software.

At the bottom end of the sampling scale, Casio have followed Yamaha's lead in developing an instrument aimed at guiding music newcomers into the world of recording a sound, storing it in digital memory, and playing it back from a keyboard. Wiffen has beaten me to a description of the company's new SK1 sampler, but quite how Casio have managed to make their machine an eight-voice polyphonic keyboard with a range of quite acceptable preset sounds and still sell it for under £100 amazes me just as much as it does him.

Their RZ1 drum machine is similarly astonishing, for although its digital voices aren't quite up to Roland or Yamaha standards, Casio have managed to fit some expensive hardware items like separate audio outputs, individual level sliders, and a proper numeric keypad for data entry. Then, of course, there's the RZ1's coup de grâce — its ability to store four user-sampled sounds in memory at any one time, and dump them to tape whenever you want to make room for more. Maximum sampling time for each of the sounds is 0.2 seconds, but you can combine these individual memories into one to create a single, extended sample 0.8 seconds long. Price? Well, expect the RZ1 to cost well under £400.

A more comprehensive sampling drum machine was on show at the RSF stand. The French company's new SD140 machine is identical in spec to the DD30 reviewed in E&MM February, save for the fact that it has a 12-bit sampling facility capable of storing up to 16 different sounds onboard, with a total sampling time of between 3.25 and 13 seconds, depending on the sampling rate you use. You can split this sampling time any way you like between the available memory locations, save all the sounds to tape or MIDI disk drive, and play them over user-selected zones from a MIDI keyboard. The SD140 costs about a grand, which is still pretty competitive, and the good news is that the Frenchmen were negotiating with a potential UK distributor during the course of the show, so we should see the complete RSF range on these shores quite soon.

Staying with the French, we found Micro Performance, the people behind the PolyMIDI I sequencer, showing a bizarre MIDI drum set called the Micro Bat. The name comes from the fact that each pad's circumference is batwing-shaped, but dubious aesthetics aside, the system works well, sounded great using a Yamaha TX7 as a voice module, and is very reasonably priced — in France, at least.

Tying in, perversely, with this month's review of their Percuter S electronic drum kit, Dynacord unveiled an entirely new system at Frankfurt, with a superbly redesigned basic pad that is as chic as it is distinctive, a clever central stand called the Drum Caddy that does away with the untidy myriad of chrome supports drummers were previously forced to use, and a sophisticated voice unit, the ADD One.

The last-mentioned is still at the prototype stage, but the same needn't be said of the Rhythm Stick, Dynacord's revolutionary pad controller designed to free drummers from the constraints of sitting behind a kit, and at the same time give other musicians the chance to control drum voices in real time on stage. You play the guitar-shaped device by tapping a pair of touch-sensitive pads with your right hand, while selecting voices from a set of eight switches on the 'neck' with your left. The Rhythm Stick is a little tricky to adjust to, but that didn't stop swarms of German musicians getting to grips with it at the front of Dynacord's stand. Soon you'll be able to do the same in your local music shop.

More conventional electronic kits were to be found on the stands of at least two traditional acoustic kit manufacturers. Pearl's latest system features cunning electronic hi-hat and cymbal units, while the Premier Powerpak is the first electro kit from the established Leicester-based drum company, and should sell for about £700.

Simmons are taking none of this lying down, however, and introduced a number of innovations at Frankfurt to prove the point. The SDS1000, for example, is a new budget electro kit featuring five user-programmable kit memories and five factory ones, four of which feature sampled snare sounds. You can extend the 1000's versatility by adding the new TMI pad-to-MIDI converter, a cut-down version of the existing MTM interface.

The men from St Albans were also showing a new MIDI voice expander called the SDE, a programmable unit capable of generating tuned percussion, bell and gong voices, plus other sounds available soon from a library of pre-programmed ROM cartridges.

Simmons were even showing an electronic drum combo, the SDC200, which differs from most standard amps by offering FX send facilities for each input channel, and specially-designed EQ sections and speaker unit. At last, electronic drum users look like getting an amplification system tailored to their needs from the word go, instead of being adapted from an existing, ill-fitting model.

These were the best demonstrated of the electronic drum products, too, with the ever enthusiastic (and eloquent) Bill Bruford wielding the sticks and US session keyboardsman T Lavitz providing sympathetic backing.

From things you hit to things you strum, and what could be the best MIDI guitar product yet. The Shadow system is the work of Hungarian engineer Andras Szalay, who long-standing E&MM readers may remember as the brains behind the MUZIX 81 computer sequencer a few years back. The system builds all the necessary pitch-tracking electronics into a custom hexaphonic pickup that can be fitted to any guitar (acoustic or electric), features an intelligent jack lead capable of transmitting the outgoing information to a MIDI 'black box', and tracks a guitar player's handiwork (string-bending and the rest) as quickly and as accurately as any system we've yet seen. And that black box, by the way, also contains a built-in sequencer, so you can play duets with yourself if the mood takes you. UK importers are Barnes & Mullins, and first shipments should be beginning around May.

MIDI is also starting to be implemented on instruments that aren't really instruments at all. Rack-mounting effects machines whose memories can be accessed via a MIDI keyboard are now almost commonplace, and the next step along this particular road seems to be the MIDI-controllable mixer.

"The vast network of aisles and corridors became almost claustrophobic, and you needed the stamina of an American footballer to push your way through the crowds."
Dan Goldstein

Akai's new MPX820 is one example of this new genre, and offers eight input channels each with three-band EQ, pan, aux send, and level controls, all of which are programmable. The mixer has 99 onboard memories, all of them selectable via MIDI.

The idea is that you store a different set of mixer settings for each keyboard or drum voice you want to use during recording or live performance, so that as you select a new sound, the EQ, FX balance, stereo position and level alter automatically. Invaluable, and considering the technology that's involved, not too expensive at an RRP of £1299.

British mixer company AHB were showing a more sophisticated system based along similar lines. Their new Keymix is a modular network you can buy in stages, starting with an aux send and level module (the KM1, £785) and power supply, adding an identical slave unit (KM2, £725), three-band sweep EQ module (KM3, £410) and remote controller (KMR, £399) as and when you can afford them. The system has MIDI built in as standard, and like the Akai, can drive a MIDI sequencer with patch changes occurring at MIDI song pointers positioned by the user.

This is the point taken up by Studiomaster with their new MIDI-compatible mixer, which is more comprehensive than either of the above, and is angled more toward studio than live use. Definitely a trend to look out for, this, and one we hope to be reporting on in more detail in a future issue of E&MM.

Back in the world of ivory-tinkling, Frankfurt was awash with new electronic pianos, most of them fairly upmarket, 'professional' instruments, and some of them incorporating new voice-generating technology. Much debate surrounded the question of which of these sounded best, but all this seemed a little futile to E&MM's team, bearing in mind an exhibition is never the ideal place in which to judge sound quality.

Anyway, the players as they took the field at Frankfurt included the Roland RD1000, which employs a new technique known as Structured/Adaptive Synthesis (SAS for short); the Technics PX range, which have optional disk drives for sequence storage and also feature new, computer-assisted sampling/resynthesis technology; the Ensoniq 10-voice Piano, which took pride of place on a stand more aesthetically pleasing (but correspondingly more crowded) than its NAMM equivalent; Yamaha's PF70 and 80, which replace the successful PF10 and 15 and whose sounds are FM-derived; and the Kawai EP705M and EP308M, upright and grand versions of some of the most rugged-looking electric pianos around.

Most fascinating of all, though, was Korg's SG1 piano, which has not only four digitally sampled sound timbres onboard, but also a front-panel slot into which you fit credit card-size ROMs, supplied from a Korg library. Selling price should be similar to the DSS1 at around the £2250 mark. And like all the other new-generation pianos, Korg's joanna has MIDI on it so you can use it as a rather elegant, performance-oriented controlling keyboard.

Surrounded by all this activity, it's easy to forget what MIDI was originally designed for — the humble synthesiser. Luckily, the manufacturers haven't forgotten, and what this meant from the musician's point of view is that, in addition to the Sequential Prophet VS and Ensoniq ESQ1 mentioned in the NAMM Report, Frankfurt's exhibition halls also played host to a number of other synth announcements.

Among these were the arrival of what looks like being Roland's best synth for years, the JX10. This is essentially an expanded version of the JX8P, and is a 12-voice, two-oscillator-per-voice instrument with a 76-key, weighted-action keyboard, a 128-patch memory, an onboard real-time sequencer, and cartridge storage of both sound and sequence data. Like the JX8P, the new machine will be compatible with Roland's optional (but extremely useful) PG800 programmer, and the RRP will be £1900 when the JX10 hits UK shops this coming April.

Other new polysynths making their European debut at Frankfurt included the Akai AX73, a six-voice velocity-sensitive instrument that features onboard software for the manipulation of samples from the S612 and, presumably, the new S900; SIEL's DK700, which functions as both a synth and, with the aid of a 55-patch memory capable of storing MIDI network configurations, a well-specified master keyboard; the Seiko DS250 polysynth, which has a small selection of sparingly clear preset sounds, easily editable via the optional, LCD-equipped DS310 synth module; the Kawai K3, whose features include a selection of some 33 different digital waveforms, a velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive keyboard, and a built-in stereo chorus; and some new synth modules from the German organ industry in the shape of the Wersi EX20 and the Böhm MIDI Expander, both of which are available in their country of origin in DIY kit formats.

Elsewhere, there were plenty of signs that organ manufacturers are beginning to take synths seriously, and are now busily applying the sound-generating technology they've had at their disposal for years (but which have remained the sole preserve of home organ fans) to less 'domestic' instruments.

Hohner's new CK5000 Compagnon is a case in point. In one fell swoop, it offers enough synthesising and programming potential to satisfy synth players, whilst still providing home keyboard-like facilities so as not to alienate the organ fraternity. This immensely difficult task is eased by the adoption of microprocessor control of all vital functions, and one of the most informative and versatile LCD displays I've ever seen.

Synthesisers aren't quite virgin territory for Elka, but nonetheless, there were plenty who were surprised at the quality of sounds emerging from the Italians' new polysynths, the LX600 and LX900. The former is analogue, the latter digital, but both succeeded in sounding clear as a DX or fat as a Moog when occasion demanded, even if, as was later revealed, their internal wiring was the inevitable prototype jungle.

And that was that. Or rather, it wasn't, but it was all I had time to investigate in any depth, and all I had time to write about when the Music Maker convoy arrived back in Cambridge 12 hours before the issue of E&MM you're holding in your hands went to press.

Deliberately, though not without a little difficulty, I've left the best till last. As so often happens, the Frankfurt innovation that could cause the biggest upheaval was tucked away in a tiny, airless room, concealed from 99% of the people who passed through the Musikmesse's turnstiles.

The innovation in question is the PPG Realizer, an unlikely console-mounted machine with a colour monitor screen at its centre, a selection of different controlling switches dotted around its front panel, and an innocent-looking rack unit sitting on the floor beneath it.

The Realizer has no oscillators, no filters and no envelope shapers. Everything it contains is achieved using software-controlled signal processors, and outputted via digital-to-analogue converters. Thanks to this arrangement, it's possible for the machine to simulate the configuration of virtually any musical instrument, past, present or future. Thus far, PPG's software writers have designed an exact simulation of a Minimoog's sound-generation system (complete with front-panel replica graphics on the monitor screen), and an FM synthesis network similar to — but more complex than — that used by Yamaha in their DX synths.

Because the system is so inherently flexible, it's conceivably possible to route any part of its software to any other, in any direction. Thus you could, for example, stick a Moog filter on the end of the FM system, and shove the whole kaboodle through a detailed network of digital delay and sequencer functions.

The cost of all this innovation is high — somewhere between £30,000 and £40,000 when the Realizer becomes available this Autumn. Personally, I'd willingly swap a house to get hold of one of the first.