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November 2025
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78 articles
- November 15
- November 14
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- “I send this mix to Rick Rubin and he says, ‘Anthony sounds old. Make him sound younger.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh, I wish there was a knob for that’”: Red Hot Chili Peppers mix engineer Ryan Hewitt recalls Rick Rubin's unusual request on 2006's Stadium Arcadium
- “One of the greatest electronic music songs of all time”: Disclosure give an official release to their updated edit of a ‘90s club classic
- It’s now nearly impossible to detect whether a track is human or AI-made, new survey reveals
- MusicRadar deals of the week: Black Friday has officially kicked off, with the likes of Sweetwater and Guitar Center dropping massive sales
- “I was smashing a guitar at every show. I had to use this special glue called Cascamite – it’s a powdered glue and I managed to string them back together. I got very good at putting guitars together”: Pete Townshend remembers The Who’s first US tour
- November 13
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- “I certainly got a new appreciation for the Megadeth stuff… it was amazing to see how far guitar quality had come in our genre of music”: Alex Skolnick on the time he was on standby for Megadeth – and what to do when you can’t match a player lick for lick
- I’ve seen a lot of Black Friday sales, but this one’s next level - Sweetwater just dropped thousands of discounts of up to 80% off guitars, drums, keys, and more
- “We've just upped it to 256 channels, which sounds crazy”: Coldplay’s live engineers reveal the lengths they go to to record every single show on the band’s never-ending Music of the Spheres tour
- “I nearly made a record with Ray Davies and David Bowie back in the late '90s”: Damon Albarn on the dream collab that got away
- “Dipping our toe into the cosmic pool of glitchy synth pedals with this one”: EHX expands its Pico series with the Atomic Cluster Spectral Decomposer – a mini-pedal that sounds so wrong its right
- “By the end of the process I sort of felt like I was squeezing blood from a stone, trying to get every last drop of liquid life out of an idea I had already been sat with for years prior”: Charli XCX reveals the extent of her post-Brat creative comedown
- Guitar Center just dropped its biggest sale of the year, with thousands of discounts and up to 40% off for Black Friday
- Concerts or copulation? 70% of music fans would choose riffs over rumpy pumpy
- “The internet is not a self-service store and human creative achievements are not free templates”: Crucial German court victory against OpenAI as ChatGPT ruled to have illegally harvested lyrics
- November 12
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- "Over 11,000 genre-defining Roland sounds in one powerful instrument": Roland brings Zen-Core to Galaxias with Zenology GX
- “The guitar tones alone were worth the price of admission”: Jon Bon Jovi was impressed by Oasis live
- “We’d look at each other like, ‘Oh my God, are we going to say that?! OK, we’re going to say that’”: The "hysterical" songwriting sessions with Sabrina Carpenter that propelled Amy Allen to four Grammy nominations
- "A pivotal moment for the UK music industry": UK music generated a record £8bn for the economy in 2024, but challenges from AI and Brexit remain
- My go-to audio interface is now even better value at under £80 in Gear4Music's early Black Friday sale
- The No. 1 country song in the US right now is AI-generated
- The PRS Black Friday sale is already here and there's huge discounts on SE CE 24, SE Custom 24, SE Studio and other workhorse models – here's 5 deals I rate
- “A multi-purpose, studio-grade delay device like you’ve never seen before”: Jack White used the prototype of this “studio-grade” delay on No Name and now you can buy it – meet the JHS Pedals x Third Man Hardware Troika
- November 11
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- “We’ve listened to our users… we’re giving them more creative freedom to shape their tone”: Universal Audio gives its UAFX amp modelling and effects pedals an almighty power up, adding MIDI connectivity, improving presets and app integration
- KV331 Audio is giving away one of the best iPad synths we've ever tested for free
- “I wanted to create an instrument that feels classic but also pushes players to explore new tones and possibilities”: Fender and Johnny Marr reimagine the Jaguar with a limited edition signature stunner featuring three custom-wound lipstick single-coils
- “The Purple Rain guitar was in the corner, his lava lamps were everywhere and the mixing desk had been used by Sly and the Family Stone”: Fine Young Cannibals confirm that She Drives Me Crazy was recorded at Paisley Park using Prince’s studio gear
- Behringer clones the classic Korg SQ-10 analogue sequencer with BQ-10
- The early Black Friday guitar deals don't get much better than this sale at Thomann - save up to 69% on two top-rated guitars, a Warm Audio condenser mic, a Behringer synthesizer, and loads more
- “I asked Taylor, ‘How would you feel about putting a five-string guitar on a six-string neck tuned in a very strange way”: Taylor teams up with Jacob Collier for signature acoustics that declare standard tuning DAEAD – and they’re accessibly priced
- “An incredible gesture, demonstrating once again that artists absolutely understand how vital grassroots music venues are to their careers and to their communities”: Sam Fender to donate his Mercury winnings to the Music Venue Trust
- “The guitar I built in Kirk’s hands… paying tribute to Tony, Ozzy and Black Sabbath, it was amazing and strange, humbling and epic”: The unique SG built by Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian and played by Kirk Hammett at Back to the Beginning heads to auction
- November 10
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- We didn’t expect this rising artist to snag a Producer of the Year nod for the 2026 Grammys - but we’re glad he did
- "He closes the guitar case, he hands it to me and he says ‘take care of this for me’”: Shortly before he died, Warren Zevon gave David Letterman a guitar, and after 22 years, it just went “back to work” in the hands of The Killers’ Dave Keuning
- “I had a White Stripes fan account when I was 13”: Olivia Rodrigo sings The White Stripes' praises and performs one of their songs as she and Feist help to induct the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- Stevie sings, Flea slaps and Beck blows on his harmonica: Sly Stone got an all-star tribute at the 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony
- “Xania is an extension of me so I look at her as a real person”: Tulisha ‘Nikki’ Jones reveals the person behind her AI ‘artist’ Xania Monet
- November 7
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- “Lily arrived with the song titles, which is really unusual. She would come in and say, ‘I want to write a song called Dallas Major,’ and we’re like, ‘OK, let’s have some backstory”: The group songwriting sessions that yielded Lily Allen’s West End Girl
- "It's a pain that every producer knows: a desktop full of old sessions, forgotten mixdowns, and endless folders": Struggling to keep track of your DAW projects? This free app can help
- “I love John McLaughlin’s stuff, all those great Mahavishnu Orchestra records. There’s so much there musically. I just admire real musicians”: Journey guitarist Neal Schon on the band’s wild early days and the players who inspire him
- “I sent him some songs… he recorded something and sent it to me. And it was… well, it made me cry”: Charli XCX on how a phrase John Cale once used about the Velvet Underground’s music led to their new Wuthering Heights collaboration
- November 6
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- “For percussionists who want to take matters into their own hands when it comes to effects”: Walrus launch the DFX-1, an effects unit built for drummers
- Waves is teasing a free plugin release for Black Friday – sign up today to be first in line
- “To quote Prince, ‘If the first words out of an artist’s mouth when they hit the stage aren’t heard, you’re a horrible engineer’”: Drake’s live sound engineer on why he had to be at the top of his game from first song to last on his recent European tour
- “Practise late at night, rehearse in silence, or warm up on the go – all without losing the soul of your sound”: IK Multimedia unveils the Tonex Plug – is this pocket-sized powerhouse a gamechanger for headphone amps?
- Steinberg unveils Cubase 15, a "major leap forward" for its flagship DAW with new instruments, effects, modulators and AI-powered stem separation
- Everything In Its Right Place: Radiohead switch up their setlist on the second night of reunion tour
- “I don’t know what that is – but it is an awesome guitar and I love it to bits”: Bleed From Within’s Craig ‘Goonzi’ Gowans and Steven Jones on the high-performance shred machines behind their heavyweight metalcore sound
- Waves just made the first move on Black Friday with 3 jaw-dropping offers - and one’s completely free
- “This is a step in the right direction”: Ed Sheeran gives thumbs up to government’s national curriculum changes
- "A substantial, non-trivial percentage appear to be the work of a sprawling network of Bot Accounts": Class action lawsuit claims Spotify claims has overlooked billions of fraudulent streams of Drake's music
- November 5
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- Planet-friendly power for your rig? Ernie Ball declares war on single-use batteries with USB-C rechargeables that promise “consistent, full-voltage performance” for pro musicians
- “We’ve played some big shows in England, but I don’t know about that one": Lindsey Buckingham claims not to know if he’s ever played Glastonbury as he reacts to Florence and the Machine’s cover of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain at the 2010 festival
- "Metamorph isn't about replacing the human voice – it's about expanding what's possible when human creativity meets responsible AI": Antares unveils MetaMorph voice modelling plugin
- “What I wanted to achieve was the J-20 sound without the reverb and the trem”: Thorpy FX teams up with boutique amp specialist Lazy J to give guitarists premium vintage Tweed tone in a pedal
- “Create endless, rich, lively soundscapes out of almost any sound”: Soma Laboratory Warp is a digital effect powerhouse with CV control
- “Once we had that chorus, it’s like everything came from that. Some songs you agonise over, but this was not one of them”: Boy Meets Girl on how having one song rejected led to them writing Whitney Houston’s biggest ‘80s hit
- “A dozen pickup combinations, the ability to summon both humbucker and single-coil sounds, and beautiful woods”: The ultimate semi-hollow? PRS Guitars’ latest 40th Anniversary release is a jaw dropping electric with an “artist grade” top
- “I really think this is the one that I want them to hear. I love this one”: Finneas writes new three-second ‘mnemonic’ for Apple TV
- Radiohead kick off their European tour with a career-spanning setlist in Madrid - here's everything they played and where they're headed next
- Teenage Engineering launches EP-40 Riddim, a spin on its EP-133 sampler deeply inspired by reggae, dancehall and sound system culture
- Wot no hip-hop?: The Billboard Top 30 is rap free – for the first time in 35 years
- Even Better Than The Real Thing? Xania Monet becomes the first AI ‘artist’ to reach the Billboard charts
- November 4
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- “All my new acoustic guitars get to listen to OutKast for about 40 hours the first week they’re in the house”: Jason Isbell shares unorthodox tone tip for new acoustics as he unveils not one but two signature Martins – and a set of strings
- Arturia launches KeyStep Mk2 with OLED display, expanded connectivity and new generative tools
- "Why are we still putting up with this?": AlphaTheta suspends CDJ-3000 firmware update after DJs complain of vanishing playlists
- “I’m still playing my original 1984 guitar on the Oasis 2025 tour, and I wouldn’t have it any other way”: Epiphone goes 'madferit' as it rolls out signature semi-hollows for Oasis's Bonehead and Gem Archer
- “I knew what I wanted but I didn’t know how to get it in a nice co-operative way… I know that I was not always the most pleasant person to work with”: David Byrne admits he was a ‘bossy pants’ in Talking Heads
- "We've seen this before - everyone talks about 'partnership,' but artists end up on the sidelines with scraps": Music Artists Coalition on Universal/Udio deal – More Details Please!
- “Step inside the studio that made history”: Universal Audio's new plugin puts "America's Abbey Road" in your DAW
- “With this poisoned music out there, we can bring AI firms to the negotiating table for fair licensing of training data for independent musicians”: Could Poison Pill be the antidote to illegal AI scraping?
- November 3
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- Eventide’s Temperance Lite is a new modal reverb plugin that lets you tune your reverb tails – and it’s free until December 31
- Musician's Friend just showed patience is overrated with their early Black Friday sale - save up to 50% on D'Angelico, Casio, Shure, Gretsch and more
- “Do it yourself, keep it simple, don’t get overblown. You’ve done the Beatles, you’ve done A Day in the Life, you’ve done Sgt Pepper. Now come back to basics”: Paul McCartney on how he kickstarted his solo career in a remote Scottish farmhouse
- "This analogue synth will blow your mind": Behringer unveils SDS-3, a $249 clone of the classic Simmons drum synth
- “Every day, you’d go round the house and Johnny would play some riff sat having a spliff in his jimmy-jams. You’d be like, ‘That’s amazing. What’s that?’”: Mike Joyce remembers the early days of The Smiths
- “We started with the drum beat and I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do something kind of like The Way You Make Me Feel.' And I sat at the Wurly and I went, ‘duh-du-duhh’”: Olivia Dean on writing Man I Need and the Michael Jackson hit that helped to inspire it
- “Together, we can foster a healthy AI ecosystem in which artists, songwriters, music and technology companies can all flourish and create incredible experiences for fans”: Universal and Udio lay down their arms to collaborate on new legal AI platform