Here’s how to document your music memories with Spotify’s new User Notes featureSpotify has rolled out a new User Notes feature for both free and premium users in select markets who are 16 and older.
With User Notes, you can now add your own notes and captions to playlists you’ve created or manage as part of Spotify’s mission to make music discovery and the listening experience more personalised.

READ MORE: Spotify partners with UMG on AI-powered remix tool as part of a “superfan initiative” designed to “support human artistry”

In an email shared with MusicTech about the launch, a summary states: “Think of it as adding a personal caption to your favourite songs: a place to share why a track made the playlist, when you discovered it, a hidden gem worth remembering, or the memory behind it. Over time, these notes paint a picture of the music listeners love and the moments that shaped it.”
To use the feature on mobile, go to any playlist you’ve created or added tracks to, and tap the three-dot menu button next to a track. From here you can select ‘add note’, then type out your own message – it could be a memory or extra context as to why you chose the song – and hit Save.
Your note will be visible to anyone who can see the playlist, with your name linking to your profile.
In other new launches for Spotify, the streaming service has also launched a new Running Mode. Offering a “personalised running experience”, it transforms playlists into running sessions tailored to fitness goals, music taste, and tempo.

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A blog post on the Spotify Newsroom says users can find Running Mode in the Fitness Hub, where you can choose one of 25 curated running presets and make it your own by customising your workout type, duration, Beats per Minute, and what type of music you’re in the mood for. It also includes optional audio cues in English to help guide you through your workout.
Find out more about the latest Spotify launches via the Spotify Newsroom.
The post Here’s how to document your music memories with Spotify’s new User Notes feature appeared first on MusicTech.

I reviewed 2,000 plugins. Making my own took 2 years.
I’ve been reviewing audio plugins on Bedroom Producers Blog for more than 15 years. I don’t have an exact number, but I’ve probably tested more than 2,000 plugins in that time. Maybe close to 2,500, depending on how strictly we count the ones I installed, disliked, and uninstalled right away. During all that plugin testing, [...]
View post: I reviewed 2,000 plugins. Making my own took 2 years.

Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless review: Heritage goes on holidaySennheiser’s consumer division has been flipped more times than a pancake in recent years, which feels at odds with a brand famed for legendary consistency in its headphones and soundbars.
As the company releases its new noise cancellers, the Momentum 5 Wireless, it’s on the market again, being sold by Swiss hearing aid company Sonova Holding AG. Where it goes from here, who knows.

READ MORE: “Those are my weapon”: Inside Audeze and Manny Marroquin’s MM-520 headphones

Perhaps the fact that Sennheiser’s employees have managed to ignore the noise and push out a new flagship product during a time of such uncertainty points to the prowess of its ANC technology?
If that wasn’t confusing enough, Sennheiser’s headphone line-up is split between the consumer division and a pro division that remains under the ownership of the original Sennheiser family.
Want a pair of punchy, mid-forward DJ favourites like the HD 25? That’s pro. Craving spacious, forensic critical listening from the open-back HD 800 S? That’s consumer.
It’s the latter’s mixing reference DNA that Sennheiser invokes for the Momentum 5. Think of it as heritage going on holiday – the pair of headphones that Sennheiser engineers pack when they’re out of office.
This fifth-generation model arrives four years after the much-loved Momentum 4, and sports 42mm dynamic drivers inspired by the HD 600 series. But does that amount to headphones a producer can trust, or a pair truly trying to get away from it all?
Image: Press
Momentum 5 Wireless: Packed for the overhead locker
Sennheiser has refined the Momentum 4’s design rather than reinvented it. At 290g the Momentum 5 feels lighter than the scales suggest, with a fabric-wrapped headband, gentle clamping force and generously padded oval earcups.
In fact, the headphones feel featherweight for the full duration of several transatlantic flights, which is more than can be said for most in their class.
The carry case deserves credit, too. It is 20 percent slimmer than the old one, with the headphones folding flat inside a shell that slides into a laptop compartment like a magazine.
There is a moulded indent for grabbing it one-handed, elastic straps for the included USB-C and 3.5mm aux cables, and an elastic mesh pouch for incidentals. No wasted bulk anywhere.
Two frustrations to flag are both about control. The pairing process takes longer to decode than it should, owing to confusion between the multi-function power button and the app-managed device list.
Additionally, the touch controls—taps and swipes on the right cup with a pinch gesture for transparency—can be hit and miss, occasionally ignoring swipes until the third attempt. Mercifully, these gestures can be disabled entirely in the app.
Image: Press
Momentum 5: Serious connections
For high-resolution listening, the Momentum 5 is packing. Codec support runs from SBC and AAC through the aptX family, topping out at aptX Lossless on Snapdragon Sound devices. Wireless duties fall to Bluetooth 5.4 at launch, with the hardware ready for Bluetooth 6.0 via a future firmware update.
More useful still, there are two wired routes in: a 3.5mm socket and USB-C audio at up to 24-bit/96 kHz, which effectively turns the headphones into a tidy DAC for laptop sessions; something Sony‘s flagship WH-1000XM6 still cannot do.
The Smart Control Plus app is the deepest Sennheiser has shipped on Momentum headphones. An eight-band EQ with storable presets sits alongside Sound Personalisation, which tunes the balance to your hearing, with Sound Zones, which switch ANC and EQ automatically according to location.
Podcast mode pushes speech forward and proves handy across a fortnight of interviews, episodes and transcription work, but it’s noise cancelling that takes the biggest generational leap, via a hybrid system using eight ANC microphones – twice the Momentum 4’s count.
In the air it takes the sting out of cabin drone for hours at a stretch, and makes short work of commuter rumble. Push it to the loudest extremes and Sony and Bose still hold the crown, but the gap has narrowed to a sliver.
Battery life extends to 57 hours with ANC engaged, or nearer 40 if you insist on streaming aptX Lossless throughout. Either way, that is a return trip to the States with plenty of change, while a 10-minute top-up buys another seven hours.
Best of all, in a move more brands should copy, the battery is user-replaceable with nothing more exotic than a Phillips screwdriver. Sennheiser reckons on roughly a decade of heavy use before you would need to.
Image: Press
Momentum 5: Can you trust them with a mix?
So, the big MusicTech question: does HD 600 lineage make these critical listening tools? The honest answer is nearly, and knowingly.
Out of the box, the tuning is warmer and more bass-generous than anything wearing an HD badge; this is a consumer flagship, and Sennheiser has voiced it for pleasure rather than analysis.
The low end is rich but well-mannered, staying out of the midrange’s way even on bass-laden material.
That midrange is where the family resemblance shows. Vocals, guitars and acoustic instruments arrive with a naturalness and definition most rivals at any price struggle to match, sitting right where the mix engineer left them.
Highs are detailed, and the soundstage is wide enough to pick apart dense arrangements on a crowded train. Flatten the EQ and plug in over USB-C and things sharpen up with enough honesty to reference a rough bounce at 35,000 feet.
They will not replace your studio monitors or a proper open-back reference for final decisions, and they are not pretending otherwise. As a travelling second opinion, though, they are undeniably convincing.
Image: Press
Should you buy the Sennheiser Momentum 5?
Buy the Momentum 5 if you want headphones to handle the commute, the long-haul and a spot of honest referencing in between. Lossless wired listening, a marathon battery you can replace yourself, and that brilliantly flat case add up to a complete travel package.
Don’t buy if class-leading noise cancelling is the priority, in which case Sony’s WH-1000XM6 still edges it.
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2, Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3, Apple AirPods Max 2 and Marshall Monitor III A.N.C all want your money too, but only the latter costs less than the Momentum 5’s £330.
The Momentum 5 is a softer, smarter descendant of its critical listening siblings, and once you have decoded the pairing ritual the family resemblance is unmistakable: dependable, honest and built to last.

Key features

42mm dynamic drivers inspired by the HD 600 series
Codec support for SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless; Snapdragon Sound certified
Bluetooth 5.4 at launch, Bluetooth 6.0 ready via future firmware
Wired listening via USB-C (up to 24-bit/96 kHz) and 3.5mm mini-jack
Hybrid ANC with 8 microphones, plus natural transparency mode
Up to 57 hours battery life
User-replaceable battery
Smart Control Plus app: 8-band EQ, Sound Personalisation, Sound Zones, Podcast mode
Dolby Atmos support
290g
Folds flat into provided travel case
Black, white and denim finishes

The post Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless review: Heritage goes on holiday appeared first on MusicTech.

MUSICIANS’ UNION SUES UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP AND WARNER MUSIC GROUPThe American Federation of Music (AFM), the union for session musicians, has filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG). The AFM alleges that the two record labels have licensed recordings to prominent artificial intelligence (A.I.) music generator companies Suno and Udio and have failed to pay or give credit to AFM members who performed on those recordings.

On June 5, 2026, AFM filed its lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint focuses on deals the two labels made with the two A.I. companies which the union claims caused the “New Use” provision in its collective bargaining agreement to be activated. According to the union, this provision required the record labels to pay their members when their recordings are put to a new commercial use. The union further asserts the settlements made money for the labels but failed to do so for the session musicians who performed on the recordings.

The union is seeking monetary damages as well as an order that the labels disclose which recordings were used in the A.I. training sets. 

According to the complaint:“The AFM brings this lawsuit because defendants, two of the largest music companies in the world, have licensed sound recordings on which AFM represented musicians have worked, without compensation or credit, to A.I. companies. At the same time, they have refused to provide information to the AFM about which recordings and what work is being licensed.”

In 2024, UMG, WMG, and Sony Music first sued Suno and Udio claiming that the A.I. companies committed enormous copyright infringement by training their A.I. models on thousands of songs without authorization. 

The labels claim that the deals with A.I. companies that allow them to train their A.I. models on the labels’ catalogs are needed to create an A.I. system that protects and pays compensation for artists.

In October 2025, UMG settled with Udio. The settlement provided compensation and a license agreement for a new A.I. music platform to begin in 2026.

WMG also settled with Udio in November of 2025. In addition, WMG settled its copyright infringement lawsuit against Suno. These settlements will permit the A.I. companies to utilize licensed music from the record labels in their A.I. models.

Sony Music has not settled with Udio or Suno and is not a party to the lawsuit filed by AFM.

According to plaintiff’s complaint, “While the defendants protected their own interests and created a significant source of new revenue with their retrospective settlements and prospective licenses, they have refused to compensate the musicians whose work —created with their own instruments and through their creativity, and hard work- is fed into A.I. machines for profit.”

One would think this is the type of case that will settle.

GLENN T. LITWAK is a veteran entertainment attorney based in Santa Monica, CA. He has represented platinum selling recording artists, GRAMMY-winning music producers, hit songwriters, management and production companies, music publishers and independent record labels. Litwak is also a frequent speaker at music industry conferences around the country, such as South by Southwest and the Billboard Music in Film and TV Conference. Litwak has been selected as a “Super Lawyer” by Super Lawyer magazine for 2022-2025. Email Litwak at gtllaw59@gmail.com or visit glennlitwak.com.

This article is a very brief overview of the subject matter and does not constitute legal advice.The post MUSICIANS’ UNION SUES UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP AND WARNER MUSIC GROUP first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Strategy posts $8.2B Q2 loss as Bitcoin slump drives unrealized lossesThe Bitcoin treasury company said it has built a $3.75 billion cash reserve to support preferred stock payouts following the launch of its BTC monetization program.

Judge says Trump admin still lacks evidence for Anthropic ‘supply-chain risk’ labelA federal judge said the Trump administration has not presented enough evidence to justify labeling Anthropic a supply-chain risk, casting doubt on the government's ban on its AI technology.

Fixing a JMicron-Based M.2 USB Enclosure That Stopped WorkingAs useful as USB-to-M.2 SSD adapters are, sometimes you come across a bit of a dud. A case in point is the Orico-branded TCM2-C3 that features both an attractive clear case and in its earlier revisions a JMicron controller-based circuit that apparently degrades over time, causing erratic boot behavior. After implementing a fix a few years ago, [Mark Furneaux] can happily report that the thus fixed enclosures are still working.
These faulty board revisions feature the JMicron JMS583 controller IC, which has a 1.0V core voltage input pin. Apparently to save power, Orico designed the board to target the minimum ~-0.95V core voltage per the datasheet. Apparently due to component drift or degradation, this lower core voltage is after a while often not enough any more to start the controller, which thus translates into an unresponsive USB device and presumably some panic about lost data.
Although [Mark] doesn’t describe the fix in detail, it entails bumping up this core voltage to something closer to the nominal 1.0V, which restores functionality at the cost of presumably a measurable amount of extra heat production by said controller.
Later versions of the Orico TCM2-C3 enclosure switched from this JMicron controller to a Realtek one, which so far appears to be noticeably more reliable. Although Orico kept the same model name, the transparent enclosure makes it at least a snap to see which revision you are dealing with.

DT 275 Pro from beyerdynamic The latest headphones to join the beyerdynamic range have been designed to tackle everything from location video shoots and field recording to high-SPL live-sound duties.

Release Title:
Ссора с головой
Main Artist:
Pchelsh
Feature Artist:
Velidl
Release Date:
21/07/2026
Primary Genre:
Dance / Electro Pop
Secondary Genre:
Pop
https://publme.lnk.to/459579-
#newmusic #Release #Music #indepedent #artist #pop #dance #electronic

ZL Audio ZL Spectrum EqualizerZL Spectrum Equalizer is a dynamic spectrum equalizer plugin with the following key features: Unmatched Versatility: Sculpt sound with 9 filter types, 5 stereo modes, 7 variable slopes, and up to 24 linear-phase frequency bands. Spectrum Dynamics: Experience precise frequency-domain dynamic processing that tracks and controls resonances across the spectrum, with adjustable threshold, attack, release, and knee width. Powerful Engine: Tailor behavior and latency with different spectrum resolution settings, side-chain smoothing, and frequency-dependent attack/release skewing, all powered by a high-performance FFT engine. Intuitive Workflow: Achieve fast, fluid equalization with a carefully designed interface featuring an interactive spectrum graph, smart collision detection, and smooth animations. Please visit the website for more information. VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, registered in Europe and other countries. Read More

Universal Music Group generated $3.83bn in Q2, up 13.3% YoY – driven by Noah Kahan, BTS, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, and Olivia DeanUniversal Music Group generated revenues of EUR €3.294 billion (USD $3.83bn) across all of its divisions (including recorded music, publishing, and more) in Q2 (the three months ending June 30, 2026). That’s according to UMG‘s fresh set of quarterly results, published today (July 30). They reveal that UMG’s overall Q2 revenue grew 13.3% YoY at … Continued
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Manu Riga releases Drift Ritual, a FREE cinematic synth for macOS and Windows
Drift Ritual is a new synth plugin from Manu Riga, and you can download it for free now. The plugin is available in AU and VST formats for macOS and Windows. The developer calls this plugin an organic drift synthesizer, and that about sums up the core character of Drift Ritual. It’s about sounds that [...]
View post: Manu Riga releases Drift Ritual, a FREE cinematic synth for macOS and Windows

SSL unveil the Odyssey console A year on from the launch of the Oracle, SSL have revealed a new flagship console which they say redefines what is possible in analogue production.

Danalogue uses vintage synths to create alien ensemblesWith a stage name like Danalogue, you’d hope that London-based producer Dan Leavers conjures rich synth sounds with a host of prized analogue studio gear. Thankfully, he does. His new album, Teleportations, is a prime showcase of Leavers’ talent for building luscious synthscapes, infusing elements of jazz and space disco — a characteristic found in his work as one-half of Soccer96 and as a member of The Comet Is Coming. The 10-track LP is bubbling with sci-fi themes, even arriving with its own mythology. It’s also positioned as a response to the “digital overload” of current times, inviting listeners to think of “imagination as a radical act.”
In this outing of Studio Files, Danalogue explains how he finds inspiration from synthesizer giants such as Wendy Carlos, why he’s so obsessed with vintage gear, and why you should try more “no-strings-attached unrecorded jams”.
Teleportations comes with its own sci-fi mythology and short story about astral travel and consciousness. Can you talk us through how that world took shape and how it steered the music you made?
Danalogue: It all started in a little synth studio in Paris. I took a walk and discovered the French illustrator Moebius through the window of a comic book shop. The shop was closed, so I could only have a tantalising glimpse of this psychedelic otherworldly planet, but it set my mind racing, unlocking the inspiration for building a sonic world of an imagined exoplanet, which then led to travelling between different meta spaces as a means of exploring my psyche and processing emotions through the sounds and structures.
Teleportations by Danalogue
Teleportations was built around a largely vintage analogue setup — the Juno-60, SH-09, Jupiter-4, Oberheim and old samplers. Walk us through how that rig shaped the record, and which machine ended up doing the most work.
D: I love the tactile feel of synths, and moving faders around to craft your own sounds, trying to make the sound in your imagination or sometimes get a surprise. The Roland Juno and SH-09 are my main axes. I’ve travelled the world with them and have a deep relationship with them both. I was keen to try out other studio spaces and try different synths. The Jupiter 4 and Oberheim OB-X8 were in Paris and blew my mind a little bit with the mysterious qualities each one had. It’s hard to remember, but in the end, possibly the SH-101 I used the most, as it sits right next to me in my studio going through the space echo, so it’s easy to reach for. I feel like I can make so many different sounds on it too.

You gravitate towards these older instruments because of their limitations, right? Can you talk more about that, and give us an example from the album where a constraint forced a better production decision?
D: It’s hard to say what a better production decision is! I tend to make fairly rogue or intuitive decisions based upon what gets me amped up, which isn’t necessarily a case of better, more a frequency of resonance that I want to emit for some reason. I love old synths because often they have a simplicity to them, and every knob does something fairly immediate and fun, rather than multi-edit screens and assignable knobs — I don’t really have the patience or personality for that. The old visual aesthetic also looks really cool, which inspires me to want to play, and they sound kind of gooey and colourful…a bit dank and filthy sometimes as well.
Tell us a bit more about your studio.
D: My spot is in East London. So for years I had bits and pieces everywhere, at friends’ houses, in my bedroom and at this place called the Total Refreshment Centre in Dalston. I always dreamed of putting it all together in one room, so I’m super grateful to have this place. I have made it so it’s almost all ready to go at the drop of a hat, including recording drums, and I mainly use it for recording my own bits and mixing and producing for others too. I also sometimes have friends over to jam real loud late at night, trying to remember that ‘playing’ music is playing, you know? Sometimes a no-strings-attached unrecorded jam is a sacrifice to the music gods, and you learn something along the way or rekindle a love with something.

What’s your latest gear purchase?
D: I just got this piece called Chaos Engine, which is awesome! It’s got 5 oscillators triggered by these sort of old school computer keys, and they all combine with a chaos knob to create unpredictable resonances; it sounds a bit like Silver Apple, pure direct oscillators. It was recommended to me by Malcolm Catto when I was at his studio, and it’s really good fun, and curiously cheap as well. It’s great to have a synth that’s removed from associating with piano keys.
What’s the most underrated piece of gear in your studio and why?
D: I have this cool old synth by Jen called the Piano73; it was left to me by the previous producer from the studio called Simbad, who kindly hooked me up with the space and the synth. It’s a humble keyboard, but it has an inbuilt phaser and a piercing attack, a bit like a cosmic harpsichord; playing it is always a good idea.
I love the eerie and charming sounds in Mother of Mars. How much of your music is just experimenting with synth patches until something sounds right, versus dialling in exactly what feels right for a concept?
D: So Mother of Mars is a little clue to the synth I used for every sound on that track. I basically wanted to make a love letter to that keyboard and combine different arpeggios that weren’t synced in time but had an organic connection, sort of building the sounds visually, sort of like a painting of a landscape of a liminal space. I do sometimes have a sound in mind, but so often if you just freak the sliders around you can find something better than you could if you were too controlling; the synths always reward playfulness.

You’ve cited Joe Meek, Wendy Carlos, Tomita, Laurie Spiegel, Mort Garson among your influences. What did you actually take from them into Teleportations?
D: I pull different inspiration from different characters. With Wendy Carlos (plus Tomita and Mort Garson, to be fair), it was the idea of building a whole track from layers of synthesizers, and almost making a little orchestra of different sounds, and expressing yourself entirely from synths. So a track like Arrival at Rho Ophiuchi isn’t a million miles away from Switched on Bach, but rather than it being a classical piece, I’m trying to create a kind of alien ensemble.
Is there any particular moment in the album that stands out to you, from a sound design and production perspective?
D: The middle of Moebius Triptych stands out; it has this melody line that I double-tracked on the SH-09, and it’s so melted and warm and gooey. I also ran the Juno through a Red Panda Particle pedal on that to create pitched delays, which were great to automate in and out. The connection to the emotional aspect of being alive was pretty close on that section. I used this Roland flanger on the hats and ride of the drums and made a sort of synth cowbell through a spring reverb, which I was quite happy with. I then tried to make a guitar solo sound similar to Robert Fripp on the Prophet 10, which I was quite chuffed with.

What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
D: That there’s “a way to do it”. Somebody is always telling you how to create, like there are rules. Like, “You have to write every day” or “You have to use hardware”, or “You have to use software”, or “You can’t run a tape machine channel insanely into the reds until it distorts making a bass note”. I especially found this when I was younger and older studio engineers would just be saying what you couldn’t or shouldn’t do the whole time.
I reckon everyone has their sound to make and their soul to express and their version of creativity, so whenever anyone says something absolute, I just switch off. Do it your own way! And also, the people you want to collaborate with will gravitate towards you when you do your own style, like when Snapped Ankles ask me to mix their album, they referenced some very saturated filthy lo-fi tracks I’d done with my band Soccer96 — I was like, “Really?!  You want it like this?!”

Who gave you the biggest lesson in your career?
D: Too many to count. I’ve been blessed with different mentors growing up who saw how insanely obsessed I was with music and have helped me out. The producer Capitol K took me under his wing when I was first in London, and we shared a studio for many years. He showed me some wicked things with EQ and compression, the more detailed subtractive parametric EQing and more pragmatic compressing, to complement the colourful, exciting additive stuff that I was doing at the time; a way to find a real balanced mix. He also introduced me to the Eventide Harmonizer H3000 and Lexicon reverb unit that I bought doubles of when I got my own studio — almost every preset is a winner. He showed me so many things, also how to carefully and methodically comp vocals, lots of engineering chops, and the general mentality of keeping a studio in good order.
 
The post Danalogue uses vintage synths to create alien ensembles appeared first on MusicTech.

Jean-Michel Jarre has written his first book – and its a love letter to rare synths and the history of electronic musicJean-Michel Jarre – the Legendary French composer and producer who played electronic music for an estimated 3.5 million people in Moscow one night in 1997 – is releasing his first book.
It’s called Machines: A History of Electronic Music, and it’s written through the lens of his vast, unmatched collection of music-making apparatuses.

READ MORE: “On a personal creative level, it’s how we got to Random Access Memories”: Thomas Bangalter on Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy score

The volume contains images of over 130 electronic and electro-acoustic instruments, from classic modular synthesizers to machines that were only manufactured one time. In the book, Jarre will use each one to represent the techniques that led to electronic music becoming the powerhouse it is today, as well as the cultural movements that supported its rise.
The story begins all the way back in 1913 with The Art of Noises, Luigi Russolo’s Futurist manifesto that argued for a bold new approach to music-making. Moving on, other historical benchmarks covered include the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with the book ending on modern advancements such as AI.
As Jarre has been a pioneer of the genre for over 50 years (he is now a UNESCO Ambassador for Education, Science, and Culture), the book also goes deep into his own storied career from his fascination with reel-to-reel tape machines as a child, to his earliest official teachings under Pierre Schaeffer at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris, to performing live stream events during the pandemic.
But many of his peers contribute as well. Trance legend Armin van Buuren, Vince Clarke of Depeche Mode, Gillian Gilbert of New Order, Nicolas Godin of Air, techno icon Richie Hawtin, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran all share their thoughts on electronic music throughout the book.
‘Machines: A History of Electronic Music’ will be available 24 November via Thames & Hudson. Head to Thames & Hudson USA to preorder for $65.
The post Jean-Michel Jarre has written his first book – and its a love letter to rare synths and the history of electronic music appeared first on MusicTech.