What's Hot - Not What's Not!

Two-Chord Songs

Just two, yup. Everyone from the Who to Duran Duran has used the trick. Now you can.

'S' Appeal

Is it the birth of a new standard? Dave Lockwood drools over Tascam's Dolby S-equipped one-inch 24-track.

This exciting project from Paul Williams is capable of making even the most dull recordings come to life - it's a pity it can't do anything about duff songwriting though.

Two manufacturers follow their already established polysynths with keyboardless voice expanders. Trish McGrath puts the Chase Bit 01 and Siel Expander 80 through their paces.

Live Music For The Hi-Tech Musician

Digital Soup Editing Software For The PC

It's very cheap and immensely powerful. Read our review to find out more...

News and new products.

Roland JS-30

Desktop sampler

One of the best boosters tested

Hard Disk Recording System

Direct-to-disk digital recording comes of age on the Atari ST computer. Vic Lennard checks out the system which may change your life.

Electronic Wind Instrument

State-of-the-art wind synthesis. Man Jumping's Andy Blake gets his fingers around Akai's wind controller and voicing module and finds a happy marriage between expression and analogue synthesis.

Korg's very latest keyboard is non other than a touch-sensitive, sub-£1000, 8-voice FM synthesizer! Mark Jenkins managed to catch a sneak preview.

Nyle Steiner and Sal Gallina Interviewed

As wind synthesis gains momentum we sent Nick Armington and Lars Lofas out to track down and talk to the men responsible for the design of the Yamaha WX1 and Akai EWI.

Marillion's guitarist talks to John Harris about the band's home studio and about getting great guitar sounds on tape...

Emulator III Sampling Keyboard

If there is one company which has made its name on sampling that company is E-mu Systems. The term 'Emulator' is now synonymous with sampling and now the third instrument in this distinguished series is on the market. Paul Wiffen checks it out and finds E-mu bang up to date.

Although expensive, digital audio workstations are a pointer to the kind of features we can expect to see on the next generation of 'affordable' hi-tech instruments. Craig Anderton takes a look at one of the very latest workstations to appear, the AudioFrame.

Build and modify this 10-band processor kit

News of Roland's brand new megasynth, yamaha's latest effects processors, and more — all in glorious colour.

Z-plane synthesiser

From one of the few companies still committed to developing new methods of sound synthesis, the Morpheus promises much. Does it deliver?

Yamaha DX5

Merely two DX7s in a box, or a valid addition to the Yamaha range of FM digital keyboards? Simon Trask takes the mid-price algorithm through its paces, and comes to mixed conclusions.