From BMG and Concord’s completed merger to Anthropic’s multi-billion-dollar lawsuit… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe biggest headlines from the past few days...

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Cubase 15 is currently 40% off, with bigger discounts across Steinberg’s catalogueAd feature with Steinberg
This month, Steinberg is offering huge discounts on Cubase 15 and other music production software.
Cubase 15, the company’s flagship DAW, is 40% off until 28 September; Cubasis, its mobile DAW, is also 40% off, and there’s a 60% discount on four other products when you activate Cubase 15 during the promotion.
If you’ve been thinking of switching DAWs or getting another tool to add to your arsenal, this might be your best chance at a bargain all year — a crossgrade is now just £178.80. That means if you’re coming from another DAW, you can save £120 on your switch to Cubase 15.
The deal doesn’t just cover new purchases of Cubase, but also upgrades for existing customers. If you have an earlier version of Cubase Pro, the upgrade price starts at just £49.80, down from £83. Meanwhile, an upgrade to Cubase Artist 15 is £39.60, and just £15 for upgrading to Cubase Elements 15.
When activating Cubase Pro 15 before September 28, you’ll also unlock four 60% discount vouchers for Absolute, SpectraLayers Pro, Dorico Pro and WaveLab Pro, giving you easier access to smart pro-grade tools.
Should you switch to Cubase 15?
Upon Cubase 15’s release, our reviewer and longtime Logic Pro user, Clovis McEvoy, was even tempted to make the switch to Cubase. “This is the most versatile DAW I’ve ever used,” he said in his review, “and it’s also one of the most powerful. No matter where I look in Cubase, I’m continually surprised at just how deep I can go. Its design and workflow consider the needs of power users at every turn – something that I simply can’t say of Logic Pro, which always feels like it prioritises newcomers to the detriment of dab hands.
“Many hours in and I do feel like I’m still learning the ropes, but Cubase makes me want to keep going. And once I do master this epic DAW, I have a feeling I won’t be going back to Logic Pro.”

Check out the full range of deals at Steinberg
The post Cubase 15 is currently 40% off, with bigger discounts across Steinberg’s catalogue appeared first on MusicTech.

dBdone releases Wasser, a FREE liquid multiband delay plugin
dBdone has released Wasser, a free multiband delay plugin for macOS and Windows. Wasser splits the incoming signal into frequency bands and lets you draw a different delay time for each one. That’s a pretty cool idea. It’s definitely a fun little tool for sound design because it lets you create rhythmic movement that would [...]
View post: dBdone releases Wasser, a FREE liquid multiband delay plugin

e-instruments launch Velvet Guitars Fragment Velvet Guitars Fragment introduces a packed-down version of the company’s popular guitar instrument, delivering “the warm, woody resonance and evocative low-end character of a vintage baritone guitar”.

Audacity 4 is its biggest update in 25 yearsAfter 25 years, Audacity has been given a bold “refresh”. With redesigned effects, refined clip editing, customisable Workspaces, and a streamlined new UI, Audacity 4 comes as the audio editor’s biggest update in years – and it’s still totally free and open-source.
The fourth era of Audacity focuses on keeping the spirit of Audacity while vastly improving your workflow. One big shift in their redesigned clip movement; in Audacity 3, pasting and moving clips was restricted, but Audacity 4 allows clips to overlap each other. There’s also clip grouping, non-destructive editing and ripple editing.

READ MORE: The best new music plugins this week, free and paid

The clip envelope has also had a revamp, adding more drag and shaping options to adapt your sound, with a responsive waveform to truly see how you’re shaping your sound. There’s also a new split tool, which also has the ability to split multiple clips at the same time.
Sample editing is simpler too – you can just zoom into a clip until you can see the individual samples and edit them right away, rather than in a separate draw mode. You can also now export smaller sections of a project, meaning you can export a loop region without needing to export the entirety of a larger project.
Audacity 4 also redesigned each built-in effect to make it easier to use, with support for real-time effects also getting improved, covering a wider range of VST3, Audio Unit and LV2 plugins. Every track also has its own meter now, these meters also double as an input monitor when recording audio.

Added Workspaces also make it easy to flick between your ideal configurations. Essentially, you can save your preferred workspace tool setup and UI configurations for any specific task – so, if you prefer a certain setup for laying down beats but prefer another configuration for recording a podcast, you can instantly flick between a your ‘music’ and ‘podcasting’ Workspaces.
The fresh lick of paint also has Audacity looking cleaner than ever. Alongside improved navigation, the main playback meter now has both horizontal and vertical views, which you can easily switch between. And you can also switch between Audacity’s classic appearance and a more modern makeover, depending on your preference.
There’s also more integration with audio.com, which should make it easier to share and upload your audio online.
“We’ve spent years carefully preserving what makes Audacity the most popular audio tool in the world, whilst paving the way for major additions and improvements in the future,” product designer Alex Dawson explains in the Audacity 4 announcement video.
“Most of the important changes made in this version are under-the-hood foundations, which will allow us to move much faster than ever before,” he adds. “And as always, Audacity remains free and open source. Forever.”
Audacity 4 is available for free from Audacity.
The post Audacity 4 is its biggest update in 25 years appeared first on MusicTech.

tokyomeltdown LUFSBarLUFSBar sits in the menu bar and shows the loudness of whatever is currently playing on the Mac - a streaming service, a browser, a DAW - using Core Audio process taps. No BlackHole, no Loopback, no virtual audio device. Momentary, short-term or integrated LUFS in the bar itself, with the full readout including True Peak one click away. A reference snapshot captures the loudness of whatever is playing, so a mix can be compared against a reference track in real time. A streaming forecast shows how far the current material sits from Apple Music (-16), Spotify (-14) and YouTube (-14). Measurement uses libebur128 for ITU-R BS.1770-4 / EBU R128 compliance: K-weighting, gating, and 4x oversampled True Peak. No network requests, no telemetry, no account. Audio is analysed in memory and never written to disk. MIT licensed, with the source on GitHub. Read More

CFTC files to dismiss CME lawsuit over crypto perpetual futuresThe CFTC’s lawyers called the lawsuit “much ado about nothing,“ claiming that the CME Group lacked standing to file and argued against its claims over crypto perpetual futures.

Startup ARR is less secure than ever, new research showsThe AI era has completely broken enterprise buying patterns, and startups haven't yet figured out how to navigate.

Lords of Acid at the Echoplex, Los Angeles, CAContact: evanjthomaspr@gmail.comWeb: lordsofacidofficial.comPlayers: Praga Khan, keyboards, programming, backing vocals; Carla Harvey, vocals; Olivier Adams, percussion, keyboards, programming; DieTrich Thrall, bass

Belgian electronic rockers Lords of Acid sure know how to put on a show. The sex-obsessed party animals have been knocking around since 1988, when acid house musician Praga Khan got it into his nut that he wanted a band of his own, and so the Lords of Acid were born, appealing to fans of industrial rock/metal, as well as Khan’s existing house aficionados.

In the years since, the lineup has shifted with members coming in and out. Khan’s the constant—he’s the creative force. And there has always been a female frontperson, a strong woman to keep the crowd in check. Oddly but interestingly, a few of the former Lords of Acid singers and musicians have come together as of late, as the Queens of Acid. 

At the Echoplex, in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles just as summer was kicking into gear, the Lords of Acid rolled into town and hosted the most gloriously hedonistic, debauched, and decadent gig that the region has seen in some time. With genres and genders blurred with equal enthusiasm, it felt very much like a throwback to the sort of Berlin cabaret vibes celebrated in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. 

Each and every opening act brought it, from trans electro-rapper Mz. Neon to theatrical synth-pop stars-in-waiting Tony & the Kiki, from larger-than-life diva Princess Superstar to dark Denver crooners Dead on a Sunday. The whole event was about a celebration of sexual freedom, and freedom of sexuality. And in these dark times, that’s something to take Pride in.

All of that said, nobody was stealing Lords of Acid’s thunder. The most recent addition to the ranks is powerhouse singer Carla Harvey, formerly of the Butcher Babies and also a member of The Violent Hour. While previous LOA singers have had a sultry growl and coo, Harvey is a proper singer and it initially makes for an odd fit. She’s also a tremendous show-woman though, and the pairing works.

There are some new tunes, notably “Karaoke Superstar,” featuring guest vocals from the returning Princess Superstar. The dudes from Tony & the Kiki also pop back up for their recent collab with LOA—"El Mundo Está Loco.”

Meanwhile, Harvey does a great job on tunes from the early albums, including “Drink My Honey,” “Rough Sex/Take Control,” and the closing “I Sit on Acid.” There’s no subtlety here, but we don’t want any. The Echoplex simply embraced the filth and had a blast doing it. The post Lords of Acid at the Echoplex, Los Angeles, CA first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

A Split Keyboard Designed for Human HandsA surprising number of things we use in everyday life retain most of their design cues from their 19th century ancestors. The bicycle retains the same basic design as it had in 1890, as does the sewing machine, the toilet, the car, and of course, the keyboard and the QWERTY layout from old typewriters. But we aren’t doomed to have our technology perpetually living in the past. [Paul] wanted a keyboard designed around human hands, rather than being designed around a machine, so he built this unique split keyboard.
The design of this specific keyboard went through around 50 iterations before he was comfortable with it. Other design goals here were for it to be portable, and the split nature of this certainly makes it more compact as does the use of low-profile switches. Each finger’s column is angled and spaced based on the needs of that finger, with the ring finger keys sitting higher and the index finger columns angled inward. Each thumb has access to three keys, one of which is the spacebar and the other two layer keys, which is what enables this design to get down to only 36 total keys.
When thinking about it for any length of time, the modern keyboard’s design holdovers from the 1800s are fairly wasteful compared to this split, ergonomic version. Especially when looking at the spacebar, which ties up both thumbs and only performs a single task, there’s a lot of opportunity for modern designs to be more efficient, more portable, and easier on one’s body. Feel free to take this to the extreme and use all three dimensions, as long as you aren’t particularly concerned with portability.

UMG’s hospitality arm to open its first UK hotel on London’s Denmark StreetIt will be UMHL's first hotel in the UK, and its second in Europe after UMusic Hotel Madrid, with Madrid the only UMusic Hotel currently operating.
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Penteo Audio Plugins announce Penteo 8 Penteo version 8 introduces a whole host of new features including advanced independent upmix decorrelation controls, enhanced DSP and a new interface with an enhanced visualiser.

Lewitt releases Space Replicator Free, a virtual monitoring plugin for macOS and Windows
Developer Lewitt has released Space Replicator Free, a virtual monitoring plugin for macOS and Windows. Lots of plugins virtually recreate the characteristics of real-life spaces for various reasons, whether it’s something like UAD’s Sound City Studios providing a touch of LA when tracking in your bedroom or a convolution reverb like NoiseRverb bringing you the [...]
View post: Lewitt releases Space Replicator Free, a virtual monitoring plugin for macOS and Windows

JAS-I Khorlo is a new FREE physical modeling/resonator synth for macOS, Windows, and Linux
JAS-I Khorlo, a free physical modeling/resonator synth for macOS, Windows, and Linux, is now in open beta. When we post news about new releases, we occasionally run into a few problems. For example, sometimes installers won’t download, or emails take a while, and that’s not ideal if you’re against the clock. On rarer occasions, a [...]
View post: JAS-I Khorlo is a new FREE physical modeling/resonator synth for macOS, Windows, and Linux

Denon DJ’s new Prime 4 G2 is an all-in-one DJ controller with MPCe pads
Denon DJ has released a new all-in-one DJ system, the PRIME 4 G2 with a new “industry-first” feature for performers, with new tools that have never before been found in Denon products.
Namely, the PRIME 4 G2 introduces MPCe multi-zone performance pads, the first of their kind in a standalone DJ system. If that sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the MPC range from Denon DJ’s sister brand, Akai. Both are housed under the InMusic conglomerate, but this is the first time the two brands have shared hardware technology.
The 16 velocity- and pressure-sensitive pads use 3D-sensing technology to combine multiple functions and parameters within a single pad, quadrupling the triggering options available for Hot Cues, Stems, Rolls, FX, and lighting control.
READ MORE: InMusic has allegedly shut down Native Instruments UK

 
The G2 builds on the PRIME 4 platform with full-size 8-inch jog wheels featuring dynamic LED displays, a multi-function navigation encoder, redesigned premium dual-rail faders, and a 10.1-inch HD multi-touch display.
An 8-core ARM processor and 4GB of RAM give PRIME 4 G2 four times the processing power of the previous generation for faster library navigation, onboard Stems rendering, and smoother overall performance.
The PRIME 4 G2 also features standalone-to-software switching with OmniSource architecture set to offer compatibility with Serato DJ Pro, Algoriddim djay, and VirtualDJ.
Jason Stout, DJ brands product manager at InMusic, calls the system a perfect item for performance-driven DJs. He said: “Performance-driven DJs want technology that disappears into the background and lets creativity take centre stage.
“As someone who regularly DJs high-end events, I rely on equipment that can adapt as quickly as the crowd does. PRIME 4 G2 combines powerful performance tools, onboard Stems, streaming access, and integrated DMX lighting control into a single workflow, giving DJs the freedom to shape both the music and the atmosphere without missing a beat.”
PRIME 4 G2 will be available September 1, 2026, priced at $2,599 USD / 2,699.99 € / £2,299.99 through authorised Denon DJ dealers and select music retailers worldwide.
Further details can be found on Denon DJ’s website.
The post Denon DJ’s new Prime 4 G2 is an all-in-one DJ controller with MPCe pads appeared first on MusicTech.