Jimmy

I changed the strings on my concert ukulele six times in the last three months chasing one thing: a set that sounds great right after I install it and stays in tune when I gig on a Saturday night. After restringing eight different concert sets, I pulled together my notes for this list of the … Read more

I have spent more hours than I would like to admit testing bargain keyboards, mostly because readers keep asking the same thing: do cheap keyboards actually hold up? The short answer in is yes, but only if you pick the right one. I have typed on all eight boards in this guide over the past … Read more

If you have ever played a beautiful passage on your digital piano and felt that the sound fell flat, the speakers are almost always the culprit. The best audio systems for piano transform thin, boxy built-in speakers into a rich, expressive soundstage that actually does justice to your playing. I have spent the last three … Read more

Metal drumming destroys stock drum kits. I’ve been testing kits for over a decade, and the difference between a regular acoustic set and one built for metal is night and day. Heavy distorted guitars swallow thin-sounding drums, weak hardware snaps under aggressive playing, and bad heads die in a month of blast beats. This guide … Read more

Yes, you can get professional-sounding guitar effects pedals under $100, and our team spent the last three months testing 10 of the most popular budget stompboxes on real amps, with real guitars, across rock, blues, metal, and ambient styles to find the ones that actually deliver. The budget pedal market has changed dramatically over the … Read more

I still remember the first time I tried to record my own vocals at home. I borrowed a friend’s old dynamic mic, pointed it at my mouth, hit record in Audacity, and produced something that sounded like I was singing inside a tin can during a thunderstorm. After months of testing different mics in our … Read more

I have spent the last three months playing through eight of the most-talked-about fretless bass guitars priced under $1000. I wanted to know which ones actually deliver that warm, vocal, upright-bass-style character without forcing you to take out a second mortgage on your rig. A fretless bass removes the metal fret wires from the fingerboard, … Read more

Finding the best guitar combo amp under $300 used to mean settling for thin tones, noisy circuits, or amps that fell apart after a year. Our team spent the last three months plugging Stratocasters, Les Pauls, and Telecasters into eight different budget combo amps from Fender, Orange, Marshall, and Blackstar to see which ones actually … Read more

I’ve spent the last three months hauling eight different battery-powered amps to street corners, subway entrances, and farmers’ markets to find the best guitars amp for busking in . My testing covered everything from quiet weekday crowds to Saturday-afternoon traffic jams where I had to compete with passing buses. A great busking amp needs to … Read more

Choosing the best pianos for adult beginner learners feels overwhelming when you open Amazon and see hundreds of options with specs that all blur together. I have been testing beginner keyboards and digital pianos for over a decade, and the truth is simpler than the marketing. The right first piano for an adult is the … Read more