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

 
The post Sidechain Compression: What is it and what’s it used for? appeared first on MusicTech.

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.

READ MORE: “The death of Suno”: Reddit users have turned against Suno after v6 model update

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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TMPLT Sounds offers two FREE electronic drum sample packs
TMPLT Sounds is offering two free name-your-price drum sample packs through Gumroad, including 75 kick drums generated with its xKick 999 plugin. The developer recently introduced xKick 999 and Erika Kick Drum Synth, two pretty interesting virtual instruments that caught my eye because they’re inspired by some of my favorite analog drum hardware. However, neither [...]
View post: TMPLT Sounds offers two FREE electronic drum sample packs

LEWITT forays into uncharted territory with its first pair of pro-grade headphonesLEWITT, an audio brand known until now just for its vast array of microphones and audio interfaces, has stepped foot in the world of headphones with its first pair of professional-grade LW6 monitoring cans.
Founded in Vienna, Austria in 2009, LEWITT has built a reputation with its growing collection of studio microphones, which have been used on many high-profile albums, including Bad Bunny’s 2026 Album of the Year DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, and Sabrina Carpenter’s landmark Short n’ Sweet from 2024.
And off the back of that success, the brand is now looking to stake its claim in the headphone world with its new LW6 wireless headphones.

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

Aimed at audio professionals working on mixing and mastering in studios, these LW6 boast “ultra-low latency” of under 6ms, LEWITT says, without compression. Their wireless design also enables producers to walk around their studio space without concern of tripping over or standing on wires.
The headphones come with a RealSound transmitter which can be plugged into your interface or computer, offering a 5m (16ft) range whereby audio is uncompressed and without noticeable delay, “finally making wireless part of the professional studio world”.

Of course, a wireless design means a rechargeable battery, with a maximum life of 21 hours, and rapid charging offering three hours of playback from a 15-minute charge.
Aside from their obvious workflow benefits via a wireless design, the LW6 headphones are said to boast “reference-grade sound quality” in a closed-back design, offering two-way sound isolation, meaning limited bleed into your microphone while recording.
They also sport built-in DSP and onboard sound customisation, with a fully parametric five-band EQ. You can also create your own custom sound profiles via the LEWITT desktop software or mobile app and store them directly on your headphones, meaning no host device or software is required to be run concurrently.
Credit: LEWITT
Impressively, the headphones also allow you to “natively uplift the stereo realism” via virtual studio monitors, which simulate studio monitors in a finely tuned mixing room. This, LEWITT says, “helps you make better mixing decisions and provides a more pleasurable experience for mixing sessions”.
Also included are advanced monitoring functions like mono, side-stereo, side-mono and left-right swap. There’s also a built-in loudness guard, with which you can define a threshold level to protect your hearing from dangerous peaks.
Credit: LEWITT
Any producer knows how long mixing sessions can get, so any pair of serious monitoring headphones needs to be comfortable. LEWITT’s LW6 cans feature thick memory foam cups for reduced sound leakage and passive isolation, along with an adjustable headband which adapts to your head shape.
And if you want to take a break from the studio, the LW6 headphones also have Bluetooth functionality for casual listening, too.
The LW6 Wireless Studio Headphones are available now, priced at €599/£520/$699.
Learn more at LEWITT.
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“The death of Suno”: Reddit users have turned against Suno after v6 model updateBack in August, Suno got a slap on the wrist for its unlawful AI training practices, with German courts ruling that it had used protected songs without permission. Then, at the start of September, Suno came clean in the US District Court of Massachusetts, admitting in court documents that “audio data was obtained from YouTube for use as training” its software.
As the ongoing legal proceedings unfold, Suno’s latest iteration, v6, aims to “strengthen safeguards” across the industry and “create a healthier” musical ecosystem. Developed in partnership with the likes of Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe, it seems like Suno’s way of addressing the elephant in the room, perhaps by throwing out unlawful datasets and retraining Suno from the ground up… and users aren’t very impressed.

READ MORE: ElevenLabs strikes first deal with a major label to launch AI-powered music platform and audio products

Taking to Reddit, one unhappy Suno user brands the latest update as “the death of Suno”, calling it “unusable” with poor quality tracks. “Every song comes out flat, the voices are muddy, the sound is abysmal,” the user writes. “[Suno] claims we can still use the 5.5 voices – not true – they sound nothing like in v5.5. The songs come out so bad [that] I won’t be able to use Suno at all.”
Words like “muddy” and “muffled” crops up time and time again across r/SunoAI. One satirical parody post even ‘leaks’ the next update, which will involve “muffle maker” software to capture the same quality as v6. “If you accidentally create something that sounds good, you can use it to bring the sound quality down to the classic v6 level,” the fake ‘update leak’ reads.
save this before it gets deleted! new suno update leaked!! byu/RefrigeratorOpen2655 inSunoAI

The post even namedrops a number of companies suing Suno over its alleged copyright infringement. “[The new update comes with] your own personal representatives,” the post reads. “After Suno’s latest settlement, representatives from Sony, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group will watch your screen live whenever you start writing a prompt. if they see anything they don’t approve of, your account will be suspended.”
Many posters seem to scowl at any mention of the lawsuits at hand. When one user mourns how “awful” v6 is, noting with annoyance that Suno has even removed some of its “best models”, 4.5+ and 5, a commenter notes: “it’s called complying to a lawsuit”. It’s a reminder that has users branding the companies as “dickheads”, while also dog-pile downvoting any attempts to explain that training on content without permission is “still theft”.
No matter how many years of loyalty users seem to have under their belt, there seems to be a unanimous sentiment: v6 isn’t up to scratch. However, as users debate jumping ship and cancelling their subscriptions, as least the companies pursuing lawsuits are happy… right?
Not quite. According to Variety, as of 18 September, Sony and Universal Music Group have filed a new 45-page lawsuit. It comes as yet another lawsuit against Suno, with the labels first pursuing legal action over Suno’s “unimaginable scales” of copyright infringement in 2024.
The new lawsuit alleges that Suno’s latest model, the infamously “unusable” and “muddy” v6, still infringes on copyrighted work across Sony and UMG’s catalogue. The companies argue that v6, if v6 was trained on its previous models or any of Suno’s previous output, then it would still be utilising Sony and UMG’s copyrighted works – as training off of copyright infringing content may dilute the source material, but it was still created unlawfully.
“Training a ‘new’ model on the outputs of an infringing model does not eliminate the infringement; it launders it,” the labels claim [via Variety]. “V6 is not a fresh start; it is the fruit of the same poisoned tree.”
So, with users and the industry still unsatisfied, Suno is between a rock and a hard place here. It begs the question: what does the future hold for Suno and generative AI in music?
The post “The death of Suno”: Reddit users have turned against Suno after v6 model update appeared first on MusicTech.

My Forever Studio: UNIIQU3’s favela studio has mass appealUNIIQU3 is an artist, DJ, producer and ambassador of the Jersey Club genre. She’s opened the Renaissance tour for Beyoncé, been sampled by Doechii and made the first Jersey Club track to be longlisted for a Grammy. This week, she joins us in another trip to Studio Foreverdom on season 8 of the My Forever Studio podcast, produced in partnership with Audient.

Trained as a classical pianist and dancer, UNIIQU3 fell in love with club life following an injury that curtailed her dancing. We caught up with her hot off completing her debut album, Mass Appeal to talk about her first exposure to Jersey Club in her hometown of Newark, how a cracked copy of FL Studio helped her enter the male-dominated DJ scene, Broadway auditions and Stonehenge.
The My Forever Studio podcast – created in partnership with Audient – sees artists, producers, and engineers create their dream fantasy Forever Studio, wherever they want in the universe. However, hosts Chris Barker and Will Betts impose some strict rules in the Forever Studio. Our guests are permitted a limited number of items in their creative space, so they must choose carefully. There will be nostalgia. There will be anecdotes. There may be gags. But there will be no bundles!
Subscribe to My Forever Studio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and check out all episodes so far via MusicTech.
 
The post My Forever Studio: UNIIQU3’s favela studio has mass appeal appeared first on MusicTech.

The Story Behind Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" - The Riff That Changed RockDiscover how Jimmy Page created Led Zeppelin’s iconic “Whole Lotta Love” riff, the gear behind its massive sound, and the blues influence that shaped the song.