Music

Known for its distinctive product design and whimsical approach to making music gear, Sweden's Teenage Engineering is back at it with a multi-instrument amp that's got a fun side.

Benjamin is an iPad stand and tactile control surface for musicians who learn from videos, letting them loop tricky passages, scrub frame by frame, and slow playback in 5% steps without reaching for the touchscreen.

Polyend, maker of immensely cool drum machines, synths, and guitar pedals, is now working on a product for your desk. Keys combines a playable three-octave piano with a QWERTY keyboard you can use for work, composition, and performing.

The MegCell Pulse is a 3D-printable robotic system that can fit on any acoustic guitar and play music you feed it in a digital tablature format. With this, you can hear compositions rendered right in front of you, no speakers necessary.

This new smart guitar we've come across uses LEDs on the fretboard along with a full-featured app to make it easy to visually learn the instrument. Litejam has an acoustic called the Neo, as well as an electric and bass, currently on Kickstarter.

Created by a former Google engineer, Anukari abandons conventional audio synthesis in favor of a virtual physics world where collisions, vibrations and kinetic energy become music in real time using GPU processing.

A few years ago, Teenage Engineering partnered with designer Yuri Suzuki for a cute lo-fi vinyl cutter. Now the Swedes are going pro with the limited-edition APC-2, a full-sized record cutter for churning out high-quality playback discs.

Despite garnering unflattering nicknames when it was introduced to the public in 1951, the Fender Telecaster has proved to be an incredibly versatile instrument that morphs depending on who is playing it. We look at a dozen who have made it their own.

This year Fender is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Telecaster, and Nashville was chosen to host the Tele Town birthday party. We caught up with the CEO and Chief Product Manager before rocking the Tele's big night out at the Ryman Auditorium.

Turkey-based upstart Shark Instruments is taking the fight to higher-end guitar makers with advanced manufacturing capabilities. Its latest industry-first feature: adjustable frets.

Blackstar has not only crammed a guitar amp into a box the size of a portable Bluetooth speaker, but also packed it with high-tech features to get a vast array of tones out of it for any style of playing, anywhere they'll tolerate you.

I've seen plenty of hardware for making music over the years, but none of it is quite as focused on the pure joy of playing an instrument like the Tembo. It's a step sequencer, sampler, and drum machine rolled into a unique tactile package.

ROLI has unveiled an AI Music Coach that uses hand tracking and conversational AI to give real-time feedback on players’ piano technique. Launching with its new Airwave hardware, the system aims to make solo practice feel more like guided instruction.

Players often get quite passionate about Strandberg guitars – they either really love or hate them. The innovative Swedes behind such polarizing creations have now joined forces with MIDI masters Jamstik for a powerful 6-string beast named Chameleon.

We're coming up on the 100th anniversary of the electric guitar, and it's been fascinating to hear how this simple instrument has altered the landscape of music in that time. Next-gen axes, though, are all about electronics and modularity.