MPG Awards 2026: Shortlist announced Now in their 18th year, the MPG Awards celebrate the very best of British production talent working behind the scenes in the UK music industry, alongside some key international collaborators.

GARUC Audio releases FREE Deess-ertic Lite de-esser plugin
GARUC Audio has released Deess-ertic Lite, a free de-esser plugin for macOS and Windows. De-essers are usually associated with vocals, but they’re useful on a lot more than that. I like using de-essers in my sound design workflow too, especially at the mastering stage, where they’re pretty handy for dynamically removing harsh frequencies without reaching [...]
View post: GARUC Audio releases FREE Deess-ertic Lite de-esser plugin

Get Morso, a distortion and tone shaping effect by FedDSP, for FREE in a LIMITED time offer
Starting today, FedDSP will release a brand new plugin every week, with each plugin being free for the first seven days. Morso is the first in line and can be downloaded for free until March 17th. It is available in VST3, AU, and AAX formats and works on both Windows and macOS. Oh, and this [...]
View post: Get Morso, a distortion and tone shaping effect by FedDSP, for FREE in a LIMITED time offer

Duck 2 from Devious Machines Devious Machines’ popular envelope-shaping tool has just been kitted out with an improved envelope editor, a new multiband section, additional presets and a whole host of other enhancements. 

NatLife Sounds Melodic & Progressive for U-he DivaNatLife Sounds proudly presents the newest Melodic & Progressive soundset for U-he Diva created by talented House producer – VVOKAA. This is a groovy full-size preset pack for a legendary synth U-he Diva created to bring you the best analog-sounding presets. Melodic & Progressive for U-he Diva delivers 70 high-quality original presets for groove-based music genres such as Melodic, Progressive, Deep, Organic, Tech House and Trance. The sounds inside this pack sound truly analog due to the use of various analog-simulating filters and envelopes inside the Diva.Try this pack to enhance your musical ideas with powerful bass, lead, and melodic pluck sounds. Inside you'll find 70 presets for U-he DIVA: 18 Groovy Bass Presets. 16 MelodicPluck Presets. 27 Original Lead Presets. 9 Pad Presets. Presets include Mod Wheel assignments for intuitive and expressive sound shaping. Read More

Aspen Instruments releases Black Diamond Distortion, a FREE plugin that can emulate any distortion
Aspen Instruments has released Black Diamond Distortion, a free distortion plugin with a wild concept. It can basically simulate any other distortion, whether it’s software or hardware. This is the developer’s first release, and it comes with a companion plugin called Black Diamond Probe that can reverse-engineer the distortion character of almost any hardware or [...]
View post: Aspen Instruments releases Black Diamond Distortion, a FREE plugin that can emulate any distortion

discoDSP releases Retromulator, a free ROM-based hardware synthesizer emulation
Developer discoDSP just released Retromulator, a hardware synthesizer emulation plugin featuring seven classic synths for that retro goodness. But there’s a twist! Retromulator uses cycle-accurate emulation. It’s not a soft synth programmed to sound like these classic units; it runs the actual machines’ firmware while emulating the chips and bits to get as close to [...]
View post: discoDSP releases Retromulator, a free ROM-based hardware synthesizer emulation

Stereo Miking: The Sound On Sound Guide Designed for recording engineers, audio-technology students and technically minded musicians, our latest free eBook delivers a comprehensive all-in-one guide to stereo miking techniques. 

Sunbunny just released Tentacles, a FREE creative tremolo and spatial effect
According to the developer, Sunbunny, Tentacles is a quadruple-stereo vibrato with spatio-spectral panning, available for free. That is a lot of interesting words in one sentence! The aptly named plugin splits your signal into four parallel processing chains, each with its own band-pass filtering, saturation, vibrato, and stereo-position controls that can be adjusted separately. It [...]
View post: Sunbunny just released Tentacles, a FREE creative tremolo and spatial effect

Lewitt partner with Elgato Lewitt have teamed up with Elgato to create a new processor for the company’s Wave Next product range, introducing some new capabilities that aim to provide content creators with studio-quality audio.

Sender Spike releases filter.tank, a FREE plugin inspired by the Sherman Filterbank (Windows)
Developer Sender Spike has released filter.tank, a free, modulated dual-filter plugin inspired by the Sherman Filterbank 2, the iconic Belgian analog filter unit from Sherman Audio. It is available as a 64-bit VST plugin for Windows. The Sherman Filterbank is known for its extreme resonance and nonlinear saturation. Many people claim the sound can’t be [...]
View post: Sender Spike releases filter.tank, a FREE plugin inspired by the Sherman Filterbank (Windows)

Candela Audio LitmusLitmus by Candela Audio is an internal plugin host that lives right in your mix chain and acts as an objective second set of ears for every decision you make. Instead of being just an analyzer, Litmus automatically gain‑stages your processing, lets you hear exactly what each plugin is doing, and helps you choose settings and tools based on evidence, not guesswork. Insert Litmus on a track or bus, load your favourite VST3 or AU processors inside it, and mix as normal – compression, EQ, saturation, clipping, whatever you like. Litmus constantly matches loudness in the background using ITU‑R BS.1770‑4 LUFS, so every tweak you make is instantly level‑matched, forcing you to judge tone, punch and clarity instead of being fooled by "louder is better". Whenever you want to zoom in, delta monitoring lets you solo the exact sonic footprint of a plugin or chain – the added harmonics from a saturator, the "air" an EQ boosts, or the transient changes from a compressor – so you can really learn what each tool contributes to your sound. When it's time to commit, blind A/B mode anonymises chains, plugins or dry vs wet, tracks your votes, and reveals the winner only at the end, helping you pick the best‑sounding option without brand or UI bias. Back up your ears with Litmus's built‑in spectral, harmonic, phase and loudness analysis, then collapse it back down and keep mixing – it's designed as an everyday utility that stays in your template, not a one‑off lab tool. Built with automatic latency compensation and crash‑safe scanning, Litmus runs as a VST3 (Win/macOS/Linux) and AU (macOS) effect and hosts your VST3/AU processors inside a single managed chain, with one license covering all formats and platforms. Key features Internal VST3/AU plugin host with up to 8 slots per chain (VST3 on Win/macOS/Linux, AU on macOS). Per‑slot Auto Gain with ITU‑R BS.1770‑4 LUFS matching, three‑phase measurement, and 100 ms smoothed gain. Delta monitoring with wet/dry blend, dedicated delta gain, LUFS/RMS/peak readouts, and latency‑compensated alignment. Blind A/B engine for Chain vs Chain, Plugin vs Plugin, and Dry vs Wet with randomized labels, crossfaded switching, and vote history. Analysis toolkit: 2048‑point FFT spectral comparison, harmonic analyzer (fundamental + 16 harmonics, note + THD%), phase correlation and full loudness metering (momentary, short‑term, integrated LUFS, RMS, peak). Automatic and FFT‑based latency detection, crash‑safe plugin scanning, sidechain support and extensive DAW automation for hosted plugins. Tech specs Formats: VST3 (Win/macOS/Linux), AU (macOS). Hosts: Any VST3‑ or AU‑compatible DAW (effects only; instruments are filtered out). Audio: 32‑bit float, stereo I/O, optional stereo/mono sidechain. OS: Windows 10+, macOS 11+, Ubuntu 22.04+ (x86_64; Apple Silicon and Intel on macOS). Read More

BPB Deal: Get the UnitedPlugins MasterMind mastering plugin for €19 (normally €129)
UnitedPlugins is offering BPB readers an exclusive discount on MasterMind, a mastering channel strip developed by Soundevice Digital. The plugin normally costs €129, but you can get it for €19 by applying the coupon code BPBMM110 at checkout. BPB readers can use this discount until March 28, 2026. MasterMind is basically an all-in-one tool for [...]
View post: BPB Deal: Get the UnitedPlugins MasterMind mastering plugin for €19 (normally €129)

Kobito just released GrabTone, an experimental synth, for FREE for a limited time
GrabTone from Kobito is an experimental synthesizer plugin that lets you turn any sound into a playable instrument with MIDI, and it is free for a limited time. It uses two audio files, A (Shape) and B (Tone), to create a new synthesizer voice. Sound A provides the movement, articulation, and rhythm, while Sound B [...]
View post: Kobito just released GrabTone, an experimental synth, for FREE for a limited time

Diginoiz releases Layer It Lite, a FREE drum layering plugin with one big limitation
Diginoiz has released Layer It Lite, a free version of its Layer It drum layering plugin for Windows and macOS. Layer It is a sampler built specifically for layering drum sounds. It lets you load samples as stacked waveforms and trigger them all with a single MIDI note. You can offset the timing of each [...]
View post: Diginoiz releases Layer It Lite, a FREE drum layering plugin with one big limitation