Distortion vs. saturation: The differences and when to use each
Learn about the similarities and differences between distortion and saturation, as well as when to use each.

Last Week Tonight‘s John Oliver says he won‘t placate prediction markets usersPrediction market platforms took center stage on HBO‘s Last Week Tonight on Sunday as host John Oliver addressed regulation, laws and market manipulation.

At Tallinn Music Week 2026, electronic artists are making the case for human-made musicFor the past century, electronic music has become a prolific platform for genre-bending experimentation. At Tallinn Music Week (TMW) 2026, talent in this arena is overflowing, from mainstream genres to niche underground scenes you wish you knew more about. Spread across four days in the surprisingly sunny capital of Estonia, Tallinn, the festival welcomed a plethora of such artists at this year’s edition.
MusicTech spent the weekend in Estonia as a guest of TMW to chat with some noteworthy acts, experience left-field sonic works, and discuss the current climate of electronic music.

The ambiance of TMW
Playing a 30-minute stint in Fonoteek, the festival’s designated space for all things avant-garde electronica, was Estonian minimalist duo V4RL. The setup for this was extremely cosy, the DJs playing to a candlelit room of music fans nodding their heads solemnly to the minimalist electronica. A little later, Kiwanoid took to the same stage with the complete opposite energy. Opening with TV static as visuals and a fuzzing loop of glitchy electronica, Kiwanoid transformed the room’s energy with a dizzying charge of hard-hitting experimental cuts.
French producer S8jfou then took to the stage with a rather unusual setup. The artist sat down with a table and chair, facing away from the crowd, and performing with just a keyboard and mouse. “I created a computer interface because I’m shy,” the artist typed on-screen. The performance blended atmospheric ambience with breakbeats and drum ‘n’ bass. It was an unusual but admittedly thrilling experience, and was emblematic of the kinds of digital experiments that artists at TMW were showcasing.

Indeed, this year’s TMW was packed with such acts. While some projects, such as Apparatus&Apparata and K-X-P, brought dark shows, weaving in hints of metal and punk into electronica, others like heleenyum and IKARVS leaned more towards the electro-pop side.
Estonian industrial trio Apparatus&Apparata’s set was a theatrical performance of ominous sounds. Between the dark, earthy vibrations coming from composer Jürgen Reismaa’s desk and sombre vocals/spoken word split between Reti Pauklin and Taavi Eelmaa, Apparatus&Apparata put on  an experience that was almost ritualistic.
Despite playing just two songs, this trio needn’t more time to impress us. Each track stood around 10 minutes in length and summoned you with cryptic sirens and snake-like flutters. Their songs often drove into breathtaking climaxes before dropping to solemn, eerie noise.
We managed to briefly speak with them at the festival, to ask what gear and techniques empower them to create such an experimental, avant-garde show:
“Our concerts are mainly playback, with live vocals,” says Reismaa. “We sometimes collaborate with musicians who play guitar, but it’s mainly playback, which I use Ableton Live for. I’m not even on the stage, either. I mix front of house, using a Behringer Wing Compact. Reason is also my main tool for writing. I have used it forever. Since the very first Reason, which I think was 20 years ago now.”
Two decades of Tallinn Music Week
Celebrating its 18th edition, TMW has for almost two decades prided itself on championing the next wave of emerging artists — and community is at the heart of it all. Outside of the festival, Estonia has made a name for itself as the home of many weird and wonderful electronic projects, from the flamboyant chameleon Tommy Cash to electronic-pop superstar NOËP, and others.
“For me, [TMW] is an opportunity to present my music to a big international audience,” says singer-songwriter and producer, heleenyum. “It means I can meet many different industry professionals who can maybe book me for their festivals. I also met quite a lot of super cool artists here. I haven’t been meeting with a lot of professionals, but artists; we share a lot of common ground.”
Weaving sounds of pop, soul, jungle and more, heleenyum’s approach to electronica is unpredictable. She usually plays solo, comfortably, but some musicians have recently shown interest in joining her on stage. “Lately, a lot of drummers have come [up] to me after my show and said they want to play live drums,” heleenyum tells us. “Because it’s interesting for drummers to play my crazy drum ‘n’ bass breakbeats.”

The AI conversation
The music industry’s climate has been heavily influenced by the AI discourse over the past few years. Unsurprisingly, at TMW it was a topic raised across numerous panel talks, including ‘Music and AI in 2026 – Entering the Operational Era’ and ‘Too Much Music. AI Is Flooding the Market. Who Survives?’
While human-made creativity arguably has more integrity and influence than artificial intelligence, who’s to say that this new era of technology is or isn’t a threat to this scene? And how does it affect emerging electronic artists who are trying to establish themselves?
SFISTIKATED, a multi-genre electronic duo, weigh in on the matter during our conversation with them: “Truly, sometimes I think that technology owns us a little bit, but it’s mostly 50/50,” they say. “Imagine playing your keyboard with some plugins. Sometimes, you go with the flow with everything that it gives you, and other times, you play your own cards. Technology lets you get to somewhere that you’re unable to on a piano…It gives you another perspective.”

The question of technology’s role in electronic music isn’t exactly new. In 1995, during the making of Björk’s Homogenic, the artist put the essence of electronic music perfectly: “If there’s no soul in the music, it’s because nobody put it there,” she said. It’s a gentle reminder that, while the technology is just an asset, it’s the manipulation of those tools that makes the art.
K-X-P lead singer Timo Kaukolampi thinks AI will never be able to match the sounds and tactility that our current landscape of electronic instruments provides.
“AI is alright when it’s not exploiting creativity,” says Kaukolampi. “For example, I have a vintage Oberheim Two Voice from, 1975, and it’s one of the most modelled analogue synthesizers out there. Every manufacturer has a digital version of it. People have been analysing it and saying that AI can make great [technology]. But for me, I don’t think that there’s any way that any AI can model that synthesizer. I think it’s impossible.”
While the point of where AI stands in the music industry as a creative entity is a no-go for Kaukolampi, heleenyum is both cautious and optimistic. “AI can only create what has been created before. I’ve heard very good quality music from AI,” she says. “But for me, I’m more [interested in] boundary pushing. I want to discover new things. [AI is] not for me right now, but I don’t know. Maybe I will find a way to use it in my music one day.”
This era of technology in music isn’t something to be feared entirely. The industry is changing rapidly, but there are plenty of emerging artists producing organic work. Even if they don’t all agree on what AI means for music, they’re proving that electronic music is beaming with potential, and music showcases like TMW continue to spotlight the next best grassroots projects.
Learn more at tmw.ee.
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MMPR Technologies BoomBapDustyA focused drum sample pack built for boom bap, dusty hip hop, and raw beat-driven production. It is positioned as a direct, ready-to-use collection for producers who want character quickly without digging through oversized libraries. Read More

Tim Cook stepping down as Apple CEO, John Ternus taking overSenior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus will take over as CEO at the start of September.

Vintage Chyron TV Hardware? Of course It Runs NetBSDPerhaps at this point, getting NetBSD running on an obscure piece of hardware is a dog-bites-man story, and not worth reporting– their motto, after all, is “Of course it runs NetBSD”. So, the fact that [RetroComputingRanch] has got NetBSD running on a vintage Chyron Maxine broadcast computer is perhaps remarkable only for the fact that few people have even heard of Chyron before.
He’s already done a series of videos in which they explore this odd, old computer, which is powered by a Motorola 68040 on a VME bus and was once used to generate digital overlays– text and the like– on broadcast TV. NetBSD does have a port for the Motorolla VME SBCs, so he was able to vibe it onto the specific vme168 board that the Chyron is based on. It happens off screen, but apparently it was AI agent work that went into condensing the documentation for this machine as well as getting the NetBSD port set up. That’s a bit ironic, since NetBSD would never allow that in its commits. 
Again, the Chyron Maxine was never intended to be a general-purpose-computer, and certainly never intended to run UNIX– it was meant to overlay text onto TV signals. With 4 MB of RAM, NetBSD leaves very little free once booted in single-user mode, but he realized that with a few extra chips the proprietary RAM board could become an 8 MB module. It seems like a pittance nowadays, but anyone who’s played with classic UNIX knows you can do a lot in 8 MB– even if only about 3MB is ‘free’ according to TOP.
There’s work still to be done– right now, it boots, but he wants to use NetBSD to really own this machine, so that’ll mean getting the vintage video hardware set up. Last time we saw a NetBSD user, they were doing game dev on a G4 Macbook, but nothing will ever match the legendary NetBSD toaster– not even toaster-shaped callbacks.

Chord Music-linked ABS vehicle plans $500M deal, backed by $830M catalog led by Suicideboys, Morgan Wallen, and Ryan Tedder rightsDeal collateralized by royalties from a catalog of more than 3,750 works
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The story of Focusrite ISA Focusrite's latest video project traces the full story of the their renowned ISA preamp design, covering its origins and evolution, and exploring the impact it still has on today’s professional audio standards.

Sampleson release Boomcha Sampleson's latest creation is capable of creating fully fledged drum parts from basic user-defined kick and snare patterns. 

DAWJunkie releases DT-600 Mini, a FREE Casio MT-600 emulation plugin
DAWJunkie, the developer behind Padness 2 Jr, LeadOff Jr, and various other quirky but awesome freebies, is back with another freebie – the DT-600 Mini. DT-600 Mini is based on the 1980s Casio MT-600 keyboard. The Casiotone MT-600 is one of those keyboards many musicians had as a kid, without realizing the sounds are actually [...]
View post: DAWJunkie releases DT-600 Mini, a FREE Casio MT-600 emulation plugin

Beatport announces changes to leadership team: “Robb has been a phenomenal leader and mentor” Beatport has announced a change to its leadership structure, with CEO Robb McDaniels moving to an Executive Chairman position on the Board of Directors effective from July 1, 2026.
In addition, the company’s President and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Gralen, will step into the CEO role vacated by McDaniels, while Chief Revenue Officer Helen Sartory will become President and Chief Operating Officer.

READ MORE: Music Producer’s Guild Awards 2026: The winners, the highlights, and the hot topics of the night

Since joining Beatport in 2017, Robb McDaniels led the successful turnaround of the company following the bankruptcy of its former parent company, SFX Entertainment. 
Under his leadership, the company says, revenue has “quadrupled”, with Beatport now serving over 1 million customers worldwide and providing a suite of products catered to DJs, artists, producers and labels.
“Working with Beatport’s incredible team, artists and business partners has been the most rewarding experience of my career,” says McDaniels. “I am so proud of what our organisation has accomplished since 2017, and I know that Matt, Helen, and the entire leadership team will expand on the category-defining position we have built.
“As Executive Chairman, I will continue to be involved in the company’s partnerships and planning, and I will be a sounding board for Matt and Helen as they take Beatport to the next level.”
Matt Gralen. Credit: Grace Phillips
“Beatport is a pillar of dance music culture whose focused service to DJs, artists and labels cannot be replicated,” says Matt Gralen. “I am honoured to guide our platform into a new chapter alongside our passionate team, as we work to deliver positive outcomes for both our customers and our business.
“Robb has been a phenomenal leader and mentor, and I am excited to continue the strong partnership that he, Helen and I have had for the last several years.”
“From my first day, working on the Beatport mission alongside Robb has been incredibly rewarding, and as a team we’ve seen tremendous progress over the last few years,” adds Sartory.
“I’m excited to be working alongside Matt for the next stage of the company’s evolution, as we continue to innovate for Beatport’s DJ community, our artist and label ecosystem, and the dance music industry as a whole.”
Helen Sartory. Credit: Grace Phillips
Learn more about Beatport.
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Music Producer’s Guild Awards 2026: The winners, the highlights, and the hot topics of the nightOn a mild spring evening, I find myself at the Troxy, a beautiful Grade II-listed art deco music venue in Stepney, London, where a medley of music industry professionals are congregating for the 18th annual Music Producers Guild Awards. Tonight is a celebration of the people behind the scenes, sometimes overlooked yet often most instrumental in bringing projects to full life — mixers and masterers, producers and recording engineers, and the studios where they practice their craft.
READ MORE: Petition launched to save London’s Battery Studios from demolition
On entrance, I immediately spot David Wrench, the wizardly mastermind known for his work with David Byrne, Arlo Parks, and Jamie xx to name a few. I’m suddenly struck by the collective impact on pop music currently contained in the Troxy’s auditorium.
I take my seat at Table 34. To my left is Miles Clinton James, Producer of the Year nominee who helmed Little Simz’ critically acclaimed Lotus. On my right is Tom Dalgety, his rock pedigree built on acts like Royal Blood, Pixies, and Ghost. Both don headwear: James, a chunky-knit beanie; Dalgety, a black fedora.
After a delectable three-course meal, the ceremony begins. Abbie McCarthy of Radio 1 fame kicks things off with a lighthearted dig at producers’ proclivity to remain in dimly lit box rooms by themselves for hours on end, at odds with their presence here in the Troxy. The crowd seem unamused, though Mark ‘Spike’ Stent confirms her assessment, admitting he’s a little nervous when he collects his prestigious Icon Award. He receives a standing ovation, and it couldn’t be more deserved — Stent’s fingerprints are on countless megahits from the likes of Madonna, Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, and Miley Cyrus.
The headline accolade, Producer of the Year, is given to Zach Nahome, executive producer of Olivia Dean’s chart-topping second album, The Art of Loving. It’s unsurprising — the album’s mixer, Charlie Holmes, picked up Mix Engineer of the Year earlier in the night, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard Dean’s first UK number one, Man I Need in recent weeks.
Another highlight is Self-Producing Artist of the Year, which goes to Joshua Spence Mainnie, better known as Barry Can’t Swim.
Songwriter and record producer Kamille lands the Inspiration Award. As well as penning hits for Jessie J, Little Mix, and Anne-Marie, she’s collaborated on music with Fred Again, with whom she worked on the Next Up initiative, a mentorship programme for female producers.
In her acceptance speech, Kamille said: “I hadn’t seen many women doing what I wanted to do when I first started. There were hardly any female engineers, hardly any female producers … I just want to continue to be an inspiration to anyone.” This sentiment of democratisation and door-opening pervades much of the evening. No longer do industry professionals want to gatekeep their knowledge and experience — instead, they want to pass it forward to the next generation.
Once the award ceremony wraps, I get chatting with Jon Craig, owner of Courthouse Studio in Manchester and a key name in orchestral dance events like Hacienda Classical. He introduces me to Dan Harfield — assistant to mastering engineer Matt Colton out of Metropolis — as one to watch.
Reverting to music tech geekiness, I quiz Harfield on his desert island plugin: “FabFilter Pro-L at the end of the chain. It’s like the Neumann U87 — it does almost everything, almost perfectly. No matter what you’re mastering, as a smoother-overer, it works very well.”
Finally, I converse with Isaac Neilson, an indie rock singer-songwriter who’s on a serious undertaking: a gig a day, every day in 2026. I ask him if it’s moving the needle, and he responds with enthusiasm around the growth he’s seeing.
It’s a positive note to close the night, and I return home feeling buoyed. Despite the wholesome mood of the evening, there’s been ample acknowledgement of the challenges real people are currently facing in the music industry, from studio and venue closures to lack of representation. The fact Neilson’s unrelenting graft seems to be paying off reassures me that musicians, producers, and engineers who persevere can still achieve their dreams — even when it feels like the deck may be stacked against them.
Here’s the full list of 2026 MPG Award Winners:
Producer of the Year
Zach Nahome
Writer-Producer of the Year
Steph Marziano
Breakthrough Producer of the Year
Oli Barton-Wood
Breakthrough Engineer of the Year
Evie Clark-Yospa
Self-Producing Artist of the Year
Barry Can’t Swim (Joshua Spence Mainnie)
Recording Engineer of the Year
Ricky Damian
Mix Engineer of the Year
Charlie Holmes
Mastering Engineer of the Year
Natalie Bibby
Atmos Mixer of the Year
Andrew Scheps
Unsung Hero
Mick Ross
Small Commercial Studio of the Year
Snap! Studios
Large Commercial Studio of the Year
Decoy Studios
Original Score Recording of the Year
Young Fathers – 28 Years Later (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Producer: Young Fathers
Additional Production: Rosie Danvers, Tommy Danvers
Engineer: Jake Jackson
Mixer: James Trevascus
Album of the Year
Olivia Dean – The Art of Loving
Producer & Engineer: Zach Nahome
Mixer: Charlie Holmes
Mastering: Simon Francis
Special Awards
Icon Award – Mark “Spike” Stent
Inspiration Award – KAMILLE
Outstanding Contribution to UK Music – The 1975
Special Recognition Award – John Thornton
Pioneer Award – BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Impact Award – War Child
Read more music tech news.
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OpenAI’s existential questionsOn the latest episode of Equity, we discuss OpenAI's latest acquisitions and whether they address "two big existential problems" for the company.

2026 Green Powered Challenge: The Eternal HeadphonesNoise cancelling headphones are a great way to insulate yourself from the bustle of the city, but due to their power requirements, continuous use means frequent recharging. [Alessandro Sgarzi] has an elegant and unique solution — powering the noise cancelling electronics by harvesting energy from the ambient noise of the city via a sheet of piezoelectric film.
This impressive feat is achieved using a LTC3588-1 power harvesting IC and a pair of supercapacitors, while an STM32L011K4T6 microcontroller processes the input from a MEMS microphone and feeds a low-power class D amplifier. This circuit consumes an astounding 1.7 nW, a power that a noisy city is amply able to supply. Audio meanwhile comes via a traditional 3.5 mm connector, which we are told is the cool kids’ choice nowadays anyway.
We like this project, and since it’s part of our 2026 Green Powered Challenge, it’s very much in the spirit of the thing. You’ve just got time to get your own entry in, so get a move on!

quietformat TOYKEYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLNlPyp6n5Y TOYKEY is a virtual instrument built from a vintage 1980s toy keyboard from producer KION's studio. It keeps the raw charm, playful tone, and distinctive character of the original instrument while expanding it into something much more flexible for real-world music production. Four voices, layered freely At the center of TOYKEY are four core voice layers: Organ, String, Clarinet, and Piano. Each layer includes independent volume and pan control, making it easy to blend tones freely and build sounds with much more depth than the original hardware could ever produce on its own. Small origin. Much bigger range. OYKEY keeps the charm of a small vintage toy keyboard, but it is not limited to simple playback. With filters, envelopes, modulation, built-in effects, unison, mono, and portamento, it can move into much deeper sound design territory while still holding onto the raw and playful character that makes the source so special. Pitch MPE Support TOYKEY supports Pitch MPE, allowing pitch to be controlled independently for each note. Even within a single chord, one note can vibrate, another can bend, and others can move with glide-like motion on their own. Used with an MPE-compatible controller or environment such as Ableton Live, it opens up a much more expressive and alive style of performance. Requirements macOS 10.13 or later / Windows 10 or later (64-bit only). VST3 / AU compatible DAW. Minimum 4GB RAM (8GB recommended). Universal (Apple Silicon + Intel) support. Read More