Tag: musical instruments
The 10 best things I saw at NAMM
The 2025 NAMM Show is over. Every year music gear manufacturers, ranging from iconic synth brands like Korg, to boutique guitar pedal makers like Walrus Audio, and even companies making fog machines and knobs descend on Anaheim to show off their latest wares. It is chaos in all the ways…
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Many Akai devices will soon support Native Instruments sound packs
Akai and Native Instruments are sort of like the Nintendo and Sega of music production. These long-time rivals offer many similar products, but some musicians get drawn to Akai’s MPC workflow while others choose NI’s Maschine platform. Soon, folks may not have to choose at all. These two icons of…
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Arturia V Collection X is its biggest upgrade in years
Arturia V Collection X is one of the biggest updates to the virtual synth library in quite some time. Six new instruments have been added (though, most have been available separately before) and two have been rebuilt from the ground up. That brings the grand total number of instruments in…
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What we bought: Casio’s latest flagship digital piano doubles as drool-worthy furniture
Casio’s instrument division has been around a long time, as anyone who got into music as a kid by making fart noises into an SK-1 knows. However, the company is mostly known for entry-level digital pianos that get the job done, but don’t offer much by way of modern conveniences.…
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Roland’s 50th Anniversary Concept Piano has flying speakers for some reason
2022 marked the 50th anniversary of storied instrument maker Roland. But, even though we’ve switched over to our 2023 calendars, the company took the opportunity at CES to take one more victory lap by showing off its 50th Anniversary Concept Piano. It’s an audacious electronic piano built in collaboration with…
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Yousician’s Metallica guitar course can help unleash your inner Eddie Munson
Just as it is to Eddie Munson in Stranger Things 4, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” is, to me, the “most metal ever.” I spent my teen years obsessively learning the guitar, and Metallica was one of my biggest influences. The combination of vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield’s thrash riffs…
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