Tiffany “Delilah” Miranda on creating Girls Make Beats and Community Drive 2021

When producer, engineer, and singer Tiffany “Delilah” Miranda was coming up in the studio world in South Florida in the late ’90s and early 2000s she was told more than once that “girls don’t make beats.” Fast forward several decades, and Tiffany has made it her life mission to make sure girls who want to produce, audio engineer or DJ feel supported...

2w

Futuristic techno sound design with Calum Macleod from CLOUDS

Hailing from Perth, Scotland, Liam Robertson and Calum Macleod of CLOUDS have been making music before they could even go to the club. Nonetheless their sound design and reference palette speaks of careful study of past, present, and future – and the duo has steadily set about revitalizing the “underground” techno scene with releases on Turbo Recordings,...

2w

Deafheaven guitarist Kerry McCoy shreds on his custom GUITAR RIG 6 presets

Deafheaven first broke on the San Francisco scene in 2010 with little more than an untitled demo tape recorded on borrowed equipment and an acoustic guitar. But the group’s potent blend of crushingly heavy riffs and ethereal melodies (dubbed “blackgaze” for its melding of black metal and shoegaze sounds) was still largely unknown in America, and the...

4w

Brush up on your knowledge of the Chinese instruments from our East Asia collection

The history of Chinese music must be approached with a certain reverence. There can’t be many other countries that have a musical lineage with such a rich tapestry; roots reaching back through dynasties and ancient societies. Archeologists have discovered Asian bone flutes, chimes and bells dating back over 8000 years. Ancient artworks show instruments...

4w

Composer Walter Mair makes wild sounds with modular and MASCHINE

Composer Walter Mair has two studios. One is in London’s central SoHo district. “It’s bare bones, like a big projector and a couch,” he says. “It’s more about making the directors and producers feel comfortable.” Then there’s his home studio, which is anything but minimal. It’s a mad lab anchored by a giant modular synth rack and a range of keyboards...

Aug 2021

Lycoriscoris explains the surprising inspiration behind his ornate electronic productions

Lycoriscoris’s latest album Chiyu is out now. To mark the release, we’ve teamed up with Anjunadeep and metapop to offer you the chance to win a copy along wih some top NI prizes. Download a free set of sounds (including an exclusive Battery kit), show us what you can do, and Lycoriscoris will select a winner. Hurry though – the competition ends September...

Aug 2021

ABSOLUTE. talks activism, DJing, and how he kickstarted his creative flow in lockdown

London-based artist Anthony McGinley – also known as ABSOLUTE. – has escalated from party promoter and event organizer to internationally-touring DJ and producer over the short span of five years. The mastermind behind the LGBTQ+ club nights Super Electric Party Machine and WUT?CLUB, McGinley has galvanized a vibrant queer nightlife movement in London,...

Aug 2021

Watch Dana Ruh build a lush minimal house track in MASCHINE+

Dana Ruh does it all – she’s a DJ and producer who also runs two record labels (Brouqade and Cave Records), a distribution company, and record store out of a space called KMA60, located in Berlin’s Neukölln district. While her musical life may be complicated, Dana’s approach to music-making is simple: she prefers “playing over programming.” In fact,...

Aug 2021

The GLAZE Story: From secret vocal production tool to the latest Play Series offering

Back in 1989, Curtis Wilson recorded Rochad Holiday’s track “Sneak” without him knowing. When Holiday heard the cut, he had to know who did it. The pair met, and became close collaborators, including as members of the group Something for the People alongside Jeff “Fuzzy” Young. Fast-forward 30 years, and the duo are still at it. Between them they...

Jul 2021

Making ACTION STRINGS 2: How Sonuscore improved on the original with their blockbuster sequel

Almost a decade ago, the original ACTION STRINGS – a collaboration between NI and Dynamedion – began a new era of orchestral phrase sampling. Almost overnight, the libraries real recorded performances became the driving string rhythms behind countless cinematic scores and other genre-bending productions. So, when the time came to launch its successor,...

Jul 2021