Features archive

September 2025

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45 articles

September 30
- 40 years of Focusrite: from the ISA 110 to the Scarlett 2i2 Anniversary Edition
- “I think I ran nearly every piece of audio on the album through it. It took forever”: Alex G on the ultra-rare vintage compressor that shaped the sound of Headlights
September 29
- “That song was a game-changer for me. It led me to think, ‘Let’s go to rehab and see if I really am an alcoholic’”: How a guest spot on a ’90s banger was the salvation of a rock legend
September 27
- “It was all getting a bit nasty”: The struggle to make the Tears for Fears masterpiece that closed out the '80s on a creative high
- One year on, I’ve finally clicked with Ableton Move – all because I’ve stopped trying to make music with it
September 26
- “Even today, that instrument is fascinating. I’ve passed it around and players of all sorts have all come to the same conclusion – there is something magic in that instrument”: Billy Gibbons on why Pearly Gates is one of the greatest Les Pauls of all time
- "We didn't find it difficult to write pop songs, but it was VERY difficult to write one for the Stones”: 60 years of The Last Time – the Stones’ big breakthrough
- “It’s one of George's best songs. His mind is clear and his music is clear”: The genius of the profound 1967 Beatles song that John Lennon held up as George’s greatest
- “The record company thought I was mad – but sometimes you sign acts to make money, and sometimes you sign acts to make music”: The making of Enya's Orinoco Flow, the unexpected No. 1 hit that created a New Age superstar
September 25
- “That actually came from me and Oz jamming on the piano in my apartment in North Hollywood”: From Ozzy Osbourne to Papa Roach, Fleetwood Mac to George Harrison, here's 5 career-defining songs you didn’t know were written on the piano
September 24
- “We were side of stage every night, salivating and looking at their pedalboards”: Paradise Lost's Greg Mackintosh on channelling Radiohead, covering the Smiths, Trouble’s elusive tone tricks – plus the '80s Ibanez pickup behind his epic sound
- 9 mistakes producers make when using an audio interface - and how to avoid them
September 23
- How I found a faster way to get the guitar tones in my head to my mix with Positive Grid's Project: BIAS X
- From the Prophet-5 to the Fourm, the story of Sequential in 10 synths, sequencers and drum machines
- “I’m sure Carlos and I got in a full-blown fight that day”: How Interpol fought for success and lit a fire in indie rock with their best single
September 22
- “I wrote it so that Joe and I could play even harder than we did – or edgier than we did – on Hotel California”: How Don Felder planned to rock out with Joe Walsh on the last Eagles album of the ’70s
- “It’s shaped itself into the most supportive and comfortable environment for all creative musicians”: With version 6, Bitwig Studio becomes an automation powerhouse
September 21
- “I was driven to Ritchie’s house in Surrey. That was the big test. Sitting in his crazy bar, listening to his amazing demos on a Revox tape machine”: David Coverdale recalls his baptism of fire with Deep Purple
September 20
- “There were some people that were broken up after the first song or two in the rehearsal. It was intense”: Derek Trucks on how Tedeschi Trucks Band got Leon Russell to reunite the original Mad Dogs to celebrate Joe Cocker with an all-star set
September 19
- “Prince was always borrowing my car because it was awesome. I imagine he was making out in the back seat when he got the seed of the idea. But it's not a red Corvette – it's a pink Mercury!”: The inside story of Prince's first major hit
September 18
- “I don’t know what he was thinking, but he went into the little kitchen behind the control room and returned with a carving knife”: How David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz created a sinister new wave classic
September 17
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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
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
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
- “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
- “Within an hour we knew we had a massive hit record”: The music theory behind a Depeche Mode classic
September 10
- “If that album bombed we would have been dropped from the label!”: Kiss stars recall the album that saved the band
September 9
- “Why do we have such a need to finish songs? In a word: capitalism”: Is it OK to never actually complete your tracks?
September 8
- “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
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
- “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
- “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
- “The high priests of conceptual rock!”: Every Rush studio album ranked – from worst to best
September 4
- “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
September 3
- “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
September 2
- “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
September 1
- “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
- Scarlett 16i16 & 18i16: Powerful and portable interfaces with pro-grade sound and a bundle of creative tools