SoniX Audio releases DRUMFLX, a FREE drum machine plugin
SoniX Audio has released DRUMFLX, a free drum machine plugin for macOS and Windows. DRUMFLX is a sample-based instrument built by producer KXVI, whose credits include work with Future, SZA, 21 Savage, and Lil Tjay. It is aimed mainly at hip-hop, trap, R&B, drill, and related styles, although the included processing lets you tweak the [...]
View post: SoniX Audio releases DRUMFLX, a FREE drum machine plugin

Apple opens new 600-capacity music venue in London’s Battersea Power StationOver the last few years, music venues have been dropping like flies. 2023 was the worst year for venue closures in history, with grassroots venues struggling the most. However, amidst all the closures, new venues are cropping up to fill the ever-growing void. Apple is the latest company to lend a hand, setting up a brand new live venue in Battersea Power Station for newcomers and world-renowned superstars alike.
Apple Music Hall comes as London’s newest intimate venue, boasting a 600-capacity gig space within Battersea’s iconic former power station. And the space doesn’t try to hide its history, leaving the exposed brickwork and metal structuring untouched. The design even adds in bronze balconies as a nod to the vintage, industrial history of the space.

READ MORE: James Hype reveals ridiculous new 16-DECK DJ rig – and Deadmau5 loves it

There’s also a big glass wall in the foyer before entering the dedicated gig space, designed to give punters a panoramic view of the venue’s central concourse, as well as providing a great view of the River Thames.
Credit: Apple / Fiona Raisbeck
While the space’s primary function is to serve as a new intimate venue, it also has a slew of other uses. Due to it being kitted out with Apple’s Spatial Audio, with a 48-speaker spatial sound system positioned all around the room, artists could use it as a way of recording immersive live sessions. Behind the scenes, artists can also take advantage of the venue’s two dedicated recording and mix studios, providing artists with the tools to capture their shows as a multitrack recording.
There’s also the option to easily record a gig or live session, due to the being hardwired for 16 or more cameras. Then, there’s a specialised broadcast control room, which even supports parallel usage of iPhone video capture alongside its more traditional broadcast camera support.
Credit: Apple / Fiona Raisbeck
As Apple notes in its Newsroom announcement, the 600-capacity venue is “designed intentionally to close the gap between intimacy and production value”. It’s a way of helping artists feel totally in control of their production, allowing the intimacy of a small space with the bonus of infrastructure one might associate with an “arena tour”, complete with a 38-foot-wide stage suited for front-facing sets or “more in-the-round experiences”.
“Apple’s deep love for music dates all the way back to the very beginning, from the launch of the iPod to the long-running iTunes Music Festival to the debut of Apple Music,” Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and International Content, says in the press release. “Today, with the opening of Apple Music Hall, we are once again taking an unprecedented step further in our commitment to artists and fans by supporting live music in ways only Apple can do.”
Alongside the new venue, Apple has also moved its London Apple Music Radio team to Battersea Power Station. Its a move that takes advantage of Battersea’s new radio studios.

The post Apple opens new 600-capacity music venue in London’s Battersea Power Station appeared first on MusicTech.

James Hype reveals ridiculous new 16-DECK DJ rig – and Deadmau5 loves itTwo decks? Yawn. Four decks? Boring! If you ask James Hype, DJs need to stop limiting themselves – and that’s why he’s just designed his very own 16-deck DJ setup.
Hype first peeled back the curtain on his buckwild idea last week, sharing clips on TikTok and Instagram of a fully surround DJ setup. The layout plonks Hype within an enclosed square of four tables, each holding four decks that he can dart back and forth between. “Maybe we’ve been thinking too small,” the video reads, while the caption adds: “This might be the best idea I’ve ever had… Or the most unnecessary.”

READ MORE: LEWITT’s Space Replicator 2.0 has arrived – here’s what’s new

Hype has always been one to up the industry standard for decks. Back in 2021, he was teaching the masses how to utilise four decks, sharing a nifty tutorial in collaboration with DJ Mag. Then, in 2024, Hype took to TikTok to ponder whether upping his number to five decks would be an interesting experiment… now, he’s taking a shortcut and bumping straight up to 16. Because why not?
It’s a revolutionary upgrade that has the DJ world pretty excited – even Deadmau5 commented on Hype’s teaser saying that “all [his] favourite DJs play 16 tracks at once”, obviously meaning Hype as he’s the only DJ to currently be doing so. Considering they had a tiny spat back in May, it’s lovely to see the pair bonding over their love of decks.

@jameshype
This might be the best idea I’ve ever had. Or the most unnecessary. Either way, it’s too late now.
♬ Confession – James Hype

As Hype notes in a YouTube video about his new 16-deck setup, he explains that “the point is not to play 16 tracks at once,” but rather “to find out how far [DJing] can actually go”. This is his attempt at pushing the industry forward, in his own unique way.
In the rest of the video, Hype walks us through the journey to making his idea reality. One of the first steps was nailing an arrangement that felt “usable in a real life”, which is how the square setup was born. “16C DJs laid out in a straight line sounds great… until you realise you’re going to be running like a hundred meter sprint to get from one end to the other,” Hype laughs.

Then, it was a case of trial and error, using a warehouse space and borrowing masses of CDJs to test things out. He then runs through some of the problems, like how “Pro DJ Link is designed to work with four players, not 16” and wondering how to network his setup together to share music, player data and potentially sync up. Then there was a question of audio; “Every deck needs somewhere for its audio to go. Four decks into one mixer is easy… But when you have 16, where does the audio go? [So we decided we’d] need one mixer for every four decks.”
“But then how do we combine all the sound from all the mixers together?,” he continues. “How do we do that without creating something so complicated that it’s impossible to actually DJ with… We wanted to make sure that adding more equipment gave me more possibilities, [rather than making] everything harder.”
While all the brainstorming has become an exciting reality, there’s still going to be some teething pains before Hype gets to work on his new toy. “I’ve still got to learn how to actually DJ on it,” he admits. “That’s probably the most interesting part for me, and [the fans]. Because right now, I don’t really know where the limit is. But I’m going to find out!”
The post James Hype reveals ridiculous new 16-DECK DJ rig – and Deadmau5 loves it appeared first on MusicTech.

Best DAWs for producers, songwriters, engineers and DJs right nowThe digital audio workstation – or DAW – is the backbone of modern music production. If you’ve ever wanted to compose or record music, you’re probably familiar with what this software does.
Put simply, DAWs give musicians, producers, and sound engineers the tools to create, mix, and master music and other audio projects.

READ MORE: Best MIDI controllers for creating music in your DAW

Today, there are more options than ever. While heavyweights like Logic Pro, Ableton Live, and FL Studio remain the most popular choices, we’re seeing countless innovative upstarts offer fresh approaches to making music.
To a certain extent, selecting a DAW is a question of personal preference rather than one of functionality. As time has gone by, we’ve seen greater parity of features across DAWs. Instead, the software you choose comes down to how it fits into your creative process – whether that’s in terms of workflow, interface, instruments and effects, or simply if it inspires you to create music.
With that said, modern DAWs do still have their own strengths and weaknesses. In this guide, we show you the best DAWs based on a range of musical applications to help you pick the perfect tool for the job.
Best DAWs at a glance:

Ableton Live 12 – Our pick for overall best DAW
BandLab – Best mobile DAW
Tracktion Waveform – Best free DAW
FL Studio 2026 – Best for sampling and beatmaking
Reason 14 – Best for sound design
Logic Pro 12 – Best for mixing and arrangement
Steinberg Cubase Pro 15 – Best for scoring and soundtracking
Bitwig Studio 6 – Best for modular workflow
RipX DAW – Best for AI tools and stem separation
Fender Studio Pro – Best for guitarists
Reaper – Most customisable DAW

Our Pick: Ableton Live 12
Image: Ableton
Price:

Live 12 Intro: $99 / £69 / €79
Live 12 Standard: $439 / £259 / €279
Live 12 Suite: $749 / £539 / €599

Ableton Live is among the most popular DAWs, and it’s easy to see why. It’s incredibly versatile, catering to a wide range of uses across both music production and live performance. A major hallmark of Live is its Session View, which provides a clip-based, non-linear workflow for music creation and improvisation.
Live is an incredibly powerful workhorse that’s a capable centrepiece of any setup. It includes some fantastic built-in plugins, like the Operator FM synth, the self-explanatory Wavetable, and more experimental synths like Tension and Collision that offer physical modelling. There’s a full roster of studio-grade effects that let you mix and master your productions too.
With the release of Live 12, Ableton cemented its position as one of the best all-round DAWs, with inspiring MIDI generation features, the new MPE-enabled synth Meld, and a range of workflow improvements.
The past two years have seen even more added to the package. Minor version updates have introduced native stem separation, Splice integration, and heaps of refinements across the board. And although Ableton has always offered a strong degree of customisation through the Max for Live visual coding environment, it now includes an Extensions SDK too, allowing users to augment the DAW’s capabilities natively with JavaScript.
Learn more in our review of Ableton Live 12.
Pros:

Session View offers unmatched live performance and clip-based workflow
Wide range of built-in synths and studio-grade effects
Max for Live extends functionality near infinitely with custom devices
Cheaper Intro edition great for beginners
Extensions SDK for custom workflows and user-created features

Cons:

Interface and workflow can feel unconventional to new users
Suite edition is quite pricey

Best Mobile DAW: BandLab
Image: BandLab
Price: Free
Our vote for the best mobile DAW goes to BandLab, the perfect choice if you’re making music on a phone or tablet. Its cloud-based approach offers two significant benefits.
First, it means you can make music anywhere. On the go and sketching out an idea on your phone? Simply log into your BandLab account on desktop and finish things off in the browser.
Secondly, BandLab is great for collaboration. Recording a vocalist? Want input from your band members? Send them an invite to Fork your track and you’ll be able to work together on the project in real time. You can collaborate across iOS and Android devices, plus any computer that can run Google’s Chrome browser. The social media side of BandLab also lets you share tracks, connect with other artists, and discover new music production techniques.
[products ids=”7DtH4coj8Iqu0F7sgQhq6z”]
Other features of the BandLab DAW include a royalty-free sample library of over 100,000 sounds (including many made by MusicTech), stem separation tech, and an AI-powered idea generator, all seamlessly integrated within the platform. The icing on the cake? It’s entirely free to use.
However, BandLab is so much more than just a DAW. It also offers a range of services to help you distribute and promote your music, letting you release on DSPs, earn money from your fans through a tip jar, and submit your music to exciting industry opportunities.
Find out more at bandlab.com.
Pros:

Fully cloud-based and accessible on mobile, desktop and browser
Real-time collaboration across devices and platforms
Includes royalty-free library of 100,000+ samples
Offers integrated distribution and promotion tools

Cons:

Limited compared to pro desktop DAWs in terms of advanced features
Requires a stable internet connection for full functionality

[Editor’s note: BandLab and MusicTech are both part of Caldecott Music Group]
Best free DAW: Tracktion Waveform
In-line MIDI, automation, and plugins. Image: Press
While most DAWs offer a free trial, these inevitably end or are restricted in some other way — but that doesn’t mean a serious music production suite has to cost. Tracktion Waveform has existed for over two decades, and although you can pay for the Pro version, its free edition is remarkably complete.
Its mature feature set covers recording, arranging, mixing, and mastering, and there are no track limits. Four virtual instruments and 14 audio effects are included too.
While you’ll miss out on features like the Clip Launcher, multichannel audio, and stem separation, you don’t necessarily have to buy the whole lot if you only need one or two things, as they’re available as cheaper individual add-ons once you’re ready to expand.
Read our full Tracktion Waveform Pro 14 review.
Pros:

Generous free feature set
Capable recording and MIDI tools
Buy additional features individually
Reliable selection of core effects

Cons:

Feels slightly less modern compared to competitors
Small user community

Best for sampling and beatmaking: FL Studio 2026
Image: Image-Line
Price:

FL Studio Fruity Edition: $99 / £89 / €99
FL Studio Producer Edition: $179 / £199 / €229
FL Studio Signature Edition: $269 / £279 / €319
FL Studio All Plugins Edition: $449 / £469 / €539

Long affiliated with the hip-hop world — although perfectly capable of handling any genre you throw at it — FL Studio is our pick if you’re looking for a DAW for sampling and beatmaking.
Renowned for its pattern-based workflow and intuitive step sequencer, FL Studio is especially popular with those new to music production. But don’t let its user-friendly appearance deceive you — this DAW is just as suitable for audio pros, offering plenty of advanced features and functionality, including native stem separation.
The FL Studio 2026 update widened the capabilities of the DAW’s AI assistant, Gopher, which can now organise tracks, set levels, route audio among other things. Flex, FL’s powerful preset-based synth, was fully rebuilt from the ground up, and many other plugins received small improvements of their own. Additionally, users can now save projects directly to FL Cloud, with 500MB of storage included for free.
Starting at £89, FL Studio pricing is highly accessible, but users get free lifetime updates too – we think that’s incredible value for a fully-fledged DAW. Looking for beatmaking software with a tighter focus? Give Serato Studio or MPC Beats a try.
See what’s new in the FL Studio 2026 update, or read our FL Studio 2025 review.
Pros:

Unique sequencer-centric workflow ideal for beat-driven genres
Excellent piano roll and MIDI editing tools
Free lifetime updates — buy once, own forever
Entry-level Fruity Edition is excellent value

Cons:

Audio and MIDI recording workflows feel clunkier than other DAWs
Grid-based workflow less suited to non-electronic styles

Best for sound design: Reason 14
Browser. Image: Press
Reason is a little different to other DAWs — in fact, it nearly transcends the label entirely.
It’s built around the Rack, an emulation of a real hardware rack which users can stock with instruments and effects, and then connect them up in all sorts of different ways. This modular approach makes Reason the sound designer’s best friend. Once you’re done crafting a sound, you can bake it into a single rack unit with a custom faceplate, or even bring it into another DAW by using Reason as a third-party plugin.
However, it works just as well standalone thanks to the Studio which provides recording and sequencing functionality, audio editing tools, and even a mixing desk modelled on the famous SSL 9000k.
At the start of 2026, Reason was acquired by AI mastering platform LANDR, which dropped the price substantially from £499 to £299 — a much more accessible entry point in line with other DAWs. The Reason 14 update saw the DAW stray slightly closer to convention with a new track-centric workflow designed to keep producers in the flow, so it’s a great time to give this underdog a spin.
Read more in our review of Reason 14.
Pros:

Unique hands-on rack system with cable patching encourages experimentation
Rack can run as a plugin inside other DAWs for flexible sound design
Strong bundled devices
Recent updates bring Reason in line with modern workflows

Cons:

No surround, scoring, or video support
Advanced audio and MIDI editing features are more limited

Best for mixing and arranging: Logic Pro 12
Image: Apple
Price: $199 / £199 / €229
Logic Pro remains near the top among audio hobbyists and professionals alike – and it’s available at a single, affordable price.
The user-friendly interface makes it easy to take a project from an initial sketch to a release-ready master. Comping tools allow for smooth selection of the very best audio takes, while powerful MIDI editing lets you dial in detail when working with soft synths and sample libraries.
Logic Pro’s mixer offers plenty of advanced bussing and routing options, along with an ever-expanding selection of high-quality effects, whether you’re looking for a surgical EQ, an unwieldy distortion, or an immersive reverb.
Of course, focusing solely on mixing and arrangement is selling the DAW short, and this all-in-one music production suite regularly receives inspiring new features.
Version 12 places a heavier focus on intelligent tools, adding a new Synth Player to its AI-powered Session Players that can generate musical parts according to the harmony, rhythm, and structure of your project. The update also includes improved step sequencing, automatic chord detection, and Flashback Capture that can retrieve lost MIDI and audio if you forgot to hit record.
Learn more in our review of Logic Pro 11.
Pros:

Outstanding value thanks to lifetime free updates
Professional-grade recording, editing, mixing, and scoring tools
Huge bundled library of instruments, effects, and samples
Strong surround and spatial audio support for Dolby Atmos

Cons:

Available for macOS only, and some features require Apple Silicon
AU plugins only, no VST support

Best for scoring and soundtracking: Cubase 15
Steinberg Cubase 14. Image: Press
Price:

Cubase Elements 15: $99 / £83 / €99
Cubase Artist 15: $329 / £273 / €329
Cubase Pro 15: $579 / £481 / €579

Steinberg Cubase may lack the aesthetic appeal of DAWs like Ableton Live or FL Studio, but it remains an audio production staple — particularly for those working with moving image.
Off the bat, Cubase integrates well with video, allowing users to accurately sync music with visual content. The platform touts advanced MIDI capabilities too, letting you get the most out of today’s detailed multi-sample libraries to create highly expressive compositions that match the emotion of the scene.
That said, this DAW is just as powerful for electronic music producers, with the Cubase Pro 14 introducing Modulators — LFOs, step sequencers, envelope followers, and even custom scripts that can control any available parameter. The new Pattern Editor improves loop-based workflows too, with note probability and velocity variance proving particularly useful tools for generative music.
One drawback? Many features TV or film composers require — such as the Advanced Score Editor, Time Warp, and support for Dolby Atmos — are locked behind the highest pricing tier.
Learn more in our review of Cubase 15.
Pros:

Excellent video integration for producers working with moving image
Industry-leading MIDI and audio editing tools, plus advanced scoring and notation
Huge bundled instrument and plugin library
New Modulators open up impressive sound design potential

Cons:

Pricey compared to rival DAWs
More ‘traditional’ workflow than modern options like Ableton or FL

Best for modular workflow: Bitwig Studio 6
Bitwig 6. Image: Bitwig
Price:

Bitwig Studio Essentials: $99 / £79 / €99
Bitwig Studio Producer: $199 / £169 / €199
Bitwig Studio: $399 / £339 / €399

Want your workstation to feel more like a modular instrument than a DAW? Once a new ‘challenger’, Bitwig Studio has now been on the scene for over a decade, developing a passionate userbase along the way thanks to its unique focus on experimentation.
Rather than dictating how you work, Bitwig’s fluid interface bends to your own creative flow thanks to Clip Launcher and timeline views. An integrated modulation and plugin system lets you use macro controls, note expressions, LFOs, and envelopes to modify pretty much anything in the DAW, making Bitwig “feel like one giant meta-synthesizer” and earning it a score of 9/10 in our hands-on review. Throw in a Bitwig Connect interface and the hardware-software boundary is removed entirely — Bitwig meets Eurorack, anyone?
Bitwig 6.1 is currently in public beta and focuses primarily on Bitwig’s Sampler. Additions include an expressive Fragments granular mode, advanced slicing, intelligent pitch analysis, cleaner time stretching, and a suite of fresh presets to showcase the new features.
Read our full review of Bitwig Studio 6.
Pros:

One of the most creative, modular DAWs available
Offers several innovative features not found in competitors
Comes with the Grid modular environment for building custom synths and effects
Cross-platform (Windows, macOS, Linux)

Cons:

Smaller content library and bundled instruments compared to competitors
Potentially steeper learning curve

Best for AI tools and stem separation: RipX DAW
Hit’n’Mix RipX DAW. Image: MusicTech
Price:

RipX DAW: $99 / £99 / €114
RipX DAW Pro: $198 / £198 / €228

AI tools continue to proliferate throughout DAWs, augmenting music production workflows for creative and routine audio tasks alike. But RipX DAW is one of the first to position these tools centre stage, focusing heavily on AI-driven sound manipulation.
Its standout feature is astonishingly accurate stem and note separation. Load in any track, and you can isolate vocals, drums, bass, or even individual notes with forensic precision. From here, producers can export stems as audio or MIDI, build backing tracks, repair noisy recordings, or completely reimagine existing material.
RipX probably won’t replace your main DAW — not yet, at least — but if you’re regularly working with stem separation or audio clean-up, this groundbreaking solution is surprisingly affordable.
Learn more in our RipX DAW review.
Pros:

Best-in-class stem and note separation tools
Flexible editing of pitch, timing, harmony, and effects
Excellent cleanup and repair tools in Pro version
Wide creative and practical applications

Cons:

Less traditional DAW functionality
Demands a high-spec, modern computer

Best DAW for guitar and bass players: Fender Studio Pro
Image: Fender
Some might know Fender Studio Pro better as its previous incarnation, PreSonus Studio One. Now under the custody of the behemoth guitar manufacturer, the DAW is seeing its identity shift from capable all-rounder to musician-first creative suite.
Part of that is down to Fender’s Mustang and Rumble Native plugins added in Studio Pro 8.1, bringing the company’s amplifier and effects pedal expertise to plugin format. Within the two, Fender has packed 39 guitar amps, 39 bass amps, and 73 effects pedals, many of which are highly realistic recreations of its own gear.
Of course, Studio Pro remains a fully-fledged DAW capable of much more than just guitar-centric workflows. The 8.1 update also added Moises Studio integration — bringing best-in-class stem splitting, stem generation, and vocal replacement directly inside the DAW — as well as new vocal tuning and effects plugins.
Find out more in our Fender Studio Pro 8.1 review.
Pros:

Mustang Native and Rumble Native plugins sound fantastic
Best-in-class Moises AI integration
Affordable price point
Beginner-friendly workflow, but plenty of advanced features for pros

Cons:

More limited bundled content than the most popular DAWs
Perpetual licence only includes one year of future releases

Most customisable DAW: Cockos REAPER
While REAPER is an enormously capable DAW for all manner of production workflows, the one area it trumps all competition is flexibility.
For starters, nearly every facet of its appearance can be customised, including colours, icons, and toolbars, with robust layout management so you can see exactly what you need for a given task.
More advanced tweaks, however, are available through Custom Action macros or REAPER’s API and ReaScript programming environment. Users can even create their own audio and MIDI plugins using the JSFX scripting engine. Naturally, the REAPER community has built plenty of add-on functionality if you don’t fancy getting your own hands dirty.
REAPER receives point updates on a regular basis, sometimes as often as every few weeks. Version 7 introduces track lanes for managing takes and layering sounds, a new comping workflow, self-contained effects chains and parallel routing, and countless usability improvements.
Despite all this functionality, REAPER is incredibly lightweight and can be run from a thumb drive. No wonder its maker, Cockos, describes it as ‘audio production without limits’.
Pros:

The most flexible DAW on the market
Robust yet lightweight
Incredibly affordable
Regularly updated

Cons:

Deep functionality may overwhelm some users
No bundled samples or virtual instruments

Other options to consider
Avid Pro Tools – Best for multitrack recording

Still a staple of commercial studios worldwide, Avid Pro Tools excels at large-scale multitrack recording, editing, and mixing. Its industry-standard status makes it the go-to DAW for professional recording engineers and post-production facilities.
DJ.Studio – Best for DJs

Designed specifically for DJs, DJ.Studio integrates with Rekordbox, Serato, and Traktor to streamline playlist creation, stem separation, and transitions. You can also export to YouTube or Mixcloud, and there’s a built-in visualiser for video mixes.
Read our DJ.Studio review.
Steinberg Nuendo 14 – Best for post-production and game audio

Nuendo 14 is Steinberg’s flagship post-production DAW, packed with ADR tools, video cut detection, and support for advanced surround formats like Dolby Atmos and Ambisonics. It’s overkill for pure music production, but indispensable for film and game audio professionals.
Read our Nuendo review.
Moises AI Studio
Moises AI Studio brings generative AI into a browser-based DAW, letting users create context-aware instrumental parts, generate stems, and access over 50 AI vocal models trained on ethically sourced data. It’s ideal for remixers, content creators, and quick demo building.
Learn more about Moises AI Studio.
Why You Can Trust MusicTech
MusicTech reviews hundreds of new products every year, from powerful synthesizers, DAWs and pro plugins through to everyday headphones and portable speakers. Our expert reviewers are producers, engineers and enthusiasts with hundreds of years of collective experience, with a keen ear to the ground on new trends and technologies.
Every guide on MusicTech is created by a producer, musician and tech enthusiast just like you. We understand what you’re looking for when searching for a new DAW, and we want to ensure you purchase genuinely useful products for your craft. So you can guarantee that every product MusicTech recommends to you is a product we’d be happy to have in our studios.
For more buyer’s guides, click here.
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Snorkel AI triples valuation to $3.5B as demand for AI training data boomsThe seven-year-old startup has raised a $350 million Series E to fuel its data-as-a-service approach.

Sidechain Compression: What is it and what’s it used for?Sidechain compression is a music production technique in which a compressor turns down an audio signal in response to another audio signal.
Most commonly, it’s used to ‘duck’ pads, bass and other instruments in time with a kick drum, but it was popularised as a tool in broadcasting to dip background music whenever a presenter speaks.
How does sidechain compression work?
Most compressors split their input signal into two. One copy is routed to the processor itself, while the other feeds sensors that measure the signal’s changing dynamics and drive the processor’s response.
In the 1930s, in an effort to reduce the harshness of sibilant ‘S’ sounds, cinema sound designer and recording director Douglas Shearer came up with the idea of providing an external input to a compressor’s sensor signal path — something he referred to as a ‘side’ input. By boosting high frequencies in the signal fed to this side input, Shearer made the compressor more sensitive to the sibilant sounds he was trying to deal with. This is how de-essing was invented, and it gave us the concept of a side signal processing chain, or ‘sidechain’ for short.
Shearer’s innovation has become a standard feature on most compressors, unlocking a new family of compression techniques known collectively as sidechain compression.
How can sidechain compression be used?
Tuning compressor response
The same de-essing technique developed by Shearer can be repurposed as a general means of making a compressor more or less sensitive to certain frequencies. For example, boosting low frequencies will give a de-plosive effect that reduces the prominence of mic pops and bumps.
Nowadays, most compressors have a built-in facility to apply some filtering to the internal sidechain, and this is often sufficient to tune the compressor’s response. When greater precision is required, the classic external sidechain technique can still be employed.
Ducking
The ability to feed separate signals to a compressor’s main and sidechain inputs makes it possible to process one signal with the dynamics of another. A very common use for this is ‘ducking’, which reduces the volume of the processed signal in response to the signal present in the sidechain. This has many applications, such as:
• Reducing the volume of background music and/or sound effects during dialogue,
• Reducing mic bleed in a multi-miked drum kit or other recording featuring multiple sound sources and mics.
• Reducing reverb prominence while the sound seeding the reverb is present. This allows big, washy reverbs that don’t get in the way of the source part (vocal, lead guitar, etc.).
Pumping, pulsing, and the French Touch
Ducking lies at the heart of the so-called French Touch pumping/pulsing effect popularised by the likes of Daft Punk. In this case, a percussive part – typically a kick drum – is fed to the sidechain input of a compressor that’s applied across a mix/submix carrying the parts to be affected. The compressor itself should be configured with a low threshold, high ratio and fast attack, and the release value can be adjusted for a shorter or longer pulse duration. Tweak the settings until you get the amount of French Touch you’re looking for.
Related terms

Multiband compression
LUFS
EQ

 
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In the Studio with Royal BloodThe Members: Mike Kerr, vocals, bass, keyboards; Ben Thatcher, drums, percussion.Produced by: Royal Blood; Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher.Recorded at: Royal Blood’s Brighton, UK studioThe Origin: Possessing a striking powers-of-ten perspective—hearing, then capturing, the spaces where smaller sonics are found and different frequency decades are transformed into massive, colossal sounds—the globally renowned riff-rockers, Brighton, UK-based drum-meets-bass duo Royal Blood wield a natural mastery over micro-to-macro sound-craft sorcery. This acoustic skullduggery arrives naturally for Royal Blood and thrives on a longstanding friendship and love for finding and magnifying these auditory pockets.

The result is a signature style, identifiable within the first few bars: dark and brooding, bluesy, heavy-hitting rock rhythms that rise and fall in accordance with vocal verses dripping with sultry snarls and bombastic boldness. Yet it’s the duo’s application of the inverse — breaking down the loud and creating space when a song calls for a more melodious sound — that reveals the true brilliance of their sonic subterfuge. This interplay creates a high-stakes game of margins for the duo, who consistently rewrite the rulebook on how to build a beat and know when, where, and why to place a sound, defying conventional compositional assumptions and dismantling all spatial bounds.

While the full details of Royal Blood’s inception are frequently glossed over — with many accounts pinning their trajectory around the duo’s 2014 self-titled debut, then matching it alongside their meteoric rise after the duo garnered the attention of iconic rock titans like Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, and Foo Fighters — the truth beneath the mythos follows a more human path: a band pursuing its passion, fueled by a love of creating music, and ignited by the magic of performing live. By simply playing for the fun of it — by some strange twist of fate, they found success.

It was a dual hustle: slogging through the local underground lines of the London-by-the-sea music scene while finding studio time to follow a “what-if” impulse. Chasing wide-open audio dreams, they recorded murky melodies that sank deeply into dark harmonies, trying anything and everything. Listening closely to the instinct within, they maintained their two-piece dynamic, which augmented their synergy, ultimately emerging from a locked-down, soundproofed room with their four-track Out of the Black EP (2014). Its all-out rock-and-roll blues, heavily infused with their now-trademark infra-inverse-ultra frequencies, showcased the massive anthems “Little Monster” and “Come On Over.” Serving as precursors for what was yet to come, the early releases introduced the world to their supercharged output of sound, paving the way for the colossal hits that followed, ensuring everyone instantly knew that Royal Blood was here to stay — no need to “Figure It Out.”

After years of working within conventional studios, while also setting up their own personal recording environments — including an early stint turning the back of their tour bus into a recording space — Royal Blood’s sonic alchemy continued to evolve through the garage-rock heights of How Did We Get So Dark? (2017) and the sleek, electro-rock-funk frequencies of Typhoons (2021). This spatial transition eventually culminated in the duo working fully from their own Brighton-based studio, a creative milestone that became central to self-producing their fourth full-length release, Back to the Water Below (2023).

Having embraced their creative arc, yet in need of a brief respite away from the road and writing, Royal Blood stepped away for a bit — however, their urge to keep seeking all of those lost or not-yet-captured sounds lingered. Locking themselves away from the world’s external gaze, they returned to their sanctuary, their private tracking space, to let the music lead the way. Below, the affable lead vocalist/bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher strip away the studio mystique to detail how they found a new round of wild and supersonic sounds as they returned to the helm for their high-octane fifth chapter, Dead Company (Nov. 13th, 2026).

The Production: Ever attuned to the unpredictable energy of a room — from small clubs to massive venues — Royal Blood instantly tapped into that fritzed-out buzz during the recording process for Dead Company in their Brighton-based studio. This served as the subconscious catalyst for flipping the script on the traditional writing and recording process. Reflecting on this, Mike Kerr notes their artistic compass was beautifully simple: “to try to get as much excitement into the performances as possible.”

While Royal Blood touched the third rail in the midst of penning new material, one specific track exploded, giving the duo an immediate glimpse of the potential sonics on the horizon, sparking the energy they were seeking. Kerr recalls:

“I think 'Swallow the Bomb' was the first thing we wrote for the record. It just came out of the gates really, really hot. And I think we became excited about playing heavy and fast again… it set us on the trajectory for the record.”

That hard, driving momentum naturally began to shape a broader narrative. “After maybe another four or five songs in, I realized there was a theme that was subconsciously emerging,” Kerr says. “It was an all-in attitude. I think that helped me finish the record and work out how to fill in the gaps as the initial themes were all about perseverance, really, and the positives of having that relentless mindset. I was listening to what the music was telling me — it was all informed by the excitement.”

With that newfound adrenaline locked in, Royal Blood drew from the kinetic energy that always defined them, hammering out the material together as much as possible before officially hitting record.

“Because we wanted to play these songs live, it was just about running through these tracks together as much as possible before we started officially tracking — getting them to the point where they are ready for us to sit down and actually record,” Kerr explains.

In embracing this instinct, their signature approach of splitting open massive frequencies reemerged — but it was achieved completely without excessive studio layering, relying instead on the grit of their two-piece synergy.

“If we feel like a song requires more layers, we can become suspicious of it,” Kerr notes. “The goal for this record was, ‘how do we make things feel full and exciting with the minimal ingredients that we have?’ We wanted every track to feel completely untamed and wild, and to really come from that place. Anything we do add is subtle and effective, rather than being integral.”

To pull off this minimal, unlayered approach, the foundation of the tracking sessions fell squarely onto Thatcher. Armed with a deep familiarity with their Brighton room, the duo understood exactly how to extract the massive tones and dynamic punch desired. He explains:

“We know how to get a really good drum sound from that studio because we've worked there on previous records. It's not a massive room, but it's not small either — it has a high ceiling. Our engineer, Pete, knows the space quite well too, so we already knew how to extract what we wanted.”

That intrinsic comfort meant the most explosive, energetic takes could arrive almost instantaneously, bypassing the need for endless reps and replication.

“The most energetic drum take could be in the first three times of recording it,” Thatcher adds. “I think we had done so much work on the previous record with sound design and everything that it was all set up. But throughout the creation of this album, it felt like we wanted to do almost the opposite — to just play together and not worry about a perfect take. That letting go is what gave it the energy.”As this heavy, untamed energy surged through the tracking sessions, the duo faced their next psychological hurdle: knowing when to stop turning knobs and leave the songs alone. In a modern digital landscape, the temptation to endlessly rerecord a take or tweak a mix can easily become a trap. For Royal Blood, the beauty this time around lay in chasing the feels and prioritizing vibe over perfection. Kerr describes this mindset:

“It could be an endless process, and it could never be done really—you could endlessly be fine-tuning it. But the ethos that we were trying to embody on the record was that looking perfect isn't really what we're going for here. It was about energy and trying to capture something that was exciting and not overthought.”

That restraint requires a sharp intuition, knowing exactly when to step back before over-production spoils the magic. As Kerr explains, crossing that invisible line is often the only way to find their limit:

“So, there's just a moment where you think, ‘If I do anything more, we're going to make it worse.’ I think that's the feeling at times. You probably have to cross that line to realize, ‘Now, we're really making it worse.’ Also, you can sometimes trick yourself into thinking that it was too easy. You wonder, ‘We shouldn't be done by mix three; we should be getting to mix whatever.’ Many times you think you have to go through more processes, but sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's just the first or second thing you need to do, and that's it.”

Once the duo settled on the individual tracks, they turned their attention to the sequencing, an integral phase of Royal Blood’s album-crafting process. For Dead Company, the pair mapped out an auditory excursion framed by two distinct, unshakeable milestones: the title track and the final cut, “Closer,” with the frenetic energy of their studio journey filling the space in between. Thatcher describes the art of the sequence:

“I think some bits of music kind of already pick their place in the order, and it's up to you to challenge those positions,” Thatcher explains. “You kind of know what songs are going to feel good at the start of a record and what you want people to hear first, and then you want to take them on a bit of a journey. It's the same kind of journey you want to take people on with a live set list. There is definitely a method to it, but I think it's really important to challenge those methods and to change things up as well along the way.”

That willingness to shake things up meant constantly shuffling the middle positions to mirror the internal journey they envisioned. Yet, despite stress-testing the tracklist, the sonic bookends remained perfectly locked from day one:

“The very first order was almost the one that we went with, but we did change things around like, 'What if we start with this one instead?'” Thatcher notes. “But actually, the beginning and the end—the first song and the closer—were always in place, and it was just working out the journey in the middle.”

With the final arrangement permanently ordered, the duo is primed to unleash that same untamed energy captured during the recording process – right back on the stage. For Royal Blood, the entire record was also tracked to mimic a live environment. Kerr highlights one song that stands out as the definitive example:

“There's a track called 'Mother Never Told You,' which is probably the most brutal track on the record,” Kerr says. “And I think that's why we're really excited, particularly to play it live, just because it's absolute carnage.”

That hunger to translate studio adrenaline into live performance extends across the entire album. Injecting these brand-new compositions into their setlist brings a fresh physical charge to a live show. Thatcher describes the intense anticipation:

“There's a massive excitement that we're going to get from playing these new ones, just because we've been playing some of the older stuff over ten years now,” Thatcher explains. “There's always this new energy when you can see it, a new song, coming up in the set list. And there's always a bit of anticipation and a little bit of nervousness because our bodies are not quite used to having that muscle memory yet.”

Navigating those unmapped moments in the setlist forces the duo to stay razor-sharp, relying on pure focus to guide them through the demands of the new arrangements. As Thatcher notes, it is a high-stakes balancing act of adrenaline and discipline:

“So those moments for us are definitely in the set list where we can work ourselves up a little bit more,” Thatcher adds. “It's all about keeping it together and remembering to keep breathing before they come on. But they'll become like the others at some point, and they will just merge in.”

The band mirrors that live excitement through their thrill over the big reveal of the album's new imagery. Like so many elements of Dead Company that subtly surfaced along the way — unearthing fresh bursts of supersonic energy — the title and the artwork naturally did the same. In a striking twist of fate, it was the depiction of a beautifully designed, two-headed tiger that brought everything full circle. The image perfectly captured the dual-fronted energy that reflects the sonic synergy of the band, paying homage to their signature six-eyed tiger emblem — a piece of symbolism that once adorned Thatcher’s drum kit since their earliest days.

Kerr explains how this visual identity surfaced in an equally subtle way:

“‘Dead Company’ is the first track of the record. When we were working on the album artwork, we were just using the title and its corresponding dual-tiger imagery as a placeholder because we hadn't confirmed a final title yet. After about three weeks, we had almost forgotten that we hadn't even decided what the album was going to be called. I think we both just got so used to seeing the tigers and ‘Dead Company’ together that it felt like it had named itself. There's something about that title and the tigers together — it just seemed like the perfect marriage. It feels like a really good, full-circle moment, if that makes sense.

Thatcher adds a straightforward, definitive agreement: “Yeah, absolutely.”

Photo Credit: Edward CookeThe post In the Studio with Royal Blood first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

THETA Audio Research C A T H O D EFree for 14 Days. Run anything through a signal chain that's falling apart on purpose. CATHODE is seven stages of analog-to-digital rot, worn tape, drifting transport, a panicking receiver, RF interference, phosphor burn, converter damage, with a full modulation-and-transient toolkit bolted to the end so you can make the decay move. Subtle enough to age a vocal, violent enough to liquefy a drum loop. Drag and drop modules around to change the signal path. Read More

Arch Lending eyes tokenized stocks as next collateral marketArch Lending’s Himanshu Sahay said on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast that the lender plans to move into tokenized equities as onchain stocks gain traction as collateral.

Dumpster-dived Window A/C becomes Ground-Source Heat PumpHeat pumps are great, because they pump heat around, and we often don’t want heat where it is. Need it somewhere else? Pump it! It’s great. It’s also a bit pricey if you’re buying new, but [Craftsman Chris] over on YouTube realized that the window air conditioning unit he found in a dumpster is, in fact, a heat pump. Normally it’s an air-source heat pump, but with a delightful series of hacks, he gets it automated and hooked into a ground loop in his latest YouTube video.
The heat sink is provided by a bunch of PEX tubing [Chris] buried in his back yard. After experimenting with using the water loop for cooling directly, he realized that pumping heat out of his house into the cold ground would go much better with a heat pump. That’s where the window A/C came in. After cleaning and servicing it, it was time to convert it to dump heat into water rather than outside air. To do that, [Chris] welded up a tank made of scrap metal around the existing heat exchanger. It’s designed for air, sure, but water takes its heat just fine. The nice thing about this is that by keeping the internals of the air conditioner mostly stock, he doesn’t let out any of the tasty, tasty CFCs that may be hiding inside.
Connecting this unit to his thermostat is equally hacky– he takes an old Programmable Logic Controller that looks fit to run a small factory, and hooks it to a single linear actuator to poke the A/C unit’s stock power button. Is it elegant? No. Does it work? Yes. Is it a hack? Indubitably!
We’ve seen window units pressed into whole-house A/C service before, but adding the water loop is a great hack. We saw a window A/C used as a ground-source pump before, too, but that was a Canadian project and so sensibly turned the machine around to provide heating for the maple mansion.

Neumann launch the KK 104 A & KK 105 A Building on the success of the acclaimed KK 204 and KK 205, the new A-Series capsules combine Neumann’s proven condenser technology with an updated design, reduced handling noise and seamless compatibility with the latest Sennheiser wireless ecosystems.

RiverFlux Audio releases BITLAYER, a FREE multiband bitcrusher
RiverFlux Audio has released BITLAYER, a free multiband bitcrusher for macOS, Windows, and Linux. This is a surprisingly cool bitcrusher, but the first thing I noticed was the interface. The pixel-art knobs and chunky lettering give it a fun Game Boy vibe, but the frequency display also makes this fairly deep processor easier to understand. [...]
View post: RiverFlux Audio releases BITLAYER, a FREE multiband bitcrusher

Lunacy Audio launches new AI-powered plugin sharing platform, NOVALunacy Audio has a history of strong releases; back in 2021, we awarded the company’s sample-based virtual instrument CUBE a stunning 9/10, and 2024’s multi-effects engine, BEAM, was also pretty damn impressive. Now, Lunacy has unleashed its latest project onto the world: AI-powered, browser-based sharing platform for plugins, NOVA.
Speaking to us last month, Lunacy’s CEO, Casey Kolb, described NOVA as a kind of “Google Docs for audio”. The core idea is to put circulation into the hands of its community, encouraging users to discover, customise, and build audio plugins and virtual instruments to then share back into the ecosystem.

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Users will also have the perk of saving their favourite plugins to the cloud, meaning you can keep things synchronised across your browser and your DAW. And, best of all, NOVA is completely free to use.
The process behind the browser-based discovery platform was rather different for the Lunacy team – namely, AI was used in the development process, and user functions are also AI-powered. With the company’s development team crafting the first two releases from the ground up, it’s a choice that Lunacy’s CEO originally would have never considered. However, it served as a tool to keep up with demands.
“AI works so well that now our internal sound designers can build products in two days that would have taken our entire dev team a whole year… It’s unbelievable,” Kolb told us in August.

While NOVA is free, certain AI-powered tools will come at a premium cost. However, five are totally free. First up is Zephyr Strings, a dual-layer, multi-sampled string arp instrument built from live recordings of the Budapest Strings Chamber Orchestra. There’s also the Woodland Piano plugin, offering four-dynamic-layer sampled upright piano with lifelike key-release and pedal noise.
Credit: Lunacy Audio
Elsewhere, Good Vibes comes as a four-velocity-layer sampled vibraphone. Then the Silhouettes plugin serves up five distinct synthesis and sampling engines, from FM sines to additive bells to hybrid multi-samples, sharing one XY-pad interface. The single-oscillator chip synth, Chiptuner, comes as the final free offering, boasting 16 waveforms, including band-limited Nintendocore pulses, a tempo-synced arpeggiator and a dual-stage bitcrusher.
If you’re keen to splash the cash and buy some plugins, there are two tiers of payment – $19 ($29 after the current introductory discounted period), and $35 ($49 in future). The lower tier option will allow you to access Growl, a bass engine with a monophonic, dual-oscillator synth. You’ll also get Gleam, a modal resonator synth with six tunable partials per voice, which also features an 11-pattern arpeggiator for a bit of added texture.
Credit: Lunacy Audio
As for the higher $35 intro tier, you can utilise the lo-fi-infused Drift Cassette multi-sampler, which features over 60 instrument packs and a nine-unit rack for tape saturation, bitcrushing and reverb. Phase-distortion synth Anima is also available at this price, as well as unison synth Swarm, which can stack up to 16 detuned voices per oscillator across 16 distinct spread modes.
However, this is just the beginning for NOVA. In future Lunacy plan to expand platform’s selection of tools – so it’s a great time to dig in to the intro price and await the future of NOVA.
For more information, head to Lunacy.
The post Lunacy Audio launches new AI-powered plugin sharing platform, NOVA appeared first on MusicTech.

LW6 wireless headphones from Lewitt Audio Lewitt’s have just introduced their first pair of headphones which, despite being aimed primarily at studio duties, offer wireless operation.

Charles Goldstuck’s GoldState makes minority investment in Podium Entertainment, as Flexpoint Ford and Shamrock Capital buy audiobook publisher in reported $400M+ deal'Podium is poised to take full advantage of the changing landscape for audio around the globe,' said Goldstuck
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