JMG Sound introduce DarkFire plug-in DarkFire offers a more flexible approach than most saturation plug-ins, providing users with some tone-shaping controls that affect only the generated harmonics.

The Blues Foundation Salutes The 2025 Keeping The Blues Alive Recipients During International Blues Challenge WeekThe Blues Foundation launches its 40th year by saluting the 2025 Keeping The Blues Alive (KBA) honorees during International Blues Challenge week, Tuesday, January 7 through Saturday, January 11. This year's KBA recipients are The Rhythm Room; Blues Blast Magazine; Charlie Hussey; Big Ed's Blues Jam; Little Steven's Blues School; Cincy Blues Society; Jefferson Street Sound Museum; and Ryszard Gloger.Keeping The Blues Alive Awards are chosen annually by a select panel of blues professionals, honoring those who have played crucial roles in advancing the art and commerce of blues. This year’s esteemed honorees will be recognized for their achievements at the Keeping the Blues Alive Awards brunch, taking place Friday, January 10 at 10:30AM, at the Hyatt Centric Hotel on Beale Street. Tickets are $80. and available on the blues.org website.The KBA ceremony is part of the Blues Foundation’s 40th Annual International Blues Challenge. This year's IBC Week kicks off Tuesday, January 7, 2025, with International Showcase performances on historic Beale Street, concluding with the Finals at Memphis’ Orpheum Theatre Saturday, January 11. Over a thousand musicians will converge in Memphis from across the globe, competing with their blues peers for the honor of winning — along with prizes and bookings — the International Blues Challenge, the world’s largest and most renowned blues music competition. Showcases, jams, panels, workshops, and master classes take place throughout Beale Street; spontaneous live music jams continue into the early-morning hours after the IBC performances conclude each evening, including unannounced appearances by well-known artists.This year marks the 33rd anniversary of the Rhythm Room, a cornerstone of the blues community in Phoenix, Arizona. Over the past three decades, the Rhythm Room has hosted thousands of performances by blues artists and has become a vital hub for the genre. In a city as large as Phoenix—the fifth largest in the U.S.—it remains the only venue offering weekly blues performances, making its role indispensable to the local music scene.Owned and operated by blues musician and advocate Bob Corritore, the Rhythm Room has faced numerous challenges in its mission to keep blues music alive in the Southwest. At a time when many blues venues are shutting their doors, Bob’s dedication and personal sacrifices have ensured that the Rhythm Room remains a sanctuary for blues fans and musicians alike.The Rhythm Room’s importance extends beyond its role as a live music venue. It attracts blues enthusiasts from across the country, providing local audiences with opportunities to see national and international blues acts, not just local talent. Moreover, the venue offers a unique benefit to musicians: many performers who play at the Rhythm Room are invited to stay an extra day to record in Bob Corritore’s world-class recording studio. These sessions often result in music that is distributed at no cost to the artists, providing additional income and exposure. This model of support is unparalleled among music venues globally.In addition to its contributions to blues music, the Rhythm Room is a steadfast supporter of the broader blues community. It has hosted the Phoenix Blues Society’s International Blues Challenge competition and has been a longtime advocate for the Blues Foundation’s HART Fund, organizing an annual benefit where all proceeds from ticket sales go directly to the fund’s mission of helping blues musicians in need.While the Rhythm Room welcomes artists across various genres, its unwavering commitment to blues music is what sets it apart. Few venues can claim such a strong and enduring dedication to preserving and promoting the blues. Through its exceptional efforts, the Rhythm Room has solidified its place as an essential institution for the blues community and beyond.The post The Blues Foundation Salutes The 2025 Keeping The Blues Alive Recipients During International Blues Challenge Week first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Stingray’s karaoke app is becoming a common feature in electric cars. Now the company has secured an expanded $352m credit facilityMontreal-headquartered music, media, and tech company is involved in numerous businesses, from advertising to streaming and conventional broadcast TV and radio
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100+ indie distributors in 20 countries have now signed up for The MLC’s data portal for unmatched royaltiesThe MLC says "millions of dollars" in royalties have been paid out thanks to its portal for indie distributors
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Trying to Shatter the World’s Fastest RC Car RecordThe RC car is controlled via an FPV setup. (Credit: Luke Bell, YouTube)
Fresh off a world record for the fastest quadcopter, [Luke Bell] decided to try his luck with something more own to earth, namely trying to tackle the world record for the fastest RC car, with the current record set at 360 km/h. Starting off with a first attempt in what will be a video series, the obvious approach seems to be to get some really powerful electric motors, a streamlined body and a disused runway to send said RC car hurtling along towards that golden medal. Of course, if it was that easy, others would have done it already.
With the quadcopter record of nearly 500 km/h which we covered previously, the challenge was in a way easier, as other than air resistance and accidental lithobraking there are no worries about ground texture, tire wear or boundary layer aerodynamics. In comparison, the RC car has to contend with all of these, with the runway’s rough tarmac surface being just one of the issues, along with making sure that the wheels would hold up to the required rotation speed. For the wheels you got options like foam, hard rubber, etc., all with their own advantages and disadvantages, mostly in terms of grip and reliability.
So far speeds of over 200 km/h are easy enough to do, with foam wheels being the preferred option. To push the RC car to 300 km/h and beyond, a lot more experimentation and trial runs will have to be performed. Pending are changes to the aerodynamic design with features also commonly seen in F1 race cars such as downforce spoilers, diffusers and other tricks which should prevent the RC car from (briefly) becoming an RC airplane.

Layoffs at CD Baby as DIY & Indie Music Distributors struggleThere are layoffs at CD Baby, one of the largest DIY and independent music distribution services.
The post Layoffs at CD Baby as DIY & Indie Music Distributors struggle appeared first on Hypebot.

Singer-Songwriter Cape May Conference returnsAfter a five-year hiatus, the Singer-Songwriter Cape May conference returns on March 28-29, 2025. Singer-Songwriter Cape May Conference returns Helmed by music industry veteran John Harris, the Singer-Songwriter Cape May conference will. Continue reading
The post Singer-Songwriter Cape May Conference returns appeared first on Hypebot.

Two notes’ Genome goes standalone With the release of Genome v1.6, the suite is now available as a standalone application as well as a DAW plug-in, and has also gained two new TSM-Ai Amplifiers and 10 additional DynIR cabinet models.

Christmas Music Dominates Streaming: The Ever-Expanding Holiday SeasonLearn how Christmas music dominates streaming in the ever-expanding holiday season as its influence on pop culture grows.
The post Christmas Music Dominates Streaming: The Ever-Expanding Holiday Season appeared first on Hypebot.

Wire Grind Audio releases FREE Rasp Distortion Plugin for Windows
Over the weekend Wire Grind Audio dropped Rasp, a Windows-exclusive plugin that can add grit, noise and a raspy sound to tracks. Now you might be thinking that sounds a whole lot like distortion, but the dev explains that while Rasp sounds similar to distortion, it is not a conventional distortion effect.  Wire Grind Audio’s [...]
View post: Wire Grind Audio releases FREE Rasp Distortion Plugin for Windows

Melda release Analog Empire: Pads & Strings The latest add-on for Melda Productions’ MSoundFactory software instrument platform has arrived, delivering a collection of 32 pad and string sounds.

UK’s “largest outdoor spatial audio festival” will debut in London next year: “The process has been a physics-bending exercise”London’s Crystal Palace Park is set to host the “largest outdoor spatial audio festival” the UK has ever seen next summer.
Presented by Polygon Live, in partnership with Full Fat 360 and OpenLab, Polygon Live LDN will take place from 2-4 May 2025. The event will also be the first to use Polygon Productions’ dual-dome design.

READ MORE: Watch French DJ Michael Canitrot close out the Notre-Dame Cathedral reopening ceremony with a mighty audio-visual performance

Every dome boasts a 12.1.4 immersive system, with 12 L-Acoustics speaker arrays surrounding the audience, one giant festival-grade sub-wall for “earth-shaking bass”, and four overhead line arrays “raining crystal-clear sound” from above.
The total count amounts to a little less than 100 speakers in over 25 unique positions – or “five times the speakers a stage of similar size would use” according to Polygon.
Among the acts confirmed to appear are Jon Hopkins, Photay, Gold Panda, Arooj Aftab, Nitin Sawhney, Tinariwen and electronic musician slash AV producer Halina Rice, who released her third album in October. Polygon is also working with a team of specialist lighting engineers to create a custom-designed lattice of lights that will move in sync with the artists’ music.
“We’re doubling up on everything so that we can offer outdoor spatial audio to a larger audience,” says David Lopez de Arenosa, Polygon’s technical director. “The process has been a physics-bending exercise, but we have created a solution that neither compromises the quality of the sound, nor the intimate spaces that Polygon is known for.”
Last month, the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) revealed a troubling trend in the UK festival scene: 72 festivals have been cancelled or postponed in 2024 – twice the amount compared to the previous year.
This alarming statistic is part of a broader decline, with a total of 204 events disappearing from the British festival calendar since 2019, exacerbated by challenges such as rising costs and logistical hurdles faced by independent organisers.
Tickets to Polygon Live LDN are available at Polygon Productions.
The post UK’s “largest outdoor spatial audio festival” will debut in London next year: “The process has been a physics-bending exercise” appeared first on MusicTech.

“Some of the things that age most quickly are electronic drums”: FINNEAS on making Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather sound “timeless”FINNEAS, Billie Eilish’s brother and longtime producer, has opened up about the creation of Birds of a Feather, a standout track from her acclaimed 2024 album Hit Me Hard and Soft.
According to FINNEAS, he and Eilish were initially hesitant to release the song as a lead single due to how much it diverged from the rest of the record.
“I think one of the reasons we didn’t want to put a single out – and the reason we didn’t immediately lean into Birds – is that we are careful about how singles make you perceive something differently,” says the producer [via Variety].

READ MORE: Pharrell Williams says its a misconception that people think he’s a “tech geek”

“If we’d put out Birds of a Feather as a single before the album, people are gonna go, ‘Wow, this is a real pivot. Is everything on the album gonna sound like this?’ And the truth was, it’s an outlier,” he adds. “So the fact that Birds of a Feather has gone on to have this insane life is such a thrill to both of us. We loved making it, but it’s extra-validating to have something blow up like that without pushing it as a single.”
Even more so considering the song took an “excruciating” 11 months to make: “Billie was driven crazy by her vocal performance and redid that a bunch of times, and I added all these layers of production and then would take ‘em out and add ‘em again,” says FINNEAS.
Looking back on the song’s production, FINNEAS says that “one of the things we’ve moved towards as Billie’s career has gone on is trying to make music that feels like it might be a little bit irrelevant what year it is.”
“Some of the things that age most quickly are electronic drums, which I’ve used tons of, but they usually sound very of their time. So the drums on this song – real and programmed – all have a kind of organic feel, which helps them sound timeless.”
“There’s a lot of acoustic guitar, which I think has never really gone in or out of style. And even the synths have a kind of a vintage quality that isn’t as bleeding-edge as some pop music going on right now.”

The post “Some of the things that age most quickly are electronic drums”: FINNEAS on making Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather sound “timeless” appeared first on MusicTech.

Focusrite’s Scarlett 18i20 4th Gen finally brings serious studio reputation to the range£629.99/$749.99, focusrite.com
The fourth generation of Focusrite’s eternally popular Scarlett audio interfaces broke cover in late 2023 with the launch of the Solo, 2i2 and 4i4. Since then, those requiring higher input/output counts have had to sit tight whilst Focusrite busied itself updating the larger Scarlett units.

READ MORE: The Scarlett 4th Gen story: Focusrite’s journey from George Martin’s AIR to bedroom studios everywhere

That hiatus has now ended with the launch of the 4th Gen Scarlett 16i16, 18i16 and, most pertinently for this review, the 18i20.
The only difference between the two new i16 models lies in the number of preamp-equipped input channels they offer: 16i16 has two whilst the 18i16 has four. Their design and desktop enclosures make them appear essentially as beefed-up versions of the 4i4, albeit with a more generous analogue in/out count and the inclusion of S/PDIF and ADAT digital connections.
We could easily fill this page talking about these tempting offerings, but it’s the flagship of the Scarlett range, the 18i20, that interests us especially.
Image: Press
How does the 18i20 4th Gen differ from the rest of the Scarlett range?
As with previous Scarlett generations, the 18i20 immediately stands out as the only member of the range packed into a rackmount case (the lugs can be removed if not needed) and with an internal power supply. The updated version features a less cluttered control panel than the 3rd Gen, and this makes the new hardware look sleeker while also improving accessibility for users with physical restrictions.
Unlike the other Scarletts, which only provide preamps on some of their analogue input channels, all eight of 18i20’s analogue inputs are preamp-equipped, and so all can handle microphone as well as line signals. The XLR/jack combination sockets for these inputs are mounted on the rear of the unit, but the first two are doubled-up on the front panel, from where they can also accept instrument signals.
Connecting anything to one of the front panel inputs disables the corresponding rear connector. This allows the interface to be installed in a rack and fully integrated into the studio’s cabling whilst retaining the ability to quickly hook-up a guitar or other signal directly to the front of the interface. Nice!
Image: Press
All of 18i20’s analogue output pairs are served by their own digital-to-analogue converter (the same is also true of the new i16 units), and so the eight rear-facing line outputs and two front-mounted headphone outputs can each be routed from any of the interface’s impressive 42 internal busses or six internal mixes. There’s loads of scope for creating multiple cue mixes and for routing signals to external effects and processors.
​​Outputs 1 and 2 are assigned as main monitor outputs, although you can send any of the internal buses or mixes to this monitor out. If the speaker switching option is enabled, outs 3 and 4 carry the same feed for driving an alternate pair of monitors. Monitor sets can then be switched from the interface’s front panel or from the Control 2 software. There are also Dim and Mute buttons, and this pro-grade monitoring setup is topped-off with a talkback button and built-in talkback mic.
18i20 also sports stereo digital in/outs via S/PDIF, and two pairs of ADAT ports. In an ideal world these would provide 16 additional channels at up-to 48kHz, but 18i20 maxes-out at eight. On the plus side, the dual ports support that full eight channels at 96kHz.
ADAT connectivity integrates seamlessly with an external 8-way preamp such as Focusrite’s OctoPre Dynamic. Coupling one with an 18i20 adds cost, but a total spend of £1,300-ish is phenomenal value for a system offering 16 preamp-driven analogue inputs and 16 independent line outputs.
Image: Press
What’s new with the Scarlett preamps?
The Scarlett 4th Gen interfaces feature an updated low-noise preamp design that is accurate and provides a generous 69dB of gain. This is all well and good, but not unusually so in today’s market. Nevertheless, the new Scarlett preamps do have features that set them apart.
Air mode engages a presence peak EQ curve intended to mimic the response of Focusrite’s classic ISA console preamps. The curve has been modified for the 4th Gen hardware, giving it a slightly sweeter tone that’s more widely useful. There is also now a second Air mode that adds a gentle high-frequency saturation to the presence peak, injecting sparkle and liveliness to benefit a diverse range of sources. It’s especially effective when applied to a guitar plugged into an instrument input, giving front-end punch and drive to add life into amp simulation plugins.
Preamp gain is now controlled digitally, either via the hardware’s Input dial, or via Control 2 running on a computer. A game-changing feature for self-recording musicians is that the Scarlett hardware can also be controlled from any iOS or Android device connected to the same network as the computer. Setup is simple, and it allows you to configure inputs, keep an eye on levels, and set up monitor mixes from anywhere in the studio.
Image: Press
Digital gain control also lies behind new Auto Gain and Clip Guard features. The former analyses a few seconds of the input signal and then sets an appropriate preamp gain. The system tends to be a bit more conservative than an experienced recording engineer, but it is helpful and reliable nonetheless. The ability to set the gain of all channels simultaneously, in a few seconds, is a huge timesaver when recording a full band or drum kit.
When enabled, Clip Guard ensures you will never have an errant clip or overload ruin an otherwise perfect take. It does this by cutting 6dB from the analogue gain stage and adding it back in digitally. If the incoming signal exceeds -6dB, Clip Guard instantly reduces the digital gain stage accordingly and then maintains that new level. Rather than a nasty digital crunch, resulting level dips can be fixed easily in your DAW.
Image: Press
How does the Scarlett 18i20 4th Gen stand apart from the competition?
18i20 delivers improved audio accuracy and dynamic range compared to the previous iteration thanks to being loaded with the same converters used in Focusrite’s high-end RedNet hardware. This ensures highly accurate audio capture and playback, as one would expect from Focusrite, but such unimpeachable specs aren’t unusual from today’s crop of audio interfaces.
What differentiates the 18i20 – and indeed the entire Scarlett 4th Gen range – is how easy it makes the process of configuring inputs and capturing performances, especially for self-recording producers and musicians.
The Hitmaker software package included with all Scarlett units also eases things along, with DAWs and tools to get new producers up and running straight away, as well as top-grade plugins and instruments that will be welcomed by more seasoned users.
On the downside, heavy inflation has had an inevitable impact on the price of the 4th Gen 18i20, with an uplift of £180 compared to the launch price of the 3rd Gen. Nevertheless, Focusrite is offering a lot of interfaces, packed with pro features, for what is still a reasonable price. Whether you’re setting up an entirely new rig or upgrading an existing one, 18i20 is an investment that is sure to pay off.

Key features

USB-2 audio interface with USB-C socket
USB-C cable and USB-C to USB-A converter included
Mains powered
2 mic/line/instrument inputs
6 further mic/line inputs
8 line outputs and
2 independent headphone outputs
ADAT (S/MUX) and stereo S/PDIF digital I/O
MIDI in/out
Built-in talkback mic
Word Clock output

The post Focusrite’s Scarlett 18i20 4th Gen finally brings serious studio reputation to the range appeared first on MusicTech.

It is ok now as far as I know