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The best acoustic electric guitars solve the inconveniences of playing a traditional acoustic in a very nice way. We don't have to play a guitar size and shape we don't enjoy in order to project more volume. We don't have to strum and pick harder. We don't need a mic to be heard through the loud speakers. Today we look at how this is achieved […]
The best studio headphone amplifiers are not the overly expensive audiophile amps with exposed tubes and a dash of pixie dust. Those are for personal use designed to look magical enough to fool consumers into spending far more than remotely necessary. As us professionals know, the way a piece of studio gear looks has nothing to do with the audio quality it can produce… Besides, […]
The best envelope filter pedal will turn you into a funk machine by adding the power of the wah-wah effect to your guitar and apply it automatically based on your picking style. This next-level effect is a must-have for the multi-genre guitarist, whether for your own material or in a cover band. It opens up a whole new world of stylistic choices for the skilled […]
If any instrumentalist can get a lot of use out of the pitch shift effect, it's a guitarist. The uses are endless, from harmonizing one's own lead to filling in for a bassist. Combine it with other pedals like a looper and an entire musical universe opens up before you. And how fortunate we are, because in the old days we had to record to […]
The best audio interface can be your best friend. The worst can be an absolute nightmare. How do we know what we need or which to choose if we don't have any prior experience? We'll start by walking you through the selection thought process with a summary of the various features and benefits you'll encounter… Recording technology has come a long way in the past […]
The best acoustic guitar for you is not necessarily the best one for me. We all are working with different preferences, diverse hand sizes, and most importantly varying budgets. What we can do, though, is point out the most important variables to understand so you can make the right choice, and then we can narrow the options to the top choices of each category. And […]
The best looper pedal is more than an effects pedal. It's more like a recording studio in a box that can have your back whether you're on stage creating an entire ten track composition on the fly or sitting at home building backing tracks to practice your improvised solos over. The options are only limited by your imagination, and if yours stretches past the limits […]
The best boost pedals do one thing but they do it perfectly, which is to provide your signal with clean, distortion free gain. People joke about turning the knob up to 11, and with the boost effect you can do just that in a linear, noiseless fashion. Whether you want more volume or to drive an amp harder, a solid boost pedal will get the […]
The best octave pedal puts some power in your playing. By doubling your signal and pitch shifting it up or down an octave, you can boast the thickest tone in town. Heck, try tripling it or even replacing your original signal. The options are endless and the choice is yours… The octave effect is exactly what it sounds like it is. You can pitch shift […]
It can be incredibly frustrating when you want to watch a film about music but can only find the same old titles. There are so many "decent" music movies out there that the great ones can get lost in all of the noise. So we're presenting you with the top 10, six runners-up, and a bunch of honorable mentions. You'll undoubtedly find something new to […]
It was a challenge to choose the top 10 best music documentaries of all time, but we got it done. While there are many worth seeing, these represent the cream of the crop and the recommended place to start viewing them. If you're still excited for more documentaries about music after chewing through this list, then we have a handful of runner's up and some […]
Choosing the best movie soundtracks of all time was a hard task, so we developed a system to help us score them. First and foremost, they had to easily come to mind. If you have to go searching for what to include, then that doesn't deserve a slot. We then combined a few factors. One was that the songs themselves had to be great in […]
It wasn't hard to choose who to include in our best harmonica players list. Frankly, there's not that many contenders, so I'm sure we agree here. Where we could potentially argue is the order in which they appear. Here, to even make it into the list the harmonicist must have top-level skills. But then we also mixed it up a bit by considering their creativity […]
Choosing the 10 best orchestras in the world was straightforward enough. We all agreed on the names, but it was the order that had us butting heads. The truth is, there is little that differentiates orchestras at this level. They are all sublime. So we had to look beyond the sound they produce and consider their contributions to the classical music genre, their history, and […]
You'd think this isn't that popular of a discussion but I can't count how many times I've argued about which are the best musicals of all time. We generally all agree on the same batch, but it's the order in which they rank, particularly the top three, where the real conversation begins. As you read this list, you'll undoubtedly find some of your favorites and […]
Every single musician, or should I say instrumentalist, will end up buying more than one music stand. We all know how it goes… at first, we don't look to find the best music stand, just the cheapest one we can get away with. Then we learn our lesson… The following review may contain affiliate links which may earn us a small commission when you click […]
The best overdrive pedal can turn your dry, boring tone into a warm, distorted timbre full of the subtle harmonics you get from pushing the gain on a tube. It's the difference between a clean, handsome tone that nobody cares about and a relatable one with enough bite and character to keep the crowd's ears listening and excitable… The following review may contain affiliate links […]
The following review may contain affiliate links which may earn us a small commission when you click on them, at no extra cost for you. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. There's two types of people on this planet when it comes to patchbays: Both types are crazy to me (no offense to the people with the DIY skills). There are quite […]
With all of the digital EQ's out there that come pre-installed as plugins in our recording software, attention has dropped away from the superior sound of a warm analog equalizer snuggled in your rack between your compressor and preamp. It's understandable. Why buy a hardware EQ when you have a free software option already? Well, there are plenty of reasons… The following review may contain […]
After all this time, you finally got the studio monitors of your dreams. Now you want to make sure they're set up to sound as good as possible. The first step towards unleashing their potential is to accompany them with the best monitor isolation pads you can. Today we discuss the various types of pads, stands, and cones, and why you may prefer one type […]