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XLR

EDMProd

10 stories

Serum 2 Wavetable Editor: Build, Import, and Refine Your Own Sounds

EDMProdVoicesSerum 2 Wavetable Editor: Build, Import, and Refine Your Own Sounds Learn to draw, import and refine your own Serum 2 wavetables, with 20 audio examples, step-by-step screenshots and animated demonstrations.

Serum 2 Filters: A Practical Guide to Sound Design

EDMProdVoicesSerum 2 Filters: A Practical Guide to Sound Design Explore Serum 2’s filters through audio examples, close-up screenshots, moving demonstrations, and practical exercises—from low-pass basics to combs, formants, Diffusor, and PZ SVF.

Ableton Live Workflow Guide: From First Idea to Finished Arrangement

EDMProdVoicesAbleton Live Workflow Guide: From First Idea to Finished Arrangement Build a faster Ableton Live workflow—from templates and sound-design generators to a full arrangement—with practical screenshots, GIFs, audio examples, and reusable techniques.

Ableton Operator: The Complete Guide to FM Sound Design

EDMProdVoicesAbleton Operator: The Complete Guide to FM Sound Design A complete guide to Ableton Operator, from FM ratios and envelopes to evolving pads, donk basses, gritty Reeses, and a controlled randomization rack. Follow detailed screenshots and audio examples from John’s tutorial. T

Ableton Wavetable: The Complete Guide to Sound Design

EDMProdVoicesAbleton Wavetable: The Complete Guide to Sound Design A complete guide to Ableton Wavetable, from oscillator shapes and modulation to expressive performance controls and five full sound-design projects. Follow close-up screenshots, animations, and audio examples from John’s

Serum 2 Arpeggiator: The Complete Guide to Patterns, Expression & Glide

EDMProdVoicesSerum 2 Arpeggiator: The Complete Guide to Patterns, Expression & Glide Turn held chords into expressive Serum 2 patterns with accents, pitch bends, octave movement, and glide. Follow close-up screenshots, selective animations, and source audio from John’s complete tutorial.

Learn Ableton Live From Scratch: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

EDMProdVoicesLearn Ableton Live From Scratch: The Complete Beginner’s Guide A complete beginner’s guide to Ableton Live, adapted from John’s full course. Follow the entire process with detailed screenshots, selective GIFs, audio examples, and practical steps from your first beat to a finished ex

Serum 2 Clip Sequencer: The Complete Guide

EDMProdVoicesSerum 2 Clip Sequencer: The Complete Guide Turn a simple bass pattern into expressive sequences with Serum 2’s Clip module. Follow the screenshots and audio examples to master playback, modulation, pitch glides and MIDI recording.

What is EDM? Here’s Everything You Need to Know (2025 Update)

EDMProdVoicesWhat is EDM? Here’s Everything You Need to Know (2025 Update) You’ve heard the term. You’ve probably danced to it. Maybe you’ve even said, “I want to make EDM”… then paused and thought, wait… what is EDM? Is it House? Dubstep? Techno? Just anything with a drop? The truth is, EDM me

Serum 2 Presets: The Best FREE Packs in Any Genre

EDMProdVoicesSerum 2 Presets: The Best FREE Packs in Any Genre MASTER SERUM 2 Build a preset librarythat’s yours. Follow hands-on lessons with John Kammerer and create your own sounds in Serum 2. See what you’ll learn ↗ Inside Master Serum 2 · Course lesson preview Serum was an abso

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· Trade shows and launch events, this week's stories from each corner of the industry, and what its press is covering.

On view

This week, from that corner the newest stories from the corner of the industry you picked

The wire their own posts, translated

How records get made in 2026 from the industry's own reports

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Fetched every three hours, linked to the original

About

XLR is a magazine, a radar and a diary about music gear and the making of music — for the people who make records and put on shows, wherever they do it.

The name is the three-pin connector that every signal in the business passes through: the microphone on stage and in the booth, the line to the desk, the DMX cable that runs the lights. Studio, stage and lighting rig share it, and so does this magazine. Every few hours XLR collects what the makers shipped, what the reviewers heard, what the studios and the touring crews are doing, which producers and collectives are surfacing and what they are saying — synths and modular, plugins and DAWs, guitars and drums, microphones, monitors, PA and lights, the rooms and the people — from a few hundred sources in English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and more, then plots what is moving. The editor writes a letter every few days. Nothing is sold here; when a link leads to a shop, that is the maker's shop, not ours.