An extended review of new products including many of those unveiled at February's Frankfurt Music Fair.

CD ROM Player

Expensive it maybe, but CD ROM storage is one way of making a sampler a much more powerful instrument. And if you're using a Roland S550, it may not be as expensive as you think, as Simon Trask discovers.

Quasimidi Style Drive Realtime Arranger

Mark Cunningham finds producer O'Duffy in hypnotic mood

If Roland samplers have previously been under-recognised by the music industry, the S770 may be about to straighten things out. Simon Trask returns to Roland's super sampler to "delve deeper".

Reverberation - the key to professional recordings - is fully explained. How it's created, and how to use it.

This month's round-up includes new products launched at the APRS and NAMM shows.

Equipment

Allen and Heath/Brenell release one of their beautiful Mod II mixers into the grateful clutches of Mel Lambert, who lets you know warrisallabout.

ART Multiverb Alpha 2.0 & DRX 2100

You can always get more out of your equipment if you know more about it. David Mellor begins a new series that explores the innermost workings of various studio devices. This month: the Tape Recorder.

Don Larking guides you through the various equipment that goes to make up a home studio.

A New Reverb Standard

Hot on the heels of their impressive DPS-D7 digital delay comes the latest single effects unit from Sony. As the DPS-R7 reverberates, David Mellor adjudicates.

PART 3; David Mellor looks at how the requirements of different types of music for TV and film can dictate the sophistication of your synchronising capabilities, and at how machine synchronisation works in practice.

At home with Chris Hughes

The former Tears For Fears producer invites us in for a cuppa

Into The Nineties

The AES Report

America's premier recording exhibition provides Bob O'Donnell with food for thought; the password is "digital", just like the gear.

The cream of the recording equipment from the recent show

Drummer with The Police chats about his approach to recording, at home and in the studio.

'S' Appeal

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

news from the front

'Now the Virgin returns,' quoth Virgil, and who are we to disagree? Mel Lambert takes a colourful look at Richard Branson's new London studio: a Town House for the Lord of the Manor.