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December 2025
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73 articles
- December 12
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- “Every time I watch videos of her playing guitar, I'm just melted on the floor. I think she's one of the most genius guitar players”: Danielle Haim names her biggest guitar influences, including the player she calls “the most underrated”
- Sheeran's 'rural Abbey Road': Star gets go-ahead to convert pig farm into private recording studio - on one condition
- December 11
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- “Noel has said, ‘No rest for the immensely talented,’ so take that how you want”: Gem Archer seems as much in the dark about future Oasis activity as the rest of us
- “I’m definitely having some conversations with people about it. It’s very exciting”: Lily Allen’s West End Girl album could end up… in the West End
- “This is so much pressure”: Taylor Swift names her favourite Taylor Swift song… but she’s going to need some time to come up with her top 5
- Stuck for ideas in Ableton Live? This free Max for Live device could snap you out of writer's block
- “There’s a lot in the works for Kiss moving ahead. We’re not touring anymore, but there’s still a ton happening behind the scenes”: Kiss guitarist Tommy Thayer says the band could still make new music in the future
- “Seriously wtf – we are truly doomed”: King Gizzard leave Spotify only to be replaced by fake AI band called... King Lizard Wizard
- “Over countless years I have always dreamed of an official release for this mash up. I can confirm it is thoroughly road tested and fit for purpose”: Fatboy Slim’s Satisfaction Skank bootleg is finally released
- Just in time for the party season, Spotify is finally back in iOS and Android DJing apps
- December 10
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- “This unreleased circuit, hidden for decades, represents an alternate, previously unknown branch of Big Muff development”: Electro-Harmonix and JHS Pedals team up to release a “lost” Big Muff
- “It delivers the raw clarity, but still hits with the force of an active pickup”: Seymour Duncan teams up with Dino Cazares for signature Machete humbuckers – and the Fear Factory riff-master says their versatility might surprise you
- “I was so jealous of George Michael”: Mick Hucknall says he was simply green with envy when he learned that the former Wham! star was recording a duet with Aretha Franklin
- “Uniting the unmistakable growl of classic British amplification with the thick, unrelenting saturation of a thundering fuzz”: Crazy Tube Circuits squeezes out another sweet twofer with the Orama preamp/fuzz pedal
- Ableton and Arturia reign supreme as Reverb reveals best-selling synths, samplers and drum machines of 2025
- Brian May just got Tony Iommi the best Christmas present ever
- “Add the weird chord progression and key change, and call men stupid in as many ways as you can”: Sabrina Carpenter offers her songwriting advice as she accepts Variety’s Hitmaker of the Year award
- “It was all done on GarageBand – it’s live drums, but over this goofy funk drum loop I’d done on my laptop out on tour”: After working on one of the most expensively recorded albums of all time, drummer Josh Freese made his new solo record on the cheap
- December 9
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- “Man, this thing is such a chameleon. It can be a creamy and gooey boost that works great with any style of amp, and it can also breathe saturated fire”: Strymon goes analogue drive crazy, promising Randy Bachman-style tones and more from the Fairfax
- DOD reimagines a Gary Moore overdrive favourite as the Badder Monkey – think the DigiTech Green Monkey, only badder, and with a wooden 360º barrel dial
- “The ‘Arm the Homeless’ guitar has been my comrade for life in the sonic sphere. It allowed me to find myself as an artist”: Tom Morello’s favourite electric has just been recreated by Fender
- Thomann's Play It. Feel it. challenge is offering musicians the chance to win prizes worth up to €1000 for reimagining the theme from the brand's latest short films
- “A lot of the floor plan for any Darkness gig is amps. We don’t use simulators because we’re a real band making proper noise”: Why Justin Hawkins and The Darkness like to rock the old-fashioned way
- "I just love Metallica. I love Lars' drumming": naysayers, listen up - Bill Ward explains why Lars Ulrich is a brilliant drummer
- “This playlist is not about the solstice, nor does it have some Pagan agenda”: Hate Christmas music? Then David Byrne has a gift just for you
- “How have we as a music industry allowed this to happen? People were all asleep at the wheel”: Country singer/songwriter Breland lambasts record companies over their investment in AI
- December 8
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- “It’s creepy. The whole thing that AI can do – if you think about it, it’s just really creepy”: Aerosmith legend Joe Perry warns: “AI is way beyond anything we ever thought”
- "This record shouldn’t, strictly speaking, be possible at all”: Here's Autechre – reinterpreted on acoustic guitar
- "This is our way of saying thank you": Soundtoys is giving away six free plugins this Christmas, starting with Little PrimalTap
- “I wanted to make it a truly unforgettable, unmissable week – a run of shows to dream about”: Robert Smith announces line up for his first run of Teenage Cancer Trust concerts
- December 7
- December 6
- December 5
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- “Mix, overdub, spinback and scratch, all locked in time with your modular”: ALM Busy Circuits' new Pamela’s Disco module lets you sync a Eurorack rig to a CDJ or mixer
- “It’s quite normal to be groped by men”: Harassment, low pay and exploitation all reported by young musicians and artists in new survey
- December 4
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- Dirty Boy turns the tables on guitar’s digital revolution with a preamp pedal inspired by a plugin – the all-analogue SilverBOY
- This $99 plugin recreates a classic studio technique invented at Abbey Road for The Beatles – and it's free for the next three days
- "They put it on hold so nobody else can record it. But he didn’t actually record it. That was when Don Henley said, ‘You need to quit giving your songs away’”: Sheryl Crow says that she once wrote a song for Eric Clapton that never saw the light of day
- "We didn't want to make just another controller": OXI Instruments' E16 is a sleek and portable MIDI controller that's more powerful than it looks
- “The best MIDI controller setup isn’t about having more – it’s about staying connected to what matters”: AlphaTheta and Serato launch Slab, the first hardware controller for Serato Studio
- “My mom said, ‘I’ll lend you a quarter if you become a guitar player.’ I think I did!”: Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper dies aged 84
- December 3
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- EVH Gear turns its “holy grail” Eddie Van Halen amp Hypersonic with an all-digital 5150III 6L6 modelling combo that weighs a whopping 16kg less than its tube-driven equivalent
- “When we were finished gouging it with screwdrivers, spraying blops of paint on it, dragging it around the yard, and banging it on the driveway, we hung it up in a tree”: Adrian Belew on how he and Seymour Duncan made one of the first relic’d guitars
- “People were going, ‘Hey man, I saw you’re on that Avril Lavigne record.’ I went, ‘Nah, I didn’t play on that.’ They go, ‘Your name’s on it!’”: The drummer who’s played on 400 albums has made one of his own – full of one-minute tracks
- “The ABRAMS100 packs a whallop and it’s perfect for pedals!”: Electro-Harmonix presents 100-watts of serious solid-state power in a compact guitar amp head weighing just 2.5lbs
- “It taps into yearning for a place beyond, a place of love, for me to speak my mind and be myself”: Flea teases his first solo album with a seven-minute jazz rave single
- "When culture is allowed to move freely, people discover that their common ground is far wider than the borders that divide them": Level 42's Mark King, Jools Holland and Dame Evelyn Glennie join alliance to remove barriers to UK-EU touring
- December 2
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- Fender and Jackson celebrate 50 years of Iron Maiden with limited run signature models – including a Masterbuilt Dave Murray Strat that’ll leave you losfer words
- “They said, ‘Well, that's all we've got, but if you could round it off and complete it, that would be great”: Greg Lester on how he used a Gibson Chet Atkins to turn a keyboard melody into a classic nylon-string guitar solo in the Spice Girls’ 2 Become 1
- “I just walked off the stage. I wanted Jake to have his moment. And Jake nailed it”: Nuno Bettencourt on why he handed Shot Of The Dark over to Jake E Lee at Ozzy's farewell show
- Brian Wampler just reimagined a bona fide modern classic with The Compulsion Drive – but is this OCD-inspired dirt pedal an overdrive, distortion or both?
- "This isn't just about Jorja. It's bigger than one artist or one song”: Jorja Smith’s label claims royalties on AI track, allegedly trained on her voice
- “He was speaking through his eyes. He just gives us a nod. He mastered the art of communicating without using words”: Jon Batiste describes his “gloriously awkward exchange" with Prince at one of his legendary after-hours jam sessions
- "We stand for love over hate, hope over fear... join us and be a part of it": Paloma Faith, Fontaines D.C., Brian Eno and Kneecap join campaign group Together Against The Far Right
- "All the way through, I never stopped the tape once. He'd just go through the whole song and say ‘give me another track'. We did that nine times and then he said ‘I’m outta here’": Steve Porcaro on the two unreleased songs he wrote with Michael Jackson
- Still on the hunt for a bargain? These 58 Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for musicians are still live - but they'll be gone soon
- If you were wondering if the deals aren't as good this year, then this saving on Ableton Push 3 Standalone is all the proof you need
- December 1
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- Get the most out of your pedals and save £422 on one of the best pedal platform amps I've played - the Victory V40 Duchess Deluxe MKII Head
- Quick! You still have time to grab the Yamaha PSS-A50 for only $59 at Thomann! I love the Refaces, but this is the best Cyber Week ‘couch keyboard’ deal I’ve seen
- Who needs the £10,499 Gibson Dave Grohl signature DG-335 when the excellent Epiphone version is just £777 today?
- Jeff Beck's 1954 Oxblood Les Paul is the most expensive Les Paul of all time. This Epiphone version comes in at a fraction of the price, and with a further 20% off at Thomann, it may be an irresistible deal for the Jeff Beck aficionado
- “We built Paradise to make any guitarist feel like they’re playing in a dream studio": Universal Audio releases Paradise Guitar Studio – and it's 25% off for Cyber Monday
- I’ve tested 13 studio headphones this year and my top choice just landed a serious Cyber Monday deal - save $110 on the Sennheiser HD 490 Pro
- “Got many requests for this one from a few years back”: Aphex Twin uploads two previously-unheard tracks to his Soundcloud page
- “A clear winner”: The best Cyber Monday TV streaming deals for music fans, ranked
- I love the Elektron Syntakt, mostly because it’s like a Rytm, but cheaper, and it’s got one of the biggest savings I’ve seen this Cyber Monday
- 17 outstanding plugins that you can still get for under $50 this Cyber Monday - but be quick, the sales end soon!
- “We are devastated - Thom’s infection has made it impossible for him to sing”: Radiohead postpone two of their four Copenhagen dates
- It’s an open secret that the MXR FOD Drive is the Dookie Drive circuit under a different name, and for just $99 you can get the tones from Green Day’s best album on your pedalboard this Cyber Monday
- “What we’ll do is maybe just take an acoustic, get the song done, upload it and say, ‘OK, I want to hear this song as a country song’ or ‘I want to hear this song as a rock and roll song”: Teddy Swims admits he’s used AI on his own material
- I switched to Ableton Live from Logic Pro, and I've never looked back. If you want to do the same, you can still score 25% off in the Sweetwater Cyber Week sale
- "Years of unprofessional behaviour from people above us led to our decision”: Six ex-members of Cradle Of Filth sue frontman Dani Filth
- “That was truly one of the most fun things I've ever done”: David Ellefson joins a band of over 1,000 musicians to pay tribute to Ozzy Osbourne
- “My main influences? Love, anger, depression and Zeppelin": It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is coming to HBO Max later this week, and this is your last chance to subscribe for just $2.99 a month