Akai DR4d Hard Disk Recorder

Offering 4 tracks of instantaneous cut-and-paste, Akai's £1600 digital recorder looks like being a real winner.

Digital Piano

The piano has been plinking

New Casio keyboards, video and instruments

As MIDI expands its influence, guidelines for improved compatibility between instruments are emerging. Vic Lennard examines the new General MIDI spec and Roland's proprietary GSS system.

A quick gaze at the crystal ball reveals a new MIDI mixer from Simmons, a digital reverb/effects processor from AKG, a MIDI-CV module from Tantek, and plenty more...

Frankfurt Musikmesse 1989

Rain, sub-zero temperatures and sleazy hotels - who'd go to Frankfurt if it wasn't for the trade show? Simon Trask finds more than warmth and shelter at the Musikmesse.

Magneto-optical Disk Recorder

Akai's DD1000 Magneto-optical recorder applies state-of-the-art technology to four-track dedicated digital editing. Vic Lennard sees the light at the end of the sample.

Creating The Future

Anyone can dream about the studio of the future, but it takes a unique talent to build it in the present. Wally Badarou's personal studio defies conventional ideas of studio design, substituting voice-controlled DMP11s for a large console, and putting the musician first. Paul Tingen listens in.

Continuing the tradition that began with their 144 Portastudio, Tascam have created a combined package of mixer and 8-track recorder - the 388 Studio 8 - whose compact dimensions belie its true versatility. Dave Lockwood assesses its performance.

Tascam 488 MKII

Rocking, reeling portastudio

Regular round-up of what's new in the world of hi-tech music and recording.

Patrick Wilson

A commercial outlook and a complex setup. We invade Patrick Wilson's home studio

The Atari ST may currently be the most popular music computer, but a lot of music software is still being pioneered on the Apple Mac. Mike Collins visited MacWorld '89 for the latest musical developments.

MIDI Master Keyboard/Piano Sound Board

Take a well-facilitated MIDI master keyboard and add a piano module and you have the basis of Akai's MX1000 - a "dumb" controller with a voice. Simon Trask plays and listens.

Shadow MIDI Guitar

Geoff Twigg takes a look at the latest guitar synth technology. Now you can have a Synclavier system behind the strings of your old acoustic.

GuitarCheck

Who knows how good a MIDI add-on for your guitar can be? The Shadow knows, as Paul Trynka finds out....

Dr.T's Keyboard Controlled Sequencer - Level II V3.0 for the Amiga

One music software house that showed greater awareness and belief in the Commodore Amiga from the outset was Dr.T. David Ellis checks out version 3.0 of their top-of-the-range sequencer to see how it rates against the growing competition.

Digital Space Echo

When Roland made the most popular tape echo unit in the world they called it Space Echo - now they've revived it in digital form. Gordon Reid listens to echoes from the past.

What in the name of Prince is Reverb and how can it help your music?

and what can it do for you, your sound, and your music?

Yamaha REV5 Reverb

Is there room at the top for yet another digital reverb unit? Mark Badger thinks so — provided it's 16-bit, has a 20kHz effect bandwidth, analogue and digital parametric EQ, can stack two reverb effects and goes by the name of REV5!

SequencerCheck

Wodger's latest offering takes the Paul Fishman test

Behind the scenes on the tour of one of the world's most popular live bands

Simon Trask somehow finds time to examine the most sophisticated MIDI event processor of the lot. Are its facilities usable?