At last, u-he has launched Zebra 3Berlin-based synth and effects company u-he has launched Zebra 3, a modular-style synth plugin “a very long time in the making”.
“Rebuilt from scratch”, the latest iteration of u-he’s Zebra synth features an adaptive interface – with modules only appearing when added to a patch via drag and drop – plus a new unified spline editor for oscillator waveforms and MSEG curves with geometric morphing.

READ MORE: Get 25% off Ableton Live 12 – one of the best DAWs on the market right now

With this editor, waveforms can be manipulated from Bézier curves to create intricate details within either classic wavetable or Zebra 3’s additive engine. The latter flaunts 1024 partials for extreme micro detailing. Plus, the oscillators then have two effects slots that come preloaded with 20 different options, including spectral decay, sync, and phase remapping.
Zebra 3’s filter bank features 13 models, including Ladder, Cascade, and SVF. All 13 can have 12 responses, such as low pass, high pass, and band pass applied to them.
Zebra 3 brings updates to the FM oscillators as well. Similar to the vector-based spline editor for wavetable synthesis, the FM oscillators have a Vector mixing module that enables users to alternate between four sound sources that can be moved around an X/Y grid.
One brand new feature is how the combination of the modal resonator and comb filter modules works off the exciter module to create the organic properties of physical objects.
“Zebra 3 has arrived! Building on everything we learned from Zebra2, it adds powerful new modules and pushes Zebra’s renowned workflow even further,” U-He writes on YouTube. “We also overhauled the user interface during beta, making it more streamlined and user-friendly. Dive in, explore, and experiment!”

Zebra 3 is available now for €249. For more info, head to u-he.
The post At last, u-he has launched Zebra 3 appeared first on MusicTech.

Get 25% off Ableton Live 12 – one of the best DAWs on the market right nowBeen thinking about getting into Ableton Live, but never quite landed on the right moment – or the right price? This might be your sign.
Ableton has launched a limited-time promotion offering 25% off Ableton Live 12, alongside discounted upgrades and its full range of Packs. Running until Wednesday, 29 April, the deal gives producers a chance to jump into one of the most widely used DAWs in modern music production.

READ MORE: Jamu: Your ChatGPT-style AI co-producer for Ableton Live is here – just tell it what to do

The offer applies to Live 12 Suite and Standard, as well as upgrades to both versions. Ableton is also extending the 25% discount across its entire catalogue of Packs, which expand the software’s core sound set with additional instruments, samples, and effects.
In practical terms, this means Live 12 Standard drops from $439 to $329, while Live 12 Suite falls from $749 to $562, making this one of the more appealing deals the brand is running in recent memory.
Ableton Live 12, which we previously described in our review as “one of the best DAWs out there”, remains a go-to choice for producers more than two decades after its original release. And it isn’t hard to see why.
The latest iteration of the software expands its creative toolkit even further. Live 12 includes generative MIDI Tools designed to spark new ideas, alongside devices such as Meld, Roar, and Granulator III for Suite users. More recent free updates (Live 12.3) have also introduced Stem Separation, real-time pitch correction and Splice integration, further streamlining modern production workflows.
Meanwhile, Ableton’s Packs span a wide range of sampled sounds and studio-grade effects to complement Live’s core tools – from orchestral libraries and experimental synth collections to versatile drum libraries, electro-acoustic instruments, analogue-style saturators, and more.
If you’ve been waiting for a reason to dive in or build out your setup, this is it: head to the Ableton shop to check out the full offer before it ends on 29 April.
The post Get 25% off Ableton Live 12 – one of the best DAWs on the market right now appeared first on MusicTech.

AlphaTheta DJM-V5 review: Are niche setups the future of DJ gear?Inspired by the Pioneer DJ DJM‑V10, the new AlphaTheta-branded DJM-V5 is a three-channel performance mixer aimed at providing top-notch sound quality with creative mix control.

READ MORE: AlphaTheta RMX-Ignite is the effects and sampling box that nobody asked for but everyone will want

Rather than simply shrinking the V10, AlphaTheta has built something more focused. The V5 borrows key elements from its bigger sibling while introducing a handful of entirely new ideas. In many ways, it’s a rethink of what DJs actually want in a mixer. However, a few curious design choices and feature oversights leave me scratching my head.
Fades and filters
Let’s start with the positives. The V5 inherits several of the most celebrated features of the V10: a compressor on every channel, four-band EQ, and a dedicated filter per channel. Most of all, it also retains the V10’s high-end sound. It’s the same 96kHz, 64-bit mixing DSP, combined with 32-bit A/D and D/A converters from ESS Technology. This combination helped establish the V10 as one of the best-sounding mixers the company has ever produced, and the V5 benefits directly from that lineage.
Physically, the V5 may look compact compared to the V10, but it’s actually close in width to classic four-channel mixers such as the Pioneer DJ DJM‑900. But at 8 kilograms, it feels incredibly solid. Build quality remains first rate, and its footprint will slot comfortably into most DJ booths.
Image: Press
One of the V5’s most interesting additions is a new fader curve alongside the standard linear and exponential curves. While the usual fader curves only affect volume, this new mode subtly attenuates the high-frequency response as the channel fader moves upward. As the fader reaches the midpoint of travel, the mixer gently attenuates treble content. The result is subtle but surprisingly effective. After spending time with it, it quickly becomes my preferred fader curve and sounds great on large sound systems.
There’s also a brand new filter type. Now, alongside the familiar low-pass and high-pass options, the V5 introduces a new XPF cross-path filter. Sweeping the knob clockwise cuts mid-range frequencies, preserving both the low-end energy and the top-end sizzle. In use, this creates dramatic filter sweeps without losing the weight and energy of the low end. The overall filter quality is excellent, and buttery smooth in use.
However, there is one drawback. Because the filter type must be selected globally, you cannot assign different filter styles to individual channels. For me, that’s a slight step backwards compared with mixers like the Pioneer DJ DJM‑A9, where each channel can be filtered independently with the standard low-pass/high-pass design. But, the benefit of a larger, more detailed filter sweeps with this method will be a preference for some DJs.
Send effects and performance workflow
The V5 includes six send effects, all of which sound polished and musical. A clever detail appears in the Time Control knob, which physically changes behaviour depending on the effect type. When using BPM Sync effects, you hear a satisfying, mechanical clunk as the knob changes to a stepped, click-style rotation, making it easier to snap to rhythmic divisions. With non-sync effects, it becomes a smooth rotary for more precise Send FX adjustments. This is super smart and I wish this dual style was applied to the filters too, allowing them to be used in the standard low-pass/high-pass design if required.
Another unusual design choice is the master mix level fader for the effects level. Its cap is designed differently from the channel faders to allow more sensitive control over the amount of effect applied to the master mix. It looks a little odd, but makes total sense and allows for much more precise control.
Image: Press
The familiar Beat FX found on most Alpha Theta/Pioneer DJ-style mixers has been removed with just the six Send FX available. Compared to the 19 total effects available on the Pioneer DJV10, the V5’s six sends feel relatively minimal in practice, but that reduction doesn’t bother me. Like many DJs, I rarely use the full Beat FX suite anyway. Still, for a product marketed as a performance mixer, some users might expect more built-in effects options.
Clearly, AlphaTheta’s solution is effects expansion. The mixer supports external processing via USB-C multi I/O, allowing extremely easy integration with tools such as the Pioneer DJ RMX‑1000 iPad app or the new Alpha Theta RMX-IGNITE hardware.
Speaking of expansion, add a set of AlphaTheta HDJ-F10 headphones and the V5’s built-in SonicLink wireless transmitter will connect them for ultra-low latency wireless monitoring without an external transmitter dongle. The V5 is the first mixer to include the SonicLink tech directly.
Layout and connectivity quirks
The V5 uses 60mm long-throw faders, the same style found on the Pioneer DJ DJM‑V10‑LF. Interestingly, there’s no crossfader and currently no alternative model with one. Because the mixer isn’t branded as a ‘V5-LF’, it suggests that a V5 crossfader version may not be in the works. The V5 really would have benefited from multiple variants. A shorter-throw fader version with a crossfader — or even a rotary mixer configuration — could have broadened its appeal significantly to different DJ styles.
Image: Press
One of the more puzzling design decisions is the microphone section. For a mixer that emphasises compactness, the large mic control area in the top-left corner occupies a surprisingly large amount of panel space for a feature most DJs do not use. It feels as though that real estate could have been used more effectively, perhaps for effects or even a master isolator/filter. The inclusion of such a prominent mic section feels slightly at odds with the decision to reduce the mixer to three channels and no crossfader.
Input options are relatively straightforward: laptop, phono and line. What’s missing is a digital input, which feels like a notable omission given the almost-£2,000 price tag, and that it’s selling itself on sound-quality. On the positive side, the mixer does include a booth output EQ with low and high controls.
The verdict
The AlphaTheta DJM-V5 is not simply a scaled-down V10. It’s a focused reinterpretation that prioritises sound quality, mixing finesse and creative filtering over maximal features. The audio performance is superb, the new filter and fader concepts are genuinely inventive, and the overall build quality is exactly what you’d expect from a professional mixer.
But the V5 also leaves questions unanswered. The limited effects suite, frustrating filter implementation, unusual layout priorities and lack of digital inputs feel slightly out of step with the otherwise forward-thinking design.

It’s a compelling, beautifully built mixer, but it’s just too expensive considering some of the missing features. A few questionable layout choices mean it won’t suit every DJ. However, it’s clear that this divisive design is absolutely on purpose. The V5 is not meant to be a new industry standard that covers all bases for all DJs, it’s a more niche product, in the same way that the Euphonia rotary mixer is, or the scratch-happy DJM-S7. If you look at it in the context of the entire range, it makes total sense (apart from half being Pioneer DJ and half being AlphaTheta!).
If you’re a DJ that loves long, smooth transitions, layers of multiple track elements then the features, sound, control and quality are right here in the V5.
Key features

3-channel mixer with compact layout
60 mm long-throw faders
4-band EQ and compressor per channel
New fader curve type and XPF mode filter
6 send-based effects
Built-in SonicLink transmitter
2-band booth EQ
Weight: 8 kg
Dimensions: 302.0 × 437.5 × 107.9 mm

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Brennan Wedl Signs with ANTI-Date Signed: March 2026Label: ANTI-Type of Music: Indie rock / Country / GrungeManagement: Another Management CompanyBooking: TBA AgencyPublicity: Kelly @ ANTI- A&R: Andy Kaulkin + Allison CrutchfieldWeb: brennanwedl.com

When singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Brennan Wedl signed with ANTI- Records, the alt-roots sister label to the very punk-centric Epitaph, the deal made perfect sense. Placing Wedl on a roster that also included the likes of Fleet Foxes, Gitterer, and Mavis Staples saw the appropriate stars align. 

Her debut for the label is a cover of Canadian artist Kathleen Edwards’ “Six O’Clock News,” though listeners should be ready for Wedl’s original material.

“I made up songs a lot as a kid—always testing my two younger brothers’ patience and eardrum receptivity levels,” Wedl says. “I started writing songs on the acoustic guitar in fifth grade, and my first show was on November 26th, 2011. I took it upon myself in that coffeeshop to humbly offer the world my rendition of his 2011 hit song, ‘How To Love.’” 

Wedl describes her sound as, “acoustic guitar singer/songwriter roots hot-wired to a pair of go-go boots playing an electric guitar telecasting spells of crunchy, twangy truth bombs with hooky, singable melodies.”

The artist claims that the deal with ANTI- came about “through the power of music, magic, and madness.” For Wedl, “Six O’Clock News” was the perfect vehicle to introduce herself to her new label.

“[Kathleen Edwards] is a legendary alternative country Queen and this song has always been a standout favorite of mine,” she says. 

With her feet firmly under the table at her new spiritual home, Wedl is ready for a big 2026. “I’m opening the shows on the Waxahatchee / MJ Lenderman tour starting April 13th in Atlanta,” she says. “The joy and enthusiasm that fills my soul is beyond compare. I’m going to be playing solo and experimenting with the good ole trusty six-string acoustic guitar. Beyond that, more exciting tours—support and headline dates, hanging with loved ones, taking Spanish lessons, continuing to grow together in community and fighting to protect one another from the fallout of the American imperial war machine imploding all around us with each new day. We have the power in numbers, people. It’s never too late to speak out. Time to join local organizations that align with what’s right! We can build a better future when we organize together. Love you thanks for reading.”The post Brennan Wedl Signs with ANTI- first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

These are the countries moving to ban social media for childrenAustralia was the first country to issue a ban in late 2025, aiming to reduce the pressures and risks that young users may face on social media, including cyberbullying, social media addiction, and exposure to predators.

Spot ETH ETF inflows hit 10-day streak: Will Ether rally to $3K next?Inflows to the spot Ether ETFs topped $633 million over the past 10-days, but are the flows significant enough to trigger a rally to $3,000?

How will the major labels overcome the copyright threat from AI music? By turning to the most powerful weapon available: AI itself.MBW digs through new patent filings describing a 'media rights platform' that sits between rightsholders, gen AI systems, and the end users who want to prompt AI to create derivative works from copyrighted music
Source

ESP32Synth : an Audio Synthesis Library for the ESP32With MCUs becoming increasingly more powerful it was only a matter of time before they would enable some more serious audio-processing tasks. [Danilo Gabriel]’s ESP32Synth library is a good example here, which provides an ESP-IDF based 80+ voice mixing and synthesis engine. If you ever wanted to create a pretty impressive audio synthesizer, then all you really need to get started is an ESP32, ESP32-S3 or similar dual-core Espressif MCU that has the requisite processing power.
Audio output goes via I2S, requiring only a cheap I2S DAC like the UDA1334A or PCM5102 to be connected, unless you really want to use the internal DAC. With this wired up you get 80 voices by default, with up to 350 voices demonstrated before the hardware cannot keep up any more. You can stream multiple WAV files from an SD card for samples along with the typical oscillators like sinewave, triangle, sawtooth and pulse, as well as noise, wavetables and more.
In order to make this work in real-time a number of optimizations had to be performed, such as the removal of slow floating-point and division operations in the audio path. The audio rendering task is naturally pinned to a single core, leaving a single core for application code to use for remaining tasks. While the code is provided as an Arduino project, it uses ESP-IDF so it can likely be used for a regular ESP-IDF project as well without too much fuss.

Authentic Soundware Space Age Colors - Volume 1Space Age Colors features a selection of muted brass and woodwinds used in the classic midcentury studio orchestra. The instruments for this volume were chosen based on their complementary nature and ability to combine in quintessential swingin' style. Space Age Colors will expand your palette of colors and bring vibrant detail to your orchestrations. Features: 7 instruments spanning muted brass and woodwinds: Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet, English Horn, Trumpet (Harmon mute), and Trombone (cup mute), plus an Espressivo Flute for lyrical solo passages. 7 orchestrated multi patches for rapid sketching and inspiration. 20 articulations including legato, sustain, tenuto, swell, grace notes, rips, falls, doits, flops, bends, scoops, and more. Runs Arranger — play realistic, performance-sampled runs in any key, any scale type, from any note to any note, with control over duration, dynamics, and resolution. Trills Arranger — play polyphonic trills and chord tremolos on a single MIDI channel, with three modes including diatonic chord trill support. 5 vintage microphone positions. Onboard tape, echo, tone, and limiter effects. Flexible articulation switching via key switch, MIDI CC, or host automation. Read More

Cre8audio unveil the Programm Boasting MIDI and CV/gate connectivity and functioning either as a standalone unit or Eurorack module, Cre8audio's new unit promises to deliver the ultimate sequencing experience for just about any setup. 

“I think ‘free’ was a terrible idea”: Apple Music VP says it is proud to not have a free subscription tierOliver Schusser, Vice President of Apple Music, thinks free music subscription tiers remain a “terrible idea”, and says Apple is proud to not offer one.
Schusser has compared the music streaming model to those for film and TV, and believes much higher numbers subscribe to these visual services rather than music services because platforms like Netflix and Disney+ do not offer free tiers, unlike music giants like Spotify.

READ MORE: The Apple Mac Pro – the go-to computer for high-end music production – has been discontinued

During his appearance on Billboard’s On the Record podcast, Schusser says, “I think “free” was a terrible idea. Apple Music is the only service that doesn’t have a free tier, and believe it or not, we are really proud of that.
“First of all, we really look at music like art… We think when an artist spends nine months in a studio to make a piece of [incredible] work, no one in the world should think it’s okay to give that away for free.”
He adds, “If you look at – I don’t know if you watched [Severance], which was, at the beginning of the year, the biggest and hottest TV show on the planet – the only way to watch [Severance] was, you have to sign up for Apple TV+… You can’t just go anywhere on the internet and consume all the shows for free.”
Schusser goes on to explain how the availability of free tiers means not enough people pay for music overall: “In my view: the fact that all paid services have to compete with free means not enough people are paying because they can get it for free, and the paid services can’t actually charge the correct price for the service because they’re always competing with free…”
He later adds, “I don’t want to comment on any of our competitors, but if you look at them in aggregate, the monetization of [a] free service is so poor and so little. It’s not like it’s paying the bills for them. I would argue it’s the cheapest marketing mechanism in the world, where the labels have given everyone the right to basically do free marketing – like, take all our content and use it for marketing and then upsell.”

In other Apple Music news, the platform is rolling out what it calls “Transparency Tags”, a system for flagging AI-generated content on its platform. On 4 March, Apple sent a newsletter to industry partners announcing that AI disclosures would now be a “delivery requirement” for content submitted to the service. The tags cover four categories: Artwork, Track, Composition, and Music Video, each intended to indicate when AI contributed a “material portion” of the work.
The post “I think ‘free’ was a terrible idea”: Apple Music VP says it is proud to not have a free subscription tier appeared first on MusicTech.

Temecula DSP now emulates the classic Alesis Microverb reverb unit
Temecula DSP is offering two classic Alesis reverb unit emulations (MDV-II & MCV-I) for macOS and Windows for free! It was just around a month ago when we covered MDV-II by Temecula DSP. MDV-II is a faithful emulation of the classic Alesis Midiverb II, one of the most iconic budget-friendly pieces of hardware ever made. [...]
View post: Temecula DSP now emulates the classic Alesis Microverb reverb unit

Pre-orders are now open for Behringer’s Jupiter clone, the JT-2After premiering its Jupiter-8 clone, the JT-2 at NAMM 2026, Behringer has announced the unit is now available for pre-0rder – though an exact shipping date is yet to be confirmed.
The JT-2 was initially teased over three years ago, with everything from fonts to the chromatically ordered coloured buttons a nod to Roland’s original polyphonic classic synth.

READ MORE: “AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon”: 44% of music uploaded to Deezer every day is AI-generated

As the title suggests, the JT-2 offers two voices that the JT-16 will eventually include. Those who are looking for a bigger paraphonic instrument can polychain up to 16 JT-2s, making for 32 voices. While there’s not a keyboard as on the JT-16, there’s double the voices, massively increasing the sonic potential.
In terms of pure technical building blocks, the JT-2 includes two analogue VCOs, PWM, hard sync and cross modulation, an analogue low pass filter with cutoff and resonance, a high pass filter with only a cutoff, an LFO, and two ADSR envelopes for the filter and VCA. This piece also allows for external audio to be run through its filters, a feature that has become standard for Behringer.

The VCOs and VCFs are the core of capturing the Jupiter 8 sound. Considering that synth was used by everyone from Michael Jackson to Knife Party to Kraftwerk, having a version that doesn’t run nearly $30,000 comes handy for modern producers…
Equipboard.com says of the Jupiter-8: “If the TR-808 was Roland’s rhythmic revolution, the Jupiter-8 was its crown jewel. A statement of analog perfection that defined 1980s pop, funk, and electronic music. Unlike the 808, whose cult status came through commercial failure, the Jupiter line embodied success: a flagship designed with no compromise that became the sonic benchmark for every polyphonic synth that followed.”
The Behringer JT-2 is currently available to pre-order for $189. For more information, head to Behringer.
The post Pre-orders are now open for Behringer’s Jupiter clone, the JT-2 appeared first on MusicTech.

“Training on lyrics is transformative”: AI firm Anthropic argues “fair use” against UMG in ongoing legal battleAnthropic, the company behind AI-powered chatbot Claude, is arguing that the use of song lyrics to train the bot is ‘fair use’ amid an ongoing lawsuit filed by Universal Music Group and other music companies.
The lawsuit against Anthropic was filed back in 2023, with Universal Music Group taking the lead on the suit but joined by other music publishers, and accused the AI startup of “systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics”.

READ MORE: “AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon”: 44% of music uploaded to Deezer every day is AI-generated

UMG and the other music companies urged a federal judge last month to find that Anthropic’s use of lyrics by its artists was not fair use. “Transformative use” is part of this fair use defence, and allows for works to be built upon with a different purpose from its original form.
Anthropic essentially argues that its bot transforms the works of others into something completely new, meaning this should count as fair use, and claims that the publishers have no evidence that Claude is harming them in the market, another element of fair use.
In a Monday (20 April) brief, Anthropic argued that the publishers cannot “meaningfully dispute that training on lyrics (and other copyrighted text) is transformative”, as per Billboard.  Anthropic also claims that Claude does not only ingests lyrics, but also trillions of other words to “understand the interrelationships between words and concepts in human language” so it can code software, conduct research and write documents.
“Claude’s transformative training creates a flexible, general-purpose model that can be used in myriad beneficial ways — the vast majority of which are wholly unrelated to lyrics or music,” states Anthropic’s lawyers.
In a statement provided to Billboard on 21 April, a representative for the music publishers fired back against Anthropic’s arguments, saying, “There is no excuse for Anthropic’s blatant infringement of Publishers’ copyrighted song lyrics. Anthropic’s recent filing is wrong on the facts and the law in numerous respects, and Publishers look forward to rebutting those arguments and correcting the record when they file their opposition brief.”
The post “Training on lyrics is transformative”: AI firm Anthropic argues “fair use” against UMG in ongoing legal battle appeared first on MusicTech.

Sennheiser introduce the HD 480 Pro Sennheiser's new flagship closed-back headphones claim to eliminate two of the most common complaints about closed-back designs: accurate bass reproduction and comfort.