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510k Arts releases WOMB intro, a FREE 909-style kick drum synth
510k Arts has released WOMB intro, a free 909-inspired bass drum synthesizer plugin for macOS and Windows. 510k is built by Alexkid, a producer and DJ with decades of experience, releases on F Communications, and a key role in the 2000s French dance music scene. Alexkid develops the concepts and prototypes in Berlin, while Tadashi, [...]
View post: 510k Arts releases WOMB intro, a FREE 909-style kick drum synth

Heritage Audio unveil the Tubestrip Said to be Heritage Audio's most ambitious piece of outboard gear to date, the Tubestrip combines a preamp and EQ section with a pair of compressors, all of which have been carefully designed to function as a single, cohesive tool. 

Mix Buddy instrument mixer from Heritage Audio Equipped with 19 inputs and eight outputs, the Mix Buddy has been designed for both studio and stage use, and boasts a high-quality design that promises to preserve the tone of any source. 

Beatport’s new bosses are still betting on music downloads: “Streaming is complementary rather than cannibalistic”At International Music Summit Ibiza 2026, Robb McDaniels was saying his farewells to the Beatport team and his associates around the dance music industry, two months before stepping down as CEO of Beatport. On 1 July 2026, he officially moved into a board role as executive chairman, handing the reins to a new CEO, Matt Gralen, and president, Helen Sartory. At a lunch at IMS (an event majority-owned by Beatport), the trio were all smiles, optimistic about the next phase of the DJ and music production platform, which now serves one million customers annually.
Ahead of their appointment, Matt and Helen sat down with MusicTech to explain why they’re focusing on downloads, what Track ID reveals about the world’s dancefloors, and where they draw the line on AI.
What’s the big change that comes with Robb stepping down from his leadership role, and the two of you taking the reigns?
Matt: “Robb, Helen, and I have been pretty much running the company together for the past four years that she and I have been around. So we’re having [Robb] stay on as executive chairman, which I think is helpful. But, certainly from a leadership and internal standpoint, it’s important for us to prioritise stability, continuity, those kind of things. So [this is about] evolution rather than massive change.”
“We definitely recognise that the DJ is our core customer, dance music labels our most important partners, and we’ve got a number of things that we’re working on this year that we think can serve them better.”
Helen: “Yeah, we’re not ripping [up] a bunch of plans and starting from scratch; we’ve been collaborating on the roadmap for many years now. The focus this year really is about serving our community…It’s going to be about core structural upgrades, library management improvements, and label tools.
“We’re also doing some work to expand our reach into the fan space to introduce more people to DJing. We’ll be introducing analytics and management tools for labels, and we’ve got a very packed schedule of Beatport Live events. So that’s kind of where we’re focused this year.”
Robb McDaniels. Credit: Grace Phillips
When you say reaching into the fan space, are you taking cues from the likes of Bandcamp, which recently launched fan accounts?
Matt: “I wouldn’t say it’s inspired by anybody else in the market, but I think we have a really strong ecosystem, so the better we can engage with both the DJ and label side, the better off both halves will be. And it’s true that there’s options out there for labels and artists to get their music out there, we want Beatport to be the most important home for artists and labels in the dance music world.”
Let’s talk about Plugin Boutique. That’s a huge marketplace for producers across genres — can we expect any changes to that part of the business?
Helen: “Yeah, again, no immediate drastic changes afoot. The plugin world is a really interesting place at the moment. There’s a lot of change going on, and as a marketplace, Plugin Boutique is sitting in a really useful position.
“For us, it’s really important that the creative landscape is supported by indie developers, and that they have a place to continue to reach customers at scale, because it means that producers then have a wide range of tools to express themselves with…We see that AI is changing the way that music is being made, but where we’d like to see it is to drive more variety of workflows of sounds of styles rather than a homogenisation of sounds, and that’s what the customers want too. So our focus there is really again to support the long tail of indie developers, make sure there’s a really healthy marketplace.”
Speaking of AI, there’s obviously a lot of AI-generated music hitting streaming services right now. What’s the sentiment like at Beatport?
Helen: “AI and generative AI music is a very hot topic. We talk about it endlessly inside and outside the office. Our stance is that we’ll be driven by what the DJ community wants. We survey regularly, we talk to the community regularly, and right now the majority is saying that they don’t want to DJ with it. So our policy remains the same as it did before: fully AI-generated music isn’t permitted on the store, and if we find it, we remove it.”
“We’ll continue to consult with the community. If their sentiment changes, we can assess it again, but what’s important is that, if generative music does land on the dance floor, that it’s trained on fully-licenced data and it compensates artists fairly, so that’s what we’re going to be keeping an eye out for as demands shift. On a personal level, for me, music is about communication and community and empathy, which are all pretty human things. So, whatever happens, I hope we don’t lose that in the next evolution of the creative cycle.
Matt: “I mean, it goes back to the ecosystem point where the labels and artists are our most important partners, and we have to do right by them. We want to empower them, not engage with anything that they feel is threatening to their business. So, we are currently in a place where…as [AI] evolves and as new technology could potentially be beneficial to our partners, we want to stay ahead of that curve and help move innovation forward in a responsible way that supports creativity.
I’ve seen on some platforms, especially YouTube, where users are uploading tracks and mixes and self-labelling their work as “100% human-made” and “no AI slop”. Have you thought about a labelling system on the Beatport store?
Helen: “Yeah, we’ve thought about the labelling route, and we’ve asked the community if they would they prefer that. Obviously, the response tends to be ‘Yes, if [AI music] is on Beatport, we want it to be labelled’, but the majority still don’t want it on there in the first place. So, I think we’ll stick with that for now, and, like I said, we’ll follow the wants and needs of the DJ space.
“There are lots of companies out there offering AI detection systems, and we are testing lots of them to see if we need a safety net for it right now. Because [Beatport is] a niche digital streaming platform, we are ingesting tens of thousands of tracks a week, [and] we try and weed out anything that is making its way into the main spaces as quickly as possible.”
Beatport has made more of a commitment in recent years to community programs. Is there anything changing there — anything new we should expect?
Matt: “Our push into events under the Beatport Live brand has been a big way for us to invest in the community. So, putting on fun events, giving a platform for artists, DJs, and labels. I think that’s an important part of it too, helping them to align with the Beatport brand, and then also the fans that we can bring to a live event. That’s been a really positive new thing for us over the past 18 months or so.
“In terms of some of the more community-oriented initiatives, like the NEXT programme, those things are going to continue. It may take on different forms, but it’s always important for us to be supporting organisations, artists, labels that are on their way up.”
Helen: “Yeah, we benefit when we have a really strong, healthy middle class of musicians…For us, it’s not just altruistic, we genuinely benefit from variety and interesting talent coming up.”
The crowd at The Block. Image: Press
Is Beatport focused on any new innovations that we can expect in the coming months?
Helen: “People are often surprised when we say downloads grow year after year but they remain the preferred format for the majority of our customers. So, we’re going to keep developing products that support that workflow. Streaming is gaining popularity, but really, as a complementary workflow, rather a cannibalistic thing, so we’ll be looking at ways to support DJs that want to use a hybrid workflow.”
“One thing that’s new and interesting that we’re looking at is how to not only share what’s being downloaded but what’s being performed around the world in real-time. We recently released Track ID, a feature in the mobile app — that’s kind of the first step in that direction of collecting a data set around what’s being played out.”
What’s the goal with collecting that kind of data?
“The ambition is to contribute towards creating a much clearer picture about what’s being performed in DJ sets around the world, not just what’s on USB sticks. It’s early days, but ultimately we want to partner with other data providers to help artists and labels understand the early stages of how a track breaks, and also help ensure that performance royalties are paid out to the correct rights holders, which has been a notoriously difficult challenge for the industry.”
“There’s more interesting, exciting work that we can’t talk about yet, but no radical changes [right now] to worry about.”
[Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.]
 
The post Beatport’s new bosses are still betting on music downloads: “Streaming is complementary rather than cannibalistic” appeared first on MusicTech.

Air-G Audio releases 18 FREE Airwindows plugins with custom GUIs
Air-G Audio has released Air-G Plugins Collection, a free/pay-what-you-want bundle of 18 audio plugins built on open-source DSP algorithms from Airwindows. Airwindows plugins have been around for a long time, and they have an almost legendary status among us bedroom producers. Chris Johnson’s approach has always been more about sound and speed than shiny interface [...]
View post: Air-G Audio releases 18 FREE Airwindows plugins with custom GUIs

These Behringer synths are currently discounted at ThomannThomann’s Music Days sale is well underway, and there’s tons of killer savings to be had on everything from synths and keyboard controllers to electric guitars and pro audio gear. And if you’re a Behringer fan, now’s your chance to get some already-affordable gear for even less.
The German retail giant’s Music Days sale runs until 14 July, so you’ve still got a week to make the most of these savings, but we’d encourage you not to wait around and bag your next synth while stocks last. We’ve rounded up the best deals on Behringer gear below for your browsing pleasure…
Behringer Proton

A successor to the Behringer Neutron, the Proton offers the feel of several synths in one casing, with dual analogue oscillators with five blendable waveforms, as well as a number of self-oscillating, multi-mode filters which you can run in both series and parallel. There’s also independent sub oscillators and a big 64-point patch bay.
The Proton also supports paraphonic play modes, two ASR envelopes, two ADSR generators and a noise generator, too. All in all, there’s 68 controls on the Proton which you can use to shape your sound.
Right now, you can get it at Thomann for £245, down from £269.
Behringer MS-1 MKII Grey

Also in the Music Days sale is the Behringer MS-1 MKII, which you can now grab for just £195 down from £211.
It features a keyboard with 32 semi-weighted keys, an analogue VCO with four mixable waveforms, a noise generator, resonant low-pass filter, an ADSR envelope, arpeggiator and so much more.
Behringer BDS-3

Behringer’s version of the classic SDS-3 drum synthesizer, the BDS-3 is based on the circuitry of the original – which arrived nearly 50 years ago in 1978 – and features four fully independent drum channels, in addition to a fifth, dedicated special FX channel for adding motion and character to your synthesized percussion.
There’s also per-channel controls for Pitch, Impact Click, Decay Time, Bend Level, Noise/Tone Balance, Effect Range and Channel Volume, and each channel can be played via MIDI, USB-MIDI or mic input.
Get yours now at just £185 down from £211, only until 14 July…
Behringer UV1

And last up, not a synth this time, but a piece of cheap Behringer gear nonetheless, the UV1 is a microphone preamplifier, voice processor and USB 2.0 audio interface, with an integrated compressor, de-esser, enhancer and expander/gate, +48V phantom power, and supported sample rates of 44.1 / 48 / 88.2 / 96 / 176.4 / 192 kHz.
The unit sports one mic/line input, one line input, an insert send/return, one line output, and a stereo headphone output.
Get it now for just £95.
Browse the full Music Days sale at Thomann.
The post These Behringer synths are currently discounted at Thomann appeared first on MusicTech.

XLN Audio’s new DB-30 Drum Butter is a delicious delight£109, xlnaudio.com
When XLN Audio’s RC-20 Retro Color effects plugin was released it was praised by producers for its ability to easily add vintage vibe and grit to any source. With DB-30 Drum Butter, XLN has doubled down on the format, offering another compelling package for beefing-up audio.

READ MORE: Thephonoloop Outlines review: Much more than a paint-by-numbers granulator

Although it’s primarily aimed at processing drums and percussion, this plugin works on a range of sources. It’s simple enough to be playful and encourage experimentation, but there’s enough depth to provide a vast array of sound design options.
The colourful interface is split into six modules that can be freely rearranged, with single large dials to control the main parameter for each effect. The first module is called Boom Shack, and it allows you to layer in an extra pitched sub to thicken the kick, or one of 18 samples to add texture to the top end. These are triggered by the audio via two sets of range selector and threshold controls. You then get additional dials to fine tune the pitch and decay, and the sub even has a wild distortion control that transforms any kick into a gnarly bass sound.

Next is Shift, which lets you alter the pitch and formant of the incoming audio, with a slider to choose whether it’s one or the other, or both. You can invert the frequency so that they move in the opposite directions, and stretch out the formant, which is useful for adding highs and lows back in after transposing. This thing has no right sounding this convincing for a real-time pitch shifter. It’s clearly been designed with percussive, inharmonic sounds in mind as it doesn’t fare well with pitched material, but for drums it’s incredibly smooth. I found it especially useful for automating subtle movements into beats, or creating sweeps and slow-down effects.
A nice touch here, which appears on several modules, is a Focus slider to narrow down the frequency range of the processing, and a Target slider that lets you balance the processing between the transient and sustain. This becomes particularly handy when you move into some of the other modules such as Saturation – it lets you crush the peaks but let the tails come through cleaner, or vice versa.
Space is a relatively straightforward reverb module, with 20 styles ranging from rooms and halls through to plates, springs, and more experimental spaces. There are controls for Decay, Predelay, a built-in ducker, and Stretch, which alters the pitch, decay time and timbre. You can also control the panning and width, and select a frequency focus to guide the processing away from the low-end. Although simple, the reverb sounds decent and interacts beautifully with the signal being squashed by the other processors.
Of course, no drum plugin would be complete without a compressor. Here we have six style variations including Punch and Glue VCA types, a more aggressive Smack FET setting, subtler Warm and Gentle OPTO styles, plus the ubiquitous OTT mode. You can blend between downwards and upwards compression, which is clearly presented with a dynamic moving line display, and also between single and multiple bands. The compression amount is controlled by the main dial, alongside a mix dial for parallel processing. Compressor control freaks may baulk at the lack of attack, release, ratio and knee controls, but the styles are so well chosen and tuned that you can effortlessly dial in sounds without getting bogged down in the details.
XLN Audio DB-30 Drum Butter modules. Image: Press
This is something that can be said for the whole plugin actually, as it’s been carefully refined to have a large amount of sweet spots. The interface provides easy access to variations, which invites you to try different settings quickly to either hone in on a sound that works for the material, or come up with something joyous and unexpected.
My only minor gripe with the compressor is that the OTT mode is too fixed. It’s a well-known, heavily squashed multi-band sound, but it has the habit of making the top-end a bit too bright and overpowering. It would be useful if there was a tone control to ease the focus away from the highs.
Moving on, the Saturate module adds anything from subtle harmonics to brutal distortion. There are six flavours to choose from labelled Console, 4 Track, Tape, Tube, Digital and Flub (a unique ring/phase distortion), and each has a slider to adjust its sonic characteristics. As before, you can adjust the frequency range and whether it focuses on transient or sustain, and also the wet/dry mix. There’s enough variety here to provide plenty of harmonic variation, but not so much that you get choice paralysis. The algorithms sound warm, fat and resonant in the right places.
If, by this point, your drums still aren’t quite as huge as you want them to be, then you can apply the last module: More. This is a waveshaper that feeds into a limiter and makes sounds denser, louder and more gritty, whilst shaving off peaks. If you want to go wild, you can choose to have two or four in series. It can be focused on specific parts of the signal and used subtly, or pushed to extremes and blended using the Mix dial.
XLN Audio DB-30 Drum Butter Master section. Image: Press
The Master section at the bottom of the user interface provides useful extras including an EQ with low-cut, high-cut, a flexible Tone control, an Air dial to add sparkle, a transient shaper with attack and sustain controls, and a final clipper to keep everything in check. There are also input and output dials with a useful loudness match feature, undo/redo, and up to four snapshot slots.
All these effects sound excellent when static, but Drum Butter has one final special move with its Magnitude control. This single macro slider scales all the big dials for each module alongside any tweaks made to the master section. It’s a great way to dial things back if you’ve gone too far, or it can be used creatively for big transition effects.
In a package that’s jam-packed with features, the only thing missing is a global wet/dry control. Parallel processing is easy enough in most DAWs so it’s not a dealbreaker, but it would still be useful to have a single built-in dial instead of editing the individual wet/dry controls for each module.
I am really surprised by Drum Butter. I tend to use multiple plugins to process my drums and it takes a while to home in on the right sound, but with this I am getting incredible results far more quickly. On the surface it may not seem cheap, but you’re getting a lot of effects and sound design potential for your money. The individual effects sound excellent in isolation, and even better combined. Drum Butter makes your drums fuller, more characterful and more professional with ease.
XLN Audio DB-30 Drum Butter presets. Image: Press
Key features

Drum processing plugin (VST3, AU, AAX)
6 modules: Boom Shack, Shift, Space, Compress, Saturate and More
Drag modules to reorder
Focus processing on specific frequency ranges
Process transients, sustain or both
Option to route the Boom Shack module post processing
Master section with EQ, Air and Attack/Sustain controls
Loudness match feature
Magnitude macro slider to control all modules at once
Over 250 presets with tags, filters and favourites
Lock any module to preserve settings whilst browsing presets

The post XLN Audio’s new DB-30 Drum Butter is a delicious delight appeared first on MusicTech.

13 Great​ Alter⁠native Rock​ Albums from the L⁠ate 1970s‍The late 1970s‍ is often defined by‌ punk's exp‌losi‌on,‌ but this⁠ list de‍li⁠bera‍te​ly step‌s ou​tsid‌e the strict boundaries of punk rock. What emerged in this era was⁠ something broader and more e⁠xperimen⁠tal: post-‌punk ten‍sion, ele‌ctronic minimalis‌m, art-​rock ab‌s‌tr⁠a​ction, an⁠d new-w‍a‌ve irony​.‌ These albums didn't just re‌flec⁠t the late '70‍s—they​ he​lped define⁠ the sonic blueprint for a⁠lternati‍ve r‌ock in the decad​es that followed.

FILM - TV - THEATER - GAMES: Assassin's Creed, Small Plates Choreography FestivalThe music from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag has released on vinyl in two formats, a 5LP collector's box set and a double LP set, via Ubisoft and Laced Records. Timed to the announcement of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, both releases featured new cover artwork by illustrator Jeff Langevin alongside archival environment pieces from Ubisoft. Exclusive variants include a blue-disc 5LP and a blue-and-orange double LP, available only through Laced Records. The 5LP includes 79 tracks from Brian Tyler's original score, multiplayer music by The Flight and Christian Henson, popular sea shanties, and Olivier Deriviere's Freedom Cry DLC score. The 2LP features 36 highlights from Tyler's score and a selection of shanties. For more information, contact Greg O'Connor-Read at greg@topdollarpr.com.

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August 1 is the deadline to submit work to The Small Plates Choreography Festival, which is open to both emerging and seasoned choreographers. The November 13 and 14 event in New York entails a series of two curated dance performances with facilitated dialogue between the artists and audience. Learn more about this unique festival and how to apply by visiting smallplatesdance.com/performances/nyc.The post FILM - TV - THEATER - GAMES: Assassin's Creed, Small Plates Choreography Festival first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

CVC Capital Partners to acquire majority stake in DistroKidThe transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions. Terms were not disclosed.
Source

Bitcoin recovers from Strategy's BTC sale, funding rates hit 9%: Are bulls back?Bitcoin sold off as news of Strategy selling BTC shook investors’ nerve but the quick rebound suggests bulls remain ambitiously positioned.

M Media Audio Curve ControlDual-Channel. Twelve Bands. Hardware Weight. Curve Control is a mix and mastering parametric EQ with six fully parametric bands per channel and three channel modes: linked stereo, fully independent L/R, or M/S with each channel running its own separate curve. Always-on level-dependent saturation adds 2nd harmonic weight at the output of each channel. Two large VU meters with switchable source give real-time level feedback on Input, Output, or Mid/Side. Delta, Gain Sync, and Mono monitoring built in. Oversampling up to 8x. VST3 on Windows, macOS, and Linux. AU on macOS. Six Bands Per Channel Band 1: high-pass, 20-400 Hz, 6/12/18/24 dB/oct. Bands 2 and 5: shelf or bell, independent Q, low and high end. Bands 3 and 4: fixed bell, low-mid and high-mid. Band 6: low-pass, 8-20 kHz, 6/12/18/24 dB/oct. Every band has frequency, gain, Q, and independent enable. In Dual and M/S modes all 12 bands are fully independent. Three Channel Modes Link - Both channels ganged. Standard stereo EQ. Dual - Fully independent L/R curves. Per-side surgical correction. M/S - Channel A shapes Mid (L+R). Channel B shapes Side (L-R). Re-encodes to stereo at output. Hardware Weight Level-dependent soft saturation after the EQ on each channel. 2nd harmonic bias. Not a user control - no knob, no bypass. Oversampling at 2x, 4x, or 8x wraps this stage only, keeping added latency minimal. Monitoring Tools Delta - Isolates what the EQ is adding or removing. Near-silence on a flat curve. Gain Sync - Output tracks inverse of input gain for loudness-consistent evaluation. Mono - Collapse to mono for translation checking. Meter Source - VU meters switch between Input, Output, and M/S. Platform Support Windows - VST3 (64-bit), Windows 10 / 11. macOS - VST3 + AU (64-bit Universal Binary, Intel + Apple Silicon), macOS 11 Big Sur or later. Signed and notarized - no Gatekeeper warnings. Linux - VST3 (64-bit), Ubuntu 22.04+. Tested with Reaper for Linux. All three platforms in a single download. System Requirements 64-bit VST3-compatible host (Windows, macOS, Linux) or AU host (macOS). Compatible with Reaper, Cubase, Studio One, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Bitwig Studio, Nuendo, and others; AU format for Logic Pro, GarageBand, and MainStage on macOS. License $49. Perpetual license - one purchase, yours forever. No subscription, no renewal, no cloud dependency. 3 simultaneous activations. Activation over HTTPS, then fully offline. No telemetry. Nothing phoning home during your session. Free demo mode included - fully functional with a brief silence every 30 seconds. No account required to try it. Download and demo at mmediaaudio.com. Read More

How to Rebuild an 1800s Victorian Leclanché cellThe 19th century was an absolutely electrifying era, including in a literal sense. Although the phenomenon of electricity had been known by that time for centuries, actually making it do useful work was a much taller order. Aside from big, coal-powered generators, there also was a need for a more compact electrochemical solution, such as in the form of a wet or dry cell. One of the first major commercial successes here came in the form of the Leclanché cell, such as the genuine version that [Big Clive] found in an old UK building’s attic and has now revived.
Invented in 1866 by French scientist Georges Leclanché, the Leclanché cell features an ammonium chloride electrolyte solution, carbon cathode and zinc anode. There’s also a manganese dioxide depolarizer for preventing hydrogen build-up. Here water is the solvent for the ammonium chloride (also known as sal ammoniac).
The version that [Clive] got his grubby mitts on features a glass container, an already partially consumed zinc electrode and a slightly cracked porous ceramic tub that contains the carbon electrode and the manganese dioxide. After placing the components inside the specially shaped glass jar and filling it with an electrolyte mixture of one part ammonium chloride and four parts water by weight, the cell starts generating its approximate 1.4 VDC.
This type of wet cell was very popular, being essentially ‘rechargeable’ by topping up the water and replacing the zinc electrode consumable. They did suffer from a voltage drop-off during use due to increasing internal resistance, something that got improved upon with the zinc-carbon dry cell. Itself effectively an evolution of the Leclanché wet cell.
From there zinc-carbon dry cells got replaced with alkalines, which itself got mostly replaced by NiMH and Li-ion cells. Despite more than a hundred years between the electrochemical cell that [Clive] featured in his video and today’s batteries, it’s clear that this wet cell was quite literally just the Victorian-era equivalent of an alkaline AA cell.

Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch on the fight to split off models from agents"The reality is, when you're optimizing for production, you start looking at a price/performance," Guillermo Rauch tells TechCrunch.