What is it?

Tascam’s a tried and tested brand in the field recorder space. It’s a frequent flier in our guides to the best field recorders, a brand that fields fierce competition in just about every price bracket, and the source of some of music’s most iconic recording devices (looking at you, Portastudio).

In previous products, Tascam’s already flirted with the audio-visual market, but the new FR-AV series goes all-in. This is the FR-AV4 – a brand-new four-track field recorder, designed as a compact and high-performance device for location recording, and as a compellingly seamless addition to audio-visual shoots.

The FR-AV4 is the second and largest in the FR-AV series, which takes some cues from camera-friendly Tascam recorders past, but also takes things in a maximalist – and thrillingly pint-sized – new direction. The FR-AV4 boasts 32-bit float recording at up to 192kHz, built-in timecode generation and HDMI sync, in a form factor so slim you could probably post two through someone’s letterbox.

The four tracks in the FR-AV4 are serviced by four combo XLR/TRS inputs, each of which is furnished with individually toggleable 24/48V phantom power, and Tascam’s own Ultra HDDA preamp design – which offers a wide gain range and an impressively low noise floor too. Inputs three and four can be superseded by a separate stereo 3.5mm input, for receiving audio from another camera or external device. There’s 3.5mm TRS ins and outs for the FR-AV4’s built-in timecode generator, and, handiest of all, a pair of HDMI ports that cover a great deal of clever business.

For one, connecting a camera via the FR-AV4’s HDMI port allows audio and video to sync, as well as enabling the camera to control record start/stop. With a monitor recorder plugged in at the other end too, via the FR-AV4’s HDMI out, 4K/8K video can be passed through with the FR-AV4’s audio embedded (and with the camera’s own audio, too, if you like). Game-changing simplicity for small rigs! Finally, the HDMI ports can also be used to daisy-chain multiple FR-AV4s, for virtually limitless extra tracks, all synced, and all slaved to the record button on the first in the chain.

There’s clever digital business going on inside the FR-AV4 too. It’s a high-fidelity field recorder, capable of recording up to 32-bit/192kHz audio. The dynamic range of 32-bit float trivialises gain-staging and, coupled with the four XLR inputs, makes this a potent partner for sound design and literal, bona fide field recording.

Each channel in the FR-AV4 gets some sound-sculpting tools too, including a four-band EQ, limiter and noise gate. All of this, in something roughly sandwich-sized – and powered by four AA batteries, or 5V bus-power from the USB-C port. Which is also a conduit for the FR-AV4’s second life as a six-in/two-out audio interface. It works hard for its price point.

Performance

As a musician with little professional experience shooting video, and being that I’m reviewing this field recorder for a publication with Music in the title, I’m actually not touching any of the Tascam FR-AV4’s AV-friendly features. I’ll leave the evaluation of anything video-like to other, more video-y people, and focus instead on its core multitrack field-recording functionality, which is excellent.

My first session with the Tascam FR-AV4 was to capture the ambient sound of an industrial passageway in the same building as my studio space; I wanted to experiment with quadraphonics, capture some spooky atmospheric sounds, and grab an impulse response for that spooky, atmospheric industrial-passageway reverb. Setting up for this was a dream, and a healthy portent of sessions to come.

The FR-AV4 has two embedded screw holes for camera tripods, on the top and bottom, so you can mount it any which way you choose. Getting it situated, connected to my four pencil condenser mics and ready to record was a matter of minutes – which, looking at the front panel for the first time (and not having looked at the manual at all), was far quicker than I expected.

Navigating the FR-AV4 is actually extremely intuitive, if a little tedious when you want a setting quite deep in the multi-page menu. Thankfully, almost everything I wanted to adjust was only a couple screens away, and I instinctively found it with ease.

As well as the big-picture cool stuff on display with the FR-AV4 – the per-channel EQs, the limiters, the ambisonics decode function in the menu that Tascam don’t even mention on their product page – there’s also a number of small, user-friendly touches that demonstrate a real thoughtfulness on the part of Tascam’s engineers. My favourite is that you can easily group multiple tracks to a single gain control, allowing you to keep your relative levels while broadly adjusting the whole mix.

The only place where the thoughtfulness outstrips its returns is with the screen, which is a touchscreen, but also far too small to reliably use without fat-fingering the odd input. Still, in places, using the screen is a small and welcome time-saver.

As for the results: I was blown away, in the most boring of ways. I recorded at 32-bit float/192kHz, and captured everything. The cold, sustained quality of the passage in three dimensions; the soft hum of air conditioning units some hundred metres away; birdsong and children played in the neighbourhood past the car park; even the band rehearsing in the studio below. I messed around with gain settings, and, predictably, could not create a situation with poor results. The audio is clean, clear and uncoloured; a reliably professional standard.

As a USB audio interface, the FR-AV4 is almost as seamless to use. Being able to run it in 32-bit float is a welcome feature, and one which is conspicuously absent from Tascam’s new entrants in its DR-X series. A tiny bit of menu-diving and you can manage all the FR-AV4’s functions in-unit, including a handy SD card browser and exporter.

If I were the type to nit-pick, I’d throw a minuscule amount of shade at the placement of the USB-C port. It’s on the left-hand side, close as can be to the front face – and in front of all the I/O accordingly. It might be easy to access on location, but when transferring files or using the FR-AV4 as an audio interface, the trailing USB-C wire only gets in the way.

A broader nit-pick would be that Bluetooth monitoring and timecode sync – a key feature in Tascam’s eyes – is locked behind the purchase of a separate Bluetooth adapter. I’m generally not a fan of paywalling core features, particularly when this paywall seems a bit arbitrary (£47/$61 for the necessary Tascam AK-BT2 adapter). Still, I ultimately consider these nit-picks small for a small four-track with big features.

Verdict

It’s safe to say that I’m a big fan of the Tascam FR-AV4. It’s trivialised multitrack recording in the field in a number of ways, most impressively through its diminutive form factor. Seriously, it will probably fit in your coat pocket.

There’s so much more to this device than covered in this review that makes it a compelling buy for multimedia creators at any level – though the £699/$999 cost will naturally give some pause for thought. I think the price is actually quite justifiable, given its outsized feature set and sheer practical utility.

MusicRadar verdict: The Tascam FR-AV4 is a four-track field recorder with its gaze levelled squarely at the audio-visual world. It’s a multimedia darling, with HDMI pass-through, sync and audio embedding – but for me, the real smarts are in the audio. High-fidelity multitrack recording through phantom-powered XLR ins and whisper-quiet discrete preamps, all in a box the size of your lunchtime sandwich? Genius.

Audio examples

Also consider

Hands-on demos

Tascam Official

Specs

• Inputs: x4 TRS/XLR mic/line; x1 3.5mm TRS line/camera; x1 HDMI-A; x1 3.5mm TRS timecode input
• Outputs: x1 3.5mm TRS line/camera/timecode; x1 3.5mm TRS headphone; x1 HDMI-A; x1 USB-C
• Phantom power: 24/48V
• Recording formats: WAV/BWF, MP3
• Recording fidelity: 16-bit/24-bit/32-bit float, 48/96/192kHz
• Recording media: SD/SDHC/SDXC (up to 512GB)
• No. of channels: x4 input tracks, x6 recording tracks (inputs + stereo mix)
• EIN (equivalent input noise, mic preamp): ≤–127dBu
• Dynamic range: ≥133dB (inputs 1-4)
• Display: 1.9-inch (4.8 cm) LCD touchscreen
• Power requirements: x4 AA batteries; USB-C bus power; AC adapter (sold separately)
• Battery life: 17 hours
• Dimensions (WHD): 184 mm × 42 mm × 130 mm
• Weight: 756 g (including batteries)
• Contact: Tascam

Following the release of the Rolling Stones' 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues, Technics has created a limited edition wireless earbud in collaboration with the iconic British band.

According to the Japanese audio brand, "this exclusive collaboration unites Technics' signature audiophile engineering with one of music's most iconic legacies," in a joint project designed to "deliver every note as intended".

The new Technics EAH-AZ100 wireless earbuds feature the band's legendary red Lips & Tongue logo on the rubber case, while the earbuds themselves are built for exceptional clarity across the full frequency range, and include new technology like a Magnetic Fluid Driver – supposedly the first of its kind in the industry.

The product enters the market two weeks after the release of the Rolling Stones' new album, which debuted at number one in the UK. It became the group's 15th chart-topping album, and their third consecutive number one LP after 2023's Hackney Diamonds and 2016's Blue & Lonesome.

Mick Jagger recently opened up about his experiences recording Foreign Tongues, explaining how producer Andrew Watt pushed them to use tape for Chuck Berry cover Beautiful Delilah.

"I said, ‘What does it matter? If someone listens to it on their phone, they don’t know it was cut on tape — it doesn’t make any difference,'" Jagger said. "[But] we cut it on tape and we did it live. That was old style."

Only a limited number of people will be able to experience the new record via Technics' new earbud collaboration, with just 5,000 units available to customers. And compared to other wireless earbuds on the market, they're not cheap: the EAH-AZ100 is currently available via Technics , Amazon and through Bravado for $299/£259.

Leading music industry bodies such as the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) have launched a joint labelling program to help make fans aware of when generative AI has been used in recorded music.

The project sets out a unified approach to voluntary track labelling, with a distinction between 'AI-generated' and 'AI-assisted' labels, which will be used across digital music services and other partners.

This announcement comes after the revelation in April that a concerning 44% of all new music uploaded to the streaming service Deezer is AI slop. Meanwhile, Apple Music has confirmed that over a third of its uploads are 100% AI.

This move from record industry professionals is all about attempting to combat this significant shift.

“Fans want to know whether and how generative AI has been used in the music to which they listen," said Vikki Oakley, IFPI CEO and Mitch Glazier, RIAA Chairman & CEO, in a joint statement.

They continued: "Given how important human artistry and authenticity is to music lovers all over the world, these labels will provide an immediately understandable and easily scalable approach to transparency. We acknowledge the many ways AI is being used creatively, so we expect to offer fans additional information as adoption of generative AI labeling grows and technology evolves."

According to Noemí Planas, CEO of WIN (Worldwide Independent Network), “For artists and fans around the world, true connections and trust are everything. Clear labeling of AI-generated content is central to this: it gives fans the transparency they deserve and supports the human-centered, safety-first approach that the global independent community has championed through the WIN Principles for Generative AI."

Amid widespread controversy regarding anonymous AI-driven artists such as The Velvet Sundown, those behind the program will hope it can begin to clear up confusion about the origins of recorded music.

“As AI continues to be integrated into the creative process, artists and fans alike deserve a clear way to communicate how and when it’s being used," said Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of The Grammys. "This initiative ensures that creativity, authorship, and artistic intent remain at the center of every song. Giving artists the ability to tell that story strengthens trust and supports a more sustainable future for music.”

He might be pretty long in the studio recording tooth, but Mick Jagger admits that, during the making of new Rolling Stones album, Foreign Tongues, he didn’t see the point in going old-school and recording to tape rather than digitally.

The issue was raised when producer Andrew Watt suggested going analogue for one song in particular – a cover of an old Chuck Berry record. “We haven’t used tape for ages, but Andy wanted to use tape for Beautiful Delilah,” Jagger tells Billboard. “I said, ‘What does it matter? If someone listens to it on their phone, they don’t know it was cut on tape — it doesn’t make any difference.’”

Watt got his way, though: “We cut it on tape and we did it live,” says Jagger. “That was old style.”

Jagger’s fellow Stone Ronnie Wood also had a few words to say about Watt, all of which were complimentary. “He’s a great guitarist. He can play my parts better than I can,” he quipped.

Elsewhere, Jagger raised the possibility of the Stones releasing more music that features Charlie Watts, their late drummer. “We had a good track with Charlie [Hit Me in the Head, which is featured on Foreign Tongues] and we’ve got other tracks with Charlie. I keep reading this is Charlie’s final appearance – well, we’ve got other tracks with Charlie.”

Jagger also offered his thoughts on Gen-Z superstar Olivia Rodrigo, an artist who’s already received great notices from many of his peers. He was asked specifically about Rodrigo’s ability to make rock music, a genre that she’s explored extensively across her three-album discography.

“She’s really good at it,” he says. “Everyone thought she was a different kind of singer, but there’s quite a few female singers that have made that transition. It’s not a permanent transition necessarily, but the ability to change styles from what you think their original girly pop stuff is – it’s kind of interesting.”

To be fair to Rodrigo, she hasn’t so much ‘transitioned’ to a rock sound as specialised in it. Yes, her breakthrough hit (Drivers License) was a ballad, but right from the outset, she’s married heavy guitars to her pop sensibilities, and shared the stage with the likes of Weezer, No Doubt, David Byrne, Sheryl Crow and Billy Joel.

She’s also performed and recorded with The Cure’s Robert Smith, and has spoken of being a huge White Stripes fan when she was growing up (and yes: Jack White is a friend of hers, too).

What is it?

Monitoring is often a contentious subject. It gets easier with more gigging experience as we learn to set our gear properly and communicate what we need from our bandmates and sound engineers. The ultimate in control is having an in-ear monitoring set up that allows us to independently tweak our own mix without having to worry about getting in anybody's way.

It’s a different world from that of floor wedges, and one that doesn’t suit all. However, the rise of silent stages, decibel meters and the use of backing tracks have changed how we monitor ourselves, instigating many a headache for musicians, with in-ears often being the most practical solution. Thankfully, getting started with budget in-ear monitors is more affordable than ever.

One such example of a low-cost entry into the world of in-ears is the Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE, which I have in my hands for review, coming in at a very reasonable $150.

To test them thoroughly, I figured I would take them to a real-world gig and see how they do. I’m not about to compromise the show, though, so if they are not up to scratch, they won't make it past soundcheck.

Specs

• Launch price: $150 | £99 | €119
• Type: In-ear monitors
• Origin: China
• Driver: Single 11m dynamic
• Connectivity: MMCX
• Frequency range: 5Hz to 20KHz
• Max SPL: 137dB
• Impedance: 18 Ohms
• Protection class: IP54
• Case: Yes
• Contact: Beyerdynamic

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★☆½

A glance at the specification will reveal a single 11mm dynamic driver. For anyone buying their first set of in-ear monitors, you will often see the driver count being pushed as an indicator of quality. The general implication being that more drivers equals better performance.

This is not necessarily true. While having multiple drivers that handle different parts of the frequency spectrum is beneficial in aiding clarity and general performance, this only works if those drivers are well-tuned and well-built.

A single, high-quality, well-tuned driver can outperform six cheaply put-together drivers. Most single-driver IEMs will be utilizing a dynamic driver, and that is what we see here. We’ll get into sounds later, but spoiler alert: this driver does a good job.

In the hands, both the cable and the buds feel a little bit plasticky, which is what I would expect at this price point. The important thing is that it feels solid enough that I’m not worrying about any fragility.

We have a mouldable section of cable at the tips that allows the cable to wrap and stay-put around the ears. It doesn't retain its shape as well as some only slightly more expensive models, but having it at all is still a plus. The cable is removable, and therefore replaceable should it break, and also sports a little bit of rubber strain-protection down by the 1/8” TRS jack, which will help with longevity.

The case is fabric wrapped around a harder interior. It will protect the headphones as they are chucked in and out of a gig bag, but flexes a bit when squeezed and takes a moment to return to its original shape, making it feel a little less than premium.

It is important to remember, however, that we are not paying high-end money. At this price point, the most pressing thing is that the product feels solid enough to last a significant number of gigs. In lieu of a long-term test, first impressions are that the DT 30 IE’s will.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★★

Headphones aren’t that complicated. The most annoying thing is getting those tips onto the earbud, but they slide on fairly easily and securely here. Beyerdynamic provides small, medium, and large tips in both silicone and foam form, which is standard and should fit most preferences.

To get the full bass response that the earphones are capable of, it is important to find a snug fit, so it's beneficial to experiment here to see which tip suits you best. Also provided are spare earwax guards, which is something we don’t always see, even in more expensive units.

If you are new to in-ears, Beyerdynamic has you covered with a concise leaflet that explains the process of assembly and maintenance in a beginner-friendly way.

Left and right connections are well indicated in color (red for right) and with the letters L and R on the MMCX connector themselves. This type of connector (in contrast to the two-pin alternative) allows the earpiece to rotate in place, which helps users find that important tight fit while also reducing stress on the cable.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★☆

As I mentioned earlier, I am testing the DT 30s in the format of a real-world gig, with the caveat that they need to be at least good enough to not compromise my experience of the show. To cut a long story short, I was more than happy to use them for the entire gig.

The low end is well represented, with both the kick drum and bass guitar coming through nicely. Mid frequencies are a similar story, and what results is a smooth sound that is easy to listen to without fatigue.

Where the DT30’s are left behind by my usual Shure 425s is in high-end clarity. This is important in gaining proper separation of instruments in a dense mix, and the DT30’s smooth nature means that things can get a little bit muddy in comparison.

However, I am speaking relatively here. The level of mud is far from problematic, as I am able to adjust my mix to compensate. You might struggle if you are in a big band with lots of instruments, but in a four-piece as I was, this is an issue that is easy to deal with after some proper mixing.

Pro tip: stereo mixes are a little more involved to set up, but totally worth it to facilitate panning in these circumstances. Some musicians don’t like to pan things in their in-ears; if this is you, it might be worth investing in something with a little more clarity.

It’s worth remembering that the aforementioned Shure 425s are, while relatively humble in the world of in-ears, twice the price of the DT30s. At this sort of budget, the DT30’s are hard to beat.

Verdict

While it is apparent that we are looking at an entry-level model here, the Beyerdynamic DT30 IE’s do a great job. They feel like they will last, are easy to use, and sound surprisingly good for a budget set of earphones.

While I would have preferred more clarity, when I was testing them, I was able to forget that they were not my usual set of in-ears and just enjoy the gig. So, if you are looking for your first set of in-ears, or a decent backup for a pro-level set, these are a good choice.

Music Radar verdict: The Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE’s perform admirably for a set of in-ears at this price point. Yes, you can tell that they are a budget set thanks to the slightly plasticky feel and a sound that could do with a bit more high-end clarity, but they boast a good bass response and a smooth overall tonality. They are perfect for someone who is looking to get started with in-ear monitoring, or for a seasoned gigger in the market for a backup.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Beyerdynamic

Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has discussed his experiences working with Brian Eno, praising the legendary producer's knack for "using the studio as an instrument".

Fielding questions from Guardian readers in a new interview, he detailed how the process of collaborating with the legendary record producer and ex-Roxy Music synth player "changed over the years".

"I felt he was somebody who had a feeling and an understanding for what we were trying to do," Byrne said.

"At first, his goal was to capture what the band was doing. Once that was achieved, he brought ideas such as adding funny sounds, not having the songs all written – so we could improvise – and as he calls it, “using the studio as an instrument”."

He added: "It was fun and we got to things that we’d never have got to if we’d stuck to one way of working. As a producer, he’s very much a cheerleader. Rather than scratching his chin and saying, “I don’t know if this works yet”, he’ll go: “This could be the beginning of something incredible, let’s keep pushing in that direction.”

Eno worked on three landmark Talking Heads albums (More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music and Remain in Light) and famously helped devise the vocal melody for their classic song Once in a Lifetime.

In the interview, Byrne also commented on his interactions with other inspirational musicians like Ramones and Lou Reed. Of the latter, he said: "Lou had seen us in [New York City music club] CBGB a couple of times and said: “Come back to mine afterwards and we’ll talk about your songs.” We were really excited but nervous and in awe because we were big fans of his solo stuff and the Velvet Underground."

Byrne continued: "He proceeded to eat two quarts of the ice-cream he had in his fridge, but was creative as well. He started playing our song Tentative Decisions on guitar and suggested it could be slowed down, and slowed down to the speed of a Velvet Underground song. Which was pretty cool, but we didn’t slow it down as far as he suggested."

It's also this knack for creative insight that he valued most in Eno, who's widely renowned for the psychological impact he makes in studio environments, rather than pure technical ingenuity.

"Besides being a fifth band member on this record, Brian is a wonderful enthusiast," Byrne once said. "He sells the excitement and potential of working in a new way—the upside of stepping into the unknown, experimenting and seeing what might happen."

Japanese company Final Audio has unveiled a brand new flagship closed-back headphone selling for the staggering price of £7,499 ($8,499).

With pre-orders opening on July 9, the first 150 people to purchase the headphone will receive a limited Collector's Edition model, priced at a whopping £7,999 ($8,499).

As the cost indicates, this is one of the Japanese brand's most ambitious headphone projects ever. With a cutting-edge 40mm True Diamond diaphragm dynamic driver, the DX10000 CL is designed to enhance the closed-back listening experience with a focus on "isolation, impact and physical energy."

Final's previous DX model release was the DX6000 CL, which was praised for its comfort and warm sound. But the company sees this new flagship as a genuine upgrade.

"DX10000 CL is designed for listeners who want a private, immersive and physically engaging listening experience, with the clarity, tonal accuracy and resolution expected from a true flagship audiophile product," the company said.

Comfort and warmth remain central concerns on the latest edition, which uses Ultrasuede® for acoustic sealing and support and a 12-point through-bolt construction clamping the outer housing to the front plate. Final is aiming to elevate the listening experience here — if you've got the cash for it.

In addition, those willing to jump on the collector's release of the product will get a range of extra touches including gold-coloured accents, a newly-designed headphone stand, an authentic Japanese paulownia wood box and a Shingen pouch crafted using traditional silk textile techniques with roots in the Tango region of Kyoto.

All that being said, it's the use of lab-grown diamonds, developed using a chemical vapor deposition process, that reflects just how high-end this product is.

"Diamond is grown as a crystalline layer before the substrate is removed, leaving a self-supporting diamond dome," purrs Final's press release. "Diamond combines exceptional rigidity, high sound velocity and strong internal damping

"DX10000 CL has been created to deliver the isolation, impact and physical energy of closed-back listening, while overcoming the resonance and coloration that can limit the format."

What is it?

Cubase really needs no introduction. It was the first computer-based sequencer to incorporate a graphical arrange window, and it even embraced hard-disk audio before many others. In recent years, it has settled into a steady pattern of yearly updates, and the latest of these is Cubase 15.

As before, it comes in three flavours, with the Pro version delivering the full feature set. As well as the main DAW software itself, you get a cut-down version of SpectraLayers (SpectraLayers Go) and, as usual, a big selection of sound content, virtual instruments and plugins. Steinberg’s aim is to make it a self-contained system without the recourse to third-party additions (though of course many users will have their own favourite additions).

The headline additions in Cubase 15 are the expanded modulator system, a new melodic mode for the pattern sequencer introduced last year, redesigned expression map functionality, stem separation, two new effects, the Omnivocal vocal synthesis engine (open beta), plus a bunch of workflow improvements and functional tweaks. Whilst it's fair to say that a quick glance at this list doesn't point to any game-changing new features, it does cover quite a bit of territory. Let's take a closer look.

Performance

The modulators introduced in Cubase 14 were one of its big new features, and something that the users who had experience with Ableton Live and Bitwig had been calling for.

The update expands on this with six new modulator types – Random Generator, Sample & Hold, Wavefold LFO, Crossfader, Attack/Decay and Morph LFO. Modulators are a great way to create tempo-synced effects (eg, filter sweeps), but the ability to chain them and incorporate more modulator types extends their use into more creative and experimental areas.

It's worth noting, though, that Cubase works on a per-track basis for the modulators. It would be nice to see a global modulator track that can be freely routed to multiple destinations.

The pattern editor introduced in Cubase 14 was primarily aimed at drum sequencing and at the time quite a few users hoped that a more versatile version that could work easily with melodic/musical patterns might be on the cards. Thankfully, we now have it in the form of the Melodic Pattern Sequencer. It is based on its rhythmic predecessor, but to address the melodic aspects of this type of sequencing, Steinberg has added interesting scale- and shape-generation features. This means that even with a few presses of the randomisation button, the results are likely to fit well within the context of your existing track. The more we played, the more fun we had, and although it's still quite basic, especially in pattern management and copy/paste features, this is a really nice addition.

There's no escaping AI right now, and those two letters seem to be assigned to all kinds of products at the moment. In Cubase 15, it's applied to the new stem separation feature, which can split any audio file into vocals, drums, bass, and other elements (ie, all the rest). It performs this directly from the project window, splitting tracks into separate layers. It's quick, works quite well, and is free; however, you'll find better results with specialised software solutions, including online options, where there is significant competition. In fact, explore a little further and you’ll discover that SpectraLayers Go, bundled with Cubase 15, can separate vocals from music and appears to do a superior job – at least on the tracks we tested.

The same goes for OmniVocal, although this time it is clearly labelled as a beta. It's certainly not going to compete with something like Dreamtonics Synthesiser V or Ace Studio in terms of its expressiveness, realism and flexibility, but once again comes as a free addition. Hopefully, as it develops, it will become a little bit more fluid to use, particularly when adding and editing lyrics. At the moment, it can be a bit of a slog to get the most realistic results.

Regarding new plugins, Ultra Shaper offers transient shaping, limiting, and EQ, making it a useful addition. The Pitch Shifter – as the name suggests – is designed for vocal processing and features formant-preservation and saturation modes. It's not particularly cutting-edge, but it works well, though primarily suited to mixdown rather than live processing due to its significant latency.

These and other stock plugins now support UI scaling (finally!), which is a real boon when using high-res displays. We only wish there were a way to apply a simple 2x scaling to older plugins (including some from Steinberg). This would be a simple, unfussy solution for navigating plugins that shrink to tiny proportions in some setups.

One interesting feature of the newly designed hub is Project Preview, which stores a small snippet of a track for quick listening before loading. This feature only works with newly saved projects that have it enabled (allowing you to customise which small, ie, 5-second segment, is previewed). Despite its simplicity, it is surprisingly useful, especially for those who do not employ a helpful naming scheme or work on multiple tracks at once. It's also worth noting that DAWproject support allows sessions to be shared with other compatible DAWs.

A small but significant arrival in Cubase 15 is the automation’s ‘Last Touched Parameter’ feature, which provides quick drawing/editing access to whichever knob or slider you've last moved for any given track. This is a real time-saver, as is the new ability to add volume or pan directly to the Track Controls Area (though we prefer the accuracy of a vertical fader). This is a nice way to tweak levels, and it will be a real time-saver for some.

Finally, Expression Maps have been redesigned. The setup process is now more streamlined, integration with the Key and Score Editors has improved, and per-articulation attack compensation aims to enhance the realism of orchestral mock-ups. For those with large orchestral sample libraries, especially those with compatible instruments that automatically import key switches, this will be warmly welcomed.

Verdict

This release introduces many features to boost your creativity and streamline your workflow, and it is a strong update overall. However, it might seem a bit underwhelming for some, and there is certainly some sentiment on Steinberg forums that the total on offer here doesn't quite justify the annual upgrade cost. Another perspective is to consider the £83 upgrade fee as roughly equivalent to a £7/month subscription. If it were a subscription, we would say it offers fair value for money.

Nonetheless, there are some areas we would like to see improved in the future. Key Command options could be expanded, and the Remote Editor could become more accessible. Fully featured API access, capable of integrating with AI tools (such as Claude and ChatGPT), would be a fantastic addition – possibly even a game-changer – for delivering long-awaited features. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what AI can do – not as a replacement for the composer or producer, but as a time-saving assistant, and it would be great to see Steinberg take a leading role in this.

Opening, closing and project loading times can be slow on more complex projects or setups with many plugins. It would be beneficial to see some optimisation in this area. We also hope attention is given to the comping functionality in Cubase, as there are ongoing frustrations about moving active comps to other tracks and a few other issues that cause difficulty when working with multiple live audio elements.

One of the challenges with a major DAW such as Cubase is that it must accommodate a wide range of users. For every person who finds the expression map functionality or notation capabilities particularly useful, there will be others demanding clip-based playback or improved AI generative tools. Steinberg has to carefully balance its approach to satisfy everyone. Overall, however, Cubase remains a fantastic piece of software that we are happy to continue using.

Hands-on demos

Cubase

Alternatives

Specifications

What is it?

Warm Audio produces an impressive selection of vintage-inspired mics from full-on valve recreations, such as the WA-67, through to more affordable transformerless designs, such as the multipattern WA-87jr. Its most affordable designs are the Studio Essential models, which are available for both the WA-87jr and WA-47jr, and it’s the latter we have up for review.

Offering a more affordable but streamlined version of the WA-47jr, the WA-47jr SE is a vintage-inspired cardioid condenser. Featuring a large single backplate capsule, with gold-sputtered centre tapped diaphragm, the mic has a voicing based on the classic Neumann K47 capsule and FET-based circuitry inspired by Neumann’s U47 FET design. Available in both nickel and black finishes, the box includes the mic, a hard mount with thread converter and a storage pouch. There’s no flight case, but the padded retail box provides a good storage solution.

The transformerless phantom-powered design features a fully discrete signal path, utilising high-quality Wima film capacitors and Toshiba FETs. On the specification front, it offers excellent self-noise (9dBA) and good sensitivity (14mV/Pa). Importantly, and in line with what you’d expect from a FET U47 design, it also has high SPL handling (147dB maximum).

Meanwhile, in line with the streamlined remit, there are no on-body options such as a low-cut filter or a level pad. Finally, much like other Warm mics we’ve tested, the WA-47jr SE is manufactured in China, quality tested and checked at Warm’s Texas facility and comes with a 5-year warranty.

Performance

The WA-47jr SE build quality and finish are excellent, with good labelling and stylish yet minimal branding. At 52mm diameter and 212mm length, the mic has a reasonably slender profile and standard cylindrical shape, so it is not really based on a Neumann U47 shape. That said, the post-mounted capsule sits high in the headstock and slightly behind the grille framing, which is like the Neumann classic. At 647g, including the clip, it feels reassuringly solid and is easy to adjust and set up.

Neumann’s U47 FET is highly regarded as a more robust alternative to the valve version and is often preferred for high-SPL applications such as brass, bass guitar amps, and kick drums (typically outside, not inside). The capsule voicing features a presence boost of a few dB in the upper-mid frequencies, a further lift around 10kHz and a reasonably flat low-frequency response that tails off gently below about 250Hz.

The WA-47jr SE offers something similar, and first impressions are of a smooth mid to low-frequency response with some presence lift for the mid frequencies around 3-4kHz. The high-frequency air is not immediately obvious, and a quick look at the frequency response reveals a few dB of boost up to around 13kHz, which is slightly different to a U47. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for some kind of general comparison, the sonics are noticeably less hyped than a U87-style mic, for example.

The WA-47jr SE has a fixed cardioid pattern, which is reasonably focused, with obvious upper-frequency reduction from about 45 degrees off-axis onward. Meanwhile, the fully off-axis rejection, although not specified in detail on the chart, is good and will prove handy for directional use in the studio. Overall, the transition from on-axis to off-axis response is pretty smooth, making the mic easy to use for vocals or acoustic guitar, for example, which it captures really well.

In terms of high SPL uses, the WA-47jr SE performs well. We’d recommend a pop shield for vocal use; even so, the mic handles vocal plosives and other blast situations, such as kick drum sound holes, better than many large capsule condensers we’ve tried. All told, this makes for a very flexible mic.

Verdict

Maybe surprisingly, there are not that many options if you’re after an affordable mic inspired by the Neumann U47 FET. Warm’s WA-47 jr SE is not an exact copy (its own WA-47F fits that bill), but it certainly captures much of the original, including high-SPL handling and a smooth, unhyped frequency response. It’s a shame they couldn’t sneak in the low-cut filter, but overall, the WA-47jr SE still offers excellent value.

Hands-on demos

Warm Audio

Alternatives

Specifications

That the late Steve Albini knew how to get a gnarly electric guitar tone down on tape goes without saying. His reputation as underground rock’s most reliable chaperone for uncompromising sounds preceded him.

He had the audio engineering knowledge to capture all the dynamics in a band’s performance. He could give a snare hit a three-dimensional force, summon feedback out of thin air.

Albini’s ability to apply his analogue magic to the electric noise of a rock ’n’ roll band was exactly the reason why Nirvana hired him for In Utero. What better way to subvert the mainstream than to achieve mass appeal then drop a noise-rock record on an unsuspecting public? Who better to record it?

But the fact that bands returned to him time and time again spoke to the kind of relationship he struck up with them. He knew what they were looking for.

When Neurosis called on Albini in October 1998 to record the follow-up to the epic Through Silver In Blood, they soon realised that their widescreen sound – post-metal, atmospheric sludge, experimental metal or however you want to describe it – could be recorded just like a punk band would. Which was fitting, because this was where they came from, evolving out of the Oakland, CA hardcore and crust scene.

Joining MusicRadar over Zoom, guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till recalls the band still being a little raw in the studio when they first met Albini.

“Well, when we were younger, we just didn’t know that much about recording,” he says. “I mean, I’d done a lot of home recording. We knew the basics. Noah [Landis, synthesizers/samples] had studied recording in school, but, yeah, what we learned from Steve was just that there’s no nonsense and just don’t overthink it.”

Neurosis can be a difficult band to describe. You can hear their influences – Swans, Melvins, Black Sabbath, old-school anarcho punk and Throbbing Gristle — and yet the only bands who sound like them, or try to, are the bands who they influenced. Over the years, their sound would blossom and expand, growing more dynamic.

Apocalyptic guitars were always in the air, the storm clouds on the horizon, but Neurosis also traffic in slack air, seeding moments of menace and beauty in the near silence, and in psychedelic noises that are hard to attribute to guitar or synths, in the explosive release of the riff. But this evolutionary zeal never took them that far from their roots. Albini’s workflow was perfect for that, allowing them to track live from the studio floor.

“We’re a band. We rehearse in a room. We don’t do this modern fucking one guy at a time, shit. We all set up and we play,” says Von Till. “We overdub the vocals – ‘cos then we’ll play guitar better if we’re not trying to sing and play guitar at the same time. [Laughs] Plus, you can sing into a nicer, more sensitive microphone. But we set up as a band and record as a band, in a good sounding room with good microphones, put in the right spot – and there’s no bullshit. And with Steve, we learned [that].”

That was one lesson. Another was that a Neurosis album could be recorded and mixed in a week. This came as a shock to Von Till.

“When we first recorded with him – Times Of Grace was the first thing we recorded with Steve – we booked way too much time, ‘cos we were just used to all these techniques that wasted time,” he says. “These were these kind of bad habits that we learned in our other studio experiences.”

Not that those experiences were all bad. On the contrary. Neurosis had shed their skin by the time they met Albini. They had harnessed the great low-end power of sludge riffs, applied them to hypnotic rhythms, making albums such as 1993’s Enemy Of The Sun play out as great trippy nightmares, like the acid’s gone bad and they’d attained this great fevered second sight into the post-atomic spiritual rot that has divorced humankind from the natural world we belong to.

“Looking back on it, Enemy Of The Sun was really gratifying to work with Billy Anderson, because we thought we were just quickly recording an EP, and we accidentally made a record, because it was just quick and natural,” says Von Till. “It felt great, not fucking around. With Steve, again, [it’s] very natural. There’s no studio tricks. There’s no bullshit. It’s a band in a room. It’s a good sounding band in a good sounding room, with good mics, put in the right spot.”

Neurosis recorded six albums with Albini. They were not the only band to call upon Albini time and time again. The Jesus Lizard, Mogwai, The Wedding Present and Low had many collaborations. But only defunct Montana indie-rockers Silkworm, who briefly reunited for a tribute concert following Albini’s death in 2024, and venerable Japanese noise-rock band MONO recorded more music with Albini than Neurosis.

Since 2004, MONO had recorded all of their albums with Albini. MONO’s guitarist and principal songwriter Takaakira ‘Taka’ Goto describes Albini as a “friend and teacher”.

Electrical Audio held such an emotional pull for MONO – and practical, they have made so many connections there – that they returned to Chicago to track their new album, Snowdrop, their first since losing Albini.

“I could feel a lot of Steve Albini during the recording session,” says Goto. “The sound of the studio is his legacy, and each tone, each sound – everything – it’s like Steve is here. It’s like Steve is always there.”

Neurosis’s comeback album, An Undying Love For A Burning World, was released without warning on the Spring Equinox through Neurot Recordings. This surprise release also unveiled the band’s new lineup, with Aaron Turner [Sumac, ex-Isis] replacing co-founder Scott Kelly on guitars and vocals. Kelly had been fired in 2019 after it emerged he had been engaged in the abuse of his wife and children. Neurosis announced a hiatus in 2022 when this news was made public.

No one saw this record coming. The story of this triumphant second act is one for another day – we spoke to Turner and Von Till about it – but Von Till says the choice of producer was influenced by those experiences with Albini. They wanted someone with a similar ethic, and they found him in Scott Evans of Kowloon Walled City.

“We love the way his records sound,” says Von Till. “Aaron had worked with him with Sumac a bit. I did a little bit of solo recording with him on my piano. And he’s cut from the same cloth. He’s not, like, studio tricks and nonsense, you know? It’s very natural. It’s just a natural capturing of rock music.

“You want to hear Jason’s [Roeder] snare drum like it’s Jason’s snare drum in your face. You don’t want to fix it later. You don’t want to record your guitar direct and put it through a bunch of digital bullshit to try to make it sound better later. Just catch it! We spent a lot of time getting our tones right in a room, in practice. Just catch it.”

Von Till argues there’s a time and a place to use the studio and all its tool kit. There’s a time and place to track the parts separately, to apply some post-production to them later and then stitch it all together. For Von Till’s solo projects, both under his name and as Harvestman, he might need to have someone send him a part.

He lives out in rural Idaho, under the shadow of the firs. He says it can be hard to get a cellist to drive all the way out there. But rock bands? Show up rehearsed, plug in and turn it up. And find someone like Albini, who knows where to put the microphones.

“I love multi-tracking, and I love the art of multi-tracking records, so I’m not against the whole concept of piecing records together,” says Von Till. “But rock bands – rock bands that play together – I just like that idea of catching the performance. And, of course, yeah, if you flub a note, punch it, old-school style, play over the riff and fix your wrong note.

“But it’s a performance, and it’s a vibe, and it’s a take. And sometimes the accidents, and the mistakes add to it. Sometimes the way that feedback accidentally came up between those two notes could never be replicated again.”

That's part of the art of it all. Being alive and aware and open to these accidents is one of the essential skills of any musician or producer. We have to recognise when something great has happened even if it wasn’t what were looking for at the start of the session.

And just hope someone has put the mics in the right place and the tape is rolling.

“For sure. I mean, we have these kind of epic grand soundscapes but we’re still rock and roll,” says Von Till. “We’re rock and roll. It’s a rock and roll band. We want that fucking dirty Motörhead/MC5/Stooges fucking shit in there! [Laughs]”

• An Undying Love For A Burning Planet is out now via Neurot Recordings.

What is it?

Multifunctional recording hardware is nothing new, but this device from audio newcomer Hisong aims to push this to the limits. The S1 is a combined mic and audio interface, but with the added bonus of onboard DSP, minimal latency monitoring and both wired and wireless functionality. Clearly, this ‘all-in-one mobile recording capsule’, as Hisong calls it, is aiming high.

But before we get into how it works, let’s take a look at what you get. AirStudio S1 comes in three different bundles. The core 4-in-1 Musician Kit includes the S1 mic with proprietary wireless IEMs, an adjustable magnetic desktop stand, foam windscreen, USB-C cable, USB-C to USB-A adapter, IEM silicone tips and storage bag. The Creator Kit adds the RX Mini Wireless Receiver for a 5-in-1 package, and finally, the 6-in-1 Master Kit adds both the RX Mini and RX Plus Main Receiver, with the latter including further physical connectivity.

Fundamental to all bundles is the main S1 unit, which, in addition to its mic duties, is also a 2-in 2-out wired USB audio interface. It also includes wireless IEMs and integrated low-latency monitoring. Power comes from the onboard rechargeable battery (up to 10 hours of battery time) or via USB. Meanwhile, the IEMs are stored and charged inside the slide-open mic body. The S1 includes some on-body buttons for setting mic and monitoring options, but the whole ecosystem is primarily managed using the Hisong Link mobile app. Note: There is no desktop app.

The two RX-equipped kits add wireless connectivity between the S1 and your USB-equipped recording device. The RX Mini just provides wireless connection, however, the RX Plus is a more fully-featured rechargeable battery-powered wireless breakout box with two mini jack outputs (line and headphone) as well as a USB-C powering input and on-body level buttons. There’s also a slot-in USB-C shoe for connection to a target device and a cold shoe option for camera top mounting via the included 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable.

Performance

We don’t usually dwell on the unboxing aspect of the products we test, but here we’ll make an exception as the S1 package is excellently conceived. All components come in a bespoke compact toiletries-style carry case. This includes plenty of pocket sections, so even if you buy the Master Kit, all bits slot away neatly for transit.

At just over 12cm long, the S1 is nicely compact, and the use of magnetic coupling to the table top stand or included camera stand adapter makes mounting the mic quick and flexible. The S1 mic is end-addressed with two modes, condenser and enhanced dynamic, which you select using the on/off switch. These provide cardioid and super-cardioid patterns, respectively, and the condenser mode is obviously brighter with a much wider pickup pattern. Both modes handle plosives pretty well, and there’s only low-level proximity, making the S1 good for speech. That said, it definitely sounds good enough to capture other instruments.

The onboard IEMs pair automatically with the S1 providing immediate minimal latency monitoring, and the S1’s onboard buttons provide various options including mic mute and level. You’ll find more extensive controls in the Hisong Link mobile app, where you can also choose from a chain of DSP options including EQ, compression, reverb, noise reduction and limiting. These are quite basic single slider designs, but are nonetheless handy for quick changes. What’s more you can also specify processed or unprocessed for the USB output (though not the RX output). The mobile app also includes two handy recording features, OneTrack and DualTrack, designed for RX and USB connection respectively.

The kit has some further interesting functionality. First up, you can use the RX Mini and RX Plus at the same time. So, for example if you wanted to simultaneously send your mic audio to your camera mounted RX Plus and use its mini jack output to record onto the camera track, and at the same time record the S1 output to a laptop or phone all wirelessly, then you can. With the RX Plus in use, you also have both IEMs and a headphone output, again, both outputting simultaneously. Finally, the S1 is also available as a Bluetooth music target, allowing you to stream via Bluetooth to your S1 in stereo, and this audio will be blended with the mic source and sent to both RX devices.

Verdict

It’s clear a lot of thought has gone into this product, with functionality and portability at its heart. But it’s sonically pretty decent too, and although maybe not a first choice for audiophile music users, it still provides a great general purpose solution.

Hands-on demos

HISONG

Alternatives

Specifications

The Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro are some supremely even-handed closed-back studio headphones; they were already good for their price, but a 30% discount in the Prime Day sales makes their new $139.99 price even more enticing. In fact, it’s their lowest price ever (verified by the Camelizer price checker).

Reference monitoring is a crucial component for any studio, home or Pro - but not always the most compelling of studio goodies to purchase. This year’s Prime Day music deals, then, are the perfect opportunity to invest in some handsomely-discounted necessaries, as evidenced by this absolute gem of a headphone-monitor discount.

The Pro X variants of these very headphones were highly-rated enough to top our list of the best budget studio headphones - which should tell you something about the viability of this particular Prime Day deal. The DT 770 Pro are bona fide closed-backs for Professional purposes, combining some supremely impressive specs with keen over-ear comfort. Read our full Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro review to see exactly what we think.

Those specs, incidentally, include a 5Hz-35kHz frequency range, across which the DT 770 Pro’s 45mm drivers deliver impeccable balance. As budget monitor headphones go, these are practically the platonic ideal; there’s a reason you’ll find them, in bulk, in pretty much any professional studio you could think of.

The DT 770 Pro has three different versions, which have different input impedances - namely 32, 80 and 250 ohms. Impedance isn’t the easiest thing for beginners to get their heads around, but the Cliff’s notes is that lower-impedance devices don’t present any issues for smartphones and consumer devices, while higher-impedance devices benefit from the oomph provided by higher-end studio equipment.

All three of the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro in this Amazon Prime Day deal enjoy the very same $60 discount, so pick carefully! If you’re after some everyday closed-backs that’ll work with your laptop just as happily as with your audio interface, go with the lower impedance; if sitting on some primo headphone amplifiers though, you’ll want to go higher.

Whichever impedance you go for, you’ll be getting some industry-standard monitor headphones for an incredible price. They’re non-fatiguing, they’re supremely even-handed, and they’ve got enough intrigue in the bass to keep things interesting too. And they’re cheap. Did we mention they’re cheap?

Pairing ribbon and condenser mics on the same source is a classic studio recording technique, but doing it successfully is not always straightforward.

Phase alignment, level matching and positioning issues mean that getting set up can sometimes take a lot longer than you’d think, and even then, the results are not always what you were hoping for.

All of which explains why JZ Microphones has just launched the MU-1, which it claims is the first studio mic to incorporate a ribbon element and a large-diaphragm condenser capsule side by side. These are placed in a level-matched, phase-coherent all-metal body with the aim of giving producers a reliable ribbon-plus-condenser option that can be pulled out quickly whenever they need it.

A single 5-pin XLR carries both signals, and you can then split these into two standard 3-pin XLRs using the included breakout Y-cable. This means that you can record either capsule on its own, or both on separate channels simultaneously so that they can be blended as required.

The MU-1 was designed by Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer Marc Urselli (U2, Nick Cave, Foo Fighters, Lou Reed, Elton John, John Zorn), who says: "The ribbon-and-condenser technique has been my favorite way of recording things for a long time. However, it involves having to set up two stands, negotiate space, align mics in the physical space, and align their phase afterwards.

“MU-1 is the first time the sound comes out of one microphone - phase-coherent, level-matched, and completely repeatable from session to session. That changes how I work: it delivers the best sound, simplifies setup, delivers options, offers a sonic palette that spans decades and improves everything."

Handbuilt in Latvia and shipping in a wooden box with its own shockmount, the MU-1 is currently available for pre-order priced at $1999/€1999. It’s set to ship in August, and you can find out more on the JZ Microphones website.

The t-bone, the audio brand that’s owned by esteemed retailer Thomann, has announced that it’s launching a new line of wireless microphones: The t-bone Free 300.

In a cheery statement, the German firm said the new line meant “more freedom for your performance… say goodbye to unravelling cables, trip hazards on stage, and restricted movement.”

The Free 300 range comes in two types – handheld mic systems and bodypack systems. Both the Free 300 HT 823 and the HT 548 in those types are equipped with three pre-programmed frequency groups and ten channels each, meaning you can run six systems simultaneously, which, of course, is very useful if you need multiple performers in a band mic-ed up at the same time.

As well as that, both the 823 and 548 include high-contrast LCD displays so you can check your frequency, channel, and battery status at a glance, even in environments where there isn’t much light.

You can also switch between handheld transmitter and pocket transmitter, though you can’t use both simultaneously. The range for both is 100 metres and they also both come with a rack mount.

According to t-bone, the 823 is “perfect for presenters and performers who need a license-free, professional wireless system that combines ease of use with high-quality sound. Its durable construction and professional features make it a trusted companion for stage, rehearsal, or event use.”

Meanwhile, the 548 “delivers clear sound and reliable performance with a range of up to 100 m. Its robust design and professional features make it an ideal choice for performers who need a cost-effective, easy-to-use wireless solution.”

For more information head over to t bone’s website at www.tbone.audio.

What is it?

It’s no secret that Sennheiser knows a thing or two about making fantastic studio headphones for mixing music, and it's for that reason that a pair of Sennheiser’s has sat at the top of our buying guide for a long time. Looking at any list online, you'll find most of the top-rated mixing headphones tend to be open back, which makes them less than ideal for mixing on the go or doubling as a tracking pair. Enter the Sennheiser HD 480 Pro, which aims to give you that same reliable performance of a classic mixing headphone, but in a closed-back package.

Comparing this pair to its popular open-back cousin in the Sennheiser HD 490 Pro, the HD 480 is strikingly similar in terms of the key specifications. Both share 38mm dynamic drivers, a 130 Ohm impedance rating, and are available in Pro or Pro Plus versions, which see the addition of a more sturdy case. Both have very similar frequency responses with 3 Hz - 28,7 kHz for the 480s and 5 Hz - 36,1 kHz for the 490s, as well as similar SPL (Sound Pressure Level) stats at 130dB for the 480s and 128dB for the 490s.

Like the HD 490, the 480s have a detachable cable that can be plugged into either ear cup, and they both have very soft ear pads and a headband cushioning with a detent in the middle to reduce the pressure on the top of your head. The only noticeable difference in terms of aesthetics is that the back of the ear cups is perforated on the HD 490 and solid on the 480, and that with the 490 Pro Plus, there's a second set of mixing-specific ear pads available.

The HD 480 Pro also has some very fancy terms attached to it, including something called multistage passive shielding, which is designed to help isolate the headphones further on top of the closed-back design. It’s also got a ‘Vibration Attenuation System’, a new technology that allegedly prevents distortion. But the most pleasing to engineers and producers will be that Sennheiser has paid close attention to the comfort of these cans, with a mechanical headband design that should fit any size or shape head, and a comfort zone for those who wear glasses.

Performance

I also have a pair of HD 490 Pros in my home studio, so I will do a comparison of sound, but for now, let’s pay attention to the HD 480s. My first impression upon putting them on my head is that they feel pretty much the same as the 490s. There’s a slight difference in weight, but this isn’t noticeable in real-world use, and the 480s are super comfortable thanks to the soft lining of the ear cups and headband.

They fit my head nicely, and I’m a big fan of the oval-shaped ear cups here, which very nicely surround my larger-than-usual lobes without pressing down on them like some other headphones. The detachable cable can be used on either ear cup, which seems like a small detail, but once you’ve made use of it, it’s hard to go back to a headphone without this feature. I frequently move my cans to different studio settings, so this makes sure I can keep things as ergonomic as possible, no matter what I'm doing.

During the course of my testing, I used the 480s in a busy coffee shop, and although some ambience crept through at lower levels, once I got towards the middle and higher volume settings on my laptop, it was easy to block out the din. And the bleed levels? Hard to say, but no one looked at me funny whilst I was blasting the new Mandy, Indiana album.

I also used them in a studio setting, and as the console and live room are in the same space, I needed the cans to monitor while my singer did her vocal takes with a Neumann U87 condenser mic. The isolation was good enough that I couldn’t hear others in the room talking to me whilst the music was still running, which I’ll take as another plus in the isolation column. I also got my singer to wear them while she was tracking to see how the bleed was, and from what I could hear on the multis, it was negligible.

Sticking on my headphone tester playlist, I start with the low end and my go-to sub bass test in Lil Wayne’s ‘A Milli’. The low end is certainly strong with this pair of headphones, robust and full, but without being overpowering to the rest of the mix. It’s the same with James Blake’s ‘Limit To Your Love’ and a couple of Massive Attack tracks, really muscular and present, so I reckon these will be great for seeing how your low end translates if you’re using smaller studio monitors.

Moving on to some busier mixes, Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’ sounds as good as it ever has, with plenty of detail and a great separation between all the different elements of the mix. It bodes well for those using these as a primary mixing can, and that strong low-end is present here too, as well as a nice bit of stereo spread.

A/Bing this with the HD 490s via the dual headphone inputs of my Universal Audio interface, the 480s feel slightly narrower and more closed-in, which is expected due to the design of each. To my ear, the 490s sound a touch brighter and more open, especially when Thom Yorke’s high-pitched vocal kicks in. Moving back to Lil Wayne, there’s clearly less low-end in the 490s, but overall, the sonic characteristics of both are pretty similar. You wouldn’t confuse them for the same pair, but if you already own a set of 490s, I don’t believe you’d benefit enough to justify picking these up, unless you want a really fancy pair of cans for tracking.

Verdict

Overall, I was really impressed with the performance of the Sennheiser HD 480 Pros. I got to live with them for a good few months and they excelled in mixing, monitoring, and casual listening duties, delivering an excellent response across the spectrum, but particularly with low-end detail. For engineers mixing on small studio monitors, these will be a huge asset for checking the bass and sub bass.

They’re incredibly comfortable too, which makes long mixing sessions an absolute breeze. The large, oval ear cups mean they’ll accommodate a wide variety of ear shapes and sizes, and the headband design ensures they can fit pretty much any size and shape head. With a super soft ear cup and headband material, these are supremely comfortable studio headphones.

Of course, they have natural limitations due to the closed-back design. They don’t feel as wide with hard panned elements of the mix, and sound less open than a pair of open-back headphones. The muscular low end might be too much for some producers as well, so if you prefer an open-back design, then check out the HD 490 Pro instead.

MusicRadar verdict: If you’re after a pair of closed-back cans for mixing duties, the Sennheiser HD 480 Pro is a no-brainer. With fantastic low-end reproduction and a wonderful balance across the full frequency spectrum, they could be just the thing for checking the low end of your mix alongside a pair of studio monitors. Add in excellent isolation characteristics, and you’ve got a do-it-all pair for any mixing or monitoring tasks.

Hands-on videos

Alternatives

Specifications

In any creative discipline, everyone has their own taste. What makes a piece of music good or bad is wholly subjective: one man's trash is another man's treasure, as the old saying goes.

This doesn't only apply to the style or vibe of a piece of music, though, but also to the way a song is produced, mixed and mastered.

Without getting too philosophical, this begs the question: Is there really such thing as a "bad" mix? We’re not entirely sure, although there are, of course, some generally accepted mixing norms that are broadly followed to ensure that music is pleasing to the majority of listeners.

For example, creating a good tonal balance prevents particular musical elements or frequency ranges from stealing the limelight. On the other side of the coin, creating a sense of contrast and definition in the mixing stage can help to distinguish each element within a mix.

It's worth remembering, though, that these are mere conventions, and by no means constitute a set of hard and fast rules. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some unconventional mixes that stray from those accepted norms in one way or another, arriving at something uniquely brilliant in the process.

1. Burial - Archangel

First up is this track from Burial’s seminal album, Untrue. Frankly, all 13 tracks from the album could make it onto this list, but Archangel stands out as a particularly unconventional mix. It’s fair to say that when it comes to music production practices, Burial is someone who has probably never heard of the rule book, let alone followed it.

There are a number of production decisions that come together to define Burial’s signature sound. He’s famed for sampling sound effects from the game Metal Gear Solid to create the skittering off-kilter hi-hats that are strewn throughout his productions. He’s also said to have created the album in two weeks using a primitive audio editor called Sound Forge. 

Additionally, the vocals used throughout the album are sourced from everything from Top 10 pop hits to YouTube covers from unknown artists. His unique vocal style is the result of ripping often badly-recorded vocals and then aggressively repitching them.

This is true of the vocals in Archangel; the track features a combination of extremely wide and narrow vocals, with the narrow vocals fighting for space with the string pad. Incidentally, the string pad is sampled from the intro to a Metal Gear Solid game, but lacks the width and clarity that you might expect from the main melodic element of a track.

The vocals are one of the driest elements in the mix, with Burial opting to apply reverb to the drums, kick and bass instead. His signature layer of vinyl crackle features sporadically throughout the album, but at a volume that could be perceived as distracting.

In a 2006 interview with Martin Clark, Burial explains the crackle sound is to hide the fact he couldn’t get his drums to sound like garage producer El-B’s. “The thing about garage is: the more you look at it like some tech-boy producer, the less you get it.”

On paper, Archangel’s mix just shouldn’t work. In reality, it works remarkably well, summoning a powerful sense of nostalgia and melancholy. Despite Burial’s arguably questionable approach to production and mixing, Untrue remains one of the most influential albums in contemporary electronic music and was even nominated for a Mercury Music Prize in 2008.

2. Tyler the Creator - BOYFRIEND

Another album that has been mixed to unconventional standards is Tyler the Creator’s 2019 album Igor. Once again, the entire album would qualify for a position on this list, but some tracks on the album are more extreme than others when it comes to their unusual production and mix aesthetic.

The fourth track from the album’s physical release, BOYFRIEND, is the most prominent example. The introduction to BOYFRIEND is relatively inoffensive - it’s not until additional elements are introduced later in the track that you begin to realise how out of balance the mix sounds.

This is a common theme throughout Igor, as is the extensive processing that often renders the lead vocal distorted and at times unintelligible. The bass frequently takes centre stage while the drums and lead vocal are tucked in behind.

Tyler the Creator is known to have produced the entire album, and though he passed mixing and mastering duties on to dedicated engineers, he instructed them to make the album sound the way it does. In an interview with Mix with the Masters, Tyler the Creator’s mastering engineer Mike Rozzi says that Tyler told him “I want this to be gross.”

The crunchy, distorted finish of the entire album gives it a lo-fi feel, and the juxtaposition between the emotive melodies and highly textured mix has been widely praised by listeners and critics. Regardless of - or perhaps because of - the mix aesthetic, Igor earned Tyler widespread acclaim and won a Grammy in 2019 for Best Rap Album.

3. Jai Paul - Jasmine (Demo)

Tyler the Creator isn’t the only popular artist taking an unorthodox approach to mixing and production. Jai Paul is renowned for both his out-there aesthetic and unique vocal delivery, and the vocals on Jasmine are no exception. 

Much like the Tyler the Creator examples mentioned above, the focal point in Jasmine (Demo) is the bass while the vocals are mixed extremely far back in the mix. This is particularly true in the verses, while the vocals are allowed to shine through a little more during choruses. Additionally, there seems to be an extreme chorus effect on the vocal that almost verges into phasing territory.

In the intro and outro, the bass moves around the stereo field, which is generally a mixing no-no for mono-compatibility reasons. As the track progresses, the additional notes and distortion make the bass increasingly hectic. The swelling lead sound that is introduced later on in the track is also heavily distorted, which adds to the sense of chaos.

It’s possible that Jai Paul himself came to observe these mixing quirks, as a second version entitled Jasmine (Edit) was released in 2020 to coincide with a vinyl release. In this version, the vocal is noticeably more present while the other unusual mixing characteristics are attenuated, or not present at all.

Now would be a good time to remind ourselves again that unconventionality is often a mix's strong point, rather than its downfall. In an interview with Pitchfork, Canadian producer Caribou echoed this sentiment, praising Jai Paul’s distinctive sound: “I want to aspire to make music that’s exciting and has unexpected things happen, but that is truly unexpected and amazing. It lives in its own world.”

4. The Avalanches - Frankie Sinatra

As well as having a rather bizarre but entertaining music video, Frankie Sinatra by The Avalanches is another popular track that showcases an atypical mix. Once again, the vocals during the verses - especially Danny Brown's contributions - are very obviously set back while the bouncy brass elements take precedence at the forefront of the mix.

This is particularly unusual for rap vocals, which are the focal point of any hip-hop track; a mixing engineer's job is to ensure that the lyrics are loud and clear enough to be comprehensible to the listener. Additionally, the sporadic snare fills seem to be laid on top of the other drum elements as opposed to being mixed together. The result is a jarring snare scare as you listen through the track.

5. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

The final example on this list isn’t an unconventional mix as such, but it's still worthy of a mention. That example comes courtesy of Red Hot Chilli Peppers and their 1999 album Californication. Sadly, the album fell victim to the infamous loudness wars, and is still widely cited as one of the worst examples of mastering in modern music.

We’ve embedded the remastered version above, as the original master isn't available on YouTube. The extent of the compression and distortion was so severe in the original master that listeners went to great lengths to get the album remastered: one even started a petition. This not only evidences how bad the album was sonically, but how well the musical content was received too - there are no petitions started for mediocre albums.

The petitioners' dreams were answered in 2012 when the album was remastered for vinyl. There was a further remaster in 2014 which was intended for streaming services, although audio buffs claim there is still some over-compression and even clipping present in the most recent version.

Welcome to MusicRadar’s Deals of the Week, your go-to source for the hottest music gear deals online. Whether you’re a pro musician, bedroom producer, live performer, or passionate hobbyist, our weekly roundup guarantees you catch the best gear at unbeatable prices.

Well, this week, Guitar Center's fantastic acoustic guitar sale continues with up to 30% off a huge selection of instruments. You can still score major savings on acoustics, classicals, ukuleles, resonators, and banjos. The sale runs until June 24th, giving you plenty of time to grab a deal. All the top brands, Taylor, Martin, Gibson, Yamaha, Fender, Epiphone, and more, are included, making this one of the best chances to score a quality acoustic this year.

Sweetwater has just launched its drum month sale, which means deep discounts on everything percussion-related. We're seeing hefty savings of up to 55% off on electric kits, studio-ready acoustic kits, cymbals, snares, and so much more.

Now, the savings don’t stop there; Waves is still running specials on plugin bundles. If you spend $50, you’ll get one free plugin, and if you spend $80, you’ll get two free plugins. If you’ve been itching to upgrade your home studio, now’s the perfect time.

Lastly, Musician’s Friend Electric Guitar Month is here, offering incredible deals on select electric guitars, amps, and effects. You can also take advantage of special financing offers and stock up on accessories with 15% off qualifying purchases with the code ACC15.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Thomann: Shop hot deals
• Fender Shop: Shop discounted Strats & Teles
• IK Multimedia: Save on iRig and AXE I/O
• Plugin Boutique: Save big on plugins
• Positive Grid: Smart amp sale
• Reverb: Save big on top brands

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

They might be musically adventurous, but Radiohead have tended to favour wired instrument and mic setups over wireless solutions when they’re performing on stage.

That changed in 2025, though, when the band reunited and performed a run of European live shows. This time, they made use of the Sound Devices Astral Wireless technology, and Radiohead’s FOH mixer Simon Hodge has now been explaining what convinced them that it was time to make the switch.

“The technology always needed to catch up in a sonic sense,” he says. “The band doesn’t tend to change how they operate for the sake of changing; they only are interested in upgrades that will serve their musical goals.

“Although the band have used RF systems for guitars in the past, the opinion was always that it never sounded as good as a cable and would not be adopted,” he continues. “When we became aware of Sound Devices Astral, we realised that the team had gone to some effort to make sure it truly did sound like a jack and cable input with customizable capacitance and impedance. I remember thinking ‘We might finally have something interesting here.’”

The change wasn’t made without careful consideration, though. “After listening to it myself, we brought it into Jonny [Greenwood]’s studio and did some blind tests between Astral and their preferred cables,” Hodge says. “We all listened and even the most cynical guitar techs were impressed! The quality of the audio path was obvious, and it wasn’t changing the sound at all.”

In the end, Radiohead ended up using three Sound Devices Astral ARX32 Wireless Receivers, 42 Astral TX Digital Wireless Bodypack Transmitters, and six Astral HH Wireless Handheld Microphones for their stage show. There was also the Astral Guitar Cable, which appealed to the band because of its selectable input impedance and cable capacitance, which enabled them to match their cabled setups.

The wireless gear also helped with when band members switched guitars during the set. Together with Radiohead’s RF Tech Matt Hayes, Hodge designed a custom solution which fed the Astral ARX32 inputs into a Prodigy Audio Processor via Dante and, used custom Streamdeck controllers to provide easy accessibility to both the band and their respective guitar techs.

“The band travels with dozens of guitars, Ed O’Brien himself had 32 on this run,” Hodge reports. “This was the first time we could have all 32 at once accessible and easily switchable in the same interface, a choice that either the musician or tech can make as needed.

“The need for quick, seamless changes in a live show is incredibly important and often more challenging when done in an ‘in the round’ setup as we had,” he continues. “The ease of use in the Astral UI allowed us to manipulate the signal flow seamlessly, which worked really well for the logistics of the show and allowed us total control with no compromises.”

It sounds like the Astral Wireless gear is here to stay, then, having stood up to the challenges of live performance without detracting from the overall spectacle.

“The band is very invested in the experience being as real as possible without any ‘fixes’ or gimmicks,” says Hodge (there are no backing tracks or Auto-Tune in play). “There’s a lot of pressure for these shows to be amazing given the following that the band have. This is countered by the fact that the band are extremely reasonable people who are very invested in their output and their fans, so they enjoy the challenge to get the best results, rather than deferring to ‘easier’ solutions.”

Summarising what makes the Sound Devices kit different, Hodge says: “It was an excellent experience for both the band and the fans because the setup allowed it to be intimate while still giving us excellent control of all the sonic and visual details that are so important,” he says. “We are all very invested in that personal experience and anything added only makes the cut if it’s guaranteed to do that.”

“The Astral Guitar System ended up being a game changer for us, and the band have been quite happy with the results on stage.”

Welcome to MusicRadar’s Deals of the Week, your go-to source for the hottest music gear deals online. Whether you’re a pro musician, bedroom producer, live performer, or passionate hobbyist, our weekly roundup guarantees you catch the best gear at unbeatable prices.

Right after the slew of Memorial Day deals, Guitar Center is kicking off a fantastic acoustic guitar sale with up to 30% off a huge selection of instruments. Score major savings on acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars, classicals, plus ukuleles, resonators, and banjos. The sale runs until June 24th, giving you nearly a month to grab these deals. All the top brands, Taylor, Martin, Gibson, Yamaha, Fender, Epiphone, and more, are included, making this one of the best chances to score a quality acoustic this year.

Sweetwater’s Recording Month sale means deep discounts on everything studio: microphones, speakers, interfaces, headphones, and software. Now, the studio savings don’t stop there; Waves is still running specials on plugin bundles. If you spend $50, you’ll get one free plugin, and if you spend $80, you’ll get two free plugins. If you’ve been itching to upgrade your home studio, now’s the perfect time.

Lastly, Musician’s Friend Electric Guitar Month is here, offering incredible deals on select electric guitars, amps, and effects. You can also take advantage of special financing offers and stock up on accessories with 15% off qualifying purchases with the code ACC15.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Thomann: Shop hot deals
• Fender Shop: Shop discounted Strats & Teles
• IK Multimedia: Save on iRig and AXE I/O
• Plugin Boutique: Save big on plugins
• Positive Grid: Smart amp sale
• Reverb: Save big on top brands

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

Live sound technology has come a long way over the past 60 years, but one microphone has stayed front and centre throughout: Shure’s SM58.

Still viewed as one of the most reliable and consistent dynamic mics in the world, the SM58 remains a staple on stages around the world. And you won’t just find it in pubs and clubs: despite its affordability, even some big-name popstars continue to swear by it – Olivia Dean, for example.

Dean is something of an outlier among many of her pop peers in that she prefers a wired mic to a wireless setup when she’s performing, and Shure’s bombproof classic is one of her go-to models.

“The SM58 has been a staple of my live show for years,” she says. “Having the right microphone is so important to me; I need something reliable and durable and the SM58 has that warm, crisp and classic sound that I love.”

That said, on her current tour, Dean isn’t using just any old SM58: “We ended up going with a chrome finish for The Art of Loving Tour, which fits perfectly with the show design,” she says.

As well as being famed for its sound, the SM58 is also favoured by live engineers because of its cardioid pickup pattern, which helps to minimise feedback and background noise.

And then there’s that durability: Swedish magazine Studio once tested an SM58 after using it as a hammer, dropping it, freezing it, submerging it in water and running over it with a car, and it still worked. In fact, it continued to do its duties even after it had then been buried in the ground and endured rain, snow and more freezing temperatures.

It’s not just live sound history that the SM58 has been part of, either – it’s also been used on a few famous recordings, sometimes in rather unusual environments.

Speaking in 2024, the Human League’s Phil Oakey revealed that it was Shure’s mic that he had in his hand when he sang on their hit Don’t You Want Me, and that the take was captured while he was standing in a Sheffield studio toilet.

Speaking in celebration of the SM58’s 60th birthday, Chris Schyvinck, President and CEO of Shure, said: “Very few products remain relevant for 60 years, let alone become the industry benchmark. The SM58 has been trusted across generations not because of trends, but because it works, night after night, show after show.”

Welcome to MusicRadar’s Deals of the Week, your go-to roundup for the latest and greatest offers on top-rated music gear from around the web. Each week, we handpick a fresh selection of standout discounts, so make sure to check back regularly to stay on top of the hottest bargains and never miss a chance to upgrade your setup.

With Memorial Day Weekend drawing closer and the big day itself not landing until May 25th, there may not be any official sales just yet, but there is a surge of great deals worth shopping right now. While many of the biggest sales are still on the horizon, you don’t have to wait to score serious savings. If you’re keen to grab a bargain ahead of the holiday rush, there are plenty of impressive offers available right now.

Sweetwater has just kicked off a huge effects pedal sale, offering up to 35% off a wide variety of stompboxes. You’ll find $100 off Universal Audio UAFX pedals, plus major savings on brands such as Line 6, Digitech, Warm Audio, Electro-Harmonix, and many more. If you’re looking to refresh your pedalboard, this is the perfect time to explore what’s on offer.

For gigging musicians, Sweetwater is also running a Gig Essentials sale with up to 30% off strings, cables, and must-have accessories for a limited time.

After its recent relaunch as an outlet-style store, Musician’s Friend is serving up some major savings, with up to 60% off top brands. Right now, you can find up to 50% off electric, acoustic, and bass guitars, so if you’re in the market for a new instrument, it’s definitely worth a look.

Still going strong from last week, Guitar Center’s huge Live Sound sale continues, with up to 25% off leading brands like Yamaha, JBL, Alto, and Shure. Whether you’re shopping for new speakers, microphones, or other live sound essentials, these limited-time offers make upgrading your setup more affordable than ever.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Thomann: Shop hot deals
• Fender Shop: Shop discounted Strats & Teles
• IK Multimedia: Save on iRig and AXE I/O
• Plugin Boutique: Save big on plugins
• Positive Grid: Smart amp sale
• Reverb: Save big on top brands

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

Warm Audio has just released a serious bit of analogue kit for any recording enthusiast looking for an all-in-one routing and reamping solution. It’s called the Reamper, and, sure, reamping is what it does. But it’s got a few more tricks up its sleeve, too.

It allows players to take a dry electric guitar track off their DAW and run it through a tube amp (or, for that matter, bass guitar). Can’t decide between AC30 chime and a classic Fender amp tone? Record both and decide later what to do with them, because Warm Audio’s Reamper allows players to daisy-chain a pair of amps and then record two different tones for the one take.

You can also record a tube amp (up to 50W at eight ohms) silently, straight to your DAW – just add an IR cab sim to give it that sense of "real room" ambient space.

You can add some warmth to your direct signal via a JFET setting, or keep it clean via the op-amp. And Warm Audio presents us with separate Preamp Out and Reamp Out gain controls so that you can control how loud that dry signal is when it hits your studio gear and how loud it hits your amp.

We are talking about the Reamper within the context of guitars but it is similarly designed to work with synths and keyboards.

These past few years have seen Warm Audio quietly stocking up the world’s pedalboards with affordable versions of vintage stompbox classics, and so it is no surprise to learn that the Reamper is designed to accommodate your 'board.

You can take any track from your DAW and stick effects on it, which can be especially useful for the time-based effects such as delay and modulation that can be a little tricky when recording a take.

The reamper allows you to apply stompboxes to the balanced line-level signal, say, putting phaser on drums, or a little hair from a fuzz pedal to keys, or vocals even. It has a variable impedance control (120kΩ -1MΩ) to accommodate active and passive instruments equally, without noise, no fuss.

“Warm Audio has built its reputation on premium analogue gear inspired by the most beloved studio classics, and the Reamper represents an exciting step forward as we apply that same design philosophy to original tools that solve real problems for today’s music makers,” says Bryce Young, founder and president of Warm Audio. “With Reamper, you can track a performance through your favorite tube amp while simultaneously capturing a dry signal as a safety.

“You can send DAW tracks back through real amplifiers, run guitar pedals across vocal chains or drum busses, or drive a 50-watt tube amp into its sweet spot without making a sound. It’s a creative tool designed to easily route signals between instruments, gear, and the studio.”

The Reamper is available now and is priced £459/$499. For more details, see Warm Audio.

What is it?

As anyone who’s tried to make music using Bluetooth headphones will tell you, the latency that they introduce makes this all but impossible in most situations. The obvious solution is simply to use a wired connection, but for the past few years we’ve seen various companies giving us another option: low-latency wireless headphones.

AIAIAI is the company most closely associated with this technology, which involves adding a dedicated wireless audio transmitter into the mix, and AlphaTheta has had a go, too. And then there’s OneOdio, a Chinese company that’s seeking to disrupt the market by offering similar tech at a lower price.

The company is now having another bite at the low-latency wireless cherry with the Studio Max 2, the successor to the original Studio Max headphones. These introduce OneOdio’s 3rd Generation RapidWill+ Ultra-Low Latency 3.0 technology, which promises to bring latency down to nine milliseconds and to up the wireless bitrate from 160kbps to 400kbps to deliver cleaner, better quality audio.

Alongside the low-latency mode, the Studio Max 2 also offers Bluetooth 6.0 and wired connectivity options. OneOdio actually claims that there are four connectivity modes, but two of these are just the wired option with two different plug sizes (mini-jack and 1/4-inch) which is a little misleading (if you were hoping that the fourth mode was USB audio, we’re afraid you’re out of luck). You do get all the required audio cables in the box, though (including a nice curly one), along with a mini-jack-to-1/4-inch adapter.

On the Bluetooth side, there’s support for the high-quality LDAC codec and dual connections, so you can pair with two devices simultaneously. There’s also a gaming mode, which reduces latency.

Both headphones and transmitter are charged using the supplied USB-C cable, and promise up to 120 hours (60 hours in low latency mode) and 50 hours of operation respectively. There’s a dedicated app, where you can make EQ adjustments, change settings and update the firmware.

Performance

The first thing that strikes you when you unpack the Studio Max 2 is the size of the hard case that comes supplied. It’s a bit of a beast, and the same could be said of the headphones themselves.

There’s no sense of minimalist design here: these are unapologetically large headphones that will take up a fair amount of space in your backpack. The vinyl-style pattern on the back of each earcup indicates that DJs in particular are the target market, a hunch that’s supported by the fact that the Studio Max 2 is launching alongside a limited edition (just 1,000 units) signature model from DJ KSHMR, which features his own “acoustic tuning” and comes with a pack of his samples.

There’s a fair bit of plastic in the build, though the internal adjustable headband is metal. What’s more, although these are chunky cans, they’re not outrageously heavy, and feel reasonably comfortable being worn for extended periods of time.

Engaging the low-latency wireless mode is pleasingly simple. Assuming both the transmitter and the headphones are charged, you just need to turn them both on and ensure that the mode selection switch is set to ULL (Ultra Low Latency). At this point, pairing should be automatic.

If your audio source is a computer, tablet or phone, you can simply plug in the transmitter over USB-C – no analogue audio connection is required. If you’re working with an instrument or DJ mixer, you’ll use the appropriate audio cable.

We’re pleased to be able to report that low-latency performance exceeded our expectations. When using some similar products, the transmitter has introduced a noticeable background hiss that you could never really get rid of, but the signal on the Studio Max 2 is pretty clean. The connection was also reliable during testing; we didn't experience any dropouts, and the quoted 10-metre range seems conservative, if anything.

What’s more, the latency really is low – to the point where it doesn’t really feel like an issue at all. The response when playing a keyboard was perfectly acceptable, and it did feel good not to have a cable trailing around the place as we jumped between that and a DAW.

Sound quality is also pretty decent. Out of the box, it’s well-balanced, and we noticed plenty of snap on the snares in particular. There is a slight lack of sparkle, and perhaps a little mushiness at times, but the Studio Max 2 is certainly a match for other headphones in its price range.

As you’d expect, the wired connection offers the best performance, but the Bluetooth listening experience is also a satisfactory one. You can make EQ adjustments in the app, but we were happy enough to keep this flat for the most part.

All the pieces are in place, then, for the Studio Max 2 to be a success, though the question you still need to ask yourself is whether you actually need low-latency headphones when, in most instances, you’ll still be standing within a cable’s reach when you use them. Yes, it’s a nice thing to have for instrument monitoring and DJing, but we’d struggle to think of a specific situation where it’s essential.

But then you’ve also got to consider the cost. Even if there was no wireless transmitter, the sub-£200 price for the Studio Max 2 wouldn’t seem outrageous when you consider the rest of the feature set. We’re not sure we’d want this to be our only pair of headphones – the case is just too bulky for them to be a pair that you’d throw in your bag everyday, there's no active noise cancelling, and they do look big on your head – but for the price, and when compared to the direct competition, there’s plenty to like here.

Verdict

It's hard to say who actually 'needs' low-latency wireless headphones, but if you want a pair for DJing or instrument monitoring, the Studio Max 2 ticks all the necessary boxes and a few more besides, and comes at a very tempting price.

Alternatives

Specifications

What is it?

Just as with your clothes, it can feel like you’re making a statement when you put on your headphones in public, with others able to judge their style, size and – let’s face it – brand.

It shouldn’t really be this way, though. Now, as ever, the key factors to consider when buying a new set of cans are price, comfort, function, reliability and, most importantly, sound.

Which leads us to Soundcore, an offshoot of high-value tech company Anker, which offers headphones (and other audio/video products) that promise the same kind of performance you’d get from the premium brands, but at significantly lower cost.

Its latest over-ear pair, the Space 2, isn’t the company’s cheapest, but at £130 it has similar specs to products that cost significantly more.

Like the well-received Space One headphones, four mics are used for Adaptive Noise Cancelling, but the processing has been upgraded here for enhanced performance. There’s wearing detection (taking your headphones off stops the music or video; putting them back on starts it again) and up to 70 hours of battery life on a single charge (up from 55 promised hours on the Space One). If you’re short on time and power, you can give yourself a 4-hour boost from just a 5-minute charge.

In terms of sound, the legwork is done by 40mm double-layer diaphragm drivers and, if you’re an Android user, you can make use of the high-quality LDAC Bluetooth audio codec, for improved performance. For Apple users, there’s AAC support.

As you’d expect, configuration of the Space 2’s buttons and settings is handled in an app, where you can also update the firmware as and when required.

Performance

We’ll get to the Space 2’s sound in a moment, but first let’s consider what’s arguably the headphones’ standout feature: comfort. We’ve tested quite a few pairs of cans that sound great but just aren’t conducive to being worn for long periods of time, but Soundcore has made sure that the Space 2 is in it for the long haul, flight or otherwise.

The company claims to have based the design on an ‘anthropometric database’ of more than 2,000 real head profiles, but for us, the high level of wearability comes down to two things: the light weight (just 264g) and the plush-but-not-too-cosy earpads and headband.

Build quality seems pretty solid – the metal hinge/swivel mechanism doesn’t feel like it’s going to break in a hurry – and the headphones fold in on themselves to keep them portable.

And yes, they sound pretty good, too. Even after taking the HearID test in the app, which generates an EQ curve based on your auditory abilities, it took a little bit of tinkering to come up with a profile we were happy with (you can also start with the factory-set ‘Soundcore Signature’ if you wish) but once we had, the Space 2’s sonic strengths became apparent. There’s a slight lack of detail and separation in comparison to some of its higher-priced competitors, but no lack of depth, punch and power.

If you want even better performance – and no latency if you’re making rather than listening to music – then you can opt for a wired connection over 3.5mm audio cable (also useful if you run out of battery power), though there’s no USB audio support. As such, an adapter is probably going to be required if you want to plug into your phone.

As with its predecessor, the Space 2 has impressive noise cancellation capabilities, though the transparency mode – which we’ll admit we rarely turned on during testing – doesn’t feel as useful. As you might expect, engaging noise cancelling reduces the battery life, but not drastically, and almost certainly not enough to justify turning it off. We suspect that most users will just leave it on all the time.

As always, you’ll need to spend a little while getting your head around which button and how many presses does what, but it soon becomes second nature. You might have to consult the manual a few times initially – next/previous track control comes from holding down the volume buttons, which caught us out for a moment – but everything is kept pretty simple.

In fact, simplicity and practicality are very much the Space 2’s calling cards. There are lots of handy features that you might not expect at this price – a dual Bluetooth connections option, which worked seamlessly for us, and even built-in white noise sounds for those times when you want to block the world out – and overall performance is high enough to make you wonder if it’s really worth spending any more on a pair of day-to-day headphones.

Verdict

Combining decent sound and effective noise cancelling in a lightweight, comfortable package, the Space 2 ticks a lot of everyday headphone boxes, and significantly undercuts many of its competitors on price. That sounds like a recipe for success.

Alternatives

Specifications

Welcome to MusicRadar's deals of the week, where we'll share with you the very best offers from around the web on some of our best-rated musical equipment. As the name suggests, we'll bring you a new batch of exciting discounts every week, so be sure to check back regularly to see what we've uncovered and stay ahead of the game.

We're now in the final days of Guitar Center's massive Guitar-A-Thon sale, which ends on the 29th. There’s up to 30% off thousands of items. There are hundreds slashed off everything from Fender to Gretsch, Epiphone to Taylor, and so much more. So whether you’re after a new acoustic, electric, bass, amp, or pedal, you name it, you’ll find it here.

As expected, Sweetwater's Keyboard Month Sale is still live, and again, time is running out to get involved. Korg, Yamaha, Nord, and a whole lot more are all in the mix with some genuinely great prices. Stage piano, synth, workstation, whatever you're after, it's worth a look. The music retail giant has also just kicked off a Headphone Sale this week, which is well worth a look. There are deals across Sennheiser, Kali Audio, Shure, JBL and much more.

It's worth noting that time is almost up on the Musician's Friend Spring Sale, too. With up to 60% off, the range covers pretty much everything: guitars, keys, drums, studio gear, the works. Definitely worth a browse while it's on, but be quick as it won't be available for much longer.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Thomann: Shop hot deals
• Fender Shop: Shop discounted Strats & Teles
• IK Multimedia: Save on iRig and AXE I/O
• Plugin Boutique: Save big on plugins
• Positive Grid: Smart amp sale
• Reverb: Save big on top brands

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

What is it?

With in-ear monitoring becoming more widespread and silent stage setups a reality for more performers, demand for quality in-ear monitoring has grown. Throw in audiophile listeners looking for a more unobtrusive solution than traditional headphones and you have a wide array of users requiring a much broader product offering.

64 Audio is one of the most well-known in-ear monitor manufacturers and has a wealth of high-profile artist users. It produces both custom and universal designs aimed at stage and studio use as well as audiophile listeners, and its top-of-the-range products carry pretty eye-watering price tags. Aspire is its latest universal design and its most affordable product line. Available in four models, prices range between £349 (Aspire 1) and £799 (Aspire 4). In this review, we’re taking a look at the remaining three designs – Aspire 1, Aspire 2 and Aspire 3.

The first thing to say is that all models in the Aspire range look very similar, with only the outside colour and model naming on the nozzle side of the enclosure differentiating them. All versions include a compact rigid storage case, cable with ¼” plug converter, cable clip and left/right labelling, cleaning tool and a choice of both silicon and memory foam tips. Key design aspects include the ABS enclosure, detachable IPX T2 cabling and stainless steel nozzle. Meanwhile, common design technologies include the patented Apex core pressure-relieving channel integrated into the earphone body and the Helmholtz resonator-style micro-cavities 3D-printed into the enclosure.

The key difference between models is the driver configuration and this scales with the model number. Aspire 1 is the simplest, with a single dynamic driver; meanwhile, Aspire 2 combines a dynamic driver for the low frequencies with a single balanced armature driver for the mids and highs. Aspire 3 incorporates three drivers with one dynamic driver for low frequencies and two balanced armature drivers handling mid and high frequencies, respectively. Multiple driver designs incorporate crossovers and this provides 64 Audio with some degree of tuning flexibility. Meanwhile, the Aspire 3 also includes a custom high-frequency waveguide to further finesse its frequency response. Both the Aspire 2 and Aspire 3 use 64 Audio’s proprietary LID circuit to correct the non-linear driver impedances.

Performance

A key aspect of IEMs is the fit, and with universal designs, this depends on both the enclosure and the performance of the nozzle tips. The Aspire units and cabling are both pretty light and the stiffened ear guide section of the cable fits easily over the ear. That said, the cables aren’t particularly formable, so they don’t offer much grip. Should you require a more robust fitting, you might want to find some third-party ear grips.

With regard to tips, the Aspires come with four styles in three different sizes – small, medium and large. These are low-profile silicone, regular silicone, TrueFidelity Foam and Comply Oval foam. The memory foam options achieve a more sealed fit and excellent passive isolation. If you’re after better comfort, we found the classic floppy silicone options to be preferable, although you’ll lose some isolation.

Fitting the tips to the stainless steel nozzle is pretty easy and its flange design ensures the tips remain attached. Indeed, we found that once fitted, the tips were suitably resistant to being removed.

There’s clearly much similarity across the Aspire models, and although the sensitivity and impedance is slightly different between them, in use these differences are negligible. Importantly, we found them plenty loud enough when connected to typical sources, and this is important if you’re using them in a live setting or if you're a drummer, for example.

Sonically, the stereo imaging is universally good and overall delivery across all models is reasonably neutral. Even so, each model does, by design, have a different sonic signature. This is most obvious for the Aspire 3, which is noticeably clearer and more detailed in the mid-range with excellent frequency separation. In contrast, the Aspire 2 has a more traditional sweetened delivery, with slightly boosted highs and lows.

For us, the most neutral offering is actually the Aspire 1, which is reasonably flat, apart from a slight boost in the low frequencies. Even so, this does lack a bit of detail in the mid range, and may therefore be better suited to general listening rather than more critical tasks.

Verdict

Overall, for us the Aspire 3 comes out on top, as it delivers the most detailed mid range, making it ideal for critical listening tasks, recording and live use. Even so, each model has its strengths, with the cheapest Aspire 1 model still delivering very good fidelity. The Aspire range is an excellent addition to the 64 Audio product line, bringing their excellent build quality and design to a more affordable price point.

Hands-on demos

64 Audio

Alternatives

Specifications

What is it?

Yamaha isn’t necessarily the first name you think of when it comes to audio interfaces, with previous iterations of the company’s hardware usually coming out under the ‘Steinberg’ moniker. That might well change with the release of the Yamaha URX44V, which is very much a modern audio interface looking to make a play against bigger names in the space from Universal Audio, Audient, Focusrite, and others.

The URX44V features four mic preamps, two line outputs, and two main outputs for your studio monitors. It’s got a main USB-C connection for hooking up to a laptop or PC, a microSD card slot that can handle 16-channels of audio, as well as a USB-C sub that allows you to connect an external device like a smartphone or tablet. For content creators, it also has two HDMI ports with an input and a thru that are capable of directly taking a camera or capturing another device like a games console.

It’s not the usual lineup I’d expect to see on an audio interface, and for those who don’t need the extra connectivity, it also comes in a 2-channel and 4-channel version sans any video connectivity. The front panel features two headphone outputs, a connection for a headset, and an additional 1/8-inch aux input.

A 4.3-inch, full colour touchscreen dominates the top panel of the URX44V, alongside a master encoder. Beneath the screen are four endless encoders that control various parameters depending on what’s displayed on the screen. With these encoders, you can control DSP effects on the inputs like gates, compression, EQ, reverb, amp sims, and a voice changer.

Performance

Unboxing the URX44V and plugging it into my MacBook Pro M3, I initially struggle to get it to output sound, which is a first for me when using an audio interface. After updating the firmware and diving into the manual, I navigate through the onboard ‘wizard’ for setting it up for DAW recording, and then I’m able to get it to work with Pro Tools. You can save a bunch of these ‘scenes’ to the hardware for use in varying scenarios, whether you’ve got a streaming setup or you’re just recording your latest song.

Straight away, I’m pretty enamoured with the touchscreen. It’s a first for me on an audio interface, but it’s a very unique way of interacting with this particular type of music gear. In the setup process, I set up a scene that featured a direct input for my guitar, a DI from a Mesa/Boogie amplifier, and an input for a dynamic mic and a condenser microphone.

It gives you a lot of possibilities, no matter what your particular setup is, and the ability to save multiples will make it very useful for those who jump between different roles, so whether you’re a podcaster, streaming video games, or composing for video, the URX44V can act as your hub for all of your inputs and devices.

We’re a music-making site here, however, so I’ll focus on what we do best. Running the Mesa/Boogie amp into Pro Tools, I start by using the auto gain function to get it to set the levels for me, something I admittedly wouldn’t usually do. The feature asks me to play for a bit, so I hammer away at some spiky chords to ensure it catches the hardest transients, and set about playing with the level set, which it does so admirably.

It was about this time that the interface randomly switched itself off, which was surprising as it happened while I was playing. Booting it back up, I dive into the menu and disable the auto-power off, slightly miffed that it interrupted my session. The ability to shape the sound on the way in is something I do a lot in the studio, so having this at my fingertips in the home environment is a really cool addition.

The fact that it’s accessed via the interface itself rather than via plugins also gives it a bit more of a hardware feel that you’d get in a ‘proper’ studio. Pressing buttons and turning knobs, getting away from the mouse and keyboard, makes for a much more fun workflow, which made me more willing to jump into sculpting the sound on the way in versus dragging and dropping plugins onto the signal path.

Despite its myriad connectivity, I did find myself wishing it had an instrument input on the front like the vast majority of other interfaces in this price bracket. It’s something I’ve gotten quite used to from the interfaces I’ve reviewed. It’s not a deal breaker, but if you’re mainly recording at home, you might find yourself missing this.

Verdict

While I rarely use any reverb or gating on the way in, I found the EQ and compressor to be really powerful additions to my workflow while using the URX44V. Carving your sound on the way in is excellent for your overall workflow, and the hands-on feel this interface offers is really intuitive. Although I’m primarily a music-maker, I can appreciate that the ability to save multiple scenes for content creation, podcasting, and other creative endeavours makes it a very powerful interface indeed.

This particular version is probably a bit too much for the majority of music makers, who would be much better off with the URX22 or URX44, and the lack of an instrument input on the front feels like a miss to me as a guitarist. The fact that you need to set it up with a particular scene in order for it to work properly could also throw those who are newer to interfaces, so I’d appreciate it if this were made clearer in the manual.

MusicRadar verdict: The amount of flexibility on offer with the Yamaha URX44V is really incredible, with it meeting the needs of music-makers and content creators alike. It’s got bags of connectivity, and the touch screen makes for a tactile experience that lets you quite literally get hands on with your sound sources. For more advanced producers, podcasters, and streamers, the URX44V could be just the upgrade your home studio needs.

Hands on videos

Alternatives

Specifications

It might have been closed for almost 30 years, but the legend of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – the corporation’s experimental sound effects and music unit – has only grown in that time, with names such as Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire becoming part of electronic music production folklore.

The BBC seems keen to keep the legacy of the Workshop alive, too, regularly posting bits of footage captured at its former base at Maida Vale Studios to remind us of what went on there.

The latest new-old clip dates from 1983, when the Radiophonic Workshop was celebrating its 25th anniversary. “Here they compose collywobbles and cacophonies to order,” we’re informed. “Countless sounds from jangle to jingle. Noises to tickle, to entertain, and even terrify.”

After some chat about the history of recorded sound, and how the arrival of magnetic tape revolutionised our ability to edit it, BBC Radiophonic Workshop Director Desmond Briscoe discusses some of the ‘funnier’ sounds they’ve been asked to create down the years.

“A chorus of glowworms,” he says, and “an Easter Egg factory run by rabbits”. He also mentions “all sorts of monsters, chomping their prey,” and “a halo of bees, for a religious program.”

We then get to see some of the latest technology in action, including a Fairlight CMI, which musician Roger Limb (as opposed to Linn) – a man who’s composed “scores of scores” – uses to play back some cuckoo samples.

“Where is it leading us? I have no idea where it’s leading us,” he says, with a refreshing degree of honesty.

Then things take a decidedly dark turn, as Desmond Briscoe returns to tell us about a new radio show that the Workshop is creating to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

“Out intention is, having used electronic sound, orchestral sound, choral music, that at the end of the program, the listener will find himself alone, in hell.”

This is said without even the merest hint of a smile, making it all rather chilling.

To give a little more context, we believe that the program Briscoe is referring to is Peter Howell’s Inferno Revisited, a modern interpretation of Dante’s poem that takes the listener on a journey through a contemporary version of Hell. Maybe now would be a good time for another update.

The list of music artists who have (and we have to say 'allegedly' for obvious reasons) used cannabis while composing and recording music is even longer than you might think. The Beatles, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin are your trump cards, obviously, but the rest of the pack is littered with supposed weed users across a wide variety of genres.

Snoop Dogg, Eno, Louis Armstrong, Bowie, Herbie Hancock and Paul Simon are just some of the names from music history who have (again, allegedly) used cannabis at one time or another, while the 1990s alone gave us Boards of Canada, DJ Shadow, entire genres in trip-hop and chillout, and, oh, me, who thought of himself as a British DJ Shadow while smoking his way through the decade.

The trouble was that no-one else saw my 'stuttering beats backed by synth pads' potential, and after I gave up smoking in 2000, I spent the following 25 years making, well, not very much music at all. Probably a good result all round, to be honest.

Recently, however, I've rediscovered weed's medicinal and compositional properties – all legally, I might add – and have seen an explosion in my creativity. My mojo is back, and I think it might be the cannabis that made the difference. So could it work for other people, too?

Not all good

I'll start with the obvious caveat. Using cannabis in many countries is illegal, although an increasing number of territories have decriminalised it to various degrees, and access on a medical prescription is available in quite a few, including the UK, where I live.

I'd also add that, due to the nature of cannabis, it will have different effects on different people, and it has been known to induce psychotic episodes in some users. And while this is relatively rare, we urge caution before taking it, and to seek medical advice where possible.

A good starting point before you continue could be this Guardian article, in which several doctors and scientists take a balanced view and explore weed's possible harms, with one conclusion being that the doses you take and ways you take it are key. Vaping is better than smoking, for example, simply because of the harmful (and potentially addictive) tobacco you mix in with it when you smoke.

An explosion

So, here's the thing: over the six months that I have been taking medically prescribed cannabis, my music making has exploded. In the previous 25 years of using various hi-tech methods to make music, I'd made maybe half a dozen tracks that I would have considered good enough to play out. Over the last six months I have made an entire album's worth, possibly two if I were totally self-indulgent. (And, God help you all – I might even release it.)

So what on earth does cannabis do to improve your creativity and ability to make music? Using it while composing music is obviously not a new concept. In fact, drug use tied to musical chants, incantations and worship goes back thousands of years, and reaching that higher plane of consciousness through music can be traced back through pretty much every ancient culture, not just trance music from the 1990s (although that was pretty great, from memory).

More recent musical genres have been inspired by, shaped and enjoyed with cannabis, including jazz in the early-to-mid 20th century, all sorts of leftfield music from the '60s (also associated with stronger psychedelic drugs), hip-hop, chillout and trip-hop from the '80s and '90s onwards.

I rather like the concept that the entire universe – or even reality if you like – is based on vibrations and frequencies, and that music is one way to become attuned to it. Just ask some current thinkers on ancient civilisations about how chambers in pyramids from completely unrelated and unconnected populations resonate at the same frequencies, and you'll unearth theories of a universal consciousness based on frequencies that unite quantum physics, religion and whatever else you can think of. If nothing else, you'll also end up down a rabbit hole that could ultimately link music to the very core of our existence, which is rather good if you think about it.

If you want to know more about the spiritual stuff, I'll bore you senseless another time, but here comes a more reasoned explanation for cannabis's musical chops.

The science bit

The science says that cannabis unlocks several superpowers which can help with music. OK, I'm exaggerating slightly, but it does help lift some of the restraints that, as music producers, we often find ourselves working under.

Cannabis contains THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), which works like the natural endocannabinoids within the body that help us with sleep, mood, appetite, pain and memory. However, it works slightly differently and unpredictably, binding with receptors in the brain to release different neurotransmitters which enhance some senses and shift others. Throw dopamine in for that feelgood factor and that is your cannabis trip right there.

Again, what happens next will vary depending on mood and surroundings, but there are some common cannabis side-effects that are great for music. It reduces inhibition, for example – very much something that can hold some producers back – which obviously means you are more likely to try something new. With a more relaxed attitude, you're more likely to explore compositions, melodies and genres you might not have previously.

Following on from this, cannabis is also cited as an enabler for a more diverse approach to your music making. This means you are likely to get a greater number of ideas from a simple sound or melody, which is not only fantastic for creating tunes from scratch, but also for remixes – the number of 'ideas' that I had lying around on my hard drive for decades that I have now completed is testament to this aspect of weed.

Cannabis is especially good for more free-flowing genres like jazz, and who hasn't stuck on some ambient or chillout music while stoned and then tried to recreate it (yep, my hand is up)? It can also increase your perception of the music, where certain elements are enhanced, layers feel more distinct, and basslines are (yes, of course) more, well, groovy.

All of these are advantages for the musician, but some are double-edged swords. An increase in focus that comes with weed can also mean tinkering around on a bassline or kick drum for hours. Then there's the opposite effect, where a lack of focus will have you forgetting what you were just about to do, or what project you were about to open.

Again, one important factor to stress with all of these pros and cons is that effects will vary from session to session, and the cannabis strain and dose. Once again, go with the flow: if something doesn't feel right, ignore it, and don't feel forced into doing anything. This alone will make your music creative process that much more fulfilling and less stressful.

Going where the music takes you is a beautiful way of looking at it, and while you might not go in a direction you particularly wanted to travel, it usually ends up as a fantastically rewarding experience, with music you might never have dreamed of. It certainly worked for me.

Useful contacts

UK

NHS

Drug and alcohol support

Medical cannabis in the UK

US

DEA cannabis fact sheet

Help for substance abuse

Rode PodMic USB review: What is it?

The Rode PodMic USB is a broadcast-style dynamic microphone that tries to solve a very modern podcasting problem, namely wanting the tighter, room-forgiving sound of a dynamic, but with the convenience of USB. Rode’s answer is a dual-output mic with both XLR and USB-C, a built-in headphone output for zero-latency monitoring, and onboard APHEX processing you can control through Rode software. In other words, it can behave like a classic interface mic one day, then become a simple plug-and-play desk mic the next without changing your whole rig.

My test setup was a typical home studio desk: laptop with an external monitor, small nearfields on foam pads, and a regular wireless typing keyboard whose clicky keys always seem to find their way into voice recordings. The PodMic USB was tested using a boom arm clamped to the desk, angled slightly downward so I could work close without blocking the monitor, along with a separate mic stand. I ran it into a DAW for voiceover and sung takes, plus a few live calls in the middle of the week and a bit of acoustic guitar when I probably should have been working…

Rode PodMic USB review: Performance

If you already know your way around USB mics, the Rode PodMic USB immediately feels like it is built for the recurring, important parts of recording. It is a dynamic end-address mic with a tight cardioid pattern, and that combination is pretty established as the ideal pairing for untreated rooms. You can work closer than you would with a typical USB condenser, leaning into proximity effect for that thicker broadcast tone, and keeping more of the room out of the capture simply because the mic is not as eager to scoop up reflections and desk ambience. Rode’s own placement guidance backs this up too, with the mic happiest at close distance where speech stays present and confident.

In my temporary desk setup, good sounds arrived fast. Like, almost instantly. With the mic about 5-inches away, slightly off-axis, it gave me a firm low-mid foundation without turning consonants into a spitty mess. The voicing is warm and full-bodied, but there was enough clarity to keep intelligibility intact, which is exactly what you want for podcasts, narration and streaming. I tracked three common scenarios: a straight voiceover read at consistent distance, a more animated faux-YouTuber segment with bigger level swings, and a quick sung chorus where plosives and proximity can get unruly. Across those, the PodMic USB stayed composed as long as I treated it like a broadcast mic, meaning close placement and controlled angle rather than sitting back and hoping the mic could do it all.

The physical design is a big part of why it works on a desk. The integrated swing mount makes positioning easy, and the mic is properly heavy, which helps it feel stable and planted once it’s in place. The flipside is that the weight and leverage really do ask for a solid arm and a decent clamp, especially if your desk has any wobble. As with any boom-mounted mic, you remain at the mercy of your overall desk stability - like a drunken ski lesson, any wobbles in the legs are going to come back to haunt you.

On a lighter stand placed directly on the desk, the mic will tend to translate vibrations into low thumps. Rode includes internal measures to reduce vibration, but I definitely noticed desk-borne handling noise when the mic was stand-mounted on the same surface as my hands and keyboard. I saw the same behaviour in a controlled way by tapping the desktop and shifting my forearms. Moving it onto a boom arm reduced those knocks immediately because the desk stopped being part of the mic’s mechanical path.

The onboard USB side is where the PodMic USB begins to show its strength. Rode builds in its Revolution Preamp design and pairs it with APHEX processing, and the feature set is aimed at getting a finished voice quickly. You have access to the core tools that home studio users actually lean on for speech: a high-pass filter to lose excess rumble, a compressor for level control, a noise gate for pauses, and the APHEX-style enhancement that can add brightness and perceived weight - when used gently. Those options are spelled out in Rode’s documentation, and in practice they work best when you resist the temptation to overdo them. A light high-pass plus moderate compression was the sweet spot for me because it kept the mic sounding natural while still delivering consistency.

Monitoring is another practical win. The headphone output is designed for zero-latency listening, which means you can hear yourself without the annoying delay that can show up when you monitor through a computer buffer. That matters more than people admit, especially when you are trying to speak with natural pacing or record vocals where timing is everything.

Slightly less positive is noise or hiss that’s tied to gain staging or setup rather than the capsule itself. One example is hearing low level noise out of the box, then pushing processing or gain hard and hearing hiss as a result, sometimes even in the recorded signal. That kind of complaint comes up in the wild often enough that it is worth mentioning as a risk factor, not a certainty. In my testing, I only heard obvious noise when I forced extremes, like cranking monitoring volume unnecessarily high or stacking unnecessary gain in software after already boosting in-app. The sensible approach is to set the mic gain correctly, stay close to the grille, and use DSP as seasoning rather than a rescue act.

Another real-world quirk is firmware and connectivity behaviour. Rode’s own support guidance repeatedly points out that updates can fail through some USB hubs, and that direct connection is the safer route. The takeaway for buyers is simple: if you plan to use Rode Central or related apps, do your first setup plugged directly into the computer with a reliable cable, then confirm your settings before you build habits around it.

Against the obvious competitors, the PodMic USB has clear strengths. Compared with a Shure MV7, it’s closest competition, you are in similar territory sonically and conceptually, but the Rode leans hard into software-controlled APHEX processing and the dual XLR plus USB workflow, while Shure leans into its own app ecosystem and a very established broadcast heritage in dynamics. The MV7’s published response range is narrower than the PodMic USB’s headline bandwidth, but in practice both are voiced for speech, so it might come down to your own personal preference.

Compared with budget dual-output options like the Audio-Technica ATR2100x-USB and the Samson Q2U, the PodMic USB is less of an entry-level mic and more of a solid, sensible option you can grow with. Those mics are all excellent value and very capable, but the Rode is built like a studio tool, ships with a proper pop filter, and adds onboard processing that can save time when you are bouncing between streaming, calls and DAW work.

Where it outperforms a lot of desktop USB condensers is simply how forgiving it is. In a normal room, a dynamic like this lets you get closer, reduce room tone, and keep the voice anchored even when the environment is not perfect.

Rode PodMic USB review: Final verdict

The PodMic USB is for people who want a broadcast-leaning voice sound without turning their desk into a small-format studio every time they record. As a dynamic mic with a tight cardioid pattern and a close-working sweet spot, it rewards deliberate placement and gives you a more controlled capture than most condenser USB mics in the same kind of room. If your space is lively, your desk is noisy, or your workflow involves talking more than singing, that alone is a strong reason to look at it.

Its strongest selling point is versatility. You get XLR for traditional interface or mixer setups, USB-C for plug-and-play, a headphone output for zero-latency monitoring, and onboard processing tools that can take you from raw to finished faster when you are working across different apps. That is a very modern feature set, and it is implemented in a way that makes sense for home users who jump between a DAW, a streaming app, and everyday calls.

The cautions are mostly about setup and expectations. It is heavy enough that a flimsy stand can become part of the problem, and desk-borne vibration is a known annoyance if you mount it on the same surface you are typing on. Put it on a decent boom arm and most of that disappears.

The other caution is noise complaints that show up when users push gain or processing aggressively, or when USB power and firmware setup are not ideal. Treat it like a proper broadcast mic, stay close, update it sensibly with a direct connection, and it is far less likely to bite you.

If you are choosing one desktop mic to cover podcasting, streaming and clean home-studio voice capture, the PodMic USB makes a strong case because it stays practical while still feeling like it was more expensive than it actually is.

Rode PodMic USB review: Alternatives

Rode PodMic USB review: Hands-on demos

Podcastage

Dark Corner Studios

Nexgen

Rode PodMic USB review: Specifications

Rode NT-USB+: What is it?

In a world filled with decent quality, low-cost USB microphones, brands have to generally pick a feature or lean on their reputation in order to stand out. Some can do both, like Rode, but how does the Rode NT-USB+ stand out right now, some four years after its launch, when there’s just so much competition? Let’s take a look.

Essentially, the Rode NT-USB+ is the superpowered upgrade to the venerable NT-USB, bringing onboard monitoring, an enhanced preamp and DSP magic to help users get better results with less effort. It’s built for the reality of home recording - one mic, one cable, and you’re ready to record, stream or chat without any of the hassle associated with audio interfaces, XLR cables and the like. It connects via USB-C, runs class compliant on computers and most mobile devices, and records at 24-bit/48kHz.

Rode’s philosophy is simple. It takes the simplicity of a standard USB mic and, using onboard wizardry, opens the door to quality and performance levels more normally associated with a higher class of equipment. Of course, some of this additional innovation requires an app to unlock, but that isn’t unusual these days.

To test the Rode NT-USB+, I tried to treat it like a real purchase, not a showroom demo. It lived on my very messy desk, next to my laptop, and slightly off centre from a large monitor with nearfield monitor speakers to the sides. Tests involved recording voiceover takes, the occasional sung vocal line (much to my family’s dismay), Teams calls and a couple of quick takes with the trusty acoustic guitar by my desk. Monitoring was handled by the onboard headphone out - more on that later.

Rode NT-USB+: Performance

The first thing experienced USB mic users listen for is noise - that annoying hum you hear when the gain is raised - and thankfully the NT-USB+ is reassuringly quiet in a normal gain range. Often you only notice once you start compressing or stacking takes, but here the baseline cleanliness is enough that I could do a spoken take, add gentle compression in the DAW, and not immediately regret it. That alone makes it feel like Rode spent the money where it counts, namely the preamp and conversion, rather than bolting on eye-catching features that look good on a box. RGB lighting anyone?

Tone-wise, it lands in a sensible place for content and music. On speech, it has that present, articulate midrange that makes diction easy without sounding overly hyped. This may or may not be a good thing for you - some producers actively seek out mics that have a colour or flavour of their own, and the Rode on test here just isn’t that mic. That said, there’s plenty that can be done once your takes have been recorded, and a good, clean take is always preferable to one that requires lots of work afterwards.

On sung vocals it stayed composed as long as I did the usual home-studio discipline: capsule slightly off-axis, pop filter on, and distance close enough that I could keep the gain at a sensible level. Rode even calls out the pop filter as part of the intended workflow, and despite looking a little plasticky, it is not just filler in the box. I found it genuinely helped tame those nasty plosives when I was working close, which is where cardioid condensers shine.

That cardioid-only approach is also part of why it can outperform the usual “everything mic” competition. A Blue Yeti, for example, gives you multiple patterns, but I’d bet most buyers leave it in cardioid anyway, and the extra capsule geometry can make placement more fiddly. The NT-USB+ asks you to commit to one pattern and then rewards you with straightforward positioning. In my desk setup, turning the mic a touch away from the keyboard reduced key noise more predictably than leaving the mic square-on and trying to fix it later. It still hears your room because it is a condenser, therefore sensitive to any and all sounds, but it makes it easier to keep the recording focused.

Monitoring is where this mic starts feeling like a tool rather than a toy. The headphone output is powerful enough to be practical, and the mix control is great. Being able to blend direct mic with computer playback means you can track without the slapback latency that kills confidence, especially on vocal phrasing. When I ran a vocal over a busy instrumental, I could keep the direct signal prominent for timing, then bring the DAW return up just enough to stay musical.

The other big differentiator here is DSP that lives with the microphone. Through Rode Connect, Central or Reporter you can enable a high-pass filter, compressor, noise gate and APHEX sweetening, and those settings can be saved so they travel with you when you move the mic between devices. That is useful if your workflow involves a DAW on the desktop, a laptop for calls, and a phone for… phone things. I tested this by dialing in a simple speech chain, unplugging, and then recording a short take on a second machine. The same processing was there, which makes the mic feel consistent across your workflow. Nice touch!

There are some quirks to report. One recurring theme I found when researching how other users had got on is noise that appears only in the headphone output, not in the recorded signal. In my case, I could provoke a faint hiss by cranking the headphone level higher than I would ever use, and it reminded me that onboard headphone amps are inherently sensitive to USB power and grounding. Other users describe constant hiss or static in the headphone jack regardless of knob position, with recordings staying clean, which points to monitoring circuitry and power conditions rather than the capsule itself. If you hit this, it is worth trying a different USB port, avoiding an unpowered hub, and testing with a second computer before you assume the mic is faulty. It can be annoying, but your takes will generally be fine.

Another practical quirk is that the NT-USB+ will expose how desk mounted your desk mounted mic setup really is. If the stand is sitting on the same surface as your keyboard, you may hear thumps and taps more than you expect, especially if you are used to a mic with a chunky base, like the Yeti. In my setup, sliding the stand onto a small foam pad I had been using to isolate a monitor speaker reduced low bumps immediately, and moving the keyboard slightly further away did more than any noise gate. This is not a flaw so much as the reality of a sensitive condenser placed in a busy desk environment. Nobody has cracked the code yet, so it’s harsh to criticise Rode here.

Competition-wise, against the Blue Yeti, I definitely felt like the Rode is more purpose-built for a single person workflow, and the DSP plus saved settings are a real advantage if you move between apps and devices. Against an Audio-Technica AT2020USB-X, the AT gives you higher sample-rate options up to 96kHz and a slick touch-mute, but it does not offer the same APHEX-style onboard processing ecosystem. Against an Elgato Wave:3, Elgato’s Clipguard concept is excellent for people who get unexpectedly loud, but the Rode’s broader approach, using DSP, makes more sense for hybrid music and content users.

My overall take from the home-studio test is that the NT-USB+ is strongest when you treat it like a proper microphone. Get it close, use the included pop filter, monitor directly, and either keep it clean or use the onboard processing gently. Do that, and it delivers a polished result with less hassle than most desk USB mics at this level.

Rode NT-USB+: Final verdict

The Rode NT-USB+ is the rare desktop USB microphone that feels comfortable in a music workflow, not just a streaming one. It gives you the basics you actually use, namely a cardioid condenser capsule, solid conversion at 24-bit/48kHz, proper direct monitoring, and the kind of gain structure that does not force you into extreme settings just to get a healthy level. If you are recording vocals, voiceover, acoustic guitar scratch parts, or regular online calls, it sounds clean and present with minimal effort, and it responds well to sensible placement.

The reason it earns a stronger recommendation than many of the other desk mics I’ve tested is the ecosystem around it. The onboard DSP is not just marketing buzz-speak. Being able to add a high-pass filter, dynamics control, and tasteful enhancement, inside the mic, can save time when you need a consistent broadcast-ready tone across different apps. The fact you can save those settings to the microphone itself matters in real life, especially if you bounce between a DAW, streaming software, and mobile recording.

There are two caveats I would mention to anyone coming from a Blue Yeti or similar. First, you lose multi-pattern flexibility. If you regularly record two people around one mic, or you genuinely use omni for room capture, the Yeti’s pattern switch still has value. Second, pay attention to monitoring behavior. You may experience hiss or static in the headphone output that does not show up in recordings, and while it can be down to power, ports, hubs, or grounding, it is something you should test early within your return window. Or make peace with the fact this is a common occurrence with USB microphones.

If, however, your main goal is one-person vocal capture on a desk with a clean signal, easy monitoring, and a sensible path to a finished sound, the NT-USB+ is one of the most rounded choices in its bracket. It does not try to be everything. It tries to be the one USB mic you stop thinking about once you take it out the box.

Rode NT-USB+: Alternatives

Rode NT-USB+: Hands-on demos

Rode

Tom Buck

Podcastage

Rode NT-USB+: Specifications

What is it?

A decent large capsule condenser microphone is one of the most useful recording tools you can buy. Choose wisely and with minimal maintenance it should last you a lifetime. Neumann’s U87 is the most well-known large capsule condenser, so it’s no surprise you can pick up all manner of designs based on it, and the models from Warm Audio are a case in point.

The WA-87jr is one of three similarly tuned U87-inspired mics from Warm Audio and at $299 is their middle-priced offering. It is a multipattern dual-diaphragm phantom-powered mic that’s available in either black or nickel finish. The package includes the mic, a storage pouch, and both a screw-on hard clip and suspension cradle. They’ve even included a replacement pair of cradle elastic bands, which is handy. The only downside is there’s no flight case, although the foam-lined cardboard box ably accommodates all the bits.

The dual backplate capsule is a custom K-87 style design with gold-sputtered, centred tapped diaphragms. It’s the same capsule used in their flagship and considerably more expensive WA-87 R2. This delivers three polar patterns – cardioid, figure 8 and omnidirectional. Beyond this, the electronics use a fully discrete surface-mount FET-based transformerless circuit utilising Wima film capacitors and Toshiba FETs. This is more affordable than the transformer-based circuit found in the WA-87 R2.

Further features include a switchable -10dB pad and a switchable 70Hz high-pass filter. Finally, although assembled in China, the mics are hand-tested at Warm Audio’s facility in Austin, Texas, and carry a reassuring five-year warranty.

Performance

The WA-87jr feels very well-made with a high-quality finish. The on-body switches have a solid feel and the cradle and clip are well-milled and easy to tighten. The headstock design maybe isn’t quite as stylish as an original U87, but it’s good to see a dual-layer grille, and this feels strong enough to see off bumps and knocks or even a wayward drum stick.

The mic is tuned to have a mid to high-frequency lift. Much like the U87Ai, this is slightly different depending on the polar pattern. But in cardioid mode, which is the mode you’ll want for vocal recording, this peaks at around 9kHz. The lift is 2dB at most and just enough to add some articulation and air. For lower frequencies, the cardioid mode also has a proximity effect that becomes pretty obvious from about 20cm and closer. In cardioid mode, unless you have excellent control of plosives, you’ll find a pop shield essential for close miking vocals. Meanwhile, in terms of isolation, the suspension cradle does an excellent job of reducing stand bump noises.

Warm Audio doesn’t provide detailed frequency charts for each polar pattern. As expected, in cardioid mode, we found the fully off-axis position noticeably rejects the mid-range, but high and low-frequency rejection is more irregular. Importantly, the on-axis response is quite broad, so you can move around quite a bit without the response changing drastically. The quoted self noise figure is 9dBA alongside a sensitivity of 10mV/Pa. This means you’ll need a bit more gain than the best-in-class large capsule condensers. However, the noise figure is excellent, and not far off some of the quietest condensers.

The WA-87jr achieves its figure-8 and omnidirectional modes by combining its two back-to-back diaphragms. Although typical for a large capsule design, this can be less precise than single capsule or ribbon designs. Even so, the figure-8 sounds pretty consistent on both sides. The omni, meanwhile, does have some subtle high-frequency variations in the pattern, and this is to be expected. That said, the omni mode is still very handy for capturing room ambience, particularly given its low self-noise.

Verdict

Overall, we really like the WA-87jr. It captures the essence of the U87 design and importantly, features multiple polar patterns and on-body pad and filter options, making it ideal for a multitude of recording tasks.

Hands-on demos

Warm Audio

Alternatives

Specifications

As the world’s first purpose-built recording studio – an iconic institution that’s played host to countless legendary artists, from The Beatles and Pink Floyd to Radiohead and Adele – Abbey Road Studios has a long and storied history behind it.

It’s those stories that make the place what it is, but for younger and less experienced artists early on in their career, the weight of that history can be a little intimidating. “Sometimes we’ve found that people find the idea of coming here a bit daunting”, Abbey Road’s Mark Robertson tells us.

Over the past few years, the Abbey Road team has been trying to change that, reimagining the studio in a concerted effort to create a more accessible and inclusive space. Through programmes like Amplify, an artist accelerator that offers workshops and mentoring to aspiring creatives, and Equalise, an initiative aimed at addressing gender imbalance in the music industry, Abbey Road is on a mission to inspire the next generation of music-makers.

Prices have been slashed across multiple rooms, working hours made more flexible, and much of the studio has undergone a significant redesign, as several spaces were reworked to become more welcoming and conducive to creativity. But the next step, of course, was the gear. Drawing up a shopping list of more than 100 instruments and pieces of recording equipment, the team brought in the “most comprehensive collection” of gear that the studio has ever housed.

Installed in Studio Three – the smallest of Abbey Road’s three original rooms – and two of its more intimate spaces, The Front Room and The Gatehouse, the new kit spans everything from vintage essentials like the Roland Juno-106 and TR-808 to oddities like the Suiko ST-50 Poetry Trainer and Suzuki Omnichord, with an emphasis on playful and accessible instruments capable of sparking instant inspiration.

Though there was plenty of classic gear acquired – including pieces previously owned by John Paul Jones and Portishead’s Adrian Utley – the team also sought out contemporary instruments like the Teenage Engineering OP-1 and Telepathic Instruments Orchid. And being Abbey Road, they’ve even managed to bring in some things that haven’t yet been released, such as the much-hyped kid-friendly drum machine Tembo, which now sits proudly in the studio reception.

We sat down with Abbey Road’s Director of Marketing and Creative Mark Robertson and Artist Relations Manager Jack Lintorn to find out more about the extensive collection of new gear that’s been added to the studio and how this fits into their broader vision for Abbey Road in 2026 and beyond.

Can you both give us a little bit of background on yourselves and your roles at Abbey Road?

Jack: “I've been part of the team for about eight years, working with Mark on various different projects we've been running. So that’s our artist accelerator, Amplify, and also programs like Equalize we developed, which gives underrepresented groups opportunities in the studio. Now I'm working in the role of Artist Relations Manager, trying to make Abbey Road into a creative playground and doing lots of work to get younger artists into the studio.”

Mark: “I’m Abbey Road’s Director of Marketing and Creative. I came here to set a new vision for Abbey Road, and Jack and I have created a number of programs to give back, to make this place more accessible and to inspire and inform the next generation, whether that’s people that want to be an artist or a producer.

“The things that we’re doing now are part of a wider vision. We spent a bit of time rethinking our brand purpose and why we’re here, and clarifying the direction and vision for Abbey Road. What we’re doing is coming back to our core purpose, which is about helping people to make music and to realize their creative ambitions. That’s very much what we’re looking to build, a true home for doing that.”

You recently brought a bunch of new gear to Abbey Road. Was this part of your return to that original purpose you mentioned, and this mission to make the studio more accessible?

Mark: “Totally. We spent a lot of time looking at the gear that’s in the room. There are obviously a lot of things that people know we’ve got here, particularly instruments and EMI gear that was invented here by the REDD team. But there were more things that we knew from working closely with artists and producers that we wanted to have in the collection, and that’s really the stuff that Jack’s been focused on finding and sourcing.

“We wanted to have things where, maybe we’ve already got the plugin, or maybe we made the plugin, but we wanted to have the real deal too. And also to find some things that were as unique or as interesting as some of the existing things in the collection, and where possible, they have a bit of a story behind them.

“When I’m in a session, what I really love is – whether it’s a grime artist or whoever else – I love how the engineer can run down the corridor and go and find a bit of outboard gear from the ‘50s or ‘60s that will then change their sound. I suppose what we’re doing is adding more of that.”

Talk us through the decision-making process behind working out what you wanted to acquire?

Jack: “It started with an 18-month process of making an initial list of what I felt we really needed and what would enhance the creative experience for artists coming into the studio. Then I went to the likes of Kid Harpoon, who’s now our Producer in Residence, and Jordan Rakei, who is our Artist in Residence. Khruangbin came in one afternoon, and it was only meant to be for an hour, but we spent about four hours talking through all the gear that we thought would be amazing to have in the studio.

“So we went to lots of different artists, and even the Abbey Road engineering team, and asked: ‘what do you feel like we could really do with here?’ There were a lot of instrumental voices as part of this. It ended up that we collated a list of 100 different pieces of gear and equipment, and now we have 16 new synths and seven new drum machines – it’s the most comprehensive collection we’ve ever housed at Abbey Road.”

Once you had your list together, how did you go about sourcing the gear? With so many pieces, I imagine that was quite a challenge.

Jack: “Tony at Soundgas was instrumental; he was so helpful. We really wanted to have bits of gear that had stories behind them that we could share with artists. That’s what’s amazing about the gear we currently have at the studio, whether it’s John Lennon’s piano or it’s the echo chamber that The Beatles used for the first artificial reverb.

“We ended up bringing in John Paul Jones’ TR-808 drum machine and Adrian Utley from Portishead’s Jupiter-4, and this is all through Soundgas. We wanted to have this old gear coming through that we know has been serviced and maintained to a high level, and that’s where Soundgas is brilliant; they provide a certificate signed by their engineers making sure that something has been signed off and it’s good to go. When you’re buying a 1974 Minimoog, you want to know that it isn’t going to break down in two weeks.”

Was there anything that was particularly difficult to find?

Jack: “We were looking for quite a few pieces. We have a Suiko ST-50 Poetry Trainer, that’s an old Japanese ‘80s synth – that was difficult for us to source, but they managed to get one of those for us, which was great.

“We’ve also brought in a vintage 1967 Ludwig Hollywood kit for Studio Three. That was sourced with Martin Oldham, Nile Rodgers’ drum tech, and Ralph Salmins, an amazing session drummer. We sourced that over many months and that was quite difficult. We already had a new Ludwig in the studio, which sounds great, but we thought, ‘how great would it be if we could have a vintage one too?’

“We’ve already had a few artists playing it, and we had a comment from one of the bands that was in there a few weeks ago – they said it’s the best drum kit they’ve ever played. That’s exactly what we want to hear.”

I imagine that you have a lot of younger artists coming in that may have never used something like an analogue drum machine or a vintage Minimoog, for example. Are you doing anything to help them familiarize themselves with the older gear?

Jack: “We had Soundgas down to help our engineering team. It’s very important that our engineers know how to use this equipment, because for some of them, it’s the first time they’ve used a Juno-106 or an 808. So we’ve had a few training days with our team, and they’ve been very keen to get on board with using all this gear in their own time.

“We’ve had multiple sessions now where an artist wants to use a load of our new synths and the team have felt very comfortable bringing them into the session. It’s one thing having this amazing gear, but it’s about making sure we have the team that can then share how to use it with the artists coming in. So far, it’s been a real success.”

How did you decide which studio space a piece of gear lives in? Is that based on the character of the room, or the kind of sessions that it usually hosts?

Jack: “The rooms which we’re using for this are the Front Room, the Gatehouse and Studio Three. Most of the bigger pieces live in Studio Three: the 808, the Minimoog, the Linndrum. They’re quite iconic pieces of kit. The Gatehouse is very much a writing room, so we have a lot of the synths and drum machines in there; the Korg MS-20, the Moog Grandmother, the Roland Jupiter-4. Those kinds of pieces where you can get started very quickly, it’s not too complicated to get going with those synths. Everything else is just kind of floating, so people can just pick it up and take it into their sessions.”

Mark: “We used to have a lot of tape machines in the corridor, but we created some space, and a lot of this gear is out there now on bespoke racking, so it’s all visible. People are coming along, touching it, playing it and adding it to their session. For some people, it’s like being in a toy shop or a sweet shop. It’s all there, and you can just take it and book it for your session.”

Jack: “On those shelving units now we have different pedalboards ready to go, so an artist can be starting a session and we’ll have a set-up ready for them. We’ve brought in pedals from Hologram Electronics, Chase Bliss, Earthquake Devices… they’re all there and you can just pick them up and add them to your pedalboard. Feedback from artists told us that they want to be ready to go as quickly as possible, and that’s what we’ve helped to create with this.”

You’ve brought in some famous and iconic instruments like the Juno-106 and the TR-808, but can you tell us about some of the lesser-known or unusual bits of gear?

Jack: “We’re in conversations with Soma Laboratory, and we have the whole Soma suite now. Soma Terra was something that I really wanted to bring into the studio; it’s basically a polyphonic synth housed in a block of wood.

“We recently had some Equalise sessions with an artist called Jasmine.4.T in Studio Three. We brought in some young female and non-binary producers who were there to observe the session taking place, and we had the Terra in the middle of the room, and they were all using it and loving it. That’s something which is quite unique and something we haven’t been able to have before in sessions.”

“Another piece which is now living in our reception is by a company called Musical Beings called Tembo. It’s brilliant; it’s a completely wooden drum sequencer, where you have these magnetic discs, and you put them down onto each of the channels and you can build a whole track from scratch. Everyone I show it to, they’re instantly hooked. We now have that in reception, where we used to have magazines, but now you walk through the door and straight away it’s there for you to play with and have fun.”

Can you tell us about the response you’ve had from artists so far?

Jack: “It’s only been a few months, but the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. I think we’re just offering so much more as an overall creative experience, it’s really changing how we operate. Even the engineers, they go past the shelves and start noodling away on an Omnichord or they take a few pedals out to test. It’s not just the artists, but it’s also our internal team that are really so on board with it.”

Mark: “We probably can’t mention the artist’s name, but a young artist that has been coming here for a while talked about how the shift in the synth collection has completely changed his perspective and given him so many more opportunities to explore his sound.”

I’m interested in what you said about some of the younger artists finding the prospect of recording at Abbey Road daunting. A lot of the gear you’ve brought in, like the Tembo and the OP-1, is on the more fun and accessible end of the spectrum. Was that an intentional choice, to bring instruments that feel more playful and inspirational?

Mark: “Yeah, you’re spot on about that. We’d never want this place to be a museum, and it’s always going to be moving forward, and it’s as much for the creators as it is for the other people that come in here.

“One of the amazing things about Tembo has been that everybody who sits down there just instinctively touches it and wants to play with it – it blows people’s minds! We wanted to be able to put things in front of people that surprise them, but they feel they can discover and find their own way with. We never want to dictate; it’s about opening people’s minds and providing them with a range of different things to inspire them.

“Being intimidating is perhaps about thinking about the people that came [to Abbey Road] before. You’re coming to a place where it says ‘no entry’ on the gate, you’re coming up those steps, and the reception before had this enormous black desk – it was almost like you’re confronted by security the minute you come in here. So we’ve redesigned that space and it’s much more relaxed. We wanted to put some instruments and playthings in there, so it’s not this solemn formal space. The last thing we want to do is take somebody out of their creative mindset as soon as they arrive.”

Is this the end of the shopping spree, or are you looking to bring in anything more?

Mark: “There was this chunk that we introduced in January, but the conversations are continuing. When we set out on this journey, as well as looking to the future, we wanted to find a few vintage things that had a degree of providence. We’ve already got the Mrs Mills piano, we’ve got the celeste that was used on the Dark Side of the Moon, the Challen piano that The Beatles used… all these things that have got stories behind them. So finding things like the instruments that belonged to Portishead and John Paul Jones, that’s still interesting to us. We’ll keep an eye out for things that have got a story, because it’s part of the romance of coming here.”

Welcome to MusicRadar's deals of the week, where we'll share with you the very best offers from around the web on some of our best-rated musical equipment. As the name suggests, we'll bring you a new batch of exciting discounts every week, so be sure to check back regularly to see what we've uncovered and stay ahead of the game.

Now, if you follow us from week to week, you'll know that Sweetwater is running a month-long promotion on live sound gear, with up to 35% off everything from speakers to mixing desks. And it appears Guitar Center want in on that action too, with up to $500 off live sound systems from now until the 31st of March. From speakers to mics, wireless systems, and cables, you’ll find everything you need to perform live.

Moving on to deals for our UK readers, and with massive discounts on guitars, drums, studio gear, keyboards, and loads more, the Thomann Spring Sale is the place to bag yourself a deal on something that will inspire your music-making throughout the rest of the year.

With discounts on brands like Gibson, Fender, Universal Audio, Zoom, Soma, and many more, it’s easily one of the biggest and best sales of the year so far.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Thomann: Shop hot deals
• Fender Shop: Shop discounted Strats & Teles
• IK Multimedia: Save on iRig and AXE I/O
• Plugin Boutique: Save big on plugins
• Positive Grid: Smart amp sale
• Reverb: Save big on top brands

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

What is it?

12 years ago, I can remember when the initial launch of Bitwig Studio sparked a wave of perplexed intrigue amongst the in-the-box crowd. Many were dubious as to what this Ableton-spawned upstart could really bring to the table that its well-established parent didn’t already provide.

At that time, many home producers had (by and large) gravitated either towards Ableton Live or Logic as their creative HQs. It was, therefore, an odd point to launch a new contender.

But, in just a few short years, Bitwig Studio’s true aim was clear.

Bitwig wasn’t really attempting to take on these big dogs of the DAW domain. Bitwig Studio wasn’t really intended to be your new professional mix edit station. Instead, Bitwig’s intent was to create a complementary creative playground - with heaps of routing and effect-oriented flexibility. Its emphasis on new sound creation was underlined further when it introduced The Grid - a modular-based instrument-and-effect design system that has been intrinsic to its enduring appeal.

As with Ableton Live, Bitwig balances a clip-launching workflow alongside a more traditional timeline view, but with a more hyper-focused approach on both modulation and unique routing attitudes.

With over a decade of updates and a dedicated user base, Bitwig Studio now feels like more of a (dare we say it…) ‘cerebral’ space. Unsurprisingly, many in the modular synth domain flocked to it, particularly following its more wholehearted embrace of the hardware domain with more CV-angled features in 2019. Bitwig Studio has also blossomed into a full-fat DAW over the years, particularly beloved by the electronic domain.

Now out of beta, version 6 of Bitwig Studio cements the DAW’s standing as the ultimate destination for sound design and expressive modulation. It’s the unlocking of previously faffy actions regarding modulation that version 6 (which we’re reviewing here in its beta mode) has clearly set as a focus, whilst also taking pains to keep one eye on the clock, saving time and trimming fat across the board.

Performance

From the outset, it’s abundantly clear that Bitwig’s automation system has been the main area of focus during the development of this new version. With a much more intuitive feel to the refreshed UI, it’s now extremely straightforward to get hands-on with it.

Whilst the flagship takeaway of version 5 (2023) was a salvo of advancements to its shape drawing-based multi-stage envelope generators (aka MSEGs) for more dynamic control of automation styles, version 6 pulls all the way out for a more comprehensive re-think of the entire structure.

Firstly, there’s been an overall UI refit, with a somewhat darker, more mature colour scheme. There’s a mega-useful Photoshop-esque tool palette on the right-hand side of the UI, too. It’s a tighter approach, making it straightforward to get your hands on the deeper-control tools on the go.

There’s also more fluid control over automation in general, with more slick editing gestures making things feel a bit more responsive. But let’s look at the key flagships of v6.

The new clip-based automation concept is a game-changer, allowing users to treat preset automation in much the same way as a traditional MIDI clip, as opposed to having to carefully edit a track-spanning automation lane. It makes complete sense when you think about it.

It's a clever way to bring automation firmly into the minds of the more instinctive, loop-based creatives who might not want to spend hours of time laboriously drawing or copying their specific automations to a whole slew of track elements. You can cut, stretch, loop and drag/drop automation data just like a standard clip.

Automation Clips don’t replace traditional editing, which you can still tend to the old fashioned-way if you wish. But, it makes for a far quicker process when chopping-and-changing different effect movements across multiple audio or MIDI sources, without having to draw in roughly the equivalent curves by hand (for elements like sudden frequency-ducking or precise filter opening/closing on multiple sources simultaneously). There’s also the ability to export a clip-based automation to your hardware devices. Dragging it onto the instrument on a device within the Grid will generate it as a ‘Segments’ MSEG. Nifty.

Underpinning Automation Clips are Clip Aliases - Bitwig’s new method of chaining together multiple clips within your project. Put simply, this means that any change you make to a ‘master’ clip (be it audio, note or automation-based) will then be mirrored exactly across further copies of the clip and/or chosen linked clips across your project.

Again, it might not sound like much, but it’s one of those updates that has saved countless hours in the studio. It’s particularly useful if you’re planning on applying wholesale effect, filter or frequency-based modulation to a number of mix elements simultaneously. Their pattern is imprinted across the web of linked tracks

But while this quick duplication can keep things creatively focused, there is a danger that overuse could end up with a track that feels a little mechanical on the sound design front.

Bitwig appears to have foreseen this feeling of a lack of humanity, however, with the addition of a ‘Spread’ behaviour within its automation system. This generates random variations to an automation curve every time it’s played. Using the accompanying ‘Hold’ functionality, you can keep specific points set-in-stone.

Whilst these automation-focused enhancements continue to frame Bitwig as a sonic explorer’s software tool par excellence, there are also new additions on the compositional side. The much-requested project-wide Key Signature feature is now fully in play, with 23 scales able to be applied to the entire arrangement or just a subsection of it. You can automate changes to the key signature within your timeline, too.

Complementing this comes a fun new tool that allows us to spray-in notes to the piano roll at the selected beat interval. Bitwig’s under-the-hood algorithm neatly aligns these wayward notes to a master key, often resulting in a slew of new melodic or rhythmic ideas. And, if you wanted to go a little freeform with your own ideas and hand-jam along some potential melodies, a handy Quantize to Key functionality is now able to smartly corral your chaos (alongside any note-altering effects and Bitwig’s in-built arpeggiator) into the preset theoretical constraints.

Theory and mix-based time-sinks are more avoided than ever, therefore, but there’s also a heap of other smaller enhancements that cumulatively add up to a much more nimble workflow. These include a new safety feature which auto-backs up projects made in previous versions of the software, and four new Grid modules which enable quantizing by scale.

Verdict

Bitwig 6 is a big update, and while the main USP are absolute winners in our book, far more of its smaller nuances will undoubtedly become more beneficial over the next few months of using it on our developing projects. The headline features of v6 are a genuine delight, and triple-underline its purpose for being the veritable nerve centre of your sound-exploring needs.

Hands-on demos

Bitwig

Sonicstate

Specifications

We’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news but, in case there was still any doubt, it’s seemingly been confirmed that the urban legend that Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo on Michael Jackson’s Beat It was so ‘hot’ that it set a speaker on fire isn’t actually true.

But, on the plus side, the story does have its roots in something that didn’t actually happen when the song was being mixed.

That’s according to Matt Forger, who worked with engineer Bruce Swedien on the Thriller album at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles and later became Michael Jackson’s personal recording engineer. He was in the building when the alleged ‘flaming speaker’ incident occurred, and has given his version of events to Anthony Marinelli Music.

Some of what he says we already knew. Writing in his 2001 autobiography, Q, Thriller producer Quincy Jones had already confirmed that it was during the mixing rather than tracking process that things took a fiery turn.

“We knew the music was hot,” he began. “On Beat It the level was literally so hot that at one point in the studio, Bruce Swedien called us over and the right speaker burst into flames. We’d never seen anything like that in 40 years in the business.”

Forger doesn’t dispute that this happened, but his recollection is that it was an electrical problem rather than a level one that started the smokeshow.

What’s more, if you really want to get pedantic, he says that the event actually occurred at the pre-mixing stage, when Swedien was preparing elements such as backing vocals for final mixing.

“At one point in time when they were working on this, one of the amplifiers, the Crown power amps to the Westlake soffit-mounted speakers – the ones in the wall, the HR-1s – the amplifier for whatever reason failed,” explains Forger, though he can’t tell us exactly why.

“It might have been a power supply, a filtering cap, I don't know what it was,” he says. “Something let loose in the amplifier and put out a tremendous power surge into the right-hand set mounted Westlake speaker.”

Explaining what happened in more detail, Forger says: “Normally there's AC current going into a loudspeaker because the speaker cone actually moves. But when you get DC that's just a giant enormous surge of power. That caused the voice coil – which is the element that moves the speaker in the permanent magnet – to heat up. It overheated and glowed red like the element in a toaster or a toaster oven.”

So… you’re saying this is an… AC/DC story? Let’s not even go there.

Were there any actual flames, though? “It was glowing red and it emitted a tremendous amount of smoke,” says Forger, but the speaker cone was made of fireproof material.

“So, it's not like it's a giant flame, like a jet engine flame is going to come out. Instead, it's going to smoulder like an ember and create a horrendous atrocious smell, that real acidic electronic burning smell. The thing was lighting up like a toaster. It was glowing red.”

“Well, that’s a speaker on fire,” says Anthony Marinelli, clearly wanting the legend to be true just as much as the rest of us.

Forger also seems to confirm that Beat It was playing through the speakers when the problem occurred, but he can’t say which part.

“It wasn't necessarily Eddie's guitar solo. They were working on the song in general when it happened, but of course… it could have been.”

That’ll do for us – let’s just say that it was.

For the record, Forger says that both he and Quincy Jones were actually in a different studio at Westlake when all of this happened, and were altered to the incident when Bruce Swedien popped his head round the door and said “We just caught the speaker on fire”.

“So, everybody, you know, runs in to see this,” says Forger. “The assistant engineer in a cautious fashion did take out the fire extinguisher, made sure that there weren’t any flames and nothing caught on fire, nothing was damaged. But the smell was absolutely horrible.”

Little did anyone know at the time that we’d still be talking about the burning speaker more than 40 years later, but perhaps British songwriter Rod Temperton, a mainstay of the Thriller team who was working alongside Bruce Swedien, had some sense that this was going to make for a good story.

“Rod Temperton – Marlboro man, smoking a cigarette – in his dry British humour says, ‘This song must be really hot for it to catch the speakers on fire,’” laughs Forger, and who are we to disagree?

Welcome to MusicRadar's deals of the week, where we'll share with you the very best offers from around the web on some of our best-rated musical equipment. As the name suggests, we'll bring you a new batch of exciting discounts every week, so be sure to check back regularly to see what we've uncovered and stay ahead of the game.

Well, this week, Guitar Center is continuing to make some noise with its Big Bang Sale. This is one for all the drummers. Right now, you can score up to 25% off everything from cymbals to accessories, or even treat yourself to a shiny new kit. But they've also added $200 off select Fender models so that guitar players don't feel left out.

Now, is your band finally ready to take to the stage and get your music out there? Well, you're going to need to invest in some quality live sound equipment. Luckily, you'll be able to hit the road running, as Sweetwater is currently offering up to 35% off a range of live sound equipment. From speakers to mics, wireless systems, and mixers, you'll find discounts on everything you need to perform live.

Meanwhile, Musician’s Friend has kicked off the Guitar Fest Sale, which sees up to 40% off a massive range of gear. From Epiphone to PRS, Music Man to Gretsch, and so much more, all the big guns are included.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Thomann: Shop hot deals
• Fender Shop: Shop discounted Strats & Teles
• IK Multimedia: Save on iRig and AXE I/O
• Plugin Boutique: Save big on plugins
• Positive Grid: Smart amp sale
• Reverb: Save big on top brands

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

Fresh from winning the Best Song Brit Award alongside Olivia Dean for Rein Me In, Sam Fender has now uploaded a brief behind-the-scenes video that gives us a glimpse into how the song was made.

After a quick shot of Fender working on the song’s piano part, we see him practising the electric guitar flourish – a play on the main guitar motif – that you hear in Rein Me In’s second verse. He says that he’s thinking of it as a “response” to the vocals.

As we see him perfecting the part on a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe – quite a niche model, with its mini-humbuckers – Fender is struggling with a quick pickup setting change that he wants to use: from the middle position, with both pickups on, to the bridge pickup. So he asks someone else in his crew to come and flick the switch on his behalf.

“Every time I play a Les Paul or anything I just wanna do, like, AC/DC,” says Fender. We’ll gloss over the fact that AC/DC aren’t actually known for playing Les Pauls – Malcolm Young always played a Gretsch and brother Angus a Gibson SG – as, before long, Fender has ditched his and switched to a different guitar anyway: a Gretsch White Falcon.

This has the TV Jones T-Armond single coil pickups of a '55 Select, but that usually has a Cadillac tailpiece and Fender’s has a Bigsby, which may have been retrofitted.

“I like the bridge, you know, the pickup – it was more dirty,” says someone in the studio, before giving the thumbs-up to Fender as he plays the part with some tremolo thrown in, as you hear on the final record.

This guitar part features on both the original version of Rein Me In, which appears on Fender’s 2025 album, People Watching, and the Olivia Dean rework, which has her singing her own verse and pre-chorus.

Accepting the Best Song Brit Award alongside Dean, Fender said: “I love this song. I wrote it about four years ago and I loved it then. Olivia made it her own, and I just want to say thank you to Olivia and to the fans.”

“I just want to say thank you to Sam – I think this is a beautiful song and it’s just been a pleasure to be part of it,” added Dean.

The collaborative version of Rein Me In began life when Fender and Dean performed it together at the London Stadium on 6 June last year (Dean had been a support act at the show).

After footage of the performance started to gain traction on social media, the two artists repeated the trick at Newcastle’s St James’s Park on 15 June, and the studio version was released on 20 June.

Finally, after 36 weeks in the UK singles chart, the song finally reached Number 1 in February 2026, and continues to ride high on streaming services.

A concerning report has found that headphones – which a huge number of us wear on a daily basis to listen to music – contain chemicals that are potentially hazardous to human health.

Those substances include ones that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and even the feminisation of males. And it seems that no brand is safe – even market leaders such as Bose, Panasonic, Samsung and Sennheiser’s products were found to contain them.

So what exactly are these chemicals? And should we be worried? Well, according to The Guardian, the project that carried out the research - ToxFree LIFE for All, which is a partnership of central European civil society groups – found Bisphenol A (BPA) appeared in 98% of samples, and its substitute, bisphenol S (BPS), in more than 75%.

These are both synthetic chemicals used to stiffen plastic. But they mimic the action of oestrogen inside organisms, and cause a range of effects including feminisation of males, early onset of puberty in girls, and cancer.

So is it a problem? You don’t eat your headphones, do you? Ah… but previous studies have shown that bisphenols can migrate from synthetic materials into sweat, which can then be absorbed through the skin.

Also found in the headphones were phthalates, which are potent reproductive toxins that can impair fertility; chlorinated paraffins, which have been linked to liver and kidney damage; and brominated and organophosphate flame retardants, which have similar properties to bisphenols. However, most of these were found in only trace quantities.

“These chemicals are not just additives; they may be migrating from the headphones into our body,” said Karolína Brabcová, chemical expert at Arnika, which is one of the partners of ToxFree LIFE for All.

She warned against overuse: “Daily use – especially during exercise when heat and sweat are present – accelerates this migration directly to the skin. Although there is no immediate health risk, the long-term exposures – especially for vulnerable groups like teenagers – is of great concern. There is no ‘safe’ level for endocrine disruptors that mimic our natural hormones.”

The ToxFREE for Life group bought 81 different headphones for the research, both the in ear and over the ear kind, in a number of countries in central Europe, as well as online via online platforms such as Shein and Temu. They tested them in a laboratory for a range of dangerous substances, and, alarmingly, found harmful chemicals in every single one.

What is it?

German manufacturer HEDD is best known for its ribbon tweeter-equipped monitors, and the AMT (air motion transformer) design formed the basis of its first line of headphones.

The HEDDphone, HEDDphone Two and HEDDphone Two GT all feature the same full frequency variable velocity transformation (VVT) drivers. These are fantastic and pretty pricey headphones that are variously designed for critical and leisure listening. Meanwhile, the distinctive rectangular ear cups add their own stylish twist.

Nevertheless, even the lightest model (HEDDphone Two GT) weighs in at 550g a pair, which many would consider a little heavy for long listening spells. So, it’s maybe no surprise that its latest addition, the HEDDphone D1, does things differently. It’s also considerably more affordable.

The D1 is an open-back over-ear headphone built for reference monitoring and audiophile listening. It uses a more traditional diaphragm-based driver design, but in keeping with HEDD’s design philosophy, the diaphragm uses a high-tech material called thin-ply carbon (TPCD). Developed in collaboration with Swedish diaphragm specialists Composite Sound, HEDD is keen to point out that this is the first headphone driver to use this super-light material.

At 32 Ohms, the impedance is low, so the headphones are easy to drive. Further design features include perforated velour ear pads, moulded foam headband, independent ear cup connections with detachable textile-covered Y cable, and custom hard shell carry case.

Performance

HEDDphone D1 is hand-built in Berlin, and the build quality and finish are both excellent. We really like the styling, which is pretty low key with the matt black look punctuated by some subtle HEDD branding on the headphones and cable. The design is fully serviceable, which is important given the price, meanwhile both the ear cup assembly and headband assembly can be unclipped should you need to replace them.

The D1 uses a traditional notched metal headband, which allows plenty of adjustment for head size and provides a decent amount of clamp. There’s also moderate rotation in the ear cup hinges to help achieve a snug fit. The internal ear pad diameter is reasonable, though certainly not the biggest we’ve seen, but nonetheless should accommodate most ear sizes. Overall, we found the fit pretty comfortable even after long listening spells.

The headphone design has a very open back and this means you don’t get much passive isolation. Even so, this adds to the natural feel, and first impressions are of quite neutral sonics with good stereo separation and imaging. This means beat-heavy tracks are not hyped in the low frequencies, and for critical listening and mixing, this is definitely desirable.

In terms of low-frequency delivery, this begins to noticeably tail off from about 45Hz, making the D1 very useful for checking the lows in your mix. The high frequencies have a very subtle lift, and this makes it much easier to focus on the upper mid and mid frequency areas even at higher listening levels.

So, whether you’re trying to balance rock guitars or sit a lead vocal, the all-important mid-range has plenty of clarity but is not overbearing. Overall, we think HEDD has done an excellent job of tuning the D1 so it’s great for audio users but also offers enough for audiophile listeners too. That said, if you like big bass, you’ll need to boost that manually.

Verdict

HEDDphone D1 is an extremely desirable headphone. Premium design detail coupled with excellent sonics delivers a listening experience that doesn’t disappoint and, although the price is reasonably steep, you’re getting excellent build quality and a five-year warranty.

Hands-on demos

HEDD Audio GmbH

Alternatives

Specifications

I've been covering sales on music gear for a good few years now, and typically, the Christmas hangover takes a couple of months to get over. If you've been holding off on buying somethin,g however, there's a great opportunity to score some big savings thanks to the Presidents' Day sale at Musician's Friend, with some humongous discounts of up to 60% off.

Most of the biggest savings are on things like software, hence the large percentage off, but you can also save big on audio interfaces, electronic drum kits, and plenty of guitar gear, too.

As it's part of my job to find the best deals on gear, I've had a look through the full sale to see what's available. The first thing to catch my eye was a hefty $150 discount on this Warm Audio WA-47 tube condenser microphone. I love a tube mic on vocals, so if you want to upgrade the sound in your studio, this is a great option.

In the best audio interfaces guide that I curated, I picked the IK Multimedia Axe I/O as the best option for guitarists, and it's got a nice $120 off in the sale right now. If you're regularly recording guitars it's an awesome choice, with a built-in tuner, options for impedance levels, and a switch that accounts for active and passive pickups.

They're not in the overall sale, but you can use the coupon deal to bag 15% off the Sony MDR-7506, which was my pick as the best budget option in our studio headphones guide. Using the code PRESDAY, you can bring the price of these headphones below $95, ideal if you need a budget mixing can or something for monitoring alongside a pricier pair.

Welcome to MusicRadar's deals of the week! Get ready to dive into a treasure trove of fantastic offers on top-rated musical gear from across the internet. We curate a fresh batch of jaw-dropping discounts every week, so be sure to swing by regularly to catch the latest steals.

Well, it’s time for another round of MusicRadar’s deals of the week, and blimey, have the retailers been busy this week! Whether you’re after a shiny new axe, some studio gadgets, or just fancy treating yourself to that pedal you’ve been eyeing up, there’s something tasty cooking at all the big players.

Guitar Center is still going hard with their winter clearance sale, slashing prices across guitars, amps, and effects. With up to 30% off, we’re talking proper savings on Fender Player Series Strats, the ever-popular PRS SE models, and some cracking deals on practice amps that won’t wake the neighbours. If you’ve been holding off on upgrading your rig, now’s the time to pounce - but be warned, the sale does end on Wednesday, the 11th of February.

Over at Sweetwater, they’re doing what they do best – massive discounts with that legendary customer service thrown in for good measure. Their “You Deserve a New Guitar” sale offers genuinely eye-watering price drops on models from Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, Martin, Taylor, and so much more.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Thomann’s serving up their usual treasure trove of bargains for our European mates. They don't have a specific sale as such, but the Harley Benton range offers ridiculous value alongside the big-name brands, so it’s worth starting there if you’re on the hunt for an affordable new six-string.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Amazon: Money off accessories
• Fender Play: 50% off annual
• Fender store: Save big Fender
• Gear4Music: Clearance deals
• Guitar Center: Save on guitars & more
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month just $1
• IK Multimedia: $200 off Tonex Max
• Musician's Friend: Shop the BF Sale!
• Plugin Boutique: Money off plugins
• Positive Grid: Save on Spark
• Reverb: Save on used gear
• Sweetwater: Epic deals
• Thomann: Last-minute deals
• TrueFire: Save 60% on lessons
• Waves: Buy two get one free

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

What is it?

With more and more audio users relying on headphones for critical tasks, having a reliable and predictable headphone setup is a must. ARC On-Ear from IK Multimedia takes its established correction technology and bundles it into a palm-sized headphone monitoring device designed specifically for this task.

Operating either as a USB output-only interface (stereo, 24-bit, up to 192kHz) or via its own stereo analogue input (3.5mm stereo jack), ARC On-Ear provides both headphone correction and virtual mix room features. It works in conjunction with its own ARC On-Ear desktop app, and once set up, can also operate as a standalone device, processing any input source.

The layout is pretty straightforward with 3.5mm analogue input, USB-C socket and power switch on the back, and ¼” headphone output on the front. Power is via USB-C or from the onboard rechargeable battery. On the top panel, you’ll find the output level knob and three backlit soft buttons (calibrate, studio and function). Finally, a five-part LED indicates which of the five onboard presets is currently selected.

The box includes two IK Multimedia branded leads – USB-C to USB-C and 3.5mm mini jack to mini jack with screw fit ¼” jack converter, and you also get a rather nice zip-up case, which easily accommodates all the components. The enclosed registration card gets you access to downloads, including the ARC On-Ear app, manual and Windows ASIO driver.

Performance

At under 80mm square, ARC On-Ear is very compact. The metal case construction feels reassuringly solid, meanwhile, the partially rubberised base helps with desktop stability. The understated black and dark grey casework is accented with orange labelling and button backlighting, and the same colour scheme is used for the included USB-C and jack cables. The whole package looks great alongside a laptop and the short 0.6m cables perfectly suit that task. That said, if you’re using it with a desktop setup, you might want to budget for some longer cables.

ARC On-Ear works in tandem with its own dedicated desktop app and it’s here that you select your specific headphones so they can be corrected to match IK’s more neutral target curve. ARC On-Ear currently has over 200 headphone profiles. There’s support for many classics (Beyerdynamic DT 100) as well as budget options such as Superlux, and premium brands such as Audeze, Ollo and Steven Slate Audio. Importantly, IK Multimedia is committed to expanding the list, with future support to include Apple’s AirPods Max and a number of wired in-ear models.

In use, the Calibration option is quite transformative for very coloured headphones (DT 100, for example), but more subtle for flatter monitor styles. Although there’s no overall depth setting for the calibration, you can tweak it using the tilt style tone dial (warm to bright). Further options include phase alignment and a 3-band user EQ, which you access via the Frequency Response display.

ARC On-Ear’s other key feature is the virtual mix room (Studio Simulation), and this can be used either on its own or in conjunction with the Virtual Speaker emulation – there’s a choice of 25 monitors. It uses physical modelling and an optional Ambience setting to emulate a mixing room environment. You can adjust the overall width and solo left/right speakers. In use, the studio aspect is quite subtle, with a general narrowing of the stereo image, and we found this assisted when setting both levels and panning. The speakers, meanwhile, can have a greater impact, particularly if you choose the ’80s classic option (NS-10M).

The Calibration and Studio Simulation options can be easily activated on the hardware, meanwhile the function button (FN) is user-assignable from within the app and includes handy options such as dim, mute and mono. Finally, the app automatically stores its settings to the currently selected preset. The five presets are particularly handy for standalone use, and you can cycle through them using the Cal + Function buttons.

Verdict

All told, ARC On-Ear is a fabulous device that provides multiple features to assist with headphone use. What’s more, it can be used alongside or instead of your existing audio interface and is compact enough to carry around in your pocket.

Hands-on demos

ikmultimedia

Alternatives

Specifications

For most of the history of recorded music, the accepted wisdom has been that cleaner recordings equal better quality.

Think expensive, high-end studios with lavish budgets and the latest technology. If your song wasn’t recorded downtown with the best desk and outboard gear, you had no chance of making it onto the charts. Now, of course, we live in a different world. Thanks to streaming, the leveling of the music industry and the rise of affordable recording equipment, home-recorded songs have as much chance of becoming a hit as something crafted in a top studio. And, for many people, the bedroom track is actually the one they prefer.

Given that you can rack up millions of streams with a song recorded on a cheap mic, a Focusrite 2i2 and a decent laptop, why even bother with Neves, Neumanns, SSLs and all the other expensive outboard? Does sound quality even matter anymore? As with most things, the answer is a little more nuanced than just yes or no.

Listeners seeking out alternatives to commercial records is not a new phenomenon – far from it. “The questioning of ‘good sound from expensive studios’ began back in the 1980s with home recordings on four-track cassettes, not just with TikTok and digital recording,” says Cem Oral, a mastering engineer with clients that include the Wu-Tang Clan and the Pet Shop Boys.

Robyn Hitchcock and other artists of the era used the four-track to record music the way that they wanted to. “I couldn’t get my quiff together, nor did I really want the digital patina sprinkled over my songs that seemed obligatory for 1980s pop music,” the former Soft Boys frontman says in a Facebook post. “So I clung to the homemade and the low-budget when it came to recording.”

This trend continued into the ‘90s, with deliberately lo-fi albums from artists like Flying Saucer Attack and Low – and of course, dance music has always been done on the cheap, with samplers and Mackie mixers providing the grit and character for early rave records.

The difference is, while these records may have been more ‘authentic’ to the musicians who made them, they were never meant to be hits. Nowadays, however, questionable mixes, hissy masters and lo-fi production go hand-in-hand with popularity.

So where does this authenticity come from? Is it just a matter of dropping a copy of u-he’s Satin tape emulator on the master bus and cranking up the hiss dial? As Cem notes, “I don't believe that home recordings generally sound more authentic. In my opinion, however, authenticity is very desirable, and I am actually pleased that more and more musicians are attaching importance to it.”

One musician with strong opinions on authenticity in music is Corben Lamb, a keyboardist for hip-hop group OMA that also produces the band’s material. The important consideration for Lamb is artistic intention.

“As long as there's intention behind what is being done,” he says, “then that can be quality. If you pull something off YouTube and put some drums underneath it, that does have a sound quality that might not typically be what you would think of as ‘high quality’. If someone does that with intention, or to match the emotion that they're going for, I wouldn't say that was ‘high quality’, but in terms of a piece of art, there's quality there.”

Ingmar Koch, who records under the name Dr Walker and designs musical instruments and effects as Liquid Sky D-vices, has a similar opinion: “Just adding a lo-fi filter to your music does not make it authentic. Authentic music comes from finding your own way of dealing with sound, music, art and life. You can make very clean, digital music and be completely authentic. And you can make lo-fi music that is still nothing more than lo-fi elevator music.”

When asked if sound quality matters, Cem counters: “Define quality. Asking a mastering engineer with more than 30 years of experience that is a good one! And a very tricky one as well. Of course, I love good sound. But if one person loves harsh noise, the next person might get heart palpitations from (hearing just) a single wrong note. It's a very individual matter.”

For video game composer and YouTuber Venus Theory, who’s often working to satisfy a client, authenticity may mean something very different, but it’s still of paramount importance. “Generally as the composer,” he says, “most of what I'm selling is an aesthetic more than the music itself. I can do a lot of things musically. It could be guitars, it could be cellos, it could be big synths, it could just be drums, it could be weird field recordings I process to make cool sounds. But it's more about trying to serve the game as best you can.”

As we mentioned, being authentic isn’t just about a producing a cruddy recording – although it could be if that’s the sound that reflects your musical vision. What it really comes down to is sounding like yourself.

“For me,” says Venus Theory, “the biggest thing is sonic interest. I'm not exactly concerned with getting the most pristine recordings. I certainly have the ability to record things very nicely, but I've often found that there's a difference between a recording and a performance. And that line is delineated generally by something having a bit of character to it.”

This element of character is often what will differentiate you from another artist who may be using the same plugins as you. “Everybody's got Spitfire, everybody's got Kontakt, everybody's got the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra,” continues Venus Theory.

“I don't know if you're familiar with Omnisphere at all, but there's this patch called Light Bulb Piano in it. It's one of the reasons I avoided buying Omnisphere because every time I watch a documentary, somewhere in that documentary will be the Omnisphere Light Bulb Piano patch, because it sounds very interesting and it sounds like a sound you would hear in a documentary. But it becomes a joke after a certain point.”

One way that many modern producers create sonic interest is by applying unconventional processing across the entire track on the master bus. You hear this in genres like Brazilian phonk, rage rap and even some more adventurous strains of modern pop, with distortion liberally plastered across the entire mix. For some older producers, this can be surprising, even shocking. But for others, it’s exciting – and it’s just what the song needs.

Take for example OMA’s 99 One Hundred, as recorded in the back of a limousine for synthesizer company Telepathic Instruments. The song features some heavy processing on the mix bus, including Effect Rack from Soundtoys.

“I am a big fan of [putting] a lot of stuff on my busses,” explains Corben. “On Effect Rack from Soundtoys, there’s a preset called Devil Pipe. It's like slap and a really heavy distortion. I put that on the mix bus. If you try that out on a mix bus, and you turn the mix pretty far down, like five percent, it’s almost like you put it on a stove, like it's just heating something up. It sounds nuts. I love that. It sounds like something.”

Some artists go even further than that. Canadian producer Loukeman often places a pitch-shifter on his master bus – not because he wants the track to be transposed, but to take advantage of the artefacts produced by pitch-shifting algorithms in an attempt to take his sound in interesting new directions.

“I love pitch-shifting plugins,” he says. “The worse they are, the better. I find when you pitch-shift things around, there’s a crazy phase-shift, everything gets wide and washed-out in a really nice way. On my song Idrk, the whole track is pitch-shifted - there’s a pitch-shifter on the master. I like how it glues everything together and fucks everything up.”

Another way that Corben gets his signature sound is by running drums out of the box and into a consumer-grade Akai reel-to-reel recorder – “I don't actually run it through the tape because then you get all of the time modulation. I dial the preamps in so that it's just about peaking and run it back out” – or into a Watkins Copicat tape delay to saturate snares.

“Every piece of gear to me has a character,” he says, “whether it's a really nice thing or a really old thing. And sometimes the older things have more character, especially if it's broken. The individuality of a piece of equipment is cool. That is high sound quality to me because it's using something specific with intention.”

Venus Theory has a similar philosophy. “I've got a couple of $30 tube preamps that are broken and shitty, but they sound cool. Run a drum machine into it and it just explodes and annihilates the room. But it's not because it's a good preamp at all. It's very much the opposite. But by doing that the result sounds more interesting, which then makes it sound more quality.”

While distorted and cheap can sound exciting, clean and expensive can also sound dull, as Corben discovered when tracking in a high-class studio. “I've definitely been part of recording sessions where you're in a nice place and you're using nice gear. It is expensive, but it just doesn't feel high quality. It falls into that uncanny valley of, ‘okay, we tried this in an expensive, incorrect way, but it just sounds lifeless’. All the gear, no ideas.”

Similarly, knowing the rules for recording perfect takes doesn’t guarantee perfect results. “I've definitely worked with engineers who, in my opinion, know a lot more about the rules than they do about the feeling of what they're trying to do,” he says. “I felt boxed in by them saying we have to do it like this. I've never done it like that, and it hasn't caused me a problem so far.”

Better to record the music that you want, in the way that you want. When researching this story, a musician colleague mentioned that his teenage daughters prefer the rougher, older songs from singer Beabadoobee, recorded before she started working with Rick Rubin in professional studios.

Corben responds immediately to this anecdote. “When she was at home making that stuff in her bedroom, it comes across to the listener that she made every single one of those decisions,” he says.

“It's a pure expression of what she was thinking. She didn't settle on that drum sound until she really liked it. But you go into a studio and someone else does the mics, then all of a sudden you are settling for something that someone else has done. It’s less representative of one person, or one small group of people in a band scenario. The big studio stuff [can feel] less personal.”

Ingmar sums it up like this: “Of course, sound quality is important to me. But for me, sound quality is not the question of how to sound like Sting and the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra. For me, sound quality means one thing first of all: does it sound interesting? The cleaner and more polished techno, breaks, hip-hop or acid become, the more bored I personally get. The music market is already on the floor anyway. Why waste your time trying to sound mainstream?”

Ultimately, the quality of your music isn’t going to be decided by whether it was recorded in an eye-wateringly expensive studio, but by how effectively it expresses your creativity, your personality and your artistic intentions, whatever they may be. And sometimes, the best way to do that is with a $50 mic and a copy of GarageBand.

“Sound quality is ultimately pretty important if you want to have a sense of authority with what you're selling,” stresses Venus Theory. “It doesn't need to be the cleanest recording ever, but if it hits and if it feels good and fills a room and, in the compositional world, if it really complements what you're seeing directly, then that's the name of the game.”

What is it?

When recommending headphones we tend to advise using open-back designs for critical listening and closed-back designs for recording. This is solid advice as the former tend to be lighter and more comfortable to wear, delivering better overall sonics. Meanwhile the latter offer better passive attenuation and prevent bleed, so you can turn them up nice and loud when recording. That said, well-designed closed-back headphones can potentially be used for all tasks. Lensys Professional from Focal is a headphone that aims to do just this.

Focal is well established in the headphone and audiophile space, producing both wired and wireless designs in both open-back and closed-back formats. Focal’s professional range currently includes the open-back Clear MG model and also the more affordable closed-back Listen model. In terms of price, the new Lensys Professional sits between the two. However, the Lensys Professional looks much closer to the Clear MG in terms of physical design and component choice.

The Lensys features Focal’s own 40mm aluminium/magnesium ‘M’ dome drivers. These combine excellent damping with great rigidity. Meanwhile, the pads combine thermosensitive, high-resilience memory foam with a microfibre and acoustic fabric covering. A similar material covers the underside of the head band. The ear pads certainly have a different feel to the more springy velour-covered pads found on many comparable designs.

Performance

The Lensys Professional looks similar to other Focal models such as the Hadenys and Azurys, and this design is very slick and less bulky than many of the premium studio headphones we see. In the box you get the headphones, two branded cables (one straight and one coiled), a 3.5 to 6.3mm screw-in adapter and a hard shell carry case.

Looking at the outside of the ear cups with their distinctive perforated back panel it’s not immediately obvious that these are a closed-back design. Of course, when you put them on, the very noticeable passive isolation instantly tells you otherwise. Connection is via the left ear cup only, which is a bit inflexible, however the inclusion of a coiled cable is very welcome.

Head band adjustment is gently notched and there’s plenty of ear cup rotation. Indeed, you can fold the ear cups flat for storage in the hard shell case. All cabling is hidden inside the hinges and head band, which is a nice touch. The headphones are very comfortable and at just over 300 grams – quite light for a closed-back design. That said, the streamlined narrow headband isn’t quite as comfortable as a wider band.

The sound is definitely more direct than you get from open-back designs, and focused on the mid range. This can be more fatiguing at higher volumes. The bottom end is tight and, although we found no obvious tail off until about 50Hz, the overall balance does not hype the low frequencies. It’s a similar story with the high frequencies, with no obvious air added to the top end. From a listening perspective this is good for mixing and even better for tracking, when you want to be able to differentiate your performance from other instruments and sounds. Being closed-back, you can of course turn them up pretty loud without too much bleed. That said, from a purely listening perspective we found the Lensys Professional less satisfying than good open-back headphones.

Verdict

Overall, the Lensys Professional is a beautifully-designed headphone with impressive sonics. The streamlined design not only suits long listening spells, but we think makes them just about compact enough to wear out. Meanwhile the closed-back design makes them perfect for recording.

Hands-on demos

FOCAL

Alternatives

Specifications

Welcome to MusicRadar's deals of the week! Get ready to dive into a treasure trove of fantastic offers on top-rated musical gear from across the internet. We curate a fresh batch of jaw-dropping discounts every week, so be sure to swing by regularly to catch the latest steals.

Guitar Center is kicking things off with up to 30% off in the "stay inspired" sale – and yes, that includes guitars, keyboards, interfaces, and so much more. Whether you’re after a new six-string, looking to upgrade your studio, or finally nab that PA speaker you need to sound better live, there’s bound to be something worth checking out.

Over at Sweetwater, the January clearance sale continues, offering discounts of up to 50% on a wide range of gear. It’s the perfect opportunity to snag some quality kit without completely decimating your bank account - but be quick, as it is ending soon.

Making our way over to Musician’s Friend reveals a generous up to 40% off in the Winter Sale. This massive sale has everything from up to $799 off electric guitars to up to $1,000 off keyboards and so much more.

Editor's picks

Looking for more bargains? Check out more recommended sales below:

• Amazon: Money off accessories
• Fender Play: 50% off annual
• Fender store: Save big Fender
• Gear4Music: Clearance deals
• Guitar Center: Save on guitars & more
• Guitar Tricks: 1 month just $1
• IK Multimedia: $200 off Tonex Max
• Musician's Friend: Shop the BF Sale!
• Plugin Boutique: Money off plugins
• Positive Grid: Save on Spark
• Reverb: Save on used gear
• Sweetwater: Epic deals
• Thomann: Last-minute deals
• TrueFire: Save 60% on lessons
• Waves: Buy two get one free

How we choose our deals of the week

Here at MusicRadar, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing, creating and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything music gear-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our deals.

Our mission is simple - to help you make the best buying decision, find the right gear at the right price, to make the best music you can.

For us to recommend a deal it has to be a product we rate that’s been reduced to a genuinely great price or part of a truly fantastic bundle. It’s also important that we only recommend retailers that we trust.

You can see more of our product recommendations in our buyer's guides and reviews.

Why you can trust our choices

Our editors and writers are all experienced musicians and experts in their fields. They have a deep understanding of the categories that they cover, which means that you can trust their choices when it comes to recommending products.

We pride ourselves on the independence, quality and reliability of our testing processes and the reviews it produces. It’s what has made us the world’s leading music-making publishing company. You can find more details on how we test some specific key product categories, but the principles apply across the board, rigorously assessing build quality, functionality, playability and, of course, sonic performance.

We cover a lot of the big sales events throughout the year, including Memorial Day, Black Friday, 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day, and we have a good view of which products are likely to receive the biggest discounts and when, the prices they’ve been in the past and which deals are genuinely worth a look.

Where are the best places to shop?

Online shopping is definitely a lot easier and more secure than it used to be, and we like to recommend a small handful of online retailers who have a sterling reputation and offer fantastic benefits like fuss-free returns, great customer service and, in some cases, full checks and setup of guitars before they are dispatched. So, all the deals we’ll recommend on this page are from retailers that tick these boxes.

What sort of deals should I look for?

Great deals come in all shapes and sizes. There are a few key types to look out for:

• Single item - A single product with a great discount
• Site-wide discounts - A single discount percentage on a large range of products across a site
• Discount codes - Load your basket to a certain value and redeem a discount code for money off your basket contents
• Added value deals - These include multi-buy discounts, or additional products or software for free when you buy certain items

NAMM 2026: Since Roland launched its original Go:Mixer, back in 2017, the demand for devices that enable you to record multiple high-quality audio sources to your smartphone - for video or anything else - has only increased.

Livestreams and social media ‘reels’ are, of course, the new rock ‘n’ roll (OK, they aren’t) and being a ‘content creator’ is now an actual job (though probably not one that your parents will understand if you try and tell them what it is you do for a living).

So now, after a couple of Go:Mixer Pro devices, Roland has introduced its most comprehensive model yet: the Go:Mixer Studio. Said to be a “studio-grade audio mixer and recording interface,” this is compatible with iPhone, iPad Mac and Windows, though there’s no mention of Android.

Go:Mixer Studio has 12 input channels and six outputs, and you can record at up to 24-bit/192kHz quality. There are also built-in effects - a 3-band EQ, a compressor and a reverb - which can be used for recording or just monitoring. Mixer setups can be stored in 16 scene memories.

The selection of inputs should cover most eventualities: there are two XLR mic/line inputs with mic preamps; a dedicated guitar/bass input; and 1/4-inch inputs for stereo sources such as a keyboard, electronic drum kit or anything else you might be wanting to record. Further stereo sources can be plugged into the aux input, which has TRRS support for bidirectional audio with mobile devices. There’s MIDI I/O, too.

Monitoring connectivity includes a 1/4-inch headphone jack and a further mini-jack output for your wired earbuds. This supports a headset or inline mic, giving you a further recording source to work with. If you’re back in the studio, you can use the 1/4-inch line outputs to plug into your speaker setup.

The Go:Mixer Studio’s control panel looks nice and clean, with just a few knobs and buttons below the display. You can also take control using the Go:Mixer Cam iOS app, which enables you to capture both multitrack audio and video. Every input can be mixed from here, and you can also export the multitrack audio files for use in your DAW or video editor.

PC and Mac users can also take advantage of the Go:Mixer Editor, which puts all of the device’s parameters on a larger display.

Power can be drawn from your device, an adapter or a USB battery pack (there are two USB-C ports so you can connect and plug in a power supply at the same time) and you can mount the Go:Mixer Studio on a tripod if required.

We can imagine a lot of scenarios where the Go:Mixer Studio could come in handy, whether you’re making video or only recording audio. All it's missing is SD card recording capabilities, but maybe that's something for the Go:Mixer Studio Pro. It’s available now priced at $299, and you can find out more on the Roland website.

NAMM 2026: Shure has announced some extraordinary-looking new additions to its respected KSM line of condenser microphones today at the NAMM Show. The KSM32C, the KSM40C and the KSM44P brings the line bang up to date, and seek to further the range’s penchant for exemplary audio capture within an elegantly-crafted exterior.

Aimed at a plethora of studio and instrumental tasks, the three new additions to the line include newly engineered, hand-crafted miniature capsules that enhance off-axis rejection and overall clarity.

The first in the new line, the large diaphragm condenser KSM32C, is being promoted with the tagline, ’Small capsule, big sound’ and is said to deliver a smooth, balanced response with exceptionally low-frequency performance. This, Shure tell us, makes it ideal for both vocals and instrument recording, alongside other more direct duties such as drum overhead capture.

The KSM40C (which wears a tagline of ‘Warmth you can feel, detail you can hear) is also a large diaphragm condenser that sports a much more robust proximity effect and a high-frequency boost to aid the natural-feel of its captured sound sources. This makes it a great fit for taking in all the nuances of a wider array of instruments, including - in Shure’s words - upright bass, guitar amps and the thud of a kick drum.

The third offering, the KSM44P is the real headline here. This dual-diaphragm beauty is said to bring all that the other microphones in the range offer to the table, but also promises to maximize sensitivity and stabilize pattern consistency. This beefy, multi-pattern professional studio microphone features natural clarity and deep detail. Again, it can be thrown at a range of tasks, namely vocals, pianos, stereo techniques, distant miking and ensembles.

“One of the most immediately striking features is their impossibly low self-noise,” said Greg Norman, an engineer at Steve Albini’s legendary Electrical Audio studio who has been working with this new KSM series ahead of their launch. “So low, in fact, that while tracking a very quiet vocal, I found myself double-checking to confirm the mic was even active. This level of noise performance is seriously impressive.”

The KSM32C is available in either a ‘Stage Kit’ or ‘Studio Kit’, and all these microphones come bundled with a plethora of further relevant accessories, including shock mounts, pop filters, zippered carry case and mic clamps. Further info on specific package details can be found over at Shure’s website.

KSM32C/HM Cardioid Condenser Microphone (Stage Kit) - $659
KSM32C/SM Cardioid Condenser Microphone (Studio Kit) - $729
KSM40C Large Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser Microphone - $879
KSM44MP Large Diaphragm Multi-Pattern Condenser Microphone - $1,099

The KSM line will be available from Spring, Shure say. But we’ll be sure to swing by the company’s booth at the NAMM Show and take a look at these new KSM microphones ourselves. Keep an eye on our NAMM 2026 live blog for updates!

What is it?

AKG is responsible for some of the most popular and iconic microphones in recording history, and continues to manufacture classics such as the C414 condenser, alongside more affordable options such as the C3000. Its latest venture is the new C-Series. This offers their famous styling at an even more affordable price point, bringing AKG to an even wider user base.

The range includes three studio condenser mics - two larger diaphragm side address models (C104 and C114) and one end address pencil style model (C151) - and we have all three up on the test bench. Key design features to note include mic bodies made from recycled metal and the use of recycled pulp and other sustainable materials for the retail box. Indeed, for all three mics, the retail box also doubles as the storage box, with no further storage pouch included. As you would expect from AKG, the finish of each mic is excellent, and particularly good for this price point.

From a technical perspective, each mic offers something different. The C151 is a traditional small diaphragm (16mm) cardioid condenser. Its good transient response and high SPL handling are ideal for close miking instruments, meanwhile its light weight and cardioid pattern mean a pair of C151s would suit XY stereo recording.

Next up, the C104 is also a fixed-pattern cardioid condenser, but this mic has a larger 22mm diaphragm in a side-address configuration. Ideal for vocals, speech and instrument recording, its low self noise make it perfect for critical recording tasks.

The C114 is the most expensive and most flexible of the three mics. It uses a large 26mm dual diaphragm capsule to deliver a choice of cardioid, omnidirectional and figure 8 pickup patterns.

All three mics are phantom-powered condensers using transformerless FET circuitry and have good self-noise figures. They also include dual-thread mic clips designed for both ⅜” and ⅝” threaded stands – a nice touch. The only slight frustration is that there are no on-body options, such as a low-cut filter.

Performance

C151

This is the simplest mic and comes with a regular low-profile mic clip. We found the sound to be reasonably bright in the top end and this is confirmed on the frequency chart, which indicates peaks just above 5kHz and 10khz. Less obvious from listening tests is the gradual low-frequency tail off, which starts around 300Hz.

The mic works very well for instruments and captures a balanced sound from an acoustic guitar, for example. Despite the slightly pushed top end, it also works well on percussion. Used right in close, it has a moderate proximity that enhances the low frequencies. It’s also quite sensitive to plosives and wind, so you might want to purchase a foam wind shield if required.

C104

The C104 and C114 are both visually reminiscent of the classic AKG C414 shape, and although that’s where the similarity pretty much ends, it’s great to see AKG recycling this styling.

Of all three mics, the C104 will likely attract the most interest, as large diaphragm condensers make a great choice for vocals or speech, and can also be used for individual instruments.

The mic is a bottom-mount design and comes with an AKG-branded custom stand mount. This offers no isolation, which is a bit of a shame. But beyond this minor gripe, once set up, the mic both looks and sounds very good. In typical AKG style, the on-axis grille is silver and the off-axis side black, making the setup quick and intuitive.

Sonically, the C104 has a reasonably forward upper mid sound that enhances articulation in speech, vocals and instruments. It’s also quite full in the lower mid frequencies, with a noticeable proximity as you get in close.

The on-axis grille offers decent protection from plosives, and although we wouldn’t recommend using it without a pop shield for close miking, a skilled voice artist may well not need one. All in all, the C104 is a great all-rounder offering fantastic value.

C114

The C114 comes with its own C-shaped bottom-mounted suspension cradle. The combination looks very slick, and we found the cradle provided very good isolation. As mentioned, this mic has a very different capsule from the C104, and also has different sonics. In cardioid mode, there’s some lift in the mid to high frequencies, but this is less obvious than the C104, delivering a more neutral sound.

In figure 8 mode, meanwhile, the on-axis sound has more presence in the upper mid frequencies. The 180-degree off-axis sound is also consistent, so you could easily use this as the side mic in a mid/side setup.

Finally, in omnidirectional mode, the C114 has more high-frequency ‘air’ and sounds good on axis with the two diaphragms. The off-axis performance is less linear, which is not unusual for dual diaphragm omnis, and we would happily use this as an ambient mic.

Verdict

All three mics are simple to use and decently spec’d, especially considering the price. Throw in quality construction and familiar AKG styling, and these should prove suitably popular with a wide range of users.

Hands-on demos

Alternatives

Specifications

C104

C114

C151

What is it?

Choosing headphones can be a tricky process, with various different design types to consider as well as comfort, robustness and, of course, overall sound. Rode Microphone’s latest headphone addition is the NTH-50, and this on-ear design offers an alternative to their larger and more studio typical NTH-100 over-ear headphone.

Featuring a reasonably lightweight and low-profile form factor, the NTH-50 has an underlying aluminium frame construction coupled with a uniform matte black finish. Subtle Rode branding completes the picture for a robust and stylish design. Further aspects include custom-matched 40mm drivers with a resonant chamber configuration, detachable locking cable with connection to either ear cup, and soft memory foam ear cushions.

You’ll also find a padded headband with a contoured fontanel recess, which is designed to improve head top comfort. In the box you also get a storage pouch, ¼” jack adapter and a set of Rode’s colour ID clips, which you clip onto the plugs to help personalise multiple headphone cables. Finally, it’s worth noting that despite its competitive price tag, the NTH-50 is both designed and made in Australia and once registered, also includes a reassuring lifetime warranty.

Performance

Out of the box, the NTH-50 feels very well made, and at 220g is reasonably light. In typical Rode style, there’s plenty of branding, but it’s tastefully done and sets the NTH-50 apart from the plethora of generic designs now available. It’s also clear plenty of thought has gone into more practical design aspects. The part coiled, part straight cable is an obvious example, achieving the convenience of a coiled design but without the weight of a fully coiled cable. Meanwhile, the screw locking ¼” adapter and ear cup locking plug both ensure a reliable connection.

Ear cup left/right identification is easily achieved using the colour-coded cable connectors (left black, right red), meanwhile L and R braille labelling on the underside of each ear cup provides further assistance.

The NTH-50 has a pretty snug fit with good clamping. Ear cup adjustment is easily achieved and the headband has enough twist to accommodate most users. That said, the ear cups themselves have limited rotation and do not fold away, so if you’re a DJ wanting those features, then look elsewhere. For maintenance and cleaning, both the earpad and headband assemblies are quite easy to unclip and remove, and when the time comes for replacements these are available directly from Rode.

Sonically, the NTH-50 has a reasonably balanced delivery. There is some boost to the lower frequencies, but this is not too excessive. Whereas the higher frequencies are quite smooth and not boosted. We would say the mid-range is also not too forward, and the overall tonality means the NTH-50 is suited to a wide range of musical styles, including rock and guitar productions as well as contemporary beat-heavy sounds.

Detail is also well presented and the stereo image is precise. The headphone also continues to deliver plenty of punch even at high volumes. If you couple this with the natural high-frequency delivery, the NTH-50 is also not too fatiguing even at higher monitoring levels. It’s worth noting that despite being an on-ear design, the NTH-50 also offers pretty good passive isolation.

Verdict

Overall, the NTH-50 offers a good combination of comfort and sonics in a lightweight design. For reasonably affordable headphones, they’re also very stylish with excellent build quality.

Hands-on demos

RØDE

Alternatives

Specifications