Classical Reviews August 2026Explore August’s top classical music releases, featuring Peteris Vasks, Mozart, Beethoven, Fauré, Schubert, and more.

Amy Nicola McBride FishtailFishtail is a generative MIDI instrument and composition system for iPhone, iPad and Mac. It creates complete, repeatable multi-section pieces using algorithmic rules grounded in music theory rather than generative AI. Fishtail generates MIDI rather than audio, so a receiving synthesizer, sampler or software instrument is required. On iPhone and iPad, Fishtail runs standalone or as an AUv3 MIDI plug-in. On Mac, it runs as a Universal standalone app or as an AUv3 MIDI instrument. In standalone mode on Mac, it publishes one combined and seven separate CoreMIDI sources. Features: Section-based composition with independent keys, modes, meters, cadences, musical roles, treatments, expression and Bloom controls. Retained Takes that can be compared, reordered and handed over at whole-piece boundaries. Seven musical voices with combined and separate MIDI routing. Exact reference tuning and seven intonation systems. Normal MIDI, pitch-bend, per-part pitch-bend and MPE output, with MTS on iPhone and iPad. Ableton Link tempo, beat, phase and optional transport synchronisation. .fishtail project save and recall, Standard MIDI export, supported tuning exports and experimental analogue-CV file packages. No accounts, advertising, analytics or tracking. The Mac version has been validated in Logic Pro, while the iPhone and iPad version has been tested in AUM. Host MIDI-routing capabilities vary. Artwork and visual identity are by OcularDebris. Read More

Dissecting a Lethal Universal Travel AdapterThe world’s refusal to standardize on a single type of mains power outlet has led to a vibrant market of so-called travel adapters, all of which try to outdo each other in convenience and universality. This comes at the cost of complexity, something which ultimately reflects in the price. The cheapo $9.26 universal travel adapter that [Brainiac 75] got off an online retailer’s site is thereby a good example of how safety suffers if the overarching goal is to ‘make it cheap’.

The first exciting discovery is that when you plug any of its three sets of connectors into an outlet, the others become live at the same voltage. This would suggest that they’re just wired together, a fact soon confirmed with a quick resistance check between the respective prongs. Though to the adapter’s credit, the prongs are not live when fully retracted into the enclosure. Yet as demonstrated in the video, the retracting of prongs is not enforced, so mistakes here are possible.
The adapter also has two USB ports that claim to provide 5 V at 2.1 A, with as it turns out no hard cut-off. This is probably the best part of the adapter despite not featuring any advanced charging features. After opening the adapter, you can see that the sliding mains prongs connect to a central bus bar when either unfolded or extended, which is definitely straightforward, but doesn’t enforce that only one type of prongs can be used at any given time.
To make it safer, [Brainiac75] removed the less useful US and UK plugs, taping over the empty holes. It’s now just a USB charger with a universal mains port to plug random non-EU plugs into, which is probably relatively safe and a better idea than really using it as a travel adapter.

SoundCloud is finally letting artists sell music directly to fans – with zero commissionSoundCloud has spent years being the place where you stumble across your next favourite artist. Now, it wants to be the place where you actually buy their music, too.
The company is currently testing a new feature that lets artists sell and deliver music directly from their SoundCloud profiles, meaning fans can discover a track, decide they want to own it and buy the download without being sent off to another platform.
Artists can set their own prices and offer music in formats including MP3 and WAV. More importantly, SoundCloud takes no commission from those sales. Once standard fees and taxes are deducted, artists keep 100% of the revenue.

READ MORE: How to get playlisted on streaming services: 7 playlist pitching tips

It’s a notable addition to a platform that has traditionally been much better at getting music heard than getting it sold. A stream might introduce an artist to a new fan, but a direct purchase puts actual money into the artist’s pocket.
SoundCloud says there’s already a sizeable appetite for that. Around 250,000 artists currently direct fans to external platforms to buy their music, with 2.4 million tracks linked to purchase pages. The company says more than 500,000 SoundCloud users are sent to those external sites every year, while 28% of surveyed artists either already sell downloadable music or want to start.
The feature will initially be tested with 200 US-based Artist Pro creators. Feedback from the beta will help shape the service before it rolls out to all eligible creators later this autumn.
Participating artists will be able to monitor their sales through Artist Studio and the Fan Support Dashboard. Direct sales will also add to SoundCloud’s existing artist monetisation tools, including Fan-Powered Royalties, Fan Support, on-demand vinyl and ticketing.
“Artists should be able to build their audience in one place, on one platform,” says SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton. “SoundCloud has always been where artists find their first fans and build real communities. We’re continuing to bring more of what they need to grow their careers into that same experience, while letting fans directly support the music they love.”
SoundCloud’s move follows the lead of Bandcamp, which has long championed direct-to-fan music sales and launched its Bandcamp Fridays initiative in 2020.
Learn more at SoundCloud.
The post SoundCloud is finally letting artists sell music directly to fans – with zero commission appeared first on MusicTech.

CVA Labs releases FREE Aether Stereo Exciter for macOS and Windows
CVA Labs has released Aether Stereo Exciter, a free and open-source harmonic enhancer for macOS and Windows. Aether is an interesting take on the stereo exciter concept. It gives us two independent channels with Drive, Frequency, Contour, Air, limiter Threshold and Release, Makeup Gain, and Mix controls. You can shape the left and right channels [...]
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Liux’s Big microcar bets on sustainability to take on Chinese rivalsThe Liux Big microcar is made in Spain. The startup thinks it can compete in a crowded market with its tiny electric car built around sustainability.

Saylor signals Strategy is ‘Back’ to Bitcoin buyingMichael Saylor’s “We’re Back” post hints Strategy may resume Bitcoin buying after a two-month pause to strengthen its balance sheet.

NoirSonance releases FREE Headroomer channel cleanup plugin
NoirSonance has released Headroomer, a free/pay-what-you-want channel cleanup plugin for macOS and Windows. We recently featured the developer’s Decompressor upward dynamics plugin, which followed NoirSonance’s decision to make its entire 12-plugin collection free with optional donations. Headroomer is another streamlined yet useful tool from NoirSonance, and it might be their simplest plugin yet. The interface [...]
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Reason Studios launch Reason Free Reason Studios have announced that they are making their popular Reason Rack plug-in free, and bundling it with a selection of instruments, effects and tools sources from their DAW software.

Polygon discloses security flaws fixed in recent hard forksThe vulnerabilities posed denial-of-service and validator resource risks but were patched before Polygon publicly disclosed them.

Wikipedia on a Cheap Yellow DisplayThe Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) is a board carrying a slightly older ESP32 variant, a display with a resistive touchscreen, an SD card, and not much else. It’s often used for straightforward microcontroller applications that need a user interface, but that’s not the limit of its possibilities. [Alun Morris] has a CYD on which you can brows an entire offline Wikipedia.
The trick is to take the offline Wikipedia builds from the Kiwix project, and process them further into a custom format suited for a browser firmware on the ESP32. A modern SD card can hold so much data that a full Wikipedia is well within its abilities even with images included.
We like this idea, because it takes the knowledge away from the center of the network to its edge. We expect to see it gaining a following among enthusiasts for offline living, because all that knowledge without a network can only be useful. If you recognize [Alun]’s work, it might be because of his ESP32 web browser.

Sony Music, Warner sue Anthropic, alleging a “brazen campaign” of intellectual property theftThis latest lawsuit is particularly broad and homes in on accusations of illegal piracy.

Hardwave Studios WettBoiWettBoi combines a reverb, a tempo-syncable delay and a sidechain ducker in one plug-in. The ducker acts on the wet signal, so reverb and delay tails can be pushed out of the way of a kick drum without routing the effect to a separate bus and adding a compressor. The reverb offers four algorithm types (Room, Hall, Plate, Spring) with pre-delay, size, decay, damping, stereo width and a freeze control. High-pass and low-pass filters are applied to the wet path so the tail can be shaped without an additional EQ. The delay section runs independent left and right times, either free-running in milliseconds or synced to host tempo in note values, with feedback and the option to feed reverb into the delay. The sidechain ducker provides threshold, attack, hold and release, keyed from either the plug-in input or an external sidechain input. An LFO with rate, depth and phase controls can modulate the wet path for movement. Features: Reverb with four algorithms: Room, Hall, Plate and Spring. Pre-delay, size, decay, damping, stereo width and freeze. High-pass and low-pass filters on the wet signal. Delay with independent left and right times, free-running or tempo-synced to note values. Delay feedback, ping-pong, filtering, modulation and saturation. Reverb-into-delay and delay-into-reverb routing, or the two in parallel. Sidechain ducker with threshold, attack, hold and release. Internal or external sidechain key input. LFO with five shapes, assignable to reverb wet, delay wet, delay feedback or filter. Preset handling with a built-in preset menu. VST3 and CLAP, 64-bit, Windows / macOS Universal / Linux. Read More

Now Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell sue Anthropic in multi-billion dollar lawsuit: ‘One of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.’The publishing arms of all three major music companies are now litigating against the Claude maker
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Shadaloo Audio DSP makes Density EQ permanently FREE
Shadaloo Audio DSP has made Density EQ, its four-band presence and weight-shaping equalizer, permanently free. Fabio “Shadaloo” Caterino shared the news in the BPB Community yesterday (thank you!), explaining that he wanted to make the plugin accessible to anyone who would like to try it. Density EQ previously cost €19, but it is now available [...]
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