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October 2025

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126 articles

October 21
- "We’ve taken what artists love about AutoTune and rebuilt it for a new generation of creators": Antares announces AutoTune 2026 – and discontinues Artist and Access editions
- “I think it would always have niggled at me. Because those performances with Olivia Rodrigo triggered me, in a way”: Lily Allen says that being invited on stage by a Gen-Z star played a big part in her musical comeback
- “When I wake up, am I going to be able move my hand or not? I don’t know”: Steve Morse reveals how he is playing through the pain barrier – and how arthritis is forcing him to change the way he plays guitar
- "The iconic essence of analogue electronic drums in a practical form factor": HexDrums, Erica Synths' "mutant" analogue drum machine, is available for pre-order
- “The vocals are either only in your left ear or only in your right ear. No vocals are straight down the middle - I’m calling this my retro pop vocal production”: Raye breaks down the head-spinning vocal arrangement in her hit single Where Is My Husband!
- “During a high school dance in 1955, a Gibson guitar helped change the course of music history”: Gibson unveils Custom Shop Back To The Future ES-345 Collector’s Edition – and there’s a limited edition Epiphone too
- “This is what it feels like to be hunted by something smarter than you”: Grimes’ new single is sung from the perspective of AI
- With the launch of OneLibrary, DJs can finally use their track collection across different brands' players and software
October 20
- “I expected to hear something weird and melodic. What he played me instead, with two fingers… at first I began to laugh”: After 50 years, the Jaws theme remains iconic, but when Steven Spielberg heard it for the first time, he thought it was a joke
- “More flexibility, more accessibility, and more ways to connect with Traktor”: Native Instruments launches entry-level Traktor Play DJ software and bundles it with controllers from AlphaTheta and Reloop
- “There is no possible way that I would do that”: David Gilmour shuts door on idea of ever performing with Roger Waters again
- “Being able to go into a sacred space like that and start the process was a dream come true”: Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti on recording at the studio that Eddie Van Halen built – and the 5150 amp that gave them their fire-breathing tone
- “Anything I could spit out of my mouth - ‘Try this! Do this!’ – Sam could do it and do it a thousand times better than I could hear it in my head”: Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst hails the "magical" powers of late bassist Sam Rivers
- “People come from all over the world, and everyone is supportive and encouraging. For 60 seconds you’re allowed to be free, silly, the biggest rock star in the world”: The World Air Guitar champion talks about how he won his title
- "Rest in Power": Anthony Jackson, six-string bass ace, dies aged 73
October 19
- “You will lose out on generations of esoteric, risk-taking, creative, adventurous weirdos, rebels, agitators, and provocateurs. You’re gonna get white bread”: Shirley Manson takes aim at the music industry, Spotify and Ticketmaster
October 18
- Buy one $49.99 IK Multimedia plugin and get a whopping 38 free with the best plugin deal of the year so far
October 17
- “It was just like ‘Oh my God, this is everything I want an album to be,’ and it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before”: When Rick Rubin and Eric Clapton got to hear D’Angelo’s Voodoo album before it was released, they were completely blown away
- “A light, open sound with exceptional stick definition and a gentle, airy wash": Zultan unveil new ALARIS cymbal range
- Meet the AI 'artist' that's earning four times the average wage in the UK
- “He moved from instrument to instrument as quietly as possible and blew my mind with his vocal performance and the beauty of that piece”: Prince’s collaborators on how he embraced The Beatles and recorded one of the most vulnerable ballads of his career
- Teenage Engineering is letting you pay what you want for the OP-XY
- “I hope the fans realised that I’m for real. All the stuff I’ve done was not contrived or remotely premeditated. It was always spontaneous”: Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley inspired a generation of rock stars – including Pantera, Pearl Jam and Tool
October 16
- “I have a button on my iPhone that goes straight to voice recording because the ideas come fast. My list of voice memos is in the thousands!”: Wolfgang Van Halen discusses his songwriting process for his new Mammoth album
- “Connect microphones wirelessly to PA systems, mixers, or audio interfaces, without complicated setup or risk of interference”: Positive Grid’s Spark LINK XLR offers cable-free and fuss-free connections for live performance
- "It’s the children who suffer the most in so many ways": Over 50 artists to take part in Kate Bush-backed fundraising project for War Child
- “Everything from robust clean tones to incendiary overdrive right at your fingertips”: The Jet takes flight as Gretsch refreshes the singlecut for Streamliner and Electromatic series – and there is a single-pickup rock 'n' roll machine FTW
- Spectrasonics announces Omnisphere 3, the "ultimate virtual instrument" that's been ten years in the making
- “That spark of stumbling on a forgotten gem … gone. Daft Punk were the kings of that. They could turn half a second of groove into a global anthem”: Justice explain why they no longer sample other people’s records and create their own loops instead
- “The natural depth, width and clarity of a real control room - right in the user’s headphones”: IK Multimedia’s ARC ON·EAR promises to bring a pro studio soundstage to any pair of headphones
- “I definitely felt something special in the air that day": How Van Morrison recorded his greatest song
- Roland's big V-Drum 3 and 5 series drop adds 6 kits to its e-drum range, including V71-lite modules and on-trend acoustic-look options
October 15
- “The only reason that this guitar is even in existence is because of you guys”: By popular demand, Sean Long of While She Sleeps’ built-for-metal Charvel signature model now comes in Neon Pink
- Apple announces its new M5 chip and puts it in the MacBook Pro 14-inch, iPad Pro and Vision Pro headset, but with the heavy focus on AI, will music makers feel the performance benefits?
- Yamaha's MODX M synth squeezes the power of the Montage M into a more affordable package
- "It felt fitting to broadcast it into the unknown, into dark matter": Brian Eno to beam his new album into space tonight
- "I was molecularly changed from the moment I first heard Voodoo – we all were": Jacob Collier, Beyoncé, Lauryn Hill, Flea and many more pay tribute to D'Angelo – "he changed the course of popular music"
- “I was just with my wife and some people trying to clean them and save stuff, but it’s just too emotional…”: Seth Troxler is offering €10 an hour to anyone willing to help him clean up his vinyl
- “The first pedal emulation that truly captures the mechanical yet wildly organic nature of these oddball machines”: Strymon’s Olivera is a vintage oil can delay without the oil, without the mechanics, and with a lot more control over your tone
October 14
- Neo-soul pioneer D’Angelo has died, aged 51
- “The CLF-50E is as much a statement piece as it is a versatile performance tool”: Harley Benton’s new acoustic guitar is a compact parlour with a solid Sitka spruce top, onboard electronics and metallic colour finish – and it is just over $250
- "The rebirth of phase distortion": Behringer releases its Casio CZ-1 clone, the CZ-1 Mini
- “He was like, ‘Ronnie just had dinner with Paul McCartney, and Paul recommended that you be our producer, so what do you think?’": It took an intervention from Paul McCartney for Mick Jagger to offer Andrew Watt a job with the Rolling Stones
- "We've completely reimagined what's possible in a compact controller": Akai unveils MPK Mini IV with pitch and mod wheels, new keybed and full-size MIDI output
- “This series is built for players who demand reliability, versatility and performance at the highest level”: Fender gives its US lineup a retro-modern makeover with the American Professional Classic range
- “In the studio, I’ve had a few moments where men seem to be shocked if I know how to do a certain thing, like, ‘Comping my own vocal - yes, I can do that’”: Sabrina Carpenter songwriter Amy Allen on the challenges faced by women in the music industry
- “She grabbed a mic, I grabbed a bass, and we jammed for like 30 minutes. After she left I built the whole thing out and sent it to her. She was like, ‘Damn, this is amazing!’”: Kid Harpoon on Miley Cyrus' Flowers
October 13
- “When we sat down and started playing some of the Rush stuff, I realised how hard it was to play these songs”: Alex Lifeson makes a surprise admission
- “This scheme is the envy of the world”: Irish culture minister hails expansion of a basic income scheme for musicians and creatives
- “He was tired and ready to leave, so he just started hitting anything on the keyboard. I was like: ‘that’s it right there!’ Then I just went in the booth and did the record”: The story of Get Ur Freak On, the bhangra-sampling hit that almost didn’t happen
- “I've spent a lot of time sort of trying to bully AI into being interesting”: Jacob Collier says that the problem with using AI for music making is that “it’s almost too perfect”
- "Stick with it. Focus… You've gotta put the time in”: Lars Ulrich’s advice to young artists
- “He tried it when he came in and he said ‘I can’t do it as good as you, Ronnie. You get back on the drums.’”: When Charlie Watts ceded the drums to Ronnie Wood on a Stones track
October 11
- “I have yet to be convinced by any song that AI has come up with. Everything sounds like Taylor frickin’ Swift!”: Todd Rundgren on music, microdosing, accidentally creating hit records and why he ditched Pro Tools
October 10
- “You’d get the chart positions. ‘Oh, we're Number One again!’ It almost got boring after a while”: Brian May and Roger Taylor recall the making of Queen’s masterpiece A Night At The Opera
- Hisong's AirStudio S1 is a pocket-sized all-in-one recording solution for musicians on the move
- Take MusicRadar's quick music survey to win £200/$200 in Amazon Vouchers
October 9
- Steinberg rebrands hardware products under Yamaha and shifts focus exclusively to software
- “Mark’s like, ‘I feel something’, and we wrote it so fast. ‘Gonna be, gonna be Golden’ came out super fast. ‘Up, up, up it’s our moment’... that came out fast, too”: EJAE on the making of the KPop Demon Hunters "banger" that's taken over the world
- Allen & Heath's Xone:K3 brings RGB backlighting, improved hardware and USB-C to its portable performance-oriented MIDI controller
October 8
- “Everyone using this now as a weapon is only proving how devastatingly divided we all are”: Zach Bryan attempts to calm down the furore over Bad News
- “Taking the mid-gain, tube-amp-driving concept even further”: Warm Audio channels the greatest hits of classic overdrive with the regal Throne Of Tone dual-drive and the 3-in-1 Tone Squealer
- With some astonishing discounts of up to $3,500 off, the Sweetwater Recording Sale is the place to pick up studio gear for less this Prime Day
- “Everything you need at your fingertips”: Native Instruments launches its new generation of Traktor controllers with the MX2
- “There’s so much material at this point – it’s a matter of having the discipline to sit down and get into it”: Slash says a new Guns N’ Roses album is coming
- "OK, let’s put it out”: John Lennon originally wanted to “just throw away” Walls and Bridges and had to be persuaded to release it
- “Wait, wait, wait, wait. What did you say two minutes ago? That second note was better in that. Can we go back? Run it back. What did you say there?”: Taylor Swift explains her "stream of consciousness" songwriting sessions with Max Martin and Shellback
- “It’s a guitar that brings high-end performance within reach for everyone”: PRS announces huge SE lineup update, teaming up with Herman Li to bring top-tier shred to the masses with the Chleo SE
- “A testament to their expansive and much-loved music catalogue that they continue to mean so much to UK audiences to this very day”: Which 20th-century band are the top ‘rock’ act in 21st-century Britain?
- If you own a Korg microKorg 2, you're not going to want to miss this firmware update
- "I just listen to songs": Kylie, Zara Larsson, Kaytranada and Sugababes all lined up for PinkPantheress’s remix album, Fancy Some More?
- Klon Centaur inventor Bill Finnegan’s lawsuit against Behringer over its $69 Klon clone has been dismissed
- "These people didn't know how involved Dom was in Ozzy's life. They don't know the story of it”: Jack Osbourne backs Yungblud over Darkness criticism of VMAs performance
October 7
- “This is your chance to own the sound that defined heavy metal. Don’t wait, once they’re gone, they’re gone”: Ashdown and Reverb are selling Geezer Butler’s Head Of Doom bass amps, signed by the man himself
- "It's an orchestra-in-a-box, multi-timbral wall of sound, and Swiss army synth rolled into one": Cherry Audio's Trident Mk III continues the legacy of an underrated Korg classic
- “You can make the best album ever with a laptop and plugins. You don’t need anything else”: Jim-E Stack reveals his production secrets and talks working with Lorde and Bon Iver
- “Given the fact that this is all-mahogany with an ebony fingerboard and a Bigsby, it’s a little more hi-fi… but it will rock, it will roll”: Epiphone raids Joe Bonamassa’s Nerdville archive for another reproduction of a vintage unicorn
- "There were times recording Rosanna – and Africa, too – where we literally had one spare track. Just the one!”: Toto’s Steve Porcaro on the perils of recording live to analogue tape, and what happened if you were the one who messed up the crucial take
- “Sounds like four lads trying to get out of Manchester”: The Stone Roses’ debut single to be reissued for charity
- “She said, ‘Looks like you found it on a beach. But then it also looks like it came from outer space’”: Ken Parker, visionary luthier behind the Parker Fly, has died, aged 73
- Alesis's new 9-piece Nitro Ultimate electronic drum kit is its new flagship, and the hi-hat is the star
- Amazon Prime Day is a bust for music makers, but don't worry, the Musician's Friend Rocktober sale is here to save the day with up to 40% off big-name brands
- Ed Sheeran announces Adolescence-style single-shot Netflix special
- "Something that matches every moment” or Robot Rock? Spotify teams up with ChatGPT to make personal recommendations
- Who needs Prime Day when you can indulge in Guitar Center's epic Guitar-A-Thon sale? Save up to $900 on Taylor and up to $500 on Gibson models
- “Sometimes it’s best not to meet your idols. I took on the project because I was a fan of the band, but I was not naive about what would happen”: Todd Rundgren’s Top 5 favourite album productions that aren't Bat Out Of Hell
- “It reminds me of Batman and the Joker. It’s just so cool”: Korn’s Brian ‘Head’ Welch and James ‘Munky’ Schaffer on their Yin and Yang signature Ibanez 7-strings – and how it all comes back to Steve Vai
October 6
- "Alex and I have done some serious soul searching and come to the decision that we miss it": Geddy Lee confirms that Rush are going back on the road with Anika Nilles joining them on drums
- With plugins starting from just $24 the Universal Audio Rocktober deal is the best place to power up your productions ahead of Prime Day
- “It sounded great, but I don’t know if it felt like history was happening”: Richard Branson says he happened to be in the studio when Phil Collins was recording what "might be the most famous drum solo of all time"
- Minimal Audio promises to "go beyond the vocoder" with "hypermodern" vocal resynthesis plugin Evoke
- The one where Courteney Cox plays Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit on the drums and goes viral
- “I didn't recognise him, because he had really short hair. I just thought he was some friend of Pete's. I found out later this was Dave Gilmour!”: Drummer Simon Phillips recalls the chaos of his favourite recorded performance – on a Pete Townshend song
- “Lola has always been authentic in her songwriting process”: Lola Young is taking legal action against Messy co-producer Carter Lang, who claims he should have writing credits on four of her songs
- Novation launches Play, a free plugin for Launchkey Mk4 owners
October 5
- “Some riffs just have that big swing to them. You can definitely hear that in the first Van Halen album”: How Wolfgang Van Halen created a new song with echoes of classic VH – and Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer
October 4
- “If the labels don’t start taking care of songwriters, there won’t be any anymore... I’m very, very scared for this next generation of writers”: Justin Tranter fires warning shot over the plight of songwriters
- “Every time I would play it for somebody, they’d be like ‘Wow.’ It’s one of his classics”: Mariah Carey is miffed that her Michael Jackson duet is still unreleased
- “Along with Journey, REO Speedwagon and Foreigner, we’d been lumped-in with the whole Corporate Rawk thing. We weren’t ‘cool’": Steve Porcaro on the rise, fall and resurgence of Toto, working with Michael Jackson and his new solo album
October 3
- With the TR-1000 Roland has finally given analogue purists what they want – so can we move on from 808 and 909 clones now?
- "That's how the band took Ric's demos and turned them into Cars songs": The Cars are working on a new album using Ric Ocasek’s old recordings
- "Right away, I heard the Justice influence, the Franz Ferdinand coolness, The Cure’s vulnerability and softness. We were just an instant match": Lady Gaga on why she quickly gelled with "incredibly gifted" Mayhem collaborator, Cirkut
- “I realised the only way to go about it and get in was to take Bruce Springsteen out of it”: Jeremy Allen White on the challenge of becoming The Boss in Deliver Me From Nowhere
- "I got kicked out of the Grammys one time, when Herbie Hancock beat Kanye for Album of the Year... I was pretty drugged up back then": Mike Dean on being ejected from the Grammy Awards – and why next year could be his year
- “It started off sounding a bit like Prince. I wanted to hear something in my mix so I cut the snare and it changed the whole mood of the track": How George Michael accidentally created the ‘80s smash that inspired Taylor Swift on The Life of a Showgirl
October 2
- “I was sitting outside playing guitar very badly to myself and he said: ‘Let me show you some shapes.’ I said: ‘Wow, you’re good!’”: When Jeff Beck gave Imogen Heap an impromptu guitar lesson she had no idea who he was
- “Most pop music is just rubbish now, but we can get back to the way records were made back in the day, which have dynamics, and are pleasurable listens”: Legendary drummer Simon Phillips on his role as producer for progressive rock supergroup DarWin
- “This is the amp that defined the sound of surf and early rock ’n’ roll”: Universal Audio is giving away its new UAD Showtime '64 Tube Amp plugin worth $149 for free
- “So, Dave, how do I slash the amp?”: Dave Davies picks up a razor and slashes a speaker on camera to demonstrate how he got the Kinks’ iconic proto-fuzz guitar tone
- “I had this ridiculous fantasy of being like Slash with the top hat, no shirt, on stage shredding a Les Paul, but that wasn’t supposed to be me”: Mark Ronson says that he had to come to terms with the fact that he would never be a great guitar player
- “For the first time, we’re moving beyond samples”: Splice unveils free plugin and virtual instrument platform with hundreds of free presets
- “I didn’t think that Oasis were very good songwriters. This obsession with Britishness just didn’t really compute with us”: Placebo on drugs, Bowie and standing out from Britpop ‘like a sore thumb’
- “Lars has a thing that every time they’ve done an album, he comes and plays it to me, and hopes that I nod and say, ‘That’s a good lad’. I said, ’You forgot the bass!’“: Flemming Rasmussen is still confused by Metallica’s bassless ...And Justice For All
- “I wanted to sculpt something off-kilter, a shape that’s equal parts eye-candy and ‘what the hell is that?’”: KHDK has made killer pedals for Scott Ian, Chino Moreno, Gary Holt and more – now it is making electric guitars, with artist collabs coming
- “It’s shocking, it’s disheartening, it’s insulting – most importantly – it’s a wake up call”: Cardiff band decry the fact AI ‘band’ trained on their music overtakes them on Spotify
October 1
- “It possesses the horsepower to remain clean, even at the loudest volumes, and handles – and delivers – the highest dynamic content from your picking hand”: Mesa/Boogie reissues a cult classic that takes the amp brand back to the beginning
- "Legendary analogue sound for the whole band": Universal Audio launches Volt 876 USB Recording Studio, the first rackmount interface in the Volt series
- “I drove everyone crazy with it because I was the only one who noticed at first, but once I pointed it out we all heard it and wanted it gone”: The curious case of The Weeknd’s mic distortion, and how his live sound team fixed it
- “Our guitars, bass guitar, cymbals, snare, and my pedal board were stolen last night”: Indie rockers The Beths appeal for leads
- “You can turn an Epiphone into the Tommy Bolin Burst!”: Seymour Duncan expands Joe Bonamassa signature pickup range with a humbucker set based on the PAFs from his 1960 ‘Bolin Burst’ Les Paul Standard
- "It means a lot to me because the greatest feeling in my life, truly, is playing new music for people and seeing their reactions": David Guetta is the World’s Number One DJ – again
- “I was just rebelling… I always regretted not putting it out”: Which '90s pop princess recorded a grunge album that was never released?
- “I remember when I first heard it. Big deal for me – I loved it immediately. It’s all over Rosanna, all over Africa”: Toto’s Steve Porcaro names his Top 5 synths
- “Is this the best guitar I’ve ever played? Including the ones in your museum? I believe so”: Mikael Åkerfeldt has played Kurt Cobain’s 1953 D-18 ‘Grandpa’ and 19th-century holy grail acoustics but says his Martin OM signature beats the lot of them
- Tame Impala's synth company announces worldwide release date for Orchid and unveils companion plugin
- “The first Roland drum machine in over 40 years with true analogue voices”: The TR-1000 combines analogue 808 and 909 recreations with the best parts of the TR-8S and more