a house music producer who hates sampling and big drum sounds? some mistake, surely?

Rudi Cazeaux explores the nature of sound and presents some basic guidelines for synthesizing the various standard groups of acoustic instruments.

The latest reports from the trade and prophet spheres

A novel 'backing band in a box' comes under Paul White's critical gaze.

The 60's R&B producer talks to us about those classic takes, and how he got them

What the ghetto blaster is to hi-fi, the CZ230S is to synthesisers. Annabel Scott takes a spin in Casio's streetwise preset synth.

Depth of colour

News from the front

the news for now

for the JV series

Ancient and modern: classic analogue synths for your JV-series synth.

secret drums and ancient arts,

Phil Brammer strums his way through this educational guitar program

Ralph Denyer gets gizmological with Kevin 'n' L

Initially, the consequences of RD's actions could be Kevin or L — there'LL be L to K. (2 down).

A Series By Warren Cann.

Stanley Clarke & George Duke, Pat Benatar and AMM

New products from the States

Guitars For £150

Begin with a Bargain — reckon a new guitar for less than £150? We show you how

The Japanese fight back in the battle to design cheap digital reverb, with an all-preset rack-mounting machine for under £350. Don Goldstein has the details.

grotesque gossip and more

Sample sultan Wilf Smarties reports on the latest sample CDs.

The two man band out manoeuvring in the USA put Tony Mills in the picture

Atari ST Software

Without UK distribution, Hybrid's Atari sequencers have almost been forgotten. But now they're back with a Gold update to shout about, as Vic Lennard finds out.

The final disc in the Zero-G Datafile series joins Coldcut's Kleptomania in the growing library of sample CDs - Tim Goodyer checks them out, while Andy Neve loads The Sound Foundation's programming efforts into his Roland MKS70 in this month's Patchwork.