Native Instruments to be acquired by inMusic Native Instruments CEO Nick Williams has announced that a definitive agreement has been signed for the company to be acquired by inMusic.

Meet SmartLab: a kooky-looking six-voice string synth from This Is Not Rocket Science and Error InstrumentsSuperbooth 2026: This Is Not Rocket Science and Error Instruments have teamed up to tease SmartLab, a very cool and quirky six-voice string synth instrument.
A standalone instrument rather than a module, SmartLab combines concepts from the two companies’ previous works, such as its collaborative White Rabbit module. It is currently in its prototype phase, with a planned release for July/August this year.

READ MORE: Superbooth 2026: The coolest new synths and music tech gear – and everything else you need to know

SmartLab features advanced granular synthesis alongside more than 36 physical modelling engines, distributed across two sound engines. It has an expressive touch interface including motion recording, allowing users to capture gestures and replay them as evolving modulation, similar to a looper, but for movement and sound shaping.
SmartLab also functions as a sound processor, offering over 15 experimental effects including delays and textures inspired by organic, fluid soundscapes, which Error Instruments describes as “somewhere between an ambient machine and the playful unpredictability of a bubble-based synthesiser in the spirit of Rob Hordijk”.
Further key features include external LFO input and audio input support and a built-in microphone. The two companies are planning to start shipping SmartLab in June with a price of around €600, according to Gear News.
Hear it in-play below:

A number of other unusual synths have landed at this year’s Superbooth event, including the Cyma Forma RND, which has just a single large button on its front face and not much else in terms of controls, but packs in eight different synthesis engines.
Bastl Instruments has also unveiled the Kalimba, a Kalimba-inspired synth combining a familiar interface with digital synthesis, and producer Richie Hawtin and Erica Synths’ long-awaited Bullfrog Drums is finally here. The drum machine was teased back in 2024, and is not just for making beats, but for teaching people how to program and sample them too.
Head over to the Error Instruments website to learn more about SmartLab. 
The post Meet SmartLab: a kooky-looking six-voice string synth from This Is Not Rocket Science and Error Instruments appeared first on MusicTech.

This kalimba is also a synthesizer – and combines the feel of an acoustic instrument with digital synthesisSuperbooth is well underway, and here’s one of the wildest new synths being demoed at the event. Bastl Instruments – the company known for its playful approach to synth design – has unveiled Kalimba, which is basically exactly that: a Kalimba-inspired synthesizer combining a familiar interface with digital synthesis.
Put simply, the unit’s 12 velocity- and touch-sensitive tines, when played, are captured by microphones and touch sensors, which then feed into the internal six-voice synthesis engine, driven by FM synthesis and physical modelling.

READ MORE: This crazy synth has a single button – but four billion sounds

The result of three years of development, the Bastl Kalimba is designed to be a synthesizer which responds as expressively as an acoustic instrument. There’s also a built-in accelerometer which affects the FM synthesis engine when you physically tilt and rotate the unit. Neat, right?
Kalimba also features touch points on the front panel for creating pads, pitch slides, timbral modulation and more. There are also two function-assignable touch points on the back of the device.

Kalimba also comes with loaded with an arpeggiator with five modes, even a built-in layering looper, plus a host of presets, custom scales, octave shifting capabilities, and a range of effects, including reverb, delay, bit-crush, overdrive, filters and modulation.
As you might expect, the unit has a built-in speaker for standalone playing, but also has USB-C for MIDI and charging, as well as a stereo output, TRS MIDI input, analogue clock input and another mini jack socket.
“Kalimba has been one of the most challenging development projects Bastl has endured so far,” the company says.
Credit: Bastl Instruments
“We have spent more than three years developing this instrument, exploring different casing shapes, tine lengths, materials, internal designs, features and visual directions. We couldn’t be more grateful and proud of the entire Bastl team for what they have accomplished and how much heart they’ve put into this project.”
In terms of availability, Bastl Kalimba is live on Kickstarter, with a number of pricing tiers available ranging from €389 to €550.
Bastl Instruments is showcasing the Kalimba at Superbooth at booth O385.
Learn more at Bastl Instruments. Back the project on Kickstarter.
Credit: Bastl Instruments
The post This kalimba is also a synthesizer – and combines the feel of an acoustic instrument with digital synthesis appeared first on MusicTech.

This crazy synth has a single button – but four billion soundsOne of the wackiest synths to come out of this year’s Superbooth is the Cyma Forma RND, which boasts a single large button on its front face and not much else in terms of controls.
But don’t be put off by its somewhat limited user interface; though it’s a synth designed to make you “stop playing, start listening”, the RND is actually surprisingly capable…

READ MORE: Reel is a $10 app that turns your iPhone into a 4-track tape recorder – and it’s already hit No.1 on the App Store

Developed in collaboration with French musical artist Bambounou, the Cyma Forma RND has a singular button, but there’s loads going on behind the scenes.
The RND is built around eight different synthesis engines: subtractive, FM, acid, noise, speech, Karplus-Strong, supersaw and additive. With each push of the button, four of these are layered and run their own unique sequence.
Each time the centre button is pressed, each of these parameters is randomised. “Press again. It’s gone, forever. Something new exists in its place,” says Cyma Forma.

The synth also comes with five filter types plus a reverb effect. It’s not entirely clear how the user is supposed to play with these, but the unit has a surprisingly comprehensive I/O setup – with four-track audio output over USB-C, four-channel MIDI in and out, 9 MIDI modes, MIDI clock in and out, analogue sync in and out, and a stereo mix output – so we’d imagine the answer lies there.
Also a benefit of the above I/O is while the synth is billed as ‘press once, previous sound gone forever’, you can record any sound into a DAW while you have it.
Credit: Cyma Forma
The number of parameter combinations resulting from the eight synth engines isn’t quite infinite, but for all intents and purposes, it’s close, with over four billion sounds available…
Availability & pricing
The Cyma Forma RND is available to preorder now, priced at $150 / £111. Shipping is expected in late June. You can also buy a flex case for an additional $66.
The RND will be available to check out at Berlin’s Superbooth this week, at booth Z245.
Learn more at Cyma Forma.
The post This crazy synth has a single button – but four billion sounds appeared first on MusicTech.

RME TotalMix FX 2 now available TotalMix FX 2.0 delivers some major updates to the popular mixing and routing tool, introducing a new graphics engine along with a scaleable user interface and a whole host of enhancements.

Creating tension, suspense, and release: Tips from a pro film composer
Learn how expert film composer Dave Kropf (Chopped, The Bachelor) uses cinematic effects to create tension, suspense, and release in his cues.

Everything you need to know about iZotope RXRX is an audio restoration toolset whose seeds were sown in 2003 with a research project that resulted in three innovative tools: De-click, De-clip and Spectral De-noise. It was 2007, however, when those tools were bundled with a suite of more conventional audio processors and a powerful spectral audio editor, and released to the world as RX.
We’re used to working with audio in the time domain, but by adding access to the frequency domain spectral editors make it possible to fix audio glitches and problems in ways that are impossible with purely time-domain processing.

READ MORE: Review: iZotope RX 12’s focus on improved accuracy and quality pays off

As a result, it’s no big surprise that RX was a big hit in industries where being able to make a quick repair could save hundreds – if not thousands – in re-shooting, re-recording, and/or re-mixing costs. We’re talking TV and film post-production facilities, along with a bit of audio mastering, but there was less initial interest from music producers.
This started to change with the 2017 release RX 6, the first version of the software to harness the power of machine learning (ML) to enable functionality that seemed to border on the magical.
Machine Learning Meets Audio Editing
Image: Press
ML works by being trained to recognise patterns. Initially recognition is very poor, but over thousands of rounds of training, and refinement of the resulting neural networks, it becomes more and more able to recognise different types of sound. From here, it’s relatively straightforward to create algorithms targeted at the frequencies that constitute a given type of sound, be it to attenuate that sound, such as for noise reduction/removal, or to lift it out of the audio entirely, such as with stem separation.
In RX’s case musical stem separation is handled by the Music Rebalance module, which allows in-place volume adjustment of vocal, drums, bass and “other” stems (a godsend for mastering engineers!), or can separate those stems entirely. Two similar tools are aimed at TV and film production, namely Dialogue Isolate that removes background noise from dialogue, and the new Scene Rebalance that operates similarly to Music Rebalance but recognises dialogue, music and effects.
Working with separated stems in RX 12 has been massively improved thanks to the new Stems View which allows you to work with separated stems as lanes within a single window. I talk more about this excellent new feature in my review.
Not all of RX’s tools use ML, but the vast majority do in some form or other, and iZotope are steadily working through those that don’t, adding ML where there’s some advantage in doing so. For example, in RX 12, the De-bleed and Breath Control modules are the latest to receive an ML-based overhaul, making them both quicker to deploy and more accurate in their results (see my review for more about this).
Will RX Be Useful For Me?
Scene Rebalance in iZotope RX 12. Image: Adam Crute
Although capable of straightforward editing and processing – cut/copy/paste operations, gain and EQ adjustment, and such – RX’s main focus is on restoring damaged and poor quality audio, with a side-order of enhancement tools that can add polish in ways other plugins cannot. A good example of the latter would be using Music Rebalance’s stem splitting during mastering to tame an overly-dynamic drum stem without impacting the rest of the mix.
It is in restoring audio that RX is truly at its best, however, and it’s easy to see the value of being able to rescue a take or performance that’s perfect but for the squeaking of a piano pedal, the occasional mic pop, or the performer delivering an unexpected spike in volume that causes some clipping? Also invaluable is the ability to repair glitches that you didn’t notice during a recording session, and long after the performer(s) have gone off to do whatever-it-is they do while we’re topping-up our studio tans!
The newly-released RX 12 brings enhancements and improvements that only add to these restorative abilities. The ML-based modules benefit from increased accuracy and transparency thanks to iZotope’s focus on improving its models through countless rounds of training (using ethically sourced and properly licensed training material). The ML algorithms run more efficiently too, so the improved results are delivered with less hanging-around than before.
So, if you work in a studio with faultless equipment and perfect noise isolation, RX may be surplus to requirements, but if you work in a studio in the real world then there’s no doubt it will come in useful.
What Do I Get With RX?
De-bleed in iZotope RX 12. Image: Adam Crute
RX comes in three editions aimed at different types of user. Elements is for those who may need fix common audio problems such as clicks, pops, and overly-reverberant signals, but have no need for a full-features spectral editor. As such, the package comprises a set of plugins for loading into your DAW, but no standalone RX editor software.
Standard edition does include the spectral editor along with all of the restoration and enhancement tools you’re likely to need in a music production context. All of these are available as modules within RX, and many also have realtime plugin counterparts for use in your DAW, including Music Rebalance, Spectral De-noise, De-plosive, and Breath Control.
Advanced edition includes everything found in Standard along with some very attractive and powerful nuggets such as EQ Match, Ambience Match, Spectral Recovery, and Scene Rebalance. If you often work with audio for visual media then these tools will likely prove exceptionally useful (although the price may make you wince!), but for everyone else it’s unlikely the Advanced-only modules and plugins will prove useful.
A full list of the modules and plugins included in each edition of RX, along with explanations as to their functions, can be found on iZotope’s website, as can pricing details and upgrade options. Also, be sure to check out my review to find out more about RX 12’s new abilities features.
The post Everything you need to know about iZotope RX appeared first on MusicTech.

Analog vs. digital synthesizers: What’s the difference and which should you choose?
Learn about the strengths and limitations of analog vs. digital synthesizers, and when you'd want to reach for each.

iZotope RX 12 is here RX 12 introduces two entirely new modules, Stems View and Scene Rebalance, and boasts a number of improvements to its existing tools thanks to some behind-the-scenes tweaks. 

LALAL.AI now detects six different stem types from audio or video sources – and works entirely offlineAI-powered stem extractor LALAL.AI has had a glow up. Now, the multi-stem separation plugin can detect up to six different types of stems from any audio or video you load into it – and it works entirely offline.
While the original version only offered vocal and ‘instrumental’ stems, the latest update allows users to pick out specific instrument stems and vocal tracks. The selection includes: vocals, bass, drums, and piano stems, as well as distinctive acoustic and electric guitar stem extraction. And this is ontop of the plugin’s noise cancellation, intelligent removal of background music and vocal cleaning abilities.

READ MORE: I’ve finally found a pair of closed-back headphones I don’t want to EQ straight away

In order to extract your stems, users simply need to drop an audio file into their DAW, load up the plugin and select which stems are desired. Then, the plugin is able to instantly provide you with high-quality stems, with no limit on how many stem extractions you can perform – and it’s all done locally without the need for an internet connection, to help minimise on latency.
Last year, LALAL.AI made it on to MusicTech’s round-up of best stem separation tools. While we particularly took a shining to the plugin’s vocal separation, the new, more specific selection of instrumental stem extraction options is a game changer. It’s also upgraded to operate on Lyra, another marker of the plugin’s nifty evolution.
“Local stem separation is the future of audio production,” Nik Pogorsky, Product Owner & Co-Founder of Lalal.ai, explains, “With the launch of our six-stem VST, we are proving that the calibre of our algorithms can now live entirely on the user’s machine. We specifically engineered the Lyra model to provide professionals with the perfect equilibrium between processing speed and isolation precision. This release reflects the mission of making sophisticated AI invisible and seamlessly integrated into the daily lives of engineers and producers.”
LALAL.AI is compatible with Ableton, FL Studio, Reaper, or any other VST3-compatible DAW, and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The plugin costs £15.99 a month, or £144 for a full year.
For more information, head to Lalal.ai.
The post LALAL.AI now detects six different stem types from audio or video sources – and works entirely offline appeared first on MusicTech.

Alience with Sol8music

ALIENCE may speak in a novel dialect, yet its' core is still perceived as the universal language, which is music.

https://explore.publme.com/post/11/alience-with-sol8music

#Upcoming #Artist @Sol8

Chris Slanton's ideas about the World around.

Chris Slanton is the electronic pop artist and producer. Around 7 years ago his official music video "That Was Never The Way..." was released at VEVO. We hope that wasn't a prediction.

https://explore.publme.com/post/52/chris-slantons-ideas-about-the-world-around

#Upcoming #Artist @letthe

Alice MassLove invites you to dance.

Childish fantasy and a catchy beat: Alice MassLove invites you to dance with her kitten in her new song.

Imagine uncontrollable children's laughter and the patter of feet accompanied by a cat's purr! Young Alice gives the world the pure magic of childhood in her dance single "Miliy Kotik (Sweet Kitten)."

https://explore.publme.com/post/51/alice-masslove-invites-you-to-dance

#Upcoming #Artist @alicemasslove

Plugin Boutique is offering “the lowest price ever” on iZotope’s Ozone 12 mastering suitePlugin Boutique is currently offering some huge deals across iZotope plugins, with huge savings on its Ozone 12 mastering suite tiers.
Right now, you can get up to 52 percent off a range of iZotope mixing and mastering tools, but offers end on 15 April so you’ll need to act fast. All three tiers of Ozone 12 – Elements, Standard and Advanced – are currently reduced, as well as there being huge savings on bundle deals and other iZotope plugins.
[deals ids=”6wBAV3J8k58MDnRDqQWFyl”]
iZotope Ozone 12 was launched in September 2025 and introduced new modules and an update to its AI-powered assistant. The previous version of Ozone landed in 2023, and scored a 9/10 in our review. Though a near perfect score, we did note that the AI assistant needed some tweaks.

READ MORE: The best new plugins this week, free and paid

At the launch of Ozone 12, iZotope said that the AI assistant in this new iteration had “intelligent tech that guides, not decides”, and reiterated that the implementation of AI within its products is intended solely to help and inspire.

MusicTech also reviewed Ozone 12, and scored it 8/10. We noted that its Stem EQ could be a game-changer for those mastering other people’s music, and that its AI features “are assistive and not prescriptive”. We did note that the Advanced edition is quite expensive, but thanks to Plugin Boutique it’s now down to £383 with 20 percent off.
Ozone 12 Standard also has 20 percent off (now £167), but the streamlined Elements version offers the biggest saving with 47 percent off, making it just £29. You can also save on upgrades and crossgrades.
iZotope’s Music Production Suite 8.5 is also on sale, again with savings on upgrades and crossgrades, or you can purchase it individually for £615 with 20 percent off.
Find out more and view all iZotope deals at Plugin Boutique.
The post Plugin Boutique is offering “the lowest price ever” on iZotope’s Ozone 12 mastering suite appeared first on MusicTech.