FKFX Audio releases FREE Obvious Filter 2 Lite Morphing Filter Plugin
FKFX Audio has released Obvious Filter 2 Lite (OF2 Lite), a free filter plugin for macOS and Windows. OF2 Lite is the streamlined version of Obvious Filter 2, the follow-up to the original Obvious Filter, which we previously covered in 2021. Despite being a freebie, OF2 Lite packs in a surprising amount of functionality and creative power. At [...]
View post: FKFX Audio releases FREE Obvious Filter 2 Lite Morphing Filter Plugin

Indie Artist’s Ultimate Guide to Music MarketingMusic marketing is no longer about chasing trends or posting nonstop. This guide to music marketing reveals how independent artists can build lasting fan relationships using a clear strategy, authentic content, and the right tools.
The post Indie Artist’s Ultimate Guide to Music Marketing appeared first on Hypebot.

Flechtwerk is a FREE retro-inspired synth plugin by Ternär Music Technology
Ternär Music Technology has released Flechtwerk, a free synthesizer plugin for Windows, macOS, and Linux in VST3 and CLAP formats. Flechtwerk is based on the Mutable Instruments Plaits module and its latest 1.2 firmware. I haven’t used the Eurorack module, but it appears that Ternär Music Technology has managed to cram all of its functionality [...]
View post: Flechtwerk is a FREE retro-inspired synth plugin by Ternär Music Technology

The Crow Hill Company relaunch Vaults The Crow Hill Company have announced that their series of free sample libraries and virtual instruments has returned to their website. 

My Forever Studio: Howard Benson says tech can’t save bad songsWith a career spanning nearly 40 years, Grammy-nominated producer Howard Benson has shaped the sound of artists such as Less Than Jake, My Chemical Romance, Bon Jovi, and Kelly Clarkson.
On this episode of My Forever Studio, brought to you in partnership with Audient, the studio legend shares his fiercely pragmatic view on the most important aspects of music production, confessions about the impossibly rare synths he yearns for, and reveals the secret behind monitoring through a humble pair of $79 speakers.
Along the way, discover his thoughts on AI’s musical future, why “demo-itis” is every producer’s enemy, and which ultra-luxe item he’d demand for his Forever Studio setup.

The My Forever Studio podcast – created in partnership with Audient – sees artists, producers, and engineers create their dream fantasy Forever Studio, wherever they want in the universe. However, hosts Chris Barker and Will Betts impose some strict rules in the Forever Studio. Our guests are permitted a limited number of items in their creative space, so they must choose carefully. There will be nostalgia. There will be anecdotes. There may be gags. But there will be no bundles!
In our last episode, British multi-instrumentalist and producer Emma-Jean Thackray joined us at TYX Studios following the release of her album, Weirdo. In the episode, she discusses how she got into jazz by accident, her early arrangement experiments with her brass band, and we explore building her analogue-heavy studio with an older version of Logic Pro.

Subscribe to My Forever Studio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and check out all episodes so far via MusicTech.
The post My Forever Studio: Howard Benson says tech can’t save bad songs appeared first on MusicTech.

Coming Home - Highlights from Ozzy Osbourne's FarewellWhat better way for Ozzy Osbourne to retire than with a loud, chaotic, hit-filled homecoming concert packed with heavy bands performing their own tunes as well as peppering in some Sabbath and Ozzy classics. Here are some of our hand-picked favorite performances from the "Back to the Beginning" show.

Korea Exchange offices reportedly raided amid HYBE IPO investigationThe raid targeted the exchange’s Seoul office, where investigators reportedly secured data related to the listing review process for HYBE
Source

Casascius bar owner gets less physical, moves BTC to wallet after 13 years"This was more about staying safe than suddenly getting rich," said a crypto user who converted a 100-BTC Casascius bar they bought in 2012.

TRX Cymbals Announces New Marketing PushThe TRX Cymbal Co. LLC announced on Monday the start of a new marketing campaign that aims to "support drummers on their journey 'from the bedroom to the bandroom and beyond.' Entitled 'BeatXBeat,' the project is built around the company’s roster of young drummers who tell the stories of their development in a series of photo and video testimonials. The content will appear on social media, YouTube, websites and other multimedia platforms."“No one goes from playing in their bedroom to touring with a top international star in one step,” explains TRX founder, David Levine. “Careers are built step-by-step and beat-by-beat. For our campaign, we’re asking drummers to share their experiences and encourage their peers in the drumming community to ‘take their drumming to the next stage’.”"One of the highlights of the #beatxbeat campaign is 3 newly-produced video ads that feature TRX artists Brandon Godette, Ilse Santana and Luke Caro," they said in a statement. "The commercials were produced and directed by Michael Levine, who is himself a drummer, and dramatically show the drummers’ transition from amateur to professional."To view the commercials as well as other elements of the campaign, and to learn more about TRX cymbals and the drummers who play them, visit www.trxcymbals.com and @trxcymbals.Pictured: Luke Caro

The post TRX Cymbals Announces New Marketing Push first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Fortnite maker Epic Games settles antitrust case against SamsungFortnite maker Epic Games has settled its antitrust case against Samsung, according to a court filing.

AudioUi Audio Kit-figma-03Audio kit-Figma-03 Background PNG 588*504 px. ANIMATION. - Big Knob Animation 129 Frames 180*180 px - Small Knob Animation 129 Frames 86*86 px - Button Animation 2 Frames 56*24 px - Black Keyboard Button Animation 2 Frames 20*89 px - White Keyboard Button Animation 2 Frames 39*145 px - Strip File for all. win/mac support with easy installation ***You can buy each PNG file separately***. Read More

5 audio effects that will make your synth pads more rhythmicEstablishing the relationship between drums and bass is essential to creating an infectious groove. But paying attention to harmonic rhythm is just as important. Sometimes, you can hit the chords in all the right places and still feel like something’s missing. You might tweak the LFO rate or try out arpeggiator patterns within your synthesizer, but fail to capture the magic you’re looking for.

READ MORE: Here’s my perfect vocal chain and the plugins that get me there

Try implementing these audio effects and techniques into your sound design routine — it can transform your tracks within minutes.
Sidechain compression
Sidechain compression is a crucial mixing technique to prevent masking issues between the bass and drums. But there’s no rule against using it on synth pads, too. In fact, you can even create a drum pattern with no audible output solely to trigger a compressor.
In this demo, the RetroSynth Brass Pad in Logic Pro sounded beautiful, especially after increasing the attack time of the filter envelope and turning the glide time up. Polishing it with the RC-20 Retro Color plugin took the pad one step further, but the chords barely had a relationship with the drum loop.
Paying attention to the structure of the beat, you can create a pattern for the sidechained compressor to follow using a simple instrument like Logic’s Drum Synth. Change the output setting to No Output so the guide kick doesn’t interfere with the mix.
Revisit the RetroSynth Brass Pad to insert a compressor and select the guide kick track in the Side Chain dropdown menu. Adjust the threshold, ratio, knee, attack and release depending on how pronounced you want the pumping effect to be.

Tremolo
Most tremolo plugins can be tempo-synced, which makes them invaluable in modern productions. Some tremolo effects generate wavering sounds by modulating the volume, while others go as far as gating them. In this example, you’ll hear a snippet of what you can achieve with Logic’s Tremolo plugin as well as the Soundtoys Tremolator.
After borrowing a dark drum loop from Splice and enriching it with a hi-hat topper from Logic’s loop library, I reached for UAD’s PolyMAX Synth. Brightening the filter, tweaking the ADSRs, and turning the Glide up brought the Etherialis preset closer to my vision.
Want to make your pad dance along to the beat? Insert the tremolo plugin of your choice. Logic Pro’s Tremolo works nicely at a 1/16 rate, especially with Smoothing at 26% and Symmetry at 18%. The Depth setting determines the impact of the effect, which produces a subtle bounce at 77%.
All that and so much more is possible with Soundtoys Tremolator. You can pick various wave modes, change their shapes, and even edit the rhythmic pattern of the tremolo effect you’re envisioning.

Auto-pan
With tools like Ableton Live’s Auto Pan or Cableguys’ free PanCake plugin, you can automatically move the sound between left and right at the rate of your choosing.
For this demo, I structured a beat using a couple of instruments in Ableton Live 12. After designing a simple pad with the Analog synth and adding reverb, I grabbed Auto Pan and played with its amount, rate, phase, offset, and waveform parameters.
Although PanCake 2 doesn’t offer the same features, it comes with a panel on which you can draw the shape of the panning effect you want.

Auto-filter
We’ve automatically modulated the amplitude and stereo placement of sound — why not the volume of frequencies, too?
The Jupiter-8 strings from Roland Cloud complement this groove I put together with a loop and a Sampler bass preset in Logic Pro. With the free TAL-Filter-2 plugin, it’s possible to draw modulation shapes for the high-pass filter. Adjust the cutoff, depth and resonance settings to control the magnitude of the auto-filter. Soothe the choppiness of the pattern with a time-based effect like the Rhino Reverb from Safari Pedals.
Still, you don’t really need a third-party option when you have access to Logic Pro’s AutoFilter. In most cases, the waveform and rate settings within the LFO panel and the cutoff knob of the filter will give you all the control you need. Besides, you can always take the auto-filtering to the next level by automating the low-pass frequency in Channel EQ.

Sidechain gating and stutters
You know about sidechain compression, but did you know many noise gates can be sidechained too?
Take Ableton Live’s Gate plugin, for example. After creating a rhythmic pattern with a disposable kick sample in a separate track, you can enable Sidechain and select your guide kick under Audio From. Bring the Floor all the way down, and the synth pad will only play when triggered by the kick. Threshold, attack, hold, and release controls can help smooth the gating effect. And, you can always add some space and texture with a plugin like UAD’s Galaxy Tape Echo.
Creating stutter effects by chopping the audio clip or automating the volume of it can also be fun. Pitch-shift some sections, reverse others, and apply fades to sculpt inimitable rhythmic patterns.

The post 5 audio effects that will make your synth pads more rhythmic appeared first on MusicTech.

IR Point and Shoot Has a Raspberry Heart in a 35mm BodyPhotography is great, but sometimes it can get boring just reusing the same wavelengths over and over again. There are other options, though and when [Malcolm Wilson] decided he wanted to explore them, he decided to build a (near) IR camera. 
The IR images are almost ethereal.Image : Malcom Wilson.
The housing is an old Yashica Electro 35 — apparently this model was prone to electrical issues, and there are a lot of broken camera bodies floating around– which hides a Pi NoIR Camera v3. That camera module, paired with an IR pass filter, makes for infrared photography like the old Yashica used to do with special film. The camera module is plugged into a Pi Zero 2 W, and it’s powered by a PiSugar battery. There’s a tiny (0.91″) OLED display, but it’s only for status messages. The viewfinder is 100% optical, as the designers of this camera intended. Point, shoot, shoot again.
There’s something pure in that experience; we sometimes find stopping to look at previews pulls one out of the creative zone of actually taking pictures. This camera won’t let you do that, though of course you do get to skip on developing photos. [Malcom] has the Pi set up to connect to his Wifi when he gets home, and he grabs the RAW (he is a photographer, after all) image files via SSH.  Follow the link above to [Malcom]’s substack, and you’ll get some design details and his python code.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation’s NoIR camera shows up on these pages from time to time, though rarely so artistically. We’re more likely to see it spying on reptiles, or make magic wands work.  So we are quite grateful to [Malcom] for the tip, via Petapixel. Yes, photographers and artists of all stripes are welcome to use the tips line to tell us about their work.
Follow the links in this article for more images like this.Image: Malcom Wilson

Professor Emeritus Barry Vercoe, a pioneering force in computer music, dies at 87MIT Professor Emeritus Barry Lloyd Vercoe, a pioneering force in computer music, a founding faculty member of the MIT Media Lab, and a leader in the development of MIT’s Music and Theater Arts Section, passed away on June 15. He was 87.Vercoe’s life was a rich symphony of artistry, science, and innovation that led to profound enhancements of musical experience for expert musicians as well as for the general public — and especially young people.Born in Wellington, New Zealand, on July 24, 1937, Vercoe earned bachelor’s degrees in music (in 1959) and mathematics (in 1962) from the University of Auckland, followed by a doctor of musical arts in music composition from the University of Michigan in 1968.After completing postdoctoral research in digital audio processing at Princeton University and a visiting lectureship at Yale University, Vercoe joined MIT’s Department of Humanities (Music) in 1971, beginning a tenure in the department that lasted through 1984. During this period, he played a key role in advancing what would become MIT’s Music and Theater Arts (MTA) Section, helping to shape its forward-thinking curriculum and interdisciplinary philosophy. Vercoe championed the integration of musical creativity with scientific inquiry, laying the groundwork for MTA’s enduring emphasis on music technology and experimental composition.In 1973, Vercoe founded MIT’s Experimental Music Studio (EMS) — the Institute’s first dedicated computer music facility, and one of the first in the world. Operated under the auspices of the music program, EMS became a crucible for innovation in algorithmic composition, digital synthesis, and computer-assisted performance. His leadership not only positioned MIT as a hub for music technology, but also influenced how the Institute approached the intersection of the arts with engineering. This legacy is honored today by a commemorative plaque in the Kendall Square MBTA station.Violist, faculty founder of the MIT Chamber Music Society, and Institute Professor Marcus Thompson says: “Barry was first and foremost a fine musician, and composer for traditional instruments and ensembles. As a young professor, he taught our MIT undergraduates to write and sing Renaissance counterpoint as he envisioned how the act of traditional music-making offered a guide to potential artistic interaction between humans and computers. In 1976, he enlisted me to premiere what became his iconic, and my most-performed, work, ‘Synapse for Viola and Computer.’”During a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982–83, Vercoe developed the Synthetic Performer, a groundbreaking real-time interactive accompaniment system, while working closely with flautist Larry Beauregard at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) in Paris.In 1984, Vercoe became a founding faculty member of the MIT Media Lab, where he launched the Music, Mind, and Machine group. His research spanned machine listening, music cognition, and real-time digital audio synthesis. His Csound language, created in 1985, is still widely used for music programming, and his contributions helped define the MPEG-4 Structured Audio standard.He also served as associate academic head of the Media Lab’s graduate program in Media Arts and Sciences (MAS). Vercoe mentored many future leaders in digital music and sound computation, including two of his MAS graduate students — Anna Huang SM ’08 and Paris Smaragdis PhD ’01 — who have recently joined MIT’s music faculty, and Miller Puckette, an emeritus faculty member at the University of California at San Diego, and Richard Boulanger, a professor of electronic production and design at the Berklee College of Music.“Barry Vercoe will be remembered by designers, developers, researchers, and composers for his greatest ‘composition,’ Csound, his free and open-source software synthesis language,” states Boulanger. “I know that, through Csound, Barry’s musical spirit will live on, not only in my teaching, my research, and my music, but in the apps, plugins, and musical compositions of generations to come.”Tod Machover, faculty director of the MIT Media Lab and Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media, reflects, “Barry Vercoe was a giant in the field of computer music whose innovations in software synthesis, interactive performance, and educational tools for young people influenced and inspired many, including myself. He was a superb mentor, always making sure that artistic sensibility drove music tech innovation, and that sophisticated expression was at the core of Media Lab — and MIT — culture.”Vercoe’s work earned numerous accolades. In addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship, he was also honored with the 1992 Computerworld Smithsonian Award for innovation and the 2004 SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award.Beyond MIT, Vercoe consulted with Analog Devices and collaborated with international institutions like IRCAM under the direction of Pierre Boulez. His commitment to democratizing music technology was evident in his contributions to the One Laptop per Child initiative, which brought accessible digital sound tools to young people in underserved communities worldwide.He is survived by his former wives, Kathryn Veda Vaughn and Elizabeth Vercoe; their children, Andrea Vercoe and Scott Vercoe; and generations of students and collaborators who continue to build on his groundbreaking work. A memorial service for family will be held in New Zealand later this summer, and a special event in his honor will take place at MIT in the fall. The Media Lab will share details about the MIT gathering as they become available.Named professor emeritus at the MIT Media Lab upon his retirement in 2010, Vercoe’s legacy embodies the lab’s — and MIT’s — vision of creative, ethical, interdisciplinary research at the convergence of art, science, and technology. His music, machines, and generously inventive spirit will continue to forever shape the way we listen, learn, and communicate.

Southside (Future, Lil Durk) cooks up a beat and shares his sounds
GRAMMY-nominated producer and rapper Southside (Future, Lil Durk) shares his new sample pack and showcases his beatmaking process.