Situated right in the heart of the Second City, the Jones & Crossland huge music store commands a vast catchment area of musicians right across the centre of Britain - and beyond. Their shop front, which stretches along three shops of the populous Queensway, must be familiar to thousands of musicians who travel to the store.

But just wandering through the well stocked showrooms of J&C will tell you that the store prides itself on stocking almost everything for the modern musician - under one roof. As the store's Manager Dave Gregory explained. "We try and keep the stocks up of all the very new items, simply because the musicians like to come in and have a good look at them. They read the reviews and the specifications but they really need to come down and have a play - it's as simple as that. So when something new comes up, we like to have it in just as soon as the musicians read about it."

The large store is split into various departments, slotting into the three shops which make up the building, guitars and recording, classical instruments and keyboards. The drum store is in the basement of the guitar store, and boasts a very wide range of all types of percussion, including an impressive array of cymbals and, of course, the Simmons kits, which they not only have in stock, but they have them in a selection of colours too!

Upstairs a room is set off at the side to cater for the interests of the home recordist, with a battery of recorders and mixers, including the new Clarion, a selection of the Tascam range from the Portastudio right up to the 38 and the new AHB range of mixers. They also have the new Yamaha Producer Series, and all the equipment is laid out to give the customers a chance to examine the equipment as it is actually working - no 'buying cardboard boxes' here...

In fact, Jones & Crossland must have one of the most comprehensive ranges of multitrack in the country and it is quite possible to equip everything from a humble four track, right up to a fully professional studio from the gear available. The benefit of their multitrack showroom is that it is self contained, and screened off from the rest of the store so that you can shut yourself away from the budding Michael Schenker clones outside and examine the units in peace!

The very fast changes that are happening on the multitrack front pose certain problems for shops - not least in keeping up with the advances made in the 'enhancement' area. To this end, J&C have stocked up with the latest in the Tascam Enhancement Series and the Roland Rack Series including the Dimension D, Stereo Flanger, and Chorus Echo Graphics, and they also have special offers on items like the SDE 2000 Digital Delay.

Out in the guitar room proper, a whole wall is covered in instruments ranging from humble 'folk' acoustics for beginners, right up to the top Gibsons for the professionals. In the amplification department they stock Roland, Peavey, Yamaha and Ohm plus the Tom Scholz Rockman and the Rockman Ultralight.

Next door along the street (which has three bus stops outside - bad for photography, but great for passing trade...) is the keyboard department. This is a well lit and very well laid out showroom which offers 'hands on' for everything. The instruments are racked up to allow more stock to be shown, and there are amps readily available for ambient listening - though headphones are also available for more intense studies. Pride of place was the amazing DX7 and DX9 which, on the day we visited them, was getting the full treatment from the staff as they explored its possibilities. Like the guitars, they stock a very wide range of keyboards, with an interesting array of small electronic instruments, including the Casio and Yamaha ranges. They keep a wide selection of Roland gear (including the JX3P unless they sell out...), the pianos, and all the accessories.

In the complex world of keyboard technology, with the bewildering problem of getting all the necessary instruments, accessories, amps and the fiddly little items we all forget - like leads and batteries - it is nice to see a store where the whole lot can be examined together. So you want to play the DX7 through a delay and into a Cube - no problema!

The keyboard side is in the capable hands of Ketch and Mike a duo who can rattle off designation numbers like nobody else. They know the capabilities of the equipment that they sell, and take care to match them up to the capabilities of their customers. They can set up complex systems of keyboards for customers, but they prefer if you phone first to give them time - so rolling up on Saturday afternoon is right out unless they know well in advance.

Interestingly, the lines that they are moving quickly at the moment include the obvious Yamaha DX series, the Roland JX3P and, busiest of all, the Roland HP400 which, aided by the TV advertising is creating quite a stir.

So, a professional and well presented music store that is geared for megastars and the person in the bus queue alike.To get there is easy, they are a minute from Birmingham New Street railway station, and Queensway is a bit hard to miss! Take a trip and have a look.

Jones and Crossland, (Contact Details)