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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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No TrebleGuitars

Readers’ Favorites: The Nadacaster Bass, Joe Dart, Dane Alderson, and More

September 13

This week’s top 10 includes Holcomb’s Nadacaster Bass, Joe Dart’s latest Vulfpeck groove, the TONEX Board, Brady Watt, and more.

Bass

Read at No Treble ↗

Guitars“That energy popped back like we had been playing all the time. Nobody was rusty, man. Everybody was on – like we'd just got off the J.B.’s bus!” How Bootsy Collins and his James Brown alumni brought the J.B.’s back to life for the Superbad soundtrack Guitar World

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Latest

Readers’ Favorites: The Nadacaster Bass, Joe Dart, Dane Alderson, and More

Related

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GuitarsHolcomb Guitars’ Nadacaster Bass Features a Pickup You Can Move While You Play No Treble

Guitars“That energy popped back like we had been playing all the time. Nobody was rusty, man. Everybody was on – like we'd just got off the J.B.’s bus!” How Bootsy Collins and his James Brown alumni brought the J.B.’s back to life for the Superbad soundtrack Guitar World

GearString Pioneers: Giovanni Bottesini—Master of the Double Bass Strings Magazine