The latest scandal from the world of recording equipment.

NOMIS

Chris Maillard co-stars in The NOMIS Complex. In all major West End cinemas now

Queries answered...

Our first lady of song sorts out your traumas

VALHALA D50 Sound Cards

Under the spotlight in this month's Patchwork are the stablemates to the astounding Valhala M1 sound cards - those for Roland's D50. Gordon Reid asks "can they maintain the standard?".

Educating Teachers

Chris Gander, a teacher and a home recording enthusiast, examines the way technology is influencing music education.

MT's bass-o-matic goes into automated ninth spin

Ampcheck

Paul Bacon (Egon's brother?) puts the 16watt demon through its paces

Frank Zappa is never short of a word or a thousand. In this case, there were so many, we had to make it a two-parter. In this first, Ralph Denyer finds out why Frank doesn't hate people (quite) and why London's one of the worst places on earth.

Yamaha MT44D Recording System

Third party, fire and theft, mad fans and crashed vans... Phil Walsh looks into insurance for musicians

Two multi-tasking packages, Virtuoso and Cubase, meet in the ring. Jim Spriggs plays referee

Roger Wilson.

Martin Goldman examines the dos and don'ts of tape machine maintenance.

Just as MIDI itself has gone far beyond what its developers imagined, so MIDI Time Code has the potential to take MIDI technology into areas quite removed from the synthesis and sequencing worlds in which it has become so familiar. MTC user Paul D. Lehrman explains how.

H&SR looks at Sony's tiny compact disc player and offers a few excuses for buying one.

Brian Heywood looks at a UK-designed PC-based hard disk recorder.

Ben Duncan continues the saga.

Gareth Stuart investigates Tascam's latest stereo cassette mastering machine and learns why pro equipment nearly always carries a pro price tag.

Music Instruction System

Of the few computer-based music teaching systems available, Xanadu's Musicom - distributed by Roland - is one of the most versatile. David Ellis finds out if it's cheap enough to tempt fund-starved schools.

Audiosource RTA1 Spectrum Analyser

Dave Simpson takes a break from counting his savings to tell you what he's spending it all on.

You've heard of harmonisers costing thousands, but we've scooped the first ever kit project that does it all for under £200!

Avid Steinberg Twelve user Paul Needs tells us all about this user-friendly budget sequencer