Sontronics acquired by 2B Heard Limited with “new ideas in the pipeline”British microphone brand Sontronics has been acquired by audio solutions company 2B Heard Limited, and is said to be heading into a “new era”.
The acquisition comes 20 years after Sontronics was launched back in 2004 by engineer and microphone designer Trevor Coley along with his wife and co-owner, Lisa. The brand is known to be used at Abbey Road Studios, and supporters include artists such as Ed Sheeran.

READ MORE: Universal Audio’s SC-1 and Hemisphere eight-mics-in-one are tempting additions to any studio’s mic collection

According to a press release, Sontronics will continue to operate from its HQ in Poole, UK, where the existing team “hand-build hundreds of microphones every month”. Its original founders will remain closely linked to the brand, representing it at events, having input to new product R&D, and nurturing key relationships with international distributors and VIP clients.
2B Heard is best known for its premium audio installations for corporate, hospitality, house of worship and high-end residential clients. It also assists in arranging tours and providing cabling solutions via its associated businesses, 2B Toured and 2B Wired.
“Following years of amazing growth and exciting achievements, Lisa and I felt the time was right for Sontronics to fulfil its potential through the fresh vision of new owners,” states Trevor Coley. “After 30 years in the music industry and 20 years building the brand and team to where they are today, I wanted to find the right people who would show Sontronics the same love that we have at the same time as pushing it forward and expanding its reach.
“The team at 2B Heard are hugely respectful of what we’ve achieved and also understand what the brand represents to its loyal users, and I’m confident that through their skills and knowledge they will reach new markets and carry the brand into the future.”
2B Heard Director, Sam Nankivell, adds, “We are delighted to take over the helm at Sontronics, and we’re looking forward to building upon the firm foundations that Trevor and Lisa have established.
“I have admired Sontronics from afar for many years and I’m very proud to be welcoming this incredibly well respected brand, its beautifully designed microphones and its skilful team into our fold. Thanks to its solid range of products and plenty of new ideas in the pipeline, the future is looking very bright for Sontronics!”
Find out more about Sontronics and 2B Heard.
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Dtronics DT-303 is an FX box built to beef up 303 basslinesBig, dirty, stinking bass – Dtronics have got the answer for all you bassline junkies out there.
Tailor made for the Roland TB-303 and Dinsync RE 303, the new Dtronics DT-303 is a distortion FX box designed with aggressive, dirty basslines in mind.

READ MORE: Native Instruments’ FM8 and Massive 8 are available from £10 for a limited time

While the 303’s charged, chaotic sound is a favourite within the electronic music scene, the addition of a distortion or overdrive pedal is often the trick that kicks its up a notch. With a hint of distortion, the 303 is able to veer into even more wild realms – and the Dtronics DT-303 hopes to be the crème de la crème of 303 distortion, the pedal allowing users to capture the beefiest basslines possible.
Tiny but deadly, the small pedal consists of three knobs that will hyper-charge and distort the 303’s sound, allowing you to fine-tune the level of distortion, filter and volume.
Four separate buttons are also on the pedal, allowing users to easily switch back and forth between different types of distortion. It consists of three distinct distortion types: classic, turbo, and overdrive, as well as a bypass button allowing you to return to the original 303 sound at the flick of a switch.
The pedal has a 3.5mm input and output connection, as well as a 9V power supply input.
If you’re looking to beef out your basslines, then the Dtronics DT-303 may very well be answer. The project will launch on Kickstarter on 24 January, though the price is yet to be revealed.

The post Dtronics DT-303 is an FX box built to beef up 303 basslines appeared first on MusicTech.

Moog Mariana isn’t your typical Moog synth plugin — but we love its modern soundWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. For more information on how this works, see our terms of use.
$99 (Mac/PC), $29.99 (iOS), available at pluginboutique.com
Although best known for its legacy of exceptional hardware synths, Moog has also released a string of stellar software instruments in recent years. Alongside recreating some classics in plugin form, it’s invented original apps such as the Animoog wavetable instrument.
The Asheville brands’ latest plugin is a bass-focused synth that takes cues from the company’s Minimoog, Minitaur and Sub 37 hardware but is completely new — something with a more modern and aggressive sound. Despite a few issues with editing and high CPU usage, it’s a decent-sounding synth with nods to both the past and the future.

What is Moog Mariana?
Mariana is essentially two identical synths in one plugin, which allows you to create rich-sounding, layered mono patches or play two notes in duophonic mode. You can download it on iOS or for desktop in a range of formats.

Each synth has two main oscillators that share a single waveshape selection dial, alongside controls to adjust the phase, pulse width, tuning, and glide, plus Key Reset and Hard Sync buttons.
Unlike the more familiar Minimoog controls, you’re limited with how you pitch each oscillator, as the second can only run in unison, or plus one or two octaves. As we’ll come to see though, this is part of several limitations that both help and hinder Mariana as a sound design tool.
The oscillators sound rich and bright but surprisingly lack some of the low weight that Moog synths are renowned for. Thankfully, this is made up for by a dedicated sub-oscillator with three waveshapes, which can be unlinked from the main oscillator’s pitch should you so desire.
There’s also a flexible noise oscillator that lets you blend between red, pink, white, blue and purple types, a mixer to control all the levels, and a Spread dial that pans each of the main oscillators left and right for a wider sound.
Moog Mariana Main GUI
Moog Mariana’s filter section has no Ladders
Next up is Mariana’s filter section, which is perhaps one of its most interesting features.
This isn’t a traditional Moog Ladder filter. It has similar characteristics, but the resonance is a little more aggressive and pronounced with no low-end reduction when it’s turned up. The routing takes a little getting used to, but is surprisingly flexible.
Oscillators 1, 2, and Noise get routed through low-pass and high-pass filters, which you can run in series or parallel. You also have the option to just use the low-pass for the oscillators, and the high-pass for the noise. We find this particularly useful when building a weighty subbass that makes use of high-passed noise to give the feeling of a distorted sizzle.
The sub-oscillator has a dedicated filter that can be switched between low-pass, band-pass and high-pass with an envelope amount dial. When combined with Sub’s 3 waveshapes, this lets you craft your low-end independently of the main oscillators, keeping it clean and strong.
Moog Mariana CV
There’s also a unique Osc Crossover dial, which works by simultaneously rolling off the high-end for the sub, and the low-end for the other oscillators. You just have to set the crossover with the dial, and the result is much cleaner. You may want to add a touch of saturation to bring the volume and beef back up, though.
Moog Mariana’s user interface
Mariana’s user interface has a satisfying hardware look that mirrors Moog’s Sub 37 synth, with dark panels, large dials and yellow buttons.
You can edit sounds by switching between a Synth page for the oscillators and filters, and a CNTRL page for the modulation, both of which are doubled-up for Synth 2. There’s also an Output page (more on that later) and modulation tabs on the sides that can be switched on and off.
Moog Mariana CNTRL Modulation Page
Everything is crisp, clear and easy to see, but it’s obvious that this synth has been made with a consideration of iPad usability. With that in mind, it can be a little cumbersome to jump back and forth between the synth and modulation pages when programming the desktop version.
Modulation in the Mariana
Speaking of modulation, Mariana includes three LFOs, filter and amplifier envelopes, an ADHSR mod envelope, and two random generators with sample and hold, noise and Perlin modes. This gives you plenty of flexibility — especially as you essentially have it twice, as you can use Synth 2’s mod page to control Synth 1.
You can add modulation by opening the mod tab. You then get a long list of sources alongside the ability to add a modifier or a function to further shape the results. The workflow isn’t smooth, but it’s incredibly versatile, and using one mod on another means you can build extremely complex, moving patches.
However, given that you have two synths here, it would’ve been useful to have a few macro controls to easily tweak both layers at once, or the ability to link specific controls between each synth.
The CV section further expands editing options. You can choose any mod source and send them out via one of eight possible, virtual CV slots. These signals can then be received by another instance of Mariana, or by any of Moog’s Moogerfooger effects plugins. This opens up vast realms of sound design — you could have several different synths moving to the same LFOs, or you could modulate an entire effects chain to move with your patch.

Maximum output
Mariana sounds pretty huge anyway but the icing on the cake is the Output page. Here, you can control the volume and panning and add three flavours of saturation to each synth layer.
There’s also a compressor with optional FET mode to help round-off your sounds (there also seems to be a built-in limiter that stops overload, which is a nice touch). Another useful feature is a correlation meter to help maintain mono compatibility while building patches.
Moog Mariana Modulation Editing
A design choice we dislike is the optional delay effect on Synth 1 and a chorus effect on Synth 2. Though these are both great at adding additional character, having them hardwired to only Synth 1 or 2 can make it tricky to get cohesion with certain sounds. Sure, it’s a limitation that gives the synth a certain uniqueness, but it would be far better to offer some more flexible routing.
There are over 200 presets that show off the synth’s versatility at cinematic drones, glistening arps, retro sound effects and drums, alongside more traditional basses. Happily, the preset page is intuitive, with useful search and tagging features.
Moog Mariana’s CPU usage
We wanted to check Mariana’s CPU usage on an old 2017 MacBook Pro, but it wouldn’t even load into Logic Pro as it was running OSX 10.10 and it requires 10.11 (Big Sur) or newer.
On our M1 Mac Studio, a single instance uses around 40-50% of one core, which is fairly substantial when you consider u-he’s Diva on Devine mode is closer to 25-30%. However, patches in Mariana often have quite a big sound that can easily fill a mix, so you may not want to run lots of instances.
The CPU load doesn’t change when you add Synth 2 into the mix or switch on the saturation and effects, so it’s running at full capacity the whole time. Moog should have considered a lower-quality mode that switches to high-quality when rendering; perhaps one for a future update?
Moog Mariana Output Page
Should you buy Moog Mariana?
Mariana might not be exactly what you expect from Moog. It leans towards a slightly brighter and more aggressive sound than the more familiar Moog warmth. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, as there are plenty of authentic sounding Minimoog emulations already out there, so it’s nice that Moog has built a synth with that desirable Moog flavour with a slightly different, contemporary sound.
The high CPU usage may be a deal breaker for some, as will certain limitations in the design. However, you could argue that this makes it more like a hardware synth, where those kinds of limitations can actually help with faster sound design and focused creativity.
Key features

Monophonic/duophonic bass synthesiser
VST3, AU, AAX plug-ins, plus iPad and standalone versions
2 synth layers with 2 oscillators, 1 sub-oscillator and noise
Flexible low pass and high pass filters
Dedicated filter for the sub-oscillator
Deep modulation system plus MIDI and MPE
3 LFOs, amplifier, filter and modulation envelopes, plus 2 random generators
Virtual CV to send signals to other instances of Mariana or Moogerfooger plugins
Output section with tube, tape and overdrive saturation
Compressor with FET mode
Real time output and correlation metering
Analogue delay and chorus effects
Resizable user interface

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Neural DSP release Archetype: Gojira X The latest version of Archetype: Gojira introduces some useful functionality updates, and paves the way for compatibility with Neural DSP's Quad Cortex hardware system.

Microsoft launches a Pro plan for CopilotMicrosoft evidently envisions Copilot, the umbrella brand for its portfolio of AI-powered, content-generating technologies, becoming a significant future revenue line-item. And that’s perhaps not far off base; according to the company, more than 40% of the Fortune 100 participated in its Copilot early access program. But given the enormous cost of running GenAI models in […]
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Ditto Music Surveys Indie Artists on Releasing VinylGlobal music distribution company Ditto Music has discovered that only 12.8% of independent musicians have released their music on vinyl, despite UK vinyl sales reaching their highest level since 1990.

Ditto’s survey of 1,000 independent artists found that the main reason for artists not releasing vinyl was that production costs were too high (54.4%). Other factors included fan bases not being interested in vinyl products (28.7%) and production times being too long (9.9%).

Key results of the survey can be seen in the graph below:

dittomusic.com

Variety Of Sound Releases FREE epicCLOUDS Ambient Reverb
Variety of Sound released epicCLOUDS, a freeware ambient reverb plugin for Windows. epicCLOUDS can generate soft ambient reverb textures while maintaining signal clarity. It achieves a rich ambient reverb effect without succumbing to common issues such as signal masking. The launch of a new plugin from Variety of Sound is always cause for celebration. The [...]
View post: Variety Of Sound Releases FREE epicCLOUDS Ambient Reverb

Someone sold Thomas Bangalter a Daft Punk ticket in London not knowing who he was — Bangalter went anywayDaft Punk‘s Thomas Bangalter was a faceless robot for decades alongside his musical partner Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. So faceless, in fact, that someone tried to sell him tickets to his own show, he’s now revealed. The best part? He paid for the ticket and went anyway.
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Speaking to French TV channel, Brut, the former silver-helmeted Daft Punk member says that the duo’s anonymity was often advantageous, but sometimes had bizarre consequences.
“This anonymity and creation of these characters allowed for protection and seclusion,” Bangalter remembers. “[It] was practical but also created a certain distance. There were amusing situations, like in London, where someone tried to sell me a ticket to my own show while I was out getting a sandwich. I thought it would be funny, so I bought the ticket, went to the venue, and waited.”
Speaking more on the choice to remain anonymous, Bangalter adds: “There’s a lot of randomness and chance involved, and it’s also a connection with the audience, even if there’s some distance due to the robot concept, which was a metaphor for the role of technology between utopia and dystopia. It was a constant back-and-forth, allowing us to have fun and express things.”

On the decision to recently make himself more in the public eye in light of new projects, Bangalter says: “At some point, it seemed pretentious to continue staying anonymous. I found myself in situations where people apologised for not having photos to ensure I wouldn’t be disturbed. I wasn’t seeking attention, but the anonymity started to attract more attention than it removed.”
In 2023, Bangalter explained why Daft Punk came to an end. “It’s a lot like a story or mini-saga. Sometimes there’s a TV show that has a special place in people’s hearts and it keeps that place, and it runs for one, two, three, four, five, sometimes 10 seasons.
“When you’re 25, you don’t say ‘You know what, we’re just going to build robot masks and dress up like robots until the day we die.’”
Read more Daft Punk-related news via MusicTech.
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Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter says anonymity led to “a kind of isolation which isn’t pleasant”Thomas Bangalter, a former member of Daft Punk, has spoken out about the anonymity provided by wearing the duo’s iconic robot helmets.

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Speaking to French news channel Brut, Bangalter highlights the advantages, disadvantages and funny scenarios that occurred from wearing the helmets. At one point, for example, he recalls a time someone sold him a ticket to his own show, not realising it was one half of Daft Punk himself.
“This anonymity and creation of these characters allowed for protection and seclusion,” Bangalter says, “which was practical but also created a certain distance. There were amusing situations, like in London, where someone tried to sell me a ticket to my own show while I was out getting a sandwich. I thought it would be funny, so I bought the ticket, went to the venue, and waited.
“When we created these robot characters, it seemed to become part of performance art, playing between fiction and reality. Anonymity could approach both humility and, like comic book heroes, a bit of schizophrenia between the alter ego and human side.
“Yes, I think there’s a lot of randomness and chance involved, and it’s also a connection with the audience, even if there’s some distance due to the robot concept, which was a metaphor for the role of technology between utopia and dystopia. It was a constant back-and-forth, allowing us to have fun and express things.

Later in the interview, Bangalter, who released a solo album called Mythologies in April 2023 following the duo’s breakup in 2021, addresses what it’s been like to drop this anonymity.
“What’s interesting is that anonymity initially stems from a desire for discretion and a lot of humility”, he says. “At some point, it seemed pretentious to continue staying anonymous, and I found myself in situations where people apologised for not having photos to ensure I wouldn’t be disturbed. I wasn’t seeking attention, but the anonymity started to attract more attention than it removed.
“So, after hiding for 20 years, the message about intentions and freedom has been conveyed. It was just an artistic gesture, and anonymity was crucial during the existence of these characters, creating an oscillation between reality and fiction. It protected me, but it could also lead to a kind of isolation, which isn’t particularly pleasant. I did consider it, but ultimately, I realised it wasn’t at the centre of my concerns.”
Read more Daft Punk-related news via MusicTech.
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Sontronics acquired by 2B Heard Limited Sontronics have announced that they have been acquired by 2B Heard Limited, an audio solutions company renowned for their premium installation services.

Is Believe about to come off the stock market and re-privatize?Company's shareholders are reportedly exploring potential bids to go private
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TOP POSTS: Last week’s most read posts on HypebotCatch up on what everyone’s been talking about with last week’s most-read posts. We’ve got topics ranging from Spotify and music distributors to tips from an indie pro and more…
The post TOP POSTS: Last week’s most read posts on Hypebot appeared first on Hypebot.

Taylor Swift’s music is streamed more in the US than the entire Jazz and Classical genresSwift claimed an audio stream market share of 1.28%; her market share including record sales was even bigger, at 1.79%
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Akai MPCs to gain stem separation Users of Akai Pro's MPC range will soon be able to split their samples into stems and process them individually.