Moonquake LOOMLOOM Overview LOOM is a live looper for Apple Silicon Macs, built for hands-free performance. You can loop by hand the way you would on a hardware loop station. You can also draw those same button presses on a timeline, and when the arrangement plays, it records, overdubs, plays and stops the loops for you, and changes the mix and the sounds as the song goes. That leaves both hands free for your instruments. Hands-free performance: Each track has a lane in the arrange view. Draw REC, DUB and PLAY regions on it. Empty space means the track is stopped. Press PERFORM FROM TOP, or send one MIDI note from a footswitch, and each region fires at the exact sample where you drew it, through the same engine that handles a press by hand. You can take over at any time. PERFORMANCE STOP hands control back to you while every loop keeps playing, which is useful when you want to stretch an outro or take another solo. Start from bar 1 or from the playhead, and jump to a bar during the song. If any region cannot play correctly, LOOM does not start the arrangement and tells you what to fix. The idea is that you find a problem while setting up, before you are in the middle of a song. Automation Automation lanes sit below the regions. They can change: Track levels to the main mix, the headphone cue and both effects buses, plus pans and mutes. Effect bypass and any effect setting, in any of the eight effect slots on any strip. Any synth, drum machine or sampler setting. Which sounds are loaded. A node can load a whole effects rack, a single effect preset, a synth preset, a drum kit or a drum pattern at the bar or beat you choose. The lane shows the name of what is loaded, so you can see which sound each section of the song uses. Which instrument track your keyboard plays. A MIDI IN lane can move your keyboard from the synth to the sampler at the chorus, for example. The harmony effect's key, for a song that changes key. Each automation node keeps its own copy of the settings, so editing or deleting a preset later does not change a song that used it. Looping by hand: Five stereo audio loop tracks, up to four minutes each, each recording from any mix of your interface's inputs. One ring control per track. One press records, the next closes the loop, the next overdubs, and the centre of the ring shows what your next press will do. There is no arm step. Start and stop immediately or on the beat, bar or loop, per track or for the whole song. Set a length of 1 to 32 bars and the recording closes itself. SUM or REPLACE layering, with undo and redo per track. A free-length first loop can set the tempo. Clear must be held for a full second, so a stray press cannot wipe a loop. Foot and pad control Every track and the transport answer MIDI notes on their own channel, 16 by default. Each track gets an octave with the same seven commands in the same order, and six global notes handle all start, all stop, all clear, transport start, transport stop and perform from the top. A MIDI monitor in every view shows the last message LOOM received. Instrument tracks Four instrument tracks loop MIDI through LOOM's own synth, drum machine and sampler, played from any class-compliant keyboard or pad controller. Because LOOM loops the MIDI notes, you can change the preset, kit or instrument while the loop plays and it keeps playing with the new sound. Record quantize keeps a copy of each take as you played it, so you can tighten the timing afterward or turn quantize off again. Each overdub pass undoes separately: Synth: two oscillators with a sub and noise, a four-type filter with its own envelope, two LFOs, glide, unison and an arpeggiator that follows the song's tempo and can play several held notes per step or strum them. Drum machine: the step grid is the loop itself, with per-step velocity, accent and ratchet. Each synthesised drum layers two sources and can ring through a tube or string resonator. Sampler: load a WAV or AIFF and play it across the keys, or use SLICE to cut it at its transients with one slice per key, for vocal chops. Factory presets include drum, guitar and voice samples. Mixer and effects Every input, track, bus and the master has eight effect slots. The built-in effects are a six-band parametric EQ over a live spectrum, compressor, tempo-synced delay, reverb, noise gate, chorus, octave, transparent overdrive, guitar amp, cab, harmony, gain stage and tuner. Save one effect as a preset or a whole chain as a rack. One switch sets every fader in view to MAIN, CUE, FX 1 or FX 2, and the pre-fader cue mix gives you a separate headphone balance on its own outputs. Recording Press RECORD and LOOM saves the whole performance as synced WAV files: one per loop track, instrument track and effects bus, the main mix, and groups you build from live inputs, tracks and buses. Drop the folder into a DAW and every file lines up at zero. Built for the stage: LOOM makes no network connections. LOOM checks the license file on your Mac once at launch, so a license check can never interrupt a set. The memory for every loop is reserved and locked before you play. Every control can be reached from the keyboard, and LOOM announces state changes through VoiceOver. Read More

Nous Research confirms it hit $1.5B valuation, launches AI agents for business usersThe developer of Hermes agent raised a $90 million Series B.

Circle brings USDC, EURC payments to SAP customers through TereinaThe partnership with SAP-backed Tereina will let businesses send and receive Circle’s stablecoins from within the financial software they already use.

Handheld Atari 2600 Packs a CRTWe covered [Nick Bild]’s mini Atari console using original devices not so long ago, and today he’s back with the same console wrapped up with a CRT as a handheld. It would have cost a fortune in D cells to own back in the day, but we know we’d have lusted after one of these in 1979.
He’s called it the µTari Go, pronounced “Microtari”, and it’s a 3D printed affair with the buttons roughly where you’d expect them if you’re used to the Game Boy, and a cartridge socket at the top above the screen.The PCB is the circuit of the original packed into a smaller space, so his claim of using original hardware is valid. The CRT is one of those Sony flattened modules that can still be found in the usual online bazaars, and it packs a small speaker. He’s not been foolhardy enough to equip it with those D cells, so the power is an external 12 V jack.
You can’t not like this project, especially after seeing it in action in the video below. Unlike in the ’70s a USB-C power pack could run this thing with reasonable playing time, so it could even be fully portable if you wanted. You can see our write-up of the board itself here.

HarmonyKeen writes MIDI harmony parts for macOS and Windows, with a FREE 7-day trial
HarmonyKeen is a standalone app and plugin that writes editable harmony parts around your MIDI melodies, with a free seven-day trial for macOS and Windows. It’s the work of Arizona-based solo developer Thom Haslam, who spent almost a year building a tool to help arrange his own melodies while keeping control over the musical decisions. [...]
View post: HarmonyKeen writes MIDI harmony parts for macOS and Windows, with a FREE 7-day trial

HYBE’s Weverse Con Festival to make its international debut in India in 2027HYBE, home of BTS, calls Weverse Con Festival its “flagship global music festival”, featuring global, K-pop and Indian artists.
Source

Cherry Audio release Pentaphonic Cherry Audio’s latest soft synth faithfully recreates the Gleeman Pentaphonic, a vintage synth that was known not only for its sound but also for its distinctive looks.

7 creative lessons from Soul Surplus’ John and Joel McNeill
During a recent visit with middle school music students, Soul Surplus' co-founders shared practical advice on creativity, collaboration, and building a life in music.

The perfect snare sound is the holy grail – and Kaelin Ellis thinks he’s found itWhen it comes to the most agonised-over component of a mix, the snare often takes the cake. You’ll spend hours crafting a mix thinking you’ve nailed the snare sound, go to bed, wake up the next morning and all of a sudden it sounds off.
So could investing in the right snare drum you can count on be one of the best places to put your money as a producer?

READ MORE: My Forever Studio: Kaelin Ellis is guided by video games

In the latest episode of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast – where we challenge some of the top modern producers and musicians to put together their fantasy music studio without any regard for budget – Kaelin Ellis, a multi-instrumentalist whose sample packs have been used by the likes of Kaytranada and TOKiMONSTA, waxes lyrical on the importance of finding the right snare sound.
In fact, one of the six items he chooses to go in his Forever Studio is the very specific 14” x 6” Orange County Sunburst Snare.
As he tells hosts Chris Barker and Will Betts, he would situate his fantasy Forever Studio within the tranquil landscapes of UNESCO World Heritage Site Taos Pueblo, New Mexico – right in a spaceship, no less. He reckons it would provide just the right environment to spark his creativity.
And one of the items he’d pick to kit out that rather unusual studio is an Orange County snare. Ellis says his fascination with having his own snare drum started as a kid playing drums in church. “Growing up going to play different churches, you get the lowest of the low when it comes to how something looks,” he says of the snares he had access to.
He later realised what was possible after he caught wind of late Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison’s blacked-out signature JJ1365 snare. “It had his name on it,” he says. “That was his snare drum. I was like, ‘Man, I would love a snare drum that’s mine.”
Ellis later realised what was possible in terms of the customisation that’s possible with snare drums when he once visited a music store in New Mexico. “They had this Orange County line… I remember one of the sound guys was like, ‘What are you looking for?’ I was like, ‘I’m looking for a nice snare.’”
But he was shown a number of snare drums north of $700 – out of his budget bracket. “He said, ‘Alright, so you want that snare.’ It looked nice, but he was like, ‘How much do you bet I could make that snare that looks better than this one sound better than that one.’ And I was like, ‘That’s a tall task.’ He grabs a drum key, tunes it, and was like, ‘Play it.’ I was like, ‘Ahhh!’”
“I lost it. I was like, ‘I need that sound and that snare.’ And I remember when I bought it, I took it everywhere. I played it on every kind of song you could think of. I played on a bluegrass record with this snare. I played on a hip-hop record with this snare. It was the most diverse tuning of a snare drum setup that I’d ever used.”
He fell in love with the snare so hard, in fact, that he has chosen it as one of the six lucky items to make it into his fantasy Forever Studio.
Kaelin Ellis is the latest guest on Season 8 of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast, where we task some of the top producers and songwriters to put together their dream Forever Studio using whatever gear they desire.
While it’s an environment for freedom, there are some strict rules in the Forever Studio. Guests are permitted a limited number of items in their creative space, so they have to choose carefully. There will be nostalgia. There will be anecdotes. There may be gags. But there will be no bundles!
Subscribe to My Forever Studio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and check out all episodes so far via MusicTech.

The post The perfect snare sound is the holy grail – and Kaelin Ellis thinks he’s found it appeared first on MusicTech.

Your Smile is Art releases bubblegum, a FREE Melodyne-inspired pitch editing plugin
Developer Your Smile is Art has released bubblegum, a free pitch editing plugin for macOS and Windows. Bubblegum is a free pitch editor for vocals and melodies, and it’s available in AU and VST3 formats for macOS (10.13 and later) and Windows (10 or later). Bubblegum is inspired by Melodyne, and you can see that [...]
View post: Your Smile is Art releases bubblegum, a FREE Melodyne-inspired pitch editing plugin

Step aside Sonos – JBL’s new Cove line offers a new solution to multi-room listeningFancy turning your entire house into a dance party? JBL’s new multi-room Wi-Fi speaker system has got you covered. The Cove series comes as JBL’s simple solution to whole-home audio, ranging from the portable, battery powered JBL Cove P1 to the room-filling might of the JBL Cove X1.
JBL’s Cove range offers a trio of models that can all sync up over Wi-Fi, allowing you to enjoy your music in every room of your home. The selection offers a range of price points, with the cheapest of the bunch, the compact JBL Cove, sacrificing Dolby Atmos tech in favour of a $399 price tag, whereas the other two models are thankfully kitted out with it.

READ MORE: Inside 5 of Los Angeles’s best hi-fi bars: Where they are and why they sound so good

The varied range also boasts a variety of perks. Take the $659 JBL Cove P1; this mid-range speaker packs more punch than the cheaper JBL Cove M1, boasting four tweeters instead of three, while it also serves as a portable, battery powered option. With up to 14 hours of battery life, this speaker allows you to take your music beyond the bounds of your house when you’re not using it as part of your at home multi-room setup.
As for the most premium offering, the JBL Cove X1, this speaker can crank out 3D, fully immersive and room-filling sound thanks to its four tweeters and dual woofers. This one will cost you $799.

As well as being able to play music over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPlay 2, Google Cast or more, each speaker is also able to automatically self-tune for room optimisation. The Cove line also boastsAI Sound Boost technologies to continue monitoring and optimising its performance based on its environment.
To reap the benefits of the Cove series’ multi-room syncing abilities, all you need is the JBL One app (and some JBL Cove speakers, of course). Once you’ve paired all your speakers, you’re good to go – and the syncing technology is even compatible with JBL’s Bar Series MK2 soundbars, too, so you can even utilise your Cove speakers to expand your immersive home theatre setup.

Though, you’re not limited to using these speakers in a multi-room set up. The speakers can also be used on their own, or as a stereo pair – and the JBL Cove P1 obviously can be used outside on its own, thanks to it being battery powered. A perfect solution for backyard barbecues, or whatever your heart desires.
“Consumers across Asia Pacific are increasingly seeking audio solutions that seamlessly fit into their daily lives and living spaces – with straightforward set-up, clean aesthetics and value for performance as key deciding factors,” Grace Koh, General Manager and Vice President of Consumer Audio at HARMAN International (JBL’s owner) explains.
“With JBL Cove, we’re setting a new benchmark for the future of JBL home audio… This launch marks an important step in our vision to help more people across the region experience immersive, high-quality audio in the place that matters most: the home.”
For more information, head to JBL.

The post Step aside Sonos – JBL’s new Cove line offers a new solution to multi-room listening appeared first on MusicTech.

Raspel: Free plug-in from Kreuzberg Audio Raspel combines filtering and wavefolding in a way that allows the two processes to complement each other rather than fight against each other.

zc devices launches thicket, a polyphonic modular synth in FREE open beta
Developer zc devices has launched thicket, a polyphonic node-based modular synthesizer available in a free open beta for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The beta runs until November 8, so we all get a chance to try the instrument during development, but this isn’t a permanent freeware release. According to the dev, they spent two years [...]
View post: zc devices launches thicket, a polyphonic modular synth in FREE open beta

Why festivals are booking hi-fi sound systems on their lineupsOn April 22 2016, the day after Prince passed, I experienced the audio magic of Despacio for the first time. The custom McIntosh-powered sound system is the brainchild of three icons of technology-driven music: James Murphy, lead singer of LCD Soundsystem, and David and Stephen Dewaele, better known as Soulwax and 2manydjs. This trio DJ vinyl-only sets in Despacio.
This was the first time Despacio came to Coachella. When I made my way into the custom-built tent, the curation inside was even more relieving than the air conditioning subduing the dry desert heat. The seven speaker stacks surrounded a circular lighting rig directing attention towards a planet-sized disco ball hanging from the ceiling, which, moments after I entered, was lit purple when they played the inimitable classic, Purple Rain.

READ MORE: Inside 5 of Los Angeles’s best hi-fi bars: Where they are and why they sound so good

To me, this was the closest anyone could get to hearing Prince himself sing this song again. Standing in the centre of this dialled-in surround sound environment, with the sound of vinyl running through a custom-built Industry Standard analogue rotary mixer into Despacio, we may as well have been in the studio while the pride of Minnesota recorded the song 40 years ago.
Since then, Despacio returned to Coachella in 2023, and has landed on the lineup poster for other festivals, including This Ain’t No Picnic, III Points, and Portola. In 2026, a true hi-fi experience is as appealing on a lineup as any artist.
“It’s honestly a fucking blast,” says Danny Bell. As Goldenvoice’s SVP of talent, he oversees artist bookings at Portola, Club Darc, and many other Goldenvoice events. “People really value good sound. No one ever has been to a show with amazing sound and said, ‘If only there were more lights or video.’ But if the sound isn’t good, it could ruin shows with the biggest production. It just goes back to the basis of this being all about music, and sound is number one always.”
Bell is also behind Head Trip, the one-off dance festival at the Empire Polo Club, where Coachella has taken place since 1999. In addition to giant headliners such as Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex, and Calvin Harris, Bell secured the first North American appearance of Floating Points’ Sunflower Sound System.
Dekmantel Festival. Image: Press
Sunflower is Floating Points’ (real name Sam Shepherd) latest hyper-intricate project, following his ballet with the San Francisco Symphony, Mere Mortals, and his orchestral album Promises before that. Recent as it may seem, Shepherd has been working on the system for over a decade. He and Tom Smith, co-founder of the hi-fi-driven, Leeds-based club night, Cosmic Slop, scoured the globe for different components until they found the precise combination they needed to hand-build these 14-foot-tall stacks.
Having played Coachella and Portola multiple times, Shepherd and Bell had become friends. So, when Shepherd was in San Francisco in August 2025, he invited Bell over for dinner to discuss the idea of bringing Sunflower to the US.
“There are some people who are just interested and intrigued by things. That’s how they end up going down this rabbit hole of actually building something like this [and] spending the time to source every individual piece,” Bell says of Shepherd. “He told me all about the speaker cones and the various places they went to look at them, the exact tweeters that they got, what year they were made, and why it mattered that they were made that particular year, because a certain wire or product changed the year after.”
Bell has an equally important role in this process because Sunflower needs a room built to calculated specifications on the festival grounds. After hosting Despacio multiple times and the Yuma tent (Coachella’s on-site nightclub) since 2013, Goldenvoice has developed soundproofing walls that can be arranged in any size and shape.
“We have an in-house team that can build anything. That’s what makes it fun,” Bell says. “You can’t just put these systems anywhere. You put it in the room with the wrong materials on the wall, and it will fully impact the experience.”
Coincidentally, III Points never has to worry about having the proper room for such a sound system. When the festival started 13 years ago, it was in just one building, which is now the venue called Black Room at Mana Wynwood. This space used to host film productions for major motion pictures such as Charlie’s Angels and Transformers, and then the first III Points hosted DJ Shadow, Jamie xx, and James Murphy.
Dekmantel Festival. Image: Press
“The second you walk into it, your ears change. It’s like when you put noise-cancelling headphones on,” says David Sinopoli, founder of III Points. “You can play something in here and truly hear it. That room really was the heartbeat of the festival, because it’s where we started, and it’s also a very special room with the treatment that’s on the walls.”
As the festival grew to its current haul of over 13 stages, headliners such as Charlotte de Witte started performing at massive outdoor spaces, but Black Room was still where Sinopoli highlighted special acts. Björk performed a DJ set there, MF DOOM performed before he passed away in 2020, and when Despacio came to III Points, Sinopoli and the team realised it was the perfect size for the sound system’s specifications.
“We got lucky, or it was meant to be. It seems like it is the home for the Despacio,” says Luca Sabatini, Technical Director for III Points.
III Points first hosted Despacio in 2023 and booked it again in 2025. But after that first year, its clientele was so excited about a room with sound as the headliner that Sinopoli and Sabatini saw fit to design their own audio-forward experience for the Black Room: the :444: stage. This concept debuted in 2024 and will return this year.
Three artists play four hours each with an all-L-Acoustics system comprising 66 components, including six from the brand-new L-Series. It also has the added colour of L-Acoustics DJ, which uses machine learning to break stereo tracks into different elements for manoeuvrability around a spatial audio system. Either the DJs themselves can man the technology during their sets or III Points can provide a member of their tech team to run the software.
Dekmantel Festival. Image: Press
While Bell and Sinopoli acknowledge the growing interest in high-quality sound both at festivals and in public establishments like vinyl bars, they agree that the sound serves a larger whole: the environment.
Bell describes Despacio as Murphy and the Dewaeles’ “dream club environment,” noting that most people have never been in such a highly curated music space: “Walking into this environment where that attention to detail has been predetermined, it’s unique. It’s different, and it creates a sense of community, because the sound is so clear and crisp. The sound is the focal point and the thing that really ties it all together.”
Despacio also uses its design to encourage a more communal experience. The circular lighting rig beckons people towards the middle of the room while Murphy and the Dewaeles view everything from a small window. They are not the focus. The dancefloor is.
“A truth that our generation can pass on to the next generation is to stop staring at the DJ and start staring at each other,” says Sinopoli, going on to describe the different kinds of human-to-human experiences that such a space offers. “It’s a respite spot. It’s never overpacked. You can go there and be part of the music. Be in the back. Smoke a joint. This is an opportunity for people to have an intimate moment with somebody they love.”
And in order to ensure those moments are properly curated, the final piece of the puzzle is, of course, the DJs. For Desapacio, this isn’t a factor. No one else DJs in there besides Murphy and the Dewaeles. :444: and Sunflower have a rotating cast, but the philosophy, according to Bell and Sinopoli, is identical:
“Everyone has to be a master,” Sinopoli says.
Bell elaborates, “It’s all about selectors, right? People who really care for this. There’s a purpose for each one. [Shepherd] knows these artists would not only appreciate the opportunity to play on the sound system, but they would do a lot with it.”

At Head Trip, Shepherd will be joined by Ben UFO, Four Tet, Zach Cowie, Theo Parish, Eris Drew B2B Octo Octa, and Avalon Emerson, but there won’t be any set times published. The people are going for the experience as a whole, not just for a singular DJ.
This is where :444: has contrast. When Sinopoli is booking the stage, his programming is intentional. The earliest slot, 4-8 pm, is more about selecting tracks rather than building a dance music set. Then for 8-12 am, that’s for building the energy from listening into dancing, and then the closing 12-4am slot is pure club hours. This year, the breakdown is Heidi Lawden starting on the first day, followed by DJ Harvey, with Floating Points closing. The next day is Willikens and Ivkovic opening, then Red Axes, then Seth Troxler.
“We can’t put anybody that’s not a master in there, because it is a room where you have to come equipped to really hold a 4-hour set,” Sinopoli says. “Seth and Floating Points are known to be able to pick up the pace and be able to really rip it. So, it’s a lot of curatorial filters that go on to even who can be in :444:.”
Murphy and the Dewaeles demonstrated the sound system’s impact with Purple Rain. To be at a festival after the death of one of the most legendary musicians in history, a certain emotion hangs in the air. It’s like a reminder of their influence on everyone performing (not to mention Prince himself headlined Coachella in 2008).
It was a rare moment where a recording could be just as powerful as a human performance, and that’s thanks to the sound system and the environment designed specifically to house it. Sinopoli and Bell take pride in creating the opportunity for thousands of people to experience those moments.
The post Why festivals are booking hi-fi sound systems on their lineups appeared first on MusicTech.

The Hollywood Bowl Celebrates 90 Years of Buddy GuyThere are few finer sights in music than that of legendary blues man Buddy Guy walking onto the Hollywood Bowl stage, like a man a fraction of his age. Guy turned 90 in July of this year, and he's one of the few old school artists of any genre, never mind the blues, still performing.

At the iconic Hollywood Bowl, Guy was ably supported by Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, with special guest Joe Bonamassa. Those two men have done as much as just about anyone to carry the blues forward, and they sounded wonderful here. Kingfish in particular is a very natural player, bursting with groove and authenticity. He plays with a smile on his face, and it's easy to fall in love with his take on the genre.

But even Kingfish would concede that Buddy Guy is a class apart. He's a force of nature, and he seems to defy Father Time. The opening "Damn Right, I've Got the Blues" showcased the fact that Guy's throaty singing only gets better with age. The man simply purred through that song, plus the following "Hoochie Coochie Man," while his fingers danced across the fretboard.

There were excellent covers, including Denise LaSalle's "Someone Else is Steppin' In" and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," before a spectacular jam with the aforementioned Kingfish and Bonamassa.

Ultimately, this was all about being in the presence of greatness.

Photos by Alex Kluft

The post The Hollywood Bowl Celebrates 90 Years of Buddy Guy first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.