A chance to do some crystal gazing at product developments in the music/recording/visual fields.

Part 1: The Art Of Sampling. Keyboard programmer Paul Wiffen offers valuable advice on squeezing the most out of your sampler.

Flushed with the chart success of Close (To The Edit), the 'faceless' trio return with more talk of Art, Empire and Industry. Paul Gilby pushed the record button and monitored the noise levels...

Last month we followed the career of Dave Meegan as he progressed from studio tape-op to full-time engineer at Trevor Horn's Sarm West Studios. This time Chris Allison discovers Dave's feelings about studio life in the fast lane.

Composer and studio owner Guy Fletcher had a dream: 'The European Suite' was the end result. Ted Fletcher details the work that went into its recording.

EXCLUSIVE: Paul Gilby examines the very latest American audio invention for removing cotton wool from your ears!

A reduction in price and the introduction of their Quick Disk make Akai's S612 MIDI Sampler an even more attractive investment. Paul Gilby was suitably impressed.

Ian Gilby visits The Garden Studio and learns how John Foxx composed and recorded tracks from his recently released album 'In Mysterious Ways'.

Paul Gilby takes a look at the first MIDI controlled effect - Yamaha's D1500 which heralds a series on creative mixing with MIDI controlled devices.

Jay Chapman sets the scene for a regular series written to help you better understand the practicalities of life with the Musical Instrument Digital Interface.

In conjunction with the Chase Bit 01 Expander, Casio CZ-101 synthesizer and Akai Sampler, the Jellinghaus 12-Track MIDI Studio software for the Commodore 64 micro represents the most powerful compositional and recording set-up available under £2500. Mark Jenkins catches his breath and tells you why.

The final part of our competition to win the superb new Prophet 2000 Sampling Keyboard. Go on... have a go!

Producer/jingle composer Robin Lumley commences a new series that explores the role and function of music in the visual world.

Kendall Wrightson rounds off his introduction to SMPTE with a look at its application in modern music production as exemplified by a synchronisation unit - the Friend Chip SRC.

Ralph Denyer reports on London's prestigious CTS Studios and keyboardist Brian Gascoigne who recently teamed up to establish a MIDI/SMPTE-based electronic musicstudio purpose designed for the post-production of film music.

Professional photographer David Kirby's fascination with audio resulted in him setting up his own audio-visual studio based around a Fostex A8 recorder and Tascam 133 cassette deck. Here he outlines how he works with it.

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