News archive
May 2024
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73 articles
- May 10
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- “This is where my kids play sometimes after school”: Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock built a studio that is like Willy Wonka’s very own guitar gear emporium – and it even has a walk-in pedal closet
- “There’s no way I’m spending more on a Rhodes than a car - it’s ridiculous for a working-class musician”: Prefuse 73
- “Ladies And Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones”: Actor Ian McShane says that he recorded his iconic Slave To The Rhythm spoken-word intro after smoking “a large spliff” with Trevor Horn in the studio
- Billie Eilish has released a 49-second clip of new song Chihiro via Fortnite Festival and it confirms that it’s a synth-led electronic banger
- MusicRadar deals of the week: Score hundreds off Kurzweil and Roland pianos, up to 92% off SSL plugins and 15% off Fender guitars
- “These huge machines, created centuries ago, were tackling the same challenges of synthesis and sampling and sound reproduction that we struggle with today": Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood is bringing church organ music to the modular masses
- May 9
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- Slash has a new signature Gibson guitar – and it's an ES-335!
- "This gal comes walking up towards me and she's topless, but she had these incredibly blue eyes and I was trying my best just to look at her eyes": The unexpected story of how John Oates and Iva Davies wrote Icehouse's Electric Blue
- “The first AI voice changer plugin for your DAW”: Sonarworks SoundID VoiceAI can make your vocal tracks sound like they were sung by someone completely different
- "I’m speaking a musical language with the modular synthesizer as my pen": Meet Arushi Jain, the "modular princess" using synths to reimagine Indian classical music
- "I always think this is the closest anyone has ever come to making the perfect record": The story of The Undertones' punk classic Teenage Kicks
- "This is what Bruce calls his primal scrub": Bob Clearmountain talks mixing and tweaking Springsteen's Born In The USA guitars
- "Tone-deaf and insulting to artists of every kind": New Apple iPad Pro ad showing musical instruments being destroyed described as "horrendously bad" and "deeply offensive"
- May 8
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- Classic Interview: Steve Albini – "A lot of people in my position are opposed to the home-recording of music. They feel like it cheapens what happens in the studio, but I disagree"
- Acclaimed studio engineer and musician Steve Albini has died aged 61
- “She’s slightly behind the beat but this doesn’t make her sound sloppy; to the contrary, it shows an effortless command of musical time”: A music professor breaks down Amy Winehouse's Back to Black
- “The ultimate recording interface for your favourite DAW”: PreSonus’s new Quantum ES and HD audio interfaces feature instrument inputs that were co-developed with Fender
- “The A&R and the label actually didn’t like it. They were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s a fun song, but it’s never going to get on the radio'": How Train went from nearly splitting up to proving them wrong with smash hit Hey, Soul Sister
- "It was shocking because they still thought of the Beatles as the mop-tops": Let It Be director Michael Lindsay-Hogg on that Paul vs George argument and his newly restored "break-up" movie
- "I had 25 feet to walk over to my kit and figure it out… 20… 15… 10… 5...": Kenny Aronoff recalls his terrifying Jack and Diane drum fill experience
- "I’d never made a guitar before I made the Cloud guitar for Prince": Now the legendary six-string is expected to raise up to $600k at auction
- “Why does it only have drums and vocals?”: Watch Karol G keyboard player Jemma Heigis trying to figure out the chords for Huey Lewis and the News’ The Power Of Love, a song she’s never heard before
- "It's the marmite of DAWs!": 7 things I love about Pro Tools (and 3 that I really don't)
- “Suddenly, you’re in a Vangelis type world”: Hans Zimmer on why the expanded, 6-oscillator Minimoog emulation he created with Synapse Audio gives you “something that you’ve never had before”
- "George Harrison said, ‘When the Beatles play a low E, it sounds like a low E. When Duane plays it, it sounds an octave lower!’”: The story of Duane Eddy's Peter Gunn theme
- Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee are still jamming together: "We’re actually playing a lot of Rush songs" – but there are caveats
- "One of the largest collections of music production software in the world": Native Instruments unveils NI 360 subscription platform
- "If you’re into creating interesting vocoder sounds, try feeding a drum machine through the vocoder instead of a vocal": 14 tried and tested vocal effect tips
- Apple’s super-thin new iPad Pro gets an M4 chip, but the much more affordable iPad Air M2 could be the savviest option for music makers
- "The go-to destination for professionals and creatives seeking meaningful connections": Influential music, film and tech festival SXSW is coming to London in 2025
- May 7
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- “I have never experienced anything like that. It was like piano strings, and it was so far off the neck”: Lee Ritenour on the time BB King invited him to play Lucille and the guitar made him work for every note
- "I can't stand them": Slash reveals he isn't a fan of using in-ear monitors live, but he does like using guitar plugins in the studio
- “The best music creation experience in the industry”: Apple announces Logic Pro 11 for Mac and Logic Pro for iPad 2, adding AI-powered bass and keyboard players and built-in stem separation
- Want to channel your inner Daft Punk? Here are 9 of the coolest vocal processing tools
- “A monstrous amplifier that transcends the boundaries of imagination”: Neural DSP launches upgraded Fortin Nameless Suite X plugin – your new digital solution for atom-smashing chug
- "Your ears will fall in love with the new studio tools": Bitwig Studio updated with new multiband compressor and hardware-inspired EQs
- “If it makes it more accessible and achievable for girls to chase their dreams, then it’s a win”: Epiphone and Miranda Lambert team up for a stunning yet affordable take on her top-selling signature Gibson Bluebird acoustic
- May 6
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- "I have a different perspective on all of that": Richie Sambora releases uncut interview footage from Bon Jovi documentary series that sheds new light on the tensions that led to his departure
- "It’s simple enough to create the perfect hard-tuned and harmonised effects within our DAW, providing you have the right software": How to harness hard-tuned vocals
- May 5
- May 4
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- "Rap purists wouldn't dig us as we weren't straight-up rap. We weren't an indie group, or a rock group": Stereo MC Rob Birch on the making of classic '90s album Connected
- "The result is a track that perfectly encapsulates the 'anything goes' atmosphere of the early '90s, and makes a great Christmas record for the discerning raver": The top 10 most unlikely sample sources
- May 3
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- “I thought he was gonna hook me”: Fran Healy remembers when Travis 'lifted' Noel Gallagher's chords to Wonderwall
- A lightweight, affordable option for Jimmy Page ‘Stairway…’ manoeuvres? Danelectro’s new $899 doubleneck electric guitar could be this year’s super-cool sleeper hit
- Could the friendly-looking First Love be the FM synth that you fall head over heels for?
- “People deplore AI, but it helps sampling become so much clearer and crisper”: Tourist on how AI tech helped shape his new album, Memory Morning
- "I was probably off my head... it wasn't meant to be a novelty record, it was meant to be an underground record": The story of The Prodigy’s cartoon-sampling rave hit Charly
- “It is with a heavy heart that we announce that all store locations will begin store closing sales today”: End of an era for US gear retail as Sam Ash Music to close
- “This ‘notched’ guitar tone has been used by legends like Carlos Santana and Brian May. It’s a fantastic tone to have at your disposal”: Red Witch unveils Euphemia, an analogue sample hold filter with a twist
- “Duane’s sound was distinctive, original and completely cutting edge at the time”: Brian May pays tribute to late rock ’n’ roll pioneer Duane Eddy and remembers the night his hero played the Red Special
- Stevie Wonder flexes his Clavinet chops as he hits the stage with Gary Clark Jr to perform What About The Children
- Designed "to expand the realms of sound design through intricate motion", this quirky French synth has light sensors and a retro pin matrix
- May 2
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- “It’s dynamic and it’s versatile, and thanks no doubt to its enclosed tube it is very ‘amp-y’”: ThorpyFX and Chris Buck apply real valve heat to overdrive and boost with signature Electric Lightning pedal
- “I made Yngwie play on a really slow blues… He sounds even faster”: Dweezil Zappa reveals plans to finish epic all-star track featuring 40 players, including Brian May, and Eddie Van Halen playing a “greatest hits of all of his best guitar licks”
- “There’s no such thing as a wrong note”: Jacob Collier takes you inside his “wise” music room and explains why he can’t stop using a discontinued Native Instruments MIDI keyboard
- The samples from every Prodigy album track have been found and detailed in one epic YouTube masterpiece
- CloudVocal's FlashTrack microphone revolutionizes recording with innovative DSP and versatile features
- “Get you to your sound faster”: Reason 13 puts the focus on workflow, and there are new synth and ‘space delay’ devices, too
- “A funk bass stripped down to its essence – beautiful, minimal, well-crafted”: Vulfpeck funk maestro Joe Dart teams up with Sterling By Music Man for super affordable $399 signature bass
- Is this the most disastrous venue launch of all time? Opening show at Co-op Live cancelled after piece of air conditioning unit falls from the ceiling: "To cancel an event whilst people are queuing to get in is an absolute disgrace!"
- “It’s like a T-Rex made out of chocolate cake”: John Petrucci issues update on new Dream Theater album, promising the “Mount Rushmore” of guitar tones – and a special treat for Tonemission users
- Music from Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and The Weeknd is returning to TikTok, thanks to a “multi-dimensional licensing agreement” with Universal
- "He transformed a piece of samba-flecked elevator music into one of the hardest hip-hop tracks of all time": 10 genius moments in hip-hop sampling history, featuring J Dilla, DJ Premier and more
- Duane Eddy: “Our echo chamber was actually a 2,000-gallon water tank. We went down to the Salt River, visited a junkyard there... and we yelled into tanks”
- “It’s a silly name for a non-silly thing": Tributes paid to "Sultan of Twang", Duane Eddy, who has died aged 86
- May 1
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- Mr piano mule: Man jailed for attempting to smuggle £4.2m illicit stash into the UK in the back of an upright piano
- “An exploration of China's rich musical heritage”: Arturia’s Augmented Yangtze puts a contemporary spin on 6 classic instruments
- Song Athletics releases its first plugin, a sampler "designed to help you find the joy in your one shot collection"
- "We have a huge vision for our software. Our dream is to change how people create music digitally": Modalics on their pizza-inspired, polyrhythmic beatmaking plugin
- “One second you speak to the driver, and next, you are up there in the air”: It’s ‘Jean-Michel flying car’ as the French electronic music pioneer becomes the world’s first passenger in the KleinVision AirCar
- Thomann's 70th birthday celebrations just got even bigger with the addition of super deals on PRS, Korg, Taylor, AKG, Bose and more
- "This is when you need to get serious": Signing a music contract? Here are 5 things you really need to look out for