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October 2024

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299 articles

October 31
- “Everyone thinks the amps are going to make you sound great because they are so expensive”: Kenny Wayne Shepherd on the biggest misconceptions about Dumble amps, the “bona-fide genius” behind them – and why the clones don’t measure up
- Zildjian at Recording Week 2024: Zildjian ALCHEM-E Perfect Tune Headphones pair to the Zildjian app to create a truly personalised listening experience - customised for your hearing - so you never miss a note.
- “My favourite, secret plugin on the planet… it just adds more snap and clarity”: Kanye West and Jay-Z producer Anthony Kilhoffer on the budget bitcrusher he used on In Paris
- "The living, breathing embodiment of funk": Bootsy Collins' bass guitar, Farfisa organ and Yamaha DX7 go up for sale along with a collection of memorabilia
- “Dang, might be a smaller venue but I’d say it more an upgrade than going to Hollywood”: Ginger Root is forced to downgrade LA gig but fans seem relaxed about it
- “I still have the guitar. It still buzzes”: Brian May reveals the radical mods he made to his £10 acoustic for Queen’s debut album, all to make it buzz
- “Right up there with the most iconic Fenders of all time… A ton of work went into this one”: The Fender Custom Shop unveils $20,000 replica of John Frusciante’s 1962 Strat, forensically replicating every ding and dent of the RHCP guitarist’s original
- “There are so many hurdles guitar players get into that are attributed to knowing 30% of the neck. Just map it out - it takes a week”: Julian Lage unlocks the secret of mastering guitar
- "Last night I got an email from someone who said 'I'm 46, is it okay to start producing music?' I said 'yes, start now!'": How a 67-year-old pensioner went viral performing industrial techno at home
- “Over 350 grassroots music venues are now placed at immediate risk of closure”: UK Live music representatives criticise Reeves Budget cut in business rate relief
- “Don’t stand there like a coward, come here and say it... See you later then”: Thom Yorke leaves stage after pro-Gaza protester interrupts show
- “13 minutes of pumpkin-flavoured power metal mayhem!”: The ultimate Halloween anthem
- Streaming royalties for Bowser? Nintendo Music puts the company’s classic video game soundtracks in an iOS and Android app
- “The Foo Fighters discovered a ghostly presence that not only knew how to terrify people, but also about the ins and outs of using Pro Tools”: The scariest places music has been recorded
- “From glassy cleans to deeper, more aggressive tones”: The new Harley Benton Agufish Custom Signature Series
- “Elvis walked in the room – this was before he was fat – and he said to me, ‘You know anything about guns?’ I said, ‘I’m from Detroit.’ He said, ‘OK, come in here’“: Alice Cooper’s near-deadly encounter with the King
October 30
- Is this the most English piece of band merch of all time?
- “The need for philanthropic support is extremely urgent”: Burning Man fest is in financial trouble
- “If you see some mistakes, and some problems, it’s because we don’t have our bass player”: Coldplay forced to play a show without one of their members for the first time in their history
- AlphaTheta promises to "free your inner DJ" with DDJ-FLX2, its lightest and most compact DJ controller yet
- “They're French. I would say it's a kind of techno prog band”: Elvis Costello reckons that the Brooklyn warehouse gig he saw Justice play was “one of the great shows I've ever been to”
- “Now I realize how little you really need to create good music when you just pick the right sounds - whether that’s on purpose or by accident”: How Darude created Sandstorm, the meme-worthy trance anthem named after a synth preset
- How to recreate classic recorded drum sounds from The Beatles, Metallica, Nirvana and more
- "It has been a bit bewildering for us that Herb would so abruptly opt out": Primus left “in complete shock” by drummer’s sudden departure
- “It stands out for being HEAVY!”: Jerry Cantrell reveals his favourite Led Zeppelin song
- “Justin said, ‘I’m working with this artist you may or may not know’”: Bonnie Raitt confirms that Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon contacted her personally when he and Charli XCX wanted to sample Nick Of Time on their Brat remix track
- “Who wants to tell him?”: Busking drummer unknowingly performs Chili Peppers song in front of Chad Smith
- “‘Where's Carlos?’ ‘He's in that room.’ So my parents and I, we knock on the door, and he's, ‘Oh, you're the kid I heard about… do you want to play tonight?’”: How a 9-year-old guitar prodigy ended up jamming with Carlos Santana
- "There was water dripping onto the gear and we got interrupted by a cave diver": How Mandy, Indiana recorded their debut album in caves, crypts and shopping malls
- Roland’s new Earth Piano instrument puts “50 years of piano development” into your DAW
October 29
- "They just went in there and bang, bang, bang – three takes or so and nailed it”: Why Oasis’ Definitely Maybe was recorded twice
- “A commanding new effects pedal that merges aggressive octave fuzz with earth-shaking analogue synth tones”: Third Man Hardware joins forces with Eventide for the Knife Drop – featuring Jack White’s presets, it’s designed for “sonic chaos”
- Ticketmaster clamps down on unauthorised resales of Oasis tickets as 50,000 for next year’s tour are cancelled
- “The drummer broke his snare-drum skin, the bass was in a different tuning, Gilmour’s guitar wasn’t working properly…”: Bryan Ferry remembers Slave To Love’s chaotic live debut
- “Making that record was like pulling teeth!” Rock legends Rush remember the album that drove them half-mad
- “People think of Prince and they think ‘vocalist, songwriter, guitarist'. But his bass playing: bar none”: Questlove on the Prince production with the ‘David Garibaldi LM-1 drum beat’ that he calls “one of the most daring funk songs of all time"
- “Simple to use and versatile enough for any style of guitar playing”: Fender unveils the Champion II amp series, a trio of affordable solid-state modelling combos with onboard effects for players of all levels
- “I would love to do another album and I may try to bully him on that": Pete Townshend on future Who plans and the possibility of new music
- “We recorded that song in a toilet with quite a cheap microphone, a Shure SM58”: Phil Oakey lifts the lid on the birth of The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me
- “A new level of technical playability and truly musical tone”: Cort expands its shred-ready electric guitar lineup with the KX700 TT, a limited edition high-end S-style with Fishman Fluence humbuckers and True Temperament frets for on-point intonation
- iZotope's Neutron 5 adds 3 new plugins and makes its AI-powered Mix Assistant "faster and smarter"
- “Ideal for maintaining clarity in extended-range instruments”: Abasi Concepts wants to take your tone to the next level with the Micro-Aggressor – a boost-style compressor voiced for low-end guitar
- “Jimmy Page was meticulous. Hendrix was more free-form”: The genius of two visionary guitarists by the producer who worked with both
- “Travis Scott sampled our song - that’s pretty cool!”: How a long-lost '80s rock track was finally heard by millions
- Synchro Arts by LANDR at Recording Week 2024: Discover the ultimate vocal production studio – Get 50% off Revoice Pro 5
October 28
- From iPad Pro to the iMac: Apple's new all-in-one desktop takes its M4 chip from the company's flagship tablet
- “She actually gives me so much advice on taking care of myself and being me in an industry that’s so overwhelming sometimes”: Olivia Rodrigo has been getting advice from Chappell Roan
- "Despite recording some truly iconic albums that became a huge part of pop culture history, he always felt like one of us": Five seminal records Steve Albini worked on
- “Training a model based on the 13-year-old Brenda Lee, using original masters, was both a challenge and a creative breakthrough”: BT on the new Spanish version of Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree that was made possible by his SoundLabs AI MicDrop plugin
- “I never, ever get nervous before a show, but it was nerve-racking”: Mike Portnoy on his Dream Theater live return
- "Manipulate any audio source into a hauntingly immersive soundscape": SSL releases Halloween-themed free plugin X-Orcism II: Voices from the Crypt
- If a tree falls in a forest and no-one hears it, should it receive a royalty payment?
- “It’s been stuck in my head, and it would make me feel good if I knew that 65,000 other people have this song stuck in their head, just like I do”: Taylor Swift is joined on stage by Sabrina Carpenter for a surprise shot of Eras Tour Espresso
- “Sometimes people need a mix engineer, or a recording engineer, or a producer, or a guitarist – or sometimes all of those things”: Amy Sergeant on her professional studio career and her approach to mix engineering in the modern industry
- Why Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere could spark a new wave of interest in the Teac 144 Portastudio, the 4-track cassette recorder that triggered a home recording revolution
- Laney at Recording Week 2024: Laney's exciting partnership with AURORA DSP delivers a digital revolution in guitar and bass tones
- HH Audio at Recording Week 2024: Meet the Q Series – HH Audio’s newest mixers
- IK Multimedia at Recording Week 2024: Why their iLoud range delivers much more than monitoring
- sonible at Recording Week 2024: Balancing out vocal, speech and instrumental recordings has never been easier than with smart:EQ 4
- Neural DSP at Recording Week 2024: Discover Nano Cortex – An infinite number of amps and pedals on your pedalboard
- u-he at Recording Week 2024: Discover Filterscape, u-he's truly unique sound-mangling plugin package that's recently been updated to version 1.5
- Minimal Audio at Recording Week 2024: A new wave of synthesis is here – Current 2.0 is available now
October 26
- “I think Billy would say there was no need to make any more songs. And maybe, as a fan, I felt the need for one more”: Freddy Wexler talks songwriting, producing, discovering Lady Gaga and restarting Billy Joel’s fire
October 25
- "My car got stolen with all my songwriting books in the boot so no second album any time soon”: Raye’s songwriting book is stolen - on her birthday
- “Every once in a while we choose woods from our stock to create special instruments and these guitars are great examples of just that”: PRS adds super-versatile “08” pickup switching to the CE bolt-on with limited run black limba and swamp ash models
- “We’ve never thought we have made the perfect record. We are always on the lookout to discover new ways of doing things, new sounds”: Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith on Tears For Fears’ restless creativity, artistic independence and the search for surprise
- "I dealt with Lindsey for as long as I could. You could not say that I did not give him more than 300 million chances": Stevie Nicks explains why she cut Lindsey Buckingham out of her life, and it's partly because "he wasn't very nice to Harry Styles"
- “He never got to see GPS”: Helen Mirren feels “sad” for Kurt Cobain, but not for the reason you might expect
- “He was playing this kit that had cushions in it and tape all over it. It didn’t sound like Rodge”: Queen hated Roger Taylor’s drum sound on their debut album so much that they “augmented” every beat for its reissue
- “I tried to make the concert feel like my own spin on a rock show. My dream was for people to jump and scream and be all sweaty by the end”: Olivia Rodrigo reflects on her hugely successful Guts World Tour
- "I’m not checking my emails on stage!": Autechre hit back against critics of electronic artists that perform with laptops
- “Nicky Wire on lead vocals!”: Hear the Manic Street Preachers’ surprise new single
- “This exceptional instrument combines the legendary features that defined early Van Halen with modern performance enhancements”: EVH Gear unveils the Star TOM, a shred machine with a single ‘bucker, kill-switch and no-fuss Tuna-Matic bridge
- “I’m the first black female in heavy music with my own signature guitar”: Diamond Rowe is making history with Jackson
- “I’ve got lots of ideas and I’m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space - it’s been a long time”: Kate Bush is readying herself to start work on a new album
- “Chad Kroeger called me in the middle of the night and was cursing me because he couldn't get the song out of his head. I was like, ‘now you know everyone else felt with How You Remind Me!": We speak to the Lottery Winners
October 24
- “Can you put a banjo in a dubstep drop?”: Jacob Collier teams up with Google to launch AI-powered music creation tool MusicFX DJ
- "He came and asked for some money, but it was alright... if it’s a hook, or I feel like I’ve taken their idea, then I'd always try and pay for it": Fatboy Slim on sampling's "Wild West" origins - and nicking the bassline from The Clash's Guns of Brixton
- Cableguys’ new Snapback plugin puts a “secret trick of pro producers” at your fingertips
- “There’s a little song called Toxic that was headed my way, and I was like, ‘Toxic? I don’t know if I want a song called Toxic’”: Kylie Minogue on the Britney Spears hit that she turned down
- “He offered me Jimi’s guitar and then disappeared!”: How Lenny Kravitz almost got his hands on Hendrix’s Woodstock Strat
- “It’s his message, to let the world know how he feels about all the things that’s going on in the world”: Kool and the Gang drummer spent 20 years on a solo album but didn’t live to see its release
- Korg’s Multi/Poly is a versatile new synth that takes influence from an ‘80s cult classic
- “He asked me to go into the studio and add some sounds and jam with the band a bit, to bring more electronic experimentation into their sound”: Jon Hopkins reflects on being introduced to Coldplay by Brian Eno
- "She's kind of known for her pop songs, but they actually go a lot deeper than that. I think she can even be compared to some of the great poets”: Academics debate Taylor Swift at Birmingham University event
- “The same sound engine and colour touch display as the GX-100 in a portable, travel-ready design”: Boss promises a “universe” of tones from the small but mighty GX-10 amp modeller and multi-effects
- "There's no heart there. David was the centre of it all... he was the heart of this band”: Graham Nash reveals why he’ll never play with Stills and Young again
- “I don’t usually get nervous, but I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem”: So Barack Obama raps the opening lines of Lose Yourself
October 23
- “Pull your sound through the prism and into a spectrum of dazzling tones”: Elektron’s Digitone II adds FM drums, phase distortion, comb filters and more
- Minimal Audio unveils Current 2.0, the next edition of its all-in-one synth, sampler, multi-effects plugin and content platform
- No need to wait for Black Friday; Sweetwater's Beat The Holiday Rush Sale has mega offers like $500 off D'Angelico and over $1,000 off B.C. Rich and Guild
- “Beautiful from all angles”: Kurzweil and Axel Hartmann channel mid-century modern design with the KaP1 digital piano
- “My facial disfigurement from the surgery means I can’t open my mouth wide enough for a strip of spaghetti, let alone to sing”: John Farnham on why his voice is now silenced
- "Songs don't come that often. I've gone two years without writing anything": Springsteen reveals he’s currently suffering from writers’ block
- “An amazing voice - absolutely awesome!”: Bruce Dickinson salutes former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno
- "This is not something to be afraid of - this is something that we need to use": Timbaland says he spends 10 hours a day using controversial AI music generator Suno
- Both USB audio interface and multitrack recorder, Tascam’s retro-looking Studio Bridge is designed to be the missing link between your analogue console and DAW
- “An electrifying experience!” Steve Vai is buzzing about a new G3 live album with Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson
October 22
- “It’s compact, fun and easy to use... and features tones derived from the Helix family”: Line 6 serves up a $179 high-gain bargain for metal thrashing maniacs with the POD Express Black
- “The authentic genre-defining sound of one of the world’s most ferocious high-gain amps”: Universal Audio unveils the UAFX Knuckles ’92, offering monster Dual Rectifier tones in a compact pedal
- “The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted": Thom Yorke adds his support to a warning on the dangers of AI
- “He felt the Rolling Stones got the adulation and respect that ‘The Mop Tops’ didn’t... he would get really angry about it, and call them ‘the Rolling Pebbles’”: Lennon’s '70s confidant tells fascinating story of the ex-Beatle's competitive streak
- “I just took it out and I could see all the flame coming out on the side of it and I went, ‘Oh my goodness gracious.’ It’s just so beautiful”: Gibson unveils stunning $19,999 replica of Jimmy Page’s 1964 SJ-200 acoustic
- “Punches above its weight”: Alesis unveils Strata Core, a cut-down version of its flagship Strata Prime e-kit
- Spitfire Audio launches LABS+ subscription platform for samples - but LABS will remain free
- “Our studios were right beside each other. I’m working on Missy; he’s working on Kelis. I walked in, and I heard Caught Out There. I walked back to Missy and said, ‘We gotta rethink’”: Timbaland on being inspired by the “genius” of Pharrell Williams
- “He certainly put his stamp on the first two albums”: The 6 greatest Iron Maiden songs featuring Paul Di'Anno
- “A beautifully simple stompbox that combines the most essential delay types with the features that matter”: JHS Pedals unveils the Flight Delay, offering analogue, digital and reverse delays with tap tempo
- "This is weirdly hilarious and also pathetic”: Fans see the funny side of festival merch typo debacle
- "Anybody who gets this console, it'll be the most famous studio in the world": The legendary mixing desk used on The Beatles’ Abbey Road is going up for sale
- "I am not aware of it and don't really give a flying...": Thom Yorke’s blunt riposte to speculation about new Radiohead activity
- “The ultimate weapon for metal guitarists who demand the ultimate amplifier”: Blackstar unveils the Series One MK II, a four-channel 100W fire-breathing tube amp with “world-class” tone
- The internet's biggest bundle of free plugins just got bigger, as MeldaProduction introduces MDelay
October 21
- Discover high-precision sound with the Austrian Audio Hi-X20 headphones
- “We ask his fans to raise a glass in his memory”: Ex-Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno dead at 66
- “I changed the sound of music forever”: Cher joins Dua Lipa to sing Believe - minus the Auto-Tune - at the Rock & Hall of Fame, as she’s inducted by Zendaya
- This massive study compares 2,368 synths, samplers and drum machines from 1896 to the present day - and the results might surprise you
- “Everything that Dream Theater fans want!”: 5 highlights from their landmark London show
- “I was going to buy a Minimoog because Keith Emerson had one. I was in the store and I was trying it out and I hear a voice behind me say ‘you don’t want that’”: Why Foreigner’s Al Greenwood said no to the Minimoog and bought a little-known synth instead
- Loved by Jeff Buckley, despised by Courtney Love: the singer who famously urinated on her A&R man’s desk
- “Taylor is the ‘now’ one. We are the ‘still now’”: Ringo Starr has his say on people comparing Taylor Swift to The Beatles
- “Is everyone OK? You think that two rock dads wrote my female rage album about the horrors of being pregnant and accepting suburbia?”: Halsey on the reaction to their Nine Inch Nails-produced album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, in 2021
- “You could present an audience with 13 minutes of guitar improvisation and they would actually thank you for it!”: The very best of Peter Frampton
October 18
- “I see no reason for not playing Belfast”: What Rory Gallagher said about recording his greatest album
- Martin Scorsese confirmed to direct film of Robbie Robertson tribute concert
- Bruno Mars jumps on the drums for APT, his new single with Blackpink’s Rosé that’s served with a pinch of Toni Basil
- “We were finally given the schedule last night, and it is not to our satisfaction. So we are staying home”: Foreigner drummer decides to skip Rock & Hall of Fame induction
- "Think you can stop what we do? I doubt it!": A group of Irish kids recorded a viral drum 'n' bass track - 6 million views later, it's up for a Grammy Award
- Don’t wait for Black Friday – right now you can enjoy a massive 15% off all PRS SE guitars from now until Christmas
- “Every artist could say that - ‘I don’t want that’ - and it would disappear. But you know artists hide behind management”: Robert Smith on his frustrations with Ticketmaster and dynamic pricing
- “I wanted Alice In Chains to be a guitar duo band - because of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Aerosmith”: Jerry Cantrell on his love of classic guitar harmonies
October 17
- No music theory? No problem! LANDR's AI-powered Composer plugin will instantly generate "chord progressions, basslines, melodies, and harmonies" for you
- “Why are you doing this?”: Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell recalls his conversation with Tom Petty after he’d sent him the songs he’d written for his side project
- “A new Inspired by Gibson Custom signature model from one of Japan’s most well-loved guitarists”: Epiphone and Tak Matsumoto strike gold with 1955 Les Paul Standard based on his vintage original
- Jonas Brothers gig stopped after laser pen is pointed in Nick Jonas’s face
- “You realise these things are designed for hospitals, and MRI machines?”: Joe Bonamassa reveals the secret to keeping his tube amps sounding their best night after night – and he “nicked it” from Angus Young
- SoundCloud confirms that electronic music fans are its most engaged listeners, and that the popularity of trance in particular is on the rise
- "Many offer 'vintage-sounding' samples, but we’re offering the real thing": Tracklib announces "first of its kind" royalty-free sample packs made up of authentic '70s recordings
- Talking Heads pose the questions on US game show Jeopardy - take them on here
- “Over 400 effects based on those of the award-winning Axe-Fx III”: Fractal launches the VP4 ‘Virtual Pedalboard’ – a compact, hugely configurable digital multi-effects unit that could give your 'board the night off
- “Muscular, articulate rock tones were the tones I always sought, but I made a name for myself in the ‘80s when you needed a little more aggression”: Friedman unveils the Jake E. Lee signature IR-J dual-channel tube preamp pedal
- “John Lennon’s death had a huge effect on me. He was the one who invited me to drink with The Beatles”: How Foreigner’s Mick Jones connected with a hero
- Native Instruments discontinues Maschine MK1 and MK2, but new Maschine software is on the way - with stem separation and more
- “The whole second verse of that song is ‘80s song titles, strung together as sentences”: No one knew about the lyrical Easter eggs I dropped into a Rihanna hit single, says songwriter Evan Kidd Bogart
- One Direction singer Liam Payne, aged 31, dies in Buenos Aires
- “My original guitar hero has always been Brian May”: The Last Dinner Party’s Emily Roberts on her new (red) special friend
- “Spreads those SidStation ripples even further”: Elektron’s Syntakt gets new sounds and a Euclidean sequencer
October 16
- “That album makes me tear up. It makes me emotional, just because I think, wow, imagine being there in that crowd, listening to one of the greatest bands of all time”: Charli XCX on the Daft Punk album that hits different
- “Why would you lend your talents to Michael Jackson?”: Alex Van Halen told Eddie not to play on Beat It
- Coming soon: MusicRadar's Recording Week 2024
- “I am very honoured to be a Gretsch signature guitarist because I have been a massive fan for so long”: Gretsch unveils a stunning limited edition semi-hollow electric for Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore
- “It was three weeks before the release, and he said: ‘I know it will be number one’”: How ATB accidentally came up with the hook for the chart-topping 9PM (Till I Come) while showing off his studio to impress a date
- “The Les Paul approach, where you play everything yourself and you’re bouncing tracks around”: How Lindsey Buckingham reinvented Fleetwood Mac
- "I didn’t know how to work any of it. It felt like being at the controls of a spacecraft: a spacecraft that I had absolutely no idea how to fly": Elton John says he’s never got over his Hammond organ “phobia”
- “I became a better player because I had to follow Randy Rhoads”: How Jake E. Lee found fame with Ozzy
- “Nirvana was an honest expression of not being ashamed to put your angst on the front page”: Run DMC rapper talks about how he relates to Kurt Cobain
- “The world’s greatest guitarist is what everyone says. It’s kind of a dicey title”: A deep dive into the Van Halen catalogue proves the point
October 15
- “It’s a mixture of a jam band, me as a singer-songwriter, and programming with late ‘90s, early 2000s dance music technology of the day”: Johnny Marr on how “Moogs, Korg 101s and Space Echo” shared space with guitar to shape his sound with the Healers
- “It’s designed to push boundaries and redefine what a Fender guitar can be”: Fender unveils the American Ultra II, US-made classic models revamped for high-performance feel and tone
- “Can someone explain what is happening right now? Y’all got my heart pounding!!!!”: Fleetwood Mac are revamping their social media accounts and fans are getting excited
- Supercharge your next production with up to 50% off instruments and effects in the unmissable Native Instruments NKS partner sale
- “Brian and myself were talking the other day, and we both said that if we feel we have some good material, why not?”: Roger Taylor teases possibility of new Queen music
- Small might be beautiful, but even with an upgraded A17 Pro chip and Apple Intelligence support, is the new iPad mini’s appeal big enough?
- “That was the beginning of the greatest love affair of my life”: Fred Again on how swapping a Boss 8-track recorder for his first DAW ignited his passion for music making
- “It’s taking experience from playing some of the greats”: Future Sound Systems Cric is a pin matrix-equipped analogue dream synth
- "My new plugin does ridiculous things": Baby Audio and Andrew Huang release Transit 2, the latest version of their multi-effects plugin that "kills static mixes"
- "I can't help but wonder how much music Computer Music has had a hand in bringing to life over the years. What a magazine": Computer Music magazine to close after 25 years in print
- “That’s the most wild thing I’ve ever seen anyone do”: Fred Again on watching Brian Eno break the rules in the studio
- “I think we're about to have a big resurgence now in kids picking up guitars, and I think we've got the Gallagher brothers to thank for it”: Should we be hopeful about the future of guitar music?
- “Watching his hands in the studio, I learnt something I never knew”: Steve Cropper on ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons’ secret sauce
- “It’s not just about louder sound – it’s about achieving a more responsive, resonant instrument that truly comes to life in your hands”: Furch unveils the Booster Soundport, a player-facing “resonator” to transform acoustic performance
- “Sometimes there’s just a hole in the stage. That’s alright! Ok, where was I?”: Olivia Rodrigo falls down a hole – but makes impressive recovery
- I can do it with a broken guitar: the story of the smashed-up Taylor Swift-themed acoustic takes another turn as it’s flipped for more than than it sold for when it was still in one piece
- “Each instrument comes with a custom hardshell case, a signed COA from Robert Smith and directly supports life-saving cancer research”: Schecter and the Cure’s Robert Smith join forces for charity with the release of the Shellflower UltraCure
- Roland’s latest SP-404 MKII special edition comes loaded with sounds from Moodymann’s KDJ Records – and it’s limited to just 600 units
- Baby Audio's Transit 2 reinvents the best-selling transition and motion effects tool designed in collaboration with Andrew Huang
October 14
- “I was like, ‘This is so me. She was one of the first women who was dressing kind of like a boy, and I was so drawn to that. She’s the coolest”: Billie Eilish on her new-found appreciation of a ‘00s pop-punk icon
- "One of the best covers of this I've heard": Finneas delivers a heartrending take on Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge
- “As far as guitar playing goes, go to the old school - Randy Rhoads, Tony Iommi, Eddie Van Halen”: The wisdom of Dimebag in the final issue of Total Guitar
- Beatles ‘64, new Scorsese-produced fab four documentary, announced
- “I’m so happy for these bitches... They’re doing great. Fans are drawn to them because they’re awesome”: Billie Eilish on the mega-success of Roan, Charli and Sabrina Carpenter
- Focal’s Lensys Professional are the new big siblings to one of our favourite sets of studio headphones
- “You had Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and all these great guitar players, but Jimi blew everybody’s socks off!”: Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones on the genius of Hendrix
- “The nuclear option”: Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit sue Universal over “millions” in unpaid royalties
- "It's instant breakcore!": EB-Blasphemy is a break-slicing, generative multi-effects plugin that we can't believe is free
- “Then on-air, is where it gets nuts”: How Prince’s final, legendary guitar performance on SNL was saved by a quick-thinking audio engineer
- “Large swathes of the country are missing out on seeing artists”: New figures suggest much of the UK is becoming a ‘touring desert’
- "As a musician, you've lost money before you've even got off the ground”: A shocking analysis of the disparity between promoting music compared to other sectors
- “It’s pretty awkward to hold and you have to make sure water doesn’t spill out... but it’s definitely playable”: Burls Art unveils his guitar-quarium
- “Jimi Hendrix songs which only you can listen to!”: Previously unheard demos are up for auction - but they’re not cheap!
- “So I met her, and her dad was from down the road from me in Penarth! As she sang, I remember just thinking, wow”: Bass legend Pino Palladino on getting an unexpected call from Rick Rubin to play on an album by a “young British artist”
October 12
- “We’re scared of the media asking us intrusive questions and trying to pick holes in our relationship”: Liam Gallagher on why there’ll be no Oasis reunion interviews
- “We know people want to hear the best-of... we don’t want to be a legacy band that just plays its greatest hits and then that’s it”: James Hetfield on why Metallica will always play new songs
- Watch breakout UK artist Yunè Pinku flip a piano sample and build a beat from scratch
October 11
- “I’ve always said that I don’t play the guitar, I play the strings”: Ernie Ball and John Mayer team up for signature Silver Slinky guitar strings in a unique gauge that could be the Goldilocks option between heavy and light
- See Tool and BEAT drummer Danny Carey warming up behind his enormous kit
- “This thing’s f***ing sick! This one’s good!”: Watch Jared James Nichols unleash Blues Power magic on Lester Williams’ “Texas Troubador” 1954 Stratocaster, one of the most vibe-y Strats you will see
- “That sarcasm became the song”: Pharrell Williams says his mega-hit Happy isn’t as sincere and joyful as you think, and that he’ll never stop loving former Neptunes partner Chad Hugo
- “Greeny is my Excalibur!”: Metallica’s Kirk Hammett says he’s still in love with that famous guitar
- “Okay, if I were to meet David Bowie, would I feel okay about showing David Bowie this album?”: Modular synthesist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith on making meditative electronic masterpiece, Ears
- “The record industry is, pretty much, dead”: Al Di Meola speaks out about the lack of opportunities for young musicians
- “Clean explores the wild side of compression and brings the interactivity of distortion circuits to a clean signal”: Chase Bliss unveils Clean, a studio-quality analogue compressor with a “fun” twist
- Jonny Greenwood: Radiohead have "no plans" for 2025
- “I’m kind of fascinated with that tipping point where the artist can say ‘I don't need you anymore. Why would I need you?’”: Are record labels at risk of irrelevance? this industry expert thinks so
- “Johnny offered his services to the band”: What Noel Gallagher said when one of his heroes almost joined Oasis
- “It’s the perfect combination of vintage Fender vibe and modern high-tech performance”: Fender expands its Tone Master lineup with a tweed-covered '59 Bassman – a lightweight, digital-brained 4x10 with mojo to burn
- “This finish uses real silver in the paint… before the final clear coat is applied, the silver oxidises naturally, allowing the finish to change over time”: Ernie Ball Music Man launches Tosin Abasi's Kaizen in Gallium and it is the coolest finish ever
October 10
- “When I do the solo I’m actually out front on the stage with Olivia jumping around, but we MIDI-mapped the expression pedal so it’ll do all the whammy changes”: Olivia Rodrigo guitarist Emily Rosenfield spills her Guts World Tour secrets
- “It’s always hard to try to find the right innovation sweet spot, because you can do things that are too far ahead of the market”: ROLI CEO Roland Lamb on Airwave, setting music free and the challenges of innovating in today's industry
- “If Beethoven himself were here today, and he was sitting at the piano, what would the approach be?”: Jon Batiste takes Für Elise to unexpected places as he previews his Beethoven Blues album
- "We joined our creative forces and, in the end, we brought together the best of both worlds": BABYMETAL and Electric Callboy team up to create their own free videogame
- “My playing has always sucked, but it sells!”: The guitarist who co-wrote two of the most famous songs of all time admits he is no virtuoso
- Here's how you can win a $7,500 vintage Minimoog signed by Peter Gabriel
- "Signature models mean just that. You play the same bass I play, and you're probably better at it than I am": Blink-182's Mark Hoppus gives us the lowdown on his brand-new Fender bass and discloses why he has switched to the Neural DSP Quad Cortex
- “When we signed a record deal with Warner Brothers, she was cleaning toilets on the same day”: Will the rocketing cost of being a musician eventually kill the industry?
- “Probably some of the dumbest sh*t this band has ever put out… I want it”: Green Day fans are loving the crazy formats for Dookie ‘De-Mastered’
- Olivia Rodrigo sparks intense speculation that she’ll be headlining Glastonbury 2025 with announcement of rescheduled UK Guts World Tour dates
- “Spreading Utopia into fully surround speakers... 27 moving curtains... bespoke instruments: an aluphone, a circular flute and a reverb chamber... in a personal chapel”: Take cover, it’s Bjork’s new book
- “I’ve always wondered why there isn’t more support in this industry - not just for the artists, or the band, but for the crew, the people working their asses off from 7 in the morning to 2 in the morning": Backline demand mental health action
- "The idea of gamifying the Mind Games album has manifested as an incredible limited edition speaker and radio": Sean Ono Lennon and Teenage Engineering launch tribute OB-4 for $999
- AlphaTheta brings its A-game with the new all-in-one XDJ-AZ controller
October 9
- Cherry Audio’s Atomika revives a classic Soviet-era synthesizer
- “It's harder to put creators in the centre. It's harder to give them more creative control. But it's worth doing”: Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava on how the new Studio One integration brings the Splice ecosystem directly into the workflows of creators
- “The entire creative process of listening, playing, and creating is brought together in a single guitar”: Yamaha’s new TG3 C TransAcoustic is a cutaway dreadnought with reverb, delay, chorus, looper… And Bluetooth
- “I’ve been shredding on the guitar lately. Which has been nice”: Billie Eilish goes behind the scenes on her Hit Me Hard And Soft tour, her first with a full band
- “He played a solo that I thought was not great. I said, ‘I feel like you could do better!’”: What Rick Rubin told legendary guitarist Joe Perry during the recording of Run-DMC and Aerosmith’s mega-hit collaboration Walk This Way
- “The compressor we always wanted but couldn’t find”: Polyend Press is stereo analogue hardware with the convenience of a plugin
- Studio One becomes the first DAW to integrate Splice as PreSonus launches Studio One Pro 7
- "That noise. I'll never get past that sound of him wailing. I could hear, 'Oh he's gone. He's gone.' My life as I knew it was completely over": Lisa Marie Presley remembers the day her father died
- Is mixing and mastering a dying art? Research shows that 8 in 10 tracks from DIY musicians exceed Spotify’s recommended loudness levels - and clipping was found in more than half
- Here’s one you’ll all know – Mk.gee plays the same song 12 times in one gig
October 8
- “The world’s most authentic amp models, no UA hardware required”: Universal Audio releases its industry standard UAFX amp modelling pedals as plugins
- “Like having a seasoned engineer in a classic analogue studio”: Universal Audio unveils new vocal production plugin Topline Vocal Suite
- “Built for the stars, ready for your studio”: Universal Audio launches the next generation of Apollo X audio interfaces with auto-gain and onboard monitor correction
- Arturia’s Synthx V plugin updates “one of the most revered synthesizer architectures of a generation” with tools that offer “advanced sound design possibilities”
- Stills and Young reunite at Harvest Moon charity festival
- “I heard that the CEO, Uli Behringer, lost sleep over that episode. He could not comprehend why a pedal company would tell you to buy other people's stuff”: JHS Pedals’ Josh Scott on praising his rivals and seeing his stomps being used by the stars
- “These are very touch-sensitive and very dynamic”: Give your Tele a tone makeover fit for a blues superstar with the Seymour Duncan Joe Bonamassa 1950 Broadcaster pickup set
- “The same professional versatility and playability as its PLUS counterpart but without all the fancy aesthetics”: Harley Benton rolls out a hot-rodded S-style for under $200 with the all-new ST-Modern HSS
- "Every movement and gesture creates a new sound unique to them, which will make music much more expressive, and could even lead to new genres of music": ROLI unveils the Airwave, an expressive new way of learning and creating using its MPE instruments
- “He was not happy about the situation…”: Neil Finn talks Fleetwood Mac and stepping into Lyndsey Buckingham’s shoes
- Finneas announces North American For Cryin’ Out Loud tour for February and March 2025
- “Designed for everyone from singer-songwriters and buskers to acoustic duos and electric players”: Positive Grid launches Spark Edge, the take-anywhere 65W amp and PA speaker with 36 amp models, 50 effects and heaps of smart features
- “He had a natural feel for music that you can’t teach - his first take was often perfect, and that’s extremely unusual”: Careless Whisper guitarist Hugh Burns on George Michael’s “remarkable talent”
- Replace drum tracks on the fly with the DDJ-GRV6 controller from AlphaTheta
- Guitar Center's Guitar-A-Thon proves guitarists don't need Amazon's Big Deal Days: save up to 35% on gear, including a mind-blowing $430 saving on the D'Angelico Premier Bedford
- “It wasn’t the mics or the compressors or the tape – it was the foot and his drum! That’s how you got that sound": Uptown Funk co-producer Jeff Bhasker on capturing ‘retro’ drum sounds
- “She has left an indelible mark on the word and an unfillable chasm in our hearts”: Teenage prodigy Nell Smith dies, aged 17
- Ableton Move aims to be the perfect hardware sketchpad for Live
October 7
- Chaka Khan hits the heights with Sheila E as they perform I’m Every Woman at the American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special
- “I swear to you when you just get a moment and you just listen, you’ll never be able to unhear it”: Pharrell Williams thinks that his falsetto vocals on one particular song sound like Mickey Mouse
- “We are tired of professional ticket touts abusing the ticket marketplace and stealing tickets out of fans’ hands, only to immediately relist them at inflated prices”: New survey finds that touts make £145 million each year from UK music fans
- “You just watch her walk in a room and it’s very easy to understand that she’s so composed, she’s graceful, she’s gracious”: Sabrina Carpenter on Taylor Swift
- "I have not thought lyrically since about the year 2000, 2001... I'm smart enough to not come back for the encore”: Henry Rollins on why he’s done with music
- “I called Taylor and we cut the drums in his home studio”: The Struts’ frontman Luke Spiller says that he and Taylor Hawkins lost out to Billie Eilish on the No Time To Die Bond theme
- “It’s a very concerted effort I make to not do that, and to try to be influenced by things that I love and not what’s current”: Sabrina Carpenter songwriter Amy Allen on why she doesn’t listen to other contemporary pop hits
October 4
- Levelling and polishing your guitar frets might have just got a whole lot easier with the MusicNomad U File and Fret Polisher
- Pink Floyd are in the Money as they seal their back catalogue deal for £400 million
- “The Sound of Silence was the first song I wrote which seemed to come from some place that I didn’t inhabit”: Paul Simon tells all in a new three-and-a-half-hour documentary
- “A complete all-in-one solution for the gigging musician requiring a powerful, compact ampless rig”: Amp modeller and profiler market heats up as IK Multimedia celebrates one year of TONEX with huge (and free) effects upgrade
- "I dream of the studio being a place that anyone can access, not just those with the money to do so": Jack Antonoff reveals plans to make public recording studios available to those who can't afford them
- “Kate Bush is the only person who can get Kate Bush back on stage. I’ve tried persuading her recently, actually. Gently”: David Gilmour on carpentry, trousers and the return of Kate Bush
- “The look and feel of a long-treasured musical companion”: Gibson expands Les Paul Standard range with satin nitro finishes and a plain mahogany topped model with a warmer tone and “punchier mids”
- “Would you like to speak to my audio engineers?”: Sabrina Carpenter claps back and confirms that she sings “live every show 100%” on her Short n’ Sweet tour
- “As far as I’m concerned, with Andy not being here, it’s impossible to have a reunion of The Smiths”: Mike Joyce scotches Smiths reunion rumblings
- How to buy and sell gig tickets (and when to run a mile)
- “It was the first piece of gear that I got in New York - it had this thunderous low end to it”: How a Prophet-5, a kalimba and a prog rock sample inspired the genesis of Bonobo’s biggest track
- "Everything being diatonic is not some sort of requirement or restriction on things sounding good": Fans and music theory experts unpick Nirvana's About a Girl
- “He’s enabled fans to achieve the iconic blink-182 tone they've always dreamed of”: Fender and Mark Hoppus team up for limited edition signature Jaguar Bass
- How ‘the loudest band in New York’ built an album out of a DIY synth (literally)
October 3
- “I was making music completely on my own; I found it quite weird including other people in a process that felt very personal”: Rising producer Yunè Pinku on DAWs, Madonna and shaking off the cobwebs of lockdown
- “We actually pooled all our money, the whole band fund, and we were able to afford one cabinet and one amp to share – even the guitar was borrowed!”: The Offspring’s Dexter Holland recalls recording the landmark Smash on its 30th anniversary
- “We were messing with different keys and then we heard the second verse jump up. It sounds like she’s having this idea in real-time": Jack Antonoff explains that unusual key change in Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please
- "This will help artists and producers who don’t have the option of hiring someone like me": Spike AI puts an AI chatbot based on chart-topping mix engineer Spike Stent inside your DAW
- Ever wanted to play your synth like a violin? A Japanese DIY enthusiast has made that a reality
- "You guys definitely have to be the first band into the Sphere, because this is the future": U2's live sound engineer on how he persuaded Bono and The Edge to be the Las Vegas Sphere's first resident band
- “They believed that if you learn the song or even hear it before you record it, it's going to sound rehearsed”: Kathy Sledge on why producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards didn’t play We Are Family to Sister Sledge right up until they recorded it
- Roland just unveiled its V-Drums Quiet Design VQD106 kits, delivering “the lowest playing-noise in the history of electronic drum kits”
October 2
- “Not only a fantastic-sounding electric guitar for stage and studio use but is also equally enjoyable as a songwriting tool and is considered by many to be the ideal ‘couch guitar’”: Gibson brings back the ES-330
- “Ideal for players who love the dreadnought tone in a more comfortable size”: Martin debuts all-new body size and salutes Hawaiian influence on steel-string acoustics with the koa-backed O’ahu HG-28
- M-Audio’s new Forty Series monitors promise “precision sound, adaptability, and seamless connectivity” no matter where you’re working
- Behringer's Grind is a hybrid semi-modular synth that borrows oscillators from a beloved Mutable Instruments module
- “For those of you who didn’t get a chance to rock out in-person, now you can have the best seats in the house!”: Here’s when you can watch Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour concert special on Netflix
- “The first thing I played for Steven on this piano was this; I played that for him and he said, ‘What is that? What are you going to do with that?’”: John Williams recalls the first time he played the Jaws theme for Spielberg in new documentary
- “You’ve only got to look at the dynamic potential of 10 fingers on a keyboard compared to 10 fingers on a guitar ”: Steve Howe on six-string explorations and how a Novation Summit opened a window into fresh chord voicings on his new solo album
- “We embarked on a mission to craft the ultimate pedalboards that meet Greg's every need”: Jam Pedals teams up with Greg Koch for Koch Ness Monster signature multi-effects units
- “Our philosophy is that you should not be limited to a budget to buy the instrument of your dreams”: Harley Benton to ship direct in the US as budget-gear superpower partners with Reverb
- This new immersive music and dance-based VR game aims to alleviate anxiety in young people
- “One Platform. Infinite sounds”: Audiomodern’s Soundbox MPE-compatible sampler is all-in-one musical machine for endless instrument creation and customisation
October 1
- Issue 340 of Computer Music is on sale now
- "Most people who are real dyed-in-the-wool Gibson people, they'll say behind closed doors, when the internet's not watching, that their favourite pickup is a P-90": Joe Bonamassa introduces new Epiphone signature guitar with the 1955 Les Paul
- LR Baggs is making guitars now – can the pickup expert bring something unique to the market with its AEG-1?
- Want 33,000 classic sound effects for free? The BBC have just opened up the ultimate resource of nostalgia-inducing samples
- “That’s incredible… that is nuts”: Tom Cruise gets a Royal Albert Hall organ lesson from Anna Lapwood after a surprise appearance at Top Gun: Maverick in Concert
- "Back in the Stu with Stuart Price": Madonna is back in the studio with Hung Up mastermind Stuart Price
- “At least we don’t need the wall hanger”: Man seemingly spends $4,000 on a guitar signed by Taylor Swift and then immediately destroys it
- “If you’re doing your accounts then organisation is good, if you’re making art it’s good to work a bit blind and a bit weird”: 5 workflow tips from Hardt Antoine’s house track masterclass
- Is this the end of wired audio? AlphaTheta launches the new wireless HDJ-F10 headphones for DJs
- Recording Week 2024: Exhibitor A-Z