Got writers block? Kestrel Write’s DAW-like lyric workstation could be the solutionIf you’re looking for a way to up your lyric writing game, Kestrel Write might be the perfect solution. The new app is a DAW-like poetry workstation, adopting a ‘time-line’ based interface that allows you to freely drag, drop and play with your lyrics like never before.
Designed by Robert Birdsey, the app offers a number of tools to work around even the worst case of writer’s block. Rather than being taunted by the vision of a blank word document, Kestrel Write’s DAW-inspired design places your lyrics within its ‘Arrangement’ timeline. There, you can easily rearrange your verses, choruses and other sections to explore new ideas.

READ MORE: “It’s not as laid-back as everyone thinks it is”: How Tanis scores movies and makes music from her NYC apartment

While the coloured section blocks make it easy to visualise your song structure, the app also serves as a great way of streamlining your creative process. Rather than losing track of your lyrics across various notes apps and word documents, Kestrel Write offers a centralised way of storing all your lyrics. That’s because, alongside your Lyric Blocks, there’s also an ‘Ideation Column’ on the side at all times to jot down any new ideas without having to leave the app.
Kestrel Write also goes the extra mile to aid the songwriting process, thanks to its selection of AI features – but not the kind you’re thinking of. Rather than an AI cloud, the app has its own offline, private and intuitive AI. This means that you can take advantage of a Rhyme Engine to help diversify your lyrics, as well as a Concept Explorer if you’re wanting some more help thinking of new metaphors, similes or keep to add in any extra sensory details.
There’s also tools to detect Syllable Counts to work out if a line needs re-jigging, a Stress Meter Analysis to visualise the rhythm of your words, and even a one-click tool to shift perspective from first to third person.
Of course, the private AI tools have their limits. Kestrel Write doesn’t want to entirely write a song for you, hence its decision to keep the AI to a minimum and keep it primarily offline and private. The decision also means that the app can be used entirely offline, which is super practical for writers on the go without a stable internet connection.
But, if you’re still wanting the assurance that the tech wont fully take the wheel, the app gives the option of adjusting the ‘Temperature’, which essentially decides how much you want the AI to interfere creatively or provide suggestions. You can also select your Genre Bias to make sure suggestions will still suit your personal style.
Kestrel Write is available on the App Store for $29.99.
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Andy Jassy says Amazon’s Nvidia competitor chip is already a multibillion-dollar businessCan any company, big or small, really topple Nvidia's AI chip dominance? Maybe not entirely, but Amazon is already making big bucks trying.

Franken-engine Plays Its Own Swan Song at 15k RPMBack during WWII, Chrysler bodged five inline-6 engines together to create the powerful A57 multibank tank engine. [Maisteer] has some high-revving inline-4 motorcycle engines he’s trying to put together too, but unlike 1940s Chrysler, he also has a trombone… and a lot more RPMs to deal with.
The Chrysler flatheads were revving at a few thousand RPM– their redline was almost certainly in the three-thousand range. [Maisteer] is working at 15,000 RPM, which is where the real challenge of this build lies: the trombone in the image is just for fun. He wanted to use a heavy chain to link the crankshafts, but at that rotational speed, a heavy chain becomes really heavy— or at least, it feels a force many times its weight due to centrifugal force. The lietmotief of this video is a quote by an automotive engineer to the effect that chains don’t work over 10,000 RPM.
That leads to a few problems for the intrepid “not an engineer” that take most of the video to deal with and ultimately doom the engine linkage– for now. Not before he gets an iconic 8-cylinder sound out (plus some fire) out of a trombone, though. Of particular note is the maker-type workflow Hackaday readers will appreciate: he 3D scans the engines, CADs up parts he needs and sends away to have them CNC’d and SLS printed.
Hacking motorcycle engines into cars is nothing new. Hacking them together into franken-engines is something we see less often.
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip! Remember, if you want to toot your own horn– or toot about someone else’s project, for that matter–the tips line is always open.

MBW10: A Decade of Headlines That Shaped the Modern Music IndustryMusic Business Worldwide marks its tenth anniversary with a comprehensive retrospective magazine charting the transformation of an entire industry.
Source

Waves release Magma StressBox The latest addition to Waves’ Magma series has arrived, kitting users out with “a transformative and expressive dynamics tool designed to shape musical tension and feel in real time”.

How to make music with loops
Learn how loops can unlock your musical creativity in unique ways, and explore tools and techniques for making music with them.

2025 Spotify Wrapped For Musicians and Songwriters: What’s NewFans worldwide are reliving their 2025 listening journey with the just released Spotify Wrapped. But the streamer also expanded it in ways that benefit artists, songwriters and creators at all stages of their careers. Learn how to make the most of 2025 Spotify Wrapped For Musicians.
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Why Crowdfunding Your Music Project Is Different in 2025Crowdfunding has changed a lot. What options are left for artists looking to fund their projects in 2025? Read on.
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SPL introduce the Venos Less than a month on from the launch of the BiG [Studio], high-end hardware experts SPL have unveiled the latest addition to their ever-growing selection of studio gear.

Has IK just made accurate headphone mixing a reality with ARC On-Ear?€300 (€249 introductory price), ikmultimedia.com
IK has been producing ARC (Advanced Response Correction) systems for some time, using a combination of special microphones and software to measure and compensate for the imperfect acoustic nature of most listening spaces and studios. Most recently, it has built the technology into some of its speakers.

READ MORE: IK Multimedia iLoud Precision 6 MKII review: Take control of your sound in any studio environment

Now, the company has created the ARC On-Ear system for people who are tracking, mixing and mastering on headphones. A combination of a hardware unit and a software application, it’s a rather more user-friendly format than the other ARC products, a little smaller than an Apple TV box and designed to work with both digital and analogue sources.
So what’s the problem it’s designed to solve?
As IK identifies, all headphones have their own characteristics, just like speakers or rooms do. As more people need to work on headphones, be it late at night, on the move or in some other circumstance when away from their full studio, you want to be able to trust that you are hearing an accurate picture of your audio. The ARC On-Ear application that runs on your Mac or PC (though not iPad) contains presets for hundreds of models of headphones that let you ‘correct’ their frequency response curve using settings created by IK. Using a combination of physical modelling EQ and phase alignment for the studio simulation and ambience algorithms and FIR filters inside the device itself, the idea is that you remove the guesswork and need for revisions that can come with having to mix, knowing your headphones are colouring your sound to an extent.
Image: Press
Additionally, the system provides a way to emulate a number of speaker types from studio monitors to smart TVs and smartphones, again using physical modelling. This ‘Studio Simulation’ option, which can be activated independently from headphone correction, lets you choose from a bunch of speaker models (which are not technically named but are pretty clearly identifiable from their icons). You can choose the virtual width of the speaker spacing as well as turn on room ambience if you wish.
The compact size of the hardware means it can be carried easily and used anywhere – there’s a rechargeable internal battery that offers up to four hours of use, powering the internal DAC. When connected to your computer or tablet, it will recharge over USB-C while in general use and with support for sample rates up to 192 kHz, it’s capable of far higher resolution than your computer’s own audio hardware and indeed many audio interfaces. Should you be working with analogue gear, a 3.5-mm input is also available, for which a cable is provided.
The software application is where you make settings but the hardware has physical controls too. Since the correction is handled on-device, it works independently of a computer. One button turns correction on or off, a second switches virtual monitoring on or off and a third Function button can be assigned in the app to perform a number of different actions. The large dial is a digitally-controlled, analogue volume control, while the five lights on the left side represent the five preset slots you can assign in the software.
Image: Press
A couple of my pairs of studio headphones are supported – popular models from AKG and Beyer – and IK says that with more than a hundred already available, more will be added over time. Dialling in the presets for our models results in a noticeable shift in the tone, a flattening of the response that suggests they have been colouring the sound – especially the Beyers in the low end – more than I realised. It’s not a huge difference but it is definitely there.
I dial in a pair of ‘White 90s’ studio monitors – Yamaha NS10s by another name – and instantly recall the notoriously neutral sound of these speakers. The old adage was that if you could make a mix sound good on them, it would sound good on anything. I also switch to a few other models and note the differing responses they offer. This is where you would tweak your mixes accordingly, moving between models to see how the sound translates.
Working on headphones has been considered by some to be something of a necessary evil, whether you’re in a communal space or simply on the move, away from your hardware setup. A really skilled producer who is very familiar with their headphones can account for their quirks when mixing but most people will find it much more convenient to use something like the ARC On-Ear system, especially given its ease of use and fairly accessible price point.
Space View on ARC On-Ear. Image: Press
The ability to not only correct for your headphones’ imperfections but also to physically model a perfectly-tuned space and a set of studio speakers is incredibly useful, making you more confident that the mixing and mastering decisions you are taking will translate well to a multitude of other playback devices. It’s not doing any mixing of course – that is still up to you and still requires skill and patience – but the system is giving you the best shot possible at doing it without needing to be in a professionally kitted-out space.
Is it a complete replacement for mixing in a full studio? Probably not – there’s nothing that compares with the rush of a pair of big, serious speakers pushing air at you – but it elevates headphone-based working to a point where you are much better able to trust it as a process.
The fact that it’s not running as a plugin across your DAW but rather being processed on the device itself means that anything you play through it, even a line out from a mixing desk, is corrected the same way. As such, it’s as adept with analogue as digital sources, and its battery capability and small size mean it’s very adaptable to however you need to work.
Anyone working regularly on headphones will find much to like here, whether tracking, mixing or even making mastering decisions. With ongoing additions to the list of supported models, it could prove to be an invaluable addition to your setup.
Frequency Response View on ARC On-Ear. Image: Press
Key features

Headphone amplifier and DAC at up to 192 kHz
4-hour internal rechargeable battery
USB-C power and audio; 3.5-mm analogue input
Mac and PC companion app
Headphone EQ correction
Physical models of a range of studio speakers
Standalone mode via on-body controls
Frequency response: 10 Hz – 80 kHz
Comes with carry case and cables

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Kelly Moran on prepared pianos, the Prophet 12, and why compression is overratedSince studying piano and electronic music from a young age, Kelly Moran’s journey has seen her perfect the art of preparing pianos — placing objects on the strings to radically alter the sonic character of the instrument. A series of experimental releases helped her get signed to the legendary Warp imprint, and then the pandemic intervened, leading her to rethink her approach to creating tracks.

READ MORE: “It’s not as laid-back as everyone thinks it is”: How Tanis scores movies and makes music from her NYC apartment

On her new album Don’t Trust Mirrors, Kelly Moran transforms her prepared piano recordings into hypnotic, loop-driven compositions, blended with rich analogue synthesis. We discuss her unconventional approach to processing, why she sampled every note of her piano into a VST, and why she barely uses compression.
Hi Kelly! Can you tell us about the trajectory of your career to this point? How did you get started in music?
I started playing piano when I was six and subsequently picked up string bass, guitar, clarinet, oboe and singing. I began writing my own music as a teenager and got Logic so I could record and produce. I studied composition, piano and electronic music in college, thinking I would eventually become a professor, then spent my postgrad years as a piano accompanist for ballet dancers, opera singers and classical instrumentalists. I put out some experimental prepared piano records in 2016 and 2017 that got some attention, which led to me getting signed to Warp in 2018. Since then, I’ve been making more records, touring, writing music for other artists, scoring and trying not to lose my mind in the chaos of the music industry.
Don’t Trust Mirrors has just come out on Warp Records. You started writing this in 2019, pre-lockdown. How did that time shape the direction of the album?
In 2019, I was very interested in writing prepared piano music, but I wanted to make it more loop-based and repetitive since my prior album, Ultraviolet, had been very loose and improvisatory. That was the initial goal, but the album ended up spiralling in a few different directions from there. I started writing this music on my childhood piano at my mom’s house in 2019, but when I moved back to the city, I ended up working on a lot of the synth parts at my apartment in Brooklyn.
Prophet 12. Image: Press
You are known for your use of a prepared piano, but can you give us some insight into what exactly that is?
It’s a technique where you put objects between the piano strings to alter the sound of the instrument. It allows you to be creative because you can draw out a new tone from the instrument depending on how you prepare it, so it can be a very personal way of altering the sound of the piano. I like to use metal screws, but you can also use rubber, wood, plastic and other materials. Anyone who attempts this technique should do some research first to make sure they’re not going to hurt the piano with what they put inside it!
Piano preparations. Image: Press
The album’s title track is truly mesmerising. Can you tell us about how you approach layering such different rhythms and textures?
Prepared piano can be a tricky texture to work with, and it takes time to find sounds that will complement it since the preparations make the “attack” of the piano so sharp and you don’t want to use sounds that will clash with that sharpness. For Don’t Trust Mirrors I stuck mainly to sub bass and altering the acoustic piano sounds. My friend, the artist Bibio, added guitar and synth textures to the end of the track. He used textures that complemented the piano so well.
The whole album sounds incredibly natural and organic. How much do you process your sound as opposed to just letting the character of the instruments shine through?
I’m pretty minimal when it comes to putting effects on the prepared piano because it is already so rich sonically; usually, I just play around with delays and reverbs to enhance it! But the other major thing is I employ a ton of EQ — when you prepare a piano, you are triggering different harmonics and overtones, and you don’t necessarily want all of them present, so I always have a few different EQ cuts on each prepared piano stem to get rid of any unwanted resonances.
DTM EQ. Image: Press
I loved playing around with delay to add more rhythm to my prepared piano patterns – the sharp attack of the piano creates some delightful textures.

I honestly love a lot of the built-in effects in Logic, especially the delays. I use Delay Designer all the time and just adjust the parameters by ear to make it sound the way I want it to.
I try to be careful about selecting the sounds that surround the piano so they enhance each other and don’t fight on the frequency spectrum. The preparation consists of already processing the sound of the piano, so I try to be very delicate when handling these tones!
Tell us a bit about your studio workflow and the process of starting to build a track.
Usually, I just sit at the piano and improvise until my hands start playing something that feels or sounds good, then I record it and build off that. I have a pair of Rode NT5s that I’ve used to record all my piano music since college.
Rode NT5 mics on piano. Image: Press
You’ve toured extensively and will be headed back on the road in support of the new album. How is your live show constructed, both from a performance and a gear point of view?
I sampled every note of my prepared piano into a VST so I could recreate the sound on a MIDI keyboard onstage when I play. Since most venues don’t let you prepare the piano, this allows me to recreate the sound of my prepared piano and mix it live in a way that sounds faithful to the album. I play it through Kontakt, and I’m always editing it to make it more dynamically sensitive. For shows where I can’t play or prepare a grand piano, I use my VST as my primary performance medium, but I also mix it with some other sounds to make it more dynamic and interesting.
What’s your latest gear or plugin purchase?
I recently bought Particle Reverb by Kentaro, and it was worth every penny. It’s an amazing granular reverb plugin; I use it all the time now.
Here’s my prepared piano instrument in Kontakt with Particle Reverb:
Kelly’s prepared piano instrument in Kontakt with Particle Reverb, photo by press
What’s the best free plugin you own, and why do you love it?
Buffer Override by Destroy FX. I downloaded it for free when I was 18 and still use it all the time. This screenshot is taken from the session for my track Above the Vapours.
Buffer Override. Image: Press
What’s been the biggest investment in your studio setup?
It’s definitely my Prophet 12 synthesizer. I’m not a big gear person, so I invested in something that I know I’d be able to explore for many years and not get tired of. It’s the only synth I own, and I can’t imagine needing another synth for a long time since I can do so much with it.
Prophet 12. Image: Press
The other piece of gear that’s been truly helpful for me in the past year has been the RME Babyface. It’s super lightweight and portable, which makes it easy to bring on tour. I’ve only had it a year, but it looks like it’s been through war since some sound guys felt the need to duct tape XLR cables to it at one of my shows!
RME Babyface. Image: Press
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
I’d love to own my own Yamaha Disklavier someday, but for now, I’m very lucky that I get to go to the Yamaha studios in NYC to use theirs. My dream piano costs over $100,000, so let’s manifest that one day I’ll be rich enough to buy one for myself!
What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
I’ve gone most of my life without ever using compression on anything. I think it’s overrated. Perhaps it’s because I am classically trained and try to be sensitive with dynamics when I am performing, so I can’t imagine squishing them with an algorithm in post.
Listen to Kelly Moran’s Don’t Trust Mirrors
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How These DIY Artists Won a GRAMMYThis week, Ari is joined by Grammy winners Matt B and Angela Benson to share their path to success working as a married team.

Sonica is a New Music Platform Putting Artists Back in ControlNo hidden fees, no commissions, no algorithms, no AI — Sonica is the latest startup offering artists ethics-aligned streaming with 100% ownership of revenues and rights.
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Great, but #PublMe https://publme.com platform is since 2021 ✌

Suno has acquired Songkick: What it means for ArtistsControversial AI music platform Suno acquired Songkick as part of its new deal with Warner Music Group. But why would an AI music creation tool want to own a struggling concert listing service?
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