W.A. Production releases Delay Rings 8-Bit (Japan) with a limited-time 70% discount
Delay Rings 8-Bit (Japan) is a brand-new version of the developer’s flagship dynamic delay engine, and you can grab it for just $12 while the intro offer lasts. That’s a massive 70% discount! The introductory sale will last for another 17 days (as of the time of writing – 26 January 2026). Once the sale ends, [...]
View post: W.A. Production releases Delay Rings 8-Bit (Japan) with a limited-time 70% discount

Ablaze Audio releases Ablaze Toolkit bundle with five FREE plugins
Ablaze Audio has released Ablaze Toolkit, a bundle of five free plugins for Windows, macOS, and Linux, designed to simplify common mixing and sound design tasks in modern metal production. Oh, and there’s a fun easter egg for BPB readers. Ablaze Audio is run by the same developer who created our BPB Dirty Filter plugin. [...]
View post: Ablaze Audio releases Ablaze Toolkit bundle with five FREE plugins

Will.i.am: “I can’t be that critical of AI – because I have a career sampling music”The debate surrounding AI in music is complex and highly nuanced. Many are critical of fully fledged AI music generators – saying their content is flooding streaming services and diluting the creativity of real human artists – while others hail the potential of artificial intelligence to expedite the creative process.
Black Eyed Peas superstar Will.i.am is one of many industry veterans urging people to be more open to the adoption of AI in the creative process. Back in 2023, he spoke on how AI was still in its infancy, saying: “It’s Super Mario Bros. right now – we ain’t even got to Call of Duty yet.”

READ MORE: This comprehensive Softube plugin bundle was over £1,000, but you can get it right now for just £129

And speaking to CNBC in Davos, Switzerland last week, the singer once again revealed his thoughts on AI, saying it’s not dissimilar to the rise of sampling decades ago.
“Imagine it’s 1970, we’re talking about jazz here, right?” he says. “A jazz musician would say, ‘What do you think about these samplers that are coming? People just sampling our stuff that we did back in the past. You think that’s music?’
“Turns out that that’s the form of hip-hop sampling and using technology to reimagine and chop up and reconfigure… So I can’t be that critical [of] AI, because I have a career sampling music…”
He also suggests that developers who write the code for AI music generators should also be given some credit in the creative process.
“At the core of AI music is some developer, and though that’s their art, you can’t discredit their art for creating that algorithm to create,” he says.
“Yes, they did borrow from music. They did train on, you know, the entire library that humans have made and that people should be paid for…
“We’re going to get to a point 20 years from now where it would have evolved, and it’s not about training on yesterday’s music. We have to prepare ourselves for that, too. Because the AI that we’re concerned about is not here yet, and that is the AI that’s creating just on it’s own.”

The post Will.i.am: “I can’t be that critical of AI – because I have a career sampling music” appeared first on MusicTech.

This comprehensive Softube plugin bundle was over £1,000, but you can get it right now for just £129Plugin Boutique is currently offering a whopping deal on a bundle of 11 Softube plugins, curated with producers in mind.
You can now get 88 percent off its Producer Bundle, which was originally priced over £1,000 and is now just £129. The bundle offers a bunch of nifty tools for mixing, tracking, or sound designing across a wide range of genres.
[deals ids=”5BzDCZB4554BzFPUd7St17″]
The Softube Producer Collection is exclusive to Plugin Boutique, and is described as a “premium suite of essential production tools, combining analogue warmth, classic tone, and modern flexibility”.
The collection features its Amp Room: Vintage Suite, British Class A channel strip, FET Compressor MK II, Harmonics saturation processor, Model 84 synth emulation, a Vocoder, the Passive-Active Pack EQ collection, its Tape plugin, the Transient Shaper, Tube Delay, and its Widener tool. Some of these plugins cost over £100 individually.

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

The Amp Room plugin is a core highlight, offering four classic amps, five cabs, 11 stompboxes, 13 effects and utilities, microphone options, presets, and more. The Class A emulation recreates British Console sound, and is modelled after some of the most sought-after and costly console modules used across records by Queen, Nirvana, David Bowie, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Another core plugin in this bundle is its Model 84 synth emulation, which recreates the sounds of Roland’s Juno-106. We rated this plugin a perfect 10/10 in our 2021 review, calling it “a photo-fit recreation” of the original, while its Extended Control section delivers modern functionality. Producer Tycho also referred to this plugin as one of the best soft synths ever made in his 2024 interview with MusicTech.

This offer runs until 1 February. You can shop this deal and more over at Plugin Boutique.
The post This comprehensive Softube plugin bundle was over £1,000, but you can get it right now for just £129 appeared first on MusicTech.

ChatGPT is pulling answers from Elon Musk’s GrokipediaInformation from the conservative-leaning, AI-generated encyclopedia developed by Elon Musk’s xAI is beginning to appear in answers from ChatGPT.

Echoe EchoeAudio-first sharing and organization Browser-based file sharing, streaming previews, and feedback tools for producers & collaborators. Echoe is a private audio collaboration tool designed specifically for music production workflows. It allows users to upload, organize and stream audio files directly in the browser, in original WAV and AIFF formats, without relying on compressed public players. Core features Upload and organize audio in nested folders and playlists. Flexible, non-expiring share links for collaborators and clients. Stream original WAV/AIFF files directly on desktop or mobile. Waveform display or spectrum analyzer during playback. Timestamped comments for feedback. Notes and tagging for file organization. Inline version uploads for quick A/B:ing of mixes or revisions. Artwork and description on playlists. Typical use cases Track delivery, stems and premasters to collaborators. Collecting feedback with time-based comments. Organizing projects and library of tracks. Private playlist sharing with clients, labels or artists. Access & plans A fully featured free tier is available and will remain free. Paid plans provide expanded storage capacity. Read More

Balancing a Turbine Rotor to 1 mg With a DIY Dynamic BalancerAlthough jet engines are theoretically quite simple devices, in reality they tread a fine line between working as intended and vaporizing into a cloud of lethal shrapnel. The main reason for this is the high rotational speed of the rotors, with any imbalance due to poor manufacturing or damage leading to undesirable outcomes. It’s for this reason that [AlfMart CNC Garage] on YouTube decided to spend some quality time building a balancer for his DIY RC turbine project and making sure it can prevent such a disaster scenario.
In the previous part of the series the turbine disc was machined out of inconel alloy, as the part will be subjected to significant heat as well when operating. To make sure that the disc is perfectly balanced, a dynamic balancing machine is required. The design that was settled on after a few failed attempts uses an ADXL335 accelerometer and Hall sensor hooked up to an ESP32, which is said to measure imbalance down to ~1 mg at 4,000 RPM.
A big part of the dynamic balancing machine is the isolation of external vibrations using a bearing-supported free-floating structure. With that taken care of, this made measuring the vibrations caused by an imbalanced rotor much easier to distinguish. The ESP32 is here basically just to read out the sensors and output the waveforms to a connected PC via serial, with the real work being a slow and methodical data interpretation and balancing by hand.

NAMM 2026: Korg phase8 production version debuts Korg have announced launch details of phase8, an eight-voice acoustic synthesizer built around the company’s pioneering Acoustic Synthesis technology.

NAMM 2026: Sontronics introduce ZETA Sontronics have announced ZETA, a new high-performance JFET condenser mic designed for studio recording applications including vocals, voiceover and acoustic instruments.

Get UJAM Virtual Bassist Dandy for $10 + FREE FireEQ
Plugin Boutique currently lets you pick up the UJAM Virtual Bassist Dandy virtual bass guitar instrument for just $10, down from its usual $121 price. That’s a 91% discount, available until February 8th. As an added bonus, any purchase during this promotion also includes the Fire EQ plugin from United Plugins for free. Dandy is [...]
View post: Get UJAM Virtual Bassist Dandy for $10 + FREE FireEQ

ViatorDSP releases Ripper, a FREE distortion plugin (beta)
ViatorDSP has released Ripper, a free distortion plugin currently available in beta for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Ripper is a surprisingly versatile distortion effect for a freebie. You get a very straightforward control layout, but there’s more than enough depth to cover a wide range of tones. Documentation is non-existent at this stage (the product [...]
View post: ViatorDSP releases Ripper, a FREE distortion plugin (beta)

Here’s what AlphaTheta brought to NAMM 2026AlphaTheta and Pioneer DJ always have one of the biggest setups at NAMM, complete with a fully functioning DJ stage. This year, Laidback Luke, Mix Master Mike, and Netsky all performed throughout the convention. But at NAMM, the spotlight is mostly on the products. AlphaTheta brought out its full range of kit, from its Euphonia rotay mixer to its flagship CDJ-3000X players to all-in-one DJ units.
Three items in particular that were catching a lot of eyes were the DJM-V5 mixer, the RMX-IGNITE effects unit, and the SLAB Serato studio controller. The DJM-V5 and the RMX-IGNITE were actually linked together on one table with a pair of CDJ-3000Xs. An AlphaTheta rep was always close to that station to give demonstrations about how the two new products work in tandem.

Separately, the DJM-V5 was also at a station with two vinyl Serato decks to give old-school turntablists a chance to see how it feels. The RMX-IGNITE was exhibited connected to a DJM-V10 and four CDJ-3000Xs, the kind of massive set ready for the mainstage at a festival.

The SLAB was, quite literally, on a slab. Laid into a display meant to look like a slab of rock, attendees could come and build their own beats from scratch and remix tracks on the fly. It’s also surprising how deep you can get into beatmaking with the SLAeB, with a ton of functionality built straight into the controller. During our demo, Serato’s Omar built an arrangement on Serato Studio without ever touching the laptop’s trackpad. We’ll have a full review coming soon.

Check out more NAMM 2026 news as it happens.
The post Here’s what AlphaTheta brought to NAMM 2026 appeared first on MusicTech.

Gmail is having issues with spam and misclassificationIf your Gmail account doesn’t seem to be working properly today, you’re not alone.

Wireless MIDI Controller Has Lots Of KnobsWe live in a golden age for MIDI controllers. [rheslip]’s contribution to the milieu is a twisty take on the format, in that it’s covered in an array of knobs. Thus the name—Twisty 2. 
The controller can be built using the Raspberry Pi Pico or Pico 2. It’s set up to read a 4×4 array of clickable encoders, plus two bonus control knobs to make 18 in total, which are read via a 74HC4067 analog mux chip. There’s also an SK6812 RGB LED for each encoder, and an OLED display for showing status information. MIDI output is via USB, or, if you purchased the W variant of the Pi Pico/Pico 2, it can operate wirelessly over Bluetooth MIDI instead. The controller is set up to send MIDI CC messages, program changes, or note on/off messages depending on its configuration. Flipping through different modes is handled with the bottom set of encoders and the OLED display.
Few musicians we’ve ever met have told us they learned how to play the encoders, and yet. The cool thing about building your own MIDI controller is you can tune it to suit whatever method of performance strikes your fancy. If the name of this build alone has you inspired, you could always whip up a MIDI controller out of a Twister mat.

L-Acoustics debuts L-Acoustics DJ iPad app and controller options at NAMM 2026At NAMM 2026, L-Acoustics showed off the L-Acoustics DJ iPad app and new controller interfaces. The French audio brand announced the L-Acoustics DJ app in 2025, which lets DJs tinker with immersive sound on-the-fly.
L-Acoustics DJ uses machine learning to separate stereo tracks into four elements — drums, bass, vocals, and “sweeteners” or other mid-range sounds — allowing for individual panning around a 3D space.
At NAMM, during the presentation, professional DJ Julian Clarkson demonstrated the function in action with the assistance of two different controllers. One was an app for iPad that displays the spatial distribution of each sonic element in real time on a screen. The other was a traditional controller designed by the Buenos Aires-based manufacturer, Yaeltex. This controller is complete with knobs, faders, and touch pads for tactile precision.
L-Acoustics DJ iPad Controller. Image: Harry Levin
Both controllers also employ preset functions that can manipulate all four elements simultaneously with the touch of a single button.
While L-Acoustics has the proprietary tech to theoretically split a song into more than four elements, the idea, as of now, is to focus on simplicity so DJs can easily integrate the function into their workflow while they are performing.
“It’s a very easy platform to learn,” Clarkson says. “The real difference is the exposure and being able to open the world of possibilities and make it more accessible.”
Check out more NAMM 2026 news as it happens.
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