Another selection of excellent drum patterns appear in this month's edition of the definitive beatbox programming series. Nigel Lord hands put a good beating.

In conjunction with the Personal Keyboard Special, we examine one of the most advanced, and popular, of the new breed

Father of the electric guitar, inventor of multitrack recording, Les talks about his life and his work.

Miking Up

Catching the craziest sounds

Sgt Pepper

The Beatles' most celebrated LP is 20 years old this month: have a splendid time reading how it was made

MIDI Controlled Muting

Paul White evaluates this compact and cost-effective means of adding sequencer-driven mute automation to any mixing console.

Zoom 9120 Advanced Sound Environment Processor

From the company that brought you effects units you could wear, comes a very serious reverb processor — that you can't wear!

Korg Drums

Prolonging the percussive theme, a look at three very interesting products from Korg: Their value-for-money digital Super Percussion and Super Drums rhythm machines, plus the KMS-30 MIDI Synchronizer.

Poolside Drums

When the London Sample Workshop decided to sample drums with real reverb, they chose a swimming pool to do it. Tim Goodyer gets in deep with the Poolside Drums.

Dbx 'X' Processors

Apart from noise reduction systems, dbx make a studio quality range of 'budget' signal processors. Engineer Gareth Stuart put three of them - the 163X compressor/limiter, 263X de-esser, and 463X noise gate/expander - through their paces.

Mackie CR1604 Mixer

The mixer market is dominated by British manufacturers, with a range of Japanese designs also popular in MIDI setups. However, a new American compact mixer offers impeccable audio quality, and outstanding features and value that look hard to beat. Dave Lockwood welcomes the newcomer.

Beatfarm

The boys from Beatfarm Studios talk business, production, and new jazz funk

'Noise Gates' are now an inherent part of modern recording practice. We explain their function and provide some practical applications.

'Are Friends Electric?' and 'Cars' will go down in the musical history books as classics of their genre but the writer of those hits, Gary Numan, has yet to match his early successes. Mark Jenkins met up with him during sessions for a forthcoming album at Rock City studios, Shepperton, only to discover that the Numan of today is finding it tough to get airplay for his recent work...

Abandoning guitars for samplers, Skin became Fluke and discovered new artistic freedom. Simon Trask listens to the man/machine argument from people who've learned both sides of it.

Tim Barr catches up with the Detroit techno pioneer

Digital Audio Workstation

Korg are well known for making musical instruments, but the Soundlink takes them into the new field of hard disk recording/editing. David Mellor watches the price of hard disk editors descend to breathable regions of the atmosphere.

Overdubbing With The Sony PCM F1

Getting a professional electric guitar sound onto tape is not difficult — if you follow a few simple rules.