Features archive

July 2025

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49 articles

July 19
- “I was shaking. I had sweat pouring down my back. Miles saw me suffering and said, ‘Play it like you don’t know how to play guitar!’”: How legendary guitarist John McLaughlin survived a baptism of fire with Miles Davis
July 18
- “I gave it to Michael, he said ‘fantastic’ and he wrote that lyric in one stream of consciousness. I would say that song was written in about ten minutes”: How spontaneity was the key for INXS to create a funky No.1 hit
July 17
- “He really didn’t like it the first time we played it”: The controversial Radiohead hit that launched two lawsuits and ended up being performed by Prince
- “I said, ‘Eureka! ...You’ve found that elusive thing, a low-watt amp which reacts perfectly to a guitar”: Sundragon and Jimmy Page team up for the Nymph, a single-watt tube combo for nailing Led Zep tones at home
- “I remember Eddie Van Halen asking me, ‘What’s wrong with you? Where’s that fire, dude?’ But I didn’t want to explain it to him”: George Lynch, the guitar hero who connected with EVH but got burned by Ozzy Osbourne
July 16
- “What the GPU offers for audio is an almost unbound level of processing”: We investigate the claim that harnessing GPU can unlock limitless music production potential
July 15
- “Listen carefully, and you’ll even hear members of the band talking on the tail end of the drum loop!”: Exploring the quirky production and music theory choices of Grace Jones’ classic Slave to the Rhythm
July 14
- “Love in an elevator? Yeah, I've done it!”: Steven Tyler and Joe Perry on the making of the Aerosmith classic Pump
- “You sacrifice things you love. I love my guitar”: How a journalist’s joke led Jimi Hendrix to set fire to his guitar for the first time
July 11
- “I was screaming at the top of my lungs that it had to be a whistle. The mixer said, ‘This whistle is naff, Tori.’ I said, ‘Well, when you make your own song, you can have a mandolin on it. Now put the whistle in!'": How Tori Amos created Cornflake Girl
- “Now I’m caught up in the ceaselessly toxic, dysfunctional web of Led Zeppelin interpersonal relationships”: How Phil Collins’ globe-spanning Live Aid journey led to one of the most disastrous reunions ever
- “Ritchie and I wrote some great songs, some really wonderful things”: How Ritchie Blackmore and Ronnie James Dio combined to create an epic style of heavy music - ‘castle rock’!
- “Bowie strolled into my bedroom with a guitar. ’Hey, Nile, listen to this, I think it could be a hit…”: Does Nile Rodgers deserve more credit for Bowie’s 1983 classic?
July 10
- “The day Randy died was the greatest tragedy of my life": Ozzy Osbourne thought he was finished after he was fired by Black Sabbath. Then along came a guitarist named Randy Rhoads
- “Liam came up and said, ‘Who’s Sally?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He said, ‘Is that what you’re singing - so Sally can wait?’ I said, ‘No it isn’t… but it is now'”: How Oasis rustled up the ultimate Britpop anthem
- “When you went record shopping 20 years ago everything sounded completely different, but now it feels like there’s a blueprint for electronic music that’s been set in stone – and it becomes boring”: Adam Beyer on the evolution of modern dance music
- “Creativity isn’t like a freight train going down the tracks. It’s something that has to be caressed and treated with a great deal of respect”: How to avoid letting technical problems with the music-making process slow you down
July 9
- “He would do a fill where you’d think, 'Oh no, there's no way he's going to land on 1' – Jimi would just laugh because they were so silly”: The magic of Mitch Mitchell, the drummer who landed a spot in Hendrix’s band on a coin toss
July 8
- “The Downward Spiral became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wound up distorted – someone I didn't know”: As Nine Inch Nails’ classic album was selling by the million, Trent Reznor was losing his mind
- “Ultimately, I believe it will be the end of mankind”: We catch up with synthpop legend Gary Numan to talk sampling, running a record label and the future of music
- “Music is medicine. It can heal you. It really can”: Shinedown’s Brent Smith on finding inspiration in a hurricane, the “genius” Rick Beato, and why you don’t need to be play guitar to write a great rock song
- “We were getting more popular. It was a different level of fame. Alex and I seemed to be able to block those things out. But Neil couldn’t. He was struggling”: Why a classic Rush album spelt trouble for legendary drummer Neil Peart
July 7
- “You end up doing different things with a plugin versus a hardware synth, even if they’re relatively similar”: Rival Consoles on why he still uses a Prophet emulation – even though he owns the real thing
- “I think it’s dodgy to do something like that, to be someone’s friend, and then buy the rug they’re standing on”: How a shrewd power move from Michael Jackson permanently dented his friendship with Paul McCartney
- “Blur won the battle, Oasis won the war”: How the Oasis vs Blur chart battle marked Britpop's cultural peak, and the beginning of its end
July 5
- “We are hard work - I get it”: We just witnessed the first night of the Oasis comeback. Here’s our take on the Gallagher brothers’ reconciliation
July 4
- 14 of the best plugins and DAWs you can use on Linux
- "The choices are endless - on every laptop you have access to every sound you could ever want. That can make creativity really hard": Sean and Isom of Foster The People on their duo Peel
- “The producer said, ‘If you guys can deliver a strong performance of Cum On Feel The Noize, you’ve got a deal'”: How a ’70s glam rock anthem was the key for Randy Rhoads’ old band going all the way to No.1
- "A lot of instruments feel like interacting with a spreadsheet - we're trying to do something different": Void & Vista's plugins are 'pieces of art for people to make art with'
- “I spent six months listening only to AC/DC – and it changed my entire approach to songwriting”: How Metallica embraced simplicity – and Mötley Crüe's producer – to create their 30 million selling monster hit
- "This really is the ultimate sound design tool": 6 of the most creative plugin synths for sound design
July 3
- How Cherry Audio recreated the sound of the world's first commercial polysynth in software: “There may be fewer than six working Novachords on the planet”
- “The Eagles were in the same studio, in the room next to us. They had to pack up and go because we were too loud!”: The highs and lows of Black Sabbath in the ’70s - by Tony Iommi
- “The biggest driver right now is people wanting everything fast”: Predicting the future evolution of plugin design
- “If you want to turn sweet sounds into ear-splitting discordance, this is the plugin”: To mark Plugin Week, here’s our pick of the most out-there sound design plugins you should add to your collection
- "For real-time plugins, it’s very hard to do something effective with AI. It’s very good at big brush things”: Leapwing Audio on their stable of forensic mix plugins
- “We wrote it in a farmyard in France. We’d never heard of ‘disco music’ at the time. We were singing about the state of the times, and the human condition”: How the Bee Gees channelled angst and despair to create the greatest dancefloor-filler of all time
- “If your flanger is too harsh, try a chorus - if it's too subtle, try a phaser”: How modulation effects work and how to use them
July 2
- 5 innovative synth plugins daring to do things differently
- "I want to make something that allows people to express themselves purely and not feel like they’re having to make compromises": Musik Hack on their quest to refine plugin UI design
- “It’s great for squeezing energy out of lacklustre ambient sounds”: Our pick of the very best VCA compressor software emulation plugins for any music project
- "Minimal Audio's Rift and Xfer's Serum are by far the most-used plugins in our toolbox": ARMNHMR on their tools of the trade
- “Don't construct a chord that uses eight notes - it’s unplayable on a guitar!”: How to humanise your virtual acoustic instruments in your DAW projects
- “Whether you’re looking to liven up a dull snare or beef up a lacklustre bass sound, these plugins are extremely handy”: Our resident platinum award-winning mixer and producer shares 10 of his go-to plugins
July 1
- "A guitar software instrument can sound incredible – as nuanced and human as the real thing, but only if you know exactly what you are doing with it": The ultimate guide to plugin guitars
- “Try this on drums, and you'll end up with something similar to a classic gated drum kit. Eat your heart out, Phil Collins!”: Our go-to plugins for adding flavour to sounds
- “As a musician, I don't want to spend time and energy scrolling through endless lists of samples. I don't think that's creative”: Output’s AI-powered Co-Producer picks samples for you, but is it streamlining workflows or outsourcing creativity to AI?
- “Nobody was going to freak out. We said, ‘This is going to get done. We just need to find the right person to join the family.’ And we got Steve Vai, thank God”: How the virtuoso Vai put the sizzle into the last big hair metal album of the ’80s