News archive
November 2023
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290 articles
- November 30
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- Alex Lifeson reveals signature LERXST amp line with MojoTone ahead of writing sessions with Geddy Lee
- Zultan launches Heritage Flat Ride cymbals in two sizes
- Harley Benton's new N-150CE guitar might be the ideal excuse to add a resonator to your collection
- "Right, we've had a break – this is it": Radiohead drummer says band are "coming around to that point" of getting back together
- Sweetwater has the gear you need, at the prices you want
- "This might not be such a good idea after all": A YouTuber tries to recreate classic $200 ReBirth software with $15,000 worth of original vintage Roland hardware
- "To say its arrival was earth-shaking would be no exaggeration": why, 40 years on, the Yamaha DX7 was the most important release in synth history, even though it did "make your head dribble"
- 14 tips for producing better techno: "Automate the low-pass filter frequency to create a rhythmic pattern on your bassline"
- Spotify Wrapped 2023 is here, and Taylor Swift has been crowned the top global artist of the year
- The Pogues vocalist and songwriter Shane MacGowan has died, aged 65
- Show Us Your Studio #14: "If I ever have to leave in a hurry, the Neumann U67 is getting packed instead of my Les Paul Gold Top!"
- Amp and cab modelling, USB interface and headphone out: Boss seems to have thought of everything with its compact IR-2 pedal
- November 29
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- Klanghelm reboots AKG’s BX spring reverb with its new Tens plugin, and there’s a free version, too
- How to get the perfect 808s: 8 tips to help you achieve weighty 808 kicks
- From Holy Grail to dodo: how the legendary SynthAxe went from being "the future of the electric guitar" to "way beyond what most guitarists could comprehend"
- Is Prince's Purple Rain really the second-greatest guitar riff of all time? A new survey says 'yes'
- How the hunt for a lost Moog in India unearthed a groundbreaking collection of '60s electronic music that was miles ahead of its time: "It blew everything wide open"
- The definitive guide to producing techno in 2023
- Issue 329 of Computer Music is on sale now
- November 28
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- How to make an AI cover song with any artist's voice
- Old Blood Noise Endeavors launches the BL-52 Phase Repeater, a pedal that “lives between phaser and reverb” – and lets you pick specs with BL Series Custom Color
- Surprise, surprise: Taylor Swift is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year, but which artists, songs and albums did you listen to most in 2023?
- The developer of SketchCassette has just released a free plugin called Lofi Oddity, an audio “degradation toy box”
- Harley Benton’s mind is on the summer holidays already with the launch of the GS-Travel-E Bass – and you can choose all-mahogany or spruce-topped
- “I won’t rest until this piece gets the recognition it deserves”: classical guitar phenom Alexandra Whittingham demonstrates the late Romantic origins of the default Nokia ringtone
- “It's so offensive that it can't actually mean that”: Have The Prodigy finally changed the lyrics to ‘the most controversial song of all time’?
- Sundragon and Jimmy Page unveil the Super Dragon, a “faithful recreation” of the modded Super Bass that was his “number one amp” from Led Zeppelin II onwards
- Missed out on a Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal? These 37 music bargains are still going strong
- “I am not your guru, OK? I’m not Rick Rubin with a beard”: Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton promises to be your “cool professor” as he launches a new mixing masterclass that takes you inside the ‘Vulf Sound’
- We tested all of these viral TikTok music production hacks so you don't have to
- "I try out ideas that might be too weird otherwise": version 3 of Valhalla DSP's Supermassive is the most "super massive-est" yet, and it's still completely free!
- “No man was cooler than Geordie, one of the very best and most influential guitarists ever”: Martin ‘Youth’ Glover leads tributes to late Killing Joke Guitarist Geordie Walker
- AI pop singer Anna Indiana's fully AI-generated debut single suggests AI poses less of a threat than we thought: "I'm sure my microwave will love listening to this"
- This web app randomly samples thousands of YouTube videos to create a playable grid of loops, giving you endless sonic inspiration
- November 27
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- Apple’s brand-new MacBook Pro M3s have got the Cyber Monday price cuts we wanted, but they won't be around much longer
- 5 unmissable deals on synths, samplers and drum machines that will be gone by tomorrow: Korg, Novation, Sequential & Elektron
- A year of Drumeo’s highly-rated drum lessons is currently down to $150 for Cyber Monday – in a few hours it will cost you $240
- 24 must-have Cyber Monday deals the MusicRadar team is buying this year
- I've used the Yamaha HS5 monitors in my home studio for five years - and now they’re discounted for Cyber Monday
- If I wanted to set up an entire home studio for less this Cyber Monday these are the 5 discounted products I would buy
- The best Cyber Monday iPad deals are on the cheapest models, so if you want to start making music in Logic Pro, you can do it for less
- I used to sell pianos and keyboards for a living - and with up to 80% off Yamaha, Roland, Kawai and Casio at Sweetwater, this sale is the best I’ve ever seen
- "There were guitar players weeping, they had to mop the floor up. He was piling it on, solo after solo" – how Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton changed guitar forever
- The Line 6 HX Stomp is already the best-value multi-effects and amp modeller but with $100 off and a free $79 bag it's on a whole new level for Cyber Monday
- If you want to switch to a new DAW, there's no better time than Cyber Monday: Bitwig Studio 5.1 is $100 off at Sweetwater until tomorrow
- Avid has extended its Pro Tools, Sibelius and Media Composer reductions to Cyber Monday and beyond: you've now got till 4 December to save 20% on subs across their industry-standard range
- Mastering your music couldn't be easier with the new LANDR Mastering Plugin and it's almost $100 off over at Plugin Boutique
- See Marcus King demo Elixir® Strings by ripping on his three-pickup Les Paul Custom that's from 1958… and the 1970s!
- Soundtoys makes some of the best effects plugins we've ever reviewed and you can get up to 75% off Decapitator, EchoBoy, Crystallizer and more this Cyber Monday
- This Cyber Monday is the best we've ever seen for piano and keyboard deals - and luckily there's still time to save big on Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Casio and Kawai
- A Klon Centaur pedal will cost you $7,500 but get the Wampler Tumnus that is so good it fooled Andertons for just $127 / £118 before they go back up in price after Cyber Monday
- November 26
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- Worried Black Friday is over and can't wait for the new UB-Xa? Fear not, we have found some early Cyber Monday deals on Behringer synths, effects and drum machines for you
- You only have a few hours left to download Waves’ Silk Vocal plugin for free
- Forget the Acoustasonic – Fender's real acoustic guitars are hugely underrated and have big discounts for Cyber Monday
- Level up your beatmaking with up to $200 off the Native Instruments Maschine family this Cyber Weekend
- November 25
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- As plugin deals go, the saving on this Baby Audio Industry Pro Bundle is too good to miss
- Elektron makes some of our favourite samplers, synths and drum machines and you can save $100 on their most popular instruments at Sweetwater
- 5 Black Friday synth deals under $500: up to $100 off synths from Moog, Roland, Yamaha, Elektron and more
- The WiiM Pro Plus is the best music gadget you’ll buy this Cyber Weekend - turn your existing hi-fi or powered speakers into a smart, high-quality streaming setup
- AIAIAI’s low-latency wireless studio headphones just got a massive $100 discount, and there are big savings to be had on all the other TMA-2 models, too
- Gold standard: One of the top guitar pedal tuners you can buy is still available in the Cyber Monday deals at the cheapest price we've ever seen it
- Fender guitars for much less: Why I think these Squier Classic Vibe deals are the top electric guitars and basses to buy in the Black Friday sales for beginner players and well beyond
- These 3 essential FabFilter mixing plugins will supercharge your workflow - and they’re $90 off for Black Friday
- November 24
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- With up to 50% off everything from guitars to drums, PA systems to keyboards the Musician's Friend Black Friday sale is one your whole band can shop
- Andertons' massive Black Friday sale is here with some of the best deals we’ve seen so far - save on PRS, D’Agelico, Focusrite and more
- The best free Black Friday plugin deals: free music software from Native Instruments, Slate Digital and Waves
- Geddy Lee says that Paul McCartney has tried to convince him and Alex Lifeson to tour again: “He was lecturing Al about how great it is... ‘You have to do it, man. You have to get back out there’”
- 5 of the very best guitar effects pedals I've tried and tested recently have been discounted in the Black Friday sales – including the incredible Walrus Audio Slöer Reverb!
- It's been a while since I first reviewed the Focal Listen Pros and they're still some of my favourite studio headphones, this deal at Sweetwater is making me consider buying another pair
- Think Kirk Hammett’s ESP White Zombie KH-WZ is just a metal guitar? Think again. Watch bluegrass phenom Trey Hensley use it as a country twang machine
- Is this the Black Friday percussion pad deal that makes you upgrade or take the plunge? Save $300/£340 on Roland's powerful SPD-SX Pro
- Hey Ya! Get $150 off the digital wind synth André 3000 plays on his new solo album, the Roland Aerophone Pro AE-30
- The VTech Kidi DJ Mix is the gift you need to buy for your kids this Black Friday, if only so you can play with it yourself
- Is this the best Black Friday plugin deal? 50% off Arturia V Collection 9 gets you 33 synth plugins for just over $300 - including emulations of the Roland Juno-6, Korg MS-20 and Oberheim OB-Xa
- Gibson launches Murphy Lab 1959 Les Paul Standard limited run reissues with Brazilian rosewood 'boards and Tom Murphy exclusive finishes – in a vintage market running hot, is $20k good value?
- Sweetwater, Thomann and Andertons just sweetened the deal on the Neural DSP Quad Cortex big time with up to $280 / £248 worth of savings
- 6 unmissable Black Friday sales every musician needs to check out right now
- Chase Bliss teams up with Goodhertz for the Lossy, a pedal to add “all the nasty and beautiful mistakes of heavily deconstructed digital audio” to your guitar tone
- The best compact amp pedal is available at its lowest price for Cyber Monday: why the Universal Audio UAFX Dream '65 is worth the investment
- Fancy a plugin for the price of a cup of coffee? I write about music software for a living and these are the best Black Friday deals I've spotted - and they're still live!
- “You have people who are into computers and synthesisers, and then you get those who are interested in real music”: Geoff Emerick was totally anti-technology back in 1985, but he did correctly predict the future of recording
- How M1onTheBeat rose to the top of UK drill with just a laptop, a pair of monitors and a copy of FL Studio: "I want producers to thrive just as much as the people behind the microphone"
- Mix and master for less with up to 90% off iZotope's best plugins at Plugin Boutique: Ozone 11, Neutron 4, Nectar 4
- November 23
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- Harley Benton has new DIY guitar and bass kits and one of them you need to carve the body out yourself
- “No Synthesizers”? No way! How Queen backtracked on a boast, embraced synths and went stratospheric
- "We severely underestimated your response to this product" – JHS planned to make 3,000 NOTAKLÖN pedals to sell at launch, a week later it has sold 12,000 of them. But why?
- Cyber Monday MacBook deals 2023: Including savings on the latest M3 MacBook Pros and M2 Airs
- “Set your sound on fire”: Slate Digital’s free Heatwave plugin is a one-knob route to gritty saturation, EQ and compression
- Cherry Audio has revived the ARP Pro Soloist, a classic '70s synth used by Tony Banks, Herbie Hancock and more
- November 22
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- Sammy Hagar shuts down talk of a shared Van Halen tribute tour with David Lee Roth, says he's not invited to the whole thing: "No f***ing way"
- No, you’re not dreaming - Behringer’s UB-Xa synth has finally been launched (though we still can’t find it for sale anywhere)
- Elektron updates Analog Rytm MKI and II with new OS: five new sound engines, Euclidean sequencer and more
- The gear that time forgot: 15 synths, samplers and controllers that could have been classics, but weren't
- The Pineapple Thief's Bruce Soord chooses his favourite acoustic albums and talks guitar and field recording for his own new solo record: "Don’t feel guilty integrating it into a song – it creates a great atmosphere to the listener"
- Teenage Engineering’s new £299 EP-133 KO II sampler, sequencer and composer looks like a genuine knockout
- “It’s 'Snow and Then' versus the Christmas Starman”: The Beatles and David Bowie go head-to-head in the festive merch wars
- 10 more things you didn't know Logic Pro could do
- Dell Black Friday deals 2023: Score hundreds in savings on top spec XPS laptops
- "I don’t do second verses - that’s ridiculous": PinkPantheress shows you how she produced new single Nice To Meet You in Logic Pro (with a little help from a Spandau Ballet sample and FL Studio)
- November 21
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- Get up to 26% off fantastic Donner products with these incredible Black Friday deals
- Take a tour of Tool drummer Danny Carey’s Sonor kit
- Gibson launches the Adam Jones Flying V Collector’s Edition, a $19,999 Murphy Lab doozy with a Futura-style headstock
- Black Friday iPad deals 2023: Up to $100 off iPad Pro, Air and mini models - all with music-friendly specs
- Dirty VHS is a free plugin that brings back the dodgy sound of old VCRs and video tapes
- "So powerful, you might need to switch it off and on again": The ultimate guide to Roar, the gnarly saturation plugin that's the best thing about Ableton Live 12
- Watch legendary funk drummer James Gadson demonstrate some of his most famous grooves using Ludwig Acrolite, Supraphonic and Pearl Jupiter snares
- "His playing is inspirational and speaks to my soul like no other guitarist" – Alex Lifeson guests with Tool in Toronto
- Ola Englund’s Solar Guitars debuts entry-level S by Solar brand to offer metal-friendly shred machines and bass guitars at affordable prices
- "Even before we got to the day of the show, there was a ‘concern’… a concern with Liam" – the story behind the farce and the glory of Oasis’s infamous 1996 MTV Unplugged performance
- "I simply do not have room": Phil Collins’ ex-wife to auction off a collection of the couple’s personal items, including the family Yamaha piano that the star used to teach their son to play
- Universal Audio's new plugin captures the sound of one of the most famous studios in rock 'n' roll history, where Nirvana, Metallica and Fleetwood Mac all recorded
- “I would like to thank Kiko for his dedication and hard work these past nine years”: Kiko Loureiro leaves Megadeth, Dave Mustaine confirms Teemu Mäntysaari as replacement
- Explosions in the Sky: "People call us post-rock, but we just think of ourselves as a bunch of friends with guitars and drums playing loud rock music"
- "He liked the look of the knobs": The extraordinary story of The Beatles' Abbey Road mixing desk that was rescued from a skip and is now worth over a million pounds
- Fender's massive Black Friday sale is still live, with up to 50% off 31 guitars - these are the 10 we'd pick up today
- Stewart Copeland names Joey Jordison as one of the best drummers he’s ever seen play live, shares his opinion on Ringo Starr
- Plugin Boutique has opened the doors on its massive Black Friday sale - we’ve hand-picked 5 of the best deals
- Mark Knopfler to auction 120 guitars –including his Dire Straits Brothers In Arms Les Paul and a '59 Burst
- Epiphone unveils Kirk Hammett ‘Greeny’ 1959 Les Paul Standard – a top-tier collab with the Gibson Custom Shop and “amazing opportunity for more players to experience the spirit of Greeny”
- November 20
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- Kurt Cobain's 'Skystang I' Fender Mustang guitar fails to eclipse his record-breaking Competition Stripe model at auction
- Arturia’s AudioFuse 16Rig is the flexible, hardware-focused audio interface that you can use both in your studio and on stage
- Polyend’s Play+ introduces four synth engines, turning the sample and MIDI machine into a fully-fledged groovebox
- Tom Murphy reveals his guitar relic'ing toolkit: including a bunch of keys
- Antares just launched a pitch-perfect Black Friday deal - bag Auto-Tune for half-price
- Mariah Carey shows that she can still hit the vocal heights in Billboard Music Awards performance of All I Want For Christmas Is You, a song she says she started writing “on a little DX7 or Casio keyboard”
- Ableton Live vs Bitwig Studio: which is the best DAW for you?
- Epiphone Greeny Les Paul breaks cover early: Kirk Hammett and Gibson CEO have been filmed playing it
- November 17
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- “I really wanted to be accepted in that purist world of punk and hardcore. You plug your guitar in and boom! Instead we had 10 guitars... all broken and rejigged”: Thurston Moore on Sonic Youth, taming feedback and musical epiphanies
- “You know what your problem is?”: André 3000 says that Prince once called him after an OutKast show to tell him where he was going wrong
- “If you are going to go deep into his stuff, into the Van Halen catalogue, you need a guy like Joe Satriani”: Sammy Hagar watches in awe as Satch plays Eddie Van Halen’s most difficult riff
- Issue 403 of Future Music is out now
- I review guitars for a living – these are the 7 Harley Benton deals you need to grab in Thomann's massive Cyberweek sale
- Not all audio interfaces are born equal: here’s why Focusrite’s Clarett+ can take the quality of your music to the next level
- “The thought of missing out on this guitar gave me the strength to do the gig”: Watch Joe Bonamassa demo the ’69 Hendrix spec Strat he calls ‘The Bronchitiscaster’ – and a super-rare ’67 Flying V
- "It's like the universe had this incredible power to affect my ear and make me stay in one place": How an ear infection birthed Licensed to Ill's groundbreaking production and drove the Beastie Boys and Rick Rubin apart
- Eric Clapton’s 1964 ‘The Fool’ Gibson SG sells at auction for a record $1.27 million
- Torso Electronics’ S-4 Sculpting Sampler looks like the kind of next-gen 4-track recorder you always wanted
- Thomann kicks off a week of epic savings with up to 60% off music gear and up to 80% off software in their Cyberweek sale
- Full metal racket on a budget: DrumCraft launches Series 3 Double Bass drum kit
- November 16
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- "I’m very lucky to have him as my guitar-playing partner in crime" – Lonely The Brave's Mark Trotter and Ross Smithwick choose their guitar highlights from the band's back catalogue
- Mikael Åkerfeldt reflects on Opeth's Damnation album: “Maybe we helped show people that experimentation isn’t necessarily a horrible thing – you should take your guard down when it comes to creativity”
- Cubase 13 not enough for you? If you’re working in post-production, game audio or with dialogue, Nuendo 13 might be a better fit
- Show Us Your Studio #13: "When I'm making music in the evenings, I feel like I'm at the helm of a starship"
- Stop what you're doing - Guitar Center just slashed $700 off the Gibson Les Paul Traditional Pro V in their official Black Friday sale
- The ultimate guide to Meld, Ableton Live 12's new synth
- Zultan Cymbals sets its sights on metal with its “loud, aggressive and biting” F5 18” Mega Bell Ride
- Here’s your chance to get your hands on one of two Zildjian 400th Anniversary Vault cymbals, and it’ll only cost you £2
- Roland’s A-88MKII MIDI Keyboard just got a free MIDI 2.0 update… so what does that actually mean?
- "Companies worth billions of dollars are training generative AI models on creators’ works without permission": Stable Audio head resigns in protest over "exploitative" practices used in training AI music generator
- JHS channels IKEA to create the $99 NOTAKLÖN klone flatpacked pedal
- Yamaha’s Genos2 arranger workstation is designed to “transform solo players into the ultimate cover band” and comes with an AI chord mode, drum ambience control and realtime adjustment of the style dynamics
- J Mascis and Kevin Shields join forces to create alt-rock heaven with Cure cover
- Kiefer on seven-minute solos, working with Drake and bringing classic rock chords into jazz: "The chord progression in the right hand could be a The Who song, but in the left there’s another harmonic context"
- Boss celebrates its classic pedals with metallic finish 50th anniversary edition DS-1 Distortion , SD-1 Super Overdrive and BD-2 Blues Driver
- The IRX One All-In-One Column PA sets a new standard for audio performance
- November 15
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- Interview: Jared James Nichols on fingerstyle blues tips and perfecting his Les Paul signature pickup: "I would say it’s your favourite P-90 you haven’t tried yet"
- Scaler EQ is a “world-first” plugin that uses the key of your song to determine which notes it cuts and boosts
- The ARP Omni 2 string synth has been reborn in a free plugin, so now everyone can play this late ‘70s classic
- Grab a Guitar Tricks annual subscription for just $99 this Black Friday, and bag an additional $321 of extras
- Peterson ups the spec for its new StroboClip HDC headstock guitar tuner
- "Where menace meets magic": 6 legendary albums recorded at the iconic Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin
- Yamaha’s new HS3 and HS4 monitor speakers promise great sound in small and affordable packages
- Own a Silver Sky for way less ahead of Black Friday with these huge discounts on John Mayer’s signature PRS
- Unlock over 4 million samples for just £1 a month this Black Friday, and pocket a free synth worth £89!
- The new Taylor Beacon is not just a headstock tuner
- Forest Swords: "My first couple of records were all software - then I bought an Elektron Octatrack and it blew my mind completely"
- Galaxias puts 50 years of Roland synths into one standalone “super instrument” that enables you to layer, tweak and play them all
- November 14
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- Gibson refreshes the SG with six bold new finishes as Angus Young’s favourite double-cut joins the Custom Color range
- Explore every corner of a mix with PreSonus’ compact and powerful Eris Pro Series studio monitors
- “The music is going to outlive us all… It’s time we go out and serve the fans that music while we still can”: Joe Satriani to perform Van Halen classics with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham on epic 2024 US tour
- It’s now much easier to save songs you hear on TikTok to Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music
- Epiphone and Jared James Nichols turn up the Blues Power for stunning new signature Les Paul Custom
- Bass players can now go mobile with their effects via the new $53 Harley Benton DNAfx headphone amp
- Paper Dragon: "It's all about making instruments exist in a real space - putting them through distortion channels, reamping and incorporating ‘air’ into the sound"
- Give your home studio a €14,000 makeover for just €349 with this bonkers IK Multimedia Total Studio 4 Max deal
- Harley Benton expands its BZ-1000 II NT series with a pair of sub-£500 extended-range bass guitars – and AAA flame maple veneers come as standard
- “Martin sang it naked. I turned the piano away as I was playing”: How Depeche Mode recorded their very own ‘Berlin Trilogy’ and became one of the biggest bands in the world
- The wind beneath your wings? Electric Keys is free plugin that gives you those classic ‘80s ballad FM electric piano sounds
- Ableton announces Live 12: major update brings a new synth, MIDI tools and interface tweaks to the feature-packed DAW
- "Now it's like one big giant robot made of everybody": Queens of the Stone Age's Jon Theodore on adapting to QOTSA's drumming alumni, a decade in the band and In Times New Roman…
- November 13
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- CEntrance’s English Channel is a portable channel strip and SD recorder that you can use without a computer
- “You thought you came here to see a professional!”: Taylor Swift hits a Champagne Problem as she plays the wrong note on the piano and is forced to restart song during a recent Eras Tour show
- Spotify's decision to stop paying royalties on less popular tracks is "discriminatory and exploitative", says competition law expert
- "I can't wait to tell Stone that I've almost figured his riff out" – Mike McCready admits to Chris Shiflett he doesn't know how to play the famous guitar intro to Pearl Jam's Alive
- "It had been a taboo subject" – why Geddy Lee isn't ruling out a Rush reunion with Alex Lifeson anymore
- November 11
- November 10
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- Slash confirms his relationship with Marshall will continue despite the development of a Magnatone signature amp for early 2024 release
- Is the Hologram Electronics Chroma Console an 'effects suite' for people who don't like multi-effects pedals?
- “A lot of people told me when I was coming up, ‘Jared, you’re not going to be a professional guitar player unless you use a guitar pick:” Watch Jared James Nichols deliver a masterclass in fingerstyle blues
- Cableguys’ new ReverbShaper plugin can set amazing spaces in motion, and the company’s ShaperBox 3 sale makes it a Black Friday bargain
- What's the difference between different microphone designs and how do they work?
- FabFilter takes reverb into three dimensions with the next iteration of its Pro-R reverb plugin
- Kramer launches its MIJ Historic Collection with 1983 Beretta Reissue – a faithful replica of “the quintessential hard rock and metal guitar”
- ‘Well, you do it, then”: UK musician tells the bonkers story of how Stevie Wonder ended up playing an uncredited harmonica solo on his band’s single
- This video is a great place to start for setting up your guitar
- Why wait for Black Friday when you can save up to £220 on great-value Alvarez acoustics at Andertons right now!
- How Megan Thee Stallion's Cobra is now bringing two talented guitar players to new audiences
- Universal Audio’s LUNA DAW is now available free for all Mac users, and comes with built-in tape emulation and instrument plugins
- Show Us Your Studio #12: "Ableton Push’s pad layout is a bit like a guitar fretboard - I can play 10ths with one hand and have my second hand free"
- 6 drum plugins that actually sound like a real drum kit
- There are big savings on The Edge-approved UAFX pedals in Sweetwater’s monster early Black Friday sale
- November 9
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- Oram Awards 2023 winners announced: featuring bioelectrical signal from plants, hearing aid soundscapes and a whole lot more
- Austrian Audio wants you to get a lot of things done with MiCreator Studio
- Korg’s Kaoss Replay takes the classic XY effects pad and marries it to a fully-fledged pad sampler - can your SP-404 or MPC do all this?
- Simo Cell: "I’m so used to Ableton that it’s become an extension of my mind - I’ll have an idea and in 10 seconds I can get it down without having to even think about it"
- Gavin Rossdale talks us through Bush's platinum hits: "These songs were not written with a view to any degree of success… I had toiled for many years and nothing had worked"
- "Now you have the sound of a band in a room. Four men in their early 20s hitting the shit out of stuff": Giles Martin on the separated and remixed Beatles Red and Blue albums
- Waves has added even more $19.99 plugins in week two of its Black Friday early bird software sale
- "In her last year she was telling everyone she was the girl in the song and she was proud of it. To complete that cycle was nice": The story of Marillion's Kayleigh deserves to be made into a Hollywood movie
- The dream team? Dua Lipa’s new single Houdini features Tame Impala, PC Music alumnus Danny L Harle, Adele collaborator Tobias Jesso Jr and Dance The Night co-writer Caroline Ailin
- 8 Ableton Live tips that you need to know about
- The Edge confirms his switch from amps to Universal Audio's UAFX pedals for U2's Las Vegas Sphere shows: "It's a case of high-level complexity to make it sound simple"
- "It's like Splice on crack": Soundful's new AI-powered platform generates beats in the style of Grammy-winning producers and artists
- The Boss RV-200 Reverb pedal could be a perfect balance of features, size and price
- November 8
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- Could Korg’s MPS-10 drum/percussion pad and sampler be a serious rival to Roland’s SPD-SX Pro?
- 808s, MPCs and Auto-Tune: The story of hip-hop production in 10 iconic bits of gear
- "I had no melody so I only sang the lines I'd written for four or five bars at a time": The making of David Bowie's Heroes and why Robert Fripp should get some credit five decades on
- What if John Lennon had written Now And Then with The Beatles in 1964? A musician using AI has the answer
- The story of Rory Gallagher's Rolling Stones audition: "All of the music papers were full of speculation. It's a bit like when the Pope dies and you get pictures of all these people who might succeed him"
- Roland’s Fantom EX upgrade brings new pianos and classic synth emulations to the flagship workstation range, but it doesn’t come for free
- Native Instruments has hardware discounts, mega value software bundles and freebies across the range in its massive Cyber Season sale
- Hit'n'Mix says the new version of its RipX software is the world's "first AI DAW"
- Engineer Andy Johns on recording and mastering Led Zep IV: “I put the tape on and the first song goes by and sounds bloody awful. Then the second one comes along and that’s really horrid, too... Pagey should’ve fired me at that point"
- November 7
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- Power up your music with AI thanks to these pre-black Friday discounts on AI plugins at Native Instruments
- PreSonus' Eris Series studio monitors has a pair for every room, and every creator
- Unleash limitless creative possibilities with Freezr from Audiomodern
- “After years of R&D and road-testing, the MT 100 has become my one and only touring amp. It really is three amps in one with no compromises”: PRS launches Mark Tremonti’s new signature head
- Zultan cymbals unveils revamped website with new Cymbal Finder functionality
- KMA Machines launches the Mandrake Octo-Shrieker, promising player-friendly octave-up fuzz magic from a compact, tweakable stompbox
- Roland reveals plans for new global headquarters: state-of-the-art building is designed to “foster creativity and productivity” and features an arena for live performances
- “A good guitar can bring something out of you… That’s what I wanted from this guitar”: Fender launches the Bruno Mars signature Strat, and it's a vintage-inspired masterpiece
- “This is the only pedal in the world that can create these sounds”: Red Witch launches the expanded Synthotron III, an all-analogue workstation for synth, envelope filter and chorus
- Tony Visconti likes The Beatles' final 'likable' single, but says "I think the string writing is boring... I should have written the arrangement for this. Paul used me for Band on the Run because he liked the string arrangements I wrote for T.Rex"
- "I said, 'we've added a double wiflocated sploshing flange.' John laughed and said 'let's flange again then'": George Martin and John Lennon thought they'd invented flanging but the whole debate has now taken an odd turn
- "The contractors had to excavate half a sphere in the ground and blow up a massive circular balloon in it." We’d forgotten how gloriously crazy Vince Clarke’s dome-shaped recording studio was. Here’s what it is now...
- Apple drops major updates to Logic Pro for Mac and iPad: Sample Breaker and Beat Breaker come to the desktop, and both versions get a new Mastering Assistant
- “It’s got all the autumnal inlay that you can imagine, a wonderful engraved bridge, and it sounds beautiful:” Sheeran By Lowden releases limited edition Autumn Variations acoustic
- 8 essential tips to help you get the most out of Bitwig Studio
- 6 of the weirdest drum plugins for making experimental beats
- Buy a Taylor acoustic guitar and get a free BT1 of GS Mini with this incredible pre-Black Friday deal - these are the models we’d choose
- "If you could just bear with us, we’re going to go and revive our drummer by punching him in the stomach. He’s out cold...": 5 crazy Keith Moon moments
- November 6
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- Waves isn’t telling us what its free Black Friday plugin is, but you can register now to make sure that you get it
- The best free VST drum plugins 2023: drum machines, samplers and grooveboxes for budget-friendly beatmaking
- 10 Cubase tips you need to know about
- Is Now And Then really the ‘last’ Beatles song? Get Back director Peter Jackson says it’s “conceivable” that more could be made with the help of AI
- "I really honed in on Robin Trower as a guitar player" – Laurence Jones on influences and choosing the Marshall Origin 50 / PRS SE Silver Sky combination for his latest new album, Bad Luck & The Blues
- Soundtoys is giving you another chance to download its $99 Little Plate reverb plugin for free
- We’d like to see these 10 plugins discounted this Black Friday - here’s why
- Mixed In Key’s Human plugin promises to make your sterile digital tracks sound like they were recorded by a live band
- Josh Caffé on bringing vocals back into house music: "You can count the vocalists that represent house in a really good way on the fingers of one hand"
- Spotify's new rules mean that over half of all songs on the platform won't be eligible for royalty payouts, according to reports
- November 5
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- Slipknot announces drummer Jay Weinberg’s departure from the band
- Plugin Boutique’s mega early Black Friday deals have up to 90% off SSL, Softube, Universal Audio and many more big brands
- "It's the sort of stuff that can't be taught" – Jimmy Page performs onstage for the first time in eight years with tribute to Link Wray
- November 3
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- Ibanez rolls out the Twin Peaks wah pedal, doubling the fun with two frequency peaks for “enriched levels of sonic experimentation”
- Flow harnesses the power of algorithms to create generative melodies, chords and beats in Ableton Live
- How to make better beats: the ultimate guide to drum programming, mixing and sound design in 2023
- Musician's Friend drop Black Friday rivalling deals with up to 40% off guitars, keyboards, recording gear and more
- Grab yourself a Positive Grid Black Friday bargain with big savings on the new Spark Go, Spark Mini, BIAS software and more
- “Apex-level tone in a go-anywhere footprint”: Two Notes unveils Opus, a multi-channel amp sim with preamp and power amp Tube-Stage Modeling tech
- "You don't have to spend a lot of money" – Joe Bonamassa explains the keys to more Telecaster tones
- Octo Octa: "I use the Volca Keys constantly in my productions - it’s probably one of my favourite synths of all time"
- SampleRadar: 473 free sub bass samples
- How to integrate Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio into your music productions
- Toto’s David Paich on the making of Africa: “We had fun with it like The Beatles did, made a loop, adding instruments one at a time, and then it just took off”
- "Bonzo would say, 'There's not enough 'frudge' on the bass drum'": Engineer Andy Johns on the recording of Led Zep IV
- November 2
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- Native Instruments kicks off its season of Black Friday deals by offering you the Ozone 11 EQ and Komplete Start music software bundle for free
- With Cubase 13, Steinberg wants to “keep your creativity flowing”: here's what's new
- No need to wait until Black Friday - Fender is currently offering up to 30% off in their Holiday Sale
- Cinthie: "My studio is pretty much a Roland museum. All these old machines are all still very relevant"
- Looking for a Dynamic Audio Grinder distortion pedal? Earthquaker Devices has good news for you with its Zoar
- "Nothing much happens for the first eight or ten hours. Just trust that it's going to work out”: Classic Brian Eno interview reveals how he really produced ambient music
- ROLI announces Seaboard Block M and calls it "a gateway to infinite musical possibilities and a new dimension of music creation"
- 5 classic house bass sounds and how to make them
- The Beatles - Now and Then: FabFilter’s Pro-Q plugin becomes an unexpected star of new short film that tells the story of the band’s last ever song
- How AI helped us hear the "final" Beatles song: "It's the closest we'll ever come to having John back in the room"
- November 1
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- Audiomodern’s new Freezr plugin is a realtime glitch sequencer that’s here to make your beats sound so cool it hurts
- Andertons’ Black Friday Price Promise means you don't need to wait until the end of November to make a music gear saving
- DW's DWe electronic drums and Soundworks software have launched! Here’s everything you need to know about DW Electrified
- The definitive guide to producing house music in 2023
- Yes, Prince really did hold a design patent for a custom keytar known as the 'Purpleaxxe'
- "Somebody probably used it as a canoe paddle" – Chris Stapleton reveals the longtime songwriting acoustic guitar that cost nearly three times the price he paid for it to repair
- Bring new colour to your pedalboard with the Walrus Audio Canvas Tuner – and upload your favourite photos to it
- Analog Lab Play is a free Arturia plugin with a simplified interface and V Collection and Pigments sounds
- Gear Talk: Is Roland's Gaia 2 a worthy successor to the original? | Is digital hardware a waste of money? | Why is Behringer calling out gear reviewers?
- Using AI could become a dirty little secret for over 50% of musicians and producers, new survey says
- Infekt: "I start off by thinking how I can make the craziest bass sounds, and build everything else around that"
- I play gigs for a living and these are the 9 essential guitar gear tips I've learned
- What's it really like to record an album at Abbey Road? We spent a day in the studio with The Clockworks and Bernard Butler to find out
- "I didn't think it would be the last one. And nothing was said to indicate that, at least not to me": Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick on the recording of Abbey Road, track-by-track
