The beginners guide to virtual instruments: What are ‘VIs’, ‘plugins’ and ‘VSTs’ anyway? And how can you make the best use of them in your music?
Because there's never been a better, easier, more affordable time to make great music on your computer
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“It’s policing Black music… Hip-hop was born from sampling. And now sampling is synonymous with theft”: Lizzo argues that the origins of sampling law are “racially charged”
“The first time people started sampling was... who? It was rappers in the '80s and '90s. They were sampling records because they did...
Step into the world of in-ear monitors from as little as $39.99 in the epic Linsoul Prime Day sale
I’ve scoured the web for the best Prime Day IEM deals, and Linsoul Audio is leading the charge – here are the standout offers
“Almost everyone thinks it’s strings”: Lorde unmasks the unusual guitar part on her new album that was created using a classic ‘90s Roland V-Guitar processor that’s now “insanely expensive” on the second-hand market
Plus, the Teenage Engineering OP-1 patch that “shows up everywhere” on the record
“No complicated signal routing, no phase issues, no stress”: Time Off Audio’s Dime [ms] makes mid/side easy
This time-saving plugin host makes it a breeze to employ mid/side processing with any of your existing AU/VST3 effects
“The ability to use official Boss stompbox recreations in our DAW is here – and with that comes flexibility in terms of how, and what instruments they’re applied to”: Boss Effects Pedals plugin review
The first ever official software emulations of Boss pedals are here, but they live under a Roland Cloud…
Teenage Engineering is giving away a free EP-1320 Medieval sampler to anyone that spends $999 in its online store
"'Cause we live in medieval times"
Ultra Caro talks self-producing ethereal pop with vintage synths, and life after PC Music
I always wonder, “Am I trying to show off? Am I trying to be accepted into whatever scene I like by making something similar to what...
“Liminal is set in the borderlands between song and non-song (or ‘nong’ as we call it)”: Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe’s new album in their own words
Apparently, new album contains 11 new ‘nongs’ "exploring an intimate and unfamiliar new sonic world"
“A tape delay plugin that finally sounds like the real thing”: Heritage Audio takes on the legendary Echoplex with its TAPEoPLEX plugin
Favoured by Brian May, Jimmy Page and Joe Satriani, the Echoplex is one of history's most iconic effects units
Digitakt II’s new firmware update adds a major user-requested feature – and finally lets it step out of the shadow of the original
OS 1.5 adds the long-awaited Slice machine, offering a new way to work with samples
“Sounding your best isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have’ – it’s necessary if you want listeners to make your show part of their daily routine”: The head of Audacity shares his top 5 tips for beginner podcasters
The man who leads development of the world’s most popular free and open-source audio editor offers his advice
PreSonus at Plugin Week 2025: Studio One Pro 7.2 takes you all the way from idea to finished track – without adding a single third-party plugin
No setup headaches, no chasing updates - Studio One Pro gives you everything you need, straight out of the box
“She thought anything could be pop – she wanted pop to be pushed to its extremes”: Sophie’s brother and studio engineer talks completing her final album and the legacy she left behind
We sit down with Ben Long to talk through the making of Sophie's posthumous final project and gain a rare insight into the creative...
“I’ve been a Live user for around 20 years, and it’s probably the effect I turn to most regularly”: Ableton Live 12.2 gives this “incredibly versatile” device a much-needed refresh – and rectifies Push 3’s most notable missing feature
Live 12.2 will be released on June 11, bringing updates to Meld, Roar, new Max devices and more
Neil Peart called him ‘the Wood Whisperer’ and now he’s blended metal and timber in DW’s new SonicPly shells
Fusing up to 12 plies of wood with two plies of aluminum they promise presence and power like no other
Hit Record Meter is the free plugin that can assess the commercial appeal of your track. But does it actually work?
Airwindows' creation reveals the inner workings of what makes the hits 'tick'… But is it a hit or a flop?
How to emulate a classic analogue recording system entirely with plugins
It’s entirely likely that you could recreate many legacy analogue set-ups with just a few chained plugins. Here, we’ll show you how...
“I want to make something that allows people to express themselves purely and not feel like they’re having to make compromises”: Musik Hack on their quest to refine plugin UI design
We sit down with Musik Hack co-founder Sam Fischmann to hear more about the philosophy behind its superb mastering plugin
How to stress test a laptop for music production in any DAW – and why every producer should do it
Get the most out of your machine and find out how far your laptop can really take your recordings
“You’ll find it in everything from the Prodigy to Skrillex”: How to get famous sounds and effects using only Logic’s stock plugins
If you’ve got Logic, you’re already more than capable of recreating Skrillex’s manipulated reverb, Billie Eilish’s formant shifting...
u-he at Plugin Week 2025: u-he’s MFM2 More Feedback Machine is a sound designer’s dream with four independent delay lines, multimode filters, a flexible mod matrix and more
Plus how Hive 2.1 makes it even easier to create striking dynamic, evolving sounds
Waves pivots from plugins to samples with subscription-based AI text-to-sound generator
Illugen is a desktop app that Waves says can "generate sounds that have never existed"
The vocals on Billie Eilish’s Birds Of A Feather are consistently out of tune, says this musician, and he thinks he knows why
“I promise this is not going to be a ‘Billie Eilish can’t sing’ video,” says Noah Forbes, but he does have a theory