News archive
September 2023
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209 articles
- September 27
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- The Vaporizer 2 wavetable synth plugin is now free and open-source: a commercial-quality instrument you can download for nothing?
- Best guitar tuner apps 2023: keep in tune for free with our top picks
- Yamaha, Korg, Roland and Casio face legal action from customers seeking compensation after all four companies were found to have engaged in price fixing in the UK
- "I get emotional when I think about Cliff and when we're together we think about Cliff": Memories of Metallica's lost bass titan Cliff Burton from Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield
- Roland’s Juno-60 synth plugin hits version 2: a new GUI, a better browser and control over the ‘analogue’ circuits
- “When I finished the solo to this one, Mustaine came into the studio, listened to it once, turned around and, without saying a word, shook my hand" – the story of Megadeth's Tornado Of Souls
- Venus Theory sampled $50k of gear at a synth convention to make this free plugin
- "Everybody around me kept saying, 'Norm, you can't carry on like this'": Fatboy Slim's career in gear, from tape to Atari to Ableton
- Zildjian is celebrating its 400th anniversary in London this October, and you won’t want to miss it!
- September 26
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- The missing piece for your ultimate pedalboard rig? Universal Audio announces the OX Stomp Dynamic Speaker Emulator pedal
- “It can totally do the hyper-authentic ‘60s thing, but it can do a bunch of other stuff that makes it much more versatile”: Strymon puts “gooey wobble” on the menu with the UltraViolet Vintage Vibe
- The new Pigtronix Cosmosis ambient reverb pedal has an intriguing Morphing feature
- Bitwig and PreSonus’s new open file format enables you to save projects in one DAW and open them in another, but will other developers support it?
- PreSonus Studio One 6.5 adds Dolby Atmos integration, but the real big news could be a new DAW file-swapping format
- The Gibson Les Paul Supreme is officially back – and the most expensive non-Custom LP is as luxurious, lightweight and versatile as ever
- “I didn’t want to have anything to do with the song. To me, it was like: ‘Are we turning into Depeche Mode?’”: Europe’s John Norum says he thought The Final Countdown was “dreadful” at first
- Keith Richards calls pop music “rubbish”, dismisses “synthesized muzak” and doesn’t get rap: “I don’t really like to hear people yelling at me”
- “If you’re going to recreate a guitar you’ve got to do it right and I think everyone is really gonna enjoy this”: Epiphone unveils the Joe Bonamassa 1963 Gibson SG Custom
- IK Multimedia is teasing something new, and our guess is that it’s a MODO Piano plugin
- 7 effects pedals that synth players need to try
- September 25
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- "I've got that disease where I can't stop buying guitars" – The Lottery Winners show us their pedalboards and custom PJD guitars
- Could Socalabs’ free Wavetable synth plugin be the open-source alternative to Serum?
- 12 tips, tricks and ideas for making better beats
- Paul Simon demonstrates his Travis picking style on acoustic guitar: "The thumb is always moving"
- The Loog Piano looks like a gorgeous beginner keyboard, but is it too simple for its own good?
- Bob Dylan goes electric again during a surprise set with The Heartbreakers at Farm Aid 2023
- Thomann relaunches its stellar Harley Benton anniversary sale by offering 25% off 25 killer guitars, basses and amps for 25 days
- This 'experimental' new DAW has a ton of innovative features that we haven't seen anywhere else: "This is something that should have existed for years"
- Moog Music is rumoured to be laying off staff at its US headquarters and moving the majority of its synth manufacturing to Taiwan
- The designer behind the Line 6 Helix reveals the one thing you might not be doing 'right' with your guitar amp modeller
- See Eric Clapton joined by Stevie Wonder, Joe Bonamassa pays tribute to Jeff Beck while Gales, Fish and Kingfish unite at Crossroads Guitar Festival
- Matty Healy for president? The 1975 frontman releases ‘campaign video’ in support of the band’s forthcoming US tour
- Whole Lotta Glove: When John Bonham punched Robert Plant in the mouth over £30 worth of petrol
- John Mayer breaks out his Monterey Hendrix Strat, solos with H.E.R and guest with Sheryl Crow at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival
- September 24
- September 22
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- Nirvana session cellist Kera Schaley talks about playing on In Utero: "The funny thing about All Apologies is Steve kept trying to talk Kurt out of putting cello on it"
- Show Us Your Studio #9: "I use Ableton and Maschine as glorified grooveboxes on steroids - it's endless fun and inspiration!"
- Could this Neumann w495 emulation be the most useful free EQ plugin you download this year?
- SampleRadar: 435 free UK urban samples
- Groove Synthesis’ 3rd Wave synth module does away with the keyboard and is ready for your desktop
- Wampler brings back its Fender-inspired Tweed ’57 and Black ’65 amp-in-a-box drive pedals – for a limited time only
- Beatie Wolfe: “It’s the imperfections that move us - Leonard Cohen’s weird voice or Nina Simone’s timing. It’s humanity that we respond to, not the perfect sheen”
- “All the ferocious growl and bite of an Ironheart you know and love”: Laney adds two compact, affordable and feature-stacked 60W amps to the Ironheart Foundry series
- Instrumental guitar music has never been more exciting than it is right now - here are 10 albums that prove it
- “It makes it exciting and dangerous and fun”: Yngwie Malmsteen says he doesn’t need to rehearse anymore and explains why he mostly ignores the setlist
- 9 tips for buying second-hand music gear without getting scammed
- Pro Tools Sketch: industry-standard DAW gets Ableton Live-style clip launching and a free iPad app, but will it convince you to switch?
- Elon Musk allegedly turned up at the studio with a gun while Grimes was recording dialogue for Cyberpunk 2077: "The studio guys were sweating"
- September 21
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- Electro Harmonix unveils the 9 mini Pico effects pedals for its NYC DSP Series – with reworked old favourites and new designs
- DAW not doing it for you? Cantor is a free “music playground” for looping, sampling and sound design
- Watch bluegrass guitarist Ian Ly become the 2023 US National Flat-picking Champion
- Audiomovers launches Off The Record interview series with first episode featuring Dire Straits producer Chuck Ainlay
- “I thought, ‘have I done something heinous?’”: James Blake reminds Brian Eno that he once accused him of using ‘the arsehole chord’ and demands to know what it actually is
- The Vai, Bonamassa, Di Meola and Abasi-backed guitar virtuoso Matteo Mancuso dazzles again on new song Silk Road
- DAACI is the AI-powered 'meta-composition' software that writes music like a human: "It's interpreting what comes from a composer’s brain, rather than trying to imitate something that’s already been made"
- Boss returns to desktop practice amps with the Katana Air Ex – but is the price right?
- 9 time-saving plugins that will speed up your workflow in the studio
- “When it came in as a demo, I assumed the rest of the song was going to be built out”: Kylie Minogue didn't realise Padam Padam was finished when she first heard it
- Get your voice heard, and win a £300/$350 Ticketmaster gift card by taking our quick survey
- September 20
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- Hania Rani on bringing synths and drum machines into contemporary classical: “I spent 20 years playing one instrument, but I’m still interested in investigating others”
- Genelec’s 9320A Reference Controller enables you to switch between three sets of studio monitors and your headphones
- When Derrick May sold Frankie Knuckles his 909, and house music was born: "This is a Roland 909 drum machine, and it's going to take us to the future. It'll be the foundation of music for the next 10 years"
- Black Friday studio headphone deals 2023: Everything you need to know ahead of this year's Cyber Weekend sales
- What could the new Headrush Core offer that the multi-effects pedal competition doesn't?
- Learn a percussive guitar riff in this lesson from Elixir® Strings artist and Andertons star John Connearn
- UK synth company Modal Electronics declared insolvent and goes into administration
- It looks like Yamaha is about to launch the Montage M synth, and there’s speculation that it’ll come with a new AN1x-style virtual analogue engine
- 8 steps to a better-sounding home studio
- Swift/Antonoff, Bowie/Visconti and the 'fifth Beatle': 5 of the greatest artist/producer partnerships in musical history
- September 19
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- Gibson teams up with Gene Simmons for a Custom Shop EB-0 bass – a short-scale doozy based on the God of Thunder’s heavily modded 1959 model
- Keeley Electronics launches the Noble Screamer Overdrive and Boost, a four-in-one pedal that offers ODR-1 and TS flavours and lets you mix and match
- “Right now I’d like to do a song, it’s a little thing by Howlin’ Wolf…”: Listen to Jimi Hendrix’s newly unearthed performance of Killing Floor at the Hollywood Bowl, 1967
- James Hype: "The kick drum is everything in dance music. The best way to fix a shit track is to change the kick"
- “He doesn’t do Zoom”: Mick Jagger reflects on how his songwriting partnership with Keith Richards has changed and discusses Paul McCartney’s bass playing on new Rolling Stones album Hackney Diamonds
- Fender launches the Vintera II series, offering new vintage-inspired models in rare custom colour finishes, and the return of rosewood fingerboards
- The NoInputMixer app is a no-input-mixer with no input and... no mixer
- Paul Rodgers shared a simple tip with us that's helped him maintain his legendary singing voice
- Crazy Tube Circuits wants to take you back to the '80s again with its new Sidekick Jr modulation, delay and reverb combo pedal
- Sammy Ash, the US gear retail legend who gave the Tube Screamer its name, dies aged 65
- Cindy Blackman Santana tackles the iconic In The Air Tonight drum fill as she joins Chris Stapleton and Snoop Dogg on a new version of the song for ESPN’s Monday Night Football
- 10 artists share 50 ways to make your music better: "If something in your mix sounds crap, it’s probably you - not the gear!"
- 1997 interview reveals that Aphex Twin owned a tank, wanted to buy a submarine and used the vault of the former bank he owned as a reverb: "It would be great for parties"
- IK Multimedia’s Miroslav Philharmonik 2 CE giveaway means that everyone can have a $150 orchestral plugin for free
- Issue 401 of Future Music is out now
- Fantastic (stock) plugins and how to use them: Logic Pro Delay Designer
- September 18
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- Andy Summers seems surprised his new signature pedal with Electro Harmonix is a flanger: "I would have called it a chorus"
- Soundbetter’s Butterfly Effect plugin is a vibey ambient reverb that can create instant meditative music from your melodic playing
- "It's become so elitist" – Joe Bonamassa weighs in on players being priced out of the vintage guitar and amp market
- 6 of the best free vintage gear-inspired plugins
- Thump One is a free synth plugin that blends a glitchy wavetable engine with a Roland supersaw-style oscillator
- "The minute I stopped mixing my stuff, I became my most creative": Should electronic artists mix their own tracks?
- Can Waves’ new AI Online Mastering service give your music a pro-level polish?
- September 17
- September 16
- September 15
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- Marty Friedman’s guitar teacher told him to take a bong hit every time he played an exercise correctly, but the ex-Megadeth guitarist has better advice for students
- “This thing shall destroy all!” promises Gary Holt as KHDK Electronics launches the thrash legend’s Mad Monarch signature preamp/drive pedal
- Interview: Mike McCready on road testing his new signature Mexican Strat at Pearl Jam shows, their next album and why he's still learning Eddie Van Halen's Eruption
- EVH Gear launches the Frankenstein Relic Series – three heavily aged takes on the Frankenstrat in solid red, black and white colour finishes
- 6 unofficial ROMpler emulation plugins that bring classic ‘80s and ‘90s PCM sounds to your DAW
- YouTuber Alex Ball gets his hands on Tony Banks’ old Roland JD-800 synth and finds that it still contains his Genesis tour patches from the ‘90s
- Show Us Your Studio #8: "I keep things as simple as possible. The studio only has four mono inputs - it's amazing how much you can do with just that!"
- “I got a Warmoth 8-string neck, bolted it onto that thing“: Novo Guitars’ Dennis Fano explains how radical mods on a ‘66 Jazz Bass launched his career as a luthier
- SampleRadar: 505 free ultimate arps samples
- Focal’s redesigned Trio6 ST6 has a Dual Focus mode that promises to give you “three different sounding monitors in one”
- Jessy Lanza on the Roland Aerophone, recording in a treehouse and losing a Juno at the airport
- “Sometimes Jimi Hendrix’s girlfriend would go and buy us breakfast because we had no money”: Rod Stewart says early days of the Jeff Beck Group were no picnic
- How does listening to Pink Floyd in Dolby Atmos affect your brain? New study will visualise 100 fans’ brain waves as they listen to Richard Wright’s The Great Gig In The Sky
- 5 of the best classic compressor emulations
- 10 things you didn't know Ableton Live could do
- September 14
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- Fender selected spruce from the same renowned Alpine valley that Stradivari used for its limited edition Suona Tele, Strat and Jazz Bass Thinline
- Tame your gain with the NS-1X: the first new Boss Noise Suppressor pedal in 35 years
- 5 essential Jethro Tull songs guitar players need to hear
- Watch a young Amy Winehouse covering The Beatles backstage at Glastonbury 2004
- 16 famous musicians who almost joined very famous bands
- Here's why Amy Winehouse believed that there are advantages to being a self-taught guitarist: “If you learn how to play guitar off someone, you just kind of learn to play it like them, you know what I mean?”
- Universal and Deezer launch new "artist-centric" streaming royalty model that rewards popular artists: "This is the most ambitious change to the economic model since the creation of music streaming"
- Black Friday studio monitor deals 2023: Everything you need to find deals on active speakers of all sizes this Black Friday
- Stability AI launches new AI music generator and it looks genuinely useful for music producers
- Native Instruments’ new Kontrol S-Series MK3 MIDI keyboards arrive with polyphonic aftertouch
- September 13
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- PreSonus relaunches its Eris studio monitor range with all new models and a simpler tiering system
- Tycho is selling 100 pieces of gear on Reverb, including the Eventide H3000 that he purchased after he learned that Eddie Van Halen used one, and an Oberheim FVS-1 synth that he says “has a mind of its own”
- The video for Olivia Rodrigo’s Get Him Back! was shot entirely on Apple’s new iPhone 15 Pro Max
- Taylor Swift wins big at the 2023 MTV VMAs as Olivia Rodrigo, Shakira and a cast of hip-hop legends perform live
- Are you an Ableton Live user? This free workflow hack will probably change your life
- "It makes it sound more powerful than anything we've done in a long time" – Pearl Jam's new album isn't quite finished yet but Mike McCready just told us two very good reasons to get excited about it
- September 12
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- “I can’t wait to take the stage with Eric and Steve again!”: Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai to tour together as the original G3 return for 2024
- Thundercat mints a fresh new track inspired by mouthwash
- Thom Yorke reveals he smoked a blunt before playing an encore then lost it on stage: "I was looking at the keyboard going, ‘What’s this?’ - I was so high, I just got up from the piano and walked off"
- Watch Jimmy Page unleash one of his wildest solos in unreleased footage of Led Zeppelin covering Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally at the Royal Albert Hall
- "For me, full length or even medium length just never made sense" – Royal Blood's Mike Kerr on his Fender signature Jaguar bass and love of short-scale
- 6 of the best classic EQ emulations
- The new relic'd Mike McCready Strat is the most ambitious Mexican Fender guitar to date
- 7 of the coolest free plugins we discovered this month
- Blackstar’s HT Venue series just got even more versatile with new MKIII tube amps featuring CabRig speaker sim as standard
- Kylie Minogue says she’d still like to release Baby Doll, the track she wrote with Prince: “I would love it one day if his estate would grant me permission to do something with it”
- Roland’s TR-8S and TR-6S drum machines get CR-78 and 808 bass instrument sounds added for free
- “Some of the songs have taken on a sort of highly pumped symphonic feel”: Johnny Marr to perform with a 30-piece orchestra at two hometown shows
- Keir on the power of GarageBand, his 'magic' AKG C414 microphone and writing a song a week for five years
- Vintage tools, modern techniques: How to get the sound of legendary gear using contemporary software
- "It was like someone kissing your girlfriend - it felt invasive": Trent Reznor on first hearing Johnny Cash's Hurt
- September 11
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- Paul Simon opens up on coping with hearing loss: “I play the guitar every day. It’s the instrument that allows me to express myself creatively. But it’s also where I go for solace"
- James Blake: “I owe more to Intellijel, who make the Metropolix sequencer, than I do to Stevie Wonder on this album”
- Is Ed Sheeran planning to release his own series of looper pedals?
- Why are producers making FL Studio speedrun videos, and can you learn anything from them?
- Epiphone guitars Noel Gallagher used on the first two Oasis albums to go on display at the British Music Experience museum
- 1010music brings its Bluebox mixer/recorder to Eurorack
- September 9
- September 8
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- The Purdie Shuffle: Bernard Purdie tells you everything you need to know about playing his most famous groove in one succinct social media post
- “That was what drew me to the guitar in the first place”: Paul Gilbert reminds us to pay attention to vibrato – because it is part of the language of the instrument
- Joe Bonamassa is one blues man under a groove as he takes a left turn into funk with Tower Of Power-inspired new single Hope You Realize It (Goodbye Again)
- Five songs drummers need to hear featuring… Steve Jordan
- What are ‘type beats’, and can you actually make money from producing them?
- “I like it because it is so fast it kind of makes the molecules in your brain shimmer”: Source Audio releases special edition Vertigo tremolo co-designed with Mission Of Burma guitarist Roger Miller
- Guitar amp pedals: 4 things to consider when choosing and using them
- Heart On My Sleeve, the song at the centre of the ‘Fake Drake’ AI storm, has been submitted for two Grammy Awards, but there could be a problem
- Gibson’s Cesar Gueikian just demoed a Les Paul that sure looks like it could be Mark Morton’s new signature model
- Music lessons are coming to Duolingo: an easier way to learn to play?
- Wren And Cuff makes a stunning big-box version of its Eye See ’78 fuzz pedal for Siamese dreamers and op-amp Muff freaks
- September 7
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- Shida Shahabi: "Computers changed my perception of how one could manipulate sound. I could make it strange-sounding in a way that I hadn’t been able to before"
- Daft Punk “weren’t on the same page anymore,” believes collaborator Todd Edwards, and says he “wasn’t shocked” by their break-up
- Keith Richards on The Rolling Stones' Start Me Up: "I was convinced – and I think Mick was – that it was definitely a reggae song"
- Acon Digital launches Remix, a new AI-powered stem separation plugin, as FL Studio looks set to get this feature built in
- Cableguys' 'massively modulatable' dual filter plugin gets supersized for FilterShaper XL
- Tom Bukovac's 'naughty triad' guitar chords allow you to create the illusion of opening tunings in standard
- September 6
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- Native Instruments introduces Ozone 11, Nectar 4 and Guitar Rig 7, and brings them together in Music Production Suite 6
- Jackson's second guitar in its American Series is the new Virtuoso
- Full Bucket Music releases another free plugin based on a Korg keyboard you probably haven't heard of
- Best small studio monitors 2023: Compact speakers from budget to professional
- Johnny Marr explains his three biggest guitar influences: "Hand In Glove started out as a Chic riff"
- Author Stephen King says that his wife threatened to leave him because he wouldn’t stop playing Mambo No 5
- Laurence Guy: "I couldn’t go back to Logic. The plugins are better and it sounds more polished, but it’s more fun working in Ableton"
- Eric Clapton's While My Guitar Gently Weeps solo was laid down on this day in 1968 because, says George Harrison, "I worked on that song with John, Paul and Ringo, and they were not interested in it at all"
- Show Us Your Studio #7: "I started with a couple pieces of high-end gear, flipped them for a little more than I paid and kept flipping until I have the collection I have now"
- See Steve Lukather's talented guitar tech Jon Gosnell demo his pedalboard – and repair it in the middle of a song
- Freddie Mercury’s Yamaha C2 baby grand piano sells for £1.74m at auction, but Brian May says he “can’t look”
- The beginner's guide to Logic Pro for iPad
- September 5
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- Eric Johnson’s custom-built Dumble Manzamp preamp and Odyssey power amp setup is being sold for $399,999 – and you can hear this unicorn amp in action
- And shoegaze for all! Fender adds the Kevin Shields Blender fuzz pedal to its mainline pedal range
- Is the Woovebox "the smallest all-in-one micro music workstation on the planet"?
- Issue 326 of Computer Music is on sale now
- Businessman/YouTuber Lee Anderton will declare "any personal financial interest" in future product demos following complaints to the UK's Advertising Standards Agency
- “It’s hard to look at a Polara and not think of Kim”: Guild salutes Soundgarden legend Kim Thayil with a pair of long-awaited S-100 Polara signature guitars
- Sequencing, sampling and synthesis workstation Strokes updated with performance mode and new effects
- Gibson’s Murphy Lab goes unplugged as it unveils five ‘Light Aged’ reproductions of classic acoustic guitars
- Synth pioneer Gary Wright, The Dream Weaver, has died at the age of 80
- Yamaha’s new FGDP-50 and FGDP-30 are portable, standalone finger drumming pads with DTX sounds
- Watch the Rolling Stones reveal details of their first album of new songs since 2005: "Let me put it this way, you haven't heard the last of Charlie Watts"
- September 4
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- “There is a lot of performance anxiety with students and their teacher... But with a video you can watch it a million times over. No one’s judging you”: Marty Schwartz on teaching guitar in the 21st century
- “She’s better than me now at producing her vocals,” says Kylie Minogue collaborator, as he explains how she’s “mastered” the art
- “We might look back on 2023 as the last year when humans really dominated the music scene”: Brian May warns of AI threat to musicians
- Looking for a music gear bargain this Labor Day? Here's the 5 best sales for music creators
- Tracktion Software’s new free instrument player plugin could be an Attracktive proposition
- Piezo on studio gear, weird effects and why he records absolutely everything
- 200bpm breakcore, blasts of feedback and blinding visuals: Aphex Twin's Forwards Festival set was a divisive, high-octane victory lap
- 5 Mark Ronson tracks producers need to hear
- Dust off that ‘90s PC, because Remute just made an entire album for MS-DOS
- “I can literally pull this out of my bag, plug in to any decent amp with an effect return and be CRUSHING fools to no end”: Thrash legend Gary Holt teases new KHDK signature preamp/drive pedal
- Learn the easy 3-chord trick that's behind countless hit songs
- The beginner's guide to bus processing
- The LM-1 drum machine returns as the Luma1, and there’s one thing thing in particular that Prince “would have loved” about it says Roger Linn
- Where is Paul McCartney's original Hofner bass? "Surely if anyone can find my guitar, it's you guys"
- September 1
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- Neil Peart’s DW piccolo snare drum is up for sale, with an asking price of just under £73,500
- “I live through the guitar. This is like a projection of my soul... It’s like therapy”: Juanes on his signature Strat, Metallica’s influence and learning from Tomo Fujita
- Blink-182 postpone UK and Ireland shows as Travis Barker flies home due to an “urgent family matter”
- Mythos dials MN3207 for modulation as it launches The Fates – a BBD tribute to legendary Japanese chorus pedals of yore
- “The cleaner you do it the louder it will sound:” Angus Young talks tone, solos, Malcolm and more in previously unheard interview tape from 1983
- Bill Finnegan warns Klon Centaur fraudsters are getting more sophisticated and shares tips for spotting a fake
- James Ellis Ford: "My desert-island synth would be my ARP 2600. I use that on literally everything I do!"
