Dystopian Waves Wah PedalUltimate Wah Pedal for M4L. Bring the iconic sound of classic and modern wah pedals into your DAW with a powerful, fully customizable Wah plugin. Designed for guitarists, producers, and sound designers, this wah effect gives you precise control and creative modulation like never before. Features: 10 Distinct Wah Types: From vintage tones to aggressive modern sweeps. Sweep Range Control: Set Sweep Min and Sweep Max frequencies anywhere from 50 Hz to 10 kHz for tailor-made filter motion. Adjustable Q Factor: Dial in subtle or extreme resonances for everything from smooth vowel-like sweeps to sharp, aggressive cuts. Modulation Modes: Manual: classic foot-controlled wah, drag your mouse on the virtual pedal to sweep the filter. LFO: auto-wah with 3 selectable waveforms and adjustable rate. Pedal Visualization: Watch and control the wah sweep in real time with an interactive pedal graphic. 4 Distortion Types: From subtle analog warmth to aggressive fuzz, with Drive and Shape controls to sculpt your perfect tone. Perfect for: • Guitars, synths, drums, or any audio source. • Adding movement, character, and expression to your tracks. • Sound design for cinematic, electronic, or experimental music. Whether you're after subtle tonal shifts or wild, expressive sweeps, this wah pedal plugin gives you the power, flexibility, and sonic quality you need to bring your music to life. Read More

180 Shots on a Roll with the Little Stupid CameraIf you want to play with the coolest kids on the block when it comes to photography, you have to shoot film. Or so say the people who shoot film, anyway. It is very true though that the chemical medium has its own quirks and needs a bit of effort in a way digital cameras don’t, so it can be a lot of fun to play with.
It’s expensive though — film ain’t cheap, and if you don’t develop yourself there’s an extra load of cash. What if you could get more photos on a roll? It’s something [Japhy Riddle] took to extremes, creating a fifth-frame 35mm camera in which each shot is a fifth the size of the full frame.
We’re slightly worried about that much sticky tape next to the shutter, but hey.
Standard 35mm still film has a 24x36mm frame, in modern terms not far off the size of a full-size SD card. A standard roll of film gives you 36 exposures. There are half-frame cameras that split that frame vertically to give 72 exposures, but what he’s done is make a quarter-frame camera.
It’s a simple enough hack, electrical tape masking the frame except for a vertical strip in the middle, but perhaps the most interesting part is how he winds the film along by a quarter frame. 35mm cameras have a take-up reel, you wind the film out of the cartridge bit by bit into it with each shot, and then rewind the whole lot back into the cartridge at the end. He’s wound the film into the take-up reel and it winding it back a quarter frame at a time using the rewind handle, for which we are guessing he also needs a means to cock the shutter that doesn’t involve the frame advance lever.
We like the hack, though we would be worried about adhesive tape anywhere near the shutter blind on an SLR camera. It delivers glorious widescreen at the cost of a bit of resolution, but as an experimental camera it’s in the best tradition. This is one to hack into an unloved 1970s snapshot camera for the Shitty Camera Challenge!

I am just a fan of Fallout game sorry and TV-series are good too

From Svedka to Anthropic, brands make bold plays with AI in Super Bowl adsFrom the first AI-generated Big Game ad courtesy of Svedka to Anthropic's beef with OpenAI, here are the biggest ads from Super Bowl LX.

Skid Row Seeks New Singer (Again)Hard rockers Skid Row have teamed up with online instrument retailer Sweetwater to find a new frontman.

The band has worked its way through a string of singers since forming in 1986, starting with Matt Fallon (also of an early Anthrax), who recorded some demos but didn't make it onto any official recordings.

Sebastian Bach was the singer for the band's most celebrated recordings, including the first three albums and songs like "Youth Gone Wild," "18 & Life," "Slave to the Grind," and "Monkey Business." Bach was in the band from 1987 to '96.

Johnny Solinger had an impressive 16 years with the mic, from 1999 to 2015, recording four albums. Tragically, Solinger died from liver failure in 2021 at the age of 55.

TNT singer Tony Harnell had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it spell in 2015, and he was followed by former DragonForce frontman ZP Theart, who was in the band from 2016 to 2022. Despite his six years in the ranks, Theart didn't record with Skid Row although he does have songwriting credits on four songs on the next album, The Gang's All Here.

That album featured Erik Grönwall (a former contestant on Swedish singing show Idol) behind the mic; Grönwall was in the band for two years until 2024. Bringing us right up to date, Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale filled in temporarily in 2025, helping Skid Row fulfill some summer dates.

So there we are. Seven singers (or six plus Hale) down the road, and Skid Row needs another one.

According to a statement, "The collaboration invites singers from around the world to audition for the opportunity to front one of rock’s most enduring and respected bands."

“This is not a contest or a gimmick,” the band says. “It’s a genuine search for the right voice, presence, and authenticity to carry Skid Row forward.”

“I first saw Skid Row play in New Jersey before they were signed, and they totally blew me away with the sheer quality of their songs, and the infectious high-energy of their performance,” said Sweetwater’s content creator Nick Bowcott. “We at Sweetwater are excited to partner with the group to host this once in a lifetime opportunity."

So there you go. If you fancy singing for Skid Row, find out more here.

The post Skid Row Seeks New Singer (Again) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Audioblast MultiFXBlasterMultiFXBlaster is multi effect plugin with 4 chainable slots. Features: 8 spatial / time FX : Reverb, "Synth Verb", Stereo Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Vibrato, Auto Pan, Delay. 5 distortion / saturation FX : Fuzz, Clipper, 4Band Fuzz, Overdrive, Bit Reducer. 3 Filter FX : LowPass Filter, HiPass Filter, BandPass Filter. 2 Rhytmic / Sync FX : Gater, Looper. Preset browser. Resizable UI. 128 factory presets sorted in categories : voices / kick drum / guitar / misc / rhytmic. . Read More

Bitcoin rallies to $71.5K after historic sell-off, but derivatives metrics remain softBitcoin price soared back above $71,000, but BTC options data shows pro traders are still extremely cautious about the sustainability of the rebound rally. Is the sell-off really over?

Driving Sim Handbrake Based on Load CellSimulator-style video games are designed to scale in complexity, allowing players to engage at anything from a casual level to highly detailed, realistic simulation. Microsoft Flight Simulator, for example, can be played with a keyboard and mouse, a controller, or a huge, expensive simulator designed to replicate a specific airplane in every detail. Driving simulators are similar, and [CNCDan] has been hard at work on his DIY immersive driving sim rig, with this hand brake as his latest addition.
For this build, [CNCDan] is going with a lever-style handbrake which is common in motorsports like drifting and rallying. He has already built a set of custom pedals, so this design borrows heavily from them. That means that the sensor is a load cell, which takes input force from a lever connected to it with a spring mechanism. The signal is sent to an Arduino for processing, which is set up to send data over USB like any joystick or controller. In this case, he’s using an Arduino that was already handling inputs from his custom shifter, so he only needed to use another input and add some code to get his handbrake added into his sim.
[CNCDan] built a version of this out of laser-cut metal parts, but also has a fully 3D printable one available as well. Plenty of his other videos about his driving rig are available as well, from the pedal assembly we mentioned earlier to the force-feedback steering wheel. It’s an impressive set of hardware with a feel that replicates racing about as faithfully as a simulator could. Interestingly, we’ve also seen this process in reverse as well where a real car was used instead as a video game controller.

Gallery: Milk & Honey and Reservoir’s pre-GRAMMY ‘Award Season’ party 2026Held on the rooftop of the Petersen Automotive Museum, revellers included many high-flyers from the global music industry
Source

What is compression? A music production guide
Let’s demystify audio compression by discussing what it is, what its parameters are, and how it’s used in music production.

Get 80% off SSL X-ValveComp and SSL Drumstrip at AudioDeluxe
AudioDeluxe is a regular source of exclusive discounts, and this time, it’s a massive 80% off two SSL favorites, SSL X-ValveComp and SSL Drumstrip. You can get 80% off SSL X-ValveComp and SSL Drumstrip plugins for a limited time (the offer ends February 16, 2026). The discount means you can grab X-ValveComp for $9.99 (down [...]
View post: Get 80% off SSL X-ValveComp and SSL Drumstrip at AudioDeluxe

Aurora DSP’s Mammoth is FREE for a limited time via Instagram
Mammoth from Aurora DSP, a bass plugin that I’m sure any metalheads among us are already familiar with, is free for a limited time via Instagram. But before we get into it, let’s go through the offer because time is of the essence with this freebie. In celebration of Mammoth’s sixth anniversary, Aurora DSP is giving [...]
View post: Aurora DSP’s Mammoth is FREE for a limited time via Instagram

Musik Hack preview SweetEQ Musik Hack's upcoming third release combines EQ and saturation, and as with their previous offerings, comes presented in an intuitive interface that focuses on end results rather than overwhelming users with parameters.

Oliver Patrice Welder launches Smokestack Sounds Established in December 2025 with the aim of creating interactive, “vibe-driven” plug-ins, the company already have two products available: Cloud Guitar and Aurora, both of which have been developed with a focus on emotional experience. 

Suno says “accessibility” is the reason for its success — but I think accessibility is the problem with AI musicBandcamp recently made headlines with a simple and clear policy on AI: “Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp.”
This represents the first major music distributor to enforce such a ban, and it comes at a time when AI music companies are growing at breakneck speed. Last November, Suno, the AI music creation platform, signed a new licensing deal with Warner Music Group and was valued at $2.54 billion, with “accessibility ” being the driving force behind this massive number.
“Suno is the world’s #1 music creation app, making music accessible to everyone.” That quote is attributed to Amy Martin, a partner at Menlo Ventures, the venture capital firm that helped Suno raise $250 million on its immense valuation.
Suno’s leadership didn’t use the word “accessible” in their statement, but the gist was there:
“In just two years, we’ve seen millions of people make their ideas a reality through Suno, from first-time creators to top songwriters and producers integrating the tool into their daily workflows,” says Mikey Shulman, Co-Founder and CEO of Suno.
Also, in 2025, Shulman said: “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now […] It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.”

Apparently, making the creative process as accessible as possible is how making music will be enjoyable again.
Not only is it ridiculous to think that artists don’t enjoy the time spent improving their craft, but accessibility is clearly just an excuse to tap into a larger customer base. The more people who can access something, the more people can pay for it.  How else could a company reach billions in value, and who wouldn’t want to pay for the immediate ability to make music?
To make that process available to everyone with the least effort possible is to dilute the hard work of artists who are pouring everything they have into their craft.
Spotify, the world’s most popular streaming service, provided a similar level of accessibility for releasing music. With the help of a distributor like DistroKid or CD Baby, anyone can upload their music to a streaming service. Arguably, this landscape is a positive for creators because everyone is equally searchable on Spotify. Any time someone discovers a brand new artist, they have the immediate ability to listen to their music. Those artists can also send direct links to their music, and all those streams will lead to royalties (if the song earned 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months).
The downside is that all artists, labels, private equity firms, or whoever owns the music gets the same royalties back from Spotify. They could have invested thousands of hours and millions of dollars into the song on top of the years of their life it took to learn their craft. Or they could have made the song in five minutes on Suno because making music is just that accessible now. Either way, it’s currently the same amount of money earned per stream.
Music data platform Chartmetric tracks roughly 11 million artists, and 80% of them have fewer than 1,000 Spotify monthly listeners. So, really, the result of this extreme accessibility is that millions of hobbyists are now able to share their music. This crowds the landscape for the artists who are giving it their all, and plagues them to earn practically nothing from the medium that most people use to listen to music in 2026.
This dynamic portends what will happen as Suno grows. The vast majority of creators on the platform will be hobbyists who just want to try their hand at making music for a mere moment.
But, Shulman said that “top songwriters and producers” are using Suno, right? That’s true of Timbaland, one of the most successful producers in history. Suno even made Timbaland a creative consultant for the company.
The thing is, according to Rolling Stone, Timbaland uses one function of Suno called “cover song.” As the name suggests, this function takes an existing song and transforms it into different versions. The existing songs Timbaland is using are from his extensive back catalogue, which he’s accrued over three decades of making music the hard way.
Per the interview, Timbaland describes these songs he’s covering as essentially complete. They have lyrics, melodies, beats, and production. Clearly, he is still honouring human creativity and then using Suno to generate new ideas. This is arguably the most benevolent use of the program (even though Timbaland did end up using a copyrighted song to train Suno without permission).
Unfortunately, barely any Suno users will have a Timbaland-level catalogue ready and waiting to transmute into different versions. They’ll have to start from scratch using prompts for an AI that’s trained on recorded music from hard-working artists for what will most likely be paid pitiful royalties.
…all in the name of accessibility.
What’s even more insulting about this idea of accessibility is that music-making is already so accessible! Smartphones and tablets can access free and fully-featured music-making apps and DAWs. These programs have everything a beginner needs: recording capabilities, virtual instruments, and effects. Madlib produced all the beats for, Bandana, his 2019 collaborative album with Freddie Gibbs, on an iPad, as an example.
With a few taps, brand new music-makers can lay down a beat and record some vocals. The first one won’t sound anywhere close to professional, but the 1,000th one will. All Suno does is give everyone the opportunity to skip from one to 1,000 and build music without their own tastes and techniques.
When Bandcamp launched Bandcamp Fridays during the pandemic, the people working there showed they care about the artists who are willing to take the journey from 1 to 1,000. Today, Bandcamp Fridays continue to pay out millions to artists, long after the pandemic has ended.
Clearly, people still want to use their hard-earned money to support artists putting in the work to make music, and rather than give every potential artist the chance to access that source of income, Bandcamp is drawing a line in the sand.
Bandcamp is offering a platform for dedicated musicians, producers and beatmakers to connect with audiences and sell the human-made music and merch that they care about. That’s what real accessibility looks like.
The post Suno says “accessibility” is the reason for its success — but I think accessibility is the problem with AI music appeared first on MusicTech.