Akai Pro team up with Spitfire Audio The first formal collaboration between the two brands will see a selection of the UK-based sampling experts’ virtual instruments made available within Akai’s MPC ecosystem.

SSL Native X-Saturator is available for $7.99 for a limited time
Plugin Boutique is currently offering SSL Native X-Saturator by Solid State Logic at a heavily reduced price of $7.99, down from its regular $49 price, as part of an 83% discount deal running until February 15. X-Saturator is a saturation and distortion plugin designed to add harmonic content and analogue-style character to your signal. It’s [...]
View post: SSL Native X-Saturator is available for $7.99 for a limited time

Niviem releases three FREE plugins: Phase One, OPT4, and DalEQ
Niviem has released three free plugins for macOS and Windows: the Phase One phaser, the OPT4 opto leveling amplifier, and the DalEQ Core parametric EQ. All three plugins arrived in January this year. And it’s a nicely balanced free bundle that includes one creative effect and a couple of mixing tools. I haven’t tried Niviem’s [...]
View post: Niviem releases three FREE plugins: Phase One, OPT4, and DalEQ

67 plugins for £99 – save £1,800 (!) on the Waves Platinum Bundle for a limited time onlyIt can be difficult piecing together the perfect plugin arsenal – so why not just grab a pro-grade bundle that gives you literally everything you need in one neat package?
Right now at Plugin Boutique – as the online plugin retailer celebrates its 14th anniversary – you can get Waves’ Platinum Bundle, featuring 67 plugins covering dynamics, EQ, reverb, delay and pretty much everything else across production, mixing and mastering, for just £99. And when you consider this bundle is usually priced at £1,885 – that discount is pretty nuts, to put it lightly.
[deals ids=”2zAadYOaNrPx1jMxxSl5mL”]
The Platinum Bundle builds upon Waves’ Gold Bundle, adding a number of premium mastering plugins like the renowned L2 and L3 limiters/maximisers, advanced linear phase compression and other high-end tools.
The Platinum Bundle also features Waves’ complete Renaissance plugin series, including R-Vox vocal compressor, PuigTec analogue-modelled EQs, Smack Attack transient shaper, and LoAir for low-end enhancement.
The bundle also includes Waves fan favourites like the C4 multiband compressor, DeEsser, Doubler, H-Delay, MaxxBass Bass Enhancer, MV2 compressor, Vitamin Sonic Enhancer, and quite literally tonnes more.
And at a current price of just £99 for 67 plugins, that works out to an average of just under £1.50 per plugin. So don’t wait around. Supercharge your production arsenal right now and start making your best tracks and mixes ever.
See a list of plugins included in the Waves Platinum Bundle below:

AudioTrack
C1 Compressor
C4 Multiband Compressor
DeEsser
Doppler
Doubler
Eddie Kramer Drum Channel
Electric Grand 80 Piano
eMo F2 Filter
eMo Generator
eMo Q4 Equalizer
Enigma
Greg Wells ToneCentric
GTR3 Amps
GTR3 Stomps
GTR3 ToolRack
GTR3 Tuner
H-Comp Hybrid Compressor
H-Delay Hybrid Delay
IR-L Convolution Reverb
L1 Ultramaximizer
L2 Ultramaximizer
L3 Ultramaximizer
L3-LL Ultramaximizer
Linear Phase EQ
Linear Phase Multiband Compressor
LoAir
MaxxBass
MaxxVolume
MetaFilter
MetaFlanger
MondoMod
MV2
OneKnob Driver
OneKnob Pumper
PAZ Analyzer
PS22 Stereo Maker
PuigTec EQs
Q10 Equalizer
Renaissance Axx
Renaissance Bass
Renaissance Channel
Renaissance Compressor
Renaissance DeEsser
Renaissance Equalizer
Renaissance Reverb
Renaissance Vox
S1 Stereo Imager
Sibilance
Smack Attack
SuperTap
TrueVerb
UltraPitch
V-Comp
V-EQ3
V-EQ4
Vitamin Sonic Enhancer
VU Meter
Waves Tune LT

Learn more at Plugin Boutique.
The post 67 plugins for £99 – save £1,800 (!) on the Waves Platinum Bundle for a limited time only appeared first on MusicTech.

Apple Music demonetised 2 billion fraudulent streams in 2025 – that’s nearly $17 million in royaltiesApple Music demonetised a whopping two billion fraudulent music streams last year according to its chief, Oliver Schusser.
The streaming platform introduced fraud penalties back in 2022, with those caught facing a fee calculated on what would’ve been royalties. These fees started at five percent and were capped at 25 percent, but those figures are now due to double, The Hollywood Reporter reveals.

READ MORE: So, AI music charts are a thing now…

The outlet also states that a royalty calculator from the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips suggests that the 2 billion fraudulent streams that were tackled in 2025 represent nearly $17 million in royalties that could have been taken from real artists if not prevented.
In his interview with THR, Schusser says, “Streaming manipulation on our platform is already incredibly low. We literally have systems where we check and validate every single play on Apple Music. When we find fraud we remove the stream counts, we remove from the charts, and we take the money and put it back into the pool so that it goes to honourable artists…
“Still, we have removed billions of manipulated streams from the service in 2025 alone. This is a huge problem in the industry, people want to be number one in the charts. They want to make it into playlists. Despite that, you’re still talking about billions of manipulated streams, just in last year alone.”
He later adds, “We look at ourselves as a quality platform, and we don’t like it when people cheat, and we like to give it back to those who don’t cheat. It’s really as simple as that.”
This news follows on from updated figures from Deezer, which reveal that around 60,000 new AI tracks are uploaded to its platform every day (around 39 percent).
It says that over 13.4 million AI tracks have been tagged using its detection system launched in June last year. Up to 85 percent of those have been marked as fraudulent, and subsequently removed from the royalty pool. Deezer is now considering licensing the technology behind its AI tagging system to other brands and platforms.
The post Apple Music demonetised 2 billion fraudulent streams in 2025 – that’s nearly $17 million in royalties appeared first on MusicTech.

The Minneapolis tech community holds strong during ‘tense and difficult time’Founders and investors in the Minneapolis tech industry told TechCrunch they've put much of their work on hold to help out their community.

Nevada authorities file lawsuit against Coinbase over unlicensed wageringThe enforcement action over wagers on sports event contracts followed Coinbase announcing the launch of prediction markets in all 50 US states.

Historic Grammy Win for USA Songwriting Competition WinnersUSA Songwriting Competition winners Fyütch and Aura V, an 8-year-old singer won their first Grammy award in 2026 and also made history.

A statement from the USA Songwriting Competition on Tuesday expressed pride in the fact that competition winners Fyütch and eight-year-old singer Aura V won their first Grammy award this week, while also making history.

"The father-daughter duo took home the Grammy for best children's music album for 'Harmony,'" the statement reads. "They accepted the honor during the premiere ceremony, held before the Grammys' telecast. Both dressed in matching Pink, Fyütch thanked God and spoke about the importance of educating and entertaining the young, as well as empowering children. He also called the album an act of activism and self-love."

"It's an honor to win, we weren’t expecting to get this far" said the eight year old Aura V.

It was that same song that won Fyütch and Aura V the 2025 USA Songwriting Competition in the Children's music category. Aura V, at eight, is the "youngest individually credited Grammy winner."

The 68th Annual Grammy Awards was presented on February 1, 2026. The post Historic Grammy Win for USA Songwriting Competition Winners first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Rewinding a Car Alternator for 240 VoltTwo phases installed on the stator. (Credit: FarmCraft101, YouTube)
As part of his quest to find the best affordable generator for his DIY hydroelectric power system, [FarmCraft101] is trying out a range of off-the-shelf and DIY solutions, with in his most recent video trying his hands at the very relaxing activity of rewiring the stator of an alternator.
Normally car alternators output 12VDC after internal rectification, but due to the hundreds of meters from the turbine to the shed, he’d like a higher voltage to curb transmission losses. The easiest way to get a higher voltage out of a car alternator is to change up the wiring on the stator, which is definitely one of those highly educational tasks.
Disassembling an alternator is easy enough, but removing the copper windings from the stator is quite an ordeal, as they were not designed to ever move even a fraction of a millimeter after assembly.
With that arduous task finished, the rewinding was done using 22 AWG copper enamel wire, compared to the original 16 AWG wire, and increasing the loops per coil from 8 to 30. This rewinding isn’t too complicated if you know what you’re doing, with each coil on each of the three windings placed in an alternating fashion, matching the alternating South/North poles on the rotor.

Each phase’s winding is offset by two slots, leaving space for the other two phases, which then correspondingly are 90° out of phase when running, creating the three-phase AC output. This is further detailed in the video.
To make sure the windings do not short out on the stator, each slot has a bit of Nomex insulating paper placed into it, and a PETG 3D printed slot holder makes sure that none of the windings sneak out of their slot after installation.
The phases were connected in a Wye configuration, which gives it the maximum possible voltage rather than optimizing it for current as in a Delta configuration.
With the rewinding done, the alternator was reassembled, and the three-phase output of the new stator tested. After some trial and error it was able to do 200 VDC after passing it through an external rectifier, for a total of 700 Watt.
While not an unmitigated success, it seems quite possible to use this alternator as a higher-voltage generator with the hydro setup, especially after the upcoming replacement of the rotor’s electromagnet with neodymium magnets to further simplify it. As a bonus, if he ever needs to rebuild a broken alternator from scratch, rewinding a stator is now child’s play.

Antares update Metamorph Metamorph V1.1 introduces the ability to import third-party RVC (Retrieval-based Voice Conversion) models, opening up a whole host of new creative possibilities while maintaining the security and privacy offered by the softwares offline local processing. 

RCA revives JIVE Records with Mike Weiss and David Melhado as co-PresidentsThe label is returning with "a mission to honor its legacy while reimagining it for today’s music landscape".
Source

Living Fish Studio Guitar Stroke HelperBuild guitar strokes from TAB notation — no guitar skills required. Guitar Stroke Helper is a guitar MIDI workflow tool. Design your performances from TAB notation — fretting and picking controlled independently. Shape strokes, riffs, arpeggios, or custom picking patterns, then export the result as MIDI and play it through your preferred guitar library. You design the performance. They handle the sound. Designed for composers and arrangers who want realistic guitar parts without needing to play guitar: TAB-based note input — type fret numbers directly, just like reading a TAB sheet. Independent fretting and picking — change chords and strokes separately for flexible performance building. Stroke curve editor — control the timing of each string for realistic strum feel. Anchor string — choose which string lands on the beat for natural groove. Per-string velocity and on/off — fine-tune dynamics string by string. Custom tuning — set each string's pitch freely. MIDI drag and drop — export your patterns to your DAW and play through your preferred guitar library. Note: Guitar Stroke Helper outputs MIDI only. A guitar library is required for sound. Compatibility: macOS: VST3 / AU. Windows: VST3 (tested on Windows 10). Tested DAWs: Mac: Cubase, Reaper, Logic Pro, Luna. Windows: Cubase, Reaper. Read More

LALAL.AI launches its first stem-splitting VST plugin for “unlimited experimentation” inside your DAWLALAL.AI has launched its first VST plugin, bringing its industry-leading stem-splitting technology to your DAW for the first time, “significantly reducing the time spent switching between workflows”.
The plugin uses its Lyra model, and is designed to run locally on nearly any hardware. According to LALAL.AI, Lyra delivers “fast and effective” stem separation for “unlimited experimentation” right inside the DAW.

READ MORE: Will.i.am: “I can’t be that critical of AI – because I have a career sampling music”

With the new plugin, artists and producers can split any vocal track into a vocal stem and instrumental bed, with multi-stem splitting for six separate instruments currently in the works. Additionally, it also works in any DAW compatible with VST3 technology, including Ableton, FL Studio, Audacity, and others.
LALAL.AI says this latest release marks the next step in the “quieter side of the AI transformation of music” that eliminates tedium and increases fun. Nik Pogorsky, product owner and co-founder, says: “LALAL.AI’s VST is not only the best in terms of quality, but it is the only AI-powered VST that truly functions as a VST within a DAW. Isolating vocals or making a purely instrumental track can happen as fluidly as a producer or artist does any other task inside their preferred software.”
Pogorsky adds, “Professionals are already adopting tools like LALAL.AI because they solve key problems for them. We’ve simply put that tool right where they need it, in their workstation, so that they can get more creative without getting dragged out of their flow.”
As for other AI-powered launches, following LANDR’s recent acquisition of Reason Studios, the company has launched two new tools to help inspire artists: LANDR Blueprints, which offers songwriting support, and LANDR Layers, assisting with the final mix. This dual release promises to “streamline your production process”.
The new plugin with its Lyra model is available now to LALAL.AI’s premium subscribers. Find out more via the LALAL.AI website.
The post LALAL.AI launches its first stem-splitting VST plugin for “unlimited experimentation” inside your DAW appeared first on MusicTech.

Carve Audio offers new BusBoy channel strip for FREE until March 2nd
Developer Carve Audio has released BusBoy ($49), a mixing utility plugin for macOS and Windows. It is currently free until March 2nd, 2026. BusBoy is best described as a simplified channel strip for stereo buses, but I think it’s also an excellent choice for individual channels. The main idea here is to help you establish [...]
View post: Carve Audio offers new BusBoy channel strip for FREE until March 2nd

UVI PX Apollo ‘70s Analog Emulation Synth is now just $19
UVI’s PX Apollo synth is now available for just $19, down from $79, in an exclusive deal at Audio Deluxe.  This 64-bit-only release is available for macOS and Windows in AU, AAX, VST, and VST3 formats.  PX Apollo is based on a rare prototype from the early ’70s-an early polyphonic analog synth with a 71-voice [...]
View post: UVI PX Apollo ‘70s Analog Emulation Synth is now just $19