News archive
December 2023
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203 articles
- December 31
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- Watch Greg Phillinganes recreate Michael Jackson’s Thriller using the original synths
- "We take the original image and split it through a double vibrocated sploshing flange with double negative feedback": The Beatles, Les Paul, or Larry Levine? Who really discovered flanging?
- James Holden: "I got really bored of making music. But the moment I discovered modular and Live and Max/MSP, it all opened up again"
- December 30
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- “To play music, you have to understand it. I didn’t understand Topographic Oceans. That’s why I hardly played on it": Rick Wakeman and Yes - firings, hirings, curry, catastrophe and chaos
- “It sounds ambitious, but with the brand that we have, I have no concern about us becoming a multibillion-dollar company”: Marshall chief exec Jeremy de Maillard bullish about amp brand’s growth
- Which synth was used to create the Seinfeld slap bass sound? None of them, it turns out
- DJ Shadow on why he'll never go back to the MPC: "I got the newest MPC and I lasted about a day and a half. When you know what the possibilities are now and you try to go back in time, it doesn't work"
- December 29
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- Hear the first known recording of Eddie Van Halen playing Jump's iconic, band-breaking synth part: "If I want to play Bavarian cheese whistle, I will do it"
- “When I finished the solo to this one, Mustaine came into the studio, listened to it once, turned around and, without saying a word, shook my hand" – the story of Megadeth's Tornado Of Souls
- 5 artists that loved their gear so much they named themselves after it
- “It feels like there are more keys”: this curved grand piano just made its debut at Carnegie Hall, and is praised for its “effortless” playability
- Apashe: "Ableton became a reason to give up on your old DAW and switch - now Bitwig is starting to get that same traction"
- December 28
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- Intelligent people like Taylor Swift – it's official
- Taylor Swift bassist Amos Heller shares his process for learning live sets: "I wish I was one of those folks that can hear a song two or three times and just do it but I'm not"
- "It sounds like a drum machine instead of a machine playing drums - a sore disappointment": What critics said about the iconic Roland TR-909 drum machine on its release (and how they actually helped define dance music today)
- Issue 330 of Computer Music is on sale now
- December 27
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- 5 songs featuring Josh Freese on drums (that you might not know were him)
- YouTuber Alex Ball gets his hands on Tony Banks’ old Roland JD-800 synth and finds that it still contains his Genesis tour patches from the ‘90s
- Danny Elfman on scoring Batman and refusing to collaborate with Prince: "It was a miserable period of time"
- December 26
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- Abbey Road engineer Ken Scott on recording The Beatles: “I was there when Eric Clapton played the solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, but it was just another day at the office so it didn't mean anything at the time”
- 5 underrated DAWs that aren't Logic, Ableton or Pro Tools, and why you should consider switching
- James Hetfield on Metallica's new creative era: "I don't want to sit there and create the songs with Lars anymore – I want everyone to be a part of it and be in it"
- Eddie Van Halen on how he discovered tapping watching Led Zep: "I never claimed that I invented it! But I do know how and when I figured out how to do it..."
- LCD Soundsystem's Tyler Pope: "James said I should make an EP only using one drum machine and a synth – so I got hold of an old-school Roland CR-78 and an ARP Odyssey"
- Rick Rubin admits he doesn't know how to use a mixing desk: "I have no technical ability, and I know nothing about music"
- 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”
- December 25
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- Heroes: The 6 best covers of David Bowie's classic (and three that are not quite so heroic)
- "If it gets mushy at all, he's out" – Metallica producer Greg Fidelman confirms James Hetfield used a very specific blend of four amps together in the studio for the 72 Seasons album
- “All of a sudden, he’s down to a T-shirt, and he’s ripped, and he’s 80, and he’s giving you full-blown Mick Jagger”: Andrew Watt on producing new Rolling Stones album Hackney Diamonds
- Gibson unveils head-turning refresh of its most famous electric guitar with the launch of the slimmed-down (and more affordable) Les Paul Modern Lite
- December 24
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- “I didn’t want to have anything to do with the song. To me, it was like: ‘Are we turning into Depeche Mode?’”: Europe’s John Norum says he thought The Final Countdown was “dreadful” at first
- "The way that Control sounds is an accident because we didn’t know what we were doing": why Jam and Lewis recorded Janet Jackson’s breakthrough album ‘wrong’, and why it’s all Prince’s fault
- "I said, 'I wish Sting was here', and they said 'He is, he’s here on holiday!'": Mark Knopfler, George Martin and more on 10 years, 70 albums, massive hit singles, a hurricane and a volcano – the incredible story of AIR Studios Montserrat
- December 23
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- Watch: Mike Portnoy breaks down his drum part from Dream Theater’s Pull Me Under, then plays it in full
- Paul McCartney on bass: "When we met Elvis, I was like, ‘You’re trying to learn bass, are you, son? Sit down, let me show you a few things’"
- Making Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers: "We've got no boundaries anymore. We can do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want it"
- “We are the most difficult simple band. I’ve often heard guys coming up to us saying, ‘You guys are just playing barre chords!’ I am glad you think it is that simple!”– Troy Van Leeuwen on QOTSA's musical illusions and gear secrets
- 16 famous musicians who almost joined very famous bands
- December 22
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- Dave Grohl has sketched instructions for building a beer bong and how to smuggle hash in a cassette tape, and now they’re being auctioned for charity
- “Don’t steal this groove”: Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton shows you a classic Nile Rodgers recording technique as he lays down a filthy double-tracked guitar part
- SampleRadar: 505 free junk drums samples
- Show Us Your Studio #15: "My Prophet-5 Rev 4 has helped me evolve to a whole new level of musician. I'm new to the synth world but I'm lucky to own one of the best ones!"
- December 21
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- Arturia releases _Efx Refract, a new unison plugin, and makes it free for the holidays
- Our 15 favourite metal and heavy rock guitar moments of 2023: featuring Wolfgang Van Halen, Nita Strauss, Nuno Bettencourt, Paul Gilbert, Metallica, Periphery and more
- Liam Gallagher and John Squire confirm their first single together
- Hauschka on discovering new sounds with prepared piano and effects pedals: "I wanted to make experimental music without a laptop - creating sounds with a piano that had the same qualities as electronic music"
- 6 "wrong" production techniques that turned out right
- The year in pop: how Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Harry Styles and Elton John conquered 2023
- Baby Audio's new Beat Slammer plugin makes punchy, parallel compression easy and you can have it for free
- December 20
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- The 2023 Drumeo Awards are now live: here’s how you can cast your vote
- “People say it’s like going to Wonka’s candy factory”: PRS Guitars is offering tours of its Maryland factory
- Learn to play four easy classic Christmas songs on guitar
- Quick! The Kemper Profiler Player is already discounted at Thomann
- The best new guitar gear of 2023: our favourite guitars, amps and pedals that we played this year
- Neural DSP unveils the Morgan Amps Suite, a guitar amp plugin for players “seeking an unparalleled blend of warmth, responsiveness, and harmonic richness”
- My favourite album of the year: MusicRadar’s writers name their top records of 2023
- Let's get experimental: How to use your gear the 'wrong' way to come up with new ideas and unfamiliar sounds
- "An exquisite collection of sprawling soundscapes and evocative cinematic worlds": Another day, another free plugin, but UVI's Christmas gift for you this year does sound amazing
- "It's like having a collaborator in the studio, but it's AI": Survey reveals how many musicians are using AI, what they are using it for, and the top 10 AI tools of 2023
- AI meets sampling: Coalescence uses machine learning to reimagine what a sampler plugin can do
- Can you really upgrade Push 3 in less than 30 minutes? We put Ableton's new Upgrade Kit to the test
- December 19
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- “I’m sure if we found another tape where Jimi’s voice is buried, I know I could use something similar”: Eddie Kramer talks AI and digital audio restoration, and hints at more Jimi Hendrix recordings to come
- Mr Black brings back the Deuce Coupe, refreshed, upgraded, with up to +56dB of gain from “one of the most responsive and dynamic overdrive circuits ever created”
- Kemper Profiler Player confirmed: "The little green beast premium pedal"
- Jack Antonoff on re-recording Taylor Swift's 1989: "I don’t work with any soft synths, so everything is a sound that’s made in the room. The funny thing is that you can't recall the sounds"
- Sleep Token speaks! Drummer ‘II’ gives first ever recorded interview: here’s what we’ve learned
- 10 of the best releases in electronic music this year
- "It's the original synth on steroids": GForce announces AXXESS, a vintage ARP AXXE emulation with a 21st century blade
- Devin Townsend talks Infinity and beyond: "It was a lot of folk music… a lot of abstract orchestral music – because of Star Wars, because of The Dark Crystal... and then Def Leppard, Metallica and Enya and we’re good to go"
- It’s a Brit-voiced fire-breather, finished in green snakeskin, and it’s available to pre-order: Here’s everything we know about Slash’s new signature Magnatone amp
- There's a new free Rhodes plugin for you to download... but it's not an electric piano
- “This pedal is my tribute to my Dad”: Red Witch unveils the Falcor Modulator, a special limited run of analogue BBD modulation pedals, each wholly unique
- “He was one of the great ones”: Artists pay tribute to Amp Fiddler, the influential Detroit musician who has died, aged 65
- What is distortion and how does it actually work?
- Evian Christ: "I still use Cubase 6 from 2011 and a £50 Casiotone CT-S100 that I got from Argos. You can get good results without using much gear"
- It's a dirty dozen for Teenage Engineering's OP-1 Field, as 12th update delivers a crushing blow full of lo-fi filth
- December 18
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- “Everything is pretty much played live apart from the drums”: Dua Lipa and Mark Ronson on the making of Dance The Night, from the Barbie movie
- Scientists explain why Seeb's remix of I Took A Pill In Ibiza has racked up 1.7 billion Spotify streams: it's all down to "micro-rhythmic nuances", hard work... and playing left-handed
- It turns out that the Billie Jean chord stab sound is more complex than we thought: it needed 3 Yamaha CS-80 synth layers and vocal ‘oohs’ from Michael Jackson
- The blues guitar highlights of 2023: our favourite artists, performances and albums – featuring Jared James Nichols, Jackie Venson, Eric Clapton, Kingfish, Nat Myers, Eric Gales, Samantha Fish, Buddy Guy and more
- "Tiny, tinny and totally pointless": The story of the world's "smallest and silliest" synthesizer
- Fender are feeling festive and giving away an extra $75 when you buy a $500 gift card this Christmas
- John Oates reveals that his new single was produced completely in GarageBand: “I played all the instruments, programmed the keyboards and sang all the vocals as well”
- Fred again.. confirmed as producer on Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign's collaborative project Vultures
- "You cannot tense up, you have to be super loose" – top session guitarist Tom Bukovac returns with another great lesson and this time it's on picking
- Austrian Audio MiCreator Studio is perfect for capturing those important moments
- December 15
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- Melodics launches Acoustic Drums program
- Do guitar solos matter? Kirk Hammett says non-musicians won’t remember your solos – but “they are gonna helluva remember a great melody and they’re really gonna remember a great song”
- Hudson Electronics updates Ariel Posen’s signature Broadcast preamp pedal with added germanium for “subtle boosts through to heavily-distorted sounds”
- Issue 404 of Future Music is out now
- Masterchannel unveils the world's first AI clone of a mastering engineer, Wez Clarke AI: "It’s opening up what I can deliver to a much wider audience"
- Trackers, video games, soldering irons and bitter rivalries: 5 reasons why the '80s was the ultimate decade for computer music-making
- Beverly Hills Cop is back… but Axel F sounds very different to how you remember it
- Epiphone joins Gibson’s Certified Vintage lineup with five holy grail models to celebrate 150 years of the brand in style
- “This is so exciting for all involved”: Here’s what happened when Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton sat down to try and recreate Stevie Wonder’s I Wish Rhodes electric piano sound in his DAW
- Jam Pedals just released a vintage octafuzz inspired pedal that is so cool it comes wearing a green zip-up suede jacket
- Fantastic Twins on creating imaginary characters with vocal effects and the Eventide H3500: "The machine is basically endless, especially when it comes to working with vocals"
- December 14
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- The making of Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever: "George Harrison went to the store and bought a ginger root, boiled it and had me stick my head in the pot to get the ginger steam to open up my sinuses. Then I ran in and did the take"
- "I was standing crying at the synthesizer, so I pulled out a card and it said 'just carry on'. I did and created something I still like today": How Brian Eno's mysterious Oblique Strategies could help your music production and your life
- Antares’ Vocal Reverb plugin promises to make your singing sound all the sweeter (with a little help from AI, of course)
- Synchro Arts' Revoice Pro 5 promises to make complex vocal editing easy
- Here’s what the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 4th Gen gives you that other budget audio interfaces don’t
- 9 of the best new bits of studio gear in 2023
- December 13
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- 6 of the best new DAWs in 2023
- St Pancras State of Mind: Alicia Keys becomes the latest big-name musician to play the public piano at London station
- 6 AI-powered plugins that can help you make music
- "Status Quo locked Spandau Ballet in the toilets": The story behind the recording of Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas?
- What’s the biggest selling electronic music gear of 2023, we hear you ask? Reverb has the answer and it might not surprise you…
- Jacob Collier and his mum turn up the “Home Alone warmth” with a moving rendition of John Williams’ Somewhere In My Memory
- "Hotel California is six minutes, the intro is a minute long, it stops in the middle with no drums, and you've got a two-minute guitar solo at the end. It's the absolute wrong format for a single" – Don Felder on the story of an Eagles classic
- Build your dream home pedalboard: take a deep dive into the collection of pedals we feel add up to the ultimate home rig
- How to gift plugins to a musician this Christmas
- The bad, the good and the ugly: How AudioPilz's meme-fuelled Bad Gear became YouTube's funniest music tech series
- The SoundForce SFC-08 could be the most affordable route to owning a ‘hardware’ Oberheim OB-X, though you’ll need to bring your own synth plugin
- 8 of the best new plugins in 2023
- December 12
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- HeadRush rolls out FRFR MKII powered speakers, “voiced for accurate, linear delivery of amplifier and cab emulations” to get the best out your amp modeller
- The Strymon Cloudburst is the top-selling new pedal on Reverb in 2023, but overall Boss is still… the boss!
- An £85 short-scale S-style with a HSS pickup configuration, Harley Benton’s ST-Junior HSS SBK Standard Series might be the ultimate beginner electric guitar
- Algoriddim’s “next-generation” djay Pro 5 is here to power-up the party season with improved stem separation, crossfader transition presets and support for fluctuating tempos
- This Ariel Posen video masterclass in how to use tremolo, rotary and filter pedals might make you reconsider your entire pedalboard
- Arturia's V Collection X gets a Yamaha CP-70 electric piano emulation, along with 5 other new instruments, classic plugin rebuilds and three expansion packs
- If you can describe it, you can sample it: Output's AI-powered Pack Generator will instantly generate a free sample pack based on your prompts
- "Our prices range from 'not for the faint of heart' to 'if you have to ask, you can't afford it'": The 6 most expensive synthesizers that you can buy right now
- Stone Deaf just dropped the ultimate wake-up call for electric and bass guitar tone, pairing octave-up fuzz with OctaPulse tremolo for the Rise And Shine
- Watch Mark Lettieri demonstrate the simple genius of his ‘Tiny Chords’ approach to rhythm guitar
- Bearcubs: "Your musical ideas aren’t precious creatures. It’s OK to completely mangle and destroy a sound"
- Plugin Boutique just obliterated the price of our favourite Universal Audio plugins - score up to 86% off
- December 11
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- Ex-Slipknot drummer, Jay Weinberg makes first live appearance since split, sitting-in with The Bouncing Souls
- Plogue’s Chipsynth C64 plugin promises to be “the SID synthesizer you’ve been waiting for,” and a dream for lovers of ‘80s 8-bit music-making
- How Lee "Scratch" Perry's studio magic shaped popular music: “The studio must be like a living thing. The machine must be live and intelligent, then I put my mind into the machine and the machine perform reality”
- 5 songs you need to hear by Tom Petty
- A free chord lesson from one of the greatest guitarists on the planet
- “I really wanted the whole thing to sound like Animal Crossing”: Billie Eilish and Finneas reveal that Barbie song What Was I Made For? has a Nintendo influence as they break down the track together
- Matteo Mancuso channels Eddie Van Halen on a cover of You Really Got Me
- The perfect Christmas gift for guitarists is on sale right now – save $65 on the Positive Grid Spark with free bag
- "It's got a very particular sound”: The soundtrack to Ridley Scott’s Napoleon movie features a piano that was once owned by Napoleon himself
- December 8
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- Sepultura announce split, so does this mean Eloy Casagrande is going to be the new drummer in Slipknot?
- Learn a great warmup exercise for the winter holidays with this acoustic guitar lesson
- Damon Albarn slams The Rolling Stones and their new album Hackney Diamonds: “Making exactly the same music but not that good. There must be no joy in doing something like this"
- The classic clip of Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Howard Jones and Thomas Dolby playing the 1985 Grammy Awards is not just the most '80s thing ever, but - thanks to John Denver - a lesson in synth history
- NAMM 2024: The launch of Suzuki’s new Omnichord has been "postponed", but the good news is that it will be at the 2024 Winter NAMM Show
- Thank you for the Glaze: Native Instruments' holiday giveaway is a $49 Play Series instrument packed with free vocal samples for pop, hip-hop and R&B
- "Hell, let’s do it": John Lennon wrote and recorded Instant Karma in one day. Here's how it happened
- John Lennon's 10 greatest songs with the Beatles and beyond, ranked by you
- Nile Rodgers, Justin Hawkins, Katie Melua and more advice on how to deal with life on the road
- It's game on for Roland and its all new Ice White Edition Bridge Cast
- BOSS celebrates its 50th Anniversary with a collectible supplement in the new issue of Guitarist magazine – plus a special interactive online timeline
- December 7
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- There’s something missing in your monitor setup and Kali Audio might just have the answer with the WS-6.2 Sub
- Jackson expands its Japanese made MJ Series with a pair of high-end shred-ready RR24MGs in two classic pinstripe finishes
- Ableton’s Push 3 Upgrade Kit is here, and it looks like it’s incredibly easy to turn your MIDI controller version into a standalone instrument
- Nevermind the other festive guitar deals, the iconic Kurt Cobain Jag-Stang has 20% off at Fender
- How Meduza almost abandoned billion-streaming global hit Piece of Your Heart: “We couldn’t figure out what to do with it - we were actually close to junking it”
- Lzzy Hale and Kramer team up for one of the loudest looking electric guitars you’ll see – a Voyager finished in high-voltage Black Diamond Holographic Sparkle
- Nail David Gilmour’s Wish You Were Here tones with Crazy Tube Circuits’ Hi Power, an amp-in-a-box drive pedal based on a Hiwatt amp and Coloursound Power Boost
- Wampler has made a new version of its wonderful Tumnus overdrive pedal – so is this Germanium version better or just different?
- Bitwig Studio 5.1 is now available and adds "10 new characters": is this the most creative DAW ever?
- 6 of the best new Eurorack modules in 2023
- Catalinbread opens up the Sinkhole, “a harmonically-rich ‘hole’ reverb with an impossibly deep four-voice chorus” for other-worldly guitar sounds
- Ubisoft’s Rocksmith+ can now teach you to play piano as well as guitar: use the 'falling notes' method or the sheet music view
- 6 of the best new controllers and sequencers in 2023
- Has guitarist Andy Wood just made the ultimate Eddie Van Halen pedalboard?
- December 6
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- “This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt”: Taylor Swift is named Time’s Person of the Year
- An Alex Lifeson signature pedal has arrived much sooner than we expected: you can get the Lerxst By-Tor Drive pedal right now
- "I just pressed a key and it made that famous Moog sound, that low growl and the room vibrated. It was the most powerful thing": How Gary Numan's discovery of the Minimoog inspired The Pleasure Principle - and the birth of synth-pop
- Marta Salogni: "Seeing a mixing desk for the first time lit up something inside of me - it's the meeting point of music, art, science and engineering"
- We tried to make a Beatles track using AI-generated vocals - here's what happened
- 4 of the best new drum machines and grooveboxes in 2023
- December 5
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- "He was an outstanding vocalist and guitar player" – Paul McCartney leads tributes to Denny Laine as the Wings and Moody Blues founder passes away aged 89
- Love Floyd Rose vibratos, hate Allen keys? The Graph Tech Un-Lock Nut could be the electric guitar mod for you
- Japanese ambient musician Michiru Aoyama has woken at 5am to record a new album every day since 2021 – he's now earning $3,000 a month from his music on Spotify and Bandcamp
- “If you want authentic Soldano tube tone with the modern flexibility of digital control, the Soldano Astro-20 is the amp for you”: Mike Soldano’s latest tube amp is a versatile 20-watter with IRs and MIDI
- Max Richter unveils new piano plugin based on the renowned composer's Steinway D SPIRIO | r: "If you want to evoke the intimate stories we all carry inside us, then you will be well served by this instrument"
- Meet XLN Audio's AI-powered "happy accident machine": Life is a potentially highly addictive field recorder and plugin that makes instant beats from found sounds
- Fender marks 70 years of the Stratocaster with new colour options, and limited edition American Professional II and Player Series Anniversary editions
- Moog takes a deep dive into the world of bass sounds with the new Mariana soft synth, and the good news is that it runs on iOS, Mac and Windows
- “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called soundcheck”: Watch Prince shred on his Yellow Cloud guitar as the NPG warm up for their Special Olympics 1991 set
- 7 free plugins you need to know about this month
- "I don't think it ever really goes away" – Brian May admits he still suffers with imposter syndrome
- “I don’t want to generalise and say that he made everything sound good, but he did”: Joe Satriani reveals his strategy for replicating Eddie Van Halen’s tone on upcoming Sammy Hagar tour
- Modalics releases MINDst Drums, a new sampled drum kit plugin that promises realism and authenticity
- RØDE acquires rival Mackie to create audio powerhouse: "Their origin story is uncannily similar to ours"
- 7 of the best new hardware synths in 2023
- December 4
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- "This video is what happens when you spend your time practicing instead of arguing about gear online" – Julia Przybysz proves groove is in the hands with a stunning bass workout of Michael Jackson's Get On The Floor on a $350 StingRay
- Vince Clarke: "Martin Gore brought along his synthesizer, we looked at the thing and thought, this is a lot easier than learning chords on a guitar and you only need one finger to play it"
- The 7 ways I learned to improve my guitar tone – that won't cost you money
- Believe it or not, the Behringer UB-Xa synth is now on sale - and it’s even cheaper than we thought it was going to be
- 10 Christmas gift ideas for the music-maker in your life under $100
- Cherry Audio kicks off the festive celebrations with a free plugin emulation of Oberheim’s classic SEM synth module
- "It's just a good-looking toy": Is it worth buying a Teenage Engineering EP-133 KO II when you can do everything that it does (and more) on a free app?
- Expressive E's software instruments push the boundaries of physical modelling and MPE. Get up to 65% off in their Black Friday sale
- December 1
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- Watch Dave Grohl unleash a 36-minute live version of his Play instrumental
- “I am always able to come up with brand-new chords that no one has been stupid enough to sing over”: Page Hamilton on harmonic curiosity and the aggressive expansion of Helmet’s musical vocabulary
- Gretsch Drums launches new beginner-friendly Renegade Series drum kits
- DW unveils limited edition 14”x5” DW MFG True-Cast Snare
- Why does the Epiphone Greeny Les Paul cost $1,500?
- Buy a Taylor guitar and get a second one absolutely free
- Chroma chameleon: Arturia’s limited-edition KeyStep Pro controller comes with blue LEDs and lets you customise the colours of your tracks
- Arturia’s KeyLab Essential mk3 MIDI keyboards live up to their name, giving you all the control you need
- How to create drumless jam tracks or isolated drum tracks of your favourite songs for free
- “It covers my utilities bill”: German electronic musician Hainbach reveals how much his 1 million Spotify streams earned him in 2023
- Manson Guitar Works announces its most affordable UK-made guitars to date with the "very high-spec" one-pickup MA and Verona Junior models
- We tested 4 of the most popular online e-mastering services and compared them to a real mastering engineer. Here’s what happened
- How Gear Acquisition Syndrome almost ruined my life: "I love synths so much that I've lost my grip on reality. Why did I let myself spend 20k on sh*t I don’t even use?"