“This guitar means the world to me. My first El Dorado was a gift from my father”: Marcus King’s signature Epiphone is a stunning dreadnought acoustic inspired by his first-ever guitar – and it has the coolest pickguard ever

This limited run all-solid dreadnought comes with ample mojo, a cool back story, a custom hard-shell guitar case and LR Baggs electronics

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Phil Collins admits that there was one famous drum fill he just couldn’t unpick when he was recording his Motown covers album: "We didn't get that one"

“We played that what must have been 1000 times to work out what it was, because it's very difficult to tell," he says

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“Since we debuted Motion at NAMM, the anticipation has been off the charts”: Fender’s Motion MIDI controllers have finally landed – and they come with a free copy of the Fender Studio Pro DAW

Fender's first entry into the pad controller market, Motion 16 and Motion 32 pair polyphonic aftertouch-equipped FATAR pads with deep Studio Pro integration

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“AI models built on stolen intellectual property have no protection under the law”: German performing rights society wins significant victory over Suno

Court ruled AI firm had illegally trained its models on copyrighted songs

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Line 6 expands its Helix Stadium tone ecosystem with a guitar plugin to “enable you to craft tones practically at the speed of thought” – and there’s a free version

Put some of Line 6's flagship Augora amp modelling tone and feel into your DAW

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"I was like, 'Bro... Metallica's never been tighter and you want some yahoos to come jump in and try and be Hetfield? Is that what you're saying?' And they're like, 'Yeah'": Pepper Keenan remembers when he auditioned on guitar for Metallica

It was when James Hetfield was injured mid tour with Guns N’ Roses

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Susanna Hoffs recalls the time that Prince invited the Bangles to the studio then upped and left without telling them: “We get there and we’re jamming, then suddenly we look around and he’s disappeared. ‘OK, I guess we’re done’”

Hoffs has just announced her first album of new material since 2012

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“They didn’t call him the Iceman for nothing. I mean, I was on the receiving end when I was a kid”: Joe Bonamassa on how Albert Collins taught him to wield his guitar as “a weapon” – and jamming with him was the ultimate test of his “intestinal fortitude”

Bonamassa was just a young kid with great chops who had impressed Danny Gatton. Up onstage with the Iceman taught him how you could pin the audience to their seat with one note

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“Some sounds never go out of style”: Universal Audio makes two classic reverbs used by The Beatles, Radiohead and Brian Eno available natively

UA's emulations of the historic EMT 140 and EMT 250 can now be used without Apollo or UAD hardware

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“No option and no choice": Glenn Hughes announces he’s retiring from live performance on medical advice

Ex Deep Purple vocalist requires open heart surgery

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“He’s like an alien. I mean, he’s better at guitar backwards than I have been at guitar my whole life”: Gracie Abrams is impressed by Paul Mescal’s left handed playing

She says their relationship has had “the most amazing effect” on her writing

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A pressing matter: Suno to launch its own bespoke vinyl pressing and shipping service

The resulting one-offs could end up being very valuable

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“It’s the same open, community-powered spirit that’s reshaping modern guitar tone, now built directly into the rig”: HeadRush rolls out Tone3000 integration and native support for NAM captures on its amp and effects modellers

Players can choose from “hundreds of thousands” of community created NAM captures and just load them onto their rigs

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“My other little secret is, this right here, this position, that’s supposed to be the neck, right? It’s not”: Chris Payton on the guitars he needs to play a Bruno Mars stadium – and the genius mod that makes his HSS Strat even more versatile

Has Payton created the ultimate pop, rock and R&B guitar with some judicious mods to his American Elite Strat? His guitar choices – and rig – reflects the demands of an epic show

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“I asked him what was going on. He said to me, ‘This is too good for you guys. I’m taking it back’”: Prince collaborator David Z, who helped create one of his biggest hits, has died, aged 78

He also co-produced Fine Young Cannibals’ She Drives Me Crazy, and was responsible for its famous snare sound

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“Continues to strike a balance between features, size, and price”: Novation Launch Control 3 review

Novation’s Launch Control 3 update looks basic and minimal, but it successfully packs a lot into a small package

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Brandon Flowers appears to be having something of an existential crisis: “My dad goes to yard sales. He’s never had any money in his life and he’s happier than I am”

Killers singer releases his third solo album in two weeks

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“I don’t want any undos. There’s no ‘undo’ in good music. It’s a performance”: Raphael Saadiq takes you on a tour of his incredible studio, and explains why he still prefers to record to tape

“I was just sitting there by myself, going, you can't get mad at yourself, because it's gone. There's nothing you could do”

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“In the very early ‘70s, he was in one studio, and I was in another. And we just hit it off”: Tony Iommi reveals Brian May’s lead guitar cameo on his new solo album – and why the Queen guitarist is its only guest

Iommi's solo album From The Dark is out on 23 October and features a star turn from old friend Brian May

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“The artists that are against it, you’ve got to be careful because it’s going to come and swallow you like the boogie monster at night”: Empire Of The Sun’s Luke Steele says “of course” he uses AI

Meanwhile, pro-AI Boy George calls Bandcamp a “bunch of c***s” for banning his controversial track

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“Seal said to me while we were doing the first album, ‘I’ve got this song - it’s a bit like Greensleeves.’ I was like, ‘that sounds interesting’”: Trevor Horn on the waltz-time song with the "crazy" vocal harmonies that gave Seal a '90s US number one

"I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know where you thought of this stuff – it’s brilliant'"

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"It only felt right that we played it for the first time in America with the man himself": Olivia Dean puts Sam Fender in the Lollapalooza spotlight as he joins her to sing the song that's just broken a long-standing UK chart record

Rein Me In has now spent more weeks at number one than any other song

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“I don’t think it’s overstating it, I don’t think it’s hyperbole – you guys invented rave culture”: Moby praises Britain’s historic contribution to dance music

He was headlining Brighton’s On The Beach fest

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"Your analogue sound becomes a sample – then the cycle begins again: a new sound, a new sample, a new idea": Vermona drumDING is a hybrid drum machine designed to sample itself

drumDING combines a single analogue drum voice with flexible internal sampling and sequencing – and it’s available to pre-order now

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"In loving memory of Kieran Foster": Illformed Glitch2 multi-effects plugin made available for free following its creators passing

Originally released in 2013, Glitch2 is designed to "slice, dice, chop, screw, twist, turn and mangle your sounds into radical new forms"

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"Once up and running, it's a dream to use, and capable of capturing some magnificent audio": Tascam DR-40XP field recorder review

This newly updated four-track field recorder from Tascam is a surprisingly dense device, boasting 32-bit float recording and some supremely quiet preamps

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Olivia Rodrigo ticks another name off her alt-rock wishlist as she joins Smashing Pumpkins on stage at Lollapalooza to sing Thirty Three

Billy Corgan and co were headlining in their home city of Chicago

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“I wish I hadn’t said it, although it did happen. But we’ve made up”: Phil Collins reveals the origins of his feud with Paul McCartney, and how it ended up being resolved

He's also been discussing the extent of his alcoholism, and how it almost killed him

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“I’ve always said that if they wanted me to reform, I would do it. I would even play harmonica or do a walk on”: Steve Hackett is still open to a hypothetical Genesis reunion

Band haven’t played live since 2022

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Billie Joe Armstrong’s punk rock riff machine, Orange’s mighty micro-amp, and the $150 acoustic that gives us serious John Mayer vibes – it’s MusicRadar’s monthly guitar gear roundup, the July 2026 edit

Featuring hot new gear from Harley Benton, Epiphone, Bad Cat, Shergold, IK Multimedia, Mooer Audio, Gibson and more

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