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April 2025
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290 articles
- April 30
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- “It's rare to encounter a song from the last 70 years that doesn’t involve it in some way”: Why reverb is one of the most reliable effects in a producer's arsenal
- “All the albums I did with Metallica were recorded on 24-track analogue tape. There’s not a computer in sight”: How Flemming Rasmussen produced Metallica’s classic Master Of Puppets
- “We could see John begin smiling. At the end of the first verse, he gave an exuberant thumbs-up and McCartney and Harrison began slapping each other on the back”: How one Beatles track spawned a recording technique revolution
- Bastl Instruments' Kastle 2 Wave Bard is a cute, patchable and experimental groovebox that fits in your pocket
- “An additive chorus effect that plays well as an ‘always-on’ tonal thickener with a twist”: Don’t sleep on Catalinbread’s Wake if you’re looking for dream pop tones on your pedalboard
- “If I’m going to write a song with an artist, I’m probably going to end up doing most of the work anyway, to be honest”: Super-songwriter Diane Warren on why she prefers to work alone, and can't understand it when "maybe an OK song" has "eight writers"
- “When you want a boring sound to sound rhythmic and exciting - reach for the delay”: How to understand and use delay effectively in your productions
- Neuzeit Instruments drops Drop, a snapshot-based MIDI and CV controller that's designed for... drops
- “He stopped writing, I think, because he just ran out. He had used that guitar neck up. He did everything and anything that neck could do”: Sammy Hagar explains Eddie Van Halen's lost years
- “Classic PRS aesthetics and a voice that blends warmth with bolt-on articulation”: PRS Guitars keeps the limited edition releases coming with the return of the CE22
- “Get the ideas out - and then look back with different ears or different eyes in a few months. Then the really good ones will stand out to you”: Tourist shares his music production wisdom
- April 29
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- “We tried to capture the heart of what a Gibson Custom guitar is, and I think we really have done it”: Epiphone expands and upgrades its flagship Gibson Custom collab with eight stunning vintage-inspired electrics
- “It's probably my Behringer Model D monosynth. So simple and obviously cheap, but it’s just so versatile. I’ve used it on basically every track that I’ve created”: 10 producers share the tech they can’t live without
- “No one noticed that half the playlist was AI-created, and a few even preferred the AI tracks”: Should today’s music-makers and producers fear AI - or embrace its inevitability?
- "With her on it, it got three times better": Watch Billy Idol and Avril Lavigne perform their new single, 77
- “I was shocked. That was the exact sound that I had been chasing for years”: Nirvana tone sleuth Aaron Rash solves his epic tone mystery and finds the guitar that Kurt Cobain used for In Utero
- “At full throttle, this speaker is capable of delivering room-filling volume without strain”: Alesis Strike Amp 12 MK2 review
- “I honestly can’t remember how my drum fill intro came to be. The stars aligned in the recording of that song”: The strange magic of the Spin Doctors’ ’90s mega hit Two Princes
- “Such an emotive player... so cool. I’ve always been really impressed”: As he names his 5 favourite guitarists, who could Finneas be talking about?
- “If you’re all about getting as close as possible to period-correct as you can for this price point, then you won’t be disappointed here”: Epiphone Inspired By Gibson Custom 1960 Les Paul Standard Reissue review
- “We can sidechain one track to another and make it so that the primary one ducks at the problem frequency range - a real timesaver!”: Digging into the enhanced abilities of today's EQ plugins to enhance your productions
- “If you’re a fascist, get a Tesla”: Neil Young debuts new song that takes aim at Elon Musk
- “I’ve always enjoyed working in an area where I feel out of control. I’m definitely more creative in that situation”: Thomas Dolby tells us about pushing himself in the studio - and inspiring the next generation
- “This upcoming tour will be the last time you get a chance to see me for quite sometime. I am going on a vacation”: Devin Townsend announces an indefinite break from touring – but it sounds like he's going to be keeping himself busy in the coming months
- "Live right up to the last breath and stay positive about the world, your family and the environment you live in": The Alarm’s Mike Peters has died aged 66
- “You do have to pay premium numbers. That's just life": Gene Simmons explains why he’s charging fans $12,000 to be a roadie for a day
- "I can clearly see how quickly things can come together when you have the right tools at your disposal": I tried both face-to-face lessons and Pianote to learn the piano in 8 weeks - here's how I got on
- Who could fill Chris Cornell’s Soundgarden shoes?: “It’s a high bar, not just technically, but emotionally”
- “They didn’t really know about recording. They didn’t know about overdubbing or about song structure or anything”: Producer John Porter on working with the Smiths on some of their most iconic tracks
- “The whole essence of why the sound was so interesting is because it is going from all to nothing in milliseconds”: The classic hit that defined the sound of the ’80s — and features the most famous drum break in rock
- “What I learned, I suppose, is just she's very good in the studio, and she knows what works”: Imogen Heap on Taylor Swift's "extremely efficient" songwriting and recording process
- “I want you to just dive in, use the music, and see what happens”: Moby makes 500 instrumental tracks available for free as he relaunches Mobygratis sound library
- “If you don’t start on time, that's not the musician’s problem”: Want to record some real musicians in your studio? Here’s how to prep for success
- April 28
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- “After every take, Mutt would say, ‘Check the tuning, man!’ This went on and on for almost a year. One day, I just gave him the guitar and said, ‘You tune it. I can’t take this anymore!’”: How legendary producer Mutt Lange drove the Cars half-mad
- “It provides the mix ‘glue’ that makes everything sound cohesive and finished”: Here's how to compress your mix bus for sonic punch
- “I remember thinking: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could ask Sting to sing that line?’ Suddenly someone said: ‘Sting’s here on holiday! He’s on the beach!’” How Mark Knopfler got lucky with Money For Nothing
- “I got to jam with Stevie Wonder. Just me and him, one afternoon. We each had a keyboard and we were just trading riffs and jamming together and it was like, ‘Wow’”: Howard Jones talks vintage gear, his new piano album and that 1985 Grammys synth medley
- “His studio was a temple to analogue, within which he made a point of always wearing a boiler suit”: 6 of the quirkiest producers who pushed recorded music further than ever before
- “A genuinely fun take on the classic distortion-slash-fuzz pedal”: Soma Laboratory Harvezi Hazze review
- IK Multimedia’s ARC Studio is a game-changing out-of-the-box acoustic room correction system that’s like an instant upgrade for your monitors - without the hassle of software-based solutions
- "There’s potential for a degree of chaos here": Cherry Audio Yellowjacket review
- “Do something with it. Mangle it. You have to be ruthlessly objective": Trevor Horn on his sampling and drum machine production mindset
- Splice acquires Spitfire Audio in rumoured $50m deal
- Cherry Audio at Producer Week 2025: Meet the Yellowjacket synthesizer - An entirely new breed
- Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2025 inductees revealed: The White Stripes, Outkast and Soundgarden make the cut, but Oasis, Billy Idol and The Black Crowes miss out
- Sonible at Producer Week 2025: From EQing and de-essing to limiting and beyond: Discover intelligent processing for smooth mixing workflows
- “Make sure your DAW's workflow doesn't impede your creativity - make it your customised, happy place to make music”: New to making tracks? Start here
- “It provided a blueprint for the ecosystem we swear by today”: How music production became accessible to all thanks to a handful of innovators
- Bitwig at Producer Week 2025: “The perfect way to expand Bitwig out of your computer and into the real world”: Why Bitwig Connect 4/12 is the final piece of their ultra-modern vision for music production
- u-he at Producer Week 2025: "Our plugins are not only fun to use, but they have more than enough depth to satisfy the most discerning musicians, composers and producers"
- “He’s all right, he’s on tip-top form. We can’t wait": Noel and Liam Gallagher perform together behind closed doors for the first time in 16 years
- April 27
- April 26
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- “It has the ingenious ability to give you easy routing to external hardware with no re-patching”: Audient iD48 review
- “If this was real, it would be really impressive. But since it’s not real, it’s really impressive": Watch the bonkers four-note piano
- Watch UK electronic artist Lawrence Hart build a track from scratch in his hardware-stuffed studio
- AC/DC - ranked! All 17 studio albums, from worst to best
- April 25
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- “He seems to access a different part of his vast library of music genre from the jukebox-in-his-head! This album is a round-the-world musical trip”: Joe Bonamassa announces new album, Breakthrough – listen to the title-track now
- "The Rehearsal is compact, does its one job well, and is easy to navigate without needing instructions": Walrus Audio Canvas Rehearsal review
- “The EP635 delivers the unmistakable high-gain aggression and clarity that Engl fans love”: Engl packs its iconic Fireball head into a compact dual-channel stompbox with onboard noise gate and IR support
- "There had to be some sort of telepathy going on because I've never seen spontaneous inspiration happen at that level”: The genius of Eric Clapton's controversial masterpiece, Layla
- "I said, ‘What’s that?!’ He looked at me strange and said, ‘We’re line checking. We’ll be gone in five minutes’. I said, ‘You won’t - meet me in that room in 10 minutes’": How a happy synth accident inspired a US number 1 single for Terence Trent D’Arby
- “This was 100% a communication from the beyond": Listen to the song that Sammy Hagar claims to have written with Eddie Van Halen in a dream
- “I’m imagining it was a very dry, kind of arid, close sound”: Steven Wilson on the challenges of mixing Pink Floyd At Pompeii – MCMLXXII, how the movie captures a band in transition, and why it is “pure Floyd”
- “Thank God I was French and my voice was terrible, so I couldn’t write songs - otherwise I would be like any other musician”: Air's Nicolas Godin reflects on the success of Moon Safari
- MusicRadar deals of the week: Score £900 off a Gibson Les Paul Standard, £350 off the Adam Jones Epiphone Les Paul Custom and hundreds off Fender, Squier and EVH
- “I wanted to design a pedal range that’ll last 10, 20, 30, 40 years... It could be something you could bequeath to those you love”: Exquisite stompboxes, built to last a lifetime, meet Red Witch’s Apothecary Series
- “91% believe dynamic pricing should be outlawed”: Music fans have spoken: The Music Fans Voice survey has just released its results
- The obscure Andean instrument heard on The Last of Us' soundtrack is the star of Spitfire Audio's latest plugin
- April 24
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- "MC5 were playing on the radio": Pere Ubu founder David Thomas has died after “a long illness", aged 71
- "An unholy amount of features in a standard-sized compact pedal": Mooer Prime Minimax M2 Intelligent Pedal review
- “The most musical, unique and dynamic distortion effects I’ve ever used”: Linkin Park reveal the secret weapon behind their From Zero guitar tone – and it was designed by former Poison guitarist Blues Saraceno’s dad
- Arturia’s V Collection gets a Roland JP-8000 emulation and lo-fi synth/sampler, along with five more instruments and a host of updates
- “Nope, it’s real”: Jack Black and Keanu Reeves both confirmed for upcoming Weezer movie
- “An amazing piece of history from the British blues scene”: Robert Plant is selling a trove of gear for charity – including a John Birch-modded ‘62 Stratocaster with two switches that once belonged to Stan Webb of Chicken Shack
- “I was like ‘Wow, Coldplay were definitely listening to Radiohead and trying to make their version of it’": Porter Robinson says that he only recently discovered that Coldplay used to sound a bit like Radiohead
- Why is tennis superstar Serena Williams being bombarded with microphones fired from confetti cannons? Allow us to explain…
- Carlos Santana collapses and then cancels second show “out of an abundance of caution”
- “Every post feels like a test. If it flops I feel like a failure”: 61% of DJs feel that their social media presence is more important than their skill
- April 23
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- “This update reflects everything we believe modern gear should be”: Neural DSP gives the Nano Cortex an almighty power-up with free NanOS 2.0.0 system update
- “It’s honestly got me thinking hard about adding one to my own studio set up”: Two Notes Reload II review
- “Gloriously adorned with a gold edge burst finish over a gold paisley and sparkle top”: Gretsch unveils the Paisley Penguin – a rare bird that growls – and the Honey Dipper Special, a resonator for all your roots rock manoeuvres
- “It’s radical. It’s like magic. I get chills”: How Rick Rubin’s philosophy of chance led System of a Down to the first metal masterpiece of the 21st century
- “A guitar with the same style and massive sound Eddie Van Halen created all at an affordable price”: EVH Gear reimagines the Wolfgang Standard as a high-performance shredder with a TOM bridge
- “I just treated it like I treat my 4-track… It sounds exactly like what I was used to getting with tape”: How Yves Jarvis recorded his whole album in Audacity, the free and open-source audio editor
- Waves makes 7 plugins available for free, including convolution reverb, FM synth and tube saturator
- "I’ll let y’all know how rehab is. I hear it’s super fun": Drunk on stage - our pick of music’s most legendary under-the-influence performances
- “So I’m standing in the vocal booth one night and I felt Johnny’s presence. I am not a woo-woo, but I felt his presence pushing me": Sheryl Crow says it felt like Johnny Cash was with her when she recorded her vocals for their posthumous duet
- “Chris, that’s not how it goes”: Chris Martin does his best Bruno Mars impression as Rosé joins Coldplay on stage to perform APT in South Korea
- “OMG the cops are shutting us down!”: Lorde’s impromptu New York Washington Square Park gig just got axed by police
- "Fender will not get preferential treatment": Reverb has been sold by Etsy to investors in Fender and SoundCloud - but says its partnership with the guitar manufacturer "remains unchanged"
- “If they were ever going to do the story of Nero, probably the most decadent of all the emperors, they would have to use Roy Thomas Baker”: Tributes to the legendary producer of Queen, Alice Cooper, Journey and more, who has died aged 78
- April 22
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- “Built from the same sacred stash of NOS silicon transistors and germanium diodes, giving it the soul – and snarl – of the original”: An octave-fuzz cult classic returns as Jam Pedals resurrects the Octaurus
- What’s the buzz? Meet Yellowjacket, Cherry Audio's recreation of EDP’s trend-setting Wasp from 1978
- “A fabulous trip through all eight songs by 24 wonderful artists and remixers... way beyond anything I could have hoped for”: Robert Smith announces new Cure remix album
- “He knows what I'm thinking and feeling before I even know it": Billie Eilish suggests that she and brother Finneas can read each other's minds
- “A purpose-built solution for bassists seeking unparalleled sound-shaping capabilities”: Darkglass Electronics unveils the Anagram Bass Workstation – a state-of-the-art multi-effects for bass guitar with neural amp model support and a 7” touchscreen
- TikTok posts using dance and electronic music outgrow indie and alternative for the first time
- "As digital pianos occupy a lot of horizontal space, contrasting this by maximising the vertical space will help to balance the area stylistically": 8 tips and tricks from a design expert to style a digital piano
- “If you’re writing with likes, engagement and streams firmly in your mind, you’re setting yourself up to fail”: Why you should never view music-making as a job
- Prince’s Purple Rain follow-up came out of leftfield, but did it derail his career?
- GAK is gone: UK music store giant GAK just got bought by Gear4music for £2.4 million
- “It pretty much half killed us. Whether the band would continue was in the balance”: The Radiohead album that almost broke up the band, turned the music industry on its head - and became their best record
- “It is ingrained with my artwork, an art piece that I had done years ago called Sunburst”: Serj Tankian and the Gibson Custom Shop team up for limited edition signature Foundations Les Paul Modern
- “Even my cat is disappointed in me”: Deadmau5 gets drunk at Coachella, falls over, is escorted off stage by security, and apologises
- “The last thing Billy and I wanted to do was retread and say, ‘Hey, let’s do another Rebel Yell.’ We’ve already done that”: Guitar hero Steve Stevens lifts the lid on the new Billy Idol album
- "This $399 item will incur over $578 in additional import charges": Price of Sonicware CyDrums drum machine more than doubles thanks to Trump tariffs
- “For guitarists who crave an unrelenting, aggressive tone that stands out in any mix”: The Fortin Meshuggah head is the amp every metal player wants – now you can get its crushing tones in a pedal
- “At least you know I sing live”: Lady Gaga apologises to fans as she falls victim to a mic malfunction during her second weekend set at Coachella
- “I got a call saying, ‘Robert Plant is going to call you.’ What?!”: How Alison Krauss made sweet music with the Led Zeppelin legend
- How we test digital pianos
- Zak Starkey is back in The Who. “I take responsibility for some of the confusion… Zak made a few mistakes and he has apologised”, says Pete Townshend
- April 21
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- “We were arguing a lot and we were miserable”: How Green Day exceeded expectations with their most ambitious song
- "There’s plenty for us guitarists to learn – and ‘less is more’ is the overriding lesson": how to play like George Harrison on The Beatles' Abbey Road
- “They didn’t like his bikini underwear”: Prince’s support sets for the The Rolling Stones in 1981 are remembered as disastrous, but guitarist Dez Dickerson says that the the crowd reaction wasn’t as bad as people think
- “He jerry-rigged this insane swamp cooler system... The board could have easily overheated and we would have lost everything”: How Blood Incantation created a cosmic death metal masterpiece as the legendary Hansa Studios headed towards meltdown
- “Delivers streamlined DAW integration with an excellent hammer action keyboard”: Arturia Keylab 88 Mk3 review
- “I have an original 909 – every time I try to use it I feel like I’m ruining it”: House hero Riva Starr on his studio essentials and his love of analogue synths
- April 20
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- “A synthesizer that is both easy to use and fun to play whilst maintaining a decent degree of programming depth and flexibility”: PWM Mantis review
- “I feel like that song had everything we needed to come back with”: Bring Me The Horizon’s Lee Malia on Shadow Moses, its riff and the secrets behind its tone, and why it was the right anthem at the right time
- “I said, ‘Are we sure we can write a song about death?’”: The story of Mike + The Mechanics' classic No.1 The Living Years
- “Without investment in music education our talent pipeline is at risk of drying up along with the huge opportunities for economic growth it brings”: UK Music draws up five point plan to “turbocharge” music education
- April 19
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- “How daring to have a long intro before he’s even singing. It’s like psychedelic Mozart”: With The Rose Of Laura Nyro, Elton John and Brandi Carlile are paying tribute to both a 'forgotten' songwriter and the lost art of the long song intro
- “The verse tricks you into thinking that it’s in a certain key and has this ‘simplistic’ musical language, but then it flips”: Charli XCX’s Brat collaborator Jon Shave on how they created Sympathy Is A Knife
- “It shows enough promise to become the controller to rule them all”: Melbourne Instruments Roto-Control review
- “I parted company with my trusty Fender Strat, previously owned by Lemmy, and part exchanged it for a flute. It just looked nice and shiny!”: How Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson became rock’s leading one-legged flautist
- April 18
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- “Sometimes I am two people. Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble. They fight”: How Johnny Cash drew on his own experiences to make his greatest songs
- “For those on the hunt for a great quality 12-string electro-acoustic that won’t break the bank, it's a no-brainer”: Martin X Series Remastered D-X2E Brazilian 12-String review
- “I have that on more records than anything else”: Take a peek inside Vaughn Oliver’s studio
- “Wendy Carlos is able to build precisely the sound that she wants”: Watch synth pioneer Wendy Carlos in the studio, working Moog magic back in 1989
- “It was originally called Everybody Wants To Go To War, which I knew didn’t work. When you’re a songwriter who doesn’t like the lyric, the song dies”: How Tears For Fears created an ’80s mega-hit
- “No real sense of love coming from the festival toward the people… Just vibes curated for influencer culture”: Reggie Watts just summed up everyone's Coachella experience
- Ed Sheeran’s plagiarism court case forced him to hand over his old phone as evidence. Now he’s got a new single out of it
- “Do you dare to ditch those ‘normal’ beats in favour of hands-on tweaking and extreme sounds? Of course, you do”: Sonicware CyDrums review
- “She opened her mouth, and out came that orgasmic sound we know and love”: How a feat of spontaneous creativity resulted in one of Pink Floyd’s most majestic moments
- “It didn’t feel like being in the room with a 17-year-old. I’d try something and she’d say, ‘You might want to reconsider that.’ And she’d be right”: Songwriter Eg White on how Adele took some “very boring chords” and turned them into an “explosive” hit
- “I oversaw every element - not just the music and the lyrics and the melodies and the production, but also the merch and the fan clubs and everything”: Mike Portnoy talks about his years away from Dream Theater
- We didn't think we needed a compact 4-octave acoustic piano that can also work as a MIDI keyboard, but the super-cute Keybird L1 might have convinced us otherwise
- April 17
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- "That's what it takes to make music that's gonna last forever": Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan producer Daniel Nigro on crafting timeless tracks
- “A fully playable electro-mechanical synth voice that tracks the pitch of your playing in real time”: Gamechanger Audio unveils the Motor Pedal – a real synth pedal with a “multi-modal gas pedal”
- “It was the first kind of rock monster that we'd created”: How an explosive 2001 switch-up revealed just how ferocious Muse could get
- “I don’t think they’re New Order. They don’t sound anything like them”: Peter Hook takes aim at his estranged bandmates
- “From a music production perspective, I really like a lot of what Equinox is capable of – it’s a shame it's priced for the post-production market”: iZotope Equinox review
- “I’m beyond excited to introduce the next evolution of the MT15”: PRS announces refresh of tube amp lineup with the all-new Archon Classic and a high-gain power-up for the Mark Tremonti lunchbox head
- "You can repurchase if it works for your schedule": Fyre 2, Billy McFarland’s ‘luxury’ festival is postponed indefinitely
- “I actually specifically remember making a deal with myself": Billie Eilish reveals what she had to do in order to become “looser and jazzier” with her vocal delivery
- “These guitars travel around the world and they need to be road ready”: Jackson gives Misha Mansoor’s Juggernaut a new lick of paint, an ebony fingerboard and upgrades to stainless steel frets in signature model refresh
- “I’m surprised and saddened anyone would have an issue with my performance that night”: Zak Starkey explains why he got fired from The Who
- “These tariff actions will have a long-term effect on musicians worldwide”: The CEO of NAMM urges Trump to dump tariffs on components of musical instruments
- April 16
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- Brace yourself: Bryan Adams didn’t buy his first real six-string in a five and dime
- “Nobody listens to one genre. I literally don’t know anybody who listens to one genre. You can be a fan of so many different artists at once”: Laufey on what Gen Z can teach the rest of us about how to appreciate music
- Bon Iver - ranked: from Sable, Fable to For Emma, Forever Ago
- "We were sampling Steve Winwood in between bong rips on my OP-1": How Bon Iver met Haim backstage at a music festival - and ended up collaborating a decade later
- “Non-stop heavy bass music... Almost inhumane and a form of torture": Psytrance festival is cancelled after a grand total of 11 complaints
- "I didn't know you could change the tempo in Pro Tools, so I just made all my songs at 120bpm": Super-producer Benny Blanco reveals the surprising reason why most of his early hits are the same tempo
- The Curse of Coachella: Bad sound, bad gigs and even worse audiences - Is Coachella now the worst festival in the world?
- “FORMAL CHARGES OF OVERPLAYING": Zak Starkey has been sacked from The Who
- They’re [heavily rumoured to be] back… Could Daft Punk be reforming for a residency inside Fortnite?
- April 15
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- “Chinese Democracy was a boring record. But calling it Guns N' Roses was not honest. It was totally a solo record”: GN’R’s ex manager takes aim at Axl Rose
- “Instead of labouring over a perfect recreation, we decided to make an expanded counterpart”: Chase Bliss teams up with Mike Piera for Analog Man collab based on the legendary King Of Tone
- “It’s about delivering the most in-demand mods straight from the factory”: Fender hot-rods itself as the Player II Modified Series rolls out the upgrades – and it got IDLES to demo them
- “For some reason, the post office shipped your guitar to Jim Root of Slipknot”: Sweetwater mailed a metal fan's Jackson guitar to a metal legend
- "No one phoned me. They never contacted me and I thought, 'Well, I'm not going to bother contacting them either'": Ex-Judas Priest drummer Les Binks has died aged 73
- With the same mesh-head playability and powerful new Strata module as its bigger brothers, Alesis Strata Club brings a new compact form to its best-selling range
- “An incredible experience that went beyond just teaching music”: The UK’s biggest free music making weekend is extended to four days
- “This time it’s all about creativity… Go crazy. Do whatever you wanna do with it”: Budding luthiers, assemble! Harley Benton’s DIY Kit Challenge is now open and there are prizes to be won
- "At first the tension was unbelievable. Johnny was really cold, Dee Dee was OK but Joey was a sweetheart": The story of the Ramones' recording of Baby I Love You
- "This is the amp that defined what electric guitar sounds like": Universal Audio releases its UAFX Woodrow '55 pedal as a plugin, putting an "American classic" in your DAW
- "Yamaha has achieved an extraordinary level of immersiveness and realism, crafting an instrument that sounds closer to an acoustic piano and feels like one under your fingers": Yamaha Clavinova CLP-885 digital piano review
- April 14
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- With its latest free update, Ableton has finally turned Note into the app I always wanted it to be
- Technically capable, but struggle to make your tunes sound musical? 5 simple music theory hacks to make your tracks stand out
- "Despite its size, it delivers impressive audio quality and premium functions as well as featuring a good selection of inspired sounds": Roland GO:Piano 88PX review
- The man Neil Peart called his "six favourite drummers": Wrecking Crew legend Hal Blaine
- Play mono synth properly: the skills you need
- “I called out to Mutt and said, ‘How about this?’... It was a complete fluke": How Def Leppard created a rock anthem - with a little bit of divine intervention
- Baby Audio's Smooth Operator spectral balancing plugin goes pro
- "It was ugly, like watching a divorce between four people. After a while, I had to get out": Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick on the recording of Abbey Road, track-by-track
- "I said, “What’s that?” and they said, “It’s what Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien use on all the Michael Jackson records": Steve Levine reminisces on 50 years in the industry and where it’s heading next
- April 13
- April 12
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- YouTube just added AI tools that makes musicians, library music and video editors redundant
- “Every one of them said yes without hesitation": Hank Marvin and Roger Taylor have just remade a '60s classic for charity
- Do you know where your money goes when you buy a gig ticket? A new report breaks it down
- April 11
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- “Every note counts and fits perfectly”: Kirk Hammett names his best Metallica solo – and no, it’s not One or Master Of Puppets
- “Its mission is simple: unleash the power of any amplifier or line-level source without compromise”: Two Notes promises a “watershed” in tube amp control with the Torpedo Reload II
- “I’m looking forward to breaking it in on stage”: Mustard will be headlining at Coachella tonight with a very exclusive Native Instruments Maschine MK3, and there’s custom yellow Kontrol S49 MIDI keyboard, too
- “The thing from the agency said, ‘We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da...' and at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3 & 1/4 seconds long’“: Brian Eno’s Windows 95 start-up sound added to the US Library of Congress
- MusicRadar deals of the week: Enjoy a mind-blowing $600 off a full-fat Gibson Les Paul, £500 off Kirk Hammett's Epiphone Greeny, and so much more
- “To be honest, I feel like I am playing a high-end Gibson guitar”: Epiphone and Guitar Center team up for a colourful riff on a cult classic with the limited edition run Les Paul Custom Widow
- “I can write anything... Just tell me what you want. You want death metal in C? Okay, here it is. A little country and western? Reggae, blues, whatever”: Yngwie Malmsteen on classical epiphanies, modern art and why he embraces the cliff edge
- “We’re still avoiding him to this day... we would just despise him after a while”: Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne is not a Billy Corgan fan
- April 10
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- “KIKI BOY 2025”: Frank Ocean appears to be teasing something... or other
- “This is great. I knew I was getting to them! I’m so happy. It’s such a good feeling”: Spotify bites back at Kate Nash
- “The included sample content is not only unique but sonically amazing, as it always was”: Spitfire Audio BBC Radiophonic Workshop review
- “Don't kill him - he's Beatle Paul!”: The dramatic birth of Paul McCartney’s greatest post-Beatles song
- I’ve looked through all 372 deals in the Thomann Easter Sale - these are the 5 deals I’d grab right now
- “Beyond its beauty, the cocobolo contributes to the guitar’s overall projection and sustain”: Cort’s stunning new Gold Series acoustic is a love letter to an exotic tone wood
- Guitar Center’s massive Guitar-A-Thon sale has landed, and it includes $600 off a Gibson Les Paul and a host of exclusive models from Epiphone, Taylor, and more
- Has Fyre really gone out?: Billy McFarland’s festival will be limited to just 250 guests and just 12 hours of music
- “Not quite my cup of tea… I feel like I’d hear this on iHeartRadio or something”: Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon takes to the streets of New York to play people his new album… and nobody knows who he is
- “Your full-scale companion. Anytime. Anywhere… the perfect companion to your full-size Martin”: Meet the Junior Series, the new small-bodied, travel-friendly acoustic range from Martin
- Teenage Engineering drops knockout update for its EP-133 K.O. II sampler, bringing much-requested features like resampling, song mode and increased polyphony
- “I love this version better than mine!!”: Sheryl Crow sings Kelly Clarkson’s praises after watching her cover her breakthrough ‘90s hit
- “I’m drawn to melody and drama - AOR and yacht rock”: Tobias Forge says the new Ghost album combines smooth ’80s sounds with Black Sabbath-inspired lyrics
- “They perform incredibly well over many decades, just like I have and of course they're incredibly good-looking, just like me”: Alice Cooper launches his own limited edition reel-to-reel tape recorder
- “Thom was like ‘No, get rid of all of that - you’ve lost what’s good about it!’”: Mark Pritchard tells us how he and Thom Yorke made the sublime Tall Tales
- April 9
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- “Tonight is for Clem and it’s for friendship. An amazing man and a friend of the lads”: Sex Pistols dedicate Sydney show to Clem Burke
- "Yes, its small proportions mean it’s somewhat restricted tonally, but forget what it can’t do and concentrate on the areas where it excels.": Gibson L-00 Special review
- “A well spec’d device that bridges the gap between a basic stereo field recorder and a more advanced multitrack device”: Zoom H4 Essential review
- Learn production, DJing and songwriting from pros like Fraser T Smith, Carl Cox, Skream and Joe Goddard with Whatclass
- Native Instruments’ Kontrol S MK3 MIDI keyboards just added several features that DAWless music producers have been asking for
- “You're by far the best guy that we've tried. I would love to have you in the band”: So why did Trent Reznor turn down Richie Kotzen for Nine Inch Nails?
- “If you've got one follower or 10 million, that doesn't matter. What's really important is the quality of the music”: Dr Dubplate on the "gatekeeper mentality" in club culture
- Who Wants To Live Forever? The composer still creating music from beyond the grave
- "The demo had my singing on it. When I played it to the band, the look on their faces said, 'We’re in trouble, boys'": Mike Rutherford and producer Chris Neil remember the making of Mike & The Mechanics' All I Need Is A Miracle
- Trump’s tariffs: What’s the real cost to music and how come K-Pop is weathering the storm?
- “He always had like this contemptuous smirk on his face whenever he was dealing with me like he thought I was a chimp or something”: White Lotus creator Mike White responds to the show’s composer’s claim that he’s quitting
- Why Perry Farrell didn’t want Green Day on the Lollapalooza bill: “He was like, ‘They’re a boy band. I don’t want to book a boy band’”
- Is this our first sighting of Ed Sheeran's top-secret new Looper X, as he continues his global busking jaunt?
- “I like guitars that don’t just appeal to metal players”: Jackson and Bring Me The Horizon’s Lee Malia team up for the Pro Series LM-87, a shreddable Surfcaster-style electric with a humbucker/P-90 pairing
- e-instruments’ Slower is the laidback software instrument that could put your music on the fast track to success
- “Just so if ever that happens again, I’m like ‘here’s the proof that I wrote it’”: Ed Sheeran reveals that post-copyright cases, he now films every recording session
- April 8
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- “Almost a lifetime ago, a few Burnage lads got together and created something special. Something that time can’t out date”: Original Oasis drummer Tony McCarroll pens a wistful message out to his old bandmates
- “A high-quality solution for capturing your drums”: Sennheiser MD 421 Kompakt review
- “I need to build a sound of my own that has the power that I want”: Floating Points hates festival sound systems so much that he’s invented his own
- “I had a blast. Thank you”: Original Beatles drummer Pete Best retires, aged 83
- Cre8audio releases two super-affordable, modular-friendly bits of gear in one day: the Boom Chick analogue drum machine and Assembler mixer
- “The humbuckers give it so much power and such a wide variety of tones while the destruct button really sets it apart from just about any other Tele”: Fender unveils the Mike Campbell “Red Dog” Telecaster
- Don’t miss this record-breaking 100-Hour DJ marathon livestream fundraiser featuring 90 artists
- “I had to say ‘No, guys I swear we’re a real band’”: South Arcade on how they became the figureheads of a growing Y2K revival
- “A pedal that sings with harmonic richness and blooming touch response”: Tone King offers up boutique tube amp tones for your pedalboard with the Imperial Preamp
- “It was the most disgusting thing I could ever imagine. It makes me sick just thinking of it!” The Cars’ guitarist Elliot Easton recalls the worst thing that ever happened to him on stage
- “I really thought I was going to die... and it absolutely was so freeing”: Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus talks surviving cancer and his band’s resurrection
- “From the very start of his social media rise Giacomo has been using other people’s compositions”: Social media guitar influencer Giacomo Turra accused of using other musicians’ arrangements and passing them off as his own
- “We finally buried the hatchet!!!”: 20 years after he accused her of miming and called her “a fairground stripper”, Elton John and Madonna are speaking to each other again
- “I didn’t think people would mind that I didn’t play it, but it became a problem. I got myself into a pickle”: Clairo says it was Charli XCX who convinced her to perform one of her most popular songs again
- "I've analyzed hundreds of players over the years. They're all a part of what I do": Clem Burke's 10 essential drum albums
- April 7
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- “This is a beautiful, well-executed Les Paul, and that’s the sort of guitar you tend to hold onto for life. That’s as sound an investment as there is”: Gibson Les Paul Standard ‘50s Double Trouble review
- “We were able to fire up a bass sound that was indistinguishable from the flavour of New Order’s Blue Monday in seconds”: EastWest Sounds Iconic review
- “How long did it take me to get over it? Oh, quite a while”: Brian May on the “supreme injustice” of Roger Taylor’s Queen B-side "making as much money as Bohemian Rhapsody"
- “Clem was not just a drummer; he was the heartbeat of Blondie. He was a source of inspiration both on and off the stage”: Clem Burke, drummer for Blondie, dead at 70
- “We’ve been so very lucky to have had the Ace of Bass in our lives:” Dave Allen, bassist for post-punk legends Gang Of Four, has died
- “I said, ‘Wow, Jeff Beck has really taken it to the next level.’ But then I realised, ‘Wait a minute - this isn’t Jeff Beck!’”: Steve Stevens reveals his two all-time favourite guitar solos
- “I thought it would be funny to sing my own song, but the longer it went, the less people thought it was funny”: How Billy Corgan killed the vibe on a karaoke night
- “Give it up for Neil Finn!”: Dua Lipa sings a Crowded House classic on her Radical Optimism tour - and brings out its writer to perform it with her
- Aphex Twin's MIDI-modded Yamaha GX-1 goes up for sale for almost £100,000
- “It really has to be heard to be believed”: Why Dreamtonics’ Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro is the ultimate virtual vocalist
- April 5
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- “Let them wallow in Walt Disney woke expectations”: John Lydon’s message to the reformed Sex Pistols
- “Entrance Song is a massive 808 sub and a 909 kick. Those two shouldn’t work together - I’m not sure they were even in key”: Eats Everything on his ever-changing approach to production and DJing
- “Turns out they weigh more than I thought... #tornthisway”: Mark Ronson injures himself trying to move a stage monitor
- April 4
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- “Stealing the work, art and livelihoods of lyricists, songwriters and composers”: Ivors Academy warns Suno AI over its ‘lyrics generator’
- “I was like, ‘Man, I hated your band. You ended my thing’”: Bill Burr told Eddie Vedder that he hated Pearl Jam because they “knocked out” ‘80s hair metal
- "I remember showing up at 10 or 11 in the morning and working on solos and that leading to two or three o’clock in the morning the next day”: How Metallica beat the clock and battled fatigue to create a poignant and pulverising anti-war epic
- How one hardware addition can take your recording setup from 'bedroom' to 'pro’
- “His legacy as one of the world’s greatest guitar players will one day soon be celebrated by many, and that makes us so proud”: On what would have been his 73rd birthday, work begins on a Belfast statue of guitar legend Gary Moore
- SampleRadar: 267 free deep house samples
- “For one reason or another, something I felt was missing" Springsteen to launch 7 new/old albums including 74 unreleased songs
- Roland’s JC-120 Software Effect puts the pristine tones of the legendary Jazz Chorus amplifier in your DAW
- “That was the first time where I was actually, like, really, really, really humbled”: Bon Iver’s new album features a collaboration with Mk.gee, a musician who “reignited something” in him when he watched him play with Dijon on tour
- “Each and every unit is perfectly dialled in to the 'sweet spot' that can be so elusive to find in vintage pedals”: Pigtronix’s Gas Giant is a high-gain fuzz pedal with a FET-driven onboard noise gate
- “I didn’t bring a belt”: Watch Jack Black's air-shreddin’, tongue-wagglin’, pants-fallin’ Tonight Show entrance
- April 3
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- “When he got in front of the microphone, he sang his balls off. I’d never seen him happier”: How David Bowie stared down death itself for his final left-turn
- “A classical guitar for the modern era”: Harley Benton unveils the Custom Line Nashville Nylon BK, and its latest nylon-string electro-acoustic hybrid is a super-affordable thinline that's designed to welcome electric players
- “Heritage Cherry Sunburst on the archetypical Gibson workhorse acoustic, Tri Burst on its high-luxury jumbo? They look the part”: Gibson expands finish options on its J-45 Standard and SJ-200 Standard
- “Prince just grabbed ideas out of the air and left you wondering: ‘Where did you get that?”: Chaka Khan says that she’ll be releasing a new album of songs that she recorded with Prince and Larry Graham
- Happy 404 Day: Roland's latest SP-404 MKII update transforms its legendary sampler into a Serato DJ controller
- “Every single song a single, every single a hit, every hit a direct hit in the face of the man”: The Hives big up their new Mike D-co-produced record
- “Analogue is better than digital, Behringer gear is garbage, and your cheap-ass monitors are ruining your mixes”: 10 of the most persistent music tech myths busted
- “I don’t think everybody was really aware of how attached people were to the ooh-loo-loo-loos”: White Lotus composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer on the reaction to his season 3 theme and why he won’t be returning for season 4
- "We got forced and twisted for a mainstream audience to turn the guitar down": Ronnie Wood bemoans technology’s impact on music
- “She’s my number one, my greatest living singer - and she’s a huge fan of Charli’s”: Bon Iver on sampling one of his heroes for his Charli XCX remix
- Softube’s latest plugins are a pair of must-have vocal effects – and right now you can grab them as a bargain introductory bundle
- “Once the custom shops came out, everyone was talking about them:” Jackson and Revocation’s David Davidson just dropped the hottest metal guitar of 2025 – the Warrior WR7
- “I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminium blanket”: Neil Young fears that he may be barred from re-entering the US
- April 2
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- "It’s a piece of music software history": ReCycle gets recycled as Reason Studios makes the classic sample editor available as a free download
- “The verse tricks you into thinking that it’s in a certain key and has this ‘simplistic’ musical language, but then it flips”: Charli XCX’s Brat collaborator Jon Shave on how they created Sympathy Is A Knife
- “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all!”: Was Bon Jovi’s 1989 acoustic performance really the inspiration for MTV Unplugged?
- Behringer's 2-XM Oberheim Two Voice clone is now available for pre-order
- “We love you guys. Without Kraftwerk we would not find our own robot style, being on stage with the helmets, you know”: How a fake Daft Punk fooled Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flür into a collaboration
- “I’m in search of a badass rock guitar player. If you’re young-ish, cute-ish and can play that axe, you’re for me”: Chaka Khan wants a new “powerhouse guitarist”
- Will Smith reveals the advice Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar gave to him before his music comeback
- April 1
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- “It's transparent when not in operation, crisp when looping, and handles high-gain and complex audio sources with ease”: TC Electronic Ditto 2 Looper review
- “Instead of pairing a new booster inside this new pedal, think of it as changing lanes inside the pedal”: Mythos and That Pedal Show team up for the Argo Boost Deluxe – an octave fuzz with a switchable boost
- “I didn’t even realise it had synthesizer on it for decades”: This deep dive into The Beatles' Here Comes The Sun reveals 4 Moog Modular parts that we’d never even noticed before
- “I saw people in the audience holding up these banners: ‘SAMMY SUCKS!' 'WE WANT DAVE!’”: How Sammy Hagar and Van Halen won their war with David Lee Roth
- “We’re looking at the movie going, ‘Urgh! It’s kinda cheesy. I don’t know if this is going to work”: How Chris Hayes wrote Huey Lewis and the News’ Back To The Future hit Power Of Love in his pyjamas
- “I thought it’d be a big deal, but I was a bit taken aback by just how much of a big deal it was”: Noel Gallagher finally speaks about Oasis ticket chaos
- Uli Behringer speaks out on Behringer's pricing strategy: "Our competitors say 'how much could I charge and get away with it?' We take the cost, add a small margin and that's the sale price"
- “Some people were questioning if I knew the genre and did my research, I guess because I’m young”: PinkPantheress says that having her authenticity doubted by dance music purists “was a bit annoying”
- “I have never felt so ashamed to be onstage. If I never see you again, it's too soon!”: When John McLaughlin laid into Jaco Pastorius after an onstage meltdown
- “Over the past three decades, his partnership with Martin has produced some of the most sought-after signature guitars in the company’s history”: Martin recreates Eric Clapton’s MTV Unplugged acoustic for limited edition anniversary run
- “I can assure you there is still plenty left to explore and I think we found a way to do that”: On-screen Fab Four actors and release plan confirmed