Welcome to the SOUND ON SOUND web site, the home of the world's premier music recording technology magazine.
We've been publishing our magazine since 1985; however, this web site houses our vast, continually-expanding archive of highly informative articles from January 1994 onwards, which reveals the impact of technology on the music production and recording process.
Every month, SOS print magazine delivers an unequalled mix of detailed, hands-on Product Tests of cutting-edge music hardware/software, covering all aspects of sound acquisition, editing and playback. Our producer/engineer/musician Interviews are second to none and there's a goldmine of "how to" Workshops and Tutorials (in the Technique section) to help you get the most out of your gear — whatever your level of expertise.
Search our treasure chest of current and archive articles Articles on this site generally fall into 5 broad categories:
Hidden behind the SEARCH menu button (above) is a powerful search engine and it is the best way to quickly find material, but most articles include useful sidebar links to related material you might like to investigate.
SOS is one of the few magazines in any sector to publish the entire editorial contents of our current print magazine online (we call this the eSub), for the benefit of our ever-growing global community of subscribers. Some of the regular columns (eg. Sounding Off, Leader etc) and some teaser reviews are free for everyone to access. After 5 months, we unlock the current issue and add its articles to the 11,800+ available FREE on the soundonsound.com via the SOS Search engine, ready to answer your many questions and assist you in selecting the most appropriate tools for your music recording studio.
Joan Jett’s heartfelt reworking of the Arrows’ ‘I Love Rock & Roll’ became an international hit in 1982 and turned her career around. Glen Kolotkin tells us how it happened.
The fact that they achieved little commercial success didn’t stop the New York Dolls from making one of the most influential albums in the history of pop music.
REM’s first single wasn’t just an embryonic form of the style and sound that would later make them so successful, it was also a gem of the American new wave. But it took a long time coming...
There are very few records whose influence can be so strongly felt after 45 years as the Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’. At the controls was Shel Talmy, who tells us the story of a song that changed pop music.
Thunderous reverbs, haunting vocals and Mellotron galore: we tell the story of recording the Moody Blues’ symphonic rock masterpiece, ‘Nights In White Satin’.
Producer: John Lennon • Engineers: Roy Cicala, Shelly Yakus
Engineer Roy Cicala worked on all of John Lennon’s albums from Imagine onwards, and in ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’, recorded the only solo number one hit single of Lennon’s lifetime.
Producer: Van Morrison • Engineers: Shelly Yakus, Elliot Scheiner
On his second solo album, Van Morrison took the production reins for the first time. Manning the desk was engineer Shelly Yakus, who tells the story of recording Moondance.
Blighted by drug abuse and mental illness, Heavy Zebra never fulfilled their early promise. Nevertheless, the deranged majesty of their 1972 single ‘Karla’ makes it a bona fide classic track.
Producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman developed a massively successful formula for making pop records — and the story of Rick Astley’s 1987 smash hit, ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, is a perfect guide to the SAW assembly line...
In 1977 Status Quo brought in producer Pip Williams to help them clean up their act. The result was a hit album and a best-selling single — 'Rockin' All Over The World'.
A Christmas song was an unexpected move from a group like the Pogues, but the story of heartbreak and pain that is 'Fairytale Of New York' eventually became the band's biggest commercial success.
For mixing Kraftwerk's synthetic beats and simple melodies with New York rap, 'Planet Rock' can be credited with creating an entirely new genre: hip-hop. This is how it happened...
Paul Simon's Graceland album combined a huge mixture of musical styles and was recorded in studios all over the world. The man responsible for putting it all together, both sonically and physically, was Simon's long-time engineer Roy Halee. This is how he did it...
Producers: Devo, Robert Margouleff • Engineers: Robert Margouleff, Howard Siegel
Armed with a subversive view of society and a command of catchy synth-pop, Devo burst into the charts in 1980 with weird classic 'Whip It'. Producer Robert Margouleff talks de-evolution...
The partnership between Blondie and producer Mike Chapman created a perfect pop record - and catapulted the group from the underground to mainstream chart success.
Producers: Ray Minshull, Michael Woolcock • Engineers: James Lock, Kenneth Wilkinson
Recording opera requires a completely different approach, environment and technique to pop or rock music — a fact that has seldom been better demonstrated than in Pavarotti's 1972 recording of 'Nessun Dorma'.
Producer: Trevor Horn • Engineers: Steve Lipson, Julian Mendelsohn
The debut single from Liverpool's Frankie Goes To Hollywood was the result of adventurous production and enjoyed massive chart success - as well as creating a great deal of controversy.
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