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March 2023

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242 articles

March 31
- Millenium expands its MPS-1000 full-shell electronic drum kit with a new configuration and two new finish options
- The Chompi sampler has munched through its funding target and raised a whopping $1 million on Kickstarter
- A faulty mixing console meant that Prince’s The Ballad of Dorothy Parker was recorded ‘wrong’, but he used it anyway
- Here’s why Austrian Audio’s Hi-X60 headphones are perfect for live sound and loud studio environments
March 30
- Catalinbread launches the STS-88, “a love letter to the flanger” that can cloak its modulated swoosh in huge dreamy reverb
- Harley Benton strikes gold for its 25th Anniversary, debuting a Firemist finish and high-quality specs on eight Special Edition models priced under £500
- Procol Harum pay tribute to A Whiter Shade of Pale lyricist Keith Reid, who has died aged 76
- Audio Damage's Replicant 3 multi-effects plugin is a sound-mangling glitch powerhouse
- Was Paul McCartney the "best drummer in The Beatles"?* Listen to the fab 4 tracks he played on, and the isolated drum parts, and decide for yourself
- Jackson and Anthrax’s Scott Ian join forces for a signature X Series King V that pays tribute to Dimebag Darrell
- This is Wikipedia’s new audio logo, which is designed to be ‘The Sound of All Human Knowledge’
- RipX DeepRemix and DeepCreate can help you learn to play any song through the power of AI
- Marshall has been sold to Swedish speaker company Zound, ending over 60 years of family ownership
- Soundtracking secrets: How to get started writing music to picture
- Spectrasonics’ Keyscape 1.5 includes a Double Felt Grand piano, and existing users get this “#1 most requested sound” for free
- Hear the oldest guitar effects pedal demo ever from 1962
- A drummer has recorded 75 new versions of the Amen break for you to use in your music
March 29
- DW announces Alex Gonzalez ICON snare drum
- Take a deep dive into drum recording at Foo Fighters’ Studio 606 courtesy of Lauten Audio's in-depth video
- GEWA's new G3 Club 5 SE electronic drum set features five-inch-deep shells, and a Black Sparkle wrap finish
- Waves Audio reverses its decision to adopt subscription-only model: "We are genuinely sorry for the distress it has caused"
- Waves Audio customers are in uproar at company's new subscription-only model: "What a disgusting way to treat your existing users"
- Walrus Audio confirms Fundamental pedal series… and they've got sliders
- An audio engineer shows you "how the pros mix vocals" and get that ‘glued-in’ sound
- Here are the 25 new artists Fender has chosen for its Next development program
- The DrumSynth from the MPC Standalone is now available as a plugin for your DAW
- Tom Morello compares Rage Against The Machine to Lord Of The Rings and says his 11-year-old son can now out-shred him
- Thom Yorke on his 'executive producer' role for Clark's new album Sus Dog: "I ended up being a kind of backseat driver"
- Positive Grid Spark GO: first impressions and demo of the compact modelling amp
March 28
- Gibson unveils $19,999 Custom Shop Kirk Hammett “Greeny” 1959 Les Paul Standard and a more affordable model is on its way
- J Rockett Audio Designs launches the Archer Select, a deluxe K-style boost and overdrive with 7 selectable clipping options
- British man forced to pay almost £12,000 after he cancels sale of Studer A80 vintage tape machine on eBay
- Watch Billy Gibbons join Billy Joel onstage at Madison Square Garden to jam on ZZ Top classics La Grange and Tush
- George Martin played on more Beatles songs than you think: are these his best piano solos and orchestral arrangements?
- What is the heaviest guitar riff of all time? Metal musicians have their say
- Behringer says it’s slashing the prices of its synths by up to 60%
- Gear Expo 2023 is coming - tune in on 28 April
March 27
- The Edge: "I'd like to be the vanguard of this resurgence of guitars!"
- Benn Jordan road-tests his Tesla’s built-in music-making software: “I’m never opening this app again”
- Suzuki is marking its 70th anniversary by releasing a new version of the Omnichord
- Klone guitarist Guillaume Bernard on Devin Townsend, Gojira, Biréli Lagrène and the 10 albums that changed his life
- Chace: "I spend way too much on gear, but it’s never enough. Right now, I’m craving my own Korg PS-3100"
- You can no longer buy Waves plugins individually, as company goes 100% subscription
- Producer uses AI to make his vocals sound like Kanye West: "The results will blow your mind. Utterly incredible"
- “I do not hate the EDM community,” confirms M83, but says he wishes DJs would ask permission before using his music
- Is the middle position on a Strat one of the most underrated tones in guitar?
March 26
- Sheryl Crow joins John Mayer onstage for a duet on "one of his favourite songs of all time" in Nashville
- "How do you tune a B string? You can't." What Blur’s Graham Coxon learned – and didn't learn – from folk legend Bert Jansch
March 25
- Drumeo's Brandon Toews plays every song Foo Fighters have ever released in epic Taylor Hawkins tribute video
- Watch 100 drummers play Foo Fighters' double-drum classic, My Hero in tribute to Taylor Hawkins
- Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert: 10 drum highlights you need to see
- Taylor Hawkins: farewell to a modern rock drumming icon
- “You look like sh*t, your voice has gone, the hotel has lost your laundry”: Nick Cave's description of touring will put you off the idea for life
March 24
- Martin Miller: “Guitar players need to talk about intonation a lot more. We don’t tune our ears towards it because it is never a topic that is brought up in tuition”
- Jason Bonham has found tapes that could contain unreleased Led Zeppelin mixes, but he hasn't played them yet
- Joe Dart teaching slap bass is the coolest music lesson you’ll see online this week
- Korg’s Liano is now available in 6 different colours, so which one looks the best?
- Laney takes its Ironheart series to the floor with the compact but mighty Loudpedal 60W guitar amp
- Klone pedal comparison: Ceriatone Centura Vs Wampler Tumnus Vs Warm Audio Centavo
- AudioThing strikes again with Mantis, a plugin emulation of a rare BBD echo/delay from Carlsbro
- Harley Benton is teasing a big guitar reveal for 30 March
- Mattoverse Electronics releases the Solar Sound Desktop Saturator, a $79 device that uses solar power to distort guitar, bass, synth and more
- Think you've mastered paradiddles? This monstrous Thomas Lang lesson might well change your mind
- Watch Jimmy Page demo some of the most iconic guitars and amps in Led Zeppelin history
- Klevgrand and Wintergartan have created Speldosa, a magical music box plugin
- Neil Young lays into Ticketmaster and questions the future of touring: "It’s over. The old days are gone"
- Cathy Rich appeals for help finding her son Nick Rich, who has gone missing in the Las Vegas area
- John Lennon on completing Eleanor Rigby's lyrics for Paul McCartney: "It's his first verse, and the rest of the verses are basically mine"
March 23
- NAMM 2023: MIDI’s 40th anniversary is set to be celebrated at the 2023 NAMM Show, and MIDI 2.0 is also being previewed
- Melanie Faye D'Angelico Deluxe DC signature model guitar revealed
- 5 songs producers need to hear by... Depeche Mode
- Guitarist-turned-producer Jamie Evans on studio tips and how musicians can reach a higher level with an outsider's help
- How to sound like Depeche Mode using soft synths in your DAW
- Tony Banks on why he would have “screwed up” In The Air Tonight if Phil Collins had given it to Genesis
- RØDE's NT1 5th Generation microphone brings together classic sound with cutting-edge features
- 4DSOUND, the 'world's most advanced' spatial audio sound system, makes its debut in London next month
- Daft Punk and Todd Edwards take you back to the writing of Fragments of Time in previously unheard studio conversations
- "He should get his people to call my people" – Noel and Liam Gallagher now both seem open to an Oasis reunion
March 22
- Watch Miley Cyrus’s Flowers being recreated in GarageBand for iPhone in less than 10 minutes
- Grover Jackson, the original hot-rodder, is building a new guitar range
- Ed Sheeran's final album will be "perfect" and released "after I die"
- SampleRadar: 163 tape loops samples
- Turn your Roland MC-202 into a 21st century groovebox with the MC-2oh2 upgrade kit
- 9 next-gen drum plugins that could change the way you make beats
- Positive Grid reveals the Spark GO: a really small guitar and bass amp
- Issue 320 of Computer Music is on sale now
- Roland’s Zenology Pro plugin hits version 2.0: more sounds and a refined user interface
March 21
- Nandi Bushell pays tribute to Meg White with screaming Seven Nation Army cover
- Fender and session ace Michael Landau team up for the Coma Stratocaster – a bespoke electric guitar for all occasions
- Madonna posts photo of her working in the studio with Max Martin
- Gibson launches the Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior, featuring P-90 DC pickups for hum-free high-volume performance
- HeadRush unveils Prime, “the most powerful, versatile, and realistic-sounding floorboard FX processor ever” – complete with Auto-Tune for your vocals
- Bad Bunny sued by ex-girlfriend for $40m after sampling voice memo in 2022's most successful album
- A firmware update for the cut-price Yamaha DX9 synth makes it more like a DX7
- Crazy Tube Circuits drops the Motherload, a compact pedal for gain connoisseurs combining Muff fuzz and Rat distortion for the “Holy Grail of saturated tones”
- A guide to choosing the right mic preamp with Warm Audio
- Watch Bono and the Edge perform reworked U2 classics using just an acoustic guitar and an Orange practice amp
- The Blackstar Debut 50R is an affordable amp for players looking to step up
- Joyce Muniz: "I can't live without the Moog Sub 37 - it's the soul of all my productions"
March 20
- Music to your eyes: Pixel Art is a new app that creates MIDI sequences from your photos
- Bag yourself up to $180 off Fender Player and Player Plus bundles in the Fender Spring Sale
- The Oberheim DMX drum machine is set to ride again as Behringer wheels out its BMX “homage”
- EZPZ is a free music-making iOS app that lets you doodle with sound
- Spring into savings with a colossal up to 60% off at PMT right now
- Upgrade your guitar playing with a month’s worth of Guitar Tricks lessons for just $1
- Duran Duran have reunited with guitarist Andy Taylor to work on a new project
- Peter Gabriel on music and AI: “I think you do better if you work with a powerful new tool than just grumble or pretend it doesn’t exist”
- Dillon Bastan's Songbird M4L plugin lets a singing flock of birds loose in your Ableton Live project
March 19
- This video of session dons Dann Huff and Tom Bukovac discussing the greatest guitar tones of all time is a real education
- The story of Randy Rhoads and Blizzard Of Ozz: "He was the best guy at overdubbing solos and tracking them that I’ve ever seen. I mean, he used to blow me away"
March 17
- Gary Moore’s DigiTech Bad Monkey listed on Reverb for a cool £10,000
- Drop it like a Scot: Snoop Dogg greeted by gangsta bagpiper as he touches down at Glasgow Airport
- "With this record, I hope that people can feel my soul and my spirit because, in those solos, that’s what I’m really giving you" – Malina Moye on her new album and the 10 that changed her life
- It's good to be back: the t.bone relaunches with brand-new site
- Max Martin on his approach to songwriting and production: “I’m trying to make every part good… I think every second needs to be awesome”
- Celebrate St Patrick’s Day by watching Joe Bonamassa play Sloe Gin on Rory Gallagher’s ’61 Fender Stratocaster
- Rick Beato breaks down Nuno Bettencourt’s jaw-dropping solo from new Extreme single Rise, and yes, it is still impossible to play
- M83’s Anthony Gonzalez on the success of Midnight City: “EDM is probably one of the styles of music that I hate the most. All of a sudden, I have these bro EDM DJs playing my music, and I just can’t even care less”
- Robert Smith convinces Ticketmaster to refund some of its fees for Cure fans
- Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen assaulted by teenager outside Florida hotel
March 16
- The new Charvel Prashant Aswani signature model is an Inca Silver stunner
- Kiviak Instruments is drip-feeding us information on its WoFi sampling keyboard
- How Bon Iver made a Platinum-selling record with two guitars and a single SM57 microphone
- John Mayer is using three separate pedalboards for his solo tour
- The Mark Lettieri Group go full '80s funk on this jam showcasing the Jackson Audio NewWave chorus / vibrato pedal
- How the UK's Shergold Guitars and Patrick James Eggle built a tweaked recreation of Bernard Sumner's Joy Division '70s Masquerader
- Classic interview: Lemmy talks rockabilly and picks his 10 essential songs playlist
- Jacob Collier on his relationship with Quincy Jones: “I said ‘I don’t want any help with mixing, I want to do it all myself’... he really respected that”
- Troubled session drummer, Jim Gordon, who played for The Beach Boys, Derek and The Dominos and recorded the original Apache breakbeat, has died in prison
- Quick Tips: How to add sonic movement to your hi-hat patterns
- The Cure's Robert Smith "sickened" by Ticketmaster fees: "I have been asking how they are justified"
- Jack White pays tribute to Meg White as journalist apologises for kicking off viral debate with ‘petty, obnoxious’ drumming tweet
March 15
- Steve Gadd on his drum intro to Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover: “It was a lucky day for me”
- Chompi is a super-cute sampler that was inspired by the Casio SK-1 and looks like a kid-friendly OP-1
- “Parents are putting less pressure on their kids,” says Lang Lang, as he prepares for the final of The Piano by playing at St Pancras station
- Chase Bliss puts us in a good MOOD by unveiling the sequel to its beloved multi-effects pedal
- Ry Cooder's top 3 tips for slide guitar success: "Get you some control"
- 5 futuristic drum tricks to bring your beats into 2023
- Sampleson’s Sandstorm plugin could be a cheat code for creating epic, evolving soundscapes
- Taylor unveils three redesigned 400 Series electro-acoustic guitars in Tobacco Sunburst
- Lucinda Chua: "In my production, I'm just trying to carve out a space where I feel like I belong"
- Groovifi is a free app that promises a better way to create Spotify playlists by letting you decide the mood, BPM, key, rhythm and genre of your songs
- How to make an infinite riffing synth patch
March 14
- Beetronics launches the Seabee Harmochorus and takes analogue chorus into an uncharted multiverse of pitch-shifting weirdness
- Beetronics unleashes a different approach to a chorus pedal with the Seabee Harmochorus
- Bizzarap sat at his desk staring at FL Studio when he performed Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53 with Shakira on Jimmy Fallon
- Epiphone partners with country superstar Chris Stapleton for a breathtaking USA made Frontier acoustic guitar
- Avenged Sevenfold's comeback single is part departure / part Synyster Gates fully embracing guitar hero status
- D’Angelico launches signature Eric Krasno Deluxe Brighton, a super-classy electric with Seymour Duncan Custom Shop “Strat in humbucker” pickups
- Catalyst is an idea-inspiring MIDI sequencing plugin designed to keep you away from your piano roll
- Watch Devin Townsend reveal his rig for the Lightwork tour and explain why the Axe-Fx is his favourite amp – whether it’s cool to admit that or not
- Jared James Nichols borrows Paul Kossoff's 1959 Les Paul, plays All Right Now
- SampleRadar: 147 Casio SK-1 samples
- Bruce Foxton of The Jam's 11 career-defining songs: "Start isn’t exactly the same as Taxman... otherwise I’m sure Paul McCartney would have thought about suing us!"
- EarthQuaker Devices brings back its vintage yellow-box-inspired White Light Overdrive for a special limited run
- Lewis Thompson: "The best ideas happen as mistakes – selecting the wrong preset or putting the wrong plugin somewhere"
- Yamaha’s CK88 and CK61 aren’t just stage pianos - they’re portable keyboards that you can play anywhere
March 13
- Palm Skin Productions on Remilixir: "Virgin were hoping for a Daft Punk record, but what I thought was, ‘Now I’ve got a chance to go really deep!’ That’s how you get dropped after one album"
- Remember the free Green Oak Crystal VST synth? Its developer has just released free delay and chorus plugins
- Issue 394 of Future Music is out now
- An uncredited mandolin player, a bass drum played with a stick and Rod Stewart's finest solo hour: the story of Maggie May
- Do guitarists really need a Bigsby Pedal?
- “We finally gave in”: Behringer takes on the Roland Juno-6/60 with its Neptune-80 synth
- Wolfgang Van Halen is planning to track the solos to his next album with his dad's iconic guitars
- The Waldorf M synth is now available with 16 voices, and you can update your existing hardware
- John Mayer debuts Martin double-neck acoustic guitar and new song at first gig of US solo tour
- Fantastic (free) synths and how to use them: Xenos
March 10
- Steve Vai: “One ear has been pulled towards rock my whole life, the other towards high-information music; my brain mixes it up and that’s when you get the weird Vai s**t”
- Watch the John Mayer Trio featuring Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino play live for the first time in six years
- Pedalboard tour with Belgium's Stake and their Boss-heavy rigs
- Watch St. Vincent join The Roots for a cover of Portishead’s Glory Box on Fallon
- Get your kicks for free with this effortless online bass drum generator
- EMG unveils the JMaster pickups, offering Jazzmaster modders an active option for classic tones and a zero hum performance
- Guitarist uses Master Of Puppets producer Flemming Rasmussen's studio notes and Neural DSP Mesa MkIIC+ plugin to try and nail Metallica's tone
- Avey Tare: “The Roland Juno-60 is my favourite keyboard of all time”
- Eric Clapton to lead tribute gigs to Jeff Beck with Johnny Depp, Gary Clark Jr, Imelda May, Billy Gibbons, Rod Stewart, Derek Trucks and more to appear
- Nuno Bettencourt says Extreme used a demo recording for their smash-hit Hole Hearted, and the guitar was recorded via a headset mic taped to his knee
- Splice is shutting down its Studio collaboration platform: “Simply put, we haven’t been able to provide the quality of experience of which we can be proud”
- Roland’s SP-404 MK2 sampler now enables you to jam with multitrack DAW projects
March 9
- Less is more: the art of removing the unnecessary from your music
- Hundred Reasons guitarist and producer Larry Hibbitt on their glorious comeback album, recording drums remotely and the 10 records that changed his life
- Spitfire Audio’s free LABS Classic Synths plugin features vintage Minimoog, ARP, Pro-One and Juno-60 sounds
- Saffron, non-profit tackling gender inequality in music tech, launches crowdfunding campaign to stay afloat
- "It's always going to be very biased towards the data it's trained on" – Red Hot Chili Peppers and Adele mixing engineer Andrew Scheps shares his views on AI machine learning, and his tips
- Jordan Rudess unveils ‘The Wizard’s Axe’, an electric guitar and MIDI keyboard in one instrument
- LNA Does Audio Stuff: "The 'macho' culture in audio doesn't benefit anyone - it only takes away from our confidence and creativity"
March 8
- Here are five drum kits, snare drums and cymbals owned or used by famous drummers that you can buy right now
- "There is something about the clean sound on a Fender. I just don’t think it can be touched" – Samm Henshaw on embracing the guitar for his next record and being inspired to play by John Mayer (via Michael Jackson)
- Get with the programmers: Tracktion's Peter V - "There's enough room in the market for creative tools beyond the beaten track"
- SampleRadar: 493 creative kick drum samples
- Original Oasis drummer Tony McCarroll’s Pearl Export drum kit is up for sale, with an asking price of £41,000
- 7 things we learned about Behringer's new synths this week
- The Mercury is rising as Cherry Audio unveils its supercharged Roland Jupiter-6 synth emulation
- Thriller and Bad guitarist Paul Jackson Jr breaks down his parts from the albums
- How to get more out of your Korg Drumlogue
- The Cure's Robert Smith and Jason Cooper join forces with Noel Gallagher on new version of Pretty Boy
March 7
- Fender and U2’s Adam Clayton unveil signature ACB 50 signature 50-watt all-tube bass combo
- Reliq is a “hybrid control surface” that can route and mix audio, sequence tracks and control your DAW
- This new Vocaloid soundbank sings like Porter Robinson, and he’s made a demo track to show what it can do
- Walrus Audio expands its Storybook Sonic Adventure pedal series with the Fable Granular Soundscape Generator
- Harley Benton teams up with YouTube shred phenom Mark Carlisle for Guitar MAX Fusion Signature guitar
- Pioneers: How J Dilla and his MPC changed beatmaking forever
- Roland’s “premier” GP digital grand piano range includes a $19,000 self-playing model, but there are cheaper options, too
- Mesa/Boogie unveils the Mark VII, its “most power-packed Mark Series” guitar amp yet
- George Harrison was asked to play guitar on Robbie Williams’ Angels: “Sadly, he declined,” says producer Guy Chambers
March 6
- Daisy Jones & The Six star Riley Keough on learning to become a band: “We had months of jam sessions… we were basically in band practice for, I don't know, a year"
- "Seeing his name on records was like Mount Rushmore to me" – musicians mourn the passing of session ace bassist Michael Rhodes
- “I took the bait”: Chaka Khan apologises for questioning the rankings of Adele, Mariah Carey and Mary J Blige on a 'greatest singers of all time' list
- See Matt Bellamy's new S-type Manson guitar in action onstage with Muse
- “Of course Bono gets too much for me sometimes!” – The Edge explains why he's never quit U2
- Behringer’s Moog Taurus synth emulation lives, but the price has gone up and it’s missing one of the original’s most notable features
- Cosmicat is Saudi Arabia's first female superstar DJ and producer: "They wouldn’t take me seriously - all you can do is show them how it's done"
- Guitar icons pay tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd legend Gary Rossington, who has died aged 71
March 4
- "One of the greatest ever to ever play music" – musicians pay tribute to David Lindley, who has died at the age of 78
March 3
- An A&R guy once walked into the studio and told Steve Vai to remove all the pinch harmonics from a record because they sounded “like a dying whale”
- ESP is totally on-point with its latest Metallica collab, the LTD Kirk Hammett Signature KH-V, an asymmetric V-shaped electric and bona fide shred machine
- This 1969 Fender Princeton Reverb might have been on more hit songs than any other guitar amp in history
- Minimal Audio releases Cluster Delay, a multi-tap delay designer with integrated effects
- “OK, I quit”: Chaka Khan has some thoughts on Rolling Stone’s ‘greatest singers of all time’ list
- Herbie Hancock pays tribute to jazz legend Wayne Shorter, who has died aged 89: “He is irreplaceable and was able to reach the pinnacle of excellence”
- Great Eastern promises zero fuss and maximum tone with its new Focus Fuzz – the fuzz box for the fuzz agnostic player
- JR Robinson on the Michael Jackson Rock With You drum intro: “I made sure there was a hole that you could drive an 18-wheeler through”
- Fender offers the opportunity to wear quadruple denim with its latest Wrangler collaboration
- Extreme are officially back: Watch Nuno Bettencourt conjure fretboard magic in their hard-riffing new single, Rise
- Unknown Mortal Orchestra: "I can afford all the good outboard now, but I still get bored, go on eBay and look for the most bizarre gear I can find"
- Someone made a guitar out of recycled IKEA furniture
- David Lee Roth releases rerecorded version of Van Halen classic Unchained
- Tributes pour in for Steve Mackey, Pulp bassist, who has died aged 56
March 2
- Teenage Engineering explains why it’s released its $1,599 Field Desk: “We liked it so much, we thought you might too”
- Quick Tips: How to use bus compression to glue your mix together
- Miss Grit: "I grew up being a little bit of an analogue purist, but that kind of thinking limited my creativity"
- Brian Eno just gave ‘The Earth’ its first songwriting credit, and wants other artists to do the same
- Here’s your invite to a Zoom call with Timbaland and DJ Khalil, who’ll be discussing Serato’s stem separation technology and the future of sampling
- “2023 sees the festival embrace music technology”: Abbey Road’s celebration of female and non-binary producers is putting production at its core
March 1
- A guitarist played a lick from Weezer's Buddy Holly solo every day until Rivers Cuomo agreed to duel with him: it took three years
- ChatGPT built the world's first AI-coded synthesizer and you can download the plugin for free
- Master Of Plugins: get Metallica's classic guitar tones with the Neural DSP Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ Suite
- Producer Mura Masa says that PinkPantheress’s Boy’s A Liar was made in “a couple of hours”, and that he didn’t know about the Ice Spice 'Pt 2' remix until he saw the video
- Jacob Collier offers Steve Vai guitar playing direction and watches as Willow screams down a microphone
- Can I use a digital piano as a MIDI controller?
- Antares unveils an Auto-Tune Vocal Compressor plugin that uses machine learning to choose “optimum” settings
- Classic interview: Brian May on the guitar greats and the magic of The Riff – "It's a basic, primal need"