VIDEO FEATURE & WEB-EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE VINYL Experience Vinyl is more than a record a month club. It’s a total customer experience with special concerts and unique member-only benefits. Each month, members will receive a selection of the featured artist-curator’s essential “Desert Island Disc.” Accompanying the record will be a personal description written by or for the artist about why the record is so important. In addition... 

LIVE LESSONS Our experts reveal their strategies for achieving pristine live sound Sounding great live is every act’s goal—and it’s a challenge nearly all musicians face, from coffeehouse singer-songwriters to touring arena bands. Achieving perfect live sound can be complex, taking into account everything from room acoustics to microphone selection and placement, as well as the limitations of the house PA system. But with so many variables... 

NAS   The enduring hip-hop storyteller’s latest title becomes his mantra    Several months after releasing his 10th studio album, Life Is Good, Nas is revisiting the title. “I was watching TV the other night and saw this woman had survived pancreatic cancer,” he says. “I was barely listening, because my mom passed from breast cancer, and sometimes it’s just too hard to watch. But I heard her say, ‘Life is good,’ and I thought, ‘If... 

LIVE MICS Selecting the right microphone for your stage show is crucial to a sound performance “The microphone is the core of everything,” says veteran front-of-house engineer Andy Meyer. “If you don’t have your source properly miked, what good is a $2 million PA or a state-of-the-art mixing console? If the mics are terrible, a great performance doesn’t mean a thing.” It’s a challenge nearly all musicians face, from coffeehouse singer-songwriters...