Minimal Audio offers a FREE vocal sample pack: Elevated Vocals
April is Vocal Month at Minimal Audio, and the developer behind Ripple Phaser, Poly Flanger, and the free Formant plugin is kicking off proceedings with a free vocal sample pack – Elevated Vocals.   It’s worth noting that Audio Plugin Deals is offering a massive 90% discount on Ripple Phaser for a limited time. You [...]
View post: Minimal Audio offers a FREE vocal sample pack: Elevated Vocals

Get the entire April Mega Bundle from Audio Plugin Deals for $9.99 in LIMITED time offer
Audio Plugin Deals is throwing a huge sale this month, and you can now get their April Mega Bundle for $9.99. The original price is a whooping $507, so to say this is a massive discount (98% off) is almost an understatement. If you’re into cinematic and ambient atmospheres or on the lookout for percussive [...]
View post: Get the entire April Mega Bundle from Audio Plugin Deals for $9.99 in LIMITED time offer

HEDD Audio’s HEDDphone D1 are near-perfect open-back headphonesGerman brand HEDD Audio has a reputation for producing quality monitor speakers, but took a bold leap into headphone monitoring more recently in 2020 with the £1479 HEDDphone One — a flagship offering that was subsequently updated in 2023 with the more compact Two model.

READ MORE: Steven Slate’s VSX Immersion One headphones are making me consider selling my speakers

The new D1 open-backs offer a more affordable entry price and attempt to rival the fast transient response of planar magnetic headphones — popular for mixing and mastering — by using an innovative dynamic Thin-Ply Carbon Diaphragm developed with Composite Sound of Sweden. And they put my own planar headphones in the shade.
Image: Press
Unboxing and wearing the HEDDphone D1
The D1s come in a soft-shell carry case that’s not oversized, plus a pouch for the two-metre cable. Like many high-end cans, the cable connects to the headphones via dual 3.5 mm mini-jacks, and so balanced output would be possible with the correct cable and DAC/amp, if you’re so inclined. Impedance is 32 Ohms, meaning these will work happily with audio interfaces and laptop headphone outputs. You don’t need a fancy external headphone amp.
Strapped in, the D1s are supremely comfortable, even for a glasses wearer. There’s just the right enough clamping force to support a solid bass extension, plus a generous depth to the ear cups that helps to avoid over-heating while also enhancing immersion — something this particular set of headphones excels at. Long sessions are possible without discomfort, as the headphones almost seem to disappear.
Image: Press
What does the HEDDphone D1 sound like?
The sound signature has gloriously fizzy highs, verging on being too harsh at times but bringing out incredible detail in vocals and hi-hats in the same way as the AMT tweeter on HEDD’s monitor speakers. HEDD’s co-founder Freddy Knop himself likens this sound to the AMT tweeter in a Head-Fi forum post, citing a “good kind of obsession with detail and transients, precision, realism”. As time goes on, I grow increasingly impressed with the transient and colour detail of the highs on the D1. It’s a quality that creeps up on me and, swapping back to my planar daily-drivers —the (admittedly-cheaper) Hifiman Sundara open-backs— I’m shocked at how trashy and anaemic the treble presentation suddenly appears in comparison to the HEDDs. The D1s also take the lead in comparison to other dynamic-diaphragm models at lower monitoring levels, where the sound remains just as defined in the high end.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there is plenty of bass extension too. Many open-backs are shy of bass out of the box —planars especially— so this helps kicks and sub-synth bass lines to really come alive. Additionally, this bass heft is extremely handy when performing playback translation checks in virtual rooms using software such as Realphones and Space Replicator as the frequency balance is more speaker-like. All great so far.
The mid-mids and low-mids are a little too bulky to my ears, leading to a slight nasal honk, and a low-mid build-up similar to the effect of placing studio monitors on a desk. Gentle cuts with a simple graphic EQ at 500 Hz and 128 Hz clear things up nicely. This is relatively trivial to achieve on my own audio interface that can host headphone EQ in its DSP, but might prove annoying to those who don’t have such luxuries. Post EQ, music is more enjoyable to listen to and mixes translate better as I don’t try to either scoop the low mids as much to reduce vocal proximity, or cut murky resonances around 500 Hz too severely.
Image: Press
Hitting the target with HEDDphone D1
High-mids are as revealing as the treble range, with ample articulation on kick beater clicks, under-snare mics and fuzzy electric guitars. To my taste, this ultimately appears brash and so I revert to my normal EQ preference — dialling in a Harman target curve. I tend to use a Harman curve for a standardised approach to monitoring, I enjoy the fuller bass and the smoothness of an evened-out mid and treble range. It helps with translation checks, too. I locate some Harman target settings for the D1 in an Audio Science Review forum post and, with a parametric EQ applied there’s a dramatic difference in tonal quality. Granted, results appear less exciting, but they’re far more suited to applications of mixing and mastering. I’m in my happy place.
And back to the subject of immersion. HEDDphone D1 has one of the best spatial representations of any headphone I’ve listened to, with an amazing sense of depth, and a surprisingly expansive stereo field. Opposite-panned, crunchy electric guitar layers spring to life and stretch into the far distance in one of my go-to reference tracks — Gethsemane by Richard Thompson. Meanwhile, minutiae in panning decisions are revealed in contrasting, synth-layered tracks. Once again, my Hifimans are outclassed by a clear margin, and to be frank, I’m left reeling.
Image: Press
HEDDphone D1 vs. the world
Mulling over competitors, the HEDDphone D1s outshine Neumann’s NDH30 for a more pleasurable listening experience, and are slightly more pleasing than Audeze’s MM-100 planar open-backs for tonal character and spatial presentation. Meanwhile, Hifiman has multiple planar products in a similar price range, often with steep discounts on outgoing models to give you even more for your money.
For producing, composing and enjoying music though, the HEDDphone D1 is difficult to beat and never gets uncomfortable. Throw in a little EQ help, and the D1 becomes a trustworthy mixing and mastering workhorse that’s articulate and revealing throughout the entire frequency range.
Image: Press
Key Features

Open-back headphones
Thin-ply Carbon Diaphragm (TPCD) dynamic drivers
Frequency Range: 5 Hz – 40 kHz
32 Ohms impedance
2-metre, removable unbalanced cable
Soft-shell carry case
Weight: 350 g

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ChatGPT for beats? DrumBot AI launches a drum machine that listens and talks backThere’s a certain muscle memory baked into modern music production: open your DAW, pull up a drum machine, and start clicking squares on a grid. DrumBot AI, however, is here to shake that workflow up.
The company’s new browser-based drum pattern generator leans on artificial intelligence to do the heavy lifting – turning written prompts, reference audio, or simple back-and-forth instructions into fully formed, exportable drum parts in seconds.

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

Instead of programming beats step by step, producers can describe what they want in plain English – “a heavy half-time groove with ghost notes on the snare” or “something jazzy and loose at 120 BPM” – and get a playable result almost instantly. It’s essentially ChatGPT for drums, but with an ear for feel.
Under the hood is a “proprietary AI engine” trained to understand groove, dynamics, and the rhythmic language of eight distinct musical styles: Rock, Jazz, Funk, Dubstep, Metal, Hip Hop, Rap, and Driving Rhythms.The tool is said to produce patterns with the “musical awareness of a live session drummer”: ghost notes land where a real player would put them, drum fills build tension naturally, and every genre gets the rhythmic treatment it deserves.
And it doesn’t stop at text prompts. In addition to the chat-style interface, users can drop in any audio file (say a demo, vocal idea, or reference track) and the AI will analyse its rhythmic feel before generating a complementary drum pattern – sidestepping the usual manual transcription or endless loop-pack scrolling.
Where things start to become more intriguing, though, is in how you refine those ideas. Once a pattern is generated, you can talk to the AI to shape it further: “Make the kick more syncopated”, “Open up the hi-hats in the chorus,” “Strip it way back” – and the system interprets those instructions in musical terms. It’s less like editing MIDI and more like directing a (very patient) session drummer, or a co-beatmaker that actually listens.
“I built DrumBot AI for the producer who hears the beat in their head but doesn’t want to spend an hour clicking it into a grid,” says founder Jeremy Jost.
Everything runs in the browser, with patterns instantly playable in studio-quality audio. When you’re done, you can export the result as a MIDI file – compatible with tools like EZdrummer and Steven Slate Drums – or bounce out a WAV file. No plugins, no downloads, and no setup.
DrumBot AI is available now with a free Explorer tier (75 credits per month), alongside paid Creator ($14.99/month) and Pro ($29.99/month) plans. Yearly billing is also available at a discount.
Learn more at Drumbot AI.
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Christian Alexander SingleGrainSingleGrain — Granular Synthesizer VST3 / AU by LuvNote LLC. SingleGrain is a granular synthesizer built for producers and sound designers who want deep control without losing their workflow. Load any audio sample and reshape it at the grain level — sculpting texture, movement, and timbre that no standard synthesizer can produce. Core Engine. At the heart of SingleGrain is a real-time granular playback engine with independent control over position, grain length, attack shape, decay shape, and playback speed. Speed runs forward or in reverse. Lock Position mode pins the read head while grains continue cycling, creating evolving textures and freeze effects that are impossible in traditional sample playback. Modulation System. Three fully featured LFOs with free, envelope-triggered, and tempo-synced modes feed into a 32-slot modulation matrix. Eight macro knobs sit above the matrix, letting a single knob sweep multiple destinations simultaneously for expressive live performance and automation. Every modulation slot includes Fine Controls — a zoom lens that scales the modulation range down to microscopic precision — and a Direction mode for bipolar, split, upward-only, or downward-only modulation behavior. Frequency Shifter. A built-in single sideband frequency shifter using an IIR Hilbert transformer adds harmonic motion that sits entirely outside of what pitch shifting or chorus effects can produce. Use it for subtle detuning or extreme spectral transformation. Sample Recorder. Record audio directly from your session into the plugin, load it instantly, and begin granularizing it without ever leaving the instrument. No routing, no bouncing, no extra steps. Factory Content. Ships with 121 factory presets across 9 categories — Loops, SFX, One Shots, Downlifters, Risers, Subs, Sustains, Riddim Delay Fills, and Vocals — plus a curated set of samples and LFO shapes. All content is embedded in the installer. Specifications. Format: VST3 (Windows), VST3 + AU (macOS). Platform: Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit), macOS 11.0+. Architecture: Universal Binary (Apple Silicon + Intel). License: Single user, unlimited installs. Developer: LuvNote LLC. Read More

US Treasury seeks public input for state-level stablecoin regulationsThe Treasury published its notice of proposed rulemaking as the market capitalization of dollar-pegged stablecoins neared $300 billion.

The reputation of troubled YC startup Delve has gotten even worseDelve faces new allegations that it violated the open source license of its customer, Sim.ai, by taking the customers's tool and passing it off as its own.

Battery Tester Outperforms Cheaper OptionsBatteries are notoriously difficult pieces of technology to deal with reliably. They often need specific temperatures, charge rates, can’t tolerate physical shocks or damage, and can fail catastrophically if all of their finicky needs aren’t met. And, adding insult to injury, for many chemistries, the voltage does not correlate to state of charge in meaningful ways. Battery testers take many efforts to mitigate these challenges, but often miss the mark for those who need high fidelity in their measurements. For that reason, [LiamTronix] built their own.
The main problem with the cheaper battery testers, at least for [LiamTronix]’s use cases, is that he has plenty of batteries that are too large to practically test on the low-current devices, or which have internal battery management systems (BMS) which can’t connect to these testers. The first circuit he built to help solve these issues is based on a shunt resistor, which lets a smaller IC chip monitor a much larger current by looking at voltage drop across a resistor with a small resistance value. The Pi uses a Python script which monitors the current draw over the course of the test and outputs the result on a handy graph.
This circuit worked well enough for smaller batteries, but for his larger batteries like the 72V one he built for his electric tractor, these methods could draw far too much power to be safe. So from there he built a much more robust circuit which uses four MOSFETs as part of four constant current sources to sink and measure the current from the battery. A Pi Zero monitors the voltage and current from the battery, and also turns on some fans pointed at the MOSFETs’ heat sink to keep them from overheating. The system can be configured to work for different batteries and different current draw rates, making it much more capable than anything off the shelf.

Cirkut Wins 2026 JUNO Award for Producer of the Year, Cementing Global Hitmaker StatusWhen it comes to shaping the sound of modern pop, Henry Walter—better known as Cirkut—has long been operating at an elite level. Now, the iconic producer has another major accolade to add to his already stacked résumé, taking home the 2026 “Jack Richardson Producer of the Year” honor at the JUNO Awards in Hamilton, Ontario.

The award, named after legendary Canadian producer Jack Richardson, recognizes excellence at the highest tier of music production—fitting for someone whose fingerprints are all over some of the biggest records of the past decade.

Originally from Halifax, Walter’s path to global success took shape after studying Audio Production at the Harris Institute in Toronto, where he later returned to teach. From there, he relocated to Los Angeles and quietly became one of the most in-demand producers in the industry, working with an A-list roster that includes Britney Spears, The Weeknd, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West, among many others. It’s the kind of client list that reads less like a collaboration history and more like a playlist of modern pop’s biggest moments.

If the JUNO win wasn’t enough, 2026 has already proven to be a banner year. Walter also secured three GRAMMY Awards, including Producer of the Year, thanks to his work on Mayhem by Lady Gaga, “APT.” by Bruno Mars and ROSÉ, and Hurry Up Tomorrow by The Weeknd. Across his career, he’s amassed multiple nominations in top categories like Album, Song, and Record of the Year—plus a Best Dance Pop Recording nod—underscoring both his versatility and consistency.

And the hits? They speak for themselves. With 10 No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, Cirkut currently sits at No. 3 on Billboard’s “Top Producers of the 21st Century” list—a ranking that reflects not just chart success, but cultural impact.

His story also serves as a strong endorsement of the institution that helped launch his career. The Harris Institute continues to tout impressive outcomes, including a 100% graduate employment rate in its Arts Management Program for a second consecutive year. In a landscape where post-secondary results are often mixed, those numbers stand out—especially alongside the school’s rare streak of zero percent student loan default rates.

That pride is shared at the top. As John Harris, President of the Harris Institute, put it: “Henry is having a remarkable career and we are proud to have contributed. He has produced and written many of the biggest hit records of the 21st century.”

For Walter, though, the latest recognition is simply another milestone in a career defined by momentum. Whether crafting chart-topping pop anthems or shaping the sonic direction of global superstars, Cirkut isn’t just participating in the industry—he’s actively steering it.

The post Cirkut Wins 2026 JUNO Award for Producer of the Year, Cementing Global Hitmaker Status first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Get a free granular synth texture for Splice INSTRUMENT
Download our free granular synth preset for Splice INSTRUMENT—grab these presets during the drop window and they’re yours to keep forever.

HYBE to inject $100M into US subsidiary, HYBE AmericaCapital injection was approved by HYBE's board on March 31
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SoundCloud now lets you share releases exclusively with followersSoundCloud has launched a new feature called Follower Exclusive Releases, letting Artist Pro users share tracks exclusively with their followers, either for a limited time only or indefinitely.
This new feature builds on its ethos of community, and is a way for artists to reward their most loyal listeners by deepening relationships. It means fans can hear tracks before others, DM artists directly, and even engage with music while it’s still in development. Artists can give their followers the first listen to early demos or something finalised as a surprise drop.

READ MORE: Electro-Harmonix partners with MixWave to bring its classic pedals to plugin form

The feature launches with support from Dutch DJ and producer Chris Stussy, who will release his track What makes you feel exclusively to his SoundCloud followers ahead of the full release of his debut album Lost, Found & Forgotten…, arriving 3 April.
“I’ve been using SoundCloud since the start. During my early days I was uploading a lot of podcasts and recorded sets. I sometimes gave away a free download or posted snippets of upcoming tracks I was making.
“For this occasion I’d like to share What makes you feel… as a thank you for everyone who’s been listening to me on the platform all those years. It’s part of the Forgotten side of my album and I’m playing this track a lot as my intro the last couple of months. Enjoy this one, all the best,” he says.

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Follower Exclusive Releases follows on from a number of other SoundCloud upgrades for artists, which launched in 2025. Back in July, it was announced that the platform had partnered with elasticStage, allowing musicians to release their work on vinyl.
In the same month, SoundCloud also rolled out a text feature allowing artists to connect with their fans on a more personal level, and announced the integration of Hook, an app that lets you legally remix songs for social media.
Find out more about Follower Exclusive Releases via SoundCloud.
The post SoundCloud now lets you share releases exclusively with followers appeared first on MusicTech.

ESSENCE RS from Aim Audio Aim Audio's latest creation becomes the world’s first and only pro-grade microphone that doubles up as a fully functioning TV remote. 

The Crow Hill Company announce Crystal Pianos Rather than faithfully capturing an acoustic instrument, The Crow Hill Company's latest release uses sampling to invent a completely new one. 

What’s new in Waves’ ILLUGEN 2.0 update? These are the new features for its “most advanced music-creation AI model”A 2.0 update for Waves’ ILLUGEN sample creation tool has arrived, introducing a new sound engine with improved prompt accuracy.
ILLUGEN was launched in May last year, and is an AI-powered text-to-sound engine that can work from specific or even weird prompts. At its release, Waves stated that the model was trained “exclusively on documented, legally owned material”, and that “ethical AI development is a top priority” for the brand.

READ MORE: Waves Curves Resolve: this plugin “listens” and fixes conflicts between multiple tracks in your mix, intelligently

The biggest new feature as part of the 2.0 upgrade is a new Studio Engine. This new sound-generation engine joins the original Creative Engine, but is trained to deliver “exceptionally high-fidelity and musically realistic production-ready loops and samples for professional music creation”.
Its dual-engine design lets producers choose between polished studio-grade output and raw sound design material within the same workflow. And, in response to user feedback, ILLUGEN also now offers a lock to key feature, a loop length control, and a stereo control, so you can control the stereo width, from tight mono to wide stereo.
Check out more in the video below:

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A couple of months following its launch, Adam Crute reviewed ILLUGEN for MusicTech. Its pros included being able to use natural language to create sounds rather than hunting through sample libraries, and that the sounds you produce remain yours to keep, irrespective of subscription status.
However, results were reliant on the AI’s understanding of a phrase, meaning credits could be wasted on results that didn’t quite work. With the new 2.0 features, this should now be improved.
At the time, Adam wrote: “Illugen’s results don’t always hit the mark, but, in theory, should improve over time, both in understanding your specific phrases and a general understanding of what people mean by certain words and terms.
“Key to this is the ability to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down reaction to the three results it presents and, in so doing, help Illugen learn what you like and what may be meant by the words you’ve entered.”
If you’re not already a subscriber, you can try out ILLUGEN 2.0 online for free. Find out more over at Waves.
The post What’s new in Waves’ ILLUGEN 2.0 update? These are the new features for its “most advanced music-creation AI model” appeared first on MusicTech.