Gear 5
303 State: A History of the Roland TB-303
The Roland TB-303 houses one of music’s most singular sounds. Scroll down a bit and hit play on Phuture’s “Acid Tracks.” What do you hear? That knocking beat of the TR-707 gives way to what sounds like a bass line contorting itself from within. Slippery, percolating, and squelchy, it’s the sound of an unique instrument being pushed to […]
Jimmy Page and Les Paul “Black Beauty” Reunited?
It looks as though Jimmy Page will get to join Peter Frampton, B.B. King, George Harrison, Bob Seger, Zakk Wylde and other guitarists who have lost and later recovered iconic axes. Page’s guitar, a 1960 Les Paul Custom “Black Beauty”, was stolen in 1970 while Led Zeppelin were on tour in the months leading up to Led Zeppelin […]
The 16 Coolest Things We Saw at Winter NAMM 2016
Our crew is back from NAMM 2016 and still buzzing from all the awesome stuff we saw. There were so many photos from our coverage of the show that we wanted to condense it all into the best of the best. So here (in no particular order) are the 16 coolest things we saw at NAMM […]
Three Guitar Pedals That are Great for Bass
It’s not so much that there aren’t a good amount of bass-specific pedals that get the job done — I’m a big fan of the Boss ODB-3 and Dunlop’s bass wah, for instance. But there are certainly more made-for-guitar effects out there that are more readily available. For that reason I took a handful of guitar pedals we […]
Arturia MatrixBrute: The “most powerful analog synthesizer ever?”
“When was the last time you met an instrument that truly inspired pleasure and creativity?” Here at zZounds, we’re no strangers to marketing hype or brand-new, exciting analog synthesizers, but the above quote from Arturia’s website may be completely justified when it comes to their mind-boggling new creation released at the 2016 NAMM show — […]
JBL at NAMM 2016
The last few months have seen JBL breathe some fresh air into some of their classic speaker series, and with good results. Their newest models show clear improvements to functionality and aesthetics; the speakers just look better and are easier to use. Improvements haven’t just been skin-deep though — new and improved waveguides inside the speaker enclosures are […]
Arturia MatrixBrute: An Avant-garde Analog Synth
The MatrixBrute’s product description opens up with plenty of questions: When was the last time you felt your heart beating faster? When was the last time you heard sounds you had never heard before? When was the last time you met an instrument that truly inspired pleasure and creativity? The only question I have is how. How […]
Meet Korg’s minilogue
2016 is set to be a good year for analog synthesis if recent releases from companies like Arturia, Dave Smith and Korg are any indication. While Roland recently paid homage to their rich history of synth design with their analog-modeling Boutique synth line, Korg is looking to the future with the new minilogue. Unlike the […]
Boss MT-2: 25 Years in the Metal Zone
We’ve just come out with an All-Star Gear list at zZounds of our customers’ favorite pedals, and at the top of the heap is the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, rated at 5 stars with over 750 reviews! Reading some of our customers’ reviews on this definitive distortion pedal brought on a wave of nostalgia, and now, […]
