If the Winter looks more like a grey Autumn and you’re left yearning for a nice, thick blanket of crisp snow, then why not give mother nature the break she deserves and take things into your own hands with a snow machine? Even if it’s not to save Christmas, a snow machine adds a festive vibe to any party, film shoot, or event. Here, we offer an answer to the ten most frequently asked questions about snow machines.

Guestblogger Marc tells all about how to repair the electronics of your electric guitar with your own two hands and get rid of that hum, crackle, or actually get some sound out of it. From the tools you’ll need to get the job done properly, to a run through of what you need to do: Marc lays it all out and makes it clear that it’s much simpler than you think and anyone with the will and the right tools can do it themselves! And if you take the plunge, you get the added benefit of noise free tone, an in-house repair shop and the chance to get to know your guitar a little more intimately.

If you love making music and you’d like to record your sound on a budget that doesn’t allow for a top-notch audio interface, high-quality microphone and other professional bits of gear, I’ve got great news for you: making recordings doesn’t have to cost beginners a small fortune. In this blog, you can learn how to record audio to your computer, smartphone or tablet on the cheap!

An electronic drum kit is the ideal tool for almost every drummer: no more heated arguments with the neighbours about the noise; practically all the sounds you could wish for and you can practice whenever you want. But let me remind you that you can do much more than simply hone your drumming here, as digital drums are also a great recording tool. As a matter of fact, ease of recording is one of the biggest advantages compared to an acoustic kit. In this blog, I’ll show you how it works and offer you three easy ways to record an electronic drum kit.

The EQ, short for equaliser, is the most important tool in any mixing engineer’s kit (aside from the level fader, of course). If you’re new to DAWs or mixers, you might be wondering what an EQ even is and how it’s used. And what’s the difference between a parametric and a graphic equaliser? In this blog, I’ll explain everything and even include explanations of important terms like curve and low cut/high pass.

The drum kit as we know it today has undergone centuries of evolution. In all likelihood, it originates from the first instrument played by humans, as archeological evidence suggests that for thousands of years, people having been pounding and hammering on anything they could get their hands on.

For DJs, an organised music collection is vital to playing a flawless set. Adding structure by labelling files, folders and subfolders, finding the right tracks can be made much easier, and it can even help you add better transitions to your mixes. That means it’s time to bring order to the chaos! In this blog, I offer beginner DJs a handful of digital music managements tips.

Have the strings of your electric guitar seen better days? Has the top string snapped or are they sounding a wee bit dead? Then it’s probably about time that you give your cherished instrument the love it deserves by gifting it with a fresh set of strings. Only … re-stringing a guitar for a beginner might be a little bit daunting.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see them as much as we’d like, but that’s already changing fast. Thanks to pioneers like Karen Carpenter, Sheila E., Meg White, Helen Hallsworth, and YouTube stars like Meytal Cohen, more and more girls are picking up a set of sticks and pounding the skins. In this blog, we tell you about 5 of the best known and most interesting female drummers out there.

One of the things that makes the electric guitar so seductive is the insane range of different sounds you can get out of a single instrument. The electric guitar can be used to make something heart-breakingly subtle, just as easily as it can be deployed to unleash ear-splitting brutality. This blog deals with the latter – and we’re not talking about just cranking up the volume and hoping for the best, but the subtle art of guitar distortion in all its forms. That’s not to say you can’t crank it up. Back in the day, before the dawn of effects pedals, the only way to get a distorted sound was to push the volume of an amplifier so far that it started to crack. Thankfully, those times are gone and we can now enjoy the magic offered by distortion stompboxes, even at a more sociable volume.

If you want your axe to stay in tune during a serious dive-bomb, you’ll need a Floyd Rose tremolo with a special double-locking system. Since this system can look a little daunting to set up, we’re going to show you exactly how this type of guitar bridge works, and how you can string up and intonate it.

Guest-blogger Niels is here to tell you why in-ear monitoring (IEM) isn’t only great for gigs, but rehearsals! Together with the other six members of his band, Niels decided to get in-ear monitors for live performances, but they soon found out that there are also various benefits to using the system in their rehearsal space: much less noise and the ability to actually hear what you’re working on.