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XLR is a magazine, a radar and a diary about music gear and the making of music — for the people who make records and put on shows, wherever they do it.

The name is the three-pin connector that every signal in the business passes through: the microphone on stage and in the booth, the line to the desk, the DMX cable that runs the lights. Studio, stage and lighting rig share it, and so does this magazine. Every few hours XLR collects what the makers shipped, what the reviewers heard, what the studios and the touring crews are doing, which producers and collectives are surfacing and what they are saying — synths and modular, plugins and DAWs, guitars and drums, microphones, monitors, PA and lights, the rooms and the people — from a few hundred sources in English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and more, then plots what is moving. The editor writes a letter every few days. Nothing is sold here; when a link leads to a shop, that is the maker's shop, not ours.

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"He didn't tap a foot or move his head or anything. He listened to it all the way through and I thought he hated it": When an Eagle, Heartbreaker, Roger Linn and an Oberheim OB-X combined forces for a pop masterpiece – the Boys Of Summer story

September 15

"This song almost didn't happen," reflected Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers guitarist, songwriter and all-round rock hero Mike Campbell two years ago. It's incredible just how many famous songs nearly didn't take flight, o

Synths

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"He didn't tap a foot or move his head or anything. He listened to it all the way through and I thought he hated it": When an Eagle, Heartbreaker, Roger Linn and an Oberheim OB-X combined forces for a pop masterpiece – the Boys Of Summer story

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