Reservoir receives unsolicited $1.2B bid from activist investor Irenic Capital (report)Reservoir's shares jumped as much as 15% on Thursday (February 26) following the report.
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Lewitt reveal the MTP 5 The latest mic to join the Lewitt line-up is said to offer exceptional sound quality, enhanced durability and high feedback resistance, all without breaking the bank. 

“If you look at Prince and Nile Rodgers, a lot of their playing is direct into the console”: Why Cory Wong doesn’t need a complex setup to create great recordingsCory Wong has built his reputation primarily as a formidable guitar player – both as a solo artist and alongside others like Vulfpeck. But as he tells MusicTech in a new interview, his latest album, Lost In The Wonder arrives to showcase, primarily, his production chops.
“A lot of people know me as a guitar player – and rightfully so – because I’m a guitar guy!” he says. “But with this album, I wanted to really showcase a lot more of my songwriting, my production and my arranging.”
Lost In The Wonder was recorded mostly at Minneapolis facility Creation Audio alongside producer John Fields – and as he explains, his philosophy towards gear was kept basic.

READ MORE: The best free and paid-for plugins you need to know about this week

“I don’t need them to have fancy outboard gear,” he says. “I track into a Universal Audio Apollo, just using the internal preamps, you know, just one rack space. I don’t need a whole rack of extra gear. If you have that, cool! But just get me the good sounds. I don’t care as long as the sounds are good.”
He continues: “Because the musician and the decisions that they make is going to be the most compelling thing. How can you capture the essence of that? How can you capture that in the most pure way?
“A lot of times, for my guitar, it’s just plugging directly into the console. If you listen to a lot of the early Prince rhythm guitar stuff, or a lot of the Nile Rodgers guitar stuff, that’s what a lot of that is. Direct into the console.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Wong notes the meticulous process of perfecting his signature Archetype plugin with leading guitar modelling brand Neural DSP.
“I was like, ‘The only way this thing goes out is if I am 100% satisfied, and if you are 100% satisfied,” Wong recalls telling Neural.
“They sent me version one, and it was pretty good. And we made revisions. By version five, I was still like, not yet. It is great, but I don’t plug into it right now and think, ‘I have to use this for everything’. So we got to, like, version nine!”
You can read the full interview with Cory Wong via MusicTech. And check out Lost in the Wonder’s title track – with Benny Sings – below:

The post “If you look at Prince and Nile Rodgers, a lot of their playing is direct into the console”: Why Cory Wong doesn’t need a complex setup to create great recordings appeared first on MusicTech.

Get Octapus by CARP Audio for FREE this weekend only
CARP Audio is offering Octapus, its octave effect plugin, for free for a limited time. The offer expires in 48 hours, and the exact expiry time depends on your timezone, so download it as soon as possible if you want to grab it for free. It normally retails at €29.95. Octapus is an octaver with [...]
View post: Get Octapus by CARP Audio for FREE this weekend only

Final continues to challenge the limitations of closed-back headphone design with its new DX4000CL modelThough ubiquitous, closed-back headphones present a number of limitations, including a heavier emphasis on the low-end and limited sound staging due to more sound waves bouncing off the closed-cup design.
Final’s DX series challenges these drawbacks of closed-back headphones, and with its new DX4000CL model, the Japanese audiophile brand continues its philosophy to provide a more “open and resolving presentation” while offering a closed-back design.

READ MORE: Arturia’s KeyStep 37 mk2 brings new generative tools to assist with forming musical ideas

Sitting between the series’ existing DX3000CL and flagship DX6000CL models, the DX4000CL features an all-new dynamic driver and refined acoustic design, meaning “cleaner, clearer presentation”, with “exceptional control across the entire frequency range”.
“Bass is articulate and disciplined, supporting the music without overshadowing it,” Final says.
This new dynamic driver is engineered for precise diaphragm movement and optimised airflow control, resulting in more accurate low-frequency reproduction and an overall balance which is “natural and refined”.
Credit: Final
Their refined internal acoustic design has been “meticulously tuned” for the suppression of undesired resonance, while preserving clarity and ensuring complex musical passages remain “well separated”.
“This refined engineering underpins the DX4000CL’s richly textured presentation and its ability to maintain neutrality without sacrificing emotional engagement,” Final says.
Elsewhere, the DX4000CL features a silver-coated cable, which is designed to aid signal transmission for “greater clarity and texture”.
The headphones are on the heavier end of the scale, coming in at 375g, but they should feel quite comfortable thanks to its resin housing and memory foam earpads, cased in synthetic leather. And they’re built to last – Final has ensured the earpads are easily replaceable if they wear down.
The DX4000CL headphones are available now for £949. For more information, head to Final.
Credit: Final
The post Final continues to challenge the limitations of closed-back headphone design with its new DX4000CL model appeared first on MusicTech.

IK Multimedia release Sunset Sound Studio Reverb II Sunset Sound Studio Reverb II is a new standalone and significantly expanded version of IK Multimedia’s popular T-Racks plug-in.

Jack Dorsey’s Block to cut 4,000 jobs in AI-driven restructuringBloomberg reported earlier this month that 10% of Block’s workforce could be cut during annual performance reviews as part of a broader overhaul.

Yaeji reflects on With A Hammer, healing trauma through music, and her favorite video games
Yaeji sat down with us to discuss her creative process behind With A Hammer, philosophical approach to her live shows, favorite video games, and more.

PayPal might not be looking to sell itself: ReportPayPal may not be in talks to be acquired, sources have told Semafor, after a previous news report that Stripe was sniffing around.

Album Review of "Declaration of Resistance" By My Ruin (8/10)Magick Room RecordingsProducers: My Ruin

While people are dying in the streets, Declaration of Resistance is the sort of album that we need; a no-punches-pulled, lyrically sharp slab of aural resistance (as the album title suggests). Anyone familiar with the band’s catalog, and indeed Tairrie B. Murphy’s previous work with Manhole and Tura Satana, won’t be surprised by any of this. But still, it’s refreshing during these shocking times to hear demands for women’s rights and the rights of minorities spelled out so succinctly. “I resist the fascists when push comes to shove, because there’s no hate like Christian love.” Incredible!The post Album Review of "Declaration of Resistance" By My Ruin (8/10) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Driving WS2812Bs With Pure LogicThe WS2812B has become one of the most popular addressable LEDs out there. They’re easy to drive from just about any microcontroller you can think of. But what if you have a microcontroller at all? [Povilas Dumcius] decided to try and drive the LEDs with raw logic only.
The project consists of a small board full of old-school ICs that can be used to drive WS2812Bs in a simplistic manner. A 74HC14 Schmitt trigger oscillator provides the necessary beat for this tune, generating an 800 kHz clock to keep everything in time and provide the longer pulse trains that represent logic one to a WS2812B. A phase-shifted AND gate generates the shorter pulses necessary to indicate logic zero. Meanwhile, a binary counter cycles through 24 bits (8 per R, G, and B) to handle color. Pressing each one of the three pushbuttons allows each color channel to be activated or deactivated as desired. It can make the strip red, green, or blue, or combine the channels if you press multiple buttons at once. That’s all the control you get—it would take a bit more logic to enable variable levels of each channel. Certainly within the realms of possibility, though.
We’ve featured some other nifty tricks for driving WS2812Bs in unconventional ways, like using DMA hardware or even I2S audio outputs. If you’ve got your own tricks, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline. Video after the break.

AudioBrain Distance DesignerDistance Designer is a macOS AU/VST3/Standalone effect plugin for controlling the perceived distance of a sound source without adding reverb or delay. DISTANCE FADER moves sounds near to far by combining level, tone, stereo width and de-reverb style shaping in one workflow. Includes output level lock to keep final loudness stable while changing depth placement. Read More

Abbey Road Studios releases The Big Nessie, a FREE multi-instrument library for Kontakt Player
And now for something completely different, as Abbey Road Studios and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy release The Big Nessie, a free multi-instrument library for Kontakt Player. It’s unusual to begin any post with the title of a 1970s Monty Python classic, but this seems as good a time as any. The Big Nessie is a free [...]
View post: Abbey Road Studios releases The Big Nessie, a FREE multi-instrument library for Kontakt Player

Charles Goldstuck’s GoldState secures ‘significant’ Bridgepoint investment for growth equity fund targeting music companiesA source close to the details told MBW: 'Charles is looking to deploy up to a billion dollars in growth equity capital over the next few years.'
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Arturia KeyStep 37 mk2 Review
The KeyStep line has always been about Arturia packing way more features and connectivity than you’d expect from such a compact controller, and sometimes still making it work. Well, they’ve done it again. With the KeyStep 37 mk2, Arturia has moved from 32 to 37 slimkey keys, added a dedicated OLED display with a clickable [...]
View post: Arturia KeyStep 37 mk2 Review