How transparent is your DAW’s cost model?The DAW market today is easily one of the music tech industry’s most competitive areas. While some of our favourite DAWs are developed by trusted brands for the best part of three decades, many of these companies have changed ownership in this time, with a new strategy and ethos now in place.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a shareholder on the board of a major tech corporation or venture capital firm. There’s probably one question that instantly pushes to the front of your mind: How do we maximise profits? When we compare one music software company to another, there is often a clear distinction between companies that have a “by musicians for musicians” code of ethics, versus those that conduct their business in the more ruthless style we see in the global tech industry.

Editor’s Pick: Best DAWs for producers, songwriters, engineers and DJs right now

But what happens when these distinctions aren’t so clear? We’re asking these questions, and rather than simply pointing the finger at one DAW brand or another, the aim is to open a discussion within the industry that can hopefully lead to musicians making more informed decisions when choosing a DAW or switching from one payment plan to another.
Perpetual Means Forever, Right?
The industry standard of yesterday, Digidesign Pro Tools, first made its perpetual licenses available back in 1989, allowing users to purchase the software once and retain permanent ownership of their copy. While minor updates were usually free, the paid-for updates model remained in place for upgrading from one version to the next.
A key aspect of this costing model that is no longer relevant today is the fact that you couldn’t use Pro Tools without its compatible hardware. Over the years, this remained true for all versions from the TDM era to HD, LE to M-Powered up until 2010, when the Digidesign brand was retired, although Avid Technology had actually acquired the company back in 1995.
What this meant was that throughout the 1990s and beyond, Digidesign, and later Avid, was heavily reliant on the revenue generated from the sales of its hardware, so the financial stability provided by a massive user base of subscribers simply wasn’t needed… yet. Today, its long-term European competitor, Steinberg Cubase, still follows a similar perpetual license model, but there’s a key difference in the costing model.
Credit: Steinberg
Instead of relying on hardware, Steinberg, which has been a Yamaha subsidiary since 2005, uses a rather aggressive paid annual upgrade plan, releasing new versions of Cubase each year that you have to pay for if you want to stay up to date. These annual updates roll out like clockwork, whether the new features and improvements are significant or not. Obviously, if this is your primary DAW, you’re locked in for life, and this “perpetual license” plan is actually just an annual subscription in all but name.
Max Gutnik, Chief Product Officer at Fender: “We rely heavily on direct feedback from our users. Our forums, support channels, beta community, and direct conversations with customers tell us which workflows people depend on and where they’re getting stuck. We also spend a lot of time talking with working musicians, producers, and engineers. We want to understand where people are trying to go and where the software can get out of their way.”
Where’s the Fun in Funnels?
So what is a subscriber funnel, and how do we spot one? Well, in typical tech industry style, it usually starts with an acquisition or a rebrand of a product we may have trusted for years. The immediate red flag is when the price of the perpetual license of a DAW suddenly drops after a company changes hands. This can be confusing, because it can look from the outside as if the brand is simply trying to attract new users.
However, the first twist in the plot is the most telling, and we’ve seen this most recently in the Fender Studio Pro 8.1 Update, which is the first update since the Studio One rebrand. While the price of a perpetual Studio Pro licence is lower, there is a new range of features that are exclusive to Studio Pro+ subscribers. This positions the subscription as the top-tier version of the DAW, while the perpetual Studio Pro licence becomes the middle-of-the-range option.
Credit: Fender
Max Gutnik: “Studio One users are passionate, and after the rebrand they told us very clearly what mattered to them: protect the workflow they love and keep Studio Pro a serious tool for producers and engineers as well as guitar players. Studio Pro remains a cutting-edge professional DAW at its core. We’ll keep investing in the fast, uncluttered workflow people chose Studio One for, while adding intelligent tools that help musicians spend more time making music and less time navigating software.”
The reason it’s called a funnel is that all users of Studio Pro are immediately incentivised to become subscribers in order to unlock the latest and greatest “Pro” features of the software. Of course, this cost model is nothing new, with Avid doing the same thing by incentivising Pro Tools Ultimate subscriptions since 2025, but there is a question of transparency. If we think back to 2022, and the Bitwig user community’s response to Bitwig’s attempt to introduce paid add-ons, you can see why the larger DAW brands often choose to be less transparent when making these shifts.
The resounding positive we can learn from this particular situation as DAW users is that although the Bitwig community is perhaps smaller than Ableton Live’s, for example, it demonstrates the true power of a unified user base, as Bitwig was simply forced to apologize and make the add-on features in question freely available.
Credit: LANDR
Another prime example of a subscriber funnel became obvious when Reason Studios was acquired by LANDR. Once again, the price of perpetual DAW licenses plummeted almost immediately after the company changed hands, while Reason+ subscriptions were further incentivised with the addition of LANDR services such as unlimited AI mastering, global music distribution, stem separation, and a library of three million samples. Although the reshuffle in Reason user tiers did happen with the introduction of Reason+ back in 2021, the acquisition made it clear that Reason was a profitable IP asset, and users were uncertain whether the integrity of the brand would be preserved or not.
Daniel Rowland, Vice President of Strategy & Partnerships at LANDR: “I know there was some anxiety in the community when we (LANDR) acquired the company (Reason Studios) that we’d somehow get rid of perpetual licenses, push everyone toward subscriptions, or get rid of the DAW in favor of just the Rack plugin. Of course, we’ve gone in pretty much the opposite direction, and I think it’s only been a value-add so far, with more coming. I’ve been a Reason user for 25 years. The last thing I’m going to be involved in is disrupting the community or the software that helped birth my career.”
What is the long-term effect of subscription models?
In the short term, the benefits of subscription models for companies and their shareholders are undeniable. They get stable quarterly income with which to make more accurate projections in order to reinvest in product development and take risks in the marketplace that ultimately lead to more growth. However, taking the profit-prioritized approach can have a negative effect on how a brand is seen, or the optics, as companies say.
Furthermore, this can be especially divisive in creative industries where there is a prominent group of users that do not earn income on a monthly basis. The same way that the Adobe CC subscription plans have isolated freelancers and made it difficult for them to stay afloat in the industry, the Pro Tools Ultimate subscription will only appeal to established studios with a high turnover of large projects, like major motion pictures and TV series, while other users are forced to find shelter in other DAW platforms such as Reaper and Logic Pro.
Another result is that there becomes a clear dichotomy within the company over time. For example, a DAW like Reason may contain an array of inspiring instruments and effects, each carefully designed by musicians for musicians. In contrast, the corporate strategy from above that dictates company policies and cost models doesn’t quite align with this philosophy, and this can make users feel uneasy and even start to explore other options.
Rowland: “The philosophy is to respect the history of Reason while tastefully improving and expanding its capabilities; meet people where they are when it comes to pricing and the way they want to access the software; and let the community guide us. An example that ties all of those things together is the concept behind how Reason Free is built, which came directly from a conversation I had with a power user. He asked for the ability to buy individual Reason Rack Extensions to augment what comes with the free version, for people who just wanted to build their own custom rack in lieu of a subscription or even buying a full Reason license. So that’s exactly what we did.”
As we all know, there are plenty of other DAW systems available, and options like FL Studio and Logic Pro offer free updates from one version to the next, and perpetual licenses are not sitting in a lower tier than a subscription plan in their respective cost models. This makes finding other DAWs that suit the way we like to record, produce, and mix music remarkably easy, and there’s no need to feel obligated to continue using a DAW that doesn’t make its user base its main priority.
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Void Enemy releases Plenitude, a FREE synthesizer for macOS and Windows
Void Enemy has released Plenitude, a free virtual analog synthesizer with three oscillators, a modulation matrix, and built-in effects for macOS and Windows. Plenitude started during Covid as Marco’s personal project, mostly out of boredom. His flatmates and university friends joined over time, eventually bringing the team to seven people. The finished instrument arrived on [...]
View post: Void Enemy releases Plenitude, a FREE synthesizer for macOS and Windows

Watch the Haloplane make music by running pickups through magnetic fields Magneto is about to come back to the big screen in Avengers: Doomsday, and if anyone ever wanted to see what it would be like to make music with his magnetic powers, the Haloplane from KOMA Elektronik and Passepartout Duo is the move.
This micro-loop sampler and wavetable synthesizer is powered by an electromagnetic sound field. The UI has seven different options for magnetic fields that users manipulate using electromagnetic pickups.

EDITOR’S PICK: This new app lets you instantly share your favourite parts of your favourite songs with friends

Simply run a sound out of the compact device, move the two pickups around its frame, and hear how the audio changes with every slight motion. Users can rest the pickups on the device to keep the sound stable, or move them near and far in any sort of pattern they want to make more complex sequences.

The Haloplane can work as a performance instrument and send sounds into a DAW. It ingests sounds with a built-in microphone or a line-in for immediate playback with its attached speaker. From there, users can play back the samples and manipulate them in real time to be enjoyed live or rerouted to another destination for recording.
The Haloplane also has built-in wavetables. They can be selected with the same buttons as the electromagnetic fields or through its companion app for clearer specifications around the different parameters at play. The Haloplane has its own Wi-Fi network as well, so it can be used anywhere.
The release of the Haloplane also comes with the Doppeldisk pickup. This larger pickup fattens the sound possibilities for the Haloplane while also serving as an electromagnetic sound source when it’s hooked up to audio outputs for any device.
The Haloplane is currently available on a tiered pre-order system. 30 units will be available for €486; 50 for €505; 100 for €532; 200 for €550. The Doppeldisk runs €65 flat. Both are expected to ship early 2027. Learn more via KOMA Elektronik & Passepartout Duo.
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This new app lets you instantly share your favourite parts of your favourite songs with friendsEvery music fan has had that moment when they show a friend a new song, but it starts slow and they lose interest before the best part arrives. The new short-form music sharing app Drops is the solution to that awkward and deflating interaction.
Its UI lets users search for songs and select their favourite 30-second snippet to share. Users can then pair that clip with artist-approved imagery to give the piece of content some flare, making it into what the app has branded a “drop.” “Drops” is not only the name of the app, but the class of content being shared. It’s akin to “tweets” before Twitter changed its name to X.

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Users can post their drops to their profile like tweets or send them directly to their friends to help them discover new music. They can also follow other users to create a consistent feed of new music recommendations coming from humans rather than relying on algorithms.
“The way we discover music is evolving, but the most meaningful recommendations have always come from people we trust,” says Clare Hunter, General Manager, Drops. “Drops brings that human element to the forefront, giving people a new way to find music through the moments that make a song special and the perspectives of those who share their taste. We see an opportunity to make music discovery more personal, more social and more connected to the way people listen today.”
Major music companies including Universal Music Group, Beggars Group, Symphonic Distribution, EMPIRE and UnitedMasters have licensed their catalog to the platform, for a vast library of recommendable songs.
HARMAN, the audio company that owns such prominent brands as JBL, AKG, Bowers & Wilkins, and Denon, designed Drops.
“So much of music discovery is built to recommend what’s already popular. Drops is built to surface what’s next, and UnitedMasters is built to help artists get there,” says Andrew Migdail, VP, Distribution & Sync Operations, UnitedMasters. “We’re proud to partner with HARMAN to bring this opportunity to our community of independent artists driving culture forward.”
The app is currently available in preview on iOS and Android. For more information, head to Drops.
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Nvidia preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang: WSJNvidia’s board could meet as soon as today to decide Jensen Huang’s future, WSJ reports.

"John Mellencamp: The Songbook" By John Mellencamp(hardcover) $55

Lovingly compiled through a series of handwritten notes and candid photos, John Mellencamp: The Songbook offers a glimpse into blue collar hero Mellencamp’s process, his mindset, even his soul.

Fans, both casual and hardcore, will relish the opportunity to peek behind the curtain at an artist who has felt guarded at times. And this book is very much Mellencamp’s baby, as opposed to an exercise in voyeurism. “For fans, musicians, and collectors alike, this is the essential volume on one of America’s most iconic voices and songwriters,” reads a statement.

The foreword by horror icon Stephen King is the icing on the cake.

The post "John Mellencamp: The Songbook" By John Mellencamp first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Soundyan Hyperstellar FXHyperstellar FX is a spectral freeze effect that turns a moment of any sound into an endless, breathing layer. It always listens to the last few seconds of the input. Press FREEZE and the spectral engine holds the sound as a living tail of partials: no loop point, no clicks, no audible repetition. Up to four freeze layers can play at once, each with its own level, pan and DRIFT, fading in and out on their own. Stack them under the dry signal or let them replace it. The ORBIT sequencer freezes and releases the layers one after another in time with the host: in rounds, as a one-shot build-up, or triggered by your playing. A single phrase grows into a slowly turning harmony. The frozen sound never stands still. The SPECTRAL controls (BEATS, AMP, SPARKLE, SNAP, DARKEN, STRETCH) keep the partials moving, and per-layer filters shape each layer before and after the freeze. The signal then runs through AQUA, an underwater wobble modelled on the water moving inside a waterphone, a tone-shaped delay, a shimmer reverb with its own pitch, voices, band, chorus and climb controls, and a look-ahead limiter. 4 LFOs, 4 drawable envelopes, input level and pitch followers and a mod matrix can modulate any knob, including its range. Every knob can be MIDI-learned from a CC and every FREEZE button from a CC or a note, so the layers can be played from a foot controller or a keyboard. Hyperstellar FX was created by Sławek Janus of Soundyan, a maker of handcrafted waterphones, originally for his own acoustic instruments. It works great on anything that comes into the plugin: guitar, voice, synths, field recordings. Features. - Spectral freeze with phase-locked resynthesis: an endless tail without loop points - 4 freeze layers with LEVEL, PAN, DRIFT, MUTE and SOLO; LAYER or REPLACE mode; adjustable fade - ORBIT freeze sequencer: ROUND, ONE SHOT, TRIGGER, ONSET and NEW NOTE modes, 4 bars to 1/4 at host tempo, dotted values too - SPECTRAL effects on the frozen partials: BEATS, AMP, SPARKLE, SNAP, DARKEN, STRETCH - Per-layer filters before and after each freeze - AQUA underwater effect, delay, shimmer reverb (pitch, voices, band, chorus, climb), look-ahead limiter - 4 LFOs, 4 drawable envelopes, input level and pitch followers, mod matrix, range modulation - MIDI Learn for every knob and FREEZE button; program change loads presets - Saved freezes: keep single layers or whole sets as 24-bit FLAC files and recall them later, on any computer - DAW session modes: frozen layers saved with the project, or FOLLOW DAW for repeatable playback and bounces - 46 factory presets in 6 categories; user categories, favourites, A/B, undo; SPILLOVER or MORPH preset change - COMPACT view with just the four freeze buttons - Mono and stereo; input mode for mono sources on one channel - 5 ms latency (limiter look-ahead), reported to the host. System requirements. macOS 10.13 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel (AU, VST3, Standalone) Windows 64-bit (VST3, Standalone) Internet connection for online activation (offline activation available). Read More

Modular, 3D Printed Train Whistles For EveryoneIf the word “train” didn’t grab your attention, you’re probably not the target audience for this project. If it did, then there is no need to explain why [AeroKoi] has come up with a modular 3″ train whistle, available on Thingiverse and well explained in the video embedded below. It’s a train whistle. Who doesn’t want their own train whistle?
The great part of this design– aside from requiring less air than his earlier, larger-diameter iterations–is the modularity. With adjustable bell caps, you can alter the size of the resonant chamber and thus the notes the whistle plays on the fly. That’s the key difference between a train whistle, as used in the steam era, and a train horn as you find on a modern diesel or electric– whistles use a resonant chamber, while a horn uses a diaphragm to create the vibrations we call sound. By using the movable chamber caps to change the resonance, you can go from a Santa Fe 5 chime to a B&O 3 chime whistle by matching the measurements in the handy-dandy spreadsheet [TrainArtisan] provided– and doubling up on a couple of chimes.
One excellent tip he gives in the video is to grease all the mating surfaces of the whistles with petroleum jelly, but it’s worth watching the whole thing on YouTube for both full build and tuning instructions, and to learn more than you ever thought you needed to know about whistles– he gets right into the physics of sound waves to explain exactly the limitations of trying to replicate the sound of brass steam whistles with plastic and compressed air. If you just want to hear a bunch of train whistles to see how well it works, jump to the ten minute mark. The disappointing part comes later, where he explains the airflow requirements: if you don’t have a compressor with a big tank, you can’t expect more than one short toot at a time.
Interestingly enough it looks like most of the whistles we’ve written about are locomotive-adjacent, including [AeroKoi]’s earlier work, and a true cast-brass replica for the purists. 

Why the data center you dread might never even be builtThe data center boom is running into serious real-world obstacles, from widespread local opposition and permitting delays to a scramble for electricity. Before those challenges even come into play, though, there’s a more basic problem: A lot of the projects being announced may never get built in the first place. With billions of dollars in AI infrastructure […]

‘Public markets are pricing the quarter, not the catalog.’Truist Securities Head of Entertainment Investment Banking, CJ Johnson, on why catalog deals keep stalling, what consolidation does to the market, and where capital is quietly moving beyond publishing...
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Highlights, concerns, and trends from Game Sound Con 2026The annual GameSoundCon celebrated its 18th year in October, welcoming video game composers, sound designers, and other industry professionals to Los Angeles for two days of panels, workshops, and networking.
Major developers such as Valve and Insomniac Games conducted informative sessions, while lauded composers including Inon Zur (Fallout), Garry Schyman (BioShock), and Jesper Kyd (Assassin’s Creed) shared their experience creating iconic themes. There were also plenty of product updates and demonstrations from Unreal Engine, Wwise, and more.
Editor’s pick: Meet the producers releasing albums on retro gaming consoles
MusicTech attended the event to see how music and audio are growing alongside the video game market, which is now worth over $200 billion.
The concern: AI
AI was discussed in depth at GameSoundCon, and, like everyone else, the game audio industry is still finding its feet.
Roc Lee, senior sound designer at Clean Cuts Interactive, led a comprehensive session entitled ‘A Frank Discussion About AI for Sound Designers: Different Work, Not Less Work.’
In 30 minutes, he discussed similar points throughout history, detailing fears about new technology and how those fears played out. One example is Socrates’ fears that writing would disempower memory, but we know he said that because Plato wrote it down. Another example was when 22,000 theatre musicians lost their jobs after movies got their own soundtracks. But that created recording jobs for those same musicians, not to mention sound design work for films.
Lee also shared his own experiences, which were equally dichotomous. He admitted he was “afraid” of being left behind by AI, so he used it to build several tools himself. They included applications for running sound and music cues live, a REAPER similarity search, and some audio plugins. In that process, he found that AI made him feel more creative.
Malleant at Game Sound Con. Image: Game Sound Con
On the recorded music side, a primary concern at the moment is royalties. How are artists going to be paid for their work as major labels sign licensing deals with billion-dollar generative AI companies and use their catalogues to train generative AI? According to Lee, games didn’t have the same types of concerns just yet.
“Games have always been the Wild West,” he told me after his presentation was over. The key difference between recorded music and game composition is scale. One text-based prompt can make a pop song, but gaming soundtracks can require as much as five hours of music, with pieces that adhere to different scenarios. Some tracks loop in sections as players explore; others are triggered by certain actions. Even if someone wanted to use generative AI to create an entire game score, it would have to be fine-tuned and double-checked significantly, leading, once again, to different work — not less work.
“Game composers are some of the most vocal against generative AI, but the market is bifurcated,” Lee says. “You have AAA people who don’t want AI to make games at all. But there is a whole culture of people wanting to make indie games or hobbyists making AI games, and they don’t care.”
For a look inside how a AAA studio is thinking about AI, members of Valve’s audio team presented a similar thought process. They already had everything they needed to make what are widely considered some of the greatest games of all time. So, AI is not necessary, but they don’t want to hold anything back when it comes to innovation.
“We have never been the best because we get shit done fast,” says Mike Morasky, lead composer, musician, and technical director at Valve.
The trend: The flatter, the better
Two of Valve’s presentations were essentially open Q&As about what it’s like to work at the company. During both, Morasky emphasised the company’s flat structure, which is best explained by the headline of the “People” section on their website: “Boss-free since 1996.”
Technically, everyone has an equal say at Valve. The culture of seniority comes into play, but all ideas are welcome, and all teams overlap. Morasky mentioned that the audio team could also be part of the level design process, or some other aspect of the game’s creation.
Overall, this comes down to removing friction to get complete a given task in the creation of a video game. All throughout Game Sound Con, different presentations and products centred on this idea.
Left to right: Richard Ludlow, Garry Schyman, Ludvig Forssell, Wilbert Roget II. Image: Game Sound Con
ZW Buckley, who has composed for Keyword 2: Nightfall and designed sounds for Minecraft, gave a presentation about composing adaptive music in DAWs rather than standard middleware. When he inquired, “How many composers would never touch middleware again if they didn’t have to?” numerous hands shot up.
Middleware is addressing this dynamic as well. Wwise had a very strong presence at Game Sound Con that included a dedicated conference room as well as a booth on the product floor where Mike Drummelsmith, head of licensing at Audiokinetic (Wwise’s parent company), talked about the new features they were advertising:
“The biggest ones are a reorientation of the differences between sound and music,” Drummelsmith says. “For years we’ve had a sound system and a music system, and they were separated for good reasons, but they also had unique feature sets for themselves. That led ot a lot of teams doing sound stuff in the music system because they could get timing and rhythm. Now we’re bringing music features to sound and sound features to music. It’ll make it so teams don’t have to do the workaround.”
The Unreal Engine team had a booth across the floor from Wwise, where they were promoting their product’s ability to create music without middleware. It wasn’t new, but it was gaining more attention.
“It has a lot of benefits to how you work on a larger team with a lot of different disciplines all together on the same project,” says Seth Weedin, director of technical audio at Epic Games (Epic Games is Unreal Engine’s parent company). “Boundaries between disciplines are getting blurrier and blurrier. Everybody’s encouraged to experiment. Having it all in one spot makes that easier.”
Left to right: Rob Pearsall, Michael Salvatori, Lauren Brake, Brendon Williams, Ed Lima. Image: Game Sound Con
Interesting Insights:
Here are some tidbits of knowledge the speakers shared that current and prospective game sound workers can take into account.
Battlefield 6 still used 24 bit recording alongside 32-bit for all the practical recordings of weapons and vehicles. Jeff Wilson, studio audio director at EA Ripple Effect Studios, called 24-bit a “lost art form,” as he works with younger professionals. But there is an interesting perspective on this idea regarding genre. Recording quality has character to it. Perhaps a war game that takes place in WWII or a fantasy RPG would make more sense to use 24-bit to create a more historic feeling, while 32-bit is ideal for the next futuristic thriller.
Andrew Powell, a lecturer in music theory and skills at Auburn University, gave a fascinating presentation on how music is adapted for remakes, noting that when Ballistic Moon commissioned a completely new score for the 2024 remake of Until Dawn, the fans revolted and the game was a commercial failure. Powell compared this to the remake of Star Fox 64 that came out for Nintendo Switch 2 earlier this year. Polygon called the music the “best thing” about it, but the score was largely identical to the Nintendo 64 version except it was re-recorded with a full orchestra at Abbey Road.
The biggest change was during the game’s finale. Instead of using the action-packed music from the original, the remake swapped it for something more haunting and cinematic. The fans noticed, and debated the efficacy.
In short, fans are just as connected to the music as any other element in a game.
Video games are not immune to shifts in the broader audio and music markets. But as technology aims to simplify, there is still much room for people to exercise their creativity and expertise to the benefit of the player experience. Because players still notice and care.
Learn more at gamesoundcon.com
Keep reading

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The post Highlights, concerns, and trends from Game Sound Con 2026 appeared first on MusicTech.

AlphaTheta’s newest four-channel mixer comes as a budget answer to the DJM-A9Here at MusicTech, we love the DJM-A9. Thankfully, AlphaTheta does too – and that’s why the brand’s latest four-channel mixer, the DJM-A7, is cut from the same cloth as its beloved sibling. Harnessing the same usability as the DJM-A9, the DJM-A7 aims to take the pressure out of your sets. From supporting a wide range of software to pain-free sound tuning, this mixer is adaptable, perfectly suited to grimy basement raves or the swankiest of bars – letting you focus on the joy of DJing.
AlphaTheta’s key focus with the DJM-A7 is providing versatility on a budget, without compromising on sound quality. This four-channel mixer is compatible with a range of DJ software and devices, making it simple to hook up and play without too much hassle.

EDITOR’S PICK: Here are the new plugin releases you need to know about this week, free and paid

In terms of connectivity, the mixer features 2 USB Type-C ports for your laptop or mobile phone – meaning you can instantly plug in your tunes if your set is quickly approaching. As for compatible software, the DJM-A7 is compatible with rekordbox for Mac/Windows, djay Pro for Mac/Windows, djay for iOS, and Serato DJ Pro.
Credit: AlphaTheta
Of course, there’s also the nightmare of adjusting your sound to a venue space room. Thankfully, Master Texture has you covered; the new feature allows DJs to easily analyse the acoustics of the room without hassling a sound engineer. This makes it easier than every to tune the mixer’s sound to suit the environment. As well as this, the DJM-A7 also features the same neutral tuning that defined the DJM-A9, meaning it can deliver a perfectly balanced sound across a plethora of genres.

The mixer also features the same 45 mm channel faders as the DJM-A9, as well as a slew of features like the Soft Mix Curve fader mode to help muster smoother mixes. There’s also a handful of effects, like Sound Colour FX and Beat FX, to spice up your sets. New features include the Split Filter, which essentially shapes your midrange without disturbing the flow of your track.
In terms of monitoring, the DJM-A7 also comes with built-in SonicLink, which essentially allows you to monitor your track wirelessly without fear of latency impacting your track. When connected to PRO DJ LINK- compatible multi players, the DJM-A7 also supports Link Cue. This allows you to hop around and listen to an unloaded track through your headphones. It’s a way of fine-tuning your set privately, without interrupting the experience for your audience.
The DJM-A7 costs around £1,369. For more information, head to AlphaTheta.
The post AlphaTheta’s newest four-channel mixer comes as a budget answer to the DJM-A9 appeared first on MusicTech.

Reasonable Audio releases Preamble, a FREE preamp distortion plugin
Reasonable Audio has released Preamble, a free preamp distortion plugin for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Preamble emulates a bucket-brigade delay pedal’s input stage, without the delay itself. The developer hasn’t named the emulated hardware model, but I guess the idea is to capture the preamp coloration that guitarists typically use before an amp, with enough [...]
View post: Reasonable Audio releases Preamble, a FREE preamp distortion plugin

Sunfish Software releases FANDUST, a FREE lo-fi plugin with a Windows 98 GUI
Sunfish Software has released FANDUST, a free lo-fi effect for slowing down, detuning, and wearing out audio on macOS, Windows, and Linux. I’m a sucker for anything with a vintage Windows GUI, and FANDUST goes all in on the Windows 98 look. It has the gray panels, blue title bar, old-school sliders, and I know [...]
View post: Sunfish Software releases FANDUST, a FREE lo-fi plugin with a Windows 98 GUI

Modbap release Wax Theory The second member of Modbap's all-new plug-in family has now arrived, and this time around, the company have drawn their inspiration from vinyl records.