Dreamtonics intros three Choir Voice Collections for Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro
Dreamtonics has released three new Choir Voice Collections for use within Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro, alongside a free version 2.2.0 update for the software. After two years of development and recording, the new Choir Voice Collections bring a total of three virtual choir voices to the platform. Each collection contains 16 individual voices (four [...]
View post: Dreamtonics intros three Choir Voice Collections for Synthesizer V Studio 2 Pro

“A lot of people know me as a guitar player, but I want to showcase my production”: Cory WongThere are some musicians who simply cannot sit still. As enterprising and creative as they are prolific, it’s as if such artists have endless reserves of energy— or perhaps time in their universe moves at half-speed, allowing double the productivity. Whatever the secret, Cory Wong belongs firmly in that category. And given the speed of his guitar playing, it may well prove the half-speed-universe theory in more ways than one.

READ MORE: Margo XS on producing “pop music as noise music”

As a member of eminent funk outfit Vulfpeck, the Grammy nominee is set to headline London’s biggest indoor stage in July. He’s also about to embark on an extensive solo tour of North and South America with his new studio album Lost In The Wonder, a helter-skelter pop-funk record replete with collaborations which he produced and mixed himself.
He continues to self-produce his variety series Cory and the Wongnotes, and hosts the Wong Notes podcast, welcoming guests from Joe Satriani to Jacob Collier to Joe Walsh. His website offers a link to the Cory Wong Guitar Course, where he guides you through chord voicings, right-hand technique, practice methods and even his own ‘signature moves’. If that all sounds like hard work, it’s because it is. But for Wong, it’s all in the name of one painfully simple thing:
“I’m chasing what’s fun for me,” he reflects from his Minneapolis studio. “I’m chasing things that will challenge my artistry and creativity. So if those things all align on the Venn diagram, that’s what’s fun for me.”
Watching any of Wong’s concert films, it’s hard to reach any other conclusion. A funk-laden thrill ride backed by virtuosic brass and rhythm sections, the Stratocaster-armed Wong assumes a master-of-ceremonies role. He exuberantly bounds about the stage while welcoming a revolving door of guests — all, of course, without missing a beat. It’s no surprise that with Lost In The Wonder, Wong saw an opportunity to set himself another challenge.
Image: Press
“A lot of people know me as a guitar player— and rightfully so, because I’m a guitar guy!” says Wong. “But with this album, I wanted to really showcase a lot more of my songwriting, my production and my arranging. And then ask, how can I make the guitar the showcase instrument within all that other stuff?”
Wong’s voracious appetite for collaboration has so far led to his playing with a litany of venerable players; Jon Batiste, The Jonas Brothers, Bruce Hornsby, Billy Strings, Tom Misch and Victor Wooten— even Gene Simmons is on the list. Lost In The Wonder leans into that dynamic even further, with guests including Taylor Hanson, Devon Gilfillian, Stephen Day, Cody Fry, Yam Haus, Louis Cato and Magic City Hippies featured in various iterations across every one of its tracks.
“It was really fun to make this album and do collaborations with people where I can approach it more like a ‘producer’ type-guy, you know?” He laughs. “In a similar way that a lot of other people in the pop world do it. You look at the EDM world, [where] somebody like Zedd produces and works with a lot of other artists. Those sorts of folks have really inspired me. Really, my aim with this album is to ask: How can I draw something out of these collaborators that maybe they wouldn’t do on their own albums? How can I offer them a space and a creative outlet to do something a little bit different, but still showcase their artistry? And I ask the same of them: ‘I want you to draw something different out of me. Let’s find out what we can pull from each other, how we can grow each other’s artistry in this collaboration.’ With this album, I really wanted to continue to explore that. Again, it’s fun!”

Today, Wong is among the most lauded guitar players anywhere. He even has signature guitars with Fender and Music Man. But with great power comes great responsibility; the history of his craft is peppered with shred-fest soloing and braggadocious machismo. He’s capable of this, and it’s a thrill when the man lets rip. But how does such an energised performer and prolific instrumentalist keep the balance?
“There’s a long history of the guitar being this thing where we’re showboating our technical facility,” Wong says. “Or just constantly shredding guitar. And there’s a time and place for that— I like a lot of that music. But that’s not really what I want to do, and that’s not really what I feel is the most compelling part of my artistry.
“Sure, there are times where it’s like, ‘Let’s give them the fireworks! I’m going to get out there and shred.’ But I like the sound of other instruments. I like the arrangement. So much of what I’m doing requires me to be a band leader; I need to use my taste and my influences to arrange for different things. When you listen to the Duke Ellington big band, it’s not just about the piano.”
When it came to making Lost In The Wonder, Wong’s proclivity for collaboration naturally presented him with a surfeit of potential guests— not least those with whom he has played for years, such as Vulfpeck’s own Theo Katzman. The process of choosing guests for the album was once again demonstrative of Wong’s confidently whimsical approach to the record. “It was just, ‘What feels fun to do?’ He explains. “What do I want to explore?” Doubtless, that approach also required him to be light on his feet and adaptable; not tied to any one studio or band but taking contributions from practitioners wherever time and space allowed.
“For instance, somebody like [producer and artist] Ellis,” Wong continues. “I was in London, doing another session thing for somebody. I was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to be over at this studio, Sleeper Sounds, I’m just kind of hanging and writing. You want to come by and do something?’ He’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll take the train down. Let’s hang for the afternoon!’ And we just sat down and wrote this tune together, The Big Payoff, and got the skeleton and some of the meat on it. Then I sent it over to my horn section leader, Michael Nelson. So it ended up getting done in three different studios.

“With Benny Sings, I flew to Amsterdam, and we wrote and recorded the song in the studio in one day. With Magic City Hippies, I had a song idea, and I sent it over to them. They were like, ‘Ok, here’s where we’re hearing this going!’ They added some different things. They sent it back to me. I said, ‘Ok, try this.’ They did some stuff, sent it back. It was all remote. So the process is always different. It’s just about what works for the collaborators and what we’re doing.”
The boyish energy Wong brings to his recordings extends to the technical aspects of creating Lost In The Wonder, with a surprisingly light guitar setup. While most of the recording was conducted at Minneapolis’ Creation Audio with producer John Fields (“a close friend of mine, one of the best producers”), the heart of Wong’s own setup— specifically when it comes to capturing his guitar playing— is startlingly simple.
“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. 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.”
As for the next step along the signal chain, when it comes to Cory Wong, a custom guitar can only be followed by custom software. In this case, the product of a collaboration between the artist and venerable plugin developer Neural DSP.
Image: Press
“Most of the time, I use the Archetype: Cory Wong X plugin that I helped create with Neural DSP. There’s basically an emulation of an SSL console and a Neve console; there are characteristics of both hidden in there. But then there are also very clean amps in there.”
With filtering, compression, overdrive, cabinet simulation, room simulation and more available with the Archetype: Cory Wong X, the fact that Wong himself uses it must be evidence of its success, I offer.
“I was like, ‘The only way this thing goes out is if I am 100% satisfied, and if you are 100% satisfied,” Wong remembers saying to Neural DSP. “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!”
If there’s one thing Lost In The Wonder demonstrates as much as Cory Wong’s propensity to stretch himself, it’s his willingness to back himself— and perhaps most impressive of all is the fact that it has yielded ample rewards on both fronts.
If time does indeed move at half-speed for the lightning-quick guitar player, he’s sure allowed plenty of it to pass before entering the new chapter of an ever-ascending career, positioning himself as an enabling force within the remarkable mechanics of his own artistic output. It’s a fresh precedent for Cory Wong the Producer, another unequivocal string added to the prolific artist’s already substantial bow.
The post “A lot of people know me as a guitar player, but I want to showcase my production”: Cory Wong appeared first on MusicTech.

Bitcoin’s upcoming $10.5B options expiry may end bear market: Here’s howBitcoin markets are bracing for Friday’s $10.5 billion monthly options expiry. Does the data show bulls or bears at an advantage?

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Sony Group’s blueprint for AI music detection tech is promising. Here’s what it’s working on…MBW reacts to three research papers detailed by Sony AI.
Source

Random Number Generator Uses Camera NoiseRandom numbers are very important to us in this computer age, being used for all sorts of security and cryptographic tasks. [Theory to Thing] recently built a device to generate random numbers using nothing more complicated than simple camera noise.
The heart of the build is an ESP32 microcontroller, which [Theory to Thing] first paired with a temperature sensor as a source of randomness. However, it was quickly obvious that a thermocouple in a cup of tea wasn’t going to produce nice, jittery, noisy data that would make for good random numbers. Then, inspiration struck, when looking at vision from a camera with the lens cap on. Particularly at higher temperatures, speckles of noise were visible in the blackness—thermal noise, which was just what the doctor ordered.
Thus, the ESP32 was instead hooked up to an OV3660 camera, which was then covered up with a piece of black electrical tape. By looking at the least significant bits of the pixels in the image, it was possible to pick up noise when the camera should have been reporting all black pixels. [Theory to Thing] then had the ESP32 collate the noisy data and report it via a web app that offers up randomly-generated answers to yes-or-no questions.
[Theory to Thing] offers up a basic statistical exploration of bias in the system, and shows how it can be mitigated to some degree, but we’d love a deeper dive into the maths to truly quantify how good this system is when it comes to randomness. We’ve featured deep dives on the topic before. Video after the break.

The White House wants AI companies to cover rate hikes. Most have already said they would.Many hyperscalers have already made public commitments to cover electricity cost increases.

Release Radar: Jai’Len Josey Is A Serial RomanticIt’s a rare thing in the current R&B landscape to find an artist who doesn’t just sing about the cycle of heartbreak, but actually hands you the exit map. Enter Jai’Len Josey.

After years of being the "songwriter’s songwriter"—including co-writing gold-certified hits like Ari Lennox’s “Pressure”—Josey is finally stepping into her own light with her debut album, Serial Romantic. Executive produced by five-time GRAMMY Award-winner Tricky Stewart, the project is a masterclass in what happens when a Broadway-trained powerhouse decides to stop looking for salvation in other people and starts finding it in the mirror.

While the industry has been buzzing about Jai’Len since her 2026 "Artist to Watch" nod from Spotify, the soul of this record was forged in the fire of a 2024 breakup. It wasn't just a "sad girl" moment; it was a total recalibration.

“This project really came together at the breaking point of a relationship I was in back in 2024,” Josey tells us. “I had all these songs accumulated, and I didn’t know what to do with them. My A&R, Drew Corria, had the idea to bring Tricky Stewart into the picture, and the rest is history.”

The title Serial Romantic might sound like a diagnosis, but for Josey, it’s an autopsy of her past self. She’s remarkably candid about the "tests" that led her here.

“The inspiration was all the experiences, failed relationships, and tests that ultimately led me back to myself. Every lesson, every heartbreak—it all pointed me inward.”

She isn't just making music to fill space in a playlist; she’s trying to disrupt a pattern.

“Being a ‘Serial Romantic’ was the loop I was stuck in—trying to find God in romantic partners when I really needed to recognize God’s love within myself. I want my listeners to feel strong enough to break that loop. That’s what excites me most—the possibility of someone hearing this album and choosing themselves.”

If you’ve been following her journey from her days as "Pearl" in The SpongeBob Musical to her 2020 Illustrations EP, you know Josey’s voice is seismic. But Serial Romantic is where the storytelling catches up to the scale of the vocals.

Whether it's the flirtatious energy of "New Girl" or the raw, boundary-setting vulnerability of "Won't Force You," the album plays like a cohesive narrative. While she’s biased toward the whole tracklist, she urges fans to listen to the project as a single piece of architecture.

“I’m excited for supporters to hear every song… but I really can’t wait for people to experience them in the full context of the story. It’s meant to be heard as a journey.”

For an artist who has spent years perfecting the art of the "creative therapy session," the actual mechanics of the music industry are the only things that still feel daunting.

“Honestly, the hardest part has just been getting the music out for people to hear. Creating it was therapy. Releasing it? That’s the real leap of faith.”

But don't mistake her vulnerability for hesitation. When asked about her plans for the rest of 2026 and beyond, Jai’Len’s answer was clear:

“The first plan for 2026 is simple: release this album. After that? The world is mine.”

If Serial Romantic is the sound of breaking a cycle, it’s also the sound of stepping into something bigger. Not searching for salvation in somebody else’s arms—but recognizing it in your own voice.

Look out for Serial Romantic in the coming months.

Photo Credit: Zoë MillsThe post Release Radar: Jai’Len Josey Is A Serial Romantic first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Evolve Air from Excite Audio The latest arrival to Excite Audio’s Evolve series promises to “blend fragile sonic moments into something intimate yet intangible, half-there, floating at the edge of the ethereal”. 

SPARTA - Spatial Audio Real-Time Applications compass_6DoF A six degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) renderer based on multiple Ambisonic receivers as input. The source positions may either be specified or tracked similarly as described in [12]. The plug-in may be configured to either output the isolated source object signals (one per track), or to spatialise the sound scene (including reverberation) from the perspective of the listener position/orientation over headphones or as Ambisonics output. If targetting Ambisonics, any Ambisonic decoder may then be used to auralise the translated sound scene. Note that all receiver channels must be stacked on-top of eachother, for example: 3 first-order receivers should be assigned to input channels 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, respectively. Therefore, due to the 64-channel VST2 limitation, the plug-in supports either: 16x first-order, 7x second-order, 4x third-order receivers etc. Developers: Leo McCormack and Archontis Politis. Read More

Brian Eno fans unite… Excite Audio’s Evolve Air is inspired by ambient music innovatorsExcite Audio has launched another new addition to its Evolve plugin series, this time focusing on Air.
The Evolve lineup was launched with Evolve Alloy back in July 2025. Each of these plugins explores the “sonic characteristics” of different materials and matter. It also launched Evolve Velvet last September, a sample-based soft synth inspired by, you guessed it, the smooth and luxurious character of velvet.

READ MORE: Celebrating 10 years of oeksound Soothe, the plugin Skrillex calls “so simple yet dynamic”

Evolve Air is inspired by experimental and ambient innovators like Tim Hecker, Jon Hopkins, Brian Eno, and Oneohtrix Point Never. It captures the atmospheric essence of air, with a focus on ethereal, breathy textures, wind instruments, and spacious atmospheres.
It comes packed with 250 presets, including “distant vocal phrases, ghostly pads, foggy melodic motifs, and vast cinematic spaces”, according to Excite Audio, to provide “an emotional palette that feels weightless and alive”.
Users can blend four layers of samples or synths thanks to its quad-engine, and morph sounds in real time with the XY Pad. You can also import your own samples and build entirely custom patches, modulate anything with drag-and-drop envelopes, LFOs, and XY controls, and tweak tones with dual filters and a rearrangeable three-slot FX chain.
Hear it in use below:

There are currently a number of huge offers on Excite Audio products over at Plugin Boutique including a Complete Collection bundle reduced to £309 (down from £658) until 1 March. The bundle includes Evolve Air as well as other Evolve Series plugins and those from its Bloom Series, Motion Series, and more.
Last year, Excite Audio partnered with producer Mura Masa on a new Bloom plugin, which captures the essence of his sound and features a generous platter of presets designed by Mura Masa himself, with a total of 250 to utilise and expand upon.
Evolve Air is available now from Plugin Boutique for £39.
The post Brian Eno fans unite… Excite Audio’s Evolve Air is inspired by ambient music innovators appeared first on MusicTech.

Interpolation vs sampling: A producer’s guide to music borrowing and clearance in 2026Ad feature with BandLab. [Editor’s Note: MusicTech and BandLab are both part of Caldecott Music Group.]
When Taylor Swift released The Life of a Showgirl last October, the superstar drew significant online discourse to two creative acts: interpolation and sampling.
Swift demonstrated these techniques in tracks such as Father Figure — but the differences between sampling and interpolation can often seem blurry. Both creative methods come with legal considerations that, when followed, can protect you from infringing on copyright and ensure you and your fellow producers are getting paid.
To help you navigate these concepts confidently, MusicTech has invited BandLab to share its expertise.
The team behind the massively popular music creation platform has created a guide to sampling vs interpolation, covering the basics on rights, permissions and when to use each technique, ensuring you’re clued up for 2026 and beyond.
Interpolation vs sampling
What is interpolation?
Interpolation isn’t a new concept. Composers have been borrowing and reworking melodies from earlier tracks before the existence of modern recording tech. But it really hit the spotlight in the late 90s, when hip-hop and R&B producers leaned heavily on replaying the hooks from soul, funk, and pop records instead of sampling them outright.
Image: BandLab Technologies
This let them skip costly sample clearance and gave them freedom to reinterpret the material to fit their creative vision. That era was what cemented interpolation as a creative tool in music production. You’ve definitely heard it in recent hits — Doja Cat and SZA’s song Kiss Me More is a nod to Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit Physical, for example.
Interpolation can take several forms depending on what’s borrowed. Using a larger section of a song (like the chords or overall arrangement) and reshaping it is known as structural interpolation. Recreating a melody with different instruments or a fresh vocal take is melodic interpolation. And if you borrow lyrics from an existing song but place them in a new context, that’s lyrical interpolation.
What is sampling?
Sampling has a different backstory. In the 1940s, French composer Pierre Schaeffer experimented with creating new music from tape loops of recorded sound. At first, it was mostly an academic or experimental technique. Fast forward to the late 1980s, and producers were looping funk and soul records and building full tracks around them.
Since then, many genres have embraced the technique, giving birth to countless hits over the years. Think Kanye West’s Stronger, which famously samples Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, which also samples Edwin Birdsong’s Cola Bottle Baby from 1979.
Sampling comes in a few forms, too. When you lift full sections or riffs from a track, that’s loop sampling. Taking short, isolated sounds like drum hits or vocal snippets is known as one-shot sampling. And when you cut and rearrange sections to create a new rhythm, melody, or hook, that’s chop sampling.
Today, both sampling and interpolation are far more accessible to creators at all levels. Free DAWs like BandLab let anyone work on desktop or mobile without the need for expensive gear. For interpolation, built-in tools like Splitter let you isolate vocals or instruments from songs, analyse them, and re-perform each part. You can also use the free Sampler tool to build custom 16-pad kits, chop loops, and layer sounds right in your project.

When to choose interpolation vs sampling
If interpolation is often easier to clear legally, why do some creators still prefer sampling? And when is it better to choose interpolation vs sampling? It depends on what your track needs creatively.
When to use interpolation
Interpolation works best when you want to reference parts of a song without using the original recording. Because you’re re-recording it yourself, you usually only need permission from the songwriters or publishers, making the clearance process simpler and less expensive than getting a master use license.
Beyond the legal side, it also gives you more room to get creative. You can swap out instruments, change the rhythm or key, or add your own vocal style, all while still paying homage to the original track.
A strong example of this is Ariana Grande’s song 7 Rings, which reimagines 1965’s My Favorite Things by Rodgers and Hammerstein in a fresh, modern way.
When to use sampling
Sampling makes more sense when you want the specific sound of a recording in your track. Sometimes a vocal tone or texture simply can’t be recreated, and using the original audio brings an authenticity or nostalgic weight that interpolation can’t quite match.
Keep in mind that sampling requires more legal work. You’ll need clearance from both the songwriters and the owner of the master recording, which can make it more complex and costly — but it may well be worth the effort.
How do you get the right permissions for interpolation vs sampling?
Creativity is only half of the equation. The other half is making sure you have the right permissions before you release your track to the world. This is where many creators trip up.
If you’re new to this, here’s some background: Music rights are generally split into two parts: the composition, which covers the melody and lyrics; and the master recording, which is the actual recorded performance.
Interpolation only involves the former, since you’re re-recording the material yourself. Sampling uses both the composition and the original recording, which is why it requires an extra layer of clearance.
Credit: BandLab
How to get permission for interpolation
Start by identifying who owns the song’s composition. This information is public but sometimes tricky to track down. Performing rights organisations (PROs) like ASCAP, BMI, or PRS have databases, and tools like Songview or ASCAP ACE can confirm songwriters and publishers.
Once you know who to contact, you’ll need to explain how the interpolation is used. This includes what part of the song you’re referencing, how prominent it is, and how you plan to release your track.
Publishers often request songwriting credit, a share of royalties, or both. Occasionally, a small upfront fee might be involved, though this is often more affordable than sampling. Everything should be confirmed in writing via a licensing agreement or publishing split sheet before your song goes live.
How to get permission for sampling
Sampling is a two-step process. In addition to clearing the composition, you need permission from the owner of the master recording. This could be a label, an independent artist, a rights management company, or even an estate.
Reach out to both parties separately and clearly outline how the sample is used: its length, whether it’s looped or altered, and how central it is to your track. Each rights holder negotiates independently, and approval from one doesn’t automatically mean approval from the other.
If it’s cleared, you’ll receive a publishing license for the composition and a master use license for the recording. Be aware: some requests are declined, especially for heavily featured samples or works with multiple rights holders.
Staying legally safe when sampling
Don’t wait until after your song is finished (or worse, released) to think about clearance. A common mistake creators make is assuming that small changes are enough to avoid permission.
As you create, take note of what you’ve referenced, where it came from, and how it’s used in your track. Your collaborators should also be aligned on what’s been sampled or interpolated before the song gets released. When in doubt, ask for permission early or consult a music lawyer — it’s always safer than guessing.
How to credit properly
Lastly, make sure you credit other musicians properly. This is important both legally and ethically, and just shows basic respect for the artists who influenced your work.
For interpolations, add original songwriters to your credits and update publishing splits. Make sure these are correctly registered with your distributor and PRO so royalties flow properly.
For samples, credit both the songwriters and the master recording owner as required. Common phrasing includes “contains a sample of…” or “includes elements from…”, and it appears in liner notes, metadata, or official credits.
Regardless of which method you choose, experimenting has never been easier. There are plenty of royalty-free samples available online (over 250,000 in BandLab Sounds alone) that you can use worry-free in your tracks, with no credit required.
Now, with these tips in mind, go ahead and create as confidently as Taylor Swift with interpolation and sampling in your music for 2026.
Read more guides on music production. 
The post Interpolation vs sampling: A producer’s guide to music borrowing and clearance in 2026 appeared first on MusicTech.

voidDSP releases Echo1, a FREE stereo delay plugin with modulation
voidDSP has released Echo1, a free modulated stereo delay plugin for Mac and Windows. Echo1 has two independent delay lines, each with its own speed control. The Sync button locks both lines to the left slider value, which is handy when you don’t need the more complex interactions you get from running the two lines [...]
View post: voidDSP releases Echo1, a FREE stereo delay plugin with modulation

This Spotify/Liquid Death-branded urn houses your ashes after you die while playing your favourite tunesThere’s a perfect playlist for all of life’s great moments, and now, your journey into the great beyond can have its own soundtrack, too.
Spotify has teamed up with canned water specialist Liquid Death to create an urn outfitted with a Bluetooth speaker, which can house your ashes upon your death while playing your favourite songs for your grieving friends and family.

READ MORE: This one-of-a-kind synth is made almost entirely of e-waste

It’s a pretty out there PR campaign, we agree, but remember this is the same company (Liquid Death), which has sold iced tea previously drunk by Ozzy Osbourne – and therefore infused with his actual DNA – for $450 a pop…
Aiming to “redefine the afterlife experience” the Eternal Playlist Urn boasts a “minimal and respectful” design for the “home. Columbarium or anywhere in between”.
Users can prepare for their journey to the other side by heading to Spotify’s Eternal Playlist Generator, where the platform asks a number of somewhat creepy questions, including “What’s your eternal vibe?” and “What’s your go-to ghost noise”.
Subsequently, based on your answers and Spotify listening history, the platform will generate a personalised mix “fit for a lifetime… and beyond”.

The urn features a Bluetooth speaker built directly into the lid, so a user with any Bluetooth-compatible device can connect.
Of course, you needn’t wait for your death to share your Eternal Playlist with your friends; you can do that right now while the blood is still coursing through your veins.
Credit: Spotify
“The Eternal Playlist Urn is a collector’s item for anyone looking to take their love for music to the next level,” says Spotify. “With a discreet Bluetooth speaker built into the lid, you can connect from any compatible device and enjoy your favorite playlist for all eternity.”
We stress that this is not merely a publicity stunt; this is a genuine product you can buy, albeit only in the US and in limited quantities. So how much is such a home for your ashes worth? Answer: $495 excluding taxes.
Generate your Eternal Playlist at Spotify. Learn more at Liquid Death.
The post This Spotify/Liquid Death-branded urn houses your ashes after you die while playing your favourite tunes appeared first on MusicTech.

Bringing open-back: The Grado headphones making life harder for music makersMusic production used to have some house rules: a room, a pair of monitors, and plenty of artistic disagreements. Now it’s increasingly a solo act built around laptops, late nights, and whatever passes for a ‘quiet’ space that week. Headphones are essential to this modern world, but, strangely, they’re also becoming the driver for crucial mixing decisions.
Some engineers are deliberately choosing headphones that don’t sugarcoat that process. Designs refusing to soften anything, that leak sound everywhere, and unearth uncomfortable truths about the music, whether you’re ready to hear them or not.

READ MORE: Margo XS on producing “pop music as noise music”

Open-back headphones, long treated as recording heresy, let sound escape rather than sealing it in. This makes them impractical around microphones, useless for isolation, and brutally honest in environments most engineers spend their careers trying to control. They feel like the wrong answer to modern production problems, which is precisely why they’re creeping back in.
Take brands like Beyerdynamic, Audeze, Sennheiser, and Focal. All accustomed to producing open-back models priced from the palatable to the seemingly ridiculous in the pursuit of producing a ‘natural’ sound. Heresy for tracking, perhaps, but once the red light is off, they’ve long had their defenders.
Grado Signature HP100 SE. Image: Press
In that group, you’ll also find Grado, where its flagship HP100 SE — hand-built in Brooklyn, New York — can be yours for a Klarna-troubling £2,800. They feature a 52mm dynamic driver deliberately designed to reveal intricate detail and spatial realism to such an extent that it can make the wearer feel uncomfortable.
The company, which deals almost exclusively in open-back headphones, makes no bones about this approach, even if it ruffles feathers in high places — something COO Rich Grado was reminded of after receiving feedback from Grammy- and Emmy-winning producer Giles Martin, son of “fifth Beatle” George.
“Our RS1 headphones got brought into Abbey Road Studios for the recording of one of Sir Paul McCartney’s albums, and the response from Giles was, ‘I heard things using these headphones that I didn’t hear in my original work, and now you’re making me consider going back and readdressing my recordings.’”
Grado Signature HP100 SE. Image: Press
Speaking via video call from Grado’s 7th Avenue headquarters, the archetypal New Yorker with attitude adds, “The HP1 has taken that further. There have been some questions about whether it’s so detailed that it’s unforgiving. It won’t hide some of the… I don’t want to say errors… but inefficiencies in the recording or even the equipment.”
Grado Labs was founded in 1953 by Joseph Grado, an audio hall of famer best known for inventing the moving-coil stereo cartridge and later developing some of the first high-end dynamic headphones. Today, son John is the owner, other son Rich handles product direction, while John’s son Matthew is Vice President of Operations. No investors. No reinvention. No interest in sanding off the edges.
My first interaction with the brand occurred in 2013, involving a pair of DJ headphones fashioned from whiskey barrels and designed in collaboration with The Lord of the Rings actor, Elijah Wood. Turns out it was a pretty good indicator that this family affair trusts its instincts more than market logic.
For all the talk of heresy – leakage and lack of isolation can ruin a clean recording – they’re gold standard for engineers prioritising natural, expansive sound for critical listening. You wouldn’t track a vocal with them on, for example, but Grado says, “Once you’re on the other side of that glass, engineers want to hear things differently.”
Grado Signature HP100 SE. Image: Press
The pandemic then fractured production across bedrooms, kitchens, and temporary setups. Grado adds, “Major studio engineers were already using our headphones. During COVID, as people were recording from different locations, they wanted everybody listening to the same thing, so we sent a lot out to big-name recording artists so they would be on the same page.”
Open-back headphones don’t simulate a perfect studio but instead expose the absence of one. For engineers whose job is to make decisions that translate beyond their own setup, that exposure can be brutal, but crucially, clarifying.
A key reason headphones like the HP100 SE can feel so confrontational is that they have a habit of dragging other signals into the sound. Grado says, “It has created issues when somebody buys the headphone and plugs it into an amp, they start hearing things they feel are a problem with the headphone. We start getting into situations where an amp is creating a distortion some other headphones just aren’t able to display, but ours do.”
So, if you want your headphones to not only expose the flaws in a piece of music, but also in your system, the HP100 SE are just the ticket. Perhaps they should be standard issue for every music critic and hi-fi reviewer – after all, some people just want to see the world burn. Grado is candid about where friction leads, adding, “It’s the chicken or the egg. Everybody blames somebody else.”
The company refuses to endorse third-party gear or recommend a single ‘correct setup’, instead pushing users towards community forums and shared experience. A commendable hands-on stance or a cop out? You decide. But one thing is for certain: the HP100 SE exist to make decisions harder.
Grado Signature HP100 SE. Image: Press
Unlike most flagship studio headphones, it ships with interchangeable ear cushions that materially alter how it sounds. Engineers gravitate towards the G-cushion, which keeps the drivers further from the ear, maximising detail, speed and spatial separation. The B-cushion brings the driver closer, softens the top end slightly and adds weight in the low frequencies. Something easier to live with over long sessions.
Grado believes the split is almost even, adding, “I’m a big proponent of sound being subjective, and I don’t expect to get 100% buy-in on our sound. I think that’s unrealistic. We shouldn’t tell somebody what they like or what they should listen to. We should give them an option to decide for themselves.”
Having lived with the HP100 SE for about a month, including over Christmas, they’re not a pair you instinctively reach for when you want to relax or find comfort in familiarity. They are, however, cans for the curious, when you suspect a song isn’t telling you the whole story, and you want the truth. Whether you can handle the truth is another matter entirely.
To their credit, they encourage a slower, more deliberate way of listening. A throwback to a time when albums were listened to in their entirety and on repeat. I found myself revisiting sections rather than pushing past them to unearth seemingly hidden quirks. No hidden demonic messages summoning the antichrist, but then I haven’t got to the Gesaffelstein yet.
They’re not a pair you’d want to live in all day. The openness that makes them so revealing can become mentally taxing over long stretches, particularly when listening to material that’s already close to the edge. But used as a reference tool that won’t lie like AI, the HP100 SE becomes a trusted companion — if you can handle the relationship.
Grado Labs operates out of the same building that’s been in the family since 1918 and has leaned back into in-person listening events and community-led experiences. Rich Grado talks openly about reconnecting with headphone “meets” and hi-fi bars, particularly in New York, where people bring their own references, their own biases, and their own systems into the room.
In the end, headphones like the HP100 SE aren’t just about hearing what’s wrong with a record. It’s about what happens when people are willing to sit in the same room – literal or otherwise – and argue honestly about music. New Yorkers, for what it’s worth, have never been shy about speaking their mind.
The post Bringing open-back: The Grado headphones making life harder for music makers appeared first on MusicTech.