Instrument

Back in 2016, we featured a stunning wooden machine that employed falling steel marbles to play a merry tune. As plans are drawn up for a new version, its builder has looked back to the designs of Leonardo da Vinci for inspiration.

Lava Music has spent the last few years impressing guitarists with a bunch of carbon fiber acoustic/smart guitars. Now the company has taken a bit of a left turn with a string-free touch-enabled digital oddity called the Genie.

You could argue that the American Ultra II is a blasphemy against the purity of Leo Fender's first masterpiece – or you could evaluate this guitar without the baggage of its heritage. Either way, it's certainly a fascinating and inspiring instrument.

The humble capo has graced the gig bags of performing musicians for decades, clamping down to change the overall key of a guitar in a single, swift motion. Now, a new take on the capo opens up whole new musical worlds of alternate tunings.

Join us on a trip through Fender's factory, Custom Shop, Master Builder department and head office, in celebration of a radically innovative instrument that continues to find new ways to move music forward, even seven decades after its launch.

A portable music production studio previewed at NAMM 2022 is now crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Playtime Engineering's Blipblox myTracks is designed to give young creators all the tools they need to start making music.

Pianos can become the heart of a home, and some become intergenerational heirlooms loaded with memories. Letting them go once they're unplayable can be very hard, but an Australian sculptor has found a way to resurrect them, to jaw-dropping effect.

Way back in 1981, Suzuki Music released a rather bizarre electric instrument called the Omnichord – a kind of synth you could strum. Now the company has relaunched the an updated kidney-shaped oddity at NAMM 2024.

The world's largest music gear expo is set to open its doors next week, and Yamaha has popped up early with a groove machine called the Seqtrak that could have jumped straight out of Teenage Engineering's design playbook.

Brit musical instrument maker Dubreq has released a number of key upgrades to its iconic pocket synth over the years, but the Stylophone CPM DS-2 is something of a departure from the usual playbook.

The physicist Lev Sergeyevich Termen may not be a household name, but the eerie sounds of the synthesizer he invented are instantly recognizable. Now Dubreq is inviting music makers to wave their arms about for its own take on the Theremin.

Back in 2015, Sweden's Teenage Engineering launched a bunch of pocket-friendly synths and samplers called, appropriately enough, the Pocket Operators. Now the team has announced a higher-end, almost pro-level version called the EP-133 KO II.