All content archive

September 2025

Filter

Year
Month

159 articles

September 17
- “100 per cent tour-worthy right off of the shelf, with bulletproof American construction”: All Rhoads lead to California as Jackson brings one of its most-iconic metal guitars home for a high-end upgrade
- “I wanted to design something that would not only be capable of but excel at any tone I might need”: Prog metal trailblazer Misha Mansoor teams up with Neural DSP for Archetype plugin suite that nails his Periphery tone – but does so much more
- “It’s policing Black music… Hip-hop was born from sampling. And now sampling is synonymous with theft”: Lizzo argues that the origins of sampling law are "racially charged"
- “They basically declared war on him after these shows were broadcast”: When John Lennon alarmed the FBI after platforming radical political ideas in a week-long takeover of American TV
- “I was having some issues with three-hour shows and constant touring and stuff": Matt Cameron explains why he left Pearl Jam and insists that the final Soundgarden album is coming... but not yet
- SampleRadar: 497 free modular percussion samples
- “When we went to record it, the record company said, ‘Man, they won’t play that, it’s too long.’ But we said, ‘We don’t care!’”: How the young Lynyrd Skynyrd turned a simple love song into a southern rock epic
- With A Little Help From His Friends: Jack White joins Ringo Starr on stage for a performance of a Beatles classic after going Toto with Steve Lukather
- “The whistling was a result of me having no guitar when I was writing it. The record company called me and said: 'You have to take the whistle out.' I said: ‘No way’": The Scorpions' Klaus Meine on the making of Wind Of Change
- "It’s been such a privilege to work with Daphne’s sounds": Daphne Oram's centenary celebrated in compilation featuring previously unheard archival material
- "You’d be like, ‘Nah. I like him a lot, but I don’t love him.’ That would be the messaging if I didn’t play left-handed": Actor Paul Mescal reveals the lengths he's going to to perfect his portrayal of Paul McCartney in the upcoming Beatles biopics
- “Players have asked us to push further – into more adventurous, exploratory delay and reverb”: Source Audio dials up the ambience with the Encounter – six reverbs, six delays, one tricked-out pedal for “deeply immersive soundscapes”
- Music studio complex opens in former nuclear bunker in The Hague
- “Right before he died I was reminded of what I’d noticed all those years ago – that the notes he didn’t play were more important than the notes he did play”: A salute from one great bass player to another
September 16
- Teenage Engineering is giving away a free EP-1320 Medieval sampler to anyone that spends $999 in its online store
- “He was the sun which all planets rotated around”: Joe Bonamassa announces all-star album celebrating life of BB King on the King of the Blues’ 100th birthday
- “It was a lovely sight to look up occasionally and see them both there. Him dancing and her sitting”: Why did Fred Again play an extra set after his festival appearance in Naples – to two people?
- “The SG and the Les Paul, reimagined in short-scale, 3-string versions”: Gibson teams up with Loog for beginner and child-friendly electrics based on its most famous guitars
- “As soon as we played that, I screamed. I could tell right away that it was a smash”: Nile Rodgers breaks down how he and David Bowie made Let’s Dance
- “It’s clear that the influence of the Custom Shop’s attention to detail is now making its way to the Mexican-made instruments”: Fender Limited Edition Vintera II Jazzmaster Road Worn review
- “There’s just one catch. The kid with the PC in the bedroom can’t play his instrument”: Back in 1999, Prince offered his opinion on the new generation of DAW-based musicians and producers
- “The authentic broken-in feel players love”: Aged nitro finishes, “era-correct” pickups and neck shapes, Fender’s limited run Vintera II Road Worn series presents Golden Era tone for modern players
- “There was no middle eight, and ‘sail away’ was after every line – it drove me crazy, but there was something there”: The making of Enya's Orinoco Flow, the unexpected No. 1 hit that created a New Age superstar
- “A unique, talented, and innovative musician who leaves a rich back catalogue of Eastern-influenced electronica as his legacy”: Tributes paid to Blancmange's Stephen Luscombe, who has died
- “Tommy's got his guitar. I'm snapping my fingers. Tommy just started out; ‘Here we come, walking down the street’, 'cause that's what we were doing”: Bobby Hart on the evolution of the Monkees theme
September 15
- "It's unlike any humbucker I've tried before": Gibson Tony Iommi Signature Humbucker review
- “All major keys are created equal, but Eb is the best”: Jon Batiste answers the internet’s piano queries and agrees with one potentially controversial musical statement
- “I did like Bob Dylan, but he was a great con man! He strung a lot of nonsense together and made it seem like it was really important”: Motörhead legend Lemmy Kilmister’s opinions on Dylan, the Eagles, Slayer and his friend Ozzy Osbourne
- "I thought I was amazing at making garage – then I tried to make DnB": Flava D on why drum & bass is the toughest genre to produce
- “The kids! This is what music is for. I am so proud of them”: Students at Flea’s music school pay tribute to him and the Chili Peppers
- "Before this plugin, the only way to get this tone was by chasing down old hardware or buying boutique pedals": Audio Hertz's Mk.pre emulates the Tascam Portastudio preamp that colours Mk.gee's sought-after guitar tone
- “I finally get the opportunity to say, ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome, the most badass mother, Ilan Rubin”: Dave Grohl introduces new drummer at Foos' secret gig
- “I missed a couple of things which I would have loved to get better”: Brian May suggests that he wasn’t completely satisfied with his Bohemian Rhapsody guitar playing at The Last Night of the Proms
September 14
- “Imagine if Paul McCartney dies and there’s early 16-year-old Beatles recordings, and then right up to the 10 best of his entire career”: Ed Sheeran reveals that plans for posthumous album are already in his will
- “Striking design”: Zultan add two new models to their effects cymbal range
September 13
- “I had a No 1 single with a song about a robot prostitute and no one knew”: You’ll never listen to this Gary Numan classic the same way again
- “I’ve never fully gelled with Logic and Pro Tools – they kind of feel like Microsoft Excel to me”: Jacques Greene and Nosaj Thing on the making of their new collaborative project, Verses GT
- “There were 300,000 people there, so just the adrenaline rush alone was making for some great music”: Warren Haynes on putting his stamp on Allman Brothers' classics, Woodstock ’94, and finishing what Gregg Allman started with Derek Trucks’ help
- “In the actual song you hear today, the guitars, the riff, the bass, the drums and all the vocals are from those initial takes I did in my bedroom”: Sombr on the making of viral hit Undressed, and his formula for creating "a legendary indie rock song"
September 12
- "Not being a musician you feel a little bit of an imposter, but I've got a passion for it and I think a lot of great musicians respect me for that": Dub pioneer Adrian Sherwood on embracing AI and playing the studio like an instrument
- “They still maintain these ridiculous hours. After lunch until, like, two in the morning”: Marlon Richards says that the Stones have been putting together a new album in London
- “One of the things I’ve wanted to really focus on, and zone into, is the limitation of a single instrument”: Using his signature ‘DAEAD’ tuning, Jacob Collier recorded a 5-string acoustic guitar album in just four days
- MusicRadar deals of the week: Score a mind-blowing $1,000 off the stunning D'Angelico Excel SS, $500 off the gorgeous Heritage Standard H-535, and so much more
- “An attempt to deliver tickets as fairly as possible directly to fans at the prices the band intended”: Radiohead defend ticketing system as up to 1,000 dodgy tickets advertised online before the general sale
- Slop of the pops: Over 30,000 AI-generated tracks are being uploaded to Deezer every single day
- “The Sphere? I’m hoping, one of these days, to go there and sit and watch myself doing it, so I don't have to": David Gilmour says he’d be open to a Floyd avatar show at the Sphere
September 11
- “It’s our take on a pop record, pop music that has been melted on a hot dashboard in the sun”: How Boards of Canada brewed a serene genre-blurring classic
- “Memo for radio show - list of favourite records": Jeff Beck, Roxy Music and Miles Davis all make the list of David Bowie’s 15 favourite tracks
- “We’d done 11 songs. Nobody wanted to do another except me and Mutt. But I said, ‘Sorry, boys – you can’t turn this chorus down!’”: How Def Leppard created a mega-hit song in 10 days after spending three years on an album
- “We’re rebuilding the middle class of artists and giving fans the power to shape what gets heard. It’s a return to authenticity, driven by community”: New streaming platform launches - and it promises fair compensation for artists
- “All of this posturing is Jim Morrison meets the bloke from Stone Temple Pilots meets everybody else who’s ever owned a pair of leather trousers”: Justin Hawkins backs up his brother’s criticism of Yungblud’s VMAs Ozzy Osbourne tribute
- "The wait is finally over": Spotify finally offers lossless streaming to its Premium subscribers
- Five basses! Spinal Tap recruit Tal Wilkenfeld and Thundercat for bottom-heavy Jimmy Kimmel performance
- “As much as it sucked to start over, I saw Dave become a vastly better guitar player pretty quickly after Metallica”: Dave Ellefson has his say on whether Metallica did Dave Mustaine a favour by sacking him
- “I sat down at the piano and started this song about a woman that was involved with birds and magic”: The classic Fleetwood Mac hit that Stevie Nicks wrote in just 10 minutes!
- “Within an hour we knew we had a massive hit record”: The music theory behind a Depeche Mode classic
September 10
- “A very capable piece of kit that will see most players a long way into their gigging career”: the t.bone IEM D2.4 review
- “Tonverk is made for expansive sound design and immediate play”: Elektron’s stereo sampling workstation is real, and it’s out now
- “These guitars empower metal artists with the authentic, crushing tone that built Jackson’s legendary reputation”: Jackson takes us back to the heyday of shred with the Pro Origins 1985 San Dimas series – and what about that Two Face finish?
- “I’ll never forget, he did the whole thing, like the hand out with the snap, and started to sing this bassline”: How a teenage Mark Ronson convinced Michael Jackson to write him a bassline so he could make a hit song out of it
- "It shows the breadth of talent from across the country and all of our nations”: The Mercury nominations are out with the usual mix of established names and niche outsiders
- Never miss a MusicRadar thing: Google has made it easier to keep us in your feed
- "I looked on Reverb for a Yamaha CS-80 – we drove out to get it and its sound became a key part of the movie’s soundtrack": The classic synth heard on the Barbie OST was picked up in "an hour and a half" on Reverb, says Mark Ronson
- “If that album bombed we would have been dropped from the label!”: Kiss stars recall the album that saved the band
- "I figured out a way to make it sound like an old wooden door": Transform your MacBook into a theremin! Or a creaking door!
- “Light lacquer checking, light dings, pick trails, and rounded fretboard edges, with all five encapsulating the tone, look, and played-in feel of a vintage original”: Gibson expands acoustic Murphy Lab collection with five Light Aged classics
- “That’s one of the key things that most people don’t get when they hear the song. But when I sang it with her, we nailed it”: Bryan Adams explains why the only person to do justice to Summer of '69 was Taylor Swift
- With the Carbon 8X, Modal Electronics has completed its three synth families so that it has an instrument for every kind of user, and there’s still more to come
- “I don’t think it found its true voice until now”: PRS revives and refreshes the Mira as an S2 model with 58/15 LT vintage-voiced humbuckers, coil tap switches and an array of aesthetically pleasing finishes – including on-trend Matcha Green
- King Gizzard annex Bandcamp's top 27 album spots after bold ‘name your price’ move
- Minimal Audio drops Formant, a free formant-shifting plugin for creative vocal production
September 9
- “Now you can power your rig off of a USB-C cable or rechargeable battery pack!” Walrus Audio’s Canvas Power USB is the super-compact device for powering your rig with a laptop or phone charger
- “One of the handsomest guitars around, it plays great, and punches well above its weight in the tone stakes”: Epiphone Inspired By Gibson Custom Hummingbird Deluxe EC review
- “They’re kind of singing along… but no one knows the words:” Derek Trucks says Tedeschi Trucks Band have completed their next studio album – and they’ve been sneaking in some of the new tracks live
- “The way that the algorithm is set up, no one can serve the masses anymore”: Lizzo puts out TikTok vid blaming social media for absence of crossover mainstream hits
- “I never saw something as completely mind-bendingly ridiculous and intriguing as what went down”: Hold on to your cheese sandwiches – it’s Fyre Festival: The Musical!
- “I’m a big preset guy. If a preset’s called Fat Bass, there’s a 90% chance it’s actually a fat bass”: Rico Nasty and Benson Boone producer Imad Royal on saving time and staying focused in the studio
- "Not to disparage older artists who still want a piece of the spotlight and to stay in the spotlight... there comes a time when you're just not yourself anymore": John Oates explains why there’s no chance of a creative reunion with Daryl Hall
- AlphaTheta’s CDJ-3000 gets an X upgrade that allows DJs to access their libraries with the tap of a smartphone
- “It serves as proof to me that performing Friday I’m In Love and Just Like Heaven with The Cure’s Robert Smith wasn’t a dream”: Olivia Rodrigo is releasing her highly acclaimed Glastonbury set on vinyl
- “It has one of the highest outputs of any passive humbucker, ever”: Seymour Duncan celebrates imminent release of Spinal Tap sequel with a custom pickup – and it has an “eye-watering” DCR reading of 111K
- "She comes up while I am talking to my wife, saying: ‘Hey, can Sebastian give me a hug?’": How a seemingly innocent request led to an explosive rant from potty-mouthed '80s rock hero Sebastian Bach
- “Why do we have such a need to finish songs? In a word: capitalism”: Is it OK to never actually complete your tracks?
- “I’m still in shock that he’s gone… I treasure every moment we shared”: Baroness confirm death of ex-drummer Allen Blickle
- "The iLoud Precision MKII redefines what's possible in modern monitoring": IK Multimedia upgrades its pro-level studio monitors with redesigned hardware and enhanced room correction
- “It doesn’t sound really wet… then suddenly you are in a huge chamber”: David Gilmour shares an essential tone tip for guitarists using a whammy bar with a delay pedal
- “Maybe I was being unprofessional, and, for sure, Mike feels that I was always unprofessional to him”: White Lotus composer wins Emmy for third time despite fallout with show’s creator
September 8
- “People sometimes expect me to be an audio snob because I exude ‘music snob’ sometimes, even though I’m not a snob. I’m not a snob at all": Laufey says she’s happy to make do with voice memo recordings and doesn’t pay much attention to the mics she uses
- “It's the pre-eminent instrument in the world. Every culture has accessed it and made something of their own of it” Andy Summers to co-produce and front new docu-series about the cultural impact of the guitar
- “We’ve like whittled it down to about 70 songs”: Colin Greenwood suggests Radiohead will have an anything-goes approach to the setlists for upcoming gigs
- “A fine example of modelling software, providing some really engaging sounds, particularly for the contemporary domain”: Expressive E Soliste review
- “I’m not trying to alienate my audience. As an artist in Deep Purple and even before Purple I was an R&B-based rock artist”: Glenn Hughes says he's still taking inspiration from David Bowie
- "Colossal response": Morrissey’s Smiths sale plot thickens as singer says email for potential buyers has been switched off
- “I think a certain amount of friction is inevitable when you’re involved in a creative process. It’s like two people are painting a picture on the same canvas”: How Rick Davies described the conflict that ruined Supertramp
- “We’re analog animals living in a digital age”: From AI-driven stage design to collaborating with Brian May, we speak with electronic icon Jean-Michel Jarre
- “Babies’ heart rates are 50% faster than adults', hence the drum ‘n’ bass”: Meet the DJ who’s produced the first rave album for babies
- MTV VMAs 2025: Doja Cat goes back to the ‘80s with a keytar and Kenny G as Yungblud, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Nuno Bettencourt perform a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne
- "I've never sung with no tuning before – this is really scary": PinkPantheress almost pulled out of Tiny Desk concert after being told she couldn't use Auto-Tune
- “The largest intellectual property theft in human history”: Big tech companies accused of scraping millions of copyrighted songs to train AI models
- “It was kinda like punk rockabilly. We were trying to bring Nebraska into the electric world”: Springsteen to release electric versions of some Nebraska tracks
September 7
- “I said, ‘Hey who are you going to get to sing it?’ and he said, ‘You’” When Avicii transformed an ‘Irish pub song’ into a generational anthem
September 6
- “If the point of Radiohead songs isn’t to make you feel good, what is their music for?”: A music professor breaks down the theory behind Radiohead's Let Down
- “If all you want is the classic T-Pain style heavy Auto-Tune sound, then look no further than the VX5”: HeadRush VX5 Vocal Processing Pedal with Antares Auto-Tune review
- "A stellar build complements a gorgeous aesthetic, and thankfully, it has the tones and playability to back it up": PRS SE Special Semi-Hollow review
- “Of course it was gonna be a hit! This song is one of the few tracks from that period of the Noughties that really is original. It’s got a super distinctive sonic signature”: Inside the making of a Queens Of The Stone Age classic
September 5
- Warm Audio promises studio-quality sound without the price tag with three new vintage-inspired condenser mics
- “It took five years to really finish the song and define what it truly was about”: How My Chemical Romance created their classic rock anthem Welcome To The Black Parade
- “Young men of high social status basically getting drunk in the evening and then attacking people on the streets of London": David Bowie’s secret theatrical project was to be set in 18th-century London
- "Please don't put it on the internet": Limp Bizkit tease new song with the help of a young drumming social media star
- “The high priests of conceptual rock!”: Every Rush studio album ranked – from worst to best
- “Crafted from 1.2oz of solid 18K gold, the hand-engraved crown is set with nine natural diamonds”: Gibson gives the “King of the Flat-Tops” a whole new meaning with the release of the $99,999 SJ-200 Monarch #100 Brazilian Rosewood
- “We know what love is. We spent 40 years figuring it out”: Foreigner pitch to be Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding band
September 4
- “If you’re looking to turn your guitar or bass into a completely different instrument, there’s no better way to do it than this”: Boss VG-800 V-Guitar Processor review
- "These places are legendary”: Sam Fender’s arena tour raises over £100,000 for UK’s small venues
- “It just went off into the universe and it left us thinking, where did it go?” The hunt for Paul McCartney’s stolen Höfner bass was one of music’s biggest mysteries – and now they are making a documentary about it
- “He had this toy, but one day he came to work and told us that the toy had become a man”: How an advanced drum machine saved a difficult Steely Dan album
- WAVS launches "first-of-its-kind" AI-powered sample discovery tool, AI Sample Finder
- “I’ve always been a huge fan of relics. They look like they have a story to tell”: Charvel and Rick Graham team up for new Pro-Mod series signature model, featuring a distressed nitro finish in a cult classic Fender colour
- "It's a classic... one of the best rock songs ever”: Which 2013 track could Brian May be talking about?
- “An interesting and creative potential solution to the current crisis”: Collective of grassroots promoters announces new festival and organisation
- "I am burnt out by any and all connections to Marr, Rourke, Joyce”: Morrissey says he wants to sell his half of the Smiths’ business interests
September 3
- “Creating the tribute to Randy Rhoads with the polka dots back in 2009 was something special, so it’s nice to pay homage with this”: Jackson and Phil Demmel salute late Ozzy guitarist with limited edition Pro Series signature King V
- “AI helped me create something I couldn't before”: BTO Kid, who spent 4 months in a coma, hails the technology that enabled him to express emotion
- “I want the guitar to play fast… to communicate a degree of aggression and forward-thinking”: Sterling By Music Man unveils affordable version of Tosin Abasi’s groundbreaking EBMM Kaizen signature model – and yes, there's a 7-string
- Revealed! (Some of) the lyrics to REM's It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
- “I plugged my guitar in, and it was just like instant feedback”: John McLaughlin on how his jam with Jimi Hendrix ended in “disaster”
- “Who knows where this will all lead?”: Radiohead confirm five European residences for November and December
- Ever wanted to knock up an ambient pad on the bus? Good news – you can now access the full version of Ableton’s Drift synth in Note and Move
- “Some of this stuff is harder to get hold of than rare analogue synths”: Why we’re in the midst of a vintage software revival
- “Unlocking the impossible without compromising on creative control”: iZotope Ozone 12 adds new machine learning modules and a more musician-friendly AI assistant
- “Once you finish your arrangement, remove two elements from it. Be brutal”: Why imposing hard limitations could be the secret to finishing more music
- "Just clip on to a leaf and play": Instruo's Pocket Scion is a handheld biofeedback synthesizer that makes music from nature
- “The first run sold out quickly, leaving fans clamouring for another chance at those iconic tones”: Good news for Randy Rhoads fans – his MXR Distortion+ is back, and you have got to see its stunning special edition “Concorde” finish
- “My father always thought you were a ... Thanks for proving him right": Which rock legend has been on the other end of a tongue-lashing from Ozzy Osbourne's son Jack?
- “A pristine direct interface and a killer built-in headphone amp to make sure that what you’re sending to the PA or recording rig is exactly what you intend to”: Strymon unveils the PCH Active Direct Interface – the missing link for your amp-less rig?
- Streaming prices to rise 'every 12-24 months', predicts finance report, as global music revenue set to double to $200 billion in next decade
September 2
- "The ability to use official Boss stompbox recreations in our DAW is here - and with that comes flexibility in terms of how, and what instruments they're applied to": Boss Effects Pedals plugin review
- “It’s analogous to Napster, for those who remember that”: Brian Wampler says digital modelling and profiling tech is taking “a big chunk” of the pedal and tube amp market
- “I said, ‘Rick, you think we should take a break?’ And he goes, ‘Oh yeah, we got it on tape three hours ago – we just like hearing you guys play!’”: ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons describes Rick Rubin as a “peculiar” kind of producer
- “The hardest hitting synthesized drums ever put in a plugin”: Baby Audio’s new drum synth Tekno isn’t pulling its punches
- David Byrne has shared his actual wedding playlist, featuring “buoyant instrumentals... that folks can ignore"
- "This is every last plugin we've ever made": Purafied Audio puts $473 plugin bundle up for $2.38 in response to Guitar Center pricing error
- “I have guitars at my cheese shop. You can come in and trade guitars for cheese, or vice versa”: Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel is open to swapping guitars for artisanal cheese – but here’s why you won’t sell him on amp modellers
- No cats were harmed in the making of Will Smith's AI controversy response
- “The most immersive, intuitive headphone amp on the market today”: Blackstar Amplification unveils the BEAM SOLO – has the Fender Mustang Micro Plus found a rival?
- Crazy Sheep? Anthrax become the latest victims of AI slop impostors
- "There is no one better to turn real humans on to new music than other real humans": Bandcamp launches subscribe-to-own music discovery service Clubs
- Stem separation! Splice integration! Ableton is playing catch-up with Live 12.3… but its best new features are the ones hidden beyond the headlines
September 1
- Murder investigation underway at Nevada’s Burning Man festival
- “That first record has a crazy amount of falsetto… definitely related to the drugs I was taking”: Damon Albarn lets slip secret about the debut Gorillaz album
- 5 creative ways to use distortion in Ableton Live: From punchier drums to dub techno delays
- I've been through Waves entire Labor Day plugin sale and these 5 gems at $34.99 each are unmissable - plus get 2 free when you buy 2
- “We went back to the castle, went down to the dungeon where we were set up, figured out what key we were gonna play in – and then Blackmore came up with that riff!”: Glenn Hughes recalls his magical time with Deep Purple in the ’70s
- “I haemorrhaged my vocal cords - they exploded... The doctor was like, ‘I’ve never seen a miracle like this’": Ava Max reveals how her vocal cords grew back – in a fortnight
- Sonicware’s retro Lofi-12 XT sampler’s v1.5 update makes it more creative and versatile than ever
- “I don’t know why I keep believing that I could keep a secret in Ireland”: Fatboy Slim secret gig cancelled after too many people find out about it
- Three of our highest-rated in-ear monitors just got a massive discount in the Thomann In-Ear Days sale - IEMs starting from just £91
- “The magic happens when you start adjusting its parameters, making every turn feel like a discovery”: The Doppler is a desktop FM synth designed for ‘ultra-tweakability’
- Scarlett 16i16 & 18i16: Powerful and portable interfaces with pro-grade sound and a bundle of creative tools