UVI Select Bundle is now 89% off until 22 JanuaryUVI is offering an 89 percent discount on its Select Bundle, a collection of 10 software instruments and an effect, until 22 January.

READ MORE: Best new mixing plugins, effects and VST instruments out this week

The bundle is made up of forward-thinking instruments such as a hybrid orchestra and modern-sounding synths alongside high-quality emulations of vintage gear. There’s also a cool filter effect called Shade.
The Augmented Orchestra is arguably one of the headliners of this bundle, offering an expansive hybrid orchestra with over 400 meticulously crafted instrument layers. You can jump into a rich library of hand-crafted presets or craft your own. UVI describes it as an “expansive sonic playground ready to spark inspiration for breathtaking soundscapes”.

Emulation II+ pays homage to the 1980s by offering three iconic sampler synths and an expansive lo-fi drum machine. Featuring original sounds recorded from vintage hardware alongside loads of newly designed ones, this suite allows users to either play each synth individually or layer them for an immersive sonic experience.
The FM Suite introduces a set of five instruments that offer an extensive range of vintage FM sounds, faithfully capturing the essence of analogue originals like the Yamaha dual 6-operator DX1, the 8-operator FVX-1, the early GS2, the DX7, and more.
Included in the bundle are additional gems such as IRCAM Prepared Piano 2 – a distinctive instrument recorded on a grand piano at the IRCAM Institute in Paris, allowing for experimental exploration of piano sounds through customisable arpeggiators.
Also, Meteor offers a creative toolset delivering rich, layered swells, dramatic crescendos, and impactful sounds. Nagoya Harp transcends genres with over 20,000 samples and unique performance scripts, while Quadra presents a powerful four-part multi-instrument and sequence designer ideal for dynamic, rhythmic, and evolving sequences based on muted and harmonic sounds.
Credit: UVI
Shade is a filtering tool that blurs conventional boundaries between equalisers, filtering, and modulation effects. With 35 filter shapes and 10 modulators.
Synth Anthology 4 comprises 200 hardware synths with professionally designed patches and well-developed performance controls, offering an authentic hardware sound in an easy-to-use interface.
Whoosh is an interesting synth that generates movement, wind, and whoosh-type effects with customizable layers, while finally the 8-Bit Synth, inspired by vintage computers and gaming systems, provides a collection of sound samples for producers seeking nostalgic sonics.
The offer takes the price of the bundle, originally £1619, down to just £179.
Check it out at UVI.
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From Universal’s busy week to BMG’s pivot away from live music… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpFive of the biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days
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“We’ve started making some music and I’m really excited about it”: Romy confirms The xx are back in the studioIt’s official –  indie rockers The xx are back in the studio.
It’s been 7 years since 2017’s I See You, but Romy has confirmed the group are together again working on new music. Speaking to NME at the Beyond The Valley festival in Australia, the singer revealed that she was back in the studio with her bandmates.

READ MORE: Producers: these songs are now in the public domain and free to sample

“Yeah it’s fun,” she said. “It’s quite different being in the studio with The xx. I think Oliver [Sim] and Jamie [xx] and I have all tried new things and learned a lot from different projects and I think that’s quite healthy.”
“[It’s like], ‘What have you learned? What should we do now?’,” she continues. “I think it’s quite wide open and it’s exciting to be starting again, in a way. But we’ve started making some music and I’m really excited about it.”
“It’s still pretty early [but] I still think you’ll be able to tell it’s us but I think we’re excited to move it on and keep it feeling fresh.”

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While the group haven’t released an album since 2017, they’ve still been working together on other projects. Jamie xx and Romy recently worked together on Romy’s solo debut, Mid-Air, as well as Jamie producing Oliver Sim’s 2022 debut Hideous Bastard.
Speaking to Apple Music 1, Romy recently discussed what a potential new record may sound like. “No idea,” she admitted. “We have a laugh about it together though. If you get some trance pads from me, and Oliver wailing and then Jamie with really hectic drums. We were laughing. But I think that we have a lot of love for the sound we create with The xx.”
Romy says that time apart was healthy for the group. Creatively, she found she had learned a lot from collaborating with the likes of Fred again.. and others, and reflected in an interview with NME that she was excited “to offer Oliver and Jamie everything I have harvested”.
The post “We’ve started making some music and I’m really excited about it”: Romy confirms The xx are back in the studio appeared first on MusicTech.

Swarm Reverb is more of Minimal Audio at its best$49/from $10 per month as part of Current All Access subscription, minimal.audio
It takes a lot to stand out from the software developer crowd these days, thanks to myriad audio companies entering the plugin fray. Minimal Audio has made a name for itself with a clutch of well-received effects plugins and one synthesizer. Minimal is steadily building up a collection of music production gems, with distortion, delay, compression, and EQ plugins already represented. You can tick reverb off the list now as well, as Minimal Audio has just dropped the Swarm Reverb.

READ MORE: Best free plugins and freeware of the month

With a similar aesthetic to its other software and a welcome focus on sound design, it’s sure to be a hit with the Minimal Audio faithful. The question, however, is whether Swarm Reverb offers enough to get the rest of us to open our wallets.

Swarm breaks out
If Swarm Reverb looks familiar, it should. It first debuted as part of the effects suite in Current, Minimal Audio’s flagship synthesizer. Current is a stellar instrument. It’s a shame that the controversy surrounding the company’s subscription-based release strategy overshadowed its merits though. Now that things have calmed down (and the synth is available to purchase outright or as part of the Current All Access subscription plan), we can appreciate it for what it is: a solid, great-sounding synth.
Part of Current’s appeal is the effects section. Minimal Audio made its name with effects like Rift, after all, so it makes sense that any instrument bearing the same name would excel in this department; and one that especially piqued our interest was the Swarm Reverb.
As an algorithmic reverb, Swarm refreshingly isn’t an attempted emulation of hardware. The unique selling point is the way that it separates early and late reflection sections, offering a degree of control over the reverb’s constituent parts that is comprehensive without being overwhelming. Favour the early reflections and you almost have a delay. Go the other way for cloudy, dense reverbs. Blend them together for the best of both worlds. This all results in a plugin that excels at both standard reverb jobs — whack it on the vocal bus and you’re good to go — as well as sound design.
Minimal Audio Swarm Reverb Ice Cold demo
Looks can be deceiving
At first blush, Swarm Reverb looks fairly basic. The lack of controls, however, belies the degree of control that you actually have over the signal. Kudos to Minimal Audio, then, for creating an effects plugin that is simple to operate but still provides oodles of adjustability.
As mentioned, Swarm Reverb separates things into early and late reflections. Early reflections are the first few reflected sounds that return to your ears after an initial burst of sound, while late reflections are the wash that comes after; the cloud of sound that decays into silence. The two are represented by a graphic in the centre of the user interface.
Purple horizontal lines display the early reflections while the late ones are depicted as transparent light tapering towards the right. Altering the controls moves the bars and light, offering valuable visual feedback.
Minimal Audio Swarm Reverb Dark Glistener demo
Take control
Swarm provides controls for pretty much anything worth tweaking. There’s pre-delay (the short pause between the source sound and the onset of the reverb), with the convenient ability to make adjustments in either milliseconds or beat increments synced to DAW tempo. Rhythmic effects, ahoy. There’s even a feedback setting to create delay-like effects from pre-delay echoes.
There’s plenty of unique and convenient control over other aspects as well, such as attack for early reflections, effectively giving you amplitude envelope control over them. Combine this with Size to set the dimensions of the virtual room you’re creating. Use the width percentage to push the reverb effect into the stereo spectrum, plus modulation controls to set the whole thing in motion.
On the late reflections side, you can adjust decay, damping and the amount of diffusion plus the balance between early and late sections.
There’s more – including a high pass and low pass input filter, as well as a graphic-based diffusion output filter. Handy to have is the ducker, which is useful for vocals and drums. Interestingly, you can uncouple the input gain from the volume of the dry signal, which helps when automating effects. Wrapping things up are a dedicated dry/wet slider plus a soft clipper on the output with two modes.
Minimal Audio Swarm Reverb Cell Storm demo
Killer verbs on the swarm
With controls where you need them, we find Swarm Reverb allows us to craft pretty much any kind of reverberation a track requires. It can do long, yes, with effectively infinite tails possible (just watch your CPU use, as long tails can really tax the processor). It also excels at short verbs, making Swarm our new go-to for rooms. With its time-synced pre-delay and ducker parameters, the plugin is perfect not only for single drum hits but even on the bus. Wild or controlled, sober or psychedelic, Swarm Reverb can do it all.
And, with the immediate visual feedback, sound design is a breeze. Swarm Reverb may be the most intuitive reverb we’ve ever used.
Minimal Audio Swarm Reverb Nebulae demo
Intuitive and great-sounding
Swarm Reverb is not perfect. The presets are fun but many of them tend towards the freaky-deaky sound design type — it could do with a few more general use presets. And while we like the random preset button, which pulls a preset out by chance, a random button for the general settings could be fun too. We also noticed a few small bugs, such as the slight resizing of sliders and knobs while in motion but hopefully this will be fixed in a future update.
These are just quibbles, though. Minimal Audio’s Swarm Reverb is an intuitive, great-sounding and ultimately fun-to-use reverberation plugin. By separating early and late reflections, it provides a unique degree of control, excelling at both general purpose and sound design tasks and it looks great doing it. And we haven’t even mentioned the price. At $49, it’s practically a done deal. Minimal Audio has done it again.
Minimal Audio Swarm Reverb Large Room demo
Key features

VST/VST3/AU/AAX plugin
Algorithmic reverb that splits the signal into early and late reflection sections
Syncable pre-delay
Input and diffusion filters
Ducker
Modulation
Control attack, size and width of early reflections
Vary decay, damping and amount of diffusion of late reflections
Adjust balance between early and late reflections
Dry/wet slider, input and output controls
Soft clip limiter
Also available as part of the Current All Access subscription plan

The post Swarm Reverb is more of Minimal Audio at its best appeared first on MusicTech.

A look at Stimming’s hardware-driven production setup in 2024
We’re back with How I Play two-time veteran and German musician Stimming (check out his original episode, as well as his most recent How I Play featuring his Instant Mastering Chain). This time we’re taking a look at his intricate production process for his newest album Elderberry, released this fall on Awesome Soundwave. We sat […]
The post A look at Stimming’s hardware-driven production setup in 2024 appeared first on DJ TechTools.

Sonicware unveil LIVEN Mega Synthesis Sonicware's new synthesizer faithfully recreates the sound engine used in the world's first 16-bit video game console.

Gateway Studios celebrates 2023 accomplishments
With a growing team of live music professionals, St. Louis based company Gateway Studios & Production Services has provided exceptional lighting, video, audio and more services for a wide range of musicians and events.
Ahead of a state-of-the-art rehearsal studio it will open in St. Louis later this year, Gateway Studios & Production Services reflects on all of its accomplishments in 2023, stating: "What a year! Looking back on 2023, we are proud of all our team has accomplished. While we are celebrating this past year's hard work, we know we are just getting started. A huge thank you to all our amazing clients this year."
Here are a just few of our 2023 Year Highlights:
Greta Van Fleet
Starcatcher World Tour
Video
Gov Ball NYC
2023 Governors Ball
AVL
PBR
World Finals
Video + Lighting

Gov Ball NYC
2023 Governors Ball
AVL
 

The Cliburn
International Junior Piano Competition
Video
 

Erykah Badu
Unfollow Me Tour
Lighting
 

The Doobie Brothers
Official 50th Anniversary Tour
Lighting

Phish
Summer Tour
Video + Lighting

LL Cool J

Rock The Bells Festival / The F.O.R.C.E. Tour

AVL

ODESZA

Festival Run / The Last Goodbye Tour

Video

Goose

Goosemas 10

Video + Lighting

About Gateway Studios and Production Services:

Gateway Studios & Production Services (GSPS) was conceived in 2020 and assembled a team of professionals to build a world-class live touring rehearsal complex and production services company from the ground up. They were challenged to develop one of the most advanced production services platforms currently available and a rehearsal studio campus that is unrivaled in the industry. GSPS has now broken ground, and soon this campus will provide multiple studios of varying dimensions where live music productions will be created and launched across North America.

Gateway Studios’ Executive Leadership Team has over 100 years of collective experience in the live touring production industry providing professional audio, video and lighting services for live events and tours. Gateway offers production services for a wide variety of live events ranging from small shows to national tours headlined by the biggest names in the business. From corporate venues to outdoor arenas and stadiums, there isn’t a venue type that GSPS doesn't have experience with — or a road they haven’t traveled. 

EV startup Fisker struggling to meet internal sales goals, documents showFisker remains far from meeting CEO and founder Henrik Fisker’s publicly stated goal of delivering 300 electric SUVs per day globally, according to internal documents viewed by TechCrunch. The EV startup spent much of December aiming to meet an internal sales goal of between 100 and 200 vehicles a day in North America, where the […]
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7 Collections for sparking new ideas for your music in 2024
We've compiled seven top-notch public Collections from expert artists and sound designers that can get your creative juices flowing in 2024.

Function Loops Releases FREE Psytrance Bass ROMpler
Function Loops released Psytrance Bass, a free bass rompler plugin for Windows and macOS. Following up on last month’s great collection of freebies, we welcome 2024 with new good ones. Function Loops has just released a free ROMpler VST for Windows and macOS called Psytrance Bass. Psytrance Bass is a multi-sampled VST instrument featuring 40 professionally [...]
View post: Function Loops Releases FREE Psytrance Bass ROMpler

Universal’s Virgin Music Group acquires Saban Music LatinVirgin Music Group will acquire Saban Music Latin’s catalog and will also release future albums by selected Saban Music Latin’s artists
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India’s music publishing business held back by lack of copyright compliance, legal uncertainty (report)Music publishing revenues grew 2.5-fold in India in the past three years, but future growth will depend on addressing the country's copyright issues, EY says.
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Plugin Boutique Offers FREE Plugins With Any Purchase In January
Plugin Boutique offers a free copy of Harmonic Lite or Choric Quartet with any active purchase until the end of January. If you purchase any product at Plugin Boutique this month, don’t miss the opportunity to add another free plugin to your order. Let’s take a closer look at the two available gifts. Motion: Harmonic [...]
View post: Plugin Boutique Offers FREE Plugins With Any Purchase In January

Spotify has ‘Preferred’ music distributors. Are you using one?While it’s possible to use any one of dozens of companies to get your music on Spotify, the streamer names some distributors as “Preferred” and shares a list publically of. Continue reading
The post Spotify has ‘Preferred’ music distributors. Are you using one? appeared first on Hypebot.

Elvis set to return to the stage in immersive concert experience powered by AIAI has brought many exciting opportunities for artists who are no longer with us or have retired, whether that be recovering lost takes of John Lennon or reimagining ABBA performances.
Elvis Presley’s team are finally utilising this new technology to create an immersive show that will see a digital version of Presley taking to the stage, performing ‘live’ in concert.

READ MORE: LG’s forthcoming ‘smart home AI agent’ plays music based on your mood when you come home

The show, named Elvis Evolution, is being created and developed by Layered Reality, whose previous credits include immersive shows such as The Gunpowder Plot and War Of The Worlds.
It will premiere in London, before moving on to “multiple global cities”, which are speculated to be Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo.
Elvis Evolution was born out of a deal between Layered Reality and Authentic Brands Group, owner of the Elvis Presley estate. As well as this, the British company has been given access to thousands of the star’s personal photos and hours of home-videos to create the new performances using AI, according to Reuters.
“The King of Rock’n’Roll is back!” says CEO of Layered Reality Andrew McGuinness in a promotional video. “In November of 2024, we are bring an Elvis immersive experience, which harnesses AI, to London and then taking it across the world.
“You’re going to go on a journey and understand what Elvis went through in his life. The end of the performance is a real crescendo where you see a life-sized Elvis in AI perform some of his biggest hits”
Layered Reality has claimed that this experience is only possible because of it’s “unique blend of technology, augmented reality, theatre, projection and multi-sensory effects”.
As well as this, the London venue will also host an after party as it’s Elvis-themed restaurant and bar.
Tickets are not yet available, but you can join the waitlist at Layered Evolution.
The post Elvis set to return to the stage in immersive concert experience powered by AI appeared first on MusicTech.