Peel Stems 2 from zplane Peel Stems 2 boasts improvements across the board, offering increased speed, audio quality and usability over the previous version.

How Lee “Scratch” Perry taught Mouse on Mars to stop controlling soundLee “Scratch” Perry may be one of the most quietly influential producers in history. Upon his death in 2021 at the age of 85, numerous publications rushed to elucidate his indelible contributions to music. His vast catalog includes works with everyone from Bob Marley to The Clash and Beastie Boys. Then he was one of the first to experiment with recording a toaster speaking over a beat, which was the precursor to an artform known as rapping.
Perry’s final album, Spatial, No Problem (2026), came to life in the Berlin studio of the electronic experts, Mouse on Mars. Given how ostensibly different Perry’s production on Bob Marley’s Soul Rebels (1970) sounds from Mouse on Mars’ Iaora Tahiti (1995), it doesn’t seem to make sense that these cross-continental musicians worked together.

READ MORE: How Auntie Flo’s Plants Can Dance compilation celebrates a new species of producers

Well, it still doesn’t make sense to Mouse on Mars either.
“I don’t know if he had ever heard of Mouse on Mars,” says Jan Werner, half of the duo. He mentions a friend of theirs who “constantly connects people” and who knew Perry, but he’s not sure if that was what brought them together. “I don’t know why Lee came, to be honest.”
Regardless, Perry did make the trip to Germany, and he was ready to work right when Andi Toma, the other half of Mouse on Mars, picked him up upon arrival from the US to Berlin. Other than being shocked at the stamina of this octogenarian, Perry was forcing them to violate their agreed-upon condition of his presence.
Lee “Scratch” Perry and Mouse on Mars. Image: Constantin Carstens
“We had one assignment. We could work with him for three hours per day. [Perry’s wife Mireille told us] ‘Please take care. ‘He’s an old guy. I want him back complete.’ Unfortunately, it was not possible to stick to this,” Werner says. They worked until the early hours of the morning, and Perry assured them he would be ready again by 10 am. the next day.
The experience was already surpassing all their expectations. “He was basically more durable than us. We were more 80 years old than Lee,” Werner admits. Then Perry flouted another when he started making music outside the reggae spectrum.
“We perceived him much more as a conceptual artist than a representational figure of a specific genre or even music in general,” Werner says. “The guy was just a catalyst for everything that human beings can produce that isn’t shitty.”
Spatial, No Problem isn’t a reggae album or an electronic album. The only constant is Perry’s voice, whether it’s delivering clear messages or floating around the edges. Song structure is not a concern. There are no verses, choruses, or much of any repetition. Some of the tracks even sound like jams.
“Everything is a first take,” Werner says. “It wasn’t like, ‘1, 2, 3, 4, let’s jam.’ It was listening to what we had already recorded, and a new idea would come.”
Horn choirs subtly raise the temperature of Fire Dali as Perry beckons them: “More fire! More fire!” Spatialee leans into Mouse on Mars’ electronic palette with synth drips and drops, gradually expanding into ambient metallics. Economic Train cacophonizes both of these qualities over loose, flailing drums.
Lee “Scratch” Perry. Image: Constantin Carstens
Perry was the leader of this relaxed, yet explorative approach. He rarely gave specific directions, instead encouraging everyone to listen instead of play.
“It was much more about stepping back and trying to understand what happened. Contributing something whenever it seemed appropriate,” Werner says.
Usually, Werner and Toma fall into the endless pit of manipulating the knobs to find a sound they deem worthy of Mouse on Mars. Perry alleviated this pressure by reminding them to trust themselves.
“Control versus trust,” is how Werner describes it, then linking trust to another essential concept for creative success: self-confidence. “You cannot trust when you’re unsure, unstable, or in panic mode. If you’re really rooted in yourself, you can let things happen. You’re open to the unexpected, and that is what Lee brought.”
There were moments when trust played out more literally. When the studio was truly packed with people, sometimes Werner and Toma were handed cables without knowing the source of the sound. If they wanted to trace it back, they would be disrupting the creativity happening in the moment.
Mouse on Mars. Image: Roberto Andrés Zamora Figueroa
“We had to listen to a lot of those recordings, figuring out what is actually on those tracks,” Werner says. One time, he actually followed a cable, which led to what looked like a cigar box with rubber bands. “It was like a bass type of instrument. I don’t know.”
With this philosophy of letting go, Werner and Toma used a lot of room mics to capture everything happening in the studio. While everyone was listening and recording, Perry was floating through the space. They needed to capture him wherever he went.
“Let’s have as many microphones as possible, because you don’t know if Lee will move around, or what’s going to happen. Let’s just see that we can record as much as possible,” Werner explains. When he talks about Perry “moving,” he doesn’t just mean within one room. Perry went to different rooms with different mics set up. Some had six. Others had one. “The album is totally crafted as a stereo production, but it really transcends the idea that when you try to control sound, it always goes wrong.”
The only option to relinquish as much control as possible was to present the album in spatial audio. Yet ironically, a lot of spatial productions do incur a significant element of control. Mics are often placed in specific parts of the room to have an individual channel for the complete 9.1.4 configuration (which is a very common setup for Dolby Atmos spatial recordings).
However, in the case of this album, the title says it all: Spatial, No Problem. Perry said those exact words to Werner and Toma during the session, and the spirit of his workflow allowed them immense freedom when they were processing the album into immersive audio.

“The room is basically the mixer. We don’t have to mix to stereo. We can just assign sounds to different locations,” Werner says.
If Lee was moving around the room, they could have his audio encircling the space. If he was lying down, they could accommodate that, too. Not to mention all the unknown sounds they dug up in the recordings. They had no idea what the source was, so they had no idea where it originated in the room. Where it fit in the 3D spatial rendering was completely at their behest. Sometimes they even lost track of the downbeat.
“You just have to jump into this vagueness, somehow. It’s all variables. None of that shit is really controllable,” Werner says. “If you do object-based mixing, you can try to comprehend all these aspects of sound, and do the narration, spatially.”
Lee “Scratch” Perry was the narrator of this album, one last time. But then again, maybe not.
“Sometimes, we wanted to get a clearer voice of Lee, so we sent him through some AI tools,” Werner says. “We asked Mireille if it was okay to do this. Because if you feed an AI the voice of whoever, it’s in the machine. And she was like, ‘Lee would have loved this. He wanted to be a machine.’”
The post How Lee “Scratch” Perry taught Mouse on Mars to stop controlling sound appeared first on MusicTech.

I swapped Ableton Live for Fender’s Studio Pro 8.1 DAW – but is it compelling enough for the change to stick?Perpetual license (with one year of updates): £170
Perpetual license upgrade: £90
Pro+ annual subscription plus perpetual license: £160
Pro+ monthly subscription: £20
fender.com
Studio Pro 8.1 arrives with baggage. Once known as PreSonus’ Studio One, Fender’s acquisition of the audio brand in 2021 is firmly reshaping the production community’s perception of its flagship DAW. We’re now at the second major version under the guitar titan’s stewardship, and the 2026 rebrand to Studio Pro certainly ruffled some feathers.

READ MORE: I swapped Ableton Live for Renoise 3.5 — here’s what I learned

Studio One 7 previously received a mixed response from long-term users, particularly around update cadence and a revised pricing model. Others had concerns about the DAW’s future – would Fender preserve Studio One’s depth, or reshape it into something simpler and more commercially convenient?
Fortunately, with plenty of new features and workflow improvements, 8.1 hardly seems the work of a company stripping things back. As an Ableton Live evangelist myself, I have no pre-existing skin in the game – could Studio Pro 8.1 make me jump ship?

First impressions and Studio Assistant
Opening Studio Pro 8.1 for the first time, I’m thrown off slightly. I’m used to Ableton’s tight immediacy; Studio Pro feels broader and more configurable from the off.
Fortunately, I’m not entirely on my own. One of 8.1’s main additions is Studio Assistant, a chatbot currently in beta that’s part interactive manual, part creative collaborator. It requires a Studio Pro+ subscription, but as someone learning the DAW from scratch, I’m glad to have my hand held through the process – even if it is by an LLM.
Having seen the feature demonstrated at the Studio Pro 8.1 launch event, I’m optimistic that I’ll be fast-tracked through orientation.
Studio Assistant. Image: James Langley
I start simply, attempting to create an eight-bar loop, and Studio Assistant’s main shortcoming immediately reveals itself: no images. It tells me the name of the button I need, but not what it looks like, and there are certainly plenty to choose from. Other times, it misunderstands my question, misses a small detail, or is sluggish to reply.
Later, Studio Assistant helps me enable my QWERTY keyboard for note entry. That’s often default behaviour in other DAWs, but here it must be configured as an external device first. It speaks volumes of Studio Pro’s design: powerfully flexible, but in a way that sometimes puts small hurdles in front of newcomers.
For now, Studio Assistant can only instruct; it can’t take action inside the DAW, which feels like the obvious next step.
Studio Pro interface and workflow improvements
The transformation from Studio One 7 to Studio Pro 8 included a minor facelift on top of the rebrand. The visual change isn’t a full redesign – but there are two more meaningful enhancements.
Arrangement Overview provides a tactile way to navigate large sessions, while Channel Overview puts control of your entire signal chain alongside the timeline. Direct access to all your devices from a single panel is a serious timesaver, removing the need to open separate plugin windows to tweak settings.
Workflow improvements. Image: James Langley
The Clip Launcher added in Studio One 7 continues to provide a more performance-friendly, idea-sketching dimension, while smaller touches—like the option to use a drum loop as your metronome—make Studio Pro feel particularly welcoming to songwriters.
I really like Fender’s approach to workflow. Nothing is forced upon you: Studio Pro gives you the tools, lets you use as many or as few as you please, and even lets you hide the ones you don’t need entirely.
Other handy refinements in 8.1 include pitch curves directly on audio events, and improved Extract Beats and Extract Notes algorithms. Some changes may feel overdue, but it’s a positive sign that Fender is listening to the existing user base.
Moises integration
In Studio Pro 8.1, Fender’s masterstroke is a partnership with Moises, bringing its cloud-powered AI tools straight into the DAW: stem separation, stem generation, and voice replacement.
The native stem separation introduced in Studio One 7 remains available, but Moises is a clear step up. In fact, it’s among the best I’ve heard, producing surprisingly clear results with minimal artefacts.
While stem separation may have its more questionable uses, for personal study it’s invaluable: I’ve learnt tremendous amounts about arrangement, sound design, and mixing by breaking existing songs into their constituent parts.
Voice replacement is also impressive, if slightly uncanny, though you’ll need to use a clean performance for the best results – I have to further split my isolated vocal stem into lead and backing for my new singer, Amelia, to sound her most convincing.
Moises. Image: James Langley
Stem generation is more of a mixed bag, requiring several rounds of prompting before I get something workable, but the concept is powerful. It feels like sample hunting on Splice, but the sounds are entirely unique and context-aware.
What makes these tools especially compelling is how seamlessly they’re integrated. Although Moises is also available via the web, Studio Pro eliminates the tedium of exporting and uploading audio, processing and downloading it, and lining it back up on the grid.
Here, it’s all completed in a couple of clicks, with a convenience that makes the tech feel less like a utility and more like a genuine creative tool.
Love them or hate them, in-the-DAW AI features are already table stakes, and given Moises’ quality, Studio Pro 8.1 may now be leading the pack.
New effects for guitar and voice
With Fender taking over, a stronger guitar-centric offering was only a matter of time. Studio Pro boasts Mustang Native and Rumble Native, dual smorgasbords of amps and effects pedals for guitar and bass.
The interface is clunky, forcing me to swipe through amps and effects one at a time, but I quickly forgive that once my guitar is chiming through a Deluxe Reverb. Unsurprisingly, Fender’s own amp models are the standouts, particularly for cleaner sounds. High-gain tones are workable too, albeit with the slightly brittle fizz heard in many amp sims.
Mustang Native. Image: James Langley
The effects are the biggest joy. In particular, the 2290- and Space Echo-inspired delays sound fantastic. I quickly regress into a teenager in a guitar shop, patching ridiculous pedal chains into shoegazing walls of sound.
As for vocals, Studio Pro 8 introduced Voice FX, a six-piece suite for more creative vocal processing that aids compatibility with the Fender Studio mobile app. It’s not especially remarkable, and as it stands, you can only use one effect at a time within a single plugin instance.
More useful is 8.1’s new Vocal Tune plugin, capable of highly natural pitch correction all the way to aggressive, robotic hard tuning. Want to get more surgical? Studio Pro 8.1 continues to include a Melodyne Essential licence, which usually costs €99 by itself.
Alternatives to Fender Studio Pro
Today, choosing a DAW is mostly a question of personality, as raw feature sets are broadly comparable. Logic Pro is the obvious value play for Mac users, while Cubase is the closest rival for composers and post-production workflows. Ableton Live still leads for performance-led creation, and Bitwig Studio remains the more experimental playground for sound designers.
Studio Pro 8.1 is competitively priced, with its £170 perpetual licence including almost every core feature and one year of updates. For those who want to fully buy into Fender’s platform, a £160 annual subscription adds Studio Assistant, the Notion scoring software, the Fender Studio mobile app, cloud-based storage, collaboration tools, and extra bundled content.
All things considered, the best DAW buying advice remains simple: pick one, learn it inside out, and move on to more important things – like actually creating music.

Should I buy Fender Studio Pro 8.1?
I’m highly impressed with Studio Pro. It’s a seriously powerful production environment, with more than enough depth to serve as the centre of a professional setup.
Will I swap from Ableton? Not outright, no. I’m simply too entrenched to justify learning another DAW from scratch – but were I choosing a platform today, I’d happily use Studio Pro.
And while I’ve tried plenty of other DAWs over the years, Fender’s is the first to earn a permanent place in my setup, primarily for Moises’ convincing stem separation. The more traditional studio workflow feels better suited to tasks like mixing and mastering as well.
To an outsider at least, the Fender rebrand is not an existential threat. If anything, the 8.1 update is reassuring evidence that the DAW remains in capable hands. For anyone choosing a new DAW, Studio Pro is easier than ever to recommend.

Key Features

Full suite of tools for recording, mixing, and mastering
39 guitar amps in Mustang Native and 18 bass amps in Rumble Native
New Moises Studio integration in addition to native stem separation
New Vocal Tune plugin
New Studio Assistant chatbot (Pro+ subscribers only)
Channel Overview panel for accessing device parameters
9 virtual instruments
Over 45 native effects
Splice integration
Clip Launcher view
Native vocal tuning plus Melodyne integration

The post I swapped Ableton Live for Fender’s Studio Pro 8.1 DAW – but is it compelling enough for the change to stick? appeared first on MusicTech.

How Major Label A&R Has Evolved and How Hit Songs Are WrittenThis week, Ari is joined by legendary A&R executive Pete Ganbarg to discuss artist development, hit songs, publishing, and AI.

Hell Yes Loop Lab Ears and EarsEars and Ears is a standalone application for comparing mixes, masters and reference tracks without being misled by loudness. Load up to eight audio files, switch between versions instantly and use Fair Compare to match playback to the quietest loaded file. Louder files are turned down rather than quieter files being boosted, helping remove the common impression that a version sounds better simply because it is louder. Ears and Ears includes LUFS and True Peak readouts, streaming loudness previews, a Focus Loop for comparing the same musical section across multiple versions, waveform navigation, Find Hot Spot and The One marker for identifying the preferred version. It does not master, limit, normalize, export or modify the original audio files. It is a focused listening tool designed to make mix, master and reference comparison faster, clearer and more honest. Main features: • Compare up to eight audio files • Instant switching between versions • Fair Compare loudness matching • LUFS and True Peak readouts • Streaming loudness preview • Focus Loop with Set In and Set Out • Waveform navigation • Find Hot Spot • The One marker • Standalone operation with no DAW required. Supported formats include WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3 and M4A. Available for macOS and Windows. Read More

OpenAI’s new flagship model deletes files on its own, people keep warningA number of social media posts claim that GPT-5.6 Sol deleted files and data without warning. OpenAI had basically disclosed the problem in June.

Three US senators oppose CLARITY Act on ethics grounds with vote expected soonSenate Majority Leader John Thune reportedly said the chamber will consider a vote on the crypto market structure bill before Aug. 10, though it’s unclear whether it has enough Democratic support to pass.

How to get a dream pop guitar tone
Learn how to craft a guitar tone that's perfect for dream pop via our step-by-step guide.

The Neo Geo Does Run DOOM After AllDemonstration of the DoomGeo port of Doom to the Neo Geo. (Credit: Sabino, GitHub)
Perhaps the most ridiculous statement that anyone can make is that a computer system with clearly enough processing power ‘cannot run DOOM‘. This is why we accept the premise that a PDP-11 cannot run this game, but something on the order of a Neo Geo gaming console with its 68000 processor and for the time impressive GPU definitely ought to be able to.
The stated problem here is a lack of RAM for a framebuffer, with the CPU only having 64 kB to play with. This limitation now has seen two different approaches to try and circumvent it, as covered by [Modern Vintage Gamer].
The first project here is Doom64kB, which as the name suggests tries to somehow work with this system RAM limitation. It uses the Doom8088 port for the original IBM PC and similar Intel 8088-based systems. This had to massively reduce the feature list, including the lack of texture mapping for floors and ceiling, no saving or loading, and no music.
The other project is DoomGeo, which doesn’t try to bend the Neo Geo hardware to its will, but accepts the Neo Geo way of doing things: involving sprite strips, pre-baked graphics, fix-layer UI, and a minimum of runtime data. This of course drastically changes how the Doom game engine normally works, with its framebuffer-based rendering.
From this we can thus conclude that it’s not so much the processing power that limits where DOOM can run, but more of how framebuffer-friendly the system architecture is, yet with some ingenuity and a complete rewrite of the game engine even that is no major obstacle.
(Top image: Neo Geo AES console. Credit: Evan-Amos, Wikimedia)

FIFA World Cup 2026: The Songs, the Stats, and Why “Goal” Is Music’s Real MVPAs the FIFA World Cup heads into its final stretch, a new data snapshot from LyricFind highlights something fans already know instinctively: the tournament doesn’t just dominate the pitch—it echoes through music across the globe.

Analyzing more than 17 million songs in its database, the company mapped out how football culture shows up in lyrics, from recurring themes to the players and countries artists reference most. The findings reveal a deep and lasting connection between the sport and the songs that surround it.

Among the most striking takeaways is the dominance of a single word: “goal.” Appearing more than 63,000 times, it stands as the most frequently used football-related term in lyrics.

Other commonly used terms include “champion” (17,800 mentions) and “World Cup” (1,100 mentions). The disparity suggests that while artists may not always reference the tournament directly, they consistently tap into its emotional core—victory, ambition, and the pursuit of greatness.

When it comes to players, Pelé remains the most referenced name in lyrics by a significant margin, with more than 33,000 mentions. His influence extends far beyond his playing career, cementing his legacy as both a sports and cultural icon.

He is followed by a roster of modern and historic greats, including Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, and Diego Maradona—names that continue to symbolize excellence across generations.

Several official and unofficial World Cup songs continue to hold a strong presence in global music culture.

Tracks like “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” “The Cup of Life,” and “Wavin’ Flag” have outlived their respective tournaments, continuing to chart and re-emerge in playlists during each World Cup cycle. Their longevity underscores how music can extend the life—and memory—of the event itself.

LyricFind’s VP of Marketing, Alex Bellissimo, emphasized the natural overlap between sport and music, noting, "Music and sport have always spoken the same language. The connection between passion, identity, and belonging runs deep through the World Cup and the songs people sing in the stands and listen to at home during and after the games. This infographic is our way of proving that football not only has an impact on lyrics, but it's a significant one. We're delighted to put a spotlight on it”

Ultimately, the data reinforces what fans experience every four years: the World Cup is as much a cultural event as it is a sporting one. Long after the final match concludes, its influence continues—playing out in lyrics, anthems, and the shared soundtrack of the global game.

Pelé photo by AFP/SCANPIX via NationalencyklopedinThe post FIFA World Cup 2026: The Songs, the Stats, and Why “Goal” Is Music’s Real MVP first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

AEG Presents expands Venue Development team, promoting Cameron Marcotte to VPAlongside Marcotte, Jake Hiersteiner and Mike Ryan have been promoted to Director roles, alongside three new hires.
Source

MUEDsp releases two FREE macOS mastering plugins
Developer MUEDsp has released two free macOS plugins, MUEDsat and MUEDlim. Both plugins are taken from MUEDsp masterchain, a mastering suite that is currently in development. According to the developer Atsushi, each plugin is an actual stage from the master-bus chain used by the developer, pulled out and made free. So basically, these are not [...]
View post: MUEDsp releases two FREE macOS mastering plugins

MAP Audio PAM is a deep pattern-based sampler with an exclusive BPB discount
MAP Audio’s PAM is a pattern-based sampler and drum-synth instrument for macOS and Windows, currently available with an exclusive 15% BPB discount. Use the coupon code BPB15 at checkout to get 15% off PAM until August 15. The regular price is $150, and MAP Audio also offers a rent-to-own option and a 7-day fully functional [...]
View post: MAP Audio PAM is a deep pattern-based sampler with an exclusive BPB discount

Launchkey MK4 88 joins Novation line-up Rounding off the Launchkey MK4 collection, the new arrival pairs a semi-weighted 88-note keybed with the DAW integration, built-in creative tools and intuitive workflow features offered by its 49- and 61-key siblings. 

Novation unveils new 88-key Launchkey MK4 controller – the largest keyboard in the MK4 range yetNovation’s on a roll: after launching a sleek white edition of its Launchkey 61 MK4 keyboard controller just last month, the company has expanded its Launchkey MK4 range even further with a new 88-key controller, which enters as the largest keyboard in the current lineup.
Boasting the same deep DAW integration, rich creative tools and intuitive workflow as the existing MK4 Launchkey 49 and 61 models, the Launchkey 88 arrives with an 88-key semi-weighted keybed. This means more than seven octaves to play with, plus full-size keys for a totally “expressive” experience.

READ MORE: “A new benchmark for bass”: Baby Audio SubCulture supercharges your bass while keeping it in tune with your track

The Launchkey 88 MK4 also features 16 velocity-sensitive pads with polyphonic aftertouch and Novation’s patented Force Sensitive Resistor technology – perfect for tapping drums or melodic instruments, even.
Like other keyboard controllers in the MK4 range, the new Launchkey 88 boasts a bank of nine precision faders and eight endless encoders, which map automatically to key parameters of supported NKS plugins and DAWS, including functions for transport, mixing and navigation.
Supported DAWS including Ableton Live, Logic, Cubase, FL Studio – which just launched its 2026 edition – Reason, Bitwig, and Ardour.

The keyboard also sports a raft of creative tools, including Arpeggiator and Chord Modes for easily creating musical progressions that make sense, a Scale Mode – which locks notes on the keyboard to a selected key, and Chord Detector, which displays the chord currently being played on the OLED display.
You can even split and layer the keyboard, too, meaning you can divide it into two independent zones, and layer two independent MIDI channels on top of one another and play them using the same keys.
And on the subject of MIDI, there’s also a full-sized MIDI out port so you can control synths and other hardware using the Launchkey 88 MK4.
Credit: Novation
The Launchkey 88 MK4 also comes with a suite of software instruments and tools, including Ableton Live Lite, Cubase LE, and Novation Play, an exclusive Novation software instrument based on sampled acoustic pianos, vintage synths, and “cutting-edge” sound design. There’s also a collection of instruments and effects from Klevgrand, GForce, Orchestral Tools and Native Instruments.
Following the launch of the white Launchkey 61 MK4 last month, the addition of the new Launchkey 88 MK4 means the MK4 range now spans 10 controllers across six different sizes and two colour options.
Price-wise, the Launchkey 88 MK4 clocks in at $449.99/£379.99. Learn more at Novation.
Credit: Novation
The post Novation unveils new 88-key Launchkey MK4 controller – the largest keyboard in the MK4 range yet appeared first on MusicTech.