NIVA State of Live study released as convention beginsThe NIVA State of Live study was released Monday as the independent venue and promoter trade group’s annual convention began in Milwaukee. NIVA State of Live study released as convention. Continue reading
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Use your Midi Fighter Twister as an Audio-Reactive VisualizerWant to take a Midi Fighter Twister and turn it into a real-time, Ableton-based, audio-reactive visualizer? Today’s tutorial by DJTT contributor Rishabh Rajan does exactly that. Watch step by step as he transforms the LEDs on the Twister into a three-band isolated display for playing audio. Yes, this works with other controllers, and you can […]
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Wave Arts Power Suite 7Covering the essential aspects of sound design, our critically acclaimed audio plug-ins feature outstanding sound quality, exceptional CPU efficiency, stunning visual interface design, world class customer support, and tremendous value for the money. Power Suite 7 plug-ins run within most MacOS (AU/VST3/AAX) or Windows (VST2/VST3/AAX) based music production or audio editing application. Power Suite 7 consists of the following plug-ins: TrackPlug: the ultimate channel strip plug-in. MasterVerb: silky smooth multi-algorithm reverb. FinalPlug: mastering peak limiter and loudness compliance. MultiDynamics: multi-band dynamics control. Panorama: 3D binaural processor. Power Suite 7 features native support for Apple Silicon, scalable user interfaces, support for high DPI displays, optional information tips display, A/B edit buffers and infinite undo, serial number or iLok licensing, and built-in preset management. https://youtu.be/LPRj-g0UDgE Read More

Emergence Audio Launches Infinite Summer Sale with up to 50% Off Kontakt Libraries
Emergence Audio has launched its Infinite Summer Sale, offering up to 50% off its cinematic Kontakt instrument lineup, including highlights like Quantum, Viola Textures, and Infinite Upright. If you need modern cinematic textures and expressive scoring tools, the Infinite Summer Sale might be one of the best deals of the season. We recently featured Emergence [...]
View post: Emergence Audio Launches Infinite Summer Sale with up to 50% Off Kontakt Libraries

What is American folk music? History, characteristics, and instruments
Learn about the history of American folk music, the key characteristics and instruments that define it, and more.

“I stopped paying for mastering about five years ago… I want immediacy”: How Luxxury masters his own music by eyeProducer and artist Luxxury says he no longer pays for mastering, and manages to do it himself by eye.
Appearing on the latest episode of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast, made in partnership with Audient, Luxxury says that taste should prevail over all when it comes to music production, and that we should stop fearing what is technically wrong or right. With that in mind, Luxxury doesn’t overthink the finer details so much these days.

READ MORE: “I’ve always thought of it as a tapestry. A visual puzzle”: Luxxury needs to visualise music to nurture creativity – here’s why

He explains, “I think taste, selection, curation, having an idea of, ‘oh, I haven’t heard this before in quite this way,’ far trumps how you’re able to dial in compression in the most scientifically engineered [way].
“I’m usually just turning knobs on my compressor until it sounds good, which I’ve heard many people say. Compression is conceptually a little bit rough. I mean, I can describe it. I know what it’s doing intellectually, but I’m not really sure what all the buttons do. It’s all based on sound which is based on taste. It’s just, ‘this sounds good to me.’”
To that point, co-host Chris Barker adds that compression isn’t really something he focuses on anymore when making music either, which is something he began to worry less about following an interview with Bruce Swedien regarding Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and how he barely used any compression on it.
“I do that, by the way. I do that with mastering. I stopped paying for mastering about five years ago,” adds Luxxury, “and sure, would it be a little better? Maybe, [but] I want immediacy. I want to put this song out now.
“What I’m doing, I’m about to out myself here, when I put out a record, I’ll put all the waveforms next to each other until they kind of look and sound kind of alike. And that is mastering by Luxxury. Shameful!”
He goes on to jest, “George Martin’s engineers are rolling in their graves. Fuck those white coated motherfuckers. They didn’t know dick. The obsession with knowledge and like, ‘this is the wrong way to do something.’ That is silliness.”
You can check out the full episode of the podcast below:

The post “I stopped paying for mastering about five years ago… I want immediacy”: How Luxxury masters his own music by eye appeared first on MusicTech.

Michael Moalem just released MIDI CC Phone Controller for free (Android)
Have you ever wanted to turn your phone into a MIDI controller? You’re in luck – Michael Moalem recently released his MIDI CC Phone Controller for Android for free! Moalem had been in need of a cheap, wireless, and portable XY controller for certain plugins in his DAW. He didn’t find what he was looking [...]
View post: Michael Moalem just released MIDI CC Phone Controller for free (Android)

Instant Audio release QuickVox Instant Audio have announced the launch of a new multi-effects plug-in designed to deliver studio-quality vocal processing while meeting the demands of live performance.

Musician’s Income Checklist: Get Paid What You DeserveIf you work in music, getting paid often isn’t easy—but it can be. This simple musician's income checklist helps you ask the right questions so you paids what you deserve.
The post Musician’s Income Checklist: Get Paid What You Deserve appeared first on Hypebot.

Save over £180 on this Baby Audio and Excite Audio bundle featuring “four of the hottest effects plugins on the market”Plugin Boutique is offering an exclusive deal on an effects bundle from Baby Audio and Excite Audio, featuring four plugins for less than £50.
You can save over £180 by purchasing the bundle, which features Excite Audio’s Motion: Harmonic and Lifeline Mod, plus Baby Audio’s Crystalline and Super VHS. The offer runs until 6 July.

READ MORE: Love ambient music? Sonicware’s LIVEN Evoke might be the perfect polyphonic synth

Plugin Boutique describes these effects plugins as “four of the hottest” on the market right now, so let’s dive a little further into each one.
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Excite Audio Motion: Harmonic
This distortion plugin can create “subtle warming and shaping” all the way to “intense modulated signal destruction”, with parameters for distortion, bitcrushing, and filtering. With a hexagonal control area and a reactive 3D object at the centre point of the UI, it offers six macro sliders that can be assigned to control any of its effect parameters. These sliders then react to a ‘magnetic’ cursor whose path can be recorded using mouse movements or drawn graphically.

Excite Audio Lifeline Mod
The Lifeline Mod is a pitch warping tool that revives the “magic of pitch variations” as heard across tape, vinyl and cassettes. The plugin hosts three core modes inspired by each of these physical mediums.
Tape mode introduces subtle pitch modulation where the speed and depth are compensated, and Vinyl mode simulates the warping of a record by “lending a moderate pitch modulation with some speed and depth compensation”. The Cassette mode achieves a more extreme pitch modulation effect as heard on compact-style tapes, left untamed by keeping speed and depth independent.

Baby Audio Crystalline
The Crystalline reverb plugin follows the traditions of classic algorithmic reverbs, but adds “new features and higher fidelity thanks to modern computer power”. You can set the room size from tiny to large, and there is a detached “length” control for any size/length combination you desire. Find out more below:

Baby Audio Super VHS
Inspired by the 1980s, this plugin captures the spirit of a worn out VHS tape. It utilises six effects that come together in a “versatile” signal chain to add lo-fi character and charm to any clean sound. Each effect has a single control, but multiple parameters to experiment with under the hood.

The Baby Audio x Excite Audio bundle is available now for £49. To find out more or shop the bundle, head over to Plugin Boutique.
The post Save over £180 on this Baby Audio and Excite Audio bundle featuring “four of the hottest effects plugins on the market” appeared first on MusicTech.

Tetrad is a soft synth “like no other”, apparentlyPhysical Audio has just unleashed a soft synth “like no other”. Developed alongside composer and transmedia artist Gadi Sassoon, the Tetrad combines physical modelling and granular synthesis into one release for Mac and Windows.
The soft synth is inspired by Gadi’s sculpture-based synth installation and accompanying soundtrack. The Modes of Vibration album utilises the Tetrad to compliment the “slashed plates and sound generators of the experimental setup”, but has since channelled the full experimental force of the installation into one central piece of software.

READ MORE: The Lost Art of the Ticket Stub — and its Futuristic Revival

“It started as an experiment in tangible synthesis and embodied algorithms with the team of Nemus Project, a quadraphonic ‘sculpture-based synth’ installation and performance based on four slashed plates with transducers,” Sassoon explains.
“In the real world each performance, installation and studio production provides a spatial experience that you just don’t get in a DAW, so we tried to imagine how that experience could inspire new tricks in the box.”

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The ‘Tetra’ name reflects its quadrophonic nature, with four oscillators and a quad bus signal path feeding 4 metal plates. The intention is a “pseudo-sequencer” effect, with the Quad Granulator splitting the signal into grains that can be replayed in a slew of different ways; users can adjust the grains’ waveshape, size, pitch and adjust the granulator’s feedback. There’s also phase displacement abilities per voice.
While four is the Tetra’s magic number, the four oscillator modes boast five different modes. Users can generate voices through basic, chords and modal chords, free and flex modes. There’s also ADSR envelope, FM Frequency and FM Depth for all oscillator types.
Voices can also be tuned in a variety of ways, ranging from basic intervals to diatonic inversions. There is also a Sidechain option, allowing you to bypass the oscillator. The voices can be controlled together to create new textures, or can be tweaked individually.

There’s also eight LFOs and three envelope-following sources, plus MIDI and MPE parameter sources. Three filters allow you to to curtail and sculpt effects from audio-rate modulation distortion and extreme granulation artefacts.
A highly customisable virtual sound stage also allows you the freedom to place plate resonators anywhere you please, allowing you to feed plates through a preamp with overdrive. You can customise the level of drive and decay per plate.
The Tetra comes with over 100 presets to get started immediately. Then, you can jump into the Comprehensive Modulation Matrix to truly let loose. “To bring it all to life, we programmed a powerful modulation matrix,” Sassoon says. “The result is a uniquely versatile computer music tool that can be used both as a generator and processor. There is much more to it, and I look forward to sharing details on each component in the coming weeks. It was real labour of love..”
Tetrad is available now at an introductory price of $59, which will soon jump up to $99.

The post Tetrad is a soft synth “like no other”, apparently appeared first on MusicTech.

Cakewalk Sonar Returns as a Free DAW for Windows
Cakewalk has re-released Sonar as a free DAW for Windows users. This is the long-awaited (re)birth of Cakewalk’s old flagship digital audio workstation, now with a new price tag, interface, and some new rules. If you’ve been around the free DAW scene, you’ll remember Cakewalk by BandLab as one of the top choices, rivaling Waveform [...]
View post: Cakewalk Sonar Returns as a Free DAW for Windows

After selling for $55M, a 24-hour YouTube music stream is first on the agenda for deadmau5’s mau5trap labelA new 24/7 live music stream has been launched by the mau5trap label, playing a constant mix of electronic music via the official deadmau5 YouTube channel.
The stream is aptly named as ‘Airplane Mode’, and provides background music for relaxing or working. All music has been selected by the mau5trap team – deadmau5’ own independent music label – with 100 tracks having been curated, which are also available in a Spotify playlist for streaming.

READ MORE: Is Spotify’s HiFi lossless streaming actually coming? Leaked code says yes

Airplane Mode is described by mau5trap as a “sonic journey through the sounds of progressive house, melodic techno, and electronic music for deep focus”. A description beneath the video reads, “Whether you’re tuning in to tune out, or looking for the perfect background music to elevate your space, this 24/7 radio stream is your passport to deep vibes and low-altitude cruising. No turbulence, just pure vibes.”
You can check it out below:

Deadmau5 sold his catalogue to Create Music Group for $55 million back in March, marking the start of a new working partnership. The deal also included the rights to the mau5trap Records catalogue, which is home to over 4,000 songs.
It was revealed that the partnership would focus on the expansion of the mau5trap legacy, with plans put in motion for CMG and deadmau5 (Joel Zimmerman) to work together on remastering and re-releasing key deadmau5 records, as well as launching new content across a range of platforms – hence the introduction of Airplane Mode.
In a more recent interview with Billboard Canada, Zimmerman reflected on the sale and affirmed that nothing would be changing in regards to how he works and puts out music: “I mean, I’m sure they’ll make all their money back and more, but for me it was just time to reel everything back in, throw some money back into production for the next couple of years, and then start over. So, nothing changes. I’m still writing new music and doing everything I do,” he said.
Find out more about mau5trap, or check out where you can catch deadmau5 live.
The post After selling for $55M, a 24-hour YouTube music stream is first on the agenda for deadmau5’s mau5trap label appeared first on MusicTech.

Splash Sound releases FREE Kalimba VST Plugin and Kontakt Library
Splash Sound has released Kalimba, a free virtual instrument for macOS and Windows. It’s the second addition to Splash Sound’s Play Collection of freeware, lightweight instruments for hassle-free music production. We featured the first instrument in the series, the Djembe, back in 2024. We liked the simple interface and surprisingly authentic sound (considering the lightweight [...]
View post: Splash Sound releases FREE Kalimba VST Plugin and Kontakt Library

OpenAI pulls promotional materials around Jony Ive dealOpenAI appears to have pulled a much-discussed video promoting the friendship between CEO Sam Altman and legendary Apple designer Jony Ive (plus, incidentally, OpenAI’s $6.5 billion deal to acquire Ive and Altman’s device startup io) from its website and YouTube page.