Uryan Modular releases Vaelyra Stryn, a FREE resonant string/pluck synth
Uryan Modula, a company specialising in hand-built Eurorack cases and enclosures, has released Vaelyra Stryn, a free resonant string/pluck synth for macOS, Windows, and Linux. The Hungarian modular experts also offer free plugins, samples, and theory guides. At the time of writing, Uryan Modular has the following plugins on offer: Waeler Aether Drift Elysa Morph [...]
View post: Uryan Modular releases Vaelyra Stryn, a FREE resonant string/pluck synth

Anyma’s first-ever solo show was at Printworks – now he’s returning to the UK capital with his most spectacular show yet, ÆDENFrom a live visuals standpoint, Italian-American DJ and producer Anyma sets the bar. In the five short years since starting his solo project in 2021 – breaking away from Tale of Us, of which he remains a member alongside Carmine Conte (MRAK) – Matteo Milleri has brought his head-spinning visuals to some of the world’s biggest stages, recently including Coachella, and a massive sold-out residency at the Las Vegas Sphere.
Though born in New York City and raised in Milan, London remains Anyma’s spiritual home, after causing seismic waves in EDM with his landmark debut show at Printworks in 2022.
And this month he’s returning home, bringing his most spectacular show yet, ÆDEN, to Silverworks Island, right in the heart of the British capital.

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

ÆDEN – debuted at this year’s Coachella festival and since brought to UNVRS Ibiza – is Matteo Milleri’s most ambitious live show to date, with cutting-edge visuals designed to emphasise the surrounding natural environment.
Silverworks Island is an open-air venue set against the backdrop of East London’s Royal Docks, so this means a cinematic experience and thoroughly immersive sound design as planes soar overhead while taking off and landing at London City Airport.

ÆDEN’s inaugural show at Coachella 2026 saw the debut of Anyma’s latest single Bad Angel with Blackpink’s LISA, alongside a stacked setlist of originals and remixes, including Voices in My Head (with Argy and Son of Son), and versions of Fred again and Swedish House Mafia’s Turn On The Lights Again, The Prodigy’s No Good (Start the Dance) and Cassian’s Run. The set even saw a guest appearance from Muse frontman Matt Bellamy.
Since then, Anyma and his label Afterlife have brought the ÆDEN World Tour to Shanghai, Brussels and Ibiza, and following his homecoming (so-to-speak) in London in June 27 and 28, the tour span the rest of the year, making stops in Gdańsk, Poland, Mexico City, Vancouver, Istanbul, Milan, Madrid, Sydney, Mumbai and Paris.

ÆDEN at Silverworks Island will see support from Kevin De Vries, Kölsch, Chris Avantgarde, Layla Benitez, KAS:ST and HANA on Saturday the 27th, and Mind Against, Ben Böhmer, Woo York, 8Kays, Kasia and Stylo on Sunday the 28th. 
With its industrial backdrop and the fact it’s Anyma’s first London show since 2022, ÆDEN at Silverworks Island could very well be one of the EDM spectacles of the summer.
Tickets for ÆDEN are available now via anyma.com and silverworksisland.com.

 
The post Anyma’s first-ever solo show was at Printworks – now he’s returning to the UK capital with his most spectacular show yet, ÆDEN appeared first on MusicTech.

Fraunhofer, the creator of the MP3 and MPEG-H, shows me the innovations coming to audioFraunhofer IIS occupies a central place in the history of digital audio. As the German-based institute behind the MP3 audio format and a major force in the evolution of AAC, it now combines that legacy with advanced research in immersive sound and technologies such as MPEG-H, designed to make listening more flexible, immersive, and adaptive.
MPEG-H pushes audio beyond the idea of a fixed stereo or surround mix. By working with audio objects and dynamic metadata, it allows content to adapt to different playback systems and listening situations, from immersive speaker arrays to soundbars, TVs and headphones.

READ MORE: Imagine Plugins is changing who gets to make plugins

During a visit to Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen, that evolution came into focus in conversation with Bernhard Grill, the institute’s managing director and a member of the core group involved in the development of MP3. He describes his contribution as helping turn research that was still largely academic into something capable of operating in real-world conditions. That reflects one of Fraunhofer’s core principles: research is meant to be applied in the real world.
From that perspective, Grill can compare two very different technological eras. In the days of MP3, development could be handled by a small team and a relatively contained level of complexity. Today, the situation is very different. “MP3 could be done with a small team of maybe five people. At its peak, MPEG-H had close to 100 people working on it.” The remark is about more than scale. It points to a change in how innovation itself works: no longer the product of a small, tightly focused group, but of much larger, more specialised, and more distributed efforts. As Grill puts it, “It’s getting harder to make a difference for the next generation and just things get more complicated, but at the same time hardware gets more powerful.” Innovation has not stopped; its scale, pace, and conditions have changed.
Bernhard Grill, managing director of Fraunhofer. Image: Press
That growing complexity requires not only larger teams, but also an environment able to keep up with it. Europe, Grill argues, is beginning to lose ground against China and the US because bureaucracy is slowing progress: delayed purchasing processes, regulatory requirements, and, above all, restrictions on the use of AI that force researchers to spend time on forms instead of working on the technology itself.
Fraunhofer IIS still preserves the first MP3 player in history. Its storage capacity was limited, but the device remains operational, and it was even possible to hear it during the visit. It carries an obvious historical weight — a small artifact tied to a much larger transformation in the way music could be stored, carried and listened to.
The path to that transformation, however, was far from straightforward. In its early years, Fraunhofer was not the globally recognised institution it is today. In fact, as Grill recalls, they were seen as underdogs in a context where the industry distrusted their technology, considered it too complex, and doubted its viability in the mass market. The project’s survival depended in part on small jobs and contracts that kept the team together while they tried to push forward with a technology that almost no one fully took seriously.
The first MP3 player. Image: Press
MP3 was one of the decisive pieces of that transition, though not the only one. AAC is also part of Fraunhofer’s story and of the broader evolution of compression formats that shaped contemporary digital audio. From there emerged a new era that transformed the circulation of music altogether. Piracy became one of the most visible consequences of that shift, even though it was not something attributable to the team that developed the technology. Grill even recalled the industry’s early hostility: “They had a lot of lawyers trying to find something which we could be accused of in front of a court, but obviously nobody was able to find anything where they would actually be able to attack us with.” More than a fault of the team, it was one of the side effects of a much larger mutation: the transition to a world in which sound could be copied, shared, and moved with unprecedented ease.
The history of MP3 cannot be separated from the technical and cultural context of its time. Memory was expensive, connections were slow, and digital audio still had to solve concrete problems of transmission and storage. Fraunhofer understood early on that the internet was going to transform the circulation of sound, and that this would require efficient compression. The arrival of computers capable of playing MP3s without dedicated hardware, along with the spread of the internet and CD drives, ultimately brought together the conditions for the technology to expand in unstoppable fashion.
But if MP3 responded to the problems of an era marked by expensive storage and slow connections, the institute’s present points toward a different challenge. The issue is no longer simply how to compress audio efficiently, but how to redesign the listening experience more broadly.
Mozart room. Image: Press
Part of that work can be seen in the Mozart room, one of the institute’s most striking spaces. It is not simply an immersive listening room, but a validation and acoustic development environment built with an extreme level of detail. It is designed as a room-in-room construction, with a floating floor, double walls, double doors, and an air-conditioning system engineered to move air very slowly so that airflow itself does not generate unwanted noise. Inside, the room is equipped with around 40 loudspeakers positioned at different heights. The middle ring can be raised or lowered and is set at the listener’s ear level. Other speakers are placed above the listener’s head and others closer to the floor, so that spatiality is built not only horizontally but vertically as well.
Ulli Scuda, Head of Group Soundlab, guided part of the visit and explained aspects of the room’s physical structure. Even the large ring and the aluminum supports holding part of the system were specially designed to avoid vibrations that could interfere with reproduction. Because the truss is hollow, certain frequencies can make it resonate, so it was filled to prevent that.
The room’s central function is to serve as a space for listening tests: comparative sessions in which a person, positioned in the ideal listening spot, evaluates differences between signals, technologies, or sound treatments. Those comparisons, repeated and statistically processed, help determine whether a development truly improves the listening experience or whether the difference is inaudible.
Bach room. Image: Press
For a domestic environment, Scuda said that a 7.4 configuration offers a particularly convincing spatial image. In that setup, the four additional speakers are placed above the listener, reinforcing the sense of height and immersion. Beyond larger systems such as 22.2, used by NHK in Japan, 7.4 stands out as an especially interesting option for home use because it can reproduce spatiality powerfully without requiring extreme infrastructure. Scuda also explained that side positions are especially important for reproducing reverberation and spatial detail — for example, in recordings of churches or cathedrals, where the surrounding environment is an essential part of the experience.
This is where MPEG-H reveals one of its most concrete strengths. The system is not just about improving fidelity, but about transforming the listening experience through audio objects and dynamic metadata. It allows language switching without losing the ambient background, lets listeners adjust background and dialogue levels separately, and enables further customisation and track selection depending on the options defined by the provider.
That becomes even more significant when the technology is no longer confined to laboratories or demo rooms. In Brazil, MPEG-H has been gradually incorporated through trials, pilots, and concrete adoption by broadcasters and technology partners, until it became part of the new TV 3.0 framework formalized by decree on August 27, 2025. That matters because it shows the system has already found real paths into mass media environments.
This implementation does not depend only on a broadcaster adopting the format. It also requires integration into televisions, soundbars, set-top boxes, mobile devices, and streaming platforms. That is precisely why Brazil became such a relevant case. Fraunhofer worked with broadcasters such as TV Globo on tests and real productions, first with direct support and later more autonomously, as local teams absorbed the technology and learned to operate the system on their own.
Sound in MPEG-H also adapts to the playback medium. Even when it is heard through headphones, certain configurations can simulate rear spatiality through binaural processing. In other words, part of that three-dimensional complexity can be transferred to more accessible and everyday listening formats.
In that sense, one of the most interesting things about Fraunhofer IIS is that it does not maintain a strict divide between engineering and musical sensibility. Mandy Garcia, Head of Marketing and Communication, put it simply: “A lot of people that work here are also musicians. Passion for music is what connects a lot of people working here.” That is not a minor detail. It helps explain why audio in a place like this is not understood only through engineering, but also through lived experience as listening and musical practice. The institute even has a rehearsal room in the basement, along with bands formed by colleagues who play together at internal events.
That may be why the visit leaves a double impression. On the one hand, there is the historical weight of an institution that contributed to some of the most important changes in the recent history of recorded music. On the other, there is the evidence that its current work is no longer focused only on compression or efficient transmission, but on a broader question: how we want to listen in the future.
The post Fraunhofer, the creator of the MP3 and MPEG-H, shows me the innovations coming to audio appeared first on MusicTech.

Rekkerd Sounds preset packs for Massive, Serum, Spire, and Sylenth1 are now FREE
Rekkerd Sounds has made several sound packs available as pay-what-you-like downloads, which means you can grab them for free by entering zero as the price. The packs were originally released around ten years ago, but they are still worth checking out if you use any of the featured synths. There are four soundsets available, covering [...]
View post: Rekkerd Sounds preset packs for Massive, Serum, Spire, and Sylenth1 are now FREE

Wondering if your playlists contain AI-generated music? Deezer’s new free tool can tell youDeezer has launched a free online AI music detector that allows users to check whether their playlists contain AI-generated tracks, even if they use rival streaming services.
Available in 27 languages and compatible with 20 of the most popular music streaming platforms, the tool is powered by Deezer’s existing AI detection technology, and arrives amid growing calls for greater transparency around AI-generated music.
Recent research conducted by Deezer and Ipos across eight countries suggests listeners are increasingly concerned about knowing when AI is involved. According to the survey, 80% of respondents believe AI-generated music should be clearly labeled, while 73% said they would like streaming platforms to tag AI music-generated tracks.
The findings also suggest that synthetic music may already be more prevalent than many listeners realise. Deezer says 43% of users importing playlists from other streaming services already have AI music in their libraries – one of the reasons why the company has decided to make its detection technology available to the public.

READ MORE: “AI music is never going to take risks because it’s bad for business”: Tallinn Music Week panel plays down concerns around AI music

“By detecting and tagging AI generated music over the past year and a half, Deezer has been at the forefront of transparency in music streaming,” says Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer. “No other company has followed our lead yet, so we decided to make it possible for everyone to check if their playlists include synthetic music, no matter which streaming platform they use.”
To use the tool, users simply need to visit Deezer’s AI music detector webpage, select their streaming service, connect their account, and allow Deezer to scan their playlists. The service then generates a report showing whether AI-generated tracks have been detected and allows users to share their results.
The launch builds on Deezer’s wider efforts to tackle the rapid growth of synthetic music on streaming platforms. The company says it is currently receiving nearly 75,000 AI generated tracks every day, accounting for more than 44% of all daily uploads.
Deezer’s AI detection tool has been active since the start of 2025, enabling the company to track a steady increase of fully AI-generated content. In June 2025, it became the first major music streaming platform to explicitly tag AI-generated music, and says it has now identified over 13.4 million AI-generated tracks.
In addition, tracks identified as AI-generated are also automatically excluded from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists.
“This is a first step in making sure that these tracks don’t dilute the royalty pool in any significant way,” says the company. “Potential future actions, including updating our supplier policy and removing/ demonetising content need to be based on careful consideration.”
Scan your playlists today at Deezer.
The post Wondering if your playlists contain AI-generated music? Deezer’s new free tool can tell you appeared first on MusicTech.

Family Stereo Signs With Bella UnionDate signed: April 2026Label: Bella UnionType of Music: Singer-songwriterManagement: Northern Lights ManagementBooking: Free Trade AgencyPublicity: Charm School MediaA&R: Simon RaymondeWeb: familystereo.net

The end of July will see Family Stereo, AKA singer-songwriter Blake Watt, release his debut album The Thread, a fact that was announced recently by the label which is his new home, Bella Union. “An album of folk-tinged and brush-stroked reflections on distance and connection, The Thread is both dynamic and subtly cinematic, its artfully crafted precision the work of a fast-maturing talent,” a statement by the label reads.

There is, therefore, a lot to celebrate for Family Stereo in 2026. But this is no overnight success story. Watt has worked hard to get to this point."

“I’ve been writing and releasing music as Family Stereo since I was about 17 years old,” he says. “I went off to university and studied drama, and then when I got back decided that I wanted to pursue music properly. I wouldn’t say it got ‘serious’ until we signed with Bella and started working on the first LP.”

The Family Stereo sound was initially centered around fast-paced indie pop. “I grew up listening to Joy Division and The Smiths, so I was just trying to replicate the energy of Joy Division, and the poetic writing and singing style of Morrissey,” Watt says. “I basically learnt to sing by listening to him. But then I got much more into American indie-folk singer-songwriters at university, people like Elliott Smith and Adrianne Lenker, and they turned my head completely, and I haven’t really looked back since.”

Watt’s deal with Bella Union came when Simon Raymonde (label founder and member of the Cocteau Twins) heard the Family Stereo song “Matter” from the first EP.

“We started emailing back and forth,” he says. “He liked the track but was a bit tied up at the time with other stuff. I kept pestering him though, and after about a year we met up and he offered me a deal for the first LP.”

According to a statement, “The Thread arrives in the aftermath of a string of singles from the 25-year-old Blake, son of Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt.” 

“I recorded it with my bandmate and producer Sam Hodder-Williams at his studio in North London,” Watt adds. “We started recording in September 2024 and finished in July 2025.”

As Family Stereo gets prepared for the release of The Thread, Watt is also steadying himself for a busy 2026. 

“We’re working on the follow up currently, and I’m just trying to keep writing as much as I can,” he says. “I’ve written about five songs I really like. I’m also going off on tour with someone for a few dates next week, so it’ll be nice to play some of the songs off the upcoming record. We’re going back into the studio over summer so that’ll be a good incentive to write some more stuff.”The post Family Stereo Signs With Bella Union first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

SpaceX officially prices shares at $135 in the largest IPO everWits its official share pricing announcement, SpaceX's IPO has begun.

REPUBLIC Collective strikes joint venture with ZIZA Inc. focused on breaking South Asian artists globallyThe joint venture will prioritize signing and developing artists from the South Asian diaspora
Source

Evidence for Water Vapor Plumes on Europa Vanishes in Re-AnalysisUnlike on Mars where for decades we have had dozens of orbital and ground-based platforms zipping and scurrying about to prod at every bit of emitted radiation, rock type and twitch of dust devils in its thin atmosphere, for other planets and their moons we have to do a lot more speculative interpretation of data. Such was the case with the presumed existence of water plumes on Jupiter’s moon Europa. These now appear to have been a statistical fluke, per research by [L. Roth] et al. in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
As succinctly summarized in the article on this by [Javier Barbuzano] of Sky and Telescope, the original 2013 finding of said water plumes by the same team was based on faint UV emissions from Europa’s southern hemisphere as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. However, in more recent captures these emissions were not detected again, leading them to reexamine their original analysis of the 2013 data.
One of the main flaws was in the assumption of where Europe was located on Hubble’s 1,000 x 1,000 resolution detector, with the re-analysis showing that they were off by a couple of pixels. A second flaw was quite understandable as since 2013 we have learned that Europa has a thin hydrogen exosphere which interacts with the Sun’s UV radiation. The resulting scattering induces a UV glow which could be mistaken for UV radiation emanating from the moon’s surface.
Even with this one intriguing feature turning out to be a mirage, it doesn’t make Europa any less interesting as it’s still assumed to have vast liquid water oceans. Along with Uranus’ moon Miranda this makes it very worth it to experience more of the sights and sounds of these alien worlds, whether in person or via our robotic friends.

ETH futures traders lean into $1.6K range lows: Will Ether lead market recovery?ETH traders increased their long positions as Ether price traded near 2026 lows. Will ETH’s rebound eclipse the BTC recovery?

Chordalys Chordalys MoodChordalys Mood Chordalys Mood is a MIDI chord generator designed to turn simple note input into expressive harmonies without requiring deep music theory knowledge. Play a single note and let Chordalys Mood generate musical chord variations based on intuitive mood settings such as Bright, Warm, Dreamy, and Mysterious. The focus is on creativity, inspiration, and discovering ideas quickly rather than navigating complex theory concepts. Whether you're a producer looking for fresh chord progressions, a songwriter searching for inspiration, or a musician who wants to experiment with new harmonic textures, Chordalys Mood helps transform simple ideas into rich musical foundations. Key Features * Generate chords from single MIDI notes * Intuitive mood-based chord generation * Adjustable chord depth from simple intervals to richer harmonies * Designed to encourage creative exploration and "happy accidents" * Lightweight and easy to use * MIDI FX workflow suitable for songwriting, production, and experimentation. Ideal For * Electronic music producers * Synthwave artists * Ambient and cinematic composers * Songwriters * Musicians who want inspiration without theory complexity. Philosophy Chordalys Mood is built around a simple idea: Music software should inspire creativity first. Instead of presenting users with pages of music theory terminology, Chordalys Mood focuses on emotional intent and musical discovery, helping you spend less time configuring and more time creating. Read More

Arturia announce the MiniLab 37 The new MiniLab 37 promises to retain everything that made the original a hit, but offers an enhanced playing experience thanks to an additional 12 slim keys. 

“Designed to adapt to every creative need”: Meet the Arturia MiniLab 37 MIDI controllerArturia has unveiled the MiniLab 37, a compact new 37-key MIDI controller designed to offer “more playability, creative control and software integration” to producers.
Building upon Arturia’s MiniLab 3, the MiniLab 37 adds 12 keys – a full octave – offering a greater musical range.
While the extra 12 keys naturally leads to a greater footprint width ways, thanks to a shallower design, the MiniLab 37 is only marginally larger in terms of size and weight.

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

Elsewhere, the MiniLab 37 offers all the same DAW compatibility as previous models, with a few new refinements, too. The RGB touch pads are now in a 2 x 4 format instead of a single line above the keys – similar to the beat pads on Akai‘s MPC machines.
Credit: Arturia
The unit also features eight rotary encoders, four sliders and a mini display for comprehensive DAW control, plus a clickable browsing knob to keep everything needed for control in one place. There’s also an Arpeggiator, Chord mode, octave control and semitone transpose functions for inspiration whenever it’s required.
“MiniLab 37 is designed to adapt to every creative need,” says Arturia. “It can be a beginner’s first MIDI keyboard, a compact studio controller for bedroom producers, a secondary desktop keyboard for experienced users, or a portable creative companion for travel and performance.”
Credit: Arturia
The MiniLab 37 is compatible with numerous DAWs, including Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Cubase, FL Studio, Bitwig, Reason, Pro Tools, and Digital Performer. And for the environmentally conscious producers out there, you’ll be please to know the frame is made from 50% recycled plastic – and the packaging is 100% recycled.
The MiniLab 37 is available now, priced at €149. For more information, head to Arturia.
The post “Designed to adapt to every creative need”: Meet the Arturia MiniLab 37 MIDI controller appeared first on MusicTech.

Novation reveal the Launchkey 61 MK4 White Following user requests, the 61-key model in the Launchkey MK4 line-up is now available in the same finish as the Launchkey Mini 37 White and Launchkey 49 White.

Novation unveils sleek white edition of its affordable, NKS-ready Launchkey 61 MK4 keyboard controllerFollowing the launch of white versions of the Launchkey Mini 37 and Launchkey 49 at Superbooth 2025, Novation has once again updated its MK4 keyboard controller range with a crisp, white-and-grey edition of the larger Launchkey 61.
The fresh-looking white Launchkey 61 MK4 bears all the same features as the existing black Launchkey 61 MK4, but offers producers more choice in terms of the aesthetics of their setup.

READ MORE: Sound Workshop announces the Flexur T2, a new hardware synth inspired by the obscure 1930 Trautonium 

It also comes with Novation Play, a kitted out software instrument which packs software emulations of Sequential, Oberheim and Novation synths into a single plugin for Launchkey MK4 and FLkey 2 owners.
For a refresher on the specs of Novation’s Launchkey MK4 series, the keyboards – which comprise six models, 25-, 37-, 49- and 61-key controllers, plus Mini versions for the 25- and 37-key models – are positioned to offer “powerful control” of Ableton Live, Logic, Cubase, FL Studio and other popular DAWs.
Credit: Novation
Like the black version, the sleek new white Launchkey 61 MK4 features semi-weighted keys, plus eight encoders and nine faders for tactile control of DAW mixers, virtual instruments and effects, as well as 16 velocity-sensitive pads with polyphonic aftertouch for playing beats and chords on a grid style interface.
There are also powerful built-in creative tools to aid with ideation, including an Arpeggiator and Chord Modes. There’s also a Scale Mode which locks notes on the keyboard to an assigned key, while the onboard Chord Detector shows the chord currently being played on the OLED display.
Credit: Novation
There’s also the ability to split the keyboard into two independent zones, while Layer allows two MIDI channels to be played from the same keys.
Meanwhile, the unit features a full-sized MIDI out port, meaning you can control external synths and other hardware using the Launchkey 61 MK4.
The device is also NKS enabled; Native Kontrol Standard is a protocol that allows producers to intuitively use Native Instruments software with a range of compatible controllers from Novation, Akai Professional, Korg and more.
The Launchkey 61 MK4 White is available now, priced at $329.99 / £279.99.
Learn more at Novation.
The post Novation unveils sleek white edition of its affordable, NKS-ready Launchkey 61 MK4 keyboard controller appeared first on MusicTech.