Bad Apple on a Karaoke MachineCD+Graphics was a format that never really caught on. It let music discs pack some graphics, maybe liner notes, and mostly song lyrics into the otherwise empty space on a CD. It was never intended for displaying full-motion video, but that didn’t stop [Adam Gashlin] from getting a Bad Apple, with lyrics, running on any device that will play CD+G.
The main challenge is that CD+G gives you 300 screen commands per second, which is plenty for updating text on the 48×16 blocks as the lyrics scroll by. But if you want to send custom blocks and draw images, that’s 2.5 seconds per screen: a lousy framerate.
[Adam]’s first trick is to drop the resolution way down, which gets him into the 8 FPS range. Only update the blocks that change pushes this up to a respectable 17-20 FPS. But you can see the updates, and that’s distracting. It really needed buffering.
If you don’t know Bad Apple, it’s in black and white. And like many old graphics engines of the day, CD+G uses a dynamic palette of colors. [Adam] uses this to pack four frames into one, switching between them using palette swapping. (Absolutely check out his “rainbow” version of the video to see how the palette-swapping trick works.)
In the end, his demo has audio, triple-buffered video, and lyrics at 16.3 FPS. It’s slower than the fastest video-only version, but it looks so good, and [Adam]’s explanation of all of the graphics tricks he uses to get there is the real star of the show.
If you want to see Bad Apple running on yet more minimal hardware, how about a 16×2 LCD? Or a much more ridiculous implementation? How’s regexes in Vim for absurd? Got any Bad Apple hacks of your own? Let us know in the comments or the tips line. You can never have too many.

Get a free nostalgic synth pad for Splice INSTRUMENT
Download our free synth pad preset for Splice INSTRUMENT—grab these presets during the drop window and they’re yours to keep forever.

Native Instruments announce Super*Saw The newest addition to the Native Instruments line-up introduces a new synth created by A. G. Cook, a Grammy-winning British producer best known for his work with Charli XCX.

“The magic, consistency, and mystique of Rick Rubin really started to fall off”: music critic Anthony Fantano thinks producer Rick Rubin is ‘cringe’Rick Rubin’s approach to production is… controversial, let’s say. The producer’s self-confessed lack of technical ability and musical knowledge has resulted in a divisive, ‘vibes’-based instinct. Even within a single band, Rubin can be a very marmite character; while Kesha has cited Rubin as her most admired creative mind,  the Cult’s Billy Duffy thinks Rubin entirely lacks musicality.
Despite Rubin even penning a book in 2023 on his strange process, The Creative Act, countless musicians and journalists are beginning to question how strong his approach truly is. In fact, music critic Anthony Fantano is the latest to brand Rubin as ‘cringe’, arguing that Rubin is a producer he has grown “increasingly sceptical of” in recent years.

READ MORE: “Yeah, I swore at a Beatle!”: Phil Collins recalls how George Harrison’s prank left him “angry, depressed, sad”

While most people tend to critique Rubin’s lack of musical knowledge, Fantano instead argues that the quality of Rubin’s work has diminished as his fame has risen. As he puts it, Rubin seems to be coasting on the clout of his own name nowadays rather than consistently producing excellent records.
Fantano begins by noting his personal respect of Rubin’s work, calling him “one of the most significant big brains in the music industry ever” that has notably had a “direct hand in some of the most massive and significant success stories in popular music for the last 50 years”. However, Fantano argues that the 2010s marked the beginning of Rubin’s downfall. “Around this time period, I would argue the magic, consistency, and mystique of Rick Rubin really started to fall off,” he says.

There’s no denying that Rubin has been involved in some marvellous records – notably revitalising Johnny Cash’s career with 1994’s American Recordings, as well as producing System Of A Down’s 2001 release Toxicity and Beastie Boys’ 1986 album Licensed to Ill. However, Fantano insists that the subsequent “weak output” of work from 2010 onwards has flagged up “glaring issues and flaws” with Rubin’s production.
As Fantano says, it seems as if Rubin is focusing more on his rebrand as a “philosophical guru” than churning out quality records. Rather than accepting his role as a standard producer, Fantano critiques Rubin’s newfound hobby of “[hopping] on social media to post quotes of himself against white backgrounds” in an effort to “make the various things he says seem more important than they really are”.
Another qualm is Rubin’s love of AI. While a majority of the music industry has been at war with AI, Rubin has embraced it, even realising an interactive online AI book The Way Of Code: The Timeless Art Of Vibe Coding.

Last year, Rubin branded AI as “punk rock”, explaining on The Ben & Marc Show podcast that: “[With punk rock music], you didn’t need the expertise or skill set, other than your idea and your ability to convey it. And vibe coding is the same thing – it’s the punk rock of coding.”
It’s a stance that weirdly aligns with Rubin’s insistence that he has no musical knowledge, something he controversially wore as a badge of honour during a 2023 interview with 60 Minutes. “I’ve no technical ability,” he admitted. “And I know nothing about music. I know what I like and what I don’t like. I’m decisive about what I like and what I don’t like.”
Again, the interview and the AI-loving seems to add fuel to Fantano’s argument. As it stands, Rubin is embracing technology that is allows him to be even more hands-off in the studio, hanging the reins over to a computer. While none of this takes away from Rubin’s influence on music, it is certainly strange that Rubin is embracing his lack of knowledge and actively seeking ways to avoid learning about music to improve his craft.

The post “The magic, consistency, and mystique of Rick Rubin really started to fall off”: music critic Anthony Fantano thinks producer Rick Rubin is ‘cringe’ appeared first on MusicTech.

Suno scraped YouTube, Deezer to train AI, hacked code reveals – potentially strengthening UMG and Sony’s legal caseThe code was obtained by a hacker who breached Suno and shared it with 404 Media.
Source

Other Worlds Evolved from Zero G Described as  “a deeply interactive synthesis environment”, Other Worlds Evolved packs in a 4.6GB collection of cinematic samples created by sound designer Adam Pietruszko and offers a mixture of sampling and wavetable synthesis. 

A.G. Cook’s trademark supersaw sound has helped define modern pop music – now it’s wrapped up in a single soft synth from Native InstrumentsNative Instruments has launched Super*Saw, a software synthesizer created in partnership with Grammy-nominated, 2025 BRIT Producer of the Year, A.G. Cook.
Heard in some of Cook’s most notable work with Charli xcx, Beyoncé and Caroline Polachek, supersaws are essentially multiple sawtooth waves layered on top of one another and slightly detuned, and are a defining sound of contemporary pop music. Building them generally consists of painstaking manual layering, but with Super*Saw, Cook and NI look to get the supersaw sound into your hands right away.

READ MORE: Tom Oberheim: “The history books say I was involved in creating MIDI – that’s such a joke”

You can hear A.G. Cook’s trademark supersaw sound in Charli xcx’s 360, from around the 0:28 mark…

The new instrument is the result of two years worth of collaboration between Cook and Native Instruments, which worked directly from his patches and production sessions to create it.
At the instrument’s heart are two independent 16-saw oscillator banks, while a four-corner X/Y Morpher captures four distinct patch states and allows continuous interpolation between them. This transforms what would otherwise be extensive automation into a single performance gesture.
Super*Saw also features chord, scale and quantize tools, so you can ensure it’s harmonically and musically usable at all times. There is controlled off-grid deviation, though, if dissonance is actually what you’re after…
The instrument also features per-voice glide and offset controls, which handle the “liquid smears and stereo motion” key to A.G. Cook’s sound design.

While endlessly customisable, Super*Saw also comes with a vast preset library so you can get stuck right in, covering everything from “blissed-out harmonies, metallic dissonance, ravey leads, and impossible glides”.
Further features include built-in chorus, delay and reverb, as well as LP, BP and HP filters at 2-pole and 4-pole slopes. Additionally, Super*Saw also integrates with Native Instruments’ Komplete Kontrol keyboards and Maschine drum machine and sampler.
Super*Saw is available now, priced at $99/€99. For more info, head to Native Instruments.
The post A.G. Cook’s trademark supersaw sound has helped define modern pop music – now it’s wrapped up in a single soft synth from Native Instruments appeared first on MusicTech.

Sugoi Audio releases CURVA, a FREE football-inspired modulation plugin
From Sugoi Audio comes CURVA, a free football-inspired modulation plugin for macOS and Windows. There have been times over the years when I’ve felt like the best thing for the track I’m working on was to pick up my laptop and punt it from a great height to ensure the sound that I momentarily convinced [...]
View post: Sugoi Audio releases CURVA, a FREE football-inspired modulation plugin

Audio Spices shares new pitch-shifting reverb, Anise GlideAudio Spices, the company by accomplished producer Adi Rotem, has introduced a new pitch-shifting reverb plugin, Anise Glide.
Where many pitch-shifting reverbs are bound to the frequency settings, the Anise Glide lets the wet decay “glide” into the chosen pitch. This creates sonic motion to add some more colour to any audio source.
Several parameters within the plugin allow you to dial in the precise quality. The main adjustment to make within the app is the pitch. It has a full octave range on the higher and lower end. Turn it all the way down to create more depth or all the way up for more brightness. Then, by making more delicate adjustments, the pitch shift can add some sonic tension between dissonant frequencies for a more intriguing sound.

A sensitivity knob controls whether the motion will apply to the full signal or just the most pronounced tones. Four glide patterns can change the curve the frequencies will follow as they shift. There is a straight shot, two deeper bends, or an S curve.
The separate Glide knob determines how long it takes for the shifting to occur. At the fastest setting of 30ms, the new texture follows immediately as an interesting extension. But if it’s increased longer, the pitch shifting can overlap with incoming sounds as the song progresses for another experimental technique.
Anise Glide also includes two overarching settings that adjust how the entire plugin operates. Switch between Reverb 1 for “dense and smooth” textures, and Reverb 2 for “sparse and airy” qualities. Drift and Tuned dictate how rigid the shifting algorithm is in terms of the frequencies. Drift is looser, and Tuned is more precise.
Anise Glide Reverb is available now for the launch price of $39 (regular price $59). It works in AU, VST3, and AAX on macOS (10.13 and up, Universal 2 for Intel and Apple Silicon), and VST3 on Windows.
For more information and a free trial, head to Audio Spices.
The post Audio Spices shares new pitch-shifting reverb, Anise Glide appeared first on MusicTech.

Drag-and-drop mastering: Meet HyFi, the new platform from Musik HackMusik Hack may have just made mastering easier than ever…
With HyFi, the brand’s new drag-and-drop mastering platform, users can simply drag in their audio files for mastering and the platform will do the rest.
The platform operates on a token/credit basis, with one credit used per minute of audio. No subscription is required, simply pay for what you need when you need it. Oh, and upon making an account you get 10 credits completely free.

READ MORE: “I can’t talk about it, but it’s keeping me busy”: Tom Oberheim is working on a “little project” – could a new synth be on the way?

Once the audio is uploaded, the platform creates a default master in moments. From there, certain options such as Loudness, Character, and playback speed are available for general alterations. Use the A/B to hear the exact difference with each setting, then download the mastered audio straight from the website in either mp3 or WAV. The website stores everything for 30 days, and one credit extends that for a full year.
It works on mobile, too, so if you want to give a new track of yours that little extra sheen before you show it to a friend, just make sure you have enough credits.
Musik Hack’s most popular product is the mastering plugin, Master Plan, which MusicTech granted an 8/10 in its 2024 review.
“Master Plan’s supreme simplicity masks a surprisingly deep and extensive chain of well-chosen mastering processors, while the basic controls reach into those processors and tweak them in just the right way to provide you with loads of tonal and dynamic control,” we wrote.
HyFi builds on this accessibility and efficacy. While the website can’t include as many options for fine-tuning as the plugin, the intention for a crisp and clear sound remains the same. Plus, HyFi was specifically designed to maintain the integrity of the mix. By focusing on color and volume, its functionality enhances the uploaded audio rather than morphing it.
For more information, head to HyFi.
The post Drag-and-drop mastering: Meet HyFi, the new platform from Musik Hack appeared first on MusicTech.

“I can’t talk about it, but it’s keeping me busy”: Tom Oberheim is working on a “little project” – could a new synth be on the way?Age is just a number…
Tom Oberheim, the namesake of the legendary Oberheim synthesizers that have been used in classic hits such as Van Halen’s Jump, Rush’s Tom Sawyer, and Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy, just turned 90 years old. But he’s far from done building.
In a new interview with MusicTech, Oberheim says, “I do also have a little project, which I can’t talk about but it’s keeping me busy.”

READ MORE: Tom Oberheim: “The history books say I was involved in creating MIDI – that’s such a joke”

Oberheim holds himself to silence on it for the rest of the interview, but it’s an exciting development for him. Not just because of his longevity (he makes it clear he will never retire), but because he hasn’t spent the last 47 years just making synths. He’s been on a long, arduous journey with these instruments.
Oberheim launched the OB-X, which is responsible for the unforgettable synth hooks in the three aforementioned songs, at the NAMM show in Atlanta in 1979. That came in the midst of a fierce run for the company, also releasing the DMX drum machine, the OB-Xa, and the OB-8 within the span of seven years.
Since then, the company went bankrupt. Oberheim lost the naming rights to his lawyer, whom he later sued for malpractice. Then Gibson purchased the brand, which sent Oberheim to work in Silicon Valley completely away from synthesizers.
“I decided in the mid-90s that it was time for me to go to work and pay the mortgage on the house,” Oberheim says.
Decades later, Oberheim recouped the rights to his name, which Focusrite later purchased alongside a distribution deal with Sequential. Under this arrangement, the TEO-5, OB-X8 and OB-6 have all been released to the public.
It sounds cliché, but it’s the simple joy of the work that keeps him going:
“Do the work you love, and combine that with what you like to do that isn’t work.”
The post “I can’t talk about it, but it’s keeping me busy”: Tom Oberheim is working on a “little project” – could a new synth be on the way? appeared first on MusicTech.

ACE Studio 2 review: Next-gen AI features, stone age workflowsArtist: $398 / Artist Pro: $528 / Subscription rent-to-own available, acestudio.ai
AI is slowly creeping into DAWs. A chatbot here, stem separation functions there. Yet while others merely nibble around the edges, ACE Studio goes straight for the jugular as an all-in-one AI audio workstation.
It’s a genuinely ambitious piece of software that aims to package a host of next-gen features into a single platform. There’s AI virtual instruments, AI vocal synthesis, and a suite of generative AI audio tools. In fact, ACE Studio injects artificial intelligence into just about everything in the hope of streamlining familiar tasks and perhaps even creating some brand new production paradigms.

READ MORE: I swapped Ableton Live for Fender’s Studio Pro 8.1 DAW – but is it compelling enough for the change to stick?

What’s more, ACE says it’s taken an ethical approach to training its AI models. The company claims each model is built on performances of real musicians with licensing and royalties included in its partnership with artists.
It’s an all you can eat AI buffet, but can it satisfy my creative appetite?
The first feature to catch my eye is the AI vocal synth. Easily loaded by creating a new region and choosing an AI model, simply input some MIDI notes in the clip view and press the playback button to render and listen to the results.

Out of the box, the vocal engine does a stellar job of producing realistic and usable performances that sound polished. The bank of vocal models are well developed, with over 140 voices to choose from in eight languages. The ability to blend different vocal models to create new voices is a useful and interesting idea to play with. Additionally, any lyrics that you type are automatically arranged across the MIDI phrase, making it a breeze to produce a vocal line.
The virtual instruments, however, are less impressive. There are 36 included AI virtual instrument models spanning strings and brass. They operate in much the same way as the vocal engine: choose an AI model, write a MIDI line, and then the engine will render a performance of the instrument, automatically choosing the best performance techniques to suit your arrangement.
In theory, bypassing the trouble of manually programming MIDI expression, style and dynamics—as you would with a traditional virtual instrument—is an alluring shortcut. But sadly, the results aren’t convincing enough for my ears. The instruments share a strange breathy timbre and are noticeably lower in quality when compared even to free virtual instruments and sample libraries already available on the market.
ACE’s generative audio tools don’t fare any better. The Add a Layer feature, for example, will analyse your session and render an instrument track that fits with the arrangement. This tool uses a text prompt interface that asks you to describe what kind of track you want to generate. This was my first experience using plain language to write music, and, honestly, I enjoy it even less than I thought I would. Reduced to broad words like ‘jazz’ or ‘samba’, and vague phrases like ‘laidback groove’, I feel like I’m back in English class rather than making music. Surely it would be easier to plug in a MIDI keyboard and jam something out instead?
Music Enhancer tool. Image: Press
The deeper I dig into the generative tools, the further I drift from the fun of making music. The Music Enhancer tool is one of ACE Studio’s newer production concepts which allows you to highlight a track or arrangement and ‘enhance’ it. Once again, it uses a text prompt interface to steer the transformation. The result is an entirely AI-generated song based on the melodies and harmonies in your session, plus the input prompts.
Rendered out as one stereo track, the results make a fun party trick, but once again suffer in quality – noticeable artefacts in the audio render it unusable for professional projects. More importantly, however, is the feeling that this tool is robbing me of the fun that comes with producing new music. It is incredibly boring waiting a minute or more at a time to render each new version, and by the end I feel little connection to the music that has been produced.
Another major drawback is the rendering time required to use any of the AI features in ACE Studio. Whether I edit a single MIDI note, or tweak a setting in the AI model, the engine takes anywhere from three seconds up to 10 seconds to render. The more tracks that need rendering, the longer it takes. For the Add a Layer or Music Enhancer feature, this can take a minimum of a minute, or even longer.
I’m testing the software on a powerful M4 Pro Mac Mini using the Turbo Boost feature in ACE Studio – this means the audio is rendered locally, theoretically with faster render speeds. Alternatively, the software can be run on their servers using an internet connection. Technically, ACE Studio achieves extremely fast processing speeds for AI. But compared to the speedy workflows producers and musicians have grown accustomed to, it’s like stepping back in time to the era of tape recording. Having to stop and wait to render every new idea I have is hugely frustrating. My inspiration suffers death by a thousand loading screens.
Vocal clip view. Image: Press
It is while I wait for things to render that I make an unfortunate discovery. My CPU is clocking in at around 70-80% for a six-track session with a scant eight bars of music. By comparison, a full-length song with 80 tracks and multiple instruments in Logic Pro uses 40-50% of processing power. Out of interest, I add a couple of third-party plugins onto the two AI instrument tracks, and it tips the M4 Pro over 100%. Whether ACE Studio is poorly optimised or the computing power needed for AI audio software is extremely high, this is a big red flag.
Ultimately, while ACE Studio has a capable AI vocal synth, it faces stiff competition from long-running VOCALOID6 by Yamaha, and the more recent Synthesizer V by Dreamtonics, both of which use AI to help craft more realistic results.
The remainder of the AI features on offer in ACE Studio are hardly selling points. In my experience, these tools actually slow down the production process, and making music via text prompts is, for me, far from fun. Add in the extreme processing power to produce results of questionable quality and it’s difficult to recommend this software to anyone.
The final nail in the coffin is the price. ACE Studio costs $528 for a lifetime copy of the Artist Pro software, or you can subscribe with a rent to buy option. Additionally, if you buy the Artist/Artist Pro copy you will receive 2,500/5,000 AI credits per month for the first two years — a requirement for rendering audio. Following this period, you will need to get a subscription to receive more credits. Not counting the long-term cost of AI credits, this puts it in the same range as fully-featured professional DAWs like Logic Pro or Ableton Live Suite, which come with a huge library of virtual instruments, loops, samples, effects and tools for generating music beats, melodies, or chords. If ACE Studio aims to make it easier, faster, or even cheaper to create music using AI, it’s got a long way to go.
Perhaps AI-centric DAWs will eventually deliver the goods, but ACE Studio left me starving for hands-on creativity.

Key Features

AI-based DAW
AI vocal synth
140+ AI vocal models in 8 languages
36 AI virtual instruments
Stem separation
Stem generation
Song generation
AI rendering can run locally or via internet connection
Subscription rent-to-own option available
Supports VST/AU plugins

The post ACE Studio 2 review: Next-gen AI features, stone age workflows appeared first on MusicTech.

The complete guide to getting the best acoustics in your home studioAcoustic treatment of your studio is an incredibly important part of any aspect of music production, whether that be recording, mixing or mastering. And yet it often remains one of the most misunderstood and neglected.

READ MORE: Which Apple Mac computer should you buy for music production?

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of acoustic treatment: what it is, how to go about doing it, and where room correction figures into the equation. We’ll also outline why acoustic treatment is so important.
What is acoustic treatment?
Put simply, acoustic treatment is the process of changing your studio environment from a muddy and reverberant space into one where the sound is balanced, predictable, and suited towards your music-making and production goals, whatever those may be.
Acoustic treatment takes into account things like room shape, size, and other aspects of the environment with the ultimate goal of reducing unwanted sonic behavior. When sound leaves your speakers, it bounces around the room, interacting with the physical space in myriad ways. These interactions can cause reverb, echoes, and buildup of frequencies that can make it difficult to hear the music properly. By treating the physical environment, you tame the undesirable sounds.
Acoustic treatment usually takes two forms: soundproofing and sound treatment. With soundproofing, the goal is to stop sound either entering or leaving the room. This guide will focus on the treatment side, that of changing the characteristics of the sound.
Do you need acoustic treatment?
Anyone working with sound can benefit from some amount of acoustic treatment. You naturally want accuracy in your music production, with what you record and mix translating to what the listener hears. If there’s a build up of bass frequencies in your room, you’re likely to reduce bass by that amount based on what you’re hearing, even though there may not be an issue with those frequencies in the song itself.
While the most obvious application for treatment is in mixing and mastering, it’s also important for recording. You want to capture a vocal or acoustic instrument performance cleanly and without the ugly sound of the room.
“I’ve seen so many producers (who’ve used acoustic treatment), and it has done more for them than any mixing course or plugin they’ve bought,” says mixing engineer and plugin developer Michael Wynne on why treatment is important. “It’s so effective for people.”

Types of acoustic treatment
Broadly speaking, there are two main types of treatment, absorbers and diffusers. Each solves a different problem. Let’s look at these in turn.
Absorbers do what they sound like: they absorb sound. Within this category there are two main types. The first is acoustic paneling. Acoustic panels are designed to catch early reflections and prevent echoes, which can make mixing particularly difficult. “That immediate delay you hear makes mixing, mastering, and production almost impossible in rooms with bare walls because you’re hearing this phased, delayed version of your track,” explains Michael. “You cannot set reverbs accurately (and) it’s really difficult to phase align drums. Just those panels alone get rid of pretty much all the meaningful slap back.”
Then there are bass traps. Like panels, these also absorb sound, but instead of delays, they’ve meant to prevent standing bass waves that can build up and throw off your perception of a track’s low end. “Bass traps start at a lower frequency than acoustic panels,” says Dave Shevyn, head of GIK Acoustics Europe.
Diffusers are a different type of acoustic treatment. Rather than sucking up sound, they scatter it, breaking up reflections and spreading the sound around. “This enables you to keep a room lively without losing the energy of those higher frequencies,” says Dave. “Great in a live room scenario or for making a small room sound larger than it actually is.”
There are also products that combine elements of both types, such as GIK Acoustics’ Amplitude panels. “What makes these unique is that they diffuse and absorb at the same time,” says Dave. “This combines elegance, diffusion and absorption into one panel or corner trap.”

Should you hire an acoustics company or do it yourself?
You’ve decided that it’s time to treat your studio space acoustically. The question that you now face: should you do it all yourself, or hire a specialist company to assist you? The answer will likely come down to how much money you can comfortably spend on the project.
At one end of the spectrum is bringing in a company to create an entirely new room for you, one that will solve acoustic problems before they even start. “If one has millions of dollars and loads of time, then the way to do it is hire professionals that really know what they’re doing,” advises Michael.
The next rung down the expense ladder is to bring in a company like GIK Acoustics, who can look at the room that you’ve got to work with and design treatment that fits the environment.
If you do decide to do the work yourself, you can either buy ready-made absorption and diffusion panels, or build them yourself. Although there are many things to keep in mind, the process is actually less daunting than it may sound. “It’s simply about improving the sound of the room,” assures Dave, “and there are lots of ways to approach it.”
How to DIY: Getting started
Before you even start putting nails in the walls, there are things you can do to make sure you’re getting the most out of your room. Avoid cuboid-type rooms and try to choose one with a rectangular shape. Next, place your mixing desk along one of the short walls. “You don’t want to be putting your setup against the longest wall,” stresses Michael. “It just introduces more problems.” Michael also recommends putting your monitors on stands.
There are other, basic ways to start treating your studio. Mixer company Mackie suggests heavy rugs, thick curtains, and even a large, fully stocked bookshelf stacked floor to ceiling as types of DIY absorbers. Of course, these are not ideal, but something is better than nothing.
Also, you shouldn’t feel like you have to do everything at once. Monitor company ADAM Audio recommends going with the best treatment that you can afford, a little at a time: “Once you have more money, you can continue adding additional acoustic panels and bass traps.”
Another piece of advice: don’t aim for total coverage. The goal is not a 100-percent dead room but a natural-sounding one. “You want to get pretty good coverage,” Michael says. “If at least 20-30 percent of the wall surface is covered with panels, they’ll take care of so many problems.”
As for where to put the panels, that will depend on your specific space. Acoustics companies like GIK Acoustics offer room designers to help with this, but a good rule of thumb is to place panels at so-called mirror points. Sit at your desk and have an assistant hold up a mirror at eye level at various places around the room. If you can see a speaker in the mirror, you need a panel on that wall. And don’t forget the ceiling!
How to DIY: Making absorption panels
There are plenty of blueprints and plans for building acoustic panels available online. While diffusers are more difficult, given the mathematics involved to properly scatter the various frequencies, absorbers are relatively easy to make – and extremely affordable.
Absorption panels generally comprise of some kind of insulation, a wooden frame to contain it, and fabric to cover it and hold the insulation in. There are different kinds of insulation that you can try, with some common types including rock mineral and glass fiber wool as well as recycled foam slabs, recycled denim and hemp or wood fibre insulation. Note that Michael, in his YouTube video on building DIY panels, cautions against rock mineral and glass fiber wool because of the health risks. If you do go with one of these, be sure and wear proper protective clothing and use a mask.

One important thing to keep in mind is the depth of the panel. ADAM Audio recommends going as deep as possible, as depth makes acoustic panels work better at low frequencies. You can also increase performance by ensuring a gap between the panels and the surface they are installed on.
You also want to make sure that your chosen fabric is not too dense. If air can pass through, so can sound waves. “They work by transferring sound energy to heat,” explains Dave of GIK Acoustics. “The gas flow resistivity of the materials is key to how these work.”
As for budget, Michael Wynne estimates that if you spend between $250 and $1000, depending on how many panels you want, “you can get your room from sounding like it’s absolutely terrible to sounding like a really nice, tight, almost dry room with a natural amount of reverberation.”
If buying panels sounds expensive, and making them is beyond your abilities, you may be tempted to tack up a bunch of egg cartons on the wall. This is not recommended.
“You could,” says Dave, “but as I used to say during the ‘myths section’ of our educational lectures, I hope you like eggs because you are going to need to eat a lot of them! But seriously, egg cartons would have a minimal effect on any sound; cardboard is absorptive. Where the whole myth originates from is foam pyramid-like products. They are shaped like this to increase the absorption surface area of the material. The shape alone is not the reason those products absorb sound.”
What about room correction software?
Image: Press
Room correction products, such as Audient’s ORIA Mini and IK Multimedia’s ARC Studio, can ‘listen’ to your room and help iron out sonic imperfections.
Andrew Allen, the Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Audient, explains how it works: “ORIA Mini measures what’s happening at your listening position using Sonarworks’ SoundID Reference and corrects for it, so you hear something much closer to neutral and the decisions you make hold up when the mix leaves the room. There’s also a really practical side to it: you can load profiles that mimic other systems, like a car or a phone, and check how a mix translates without getting up from the desk.”
However, room correction shouldn’t be thought of as an alternative to acoustic treatment but as an integral part of it. “We’d always recommend treating your room as best practice,” says Andrew, “but good treatment can be expensive and takes up space. Even a well-treated room has issues left over – particularly in the low end. ORIA Mini cleans up what the treatment can’t.”
Michael Wynne also recommends using room correction to address any pesky lingering bass issues: “I say use the panels, use some kind of software or hardware speaker correction like Sound ID Sonarworks or a Trinnov Nova like I’ve got, something to correct some of the bass problems in your room, and then just enjoy life.”
In conclusion, acoustic treatment is something that all musicians and music producers should consider doing. With just a little effort, you can likely achieve dramatic results. “Your room will probably allow you to hear at least 90 percent of the problems that are going to matter to listeners,” says Michael, “and that, combined with working on headphones, there’s not really going to be a whole lot holding you back.”
The post The complete guide to getting the best acoustics in your home studio appeared first on MusicTech.

BARRY MANILOW TO CELEBRATE LOCAL MUSIC EDUCATORS ACROSS THE U.S.Manilow and Mario Banks, the Manilow Music Teacher Award winner in Newark, NJ. Photo Credit: Mark Ashe 

When the apparently ageless Barry Manilow returns to the road in late July to continue his U.S. arena tour, news today revealed that "he'll once again use the spotlight to recognize the people who inspire the next generation of musicians. At every stop, the GRAMMY®, TONY®, and EMMY® Award-winning icon will present the Manilow Music Teacher Award, honoring an outstanding local music educator whose passion and dedication have made a lasting impact on their students and community."

Manilow with Kenneth Luckey and team in Wilkes-Barr, PA. Photo by Justin Topa.

Manilow will present a whole lot of giant checks to a whole lot of deserving educators, as he did on the last leg of the tour.

"Created through the Manilow Music Project, a program of the Manilow Fund, the Manilow Music Teacher Award recognizes educators whose passion and dedication bring music to life for their students," a statement reads. "Ten outstanding high school music teachers in each tour market are nominated before the public votes to select the local recipient. Each winner receives a $10,000 grant, with $5,000 awarded directly to the teacher and $5,000 designated for new instruments and equipment for their school's music program. The winning educator is presented with the award during a private meet-and-greet with Manilow before the show and is also recognized onstage during the concert."

"Founded after Manilow learned that music programs across the country had been devastated by budget cuts, the Manilow Music Project has donated more than $10 million in instruments and scholarships to high school and college music students, teachers, and music programs nationwide."

Manilow with Trevor Prutsman and team in Buffalo, NY. Photo by Joseph Hrycych

"While Barry continues his extraordinary career with arena shows this summer, he has chosen to share the spotlight with those he believes truly deserve it: music educators," said Matt Parrish, President of the Manilow Fund.

Manilow with Philip Pandori and team in Albany, NY. Photo by Claude Sawyer

According to the statement, the upcoming recipients of the Manilow Music Teacher Awards are:

Charleston, SC (July 30): Ronnie Ward, Westview Middle School

Nashville, TN (August 1): C. Allen Kennedy, Hume-Fogg High School

Columbus, OH (August 2): Gretchen Wyder Zunic, Upper Arlington High School

Lexington, KY (August 4): Robert Bishop, Lafayette High School

Cincinnati, OH (August 5): Kyle Phillips, Princeton High School

Baltimore, MD (August 7): Christopher Gnagey, Catonsville High School

Norfolk, VA (August 8): Emily Wolcott, Oscar F. Smith High School

Greensboro, NC (August 10): Eddie Deaton, Walter Hines Page High School

Duluth, GA (August 11): Quentin Goins, Stephenson High School

Jacksonville, FL (August 13): Alexander Washington, Jacksonville Classical Academy

Manilow with Thérèse Mannino and team in Elmont, NY. Photo by Mark Ashe

Manilow's arena tour resumes July 30 at North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, SC before continuing to Nashville, Columbus, Lexington, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Jacksonville, and more. For a complete list of tour dates, visit barrymanilow.com/the-last-concerts. 

The post BARRY MANILOW TO CELEBRATE LOCAL MUSIC EDUCATORS ACROSS THE U.S. first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Introducing Spitfire Audio Originals, Craft, and more on Splice INSTRUMENT
The latest update to Splice INSTRUMENT brings breathtaking sounds from Spitfire Audio Originals, new sample transformation capabilities via Craft, and more.