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XLR MAG

Signal of the week

Synths · 72 stories, +42 vs last week

Synths: 72 stories in seven days, +42 on the week before.

EuropeDehli Musikk Overtonium, kostenloser Additiv-Synthesizer AMAZONA.de

EuropeMehr Synthese oder mehr Fokus? Studiosofa diskutiert vielseitige Klangerzeuger KEYBOARDS / Sound & Recording

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Ultimate GuitarGuitarsJoan Jett Once Said Her Band Could Be Called Heavy Metal. But She Still Didn't See It That Way [News] Music News : "If I was going to analyze it, to me that would sound like loud guitars – which most certainly, we have."

DJ MagLive & DJUniversal Audio announces next generation of Volt USB Audio Interfaces "Every artist has a sound they’re chasing. We want Volt Gen 2 to give people the confidence to explore that sound, experiment, and keep creating"

UK Jazz NewsEurope‘Birmingham Jazz at 50’ Concert, 8 October 2026 As part of the celebrations of Birmingham Jazz’s 50th anniversary, there will be a concert on Thu 8 October at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Guitar PlayerGuitars“Five minutes later David Gilmour called me.” Tony Levin on the former Pink Floyd guitarist’s unexpected gesture When he considers the musicians he’s worked with — and the guitar players in particular — Tony Levin’s outlook is simple.

Music ConnectionIndustryNew Music Critique of The Empty Pockets Contact: [email protected] Web: theemptypockets.com/pages/newalbum Seeking: Review Style : Blues Rock Chicago quartet The Empty Pockets promise “stories and sounds without borders,” and credit…

Premier GuitarGuitarsWizard of Odd: Tending to Guitars Like Gardens Alas, ’tis my favorite time of the year. As summer turns into fall, my hoodies come out, football season starts, and I harvest my little vegetable garden.

Guitar WorldGuitarsThe real story behind Green Day’s iconic Dookie tone When Green Day released their Dookie album in 1994, they went from an underground punk group from San Francisco to one of the biggest bands in the world.

No TrebleGuitarsVenom Bassist and Frontman Conrad “Cronos” Lant Dies at 63 Venom bassist and frontman Conrad “Cronos” Lant has died at 63, leaving a legacy that helped shape black metal and generations of extreme metal musicians.

Guitar WorldGuitarsMark Bryan on Hootie & The Blowfish’s rocket-ship success, and hanging with Eddie Van Halen Guitar heroes came in all shapes and sizes in the ‘90s. Mark Bryan might not have riffed as heavily as Cantrell, slung Superstrats like Morello, or oozed sex appeal like Navarro, focusing instead on…

Guitar WorldGuitarsDon’t be intimidated by acoustic bluegrass – this lesson is the perfect primer (just watch out for the F6/9!) Whether as a solo instrument or the centrepiece of a band, the acoustic guitar continues to be one of the world’s most popular instruments, in just about any style you could name.

Bedroom Producers BlogDAW & pluginsPolarity releases MEQ, a FREE match EQ with dynamic processing Polarity has released Polarity-MEQ, a free spectral matching equalizer for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Bedroom Producers BlogDAW & pluginsSoundins offers PhaXer stereo phase optimizer for FREE Soundins offers PhaXer, a free stereo phase correction plugin for macOS and Windows. PhaXer is designed to improve the phase correlation between the left and right channels of a single stereo signal…

On the calendar

· Trade shows and launch events, this week's stories from each corner of the industry, and what its press is covering.

On view

This week, from that corner the newest stories from the corner of the industry you picked

The wire their own posts, translated

How records get made in 2026 from the industry's own reports

Sources

Fetched every three hours, linked to the original

About

Three pins, and nearly every signal in this business passes through them.

The magazine is named after the cable: the microphone in the booth, the line to the desk, the DMX run that fires the lights. Studio, stage and rig share the same cable. Most magazines pick one of the three. This one covers all of it, because the people we read do too — the engineer mixing a record on Tuesday is on front of house by Saturday.

Around a hundred and sixty sources, in English, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Chinese and Italian: makers and their release notes, reviewers who put a hand on the thing, studios and touring crews, the producers and collectives surfacing this month and the scenes they came out of. Synths and modular, plugins and DAWs, guitars and drums, microphones, monitors, PA and lighting. What the trade is talking about is counted and plotted. The editor's letter has just started; it will find its rhythm.

For each story: a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link out. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the maker or the photographer. A German review appears in German and a Japanese one in Japanese, as the writer published it; the link goes to the original.

Nothing is sold on this site. When a link leads to a shop, it is the maker's shop, not ours.