GRAMMY Nominations 2025: Best Traditional R&B PerformanceThe 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 Best Traditional R&B Performance category.

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

See the full list of nominees in every category here.

Here We AreDurand Bernarr

UPTOWNLalah Hathaway

LOVE YOU TOOLedisi

CrybabySZA

VIBES DON'T LIELeon Thomas

SZA Photo by Erin Cazes; The Come Up Show from Canada/Wikicommons licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.The post GRAMMY Nominations 2025: Best Traditional R&B Performance first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Has Suno just become a very different kind of superfan app?The addition of Songkick may hint at Suno's future at the cross-section of superfan activity
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George Nerantzis Sarban IR Pack – V30 Cabinet Impulse ResponsesSarban IR Pack – V30 Cabinet Impulse Responses Now available on Gumroad. Captured at Mousiki Paleta Studio, this pack delivers clear, punchy and mix-ready V30 cabinet IRs that translate detail without the mud. The SM4 mic setup was chosen to keep the mids focused and the low end controlled, giving you tones that sit in the mix without fighting everything else. These IRs were created during the same session as the Sarban Kemper profiling with Nick Sarbanis of The Silent Rage and live guitarist for Valiant Sentinel. Along with the IRs, the pack also includes a free Kemper profile from the session. Full Pack: https://nerantzis.gumroad.com/l/sarbanir Free Single IR: A standalone free IR is also available if you want to test the character before diving into the full pack. https://nerantzis.gumroad.com/l/rcmuf Read More

John Legend reflects on his early career, songwriting process, upcoming album, and more
We had the opportunity to sit down with John Legend for an in-depth conversation about the key moments that have shaped his career, his songwriting process, and more.

Expressive E Black Friday Sale Expressive E's Black Friday sales sees discounts applied to refurbished Osmose units as well as reduced pricing on the company's latest MPE-capable plug-ins and expressive sound suites.

“It’s not as laid-back as everyone thinks it is”: How Tanis scores movies and makes music from her NYC apartmentTanis Chalopin has been composing for film since she was 13 years old. Raised across three continents and fluent in four languages, she’s since scored for productions in the US, UK, France, Japan and Singapore, recently earning a Broadcast Production Award for her composition, Wildcard. She also writes and releases her own music as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist — and in her downtime, is an avid runner, diver, swimmer and skier.
Her new EP, just some stories, is Tanis’s most personal release yet: self-produced, self-written, (even self-mastered on one track) and largely made in her New York apartment. Despite the studio’s limits, it’s treated Tanis well for her productions and soundtracking work — but she’s now eyeing up a new space. “I’m currently building a bigger studio back in my hometown of Nassau in the Bahamas,” she tells us. “Once that space is finished, I will be doing a deep dive into all the gear and strange and wonderful instruments I can fill it with.”
Until then, she’s enjoying making music with what fits: a Yamaha Montage, a Korg Minilogue and MicroKorg, and her two studio buddies, Positive Penguin and Blue Bob, amongst other gear.
We catch up with Tanis following the drop of just some stories to talk gear, vocal experimentation, and why music production is far more technical than people assume.

Congrats on the release of just some stories! You’ve produced this yourself — tell us more about how an idea starts for you. Do you have a clear vision from the start, or do they reveal themselves as you build into the DAW?
When I start producing a song, the direction is rarely clear. I have always found that production is like trying on clothes in a fitting room; you won’t know whether it works or not until you try it on. And if it doesn’t fit, forcing it on probably isn’t the best idea!
Ultimately, I spend a huge amount of time running through sound patches, replaying the same chords or melody to see what stands out to me. If I’m lucky, it will be the first patch I load, but more often than not, it will be patch 101 on the 24th instrument library. Once I find that star element that works, however, then the rest of the production gets built around that.
Image: Courtesy of Tanis
You’ve been composing since age 13, and have scored for productions across five countries. How does writing for picture differ from producing your own tracks?
When I write scores, I’m given clear direction by the production team and the director, and I have the locked picture to compose frame by frame. So when I start scoring, the canvas isn’t truly blank; the music is there to assist the visuals, and I also have to make sure my score matches the vision built by the director.
When producing my own tracks, I sometimes find myself getting lost because the canvas is blank, and I can’t find the direction I want. That being said, the years of scoring film in parallel to songwriting continue to make me a better mixer, producer and arranger because I work with all genres of music — sometimes genres that I am not extremely familiar with — and I get to explore and learn them in real-time, which sometimes helps inspire the production for my next song.
Scoring has also made me a better mixer because, when I’m working on a more traditional score, I end up with hundreds of audio tracks from an orchestral recording session and all the various mics in the room. Learning how to manage such large sessions has actually helped my own song projects have a much better organisation and has taught me that every instrument has its favourite frequency, and we shouldn’t create arrangements where everything is fighting to live in the same frequency range.
Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Tell us a bit about your studio!
My studio is based in my New York apartment. It’s very small and not really a collaborative space, but I love it. I just wanted a room big enough to put a selection of instruments in, where I could compose, create and practice whenever I wanted.
The floor is covered in a thick black carpet for sound absorption, and I have spongy art and wood frames all over the walls for the acoustics. I originally wanted to have a full drum set in there but realised the space might be a bit too small and my neighbours would likely kick me out of the building, so instead I have Roland V-drums electronic drum kit, a Stagg electric cello, a Yamaha Montage 88-key Synth, my electric and acoustic guitars, and my two synths: the Korg Minilogue and microKORG.
I don’t have space for a proper vocal booth either, so I just have a sound shield attached around my Neumann TLM 103 mic that I run through a Warm Audio MKII mic pre-amp. It is a small but lovely pre-amp, especially when you’re recording in a small home studio.
Positive Penguin and Blue Bob — Tanis’ studio buddies! Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Last but not least, I have my little studio buddies, Positive Penguin and Blue Bob, who keep me company on long days when I’m alone in the studio from sunrise to sunset, and they keep me smiling. Blue Bob also naturally springs around to the beat when I play music out of my monitors, so he’s a great test audience.
What’s your latest gear or plugin purchase?
The latest plugin I bought is Waves’ Abbey Road TG mastering Chain plugin. I usually don’t master my own tracks, but I recently wrote a song for a children’s show that had no budget for mastering the songs externally. I began digging around for some recommended mastering plugins, and honestly, this one was great! I then used it on my song Priority, the only song on the EP that I mastered. The presets are really solid with enough variety that if you find the right one, you probably only need to adjust slightly.
AR Mastering. Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Do you have any gear that was particularly prominent on the EP?
Piano was the first instrument I learned, so you’ll often hear keys across a lot of my production — it’s the instrument I always open up when I’m trying to sketch out arrangements. Spectrasonics has this beautiful key library called Keyscape that I love using, and I have quite a few electric pianos and a celesta layered into my tracks. I find that they give a nice shine in the higher frequencies when you need a lift, but they also have warm (and adjustable) low ends that can ground chord progressions nicely too.
You’ll also hear a lot of guitars layered in the choruses. I love to run guitar through some hardware pedals, especially the BOSS Super Chorus, just to embellish and lift certain parts of the track.
Image: Courtesy of Tanis
There are some really cool vocal effects across the EP. What are some of the ways you experiment with processing & effects on your vocals? Any techniques you particularly enjoy?
I like playing around with vocal effects, especially with the backing vocals and vocal stacks. Something I have been experimenting with lately is creating a sense of space with the vocals so they’re not always sitting right under the lead. Panning is always an option to widen the vocal mix, but a fun plugin I found was Kaleidoscope. It is a modulation plugin that includes tremolo, flanger, phaser and chorus, and it’s just really fun to experiment with. Some of the presets are very extreme, but I like to try them out and sometimes just dial them back as they give an interesting texture and constant movement to the backing vocals.
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
I have two!. The first is the Pmnichord. I just think they are so cool. I played one while I was recording the vocals for Child in the Empty Forest at Hackney studios, and I’ve been eyeing it ever since. I also saw the clip of how Gorillaz created Clint Eastwood from the Omnichord preset, which I thought was so great.

The other piece would be a Gibson Les Paul. It is such an iconic guitar that one of my favourite guitarists, Slash, uses. I love November Rain by Guns N’ Roses, and I remember so clearly the dramatic guitar solo in their music video with the Les Paul in the desert. I’ve wanted that guitar ever since! I love my Epiphone Les Paul 60s, and it plays very well, so I’m not complaining – the pickups are great, and playability is smooth — but the dream would be to have the guitar from the original manufacturer.
What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
I often get asked by non-musician friends how I get into my ‘creative’ mindset, as I think sometimes they have the illusion that I am sitting in a dimly lit candle-filled room waiting for some magical inspiration to hit. In fact, I really think music production is a highly technical job that requires a lot of concentration, especially when we get to the mixing stage.
I am constantly learning, but whenever I’ve been in the studio with some incredible sound engineers and technicians, I am blown away by how precise and numerical everything is. It’s not as laid-back as some people may think, despite it being an artistic field.
Tanis producing at a commercial studio. Image: Courtesy of Tanis
Who gave you the biggest lesson in your career? Can you tell us about how it impacted you?
When I was studying music composition and theory in university, I was resistant to learn every facet of the main DAWs that we were trained on (Logic Pro and Pro Tools) because I just wanted to make music as soon as possible. My composition mentor said to me that as long as I don’t understand the software I use to make my music, the software will dictate how my music ends up sounding. This really changed my approach to making music and led me to become not only a composer but also to begin my journey into music production and mixing.
 
The post “It’s not as laid-back as everyone thinks it is”: How Tanis scores movies and makes music from her NYC apartment appeared first on MusicTech.

The Secret Key to Promoting Any Vinyl ReleaseCourtesy of Tony van Veen, some ideas on how to engage with your fans on a deeper level through custom vinyl merch offerings.
The post The Secret Key to Promoting Any Vinyl Release appeared first on Hypebot.

Rosalía’s LUX Listening Party in Barcelona Changes the Paradigm for Live Event CurationFor an artist so confident and comfortable belting into the spotlight, her entirely silent presence at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) as her album played for invited guests, spoke just as loud.
The post Rosalía’s LUX Listening Party in Barcelona Changes the Paradigm for Live Event Curation appeared first on Hypebot.

Aria Sounds Ethnic Flutes Bundle is FREE for a limited time
Aria Sounds offers the Ethnic Flutes Bundle as a limited-time Black Friday freebie on VSTBuzz. Please note that the library requires the full version of Native Instruments Kontakt. Ethnic Flutes Bundle normally sells for $120, but for the next eight days, you can download it for free and add three beautifully detailed world woodwinds to [...]
View post: Aria Sounds Ethnic Flutes Bundle is FREE for a limited time

Get the Ethereal Echoes library for NI Kontakt for FREE
Golden Screw Studio offers the Ethereal Echoes, an ambient instrument library for Kontakt 7.6.0, for free for a limited time with the code Ethereal4FREE. Ethereal Echoes was clearly designed with ambient soundscapes in mind, but after spending some time with it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much more it actually offers. Yes, the atmospheric [...]
View post: Get the Ethereal Echoes library for NI Kontakt for FREE

Warner Music Group announces “groundbreaking” partnership with SunoWarner Music Group and AI music firm Suno have teamed up for a new partnership that will see the two companies “open new frontiers in music creation, interaction, and discovery”.
The deal also settles previous litigation between the companies, and will bring Suno’s AI capabilities with WMG’s artist development leadership and expertise. Both entities claim their next steps will ensure that artists and songwriters are compensated and protected.

READ MORE: AI music generator Suno raises $250M in latest funding round

In 2026, Suno will make several changes to its platform including the launch of new, more advanced and licensed models. When the new models launch in 2026, its current models will be deprecated. 
Download restrictions will also be put in place, as downloading audio will require a paid account. Songs made on its free tier will not be downloadable and will instead be playable and shareable. Paid tier users will also have limited monthly download caps with the ability to pay for more downloads.
Creatives may feel a little sceptical of this new partnership, but an opt-in model will be put into place. This means artists will have “full control” over whether and how their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions are used in new AI-generated music. Further details on this are yet to be revealed. Suno has also acquired live music discovery platform Songkick from WMG, and “will continue to run it as a successful fan destination”.

Suno says that over the next few weeks and months, it will share more details about the timing of new features as they are ready, and that it is “heading towards a world where people don’t just press play – they play with their music.”
Mikey Shulman, CEO at Suno, says: “Our partnership with Warner Music unlocks a bigger, richer Suno experience for music lovers, and accelerates our mission to change the place of music in the world by making it more valuable to billions of people. Together, we can enhance how music is made, consumed, experienced and shared. This means we’ll be rolling out new, more robust features for creation, opportunities to collaborate and interact with some of the most talented musicians in the world, all while continuing to build the biggest music ecosystem possible.”
Robert Kyncl, CEO at WMG, adds: “This landmark pact with Suno is a victory for the creative community that benefits everyone. With Suno rapidly scaling, both in users and monetisation, we’ve seized this opportunity to shape models that expand revenue and deliver new fan experiences. AI becomes pro-artist when it adheres to our principles: committing to licensed models, reflecting the value of music on and off platform, and providing artists and songwriters with an opt-in for the use of their name, image, likeness, voice, and compositions in new AI songs.”
In similar news, Universal Music Group and Udio also settled their litigation and announced plans to collaborate on a new music creation, consumption and streaming experience earlier this month.
UMG announced that both itself and Udio had laid out “industry-first strategic agreements”, and said that in addition to the “compensatory legal settlement”, new licence agreements for recorded music and publishing will “provide further revenue opportunities for UMG artists and songwriters.”
To find out more on this new partnership with WMG, read the full blog post from Suno.
The post Warner Music Group announces “groundbreaking” partnership with Suno appeared first on MusicTech.

Meet Pause – the London studio turning single music video frames into collectible art printsIf you live and breathe music – and your walls need a little artwork to bring them to life – this new move from Universal Music Group UK might just be the ticket.
UMG UK has just launched Pause, a London-based creative studio specialising in transforming single frames from classic music videos into collectible artworks.
Using proprietary technology, Pause allows fans to find their favourite moment from a music video and turn it into physical artwork on a museum-quality print to decorate their space. Each still can only be purchased once, making it a unique collectible item.

READ MORE: Black Friday music deals 2025: The best early deals we’ve found on synths, DJ controllers and plugins

The studio launches with the Amy Winehouse You Know I’m No Good collection, offering her fans the chance to own a one-of-one authenticated piece of artwork taken from the 2006 track’s accompanying music video.

“Music videos are some of the most creative, emotional, and culturally influential pieces of visual storytelling we have,” says Steven O’Connor, Co-Founder, Pause. 
“Yet too often they disappear into the digital ether after release. At Pause, our mission is to resurrect these moments as art, turning single frames from iconic videos into lasting, collectible artworks. We want to give fans the opportunity to own a piece of music history, and in doing so, help people rediscover and celebrate the artistry of the music video.” 
“Each print we create is a bridge between music, creativity, and the tangible world,” adds Wai Hung Young, Co-Founder, Pause. “Our goal is to elevate the music video from a transient screen experience to a collectible art form, inspiring a new generation of collectors while preserving the cultural and emotional significance of these works. 
“The Amy Winehouse collection is one of our largest launches in the UK and a significant step in building a broader category where visual music culture is valued as art.”
Credit: Universal Music Group UK
According to UMG UK, Pause’s process of turning single frames from music videos is “meticulous”. First, the grading team undertakes colour and visual enhancement of the music video, after which test prints are created and run through numerous cycles to achieve the best colour on paper.
Then, digital enhancements are made to improve the sharpening and resolution of the still, in order to find the perfect balance between the original video and a high-quality print.
Pause’s A3 pieces are printed on a 360gsm acid-free paper from the Italian papermill, Fedrigoni, while A2 artworks are printed on archival, heavyweight Hahnemuhle photo rag paper, regarded as the gold standard for gallery-quality fine art prints. Each piece comes with a certificate of authenticity, and where applicable, is offered hand-signed and hand-stamped by the artist.
“The beauty of Pause and what excites us about the proposition is that it is easy to articulate to artists, management and fans alike, everyone gets it and recognises the value,” says James Wheatley, Senior Director, Commercial Development & Technology, Universal Music Group.
“To be able to choose a favourite moment from the artist you love as a one-of-one art piece that no-one else can ever own feels truly special. Amy Winehouse’s legacy continues to resonate across generations, and we’re excited to give fans a new way to connect with her work. It’s about celebrating the creativity and artistry that went into her music videos, and recognising music videos as an important cultural medium in their own right.” 
Learn more about Pause and shop the Amy Winehouse You Know I’m No Good collection at pause.studio.
The post Meet Pause – the London studio turning single music video frames into collectible art prints appeared first on MusicTech.

XLN Audio releases a FREE Black Friday drum sample pack
XLN Audio has released a free Black Friday drum sample pack, a compact 36 MB collection of WAV samples and loops sourced from the new Hip Hop and Gospel expansion for Addictive Drums 2. It’s a simple download from the XLN Audio website, with no registration, checkout, or email forms. Just visit the page, press [...]
View post: XLN Audio releases a FREE Black Friday drum sample pack

Vain Audio releases PFT, a deep stereo filter playground (BPB readers get 50% OFF)
Vain Audio has released PFT, a versatile stereo filter plugin for Windows and macOS that focuses on detailed modulation and motion. Also, BPB readers get an exclusive 50% OFF with the coupon code BPB. PFT is a multi-filter powerhouse built for sound designers who want precise control over movement. You get three sequential filters, each [...]
View post: Vain Audio releases PFT, a deep stereo filter playground (BPB readers get 50% OFF)

Is This The Future of Superfandom?This week, Ari is joined by Matt Jones who shares how artists can own their fan relationships through the new app, Medallion.