SOUNDRAW launches “Beat the Future” contest with $2,500 in prizes and free access
SOUNDRAW has launched Beat the Future, a global beatmaking contest with a $2,500 prize pool and a free trial for its AI-powered music creation platform. The Tokyo-based developer describes SOUNDRAW as an ethical, artist-first AI music generator, built entirely on original, in-house content. There’s no scraped data. With this contest, they’re inviting beatmakers, vocalists, and [...]
View post: SOUNDRAW launches “Beat the Future” contest with $2,500 in prizes and free access

You can get 90% off the entire Sonnox catalogue right now at Plugin BoutiqueDid somebody say new plugins? We producers all know that you can never have too many, and right now Plugin Boutique is hosting a big sale on Sonnox plugins, with up to 90% off the brand’s entire catalogue.
Yep, the British brand’s entire catalogue is now massively discounted, but here are some of our favourites.
Check out the Oxford Inflator – often regarded as a “secret weapon” for mixing and mastering engineers – now priced at only £14 down from £138. Able to deliver instant sonic enhancement to your mixes when conventional compression and EQ just aren’t cutting it, the Oxford Inflator is a worthy addition to any producer’s arsenal. And for only £14, you’d be crazy not to, quite frankly.
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While you’re at it, why not grab the Oxford Limiter, which allows you to effortlessly grant your masters top-notch loudness, dynamics, density and presence. Plugin Boutique says this is the Oxford Limiter’s “lowest price ever”, at just £23, down from £234.
“You’ve worked hard to perfect the dynamics of your track – the thump of the kick, the snap of the snare, the space and depth in the mix. The last thing you want is to crush the life out of it at the final stage. With the Oxford Limiter, you don’t have to choose between loudness and life,” says Plugin Boutique.
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But perhaps the best deal of the lot is Sonnox’s Essential Plugin Bundle, which comprises four classic Sonnox plugins – Oxford EQ, Oxford Dynamics, Oxford Reverb and Oxford SuprEsser. This bundle is usually priced at £684.60, but you can get it for just £68 right now. That’s a massive 90% off, or £616.60 straight back in your pocket.
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These deals – along with everything else in Plugin Boutique’s Sonnox sale – are available until 30 August, 2025. But don’t wait around, your best mix ever could be one purchase away.
For more information, head to Plugin Boutique.
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Get the Lifeline Lite Bundle FREE at Plugin Boutique (Limited Time Offer)
Excite Audio has recently released the Lifeline Lite Bundle, which includes a pair of creative multi-effect plugins: Lifeline Console Lite and Lifeline Expanse Lite. You can get the bundle for free for a limited time at Plugin Boutique. We recently featured the Lifeline Format Multiband Bitcrusher, which is also free on Plugin Boutique (when you register a [...]
View post: Get the Lifeline Lite Bundle FREE at Plugin Boutique (Limited Time Offer)

Ryu Yabana releases Taped Drum Kits, a FREE analog drum sample pack
Ryu Yabana has released Taped Drum Kits, a free collection of analog drum samples processed through cassette tape. It’s been a while since we’ve covered a simple WAV drum pack on BPB, but this one grabbed my attention right away. I’m a massive fan of retro drums and cassette tape saturation, so any combination of [...]
View post: Ryu Yabana releases Taped Drum Kits, a FREE analog drum sample pack

AI and blockchain are already disrupting legacy education systemProjects across multiple educational sectors are leveraging AI and blockchain to provide more accessible alternatives to students.

Designing an Open Source Multimeter: the HydraMeterOur hacker [John Duffy] wrote in to let us know about a video he put together to explain the design of his open-source multimeter, the HydraMeter.
If you’re interested in how the circuitry for a voltmeter, ohmmeter, or ammeter might work, this video is a masterclass. In this long and detailed video, [John] walks us through his solutions to various challenges he had while designing his own multimeter. We covered this multimeter last year, and this new video elaborates on the design of the HydraMeter which has been a work in progress for years now.

The basic design feeds voltage, current, and resistance front-ends into an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC), which then feeds into a microcontroller and out to the (detachable) display. You can find the KiCad design files on the GitHub page. There is also a write-up on hackaday.io.
The user interface for the meter is… opinionated, and perhaps not to everyone’s taste. In the video, [John] talks a little bit about why he made the UI work the way that it does, and he noted that adding a rotary range switch is a goal for version 2.0.
The case is 3D printed and [John] had glowing things to say about his Bambu printer. He also had glowing things to say about D-sub connectors, but he did not have glowing things to say about Solid Edge, the CAD software he used to design the case.
Thank you, [John], for putting this video together; it is an excellent resource. We look forward to seeing version 2.0 develop soon!

Former Tesla president discloses the secret to scaling a company“We scaled Tesla in 30 months from $2 billion in revenue to $20 billion in revenue,” said Jon McNeil, who is now co-founder and CEO of DVx Ventures.

Fors Pivot-LitePivot-Lite is an FM synthesizer and is the smaller free version of Pivot with two operators, one morphing filter and zero cash. It's a great way to dip your toes into FM synthesis with its simple structure but still almost all the bells and whistles from its bigger sibling. Pivot-Lite has all the features from Pivot including MPE/Note Expressions/MTS-ESP support, the morphing 4-pole filter, distortion and widening effect but has one less operator and no mod matrix. Sounds made in the Lite version can be loaded into Pivot as well. Together they form the perfect pair for FM exploration and we think you'll find yourself reaching for one or the other depending on the occasion. https://youtu.be/dvY0DXM2FZc Read More

Bridge Guitar from The Crow Hill Company Inspired by a technique pioneered by LA luthier Rueben Cox, Bridge Guitar aims to offer something a little different from your average guitar library. 

Microsoft says it will no longer use engineers in China for Department of Defense workFollowing a Pro Publica report that Microsoft was using engineers in China to help maintain cloud computing systems for the U.S. Department of Defense, the company said it’s made changes to ensure this will no longer happen.

PicoGUS adds CD-ROM Emulation to ISA BusEverything fails eventually, but moving parts fail fastest of all– and optical drives seemingly more than others, at least in our experience. Even when they work, vintage drives often have trouble with CD-R, and original media isn’t always easy to find. That’s why it’s so wonderful that [polpo]’s RP2040 ISA card, the PicoGUS 2.0, now supports CD-ROM emulation.
We covered PicoGUS when it first appeared as an ISA sound card,  and make no mistake, it can still emulate sound cards for retro-PC beeps and boops. It’s not just the Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) from which the project took its name, but Sound Blaster 2.0, MPU-401 for MIDI, Tandy 3-voice, and CMS/GameBlaster are all soft options. Like most sound cards back in the day, PicoGUS provides game port support as well.

We don’t recall sound cards that served as CD-ROM controllers, but apparently, that was a thing before IDE became the standard for optical drives. We do recall old CD-ROM drives that shipped with proprietary driver boards, and PicoGUS emulates Panasonic’s MKS standard, which apparently did show up on some sound cards. For the end-user, that doesn’t matter much: once it’s all set up using the open-source utilities (and appropriate drivers), you’ll have an optical drive sitting at D:.
There’s a USB port on the PicoGUS that lets you use a FAT32 formatted USB stick not as a CD drive, but a CD changer. You can access multiple disk images from the drive, selecting them with the utility software. There’s even a feature that lets you automatically advance to the next disk by removing and reinserting the drive, which is invaluable for multi-CD game installers. It’s not super speedy: in USB mode, expect it to run as fast as a 4x drive. (2x if the PicoGUS is emulating a Sound Blaster at the same time.) Considering that’s all with a single RP2040 in charge, it’s pretty fast. For a DOS box, it’s probably period appropriate, too.
The Almighty Algorithm reminded us about PicoGUS in a video by [vswitchero], which is embedded below for those of you who would like more information in the form of rapidly flickering images and sound.

Macro drivers will dampen Bitcoin’s halving cycle — Tim DraperThe decline of the US dollar and the loss of purchasing power due to fiat currency inflation will drive global demand for Bitcoin.

Aqeel Aadam Sound Weeping WallA zen garden of responsive sound. Weeping Wall will listen to what you have to say, and chatter back words and phrases that it learns - a morphing ambient bed that reflects recency, with an organic feel at its heart. Weeping Wall is a set of microloopers that automatically record based on input detection. Each new sound will be smoothly introduced and replace older sounds, resulting in a group of sounds that always reflect the most recent input. Each looper behaves independently - their size can vary and they will beat against each other as they phase. Up to 5 loopers are available to record into, with repitching and reverse controls as well. A dedicated "jitter" control allows you to randomly vary the size of each looper on each loop, creating variations that will never be heard again. Weeping Wall can be used as an effect directly on a track, or as a send effect. Weeping Wall is intended to be a modular tool; it doesn't include reverb, EQ, saturation, flutter, etc., but it plays extremely well with them. Weeping Wall is a brand new effect that can be used in any number of creative ways - you can place it fully wet in front of a reverb, place a hint of it behind a saturator, combine it with your favorite pitch modulation - whatever you can dream. Weeping Wall is fully compatible with automation and modulators such as Ableton CV to broaden the horizons even further. Manual. One week free trial available for desktop. Features: Weeping Wall has the following controls available: Threshold: The volume at which input will start recording into a looper. Looper size: The size of loopers, in seconds, from 0.1s to 3s. Jitter: A control for desynchronizing loops. Loops will be randomly shortened, and each one is free to change size independent of one another. Semitones: Repitch loops, with a range of +/- one octave. Reverse: A latching control to reverse looper playback. Looper number: Up to five loopers are available. Decay rate: How long loops will be held before fading away, from seconds to forever. This essentially controls whether WW functions more as a looper or as a delay. Independent dry and wet volumes: Use Weeping Wall as an effect directly on your track, or as a send effect. Macro mode: Loops can optionally extend up to 60 seconds in length. Beat syncing: Sync your loops to any division of your tempo, from 1 bar to 64th notes. Pause/stop loops automatically: Loops can be paused or destroyed when your DAW is paused. Crossfade length: Change the length of the crossfade that occurs at the start/end of each loop. This can preserve initial transients and "blur" sounds into ambient bliss. Fade time: Change how long loopers take to fade in/out, from almost instant to 5 seconds. Quantizing: Loop pitch can be restricted to octaves or octaves+fifths for coherent playback while automating/modulating. Read More

Last week’s Top Music Business NewsHere's what you missed in music business news last week, from YouTube cracking down on AI, to a big indie artist and producer win with the HITS Act, and more...
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Independent Musician News Last WeekTired of Spotify? Having trouble marketing music? Here's independent musician news last week plus the latest top guides, tools and tips.
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