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.

← XLR MAG

Editor’s notes

A short letter from Tokyo, most weeks.

2026.11.02

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Editor’s notes

An Optical Compressor Behaves Like Weather, Not Math

The EQ Finally Skipped the Sidechain

The Tube Loyalist Finally Changed His Vote

A Signature Model Is Someone's List of Complaints

An Extra Inch of String Is a Decision, Not a Flex

The Original Was Never the Point of the Reissue

The Minimoog Was Always a Soloist

A Buffer's Only Job Is to Disappear

Four Voices Still Need Four Separate Wires

The Microphone That Flatters You Is Not the One That Tells You the Truth

A Tape Machine Was Always a Distortion Pedal

This Week the Tools Were Told to Leave the Singer In

The Decision Already Happened Before the Plug-In

A Stage Monitor Is a Private Mix Sold as Hardware

The Pickup You String Through, and the Lawyer Who Blinked

The Panel at the Back Knows Where Everything Goes