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Over 300 of the worlds leading musical instrument distributers and maufacturers will be packed into Londons ExCeL venue on the 14th and 15th of June to inspire you, the consumer with their latest gear.

London International Music Show is 4 shows in one; London Guitar show, Drummer Live, Unplugged and the Sound Recording & Technoligy show all under one roof and one ticket gets you into all shows.

The show promises all the lastest gear and technology with siminars, conferences and even celebrities of the music world. You can expect to see exhibitors from “Acoustic Guitar Magazine” through to “Yamaha Music UK”, and instruments from xylaphones to bassoons.

On the Live stage you can see Paul gilbert playing on saturday for the London Guitar show, Chad smith will be beating them skins for the Drummer live line-up, and the list goes on….

For updates on the event visit www.londoninternationalmusicshow.com and be sure to not miss the best music event this year.

Aaaaaaw, isn’t it cute! If Slash were a Hobbit, he’d play one of these!

The Tanglewood EE15 is a mini Les Paul and it really is diddy The guitar is wonderfully scaled down, the only thing remaining normal size is the hardware. The 21st fret is ban on 34cm (just under 13.5 inches) from the nut and is clearly aimed at three types of guitarist; kids, travelling guitarists with small luggage space and performers who want to make the audience laugh.

This mini rocker sports 6 die cast machine heads which are very smoothly geared and don’t seam to slip out of tune. The neck has a slightly squashed D profile and is well suited to small and large hands alike. The fretboard is made of a fine piece of rosewood with 21 quite fat frets. Body wields one humbucker, tone, volume and the mandatory tuneomatic style bridge. The body is made of good solid wood that is shown off well through the translucent cherryburst finish.

When plugging this guitar in I did what I deamed to be most appropriate, slapped up the over drive and lauched into Master of Puppets. I then nearly fell off my seat laughing at how good it sounded. It’s supprisingly hard to tell that this is such a small guitar when it’s plugged in, the single humbucker certainly delivers a punch.

The supprising thing about this guitar is that it has a considerable amount of tone. The solid body delivers a good deal of warmth that would be quite acceptable for a full size guitar. The only down side to this size is that the intonation is quite sensitive and needed a little tweak out of the box. Though this is of little consequence for the very young player.

To sum up, this little thing is certainly worth its weight in gold and certainly packs a heavy punch than its size would suggest.

The Stagg 10 GA is definitely one of the lowest priced guitar amps in the history of the universe, selling for as little as £24.99.

At this price you’d be right to be wary (I know I was), you’d need to ask questions like; ‘is it made from old beer cans?’ and ‘will it not sound like a dying cat?’. The only way to find out is to plug it in.

Compared to its predecessor the Stagg CA-10, this amp has definitely moved up a notch in build quality. The CA-10 was a funky little ultra portable practice amp, however the plywood casing was a bit too thin to provide much in the way of bass or tonality and it didn’t look very cool. These issuses have been remedied in the 10 GA, the case is much chunkier and care has been taken making the ‘look’ of the amp.

On the control panel the 10 GA features gain, overdrive selector switch, volume, treble, mid, bass, mini jack headphone socket, mini jack CD/MP3 input and the necessary power switch. The knobs themselves are a retro style with smooth action and are solidly mounted.

To test the 10 GA I used an Ibanez at around the £200 mark, so not to taint the sound with a lesser guitar and not to colour the sound too much, as would happen with a £3000 guitar with custom pickups. The amp was quite surprising, starting with the clean sound it provided a very chirpy bright sound and not a tinny one. After messing around with the EQ I managed to get very acceptable bassy blues and twangy jazz sounds. Then moving on to the inevitable overdrive button. It does exactly what it says on the tin, the sound is a very fuzzy grungy one and after tweaking the EQ there seemed to be a good variety of sound. After messing around with the rather confusing Mid control (it’s hard to tell if it’s boosting sweeping at times) it was possible to get some nice vintage sounds and also the clinical metal sounds.

To sum up, it’s VERY hard to criticise an amp of this quality when it only costs the same as two albums or your Christmas turkey. As a starter amp it’s ideal and it can go louder than even the most supportive parent would find acceptable. As a secondary practice amp (while your stacks in storage) it’s ideal, being portable and light. All in all this amp is not a cracker prize, it’s damn cheap and does the job well.

The Alesis Performace Pad, a versatile piece of kit suitable for various uses. Eight velocity-sensitive drum pads and a built-in electronic drum machine which sounds like the classic DM5 module. There are foot-switch inputs for a bass drum pedal, HiHat pedal, and a Line-level input to connect a CD Player, iPod, computer, or other audio device.

So, powering up the module you are presented with the display for the unit which i have to say is rarther navigateable. Plenty of pre-set kits are at your disposal and immediately i’m blasting out some beats. You can assign the various on-board percussion sounds to any of the eight pads. Now this usually takes a bit of time and a lot of patience, however I whipped out the manual (unusual, yes) and within a couple of seconds i found the step-by-step instructions and was pleasently surprised at how easy it was to assign the sounds to the individual pads and also manipulate the sounds as far as volume/velocity.

I have to say, if you’re a drummer thats after a percussion set up but dont want to carry the extra equipment or simply dont have the room to accomodate djembe’s conga’s and other various world instruments then this is what you need. Set it up on a stand next to your kit and your away.

So, you’ve heard my opinion, now lets see what the details are:

• 8 natural feeling, velocity-sensitive drum pads with Dynamic Articulation™
• Built-in professional drum machine so you can record and play back your own beats
• 50 Preset / 50 User drum kits with 233 sounds assignable to any pad
• Built-in rhythm patterns to complement your playing
• Large LCD display with easy-to-navigate interface
• Dynamic Articulation stereo samples with reverb and ambience for realistic playing
• 2 foot-switch inputs for external kick and HiHat (sold separately)
• Stereo input to play along with your CD or MP3 player
• MIDI output to play external MIDI devices
• High-quality 24-bit stereo and headphone outputs
• Lightweight, durable enclosure

Alesis Performance Pad : Buy Now from PlayRecord.Net