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May 2023

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222 articles

May 31
- Karma Police: the story behind the Radiohead classic that started life as a tour bus catchphrase
- SSL’s UF1 promises to “set a new standard for single fader DAW controllers”
- Pedalboard tour: how Petter Carlsen from the Norwegian duo Pil & Bue gets his juggernaut guitar tones
- Akai issues a red alert as it launches the MPC One+, but it might not have all the upgrades you were hoping for
- Is this really the most overused music production technique of 2023?
- What makes overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals different?
- Joe Bonamassa tries Peter Green's Gretsch White Falcon: "You can play blues on anything"
- This guitarist spent £100K on gear to learn valuable lessons so you don't have to
- Summer's heating up with these hot deals from Sweetwater
- Behringer launches the Moog-esque Edge and Spice synths and hits back at “all the critics who claim that we’re driven by profit”
- On our radar: Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy – "Hearing Nebraska by Springsteen was a game changer for an indie kid growing up on a council estate"
- Gryffin: "After I discovered deadmau5, Skrillex and Avicii, I immediately downloaded Ableton Live"
May 30
- Fender’s limited edition MIJ Hybrid II Stratocasters expands, offering specs and finishes previously only available in Japan
- Klevgrand’s Richter is a ‘tectonic’, super-heavy compressor plugin that the company thinks is off the scale
- New Van Halen documentary takes us back to the early ‘80s to tell the story of how Eddie built 5150 Studios as the band were coming apart
- The Jura’s out: Air Music releases new plugin emulation of Roland’s Juno-60 synth
- The "first producer to be transformed into AI", Cosm Bot is an AI chatbot and music production expert trained on 1000 hours of online tutorials
- Dave Mustaine’s signature Vs from Epiphone and Kramer are officially released and they look mighty thrashable
- The plugin deals are heating up with 50% off in Native Instruments' Summer of Sound sale
- The RX1200 plugin could be the closest you’ll get to having an E-MU SP-1200 sampler inside your DAW
- Ibanez expands its Paul Gilbert signature series with the super classy, super shreddable PGM50 and PGM1000T
May 29
- Give the gift of great tone this Father's Day with these Positive Grid deals
May 27
- Prince's While My Guitar Gently Weeps solo wasn't his only great performance at the 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony
May 26
- TC Electronic unveils the Infinite Mini Sample Sustainer – a mini-sized version of the John Mayer pedalboard fave
- Funny Little Boxes has revealed its £99 follow-up to the 1991 overdrive pedal and QOTSA / Josh Homme fans are going to want one
- Dave Grohl signature Epiphone DG-335 confirmed in new Foo Fighters promo shot
- People are going crazy for Nopia, the MIDI chord generator prototype that’s racked up 2.6m video views in 8 days
- Bob Rock likens Metallica’s St Anger to The Stooges’ Raw Power, says Jimmy Page told him it was a “great album” – and Jack White loved it too
- Mick Hucknall on the 10 songs that changed his life: “The Beatles changed the way music sounded, but the Stones were the world’s greatest rock band”
- Create “strange worlds of modulation frozen in time” with Death By Audio’s Disturbance – a pedal that gets extreme with filter, flanger and phaser
- Dua Lipa’s Barbie single Dance The Night lands with production from Mark Ronson: “This Ken helped make a whole soundtrack,” he says
- Noel Gallagher reveals lost Oasis alternate Definitely Maybe recordings have been found and will be released
- DOD/DigiTech assembles a formidable lineup of guitar effects designing talent for new R&D team
- Kirk Hammett: "My favourite version of Greeny is probably the Epiphone"
May 25
- The 1977 Rainbow gig when Ritchie Blackmore played one of his greatest performances – after two long nights in a police cell
- Show Us Your Studio: Share your home studio and get featured on MusicRadar
- Sophie Lloyd becomes the first Kiesel Guitars female signature artist with the SL6
- Dr. Sample becomes Mr. Sample as Blezz Beats recreates the 'holy grail of lo-fi beatmaking' in a sampler plugin
- Steinberg’s Dorico 5 improves the music notation software’s playback and note input features, and the free desktop and iPad versions have been updated, too
- Steve Albini recalls the secrecy around the Nirvana In Utero sessions: "I had to do everything I could to keep it under wraps to make sure that we didn’t get overrun by fans and the added nonsense"
- Guitarist creates a string-picking robot
- Foo Fighters make live return with new drummer Josh Freese, unveil new song and pay tribute to Taylor Hawkins
- 7 of the best immersive audio plugins
May 24
- The UK's Flattley Guitar Pedals releases new DG Fuzz
- Tina Turner dies, aged 83: stars pay tribute to rock and R&B legend
- RØDE says that the PodMic USB is its “most versatile mic ever”
- "This technology will replace stereo": Behind the scenes of groundbreaking 3D sound project Immersive London Calling
- Positive Grid's new BIAS FX 2 update is massive, including overhauled amp tones and much more
- Tom Morello is the new Neural DSP Archetype signature plugin artist
- Here’s how the synth bass sound for Michael Jackson’s PYT was programmed on an ARP 2600
- SampleRadar: 270 free rhythmic noise samples
- Roland SPD-SX vs SPD-SX Pro: Should you upgrade?
- Watch RZA from Wu-Tang Clan get on stage with Russell Crowe in Sydney
- Kirk Fletcher offers a blues guitar lesson on the different ways to start your solos in the minor pentatonic scale
May 23
- Epiphone refreshes its Broadway, Casino and Sheraton arch-top electrics in classic, purist-friendly finishes
- Blackstar teams up with Bonamassa-approved blues phenom Toby Lee to give the St James head and cab a stunning vintage makeover
- Are Arturia’s new mk3 KeyLab MIDI controllers as ‘Essential’ as their name suggests?
- "It's not fair on the fans" – Noel Gallagher again tells brother Liam to "call him" about an Oasis reunion or stop playing with fans' emotions
- Celebrate Bob Moog’s birthday by playing a free online Minimoog stuffed with classic presets from songs by Phil Collins, Beastie Boys, Radiohead, Air, Kate Bush, Wings and more
- Soldano rolls out a 30-watt combo version of its high-gain classic Super Lead Overdrive – and it’s pre-modded with a Depth control
- Fender’s John 5 Ghost Telecaster is finally here and it hot-rods the workhorse electric with a killswitch, DiMarzio ‘buckers and a mirrored pickguard
- Watch: the time Josh Freese sat in on drums for Blink-182 at Warped Tour ’99
- Stay inspired for longer with your guitar and Elixir® Strings
- Watch Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks and Eric Clapton jam on The Sky Is Crying at the Jeff Beck tribute concert
- Octave One: "Once we got the 909 I was hooked. That machine’s like a drug, I could listen to the kick for hours"
- Is always being in tune an unobtainable myth? Guitar repair expert Joe Glaser and session pro Tom Bukovac discuss
- How many tracks can Ableton Push 3 Standalone actually run?
- Push 3 takes Ableton Live standalone: DAW can now be used with or without a computer
May 22
- Build a beat with Thomann's sample pack to win chunky prizes
- Five reasons to rewatch Foo Fighters debuting new drummer Josh Freese
- A startled Taylor Swift is forced to cancel plans to perform with her rain-damaged piano during an Eras tour show as it starts playing notes on its own
- This is the proper way to change your guitar strings, according to Guthrie Trapp
- Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton serves up 90 seconds of serious harpejji funk on his new Vulfmon single
- Dave Grohl plays a white Gibson DG-335 custom signature guitar as Foo Fighters debut new song Nothing At All
- Running out of inspiration as a musician? Guitarist Remi Harris has a quick fix
- Dave Matthews explains how Robert Fripp inspired his hit song Satellite and developed the guitar's role in his writing
May 21
- Foo Fighters confirm Josh Freese as new drummer
- Did Paiste cymbals reveal the new Foo Fighters drummer early?
May 19
- Watch Paul Reed Smith take a trip down memory lane with the 1984 PRS sample guitars that started it all
- "To me, the challenge of guitar playing is playing stuff people want to hear over and over again" – Nashville session player Rob McNelley teaches the art of writing hooks
- Jeff Beck Tribute EP released, featuring previously unheard recordings of the late guitar hero that were played at his funeral
- ABC’s Martin Fry on The Lexicon Of Love and the 40th anniversary live recording: “We’re in Tony Visconti’s studio, being produced by Trevor Horn. And David Bowie’s popped in to say hello”
- Don’t tell anyone, but Focusrite and Novation customers can currently upgrade from Ableton Live Lite to Live 11 Suite at a 50% discount
- Kirk Hammett’s 1960 Les Paul Standard “Sunny” is A) beautiful and B) up for sale via Gibson Certified Vintage
- Joe Bonamassa pushes his voice and Stratocaster to the limit on up-tempo soul party single, I Want To Shout About It
- Phil Collen talks Def Leppard's orchestral maneuvers, Rockman amps, Mutt Lange… and why he wants the band to play in the round again
- Mackie’s DLZ Creator is an all-in-one podcast mixer that makes things easy for beginners but can also be configured for pros
- Graham Nash recalls a furious Little Richard lambasting Jimi Hendrix after the young guitarist upstaged the rock ’n’ roll godfather
- How patten used text-to-audio AI to make an entire album: "We're at the precipice of a fundamental shift in how we think about making music"
- Andy Rourke, Smiths bassist, dies aged 59
May 18
- Karnivool pedalboard tour: Jon Stockman and Drew Goddard
- Black Corporation's Expander Mk2 is all the vintage effects processing you'll ever need
- Daniel Lanois talks producing and his memories of making So with Peter Gabriel: "If you don't get to a soulful place making a record, don't put it out"
- Omagoqa: "Percussion and bass. Those are the elements that make gqom music"
- “My approach to guitar has always been, 'I don’t want to know anything'”: Remembering Chris Cornell, the unsung guitarist
- Boss unveils two digital delay pedals based on the classic Roland SDE-3000 rack unit – and one is a special edition Eddie Van Halen model
May 17
- Foo Fighters unveil new song Under You plus a streamed event as speculation surrounding new drummer continues
- Cherry Audio goes back to the pre-synth age as it releases Novachord and Solovox plugins
- Steve Lacy on his new signature Fender Strat: "I kind of wanted to mix the old with the new – I think I always like that in everything that I do"
- What the funk is John Carroll Kirby using to drop a beat in this live performance of new single Oropendola?
- Pianoteq comes to iOS, and if you own the desktop version, you’ll get it for free
- The Great Synth Showdown: Which is the best hardware polysynth in 2023?
- After BC Rich, Ibanez and Jackson, Slipknot's Mick Thomson moves to ESP for the development of new signature guitars
- Get Komplete 14 Select completely free when you purchase a Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol M32 MIDI keyboard
- Can you really play lounge piano using just two chords?
- Issue 322 of Computer Music is on sale now
May 16
- 70 years on: Remembering Django Reinhardt, the Gypsy jazz trailblazer who triumphed over adversity and changed guitar forever
- You can now discover concerts and check out set lists on Apple Music
- SampleRadar: 245 free swung and skippy samples
- Did you know that Hans Zimmer wrote the theme tune for this ‘80s BBC quiz show?
- Periphery’s Jake Bowen has a new signature DiMarzio pickup set
- The quiet genius of Ryuichi Sakamoto
- Gibson appoints Elizabeth “Beth” Heidt as chief marketing officer as the brand’s senior leadership shakeup continues
- Universal Audio releases a vintage Rhodes electric piano plugin and a classic mastering compressor from Capitol Studios
- AI could help musicians overcome writer's block, says Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant
- Billy Corgan: "When Kurt died, I cried because I lost my greatest opponent"
May 15
- Meet MolliLooper, the stuttering, freezing iOS audio looper that “never forgets”
- Nyokabi Kariũki on how she used field recordings, text-to-speech AI and experimental plugins to make her debut album Feeling Body
- The winner of the new Andertons blind reverb pedal shootout is not surprising
- Check out this great documentary on the Peter Green / Gary Moore / Kirk Hammett 'Greeny' Les Paul
- Behringer says that its tiny, Roland JP-8000-inspired synth is ready for production and will cost $69
- Watch Tomo Fujita, Tim Pierce and Michael Lemmo get deep in the pocket jamming on Gibson ES guitars
- Should Stevie Wonder have sung Daft Punk’s ‘last song’, Infinity Repeating? Vocalist Julian Casablancas says he originally suggested him
- Hermanos Gutiérrez's Tiny Desk concert proves they're the coolest instrumental guitar act around right now
- Will the Nux Trident set the bar for a relatively affordable multi-effects pedal?
May 13
- Superbooth 2023: the best new synths, effects, modules and more
May 12
- Eric Clapton releases cover of Moon River featuring the late Jeff Beck on stellar form in one of his final recordings
- Andy Timmons and Keeley Electronics team up for the Super AT Mod Overdrive – “a drive pedal that responds just like a tube amp”
- HoRNet’s Magnus Lite is a free brickwall limiter and clipper plugin that promises “complete control over the loudness of your audio”
- Cut down on your heating bill with Overheat, Sampleson’s free analogue-style saturation plugin
- “We’re bored, let’s do some stuff” – How James Hetfield wrote Metallica’s longest-ever song in a Zoom call with Lars
- Moby on the making of Resound NYC, his new ‘rework’ album: “It's not as simple as, 'let's take the MIDI parts from 1999 and have an orchestra play them'”
- Superbooth 23: Sonicware Livens things up with the Texture Lab sampling synth, which will also work as a wild granular effects processor
- Catalinbread rethinks volume modulation with the Tremolo8 – eight trems in one pedal, with some reverb secret sauce too
- JFDR: "Learning Ableton Live was life-changing for me. I've been teaching it to young women because it had such a profound impact"
May 11
- Electro-Harmonix goes unashamedly metal with its new Hell Melter Distortion pedal
- Superbooth 23: Reason’s ‘organic’ Objekt synth promises sounds that you can’t create anywhere else
- Sting weighs in on the Ed Sheeran Thinking Out Loud case and why he's not worried about AI songwriting: "It's soul work, and machines don't have souls"
- Ed Sheeran shows Howard Stern how he played his guitar to help win the Let’s Get It On case: “You can’t copyright a chord sequence - you just can’t”
- Superbooth 2023: PWM’s Mantis is a Wasp-style synth with an OSCar-inspired filter
- Google's text-to-music AI MusicLM is now open to the public: "Experiment today by describing a musical idea and hearing it come to life"
- Was Eric Johnson's unreleased PRS prototype guitar the precursor to the Silver Sky?
- Teenage Engineering’s beautiful TP-7 portable recorder is now available to buy (if you can afford it, that is)
- Superbooth 2023: Erica Synths’ Steampipe is an 8-voice physical modelling synth with no conventional oscillators
- Superbooth 2023 live: all the latest from Berlin, as it happens
- Musician told she'll be fined £5,000 for playing any instrument in her own home
- Superbooth 2023: Roland’s S-1 Tweak synth is like a polyphonic SH-101 that you can fit in your pocket
May 10
- Superbooth 2023: Arturia’s MicroFreak synth gets a Stellar update - new look, sampling capabilities and 3 granular engines
- Superbooth 2023: Elektron turns up the Analog Heat with a new +FX model of the acclaimed stereo distortion processor
- Superbooth 2023 is on: the best new synths, Eurorack and other music tech gear
- Superbooth 23: Tempera is a beguiling granular instrument that can create dreamy sample-based soundscapes
- "This is one of the best amps I've ever played" – new video investigates the Fender Twin Reverb Kurt Cobain used on Nirvana's Bleach
- Superbooth 23: Oberheim’s OB-X8 desktop module is smaller and cheaper than the keyboard version, but sounds just as good
- Hand-select your very own bundle of T-RackS plugins for as low as €49.99 courtesy of IK Multimedia
- Our guide to the internet's biggest collection of free effects plugins, the MFreeFXBundle
May 9
- Gibson is teasing an Epiphone Greeny Les Paul, Mustaine models, white '80s Explorers… and a glimmer of hope for the Dave Grohl ES-335 signature's return
- John Mayer’s been rocking a prototype Silver Sky with an Alembic Blaster output jack and a hardtail setup
- Voyager guitarists Simone Dow and Scott Kay on being the first prog-metal band in the Eurovision Song Contest: "We love a little bit of cheese every now and then, so why not throw that in with a nice little mountaintop solo?"
- Fender and Steve Lacy team up for the People Pleaser Stratocaster – a unique, hot-wired Strat with onboard fuzz
- Logic Pro for iPad is here: Apple puts “the ultimate music studio at your fingertips”
- Jason Newsted calls And Justice For All the best garage duo album ever: "There was never any big bass on Metallica's albums until the Black Album"
- Polyphia’s Tim Henson offered Tosin Abasi $1,000 to teach him thump guitar
- Superbooth 23: UDO’s binaural, hybrid analogue Super Gemini synth promises to fuse the past, present and future
- Rob Chapman shows you how to shred guitar without theory or scale knowledge
- Superbooth 23: Korg Berlin teases a new method of synthesis that blends physical and electronic sound generation techniques
- Rob Laakso, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist with Kurt Vile and The Violators, dies aged 44
- Superbooth 23: The Korg microKorg Crystal makes it clear that the iconic synth is celebrating its 20th anniversary
May 8
- Furby organ, lightsaber theremin and the 1000-oscillator synth: Look Mum No Computer on his 7 craziest musical inventions
May 7
- The best new studio monitors of 2023
May 6
- "That whole guitar hero thing – it's just a load of crap, really": An interview with Echo and The Bunnymen’s Will Sergeant
- The must-have guitar accessories for 2023
- A pre-fame Steve Lacy shows you how he recorded his debut EP in GarageBand for iPhone
May 5
- The hottest new drum gear for 2023
- Nuno Bettencourt: “I told the guys, ‘I wanna go for blood on this album.’ I wanted to make it fun with the guitar... to bring joy into it, to bring passion into it”
- Bluesman Aynsley Lister makes a great case for '70s Strats with this demo and interview
- Guthrie Trapp shows how small guitar chords can offer big potential
- "There's no dead spots on these guitars, they ring out everywhere you play them" – Tom Bukovac + a '58 'Burst in his favourite studio is making us want a Les Paul
- Leveling your guitar frets yourself might have just got a whole lot easier thanks to MusicNomad
- How much better does a $10,000 audio interface really sound than a $100 Focusrite Scarlett Solo?
- Jeff Healey documentary announced – and the trailer is pure guitar fire
- Superbooth 23: AJH Synth’s MiniMod Keyz looks like a Minimoog for the Eurorack generation
- The world's first carbon-neutral battery: Martin Guitars expands its greener strategy with Better Battery Co partnership
- Essential new MIDI controllers for 2023
- The freshest new acoustic guitars for 2023
- The hottest guitar amps and amp pedals for 2023
May 4
- Ed Sheeran wins copyright case and claims that if he had lost “we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters”
- Korg celebrates Star Wars Day by bringing back the ARP 2600 FS synth - AKA the voice of R2-D2
- Feist says she gave up on GarageBand because ‘they made it more like Pro Tools”, and now records using iZotope’s Spire instead
- Feist interview: "I was endeavouring to push myself harder in my guitar playing"
- Issue 396 of Future Music is out now
- Stepper is a free, Elektron-inspired step sequencer for the Game Boy Advance
- Four Tet says that Brian Eno and Fred again..'s new release Secret Life is "the most beautiful album of 2023"
- Essential pianos and home keyboards for 2023
- The must-have new guitar effects pedals of 2023
- King Of FM is a free Mac and iOS synth that gives you classic DX7 sounds that have been used by Herbie Hancock and producers for Drake, Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar
- Hearing Eddie Van Halen was "like, 'OK, the adult has entered the room'" says Paul Gilbert
May 3
- Alicia Keys heads to Abbey Road to play two famous upright pianos and discuss the Spatial Audio mixes of her albums
- Kemper reveals Liquid Profiling: "It's the perfect marriage between modelling and profiling"
- Watch Keith Richards join Willie Nelson onstage for a poignant performance of We Had It All and Live Forever
- Inside Blackbird: one of the world's top recording studios launches subscription service
- Hammett talks Hetfield: "We connect in a place that is not comfortable"
- Digital pianos jargon buster: all the essential digital piano terms explained
- The Breakdown: Skepsis shows us how to make the Freak bass patch in Massive
- 6 reasons why the world has fallen in love with the piano again
- Channel Tres: "Playing with hardware gives you the feeling back. When I’m up on my feet and physically turning analogue knobs, I’m more willing to do things that I wouldn’t normally do"
- Hail Cesar: what now for Gibson as JC Curleigh steps down and Brand President Cesar Gueikian takes over as Interim CEO
- The hottest new samplers, grooveboxes and drum machines of 2023
- The must-have new software instruments of 2023
May 2
- Nuno Bettencourt turns up the heat as he debuts his virtuosic Rise solo live on the Monsters of Rock Cruise 2023
- Reason 12.6 adds native support for Apple Silicon Macs, which could mean a 50% performance boost
- Make your vocals sound like Grimes with her new AI-powered Elf.Tech project
- Watch Steve Vai and Michael Angelo Batio join forces for a world-record breaking jam of Hey Joe featuring 7,967 guitarists
- Elevate your audio with these incredible deals on select AKG, JBL, and DSM & Humboldt gear at Thomann
- The Edge says U2 could have spared Bono “a certain amount of embarrassment” by writing in lower keys to suit his vocal range
- 75% of self-releasing musicians are losing money on promo
- Half of the fans buying vinyl in the US don't even own a record player
- Softube revives the Prophet-5 with its new Model 80 synth plugin
- Canadian folk legend Gordon Lightfoot dies, age 84
- Thomann is here to make your soft synth dreams come true with a whopping 50% off three popular Arturia plugin bundles
- The Breakdown: How Skepsis made DnB roller Know What It Means
- 9 AI tools to power your music making
- The essential new electric guitars you need to play in 2023