SoftBank’s Nvidia sale rattles market, raises questionsWall Street can’t help but wonder: does Son see something right now that others do not?

This orchestral library is totally free courtesy of Spitfire Audio – download yours nowSpitfire Audio has launched its “largest free sample library” yet, Spitfire Symphony Orchestra Discover (SSO Discover).
Essentially a lite, free-to-use version of the brand’s best-selling Spitfire Symphony Orchestra, this library, recorded at the legendary AIR Lyndhurst Studios in London, features 44 curated instruments and 73 techniques, including strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, piano and more.

READ MORE: I’ve fallen in love with ribbon mics all over again with Warm Audio’s Fen-tone

The launch follows 2020’s BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover – a free sample library utilising sounds from the BBC Symphony Orchestra – which now boasts over 1 million users. Like BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover, the new Discover pack brings “professional-quality” orchestral samples to music creators, totally free.

As Spitfire Audio explains, Spitfire Symphony Orchestra Discover offers professional audio output, and is designed for seamless use with Native Instruments Kontakt Player.
In addition, Spitfire Audio has partnered with ThinkSpace Education on an ‘Introduction to Writing for Orchestra’ free course, which helps composers get started with orchestral composition using SSO Discover.
“We’re really excited to get these high-quality orchestral sounds into the hands of as many music creators as possible – so everyone can experience the joy of having these incredible musicians contributing to your tracks,” says Spitfire Audio co-founder Paul Thomson.
“Having access to the full dynamic range and vibrato control gives you the full musical experience of Spitfire Symphony Orchestra – and a taste of the huge range and level of articulation detail that the full library has.”
Spitfire Symphony Orchestra Discover is available to download now totally free.
Learn more at Spitfire Audio.
The post This orchestral library is totally free courtesy of Spitfire Audio – download yours now appeared first on MusicTech.

Yes, “Great Things” Really Do “Start in Little Rooms.”A simple OpEd reflection on Andre 3000's impromptu statement, shared Sunday night in Outkast's Rock N Roll Hall of Fame induction acceptance speech.
The post Yes, “Great Things” Really Do “Start in Little Rooms.” appeared first on Hypebot.

Everything You Need to Know About Playlist Pitching in 2025Let's help you understand the ins and outs of getting placed on streaming playlists in 2025.
The post Everything You Need to Know About Playlist Pitching in 2025 appeared first on Hypebot.

Crates allows you to create cross-streaming platform playlists all in one convenient appEver wish you could listen to all your YouTube, Spotify and Bandcamp playlists all in one place? Well, now you can. Regardless of your preferred streaming service, Crates is a brand new app which brings all of your music together – and that includes your personal local files and downloads, too.
Designed to make music listening more streamlined and convenient, Crates allows you to listen to all of your playlists in one nifty app. Whether you use Apple Music, Discogs, SoundCloud, or something else, Crates is able to access the main streaming services. It’s a quick and easy way to navigate through your favourite tunes, with the ability to create cross-platform playlists without restriction.

READ MORE: I broke up with Spotify — it was hard work with a huge payoff

While Crates imports your playlists from streaming services, it also allows you to listen to personal files on your computer. That means you can pop in any local MP3, FLAC, AAC, WAV or AIFF files into your playlists – and mobile sync abilities mean you can seamlessly stream any of those local files on the go, too.
When creating playlists, Crates keeps it simple and intuitive. The app automatically sources artwork, as well as any genre, artist or label information it can find. Crates also calculates BPM, key and waveforms, adding some extra visuals to your listening experience.
Above all else, the Crates team hopes that the platform creates a strong, supportive music community. This is due to the ability to search through Gems, Crates’ own discovery and recommendation system that helps users find new music that will fit their personal taste.

Whether you’re sharing a rare, underrated, or previously unreleased track, Gems offer a totally new way of sharing music. Alongside the standard tags, users can add a small blurb to really sell their Gems, and the community can either upvote or downvote a song, helping or hindering its spread throughout the Crates community. Gems can be posted Post rare, upcoming or underrated tunes, complete with tags and a personal blurb
As Crates puts it, Gems are a way of building an “intentional, community-powered way of engaging with music”, prioritising the values of “artists, curators, and listeners” alike.
Crates is currently in Public Beta, and its available to download for Mac, iOS, and Windows. An Android app is coming soon. While the app is free, syncing abilities and access to the Gems community are only available for paid Supporters.
To find out more and download the app, head to Crates.
The post Crates allows you to create cross-streaming platform playlists all in one convenient app appeared first on MusicTech.

KV331 Audio offers the iPad version of SynthMaster 2 for FREE for until November 17
KV331 Audio is giving away its flagship synth app, SynthMaster 2 for iPad, for a limited time. The SynthMaster 2 app typically costs $19.99 on the Apple App Store, but you can download it for free until November 17, 2025. SynthMaster, in its various forms, is a synth that might still be somewhat underrated, and [...]
View post: KV331 Audio offers the iPad version of SynthMaster 2 for FREE for until November 17

Messy DAW projects? SessionDock is here to help you stay organised – with cross-DAW compatibilityLet’s face it – when you’re in the creative flow, your DAW can become a total mess. Luckily, SessionDock is here to save the day. Available on macOS and as an iOS app, SessionDock is designed to help you rein in a chaotic project, even helping you stay organised across multiple DAWs.
Whether you’re working with Ableton, FL Studio, Logic, Pro Tools, or using a mix of DAWs, SessionDock brings all of your sessions into one clean, central library. The tool essentially provides you with a clean and clear ‘snapshot of your creative process’, allowing you to revisit a project without having to open each individual DAW.

READ MORE: RipX is an AI-powered DAW with augmented reality – and it’s now available on iOS

In a brand-new update, SessionDock has also added the ability to put timestamped comments on your mix. Waveform Notes work in a way that’s similar SoundCloud’s option to comment on tracks, yet it transforms this public feature into a private, convenient way of precisely noting your ideas down throughout the creative process.
Again, like SoundCloud, these notes sync up during playback, appearing in a handy Notes panel beneath your track. And that’s on top of the pre-existing ability to add artwork, general notes and customised tags to tracks, meaning you can search through your projects with ease.

The iOS app serves as a perfect ‘companion’ to the desktop DAW. Thanks to the app being synced up to your desktop projects, it allows you to play tracks in your car through Apple CarPlay. It’s the perfect solution for busy producers on the move, as it’s easier than ever to listen to your mixes and brainstorm new ideas on the go.
Whether you’re keen to keep tabs on your demos, neaten up your project folders or simply want to track your revisions in the run up to a final project, SessionDock could be the perfect answer to your prayers. And it’s available for free, with the ability to handle unlimited desktop projects. However, those keen to explore the mobile sync options will have to pay for SessionDock Pro.
SessionDock is available to download now from the App Store. For more information, head to SessionDock.

The post Messy DAW projects? SessionDock is here to help you stay organised – with cross-DAW compatibility appeared first on MusicTech.

I broke up with Spotify — it was hard work with a huge payoffI’ve been ready to leave Spotify for years, but like a bad relationship, I limped onto my subscription for far too long before finally calling it quits. For me, the signal to finally abandon ship came with the recent wave of artists pulling their music off the platform in a boycott of founder Daniel Ek’s odious investments in AI weaponry.
I took the leap. I broke up with the troubled platform. In a flash, the sum total of all recorded music disappeared from my devices, and I was left to date around with some alternative streaming providers. Questions swam around my head, had I made a mistake? Could I really find anything that replaces the weighted blanket of personalised algorithms and infinite content? Should I go crawling back to my Swedish music masters? Just thinking back over Spotify’s many controversies gave me the answer I needed.

READ MORE: Daniel Ek just stepped down as CEO of Spotify — now what?

The red flags that pushed me to make this drastic change were obvious long ago. Spotify had spent 17 years running its business at a loss; the company had been found guilty of commissioning no-name generic music for its curated playlists; Daniel Ek repeatedly insulted music makers; and the vast majority of artists are unable to make a living off Spotify’s payment model.
Then there is Spotify’s beleaguered interface, which clearly shows, in my opinion, that it is no longer a music-first company. Take the introduction of video clips: at first, there was a natural reason to believe a fresh update to the interface might enhance the music listening experience. For all we know, it could have been a real MTV moment that put music videos back into the limelight. But instead, Spotify followed the herd and implemented a ‘carousel-of-clips’ style of video playback. It’s entertaining but ultimately feels a lot like the disposable video content you see on TikTok or Instagram.
When I want to listen to music, I don’t want to be flashed with looping videos and graphics that spin and glitch. I want to get to the music I’m looking for without having to duck and weave past advertisements for Countdowns, events or an AI DJ. All these distractions had me questioning if I even owned a premium subscription or if I had somehow been downgraded to the ad-supported tier without realising.
Beyond the interface, there’s also the glut of non-music content. Spotify has increasingly allowed audiobooks to creep into the music app. Believing it to be a lucrative means of making profits, the company has embarked on a hubristic goal to “grow the entire publishing industry”.
The common denominator between audiobooks and music is, yes, audio, but these are two separate industries with vastly different licensing, rights and payment structures. More to the point, and as many critics point out, if you only listen to music using your Spotify premium subscription, you are still subsidising authors like Dan Brown while siphoning money away from the likes of Daft Punk, since they’re both bundled in the same plan.
As if the publishing industry wasn’t big enough to chew, Spotify has now partnered with the screentime behemoth, Netflix, to bring popular video podcasts to both platforms. A smattering of non-music-related offerings in the field of True Crime, Pop Culture and Sports will be available in the app, with exclusive in-house productions in the pipeline. If Spotify wanted to become an ‘everything’ app, then I’d rather jump ship with all the other artists who are leaving.
The process of actually leaving the platform, however, was itself an obstacle course. There were screens asking if I was sure I wanted to leave. There were reminders that I would be bombarded with advertisements once I was no longer Premium. There were even thirsty discounts on offer if I would just stick around one more month. And after finally convincing Spotify that I really did want to go, I was rewarded with a meme-worthy playlist that informed me, ‘If you leave us now, you’ll take away the biggest part of us,’ alongside an AI-generated image of a sad dog. How cute.
A free agent at last, I began shopping around with a few aims in mind: I wanted high-quality audio, better payouts to artists and a clean conscience that I wasn’t supporting ethically dubious financial investments on behalf of the company or CEO. On this last point, I was sick of giving any more money to Jeff Bezos, so that ruled out Amazon Music. As for quality, Tidal and Apple Music are strong contenders, both offering lossless audio formats and resolution rates of up to 24-bit/192 kHz. In the end, however, I opted for Qobuz, a company that combines high-res audio with royalties payouts that are roughly five times higher than the market average, and, particularly important for me, a very strong focus on human-curated playlists and music discovery.
After signing up, however, a funny thing started to happen. No longer content with just streaming music, I found myself doing something I hadn’t done since my early 20s: buying albums. Partially, this was down to the gaps in Qobuz’s catalogue, which doesn’t feature some of the indie acts I want to support. Patching over these gaps in my music collection led me to the doorstep of online music stores like Bandcamp and Beatport, and to offline music players like the revitalised Winamp and my favourite lightweight option, MusicBee.
Building my offline digital library required careful strategising. First and foremost, I prioritised buying obscure albums that I couldn’t find on my music streaming app. Knowing that underground artists receive next to nothing in royalties made it even more important that I buy their records and send the profits directly to the artists. There’s also a big difference between paying a subscription and buying the music outright. Similar to buying a book instead of loaning it out from the library, purchasing music felt more meaningful. Knowing that I owned these tracks forever gave them a non-disposable quality; I listened repeatedly and deeply, and gave them a special value in my day-to-day life.
I didn’t make my life easier by leaving Spotify. It’s a lot harder to search for music in multiple places and switching between streaming music and offline collections – across multiple devices at that – is not what anyone would call seamless. But nor is it easy digging through record crates, yet it’s something that still gets music fans up early on record store day, to hunt through piles of music, for hours on end. There is satisfaction and joy in buying music, collecting, and arranging tracks in your library, and discovering new music through other humans, as opposed to accepting the suggestions of sterile computer algorithms.
I take one look at my imperfect, janky, music listening system, cobbled together with constituent digital parts, and I feel connected to the music community in a far greater way than I ever did before.
Was it frictionless, easier or cheaper? Absolutely not. In countless ways, large and small, I have to work harder to be a music fan. But was it worth it? Absolutely. I now feel like I’m doing right by the artists I care about and not tacitly endorsing the schemes of billionaires for market domination. I regularly discover brilliant new indie artists, and there’s no soulless AI steering my music tastes. So, in the only way that Spotify seems to understand, let me say it through a playlist: breaking up is hard to do, but it was time to get away. I don’t love you anymore, so, walk on by, because we are never ever getting back together.
The post I broke up with Spotify — it was hard work with a huge payoff appeared first on MusicTech.

I’ve fallen in love with ribbon mics all over again with Warm Audio’s Fen-toneSingle mic (street price): £599 / $699
Stereo pair (street price): £1,099 / $1,299
warmaudio.com
Warm Audio’s latest ribbon mic is inspired in design by the Bang & Olufsen BM3 of the 1950s, which was marketed under the name Fen-tone. Sonically, though, the new Fen-tone draws upon a more contemporary studio classic, this time the Royer R-121. Switchable passive and active modes on the new mic offer great versatility, removing the need for a quality, high-gain mic preamp, while also leaving the passive option open for much louder instruments.

READ MORE: Warm Audio WA-87jr and WA87jr SE deliver the world-famous ‘87 sound in a streamlined package

The £599 Fen-tone is pitted against other active mics that also take styling tips from the BM3. Royer’s R-122 MKII active model is £1,899, and Extinct Audio’s Active BM9 costs £999, with the UK-made BM9 also looking similar to the original. This type of ribbon mic is intended for instruments but this classification runs a wide and varied gamut, from drum overheads and guitar cab miking to spot-miking of far quieter acoustic instruments.
Image: Warm Audio
What are the features and specifications of the Warm Audio Fen-tone?
Fen-tone is a rocket-shaped beast finished in shiny aluminium. It has a Japanese-made 1.8-micron thick ribbon (thinner and therefore more responsive than Royer’s 2.5-micron ribbon), a seriously powerful Neodymium magnet that outperforms earlier magnet technologies, plus a CineMag output transformer. The transformer adds subtle saturation to result in a full mid-range and tamed transient peaks, resulting in a sweetness of tone plus a net increase of sustain from instruments you’re pointing the mic at.
There’s a fixed figure-8 polar pattern, and both sides of the mic sound exactly the same, worth mentioning since certain ribbon mics have a bright and a dull side to their figure-8 field. Such uniformity is a key selling point for prospective buyers wanting to record in mid/side stereo or set up immersive arrays.
Like the original Fen-tone, Warm’s version has a single toggle switch as its sole on-body control. Unlike the original, though, instead of the switch controlling a high-pass filter, the two positions select either the passive circuit (marked ‘VT’ for vintage) or active mode (‘+dB’), which introduces a 26dB Warm Lifter preamp.
The integrated preamp operates on phantom power but has true bypass, i.e. it doesn’t get in the way of the passive circuit when disabled. Fen-tone is more versatile in this way than competing active ribbon mics, which tend to be always active. The downside is that the phantom power must be switched only after toggling to active mode, so the passive circuit isn’t damaged by the voltage. I feel this important point needs to be signposted more clearly, e.g. a removable sticker on the mic body, for those who don’t read the manual before jumping in. I can’t help feeling that Royer’s approach – an always-active preamp, but with pad and high-pass filter switches – is far more user-friendly.
I received the stereo kit for my review. Mics come with a sturdy plastic flight case, mic socks and clips. Unboxed, the shiny Fen-tones certainly exhibit a wow factor, but the joy soon turns to sorrow as you catch sight of the mic clips. These are of the generic ‘bulldog’ type, reminiscent of a £3 Radioshack part from the 90s. They do clamp the mics fairly securely, but visually are a real disappointment. Although more challenging to engineer due to the body shape, a custom clip would have been far better, plus perhaps shock mount and stereo bar options, since many users will want to get these arranged as a stereo pair – Blumlein, mid/sides etc – for room mics.
Image: Barry Watson
What is the Warm Audio Fen-tone like to use?
In use, Warm Audio’s Fen-tone captures instruments with smooth highs and a seductive glue in the mid-range. Parts sound natural, thick and lack the spiking transients encountered with condensers. As you’d expect, there are masses of low-end due to the proximity effect; a high-pass filter would have been a welcome addition for those who like to monitor what they’re recording live and don’t have a high-pass option on their interface’s mic pre.
With the pair of Fen-tones set up in mid/sides to record acoustic guitar, the results are remarkable. There’s loads of sustain, the high end doesn’t sound woolly or muted, and the overall presentation is true to life, even when auditioning the mid mic alone in mono. The mid mic – being figure-8 – appears focused in the front as well as capturing more natural room sound from behind than a cardioid, which only enhances the realism. When added in, sides appear gloriously smooth and thick.
Ultimately, stereo blends are excessively bassy, so I place an instance of FabFilter’s Pro-Q 4 on the guitar bus with a separate high-pass filter set up for both mid and sides (with a higher cutoff on the sides to shift focus to the centre). And there we have it – tasty-sounding, centre-focused guitar chords, and a stereo spread that isn’t too wide or bulky as to interfere with other instruments panned wide in the mix. Perfect.
I also compare a single Fen-tone to my SE Electronics VR2 active ribbon mic (less expensive, at £379) when double-tracking acoustic guitar. The SE has a more condenser-like response, with increased high-mid bite, slightly sharper transients, but recessed mids lower down the spectrum. Although the SE might work better on its own in a busy rock mix, Fen-tone is the clear winner at providing a natural, non-brittle tone that you’d rather blend with brighter mics than mess with, tonally. I imagine Fen-tone would sit perfectly alongside an SM57 when capturing a guitar cab at close range, or blended with a condenser on an acoustic instrument requiring a combination of thickness and transient detail.
As a fitting finale, I bust out my accordion during the session, using Fen-tone to spot-mic the melody end. It works great here too – thick and rich once again with a pleasant high end. Once more, though, I need to engage the preamp’s high-pass filter to cut excess bass build-up.
Image: Barry Watson
Who should buy the Warm Audio Fen-tone?
Warm Audio’s Fen-tone is a versatile ribbon microphone that would be a worthy addition to anyone’s collection. It excels on acoustic guitar and a wide array of acoustic instruments, dealing effortlessly with both really loud and far quieter signals thanks to its passive and active switching.
A stereo pair of Fen-tones opens up countless more options, from spaced drum overheads and Blumlein-array room mics to fantastic results in mid/sides formation placed closer to an instrument. Given that the Warm Audio pair is only £100 more than a single Active BM9 from Extinct, and less than a third of the price of a pair of Royer R-122 MKIIs, I’d consider this a real steal. Pity about the clips though.

Key features

Passive/active ribbon mic
Figure-8 polar pattern
30 Hz – 15 kHz frequency range
Impedance: 300 Ohms (passive) / 150 Ohms (active)
+26 dB inline Warm Lifter preamp with true bypass
CineMag output transformer
Comes with hard carry case, mic pouch and hard-mount clip
Weight (per mic): 304g

The post I’ve fallen in love with ribbon mics all over again with Warm Audio’s Fen-tone appeared first on MusicTech.

Senate Committee unveils crypto market structure bill draftThe Senate Agriculture Committee has released a draft bill outlining the regulatory jurisdiction of the country’s two main financial market regulators.

GRAMMY Nominations 2025: Song of the YearThe 2025 GRAMMY nominations are here and we're going to help you to untangle it all right up until the big event, continuing with the Song of the Year category.

Take a listen to the nominated songs below--who do you think will win?

See the full list of nominees in every category here.

"Abracadabra"Lady Gaga, Henry Walter & Andrew Watt, songwriters (Lady Gaga)

"Anxiety"Jaylah Hickmon, songwriter (Doechii)

"APT."Amy Allen, Christopher Brody Brown, Rogét Chahayed, Omer Fedi, Philip Lawrence, Bruno Mars, Chae Young Park, Theron Thomas & Henry Walter, songwriters (ROSÉ, Bruno Mars)

"DtMF"Marco Daniel Borrero, Scott Dittrich, Benjamin Falik, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, Hugo René Sención Sanabria, Tyler Thomas Spry & Roberto José Rosado Torres, songwriters (Bad Bunny)

"Golden [From KPop Demon Hunters]"EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick, songwriters (HUNTR/X:EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI)

"luther"Jack Antonoff, Roshwita Larisha Bacha, Matthew Bernard, Scott Bridgeway, Sam Dew, Ink, Kendrick Lamar, Solána Rowe, Mark Anthony Spears & Kamasi Washington, songwriters (Kendrick Lamar With SZA)

"Manchild"Amy Allen, Jack Antonoff & Sabrina Carpenter, songwriters (Sabrina Carpenter)

"WILDFLOWER"Billie Eilish O'Connell & Finneas O'Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish)

Lady Gaga photo by Sebas Montesinos, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.The post GRAMMY Nominations 2025: Song of the Year first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Audio Damage AscentAscent is a sophisticated dual-reverb plugin that combines two powerful algorithms into one fluid interface: a lush, expansive hall reverb and an innovative pitch-shifting particle reverb that creates evolving, granular shimmer effects. Layer spacious, long-decay reverbs with dynamic pitch-shifted textures to craft everything from subtle ambient spaces to dramatic, otherworldly atmospheres. With intuitive controls, and built-in dynamic ducking that keeps your mix clean, Ascent delivers the acoustic character and creative possibilities of premium hardware reverbs in a streamlined, CPU-efficient plugin that works seamlessly across all major formats and platforms. Features: Dual reverb engine architecture combining a spacious hall reverb with an innovative granular pitch-shifting particle reverb. Particle engine features pitch transposition from -12 to +12 semitones with dual overlapping grains for artifact-free shimmer effects. Expanse control offers three room size modes (Small, Medium, Large) with carefully tuned delay networks for natural spatial imaging. Built-in dynamic ducking compressor keeps reverb tails from swamping your dry signal, maintaining mix clarity. Cross-platform preset manager with XML-based presets compatible across all plugin formats and operating systems. Read More

A better way of thinking about the AI bubble AI isn't all or nothing, and even good bets can turn sour if you aren't careful about how you make them. 

Testing Whether Fast Charging Kills Smartphone Batteries, and Other MythsCalendar aging of NMC Li-ion cells at 50 ℃ at various SoCs. (Credit: Wiljan Vermeer, IEEE, 2021)
With batteries being such an integral part of smartphones, it’s little wonder that extending the period between charging and battery replacement has led to many theories and outright myths about what may affect the lifespan of these lithium-ion batteries. To bust some of them, [HTX Studio] over on YouTube has spent the past two years torturing both themselves and a myriad of both iOS and Android phones to tease out some real-life data.
After a few false starts with smaller experiments, they settled on an experimental setup involving 40 phones to investigate two claims: first, whether fast charging is worse than slow charging, and second, whether limiting charging to 80% of a battery’s capacity will increase its lifespan. This latter group effectively uses only 50% of the capacity, by discharging down to 30% before recharging. A single control phone was left alone without forced charge-discharge cycles.

After 500 charge cycles and 167 days, these three groups (fast, slow, 50%) were examined for remaining battery capacity. As one can see in the above graphic for the Android group and the similar one for iOS in the video, the results are basically what you expect. Li-ion batteries age over time (‘calendar aging’), with temperature and state-of-charge (SoC) affecting the speed of this aging process, as can be seen in the SoC graph from an earlier article that we featured on built-in batteries.
It seems that keeping the battery as cool as possible and the SoC as low as possible, along with the number of charge-discharge cycles, will extend its lifespan, but Li-ion batteries are doomed to a very finite lifespan on account of their basic chemistry. This makes these smartphone charging myths both true, but less relevant than one might assume, as over the lifespan of something like a smartphone, it won’t make a massive difference.

EastWest Black Friday Sale EastWest’s annual Black Friday Sale has started early this year, and what’s more, it features some of the biggest discounts in the company's history.