Gear
Honest gear reviews, artist interviews, and sound stories from inside the music world. Audio Chronicle is your trusted guide to music gear and culture.
MiniFreak 5.0 Brings Your Own Sounds Into the Rig
Arturia’s free update adds sample and wavetable import, and the next step is turning personal source material into dependable musical parts.
Give Your Next Headphones a Job Description
Sony’s latest three-tier launch prompts a practical checklist for the pair that has to handle both the commute and the next overdub.
Audacity 4 Turns a Familiar Editor Into a Migration Project
The free editor’s biggest overhaul in 26 years deserves a careful sandbox, because interface changes become muscle-memory changes at the studio desk.
Arturia Pure SUB Makes Bass Design a Bounded Problem
Arturia's focused 808 and Reese instrument shows how a narrow tool can clear one of a session's most persistent bottlenecks: indecision.
Dreamtonics Instrument X Shrinks the Orchestra’s Storage Habit
Dreamtonics is betting that neural acoustic modeling can loosen orchestral software’s appetite for storage, with expressive control carrying the real burden.
Pop Production Is Hunting for the Empty Space
A new Jack Antonoff interview frames hitmaking as the search for an absence, a useful studio idea if producers resist turning culture into market research.
“Rhythm is music’s life.”
— Antonio Buonomo
Polyend Keys Treats Desk Space as a Musical Feature
The QWERTY-like controller asks whether desktop familiarity can become musical fluency, with the answer resting on feel, mapping, and setup friction.
Studio Myths Survive Because Troubleshooting Is Boring
The analog-versus-digital fight and cheap-monitor panic both get easier once every complaint has to survive a basic signal-chain check.
When the Cartridge Becomes the Album
Albums built for NES, Sega Genesis, and Game Boy hardware reveal how channel limits, tracker logic, and playback quirks can become compositional tools.
More Gear articles
Behringer’s BCR32 Brings the Knob Bank Back With a Sequencer
The cult controller’s successor adds built-in sequencing, with its real worth resting on mapping, recall, and the boring details around clocking.
KRK’s V Series Five Brings Monitor Tuning to the Listening Chair
Wireless app control targets one of studio calibration’s least glamorous problems: having to leave the exact place where you need to listen.
MXR’s Flanger/Doubler Puts a Rack-Era Trick Underfoot
The new BBD-driven analog pedal shrinks an old rack concept for modern boards, with its most useful work likely hiding below the full jet-engine sweep.
Pigments Play Tests How Much Free Synth You Really Need
Arturia’s free Pigments edition combines the paid version’s six engines, 68 filter modes, and 20 effect algorithms with a focused set of 100 presets.
Helix Stadium Native Pulls Line 6’s Flagship Modeling Into the DAW
The newly announced plugin makes tone continuity the practical test, from input feel and session recall to collaborator handoffs.
VST at 30: Your Old Sessions Need a Survival Plan
Steinberg’s anniversary is a useful reminder that plug-in convenience comes with a long-term recall problem every producer can address.
How to Turn 473 Free Sub-Bass Samples Into a Working Library
MusicRadar's new SampleRadar drop is a useful excuse to build a low-end workflow around level, tuning, phase, and fast decisions.
Doom on a Modular Synth Is a Stress Test for Hackable Gear
The Workshop Computer's unlikely game port turns a familiar geek ritual into a sharp test of openness, recovery, and software longevity in the rack.
Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’ Loop Was Measured With a Ruler
Its hand-spliced seven-beat loop still offers a practical check on copy-and-paste production.
The Pipe Organ Puts Architecture in the Signal Chain
Sander de Keere’s new composition offers synth players a practical lesson in routing, registration, physical control, and the creative force of a room.
Splice’s Layoffs Put Cloud Sample Workflows Under the Microscope
The confirmed restructuring offers a timely reason to make sample-based sessions portable, documented, and recoverable.
Browser DAWs Are Ready for the First Hour of Your Song
Free web studios are becoming a credible route from an empty tab to an editable, shareable sketch.
Fix Your Home Studio Acoustics Before Buying More Gear
Move the speakers, map the reflections, and work out whether the room or the street is ruining the take before ordering a wall of foam.
Novation’s Launchkey 88 MK4 Targets the Producer Who’s Tired of Choosing Between Piano Feel and DAW Speed
The new full-range Launchkey suggests the modern studio keyboard has one job: keep your hands on the music and off the laptop for a little longer.
David Byrne’s Brian Eno Story Still Solves a Studio Problem Musicians Haven’t Fixed
Byrne’s latest comments about Eno point to a practical recording habit: make the room safe for odd ideas before you ask it for finished ones.
Spitfire’s New Originals Drop Lands Right in the Era of Faster Sketches
Four new additions to the Spitfire Audio Originals line put the focus back on speed, usable character, and getting an idea moving before the session turns into admin.
Blackstar’s ID:X Floor Three Lands in the Sweet Spot Guitarists Keep Chasing
The newest compact floor rig entry says something useful about where working guitar setups are headed: simpler, smaller, and much less precious.
The New Prompt-to-Plugin Wave Has One Real Question: Who Is It Actually For?
AI plugin generators promise to turn plain-language ideas into working audio tools, but the useful story is less magic than workflow triage.
Softube’s Console 1 Compact Arrives Right on Time for the Anti-Trackpad Mood
The smaller control surface says something useful about where home-studio mixing is headed: fewer gestures on glass, more decisions made by hand.
Akai’s New MPCs Are Really About One Thing: Fewer Reasons to Reach for the Laptop
The second-gen MPC One and MPC Key 37 look like spec bumps, but the real story is what extra headroom does to a musician’s working habits.
Tony Iommi’s Lost Secret Weapon Still Explains Half of Heavy Guitar Tone
A freshly revived Black Sabbath story points back to one stubborn truth: the magic often lives in what hits the amp first.
MP3’s Inventors Want Audio to Adapt in Real Time. This Time, the Hard Part Isn’t the Codec.
Fraunhofer’s latest ideas point toward sound that changes by device, room, and listener — but adoption will hinge on whether creators gain control instead of extra chores.
Marshall’s Stockwell III Has the Most Interesting Spec in Portable Audio: Parts You Can Replace
The new speaker’s headline is not only battery life — it is the quietly radical idea that a portable music device should survive its first failure.
Audio-Technica ATH-M50x Review: The Studio Staple That Refuses to Fade
You’ve seen them. You’ve probably used them.
Wireless Guitar Finally Grew Up — and the Stage Is Changing With It
Radiohead’s reported move toward wireless rigs lands at the exact moment a lot of working players are rethinking what freedom onstage is actually worth.
Boss DS-1 Distortion: It Still Exists
Harsh? Maybe. Iconic? Also yes.
Boss VG-800 Review: A Virtual Guitar Rig That Actually Feels Alive
Modeling, MIDI, and a very real identity crisis in a 2-pound box.
Elektron Digitakt II & Digitone II: Old Souls, New Tricks
Two boxes walk into your studio. One’s a rhythm machine. The other’s a synth with a split personality. Both just leveled up.
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2: Still the People's Interface, Now Grown the Hell Up
The best-selling box in bedroom studios just got a brain, a glow-up, and a reason to stay on your desk.
Korg Minilogue XD Review: Analog Soul, Digital Teeth
A Hybrid Synth That Refuses to Sit Still.
Moog Muse Review: Analog Royalty Gets a Polyphonic Crown
Meet the Muse: Moog’s Polyphonic Power Move.
On-Stage MS7701B Review: The Mic Stand That Just Keeps Standing
A Budget Mic Stand That Punches Above Its Weight — Until It Doesn’t.
Soundboks 4: The Portable Speaker That Wants to Headline the Festival
It’s not a Bluetooth speaker. It’s a sonic riot with a handle.
Teenage Engineering OP–XY Review: Small Box, Big Brain, Bigger Price
A Sequencer That Aims to Do It All — and Mostly Does.
The Martin D-300: A Case Study in Unnecessary Excellence
When a guitar costs more than your car, your rent, and your studio combined — and still can’t write a song for you.
Yamaha MG10XU Review: The Mixer That Never Quits, Even When You Do
It’s Not Sexy, It’s Not Smart — But It’s Built to Work Every Night of the Week.
Zoom H5: Just Enough Recorder for Most Things
It records. It works. What more do you want?