After what appeared to be something of a pre-Christmas lull, the major manufacturers of electronic musical instruments are about to unleash a rash of new products for the new year. Two of them, the Korg Poly 800 and the Boss DE-200 digital delay, are reviewed in this issue, while the next two or three editions of E&MM will see a large number of other new goodies coming under the microscope.

While there's no discernible trend common to all these pieces of equipment, what is fairly clear is that the cost of components incorporating new technology is still tumbling down at a fantastic rate. What this means - unfortunately - is that last year's innovation is often out-dated and superceded before the market has fully come to grips with what it can do. On the positive side, a lowering in cost can only benefit the consumer in the long run, and the more available new technology becomes, the greater the numbers of people who will start taking advantage of its presence and begin employing it to create their own music.

Yet once this first step has been taken, many up-and-coming musicians are at a loss as to what to do with the fruits of their endeavours. For while it's true to say that the E&MM offices have never been as inundated with readers' cassettes than they are now, it is also equally true that a great deal of electronic music never gets beyond the habitat of its creators.

And that, in our view, is a pity.

Agreed, major record companies are always difficult to approach, particularly by those unfamiliar with their workings, but there is an alternative in the form of the independent record label, a phenomenon that first appeared in the late seventies and has continued to grow in importance since then, despite some general disapproval on the part of the fashionable music papers.

Although making your own record is considerably more costly and time-consuming than simply duplicating a cassette, it has the advantage that it's far more likely to get noticed.

It could be argued that, of all the various types of music that exist in today's rather schizophrenic artistic world, electronic music has benefitted least from the appearance of the indie label; but that doesn't mean to say that our sort of music isn't worth putting onto vinyl as opposed to magnetic tape. With the enthusiasm and skill displayed by so many of our readers in recording and producing their own compositions, we tend to think that electronic musicians could show the rest of the world a thing or two when it comes to producing an independent disc.

So if you've put out an independent record of some kind at some time during the past year or so, or are contemplating doing so, we'd like to hear about it. We'll publish any article we feel might be of use to fellow-readers, and it there are sufficient correspondents, we might consider compiling a directory of independent electronic releases.

And heaven knows, making an indie record has proved to be the first step on the road to success for so many acts in recent years, it's very difficult to make a convincing excuse for not having a go yourself if you've sufficient capital.

After all, look at China Crisis now...