HoRNet HoRNet TotalEQ MK2HoRNet TotalEQ MK2 is a flexible and intuitive visual equalizer plugin designed for mixing, mastering, and sound design. It offers up to 36 fully independent EQ bands, each with its own filter type, dynamic processing, and analog-style saturation. The plugin includes a real-time spectrum analyzer, a fully interactive interface, and an intelligent auto EQ system based on two internal algorithms (HarmoniQ and BalancEQ), which help identify and correct resonances and tonal imbalances automatically. Key Features: - Up to 36 EQ bands (12 in v1). - 15 filter types per band, including Tilt EQ and Band Shelf. - Dynamic EQ with manual or auto threshold, attack, and release. - External sidechain support for dynamic bands. - Per-band analog saturation with adjustable intensity (1–10). - Real-time spectrum display of input, output, and EQ curves. - Double-click to add/delete filters directly on the graph. - Multi-band selection and simultaneous editing. - Shift/Alt modifiers for constrained editing. - Auto EQ function with resonance removal and tonal balancing. - Global controls: phase invert, input/output linking, loudness match (LUFS), analog emulation. - Resizable UI with light/dark/auto theme. - Analyzer slope and dynamic range adjustment. Read More

From Trump firing top copyright official to SoundCloud ‘fixing’ AI policy… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe biggest stories from the past week – all in one place…
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Get 18,000 IK Multimedia sounds and instruments for just £49.99 at Plugin BoutiqueFancy getting your hands on over 18,000 new sounds courtesy of IK Multimedia? Plugin Boutique has your back. The brand’s sound and groove workstation SampleTank 4 MAX v2 is currently on sale for just £49.99 – but the deal ends 2 June.
With a usual retail price of £282, SampleTank 4 MAX v2 is the comprehensive SampleTank experience, cramming all 88 SampleTank products into one package. This includes all 28 SampleTank 4 libraries, every legacy library from SampleTank 3, and all 34 synths included on Syntronik 2 MAX v2. There’s also all the samples from SampleTron 2 and the full version of Miroslav Philharmonik 2. All in, that’s 600 GB of sounds and over 18,000 sounds.

READ MORE: The Bob Moog Foundation is hosting a raffle for a Geddy Lee Minimoog Model D – here’s how to enter

All 18,000 sounds and presets are balanced across a wide selection of styles and genres, all boasting high quality recordings. The selection of virtual instruments ranges from concert piano, keyboards, guitars, drums, strings, brass, synths, vocals, percussion and more, with over 500,000 samples in total.
SampleTank 4 is one hell of a workstation, MAX factor aside. The workstation comes loaded with 70 effects in total, all derived from IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube and T-RackS software. This allows users to experiment with a wide range of amps, distortion, dynamics, modulation, reverb/delay and filter effects.
This allows you to toy with realistic tube saturation, classic analogue pedals, or professional studio processors. And SampleTank 4’s new effects modulation matrix makes it easier than ever to experiment.

The SampleTank 4 workstation also features dynamic arpeggiators, strummers, and pattern and loop players to aid the process of turning sounds into full-blown songs. There’s also a new live mode to help musicians plan out entire set lists and easily map out every parameter of their performance.
SampleTank 4 also boasts an intuitive design, with a dedicated layer interface to make setting up and splitting layers quick and simple. There’s also a totally re-designed sound engine from SampleTank 3, letting you edit and dig into even the tiniest details on your tracks.
SampleTank 4 and all products in the SampleTank 4 MAX v2 are fully compatible with macOS and Windows. The workstation also supports AAX, VST 2, VST 3, and Audio Units plugin formats.
SampleTank 4 MAX v2 is available for £49.99 at Plugin Boutique. Deal ends 2 June.

The post Get 18,000 IK Multimedia sounds and instruments for just £49.99 at Plugin Boutique appeared first on MusicTech.

Study ranks Best Artists to See Live in 2025 based on reviewsA new study analyzed concert and album reviews from both fans and critics to find the best artists to see live in 2025. While the methodology might not be the most rigorous scientifically, the results are still quite interesting.
The post Study ranks Best Artists to See Live in 2025 based on reviews appeared first on Hypebot.

Deigneor releases Arrival, a FREE MicroFreak-inspired library for Kontakt Player
Arrival from developer Deigneor is a free MicroFreak-inspired cinematic library for Kontakt Player. This release has many positives to highlight right off the bat: It’s free, it runs in the free Kontakt Player, and you can download it via Pianobook, where you’ll find around 1600 free libraries. If you aren’t familiar with Pianobook, it’s a [...]
View post: Deigneor releases Arrival, a FREE MicroFreak-inspired library for Kontakt Player

Musician Song Licensing TipsReady to release that cover or remix? Don’t hit upload until you’ve read these 8 musician song licensing tips from Symphonic's recent Easy Song masterclass.
The post Musician Song Licensing Tips appeared first on Hypebot.

Get Gooey Visage stereo tool for FREE until June 3rd!
Gooey Visage is a tool for controlling stereo width and panning with drawable curves, an LFO, and a macro control. The plugin is usually priced at $29.99, but you can now get it for free until June 3rd! Visage has two main panels. On the left side, you can access a macro control, one control [...]
View post: Get Gooey Visage stereo tool for FREE until June 3rd!

Sound Particles update inDelay  Capable of everything from enhancing music productions to designing spatial effects and creating immersive cinematic textures, inDelay 1.5 promises to deliver yet more power, precision and inspiration.

Arturia’s V Collection 11 Pro almost made me forget I had other pluginsSince the release of V Collection X, Arturia has dug even deeper than ever with its digital ambitions. Both the recently-reviewed KeyLab 88 MK3 and preceding AstroLab testify to this, pulling few punches when it comes to breaking Arturia software out of the computer and into the physical studio. Fair to say, those instruments’ affinity with V Collection extends to the degree that they only really come to life upon interfacing with those software instruments.

READ MORE: Will GTA 6 change the way gamers discover music?

The V Collection was introduced in 2005 as a modest collection emulating four classic synths (the Moog Modular, CS-80, ARP 2600 and Minimoog), and has since bloomed into a mighty catalogue of software instruments ranging from the Emulator II to the Vox Continental. By now we should take it as read that with each new edition, V Collection continues to grow apace.
The latest, expansive iteration of the V Collection furnishes the suite with more instruments than ever— 45, to be exact. V Collection 11 doesn’t just add a spate of new emulations of existing hardware instruments (not to mention more of Arturia’s own hardware), it also presents a substantial helping of original Arturia design, not least substantiating and expanding the rapidly-growing Augmented range of instruments.
New kids on the block
Brand new to the Collection are the Synthx V emulation of the Elka Synthex polyphonic synth, the Jup-8000 V emulation of the Roland JP-8000 ‘Analogue Modelling’ synth, and a completely remodelled SEM V, itself based on the Oberheim SEM. Of these, I am particularly impressed by the Synthx V, whose 1980s Italian ancestor— widely regarded as a cheaper but comparable synth to the likes of the Sequential Prophet 10 and Oberheim OBXa— never sold particularly well in its own time. Massively deep, its dual layer architecture allows for the complex blending of sounds while remaining hugely versatile— not to mention massively wide in the stereo image if desired. It’s an instrument that translates brilliantly into the DAW.
Screenshot from Arturia V Collection 11
SEM V is another clear highlight of the emulations. The virtual synth is pre-existing in the Collection but here has been completely redesigned, similar to how the V Collection X overhauled the Mini V to boast better analogue modelling. Oberheim’s iconic Synthesizer Expansion Modules could be conjoined to make two-, four- or eight-voice systems, and of course here all that polyphony is realised behind just one SEM user interface.
The Modules might be renowned for smoothness and warmth, with the gorgeous SEM filter at the heart of the matter, but I find all manner of colours on the palette with this satisfying and impeccably-modelled instrument, from chiming arpeggios to deep growling baselines.
Arturia’s own
You might be surprised to learn that when it comes to new emulations of classic instruments, the list ends there. Indeed, Arturia has markedly turned more of its attention inward, starting with an emulation of its own MiniBrute— first announced almost a year go— and an update to the MiniFreak V. MusicTech responded favourably to the MiniFreak V’s appearance in V Collection X, but that was arguably something of a shoo-in, what with the MiniFreak itself being a digital synth and therefore easily transposable into the DAW. The MiniBrute V, however, takes things a step further to tackle analogue Arturia.

This, I’m pleased to report, it does remarkably well. The hardware MiniBrute, released in 2012, is a comparatively diminutive and simple monosynth but one full of grit and attitude, namely thanks to the ‘Brute Factor’ of its onboard distortion and its Steiner Parker filter design, which in a nutshell is smooth at the bottom and harsh at the top. That aggression and substance translate magnificently in the V, and allied with a simple interface also makes for a highly usable ‘go-to’ if you’re in need of a basic but powerful synth, which can now also work across eight-voice polyphony, to cover many bread-and-butter synth sounds.
A new original instrument, Pure LoFi, also joins the Collection. This is a ‘low fidelity synthesiser’ with three different LoFi engine types and nine vintage hardware emulations. Not only does Pure LoFi offer a range of modulation, distortion and noise-based tools for crafting sounds, particularly enjoyable are its sampler engine options, with classics like the Akai MPC, Fairlight CMI, EMU SP1200, and even the cheap-as-chips Casio SK1 all in the offing.
Augmented instruments
Perhaps the biggest step V Collection 11 takes forward, though, is with the Augmented series, which here expands to seven different instruments, interpolating acoustic sample-based instruments with synthesis engines. Augmented Voices, Strings, Grand Piano, Brass, and Woodwind are joined by Yangtze and Mallets. Atop that, every one of those existing Augmented instruments has received updates to its layout, controls and workflow, with Strings and Voices getting significant expansions to their sample banks and preset libraries. Not bad at all.
Screenshot from Arturia V Collection 11
I enjoy Mallets’ gorgeously captured marimba, vibraphone, celeste and tubular bells, as well as its dynamic synthesis capabilities, but I’m mightily impressed by Yangtze, which boldly takes a raft of traditional Chinese instruments into the DAW, such as the bowed erhu, plucked pipa and xiao bamboo flute. Sonically beautiful and evocative, these sounds push the Augmented series into genuinely exciting territory; not only does it encourage producers to think beyond the components of the western orchestra when it comes to classical and traditional instrumentation, it also brings these instruments into contact with the electronic music domain in a natural and creative way, which is a huge achievement.
Suffice to say, I hope to see more Augmented instruments taking cues from traditions around the world in the future.
Sound ecology
Let’s take a moment to reiterate the now-obvious: when it comes to all things Lab and V, the French developer is not simply building instruments in the way it is hardware, it is populating an ecosystem. All of V Collection’s instruments are available individually, but increasingly Arturia are focused on making its software instrument range a DAW-based environment all of its own, with a bespoke workflow spanning virtual instruments of all shapes and sizes.
Screenshot from Arturia V Collection 11
You might have noticed this edition of V Collection 11 is $100 more than the preceding V Collection X. Is it worth it? That depends on how you think about it: with six new instruments in the picture, that’s a modest $16 or so for each new addition. It’s fair to assume that Arturia has done its utmost to keep the V Collection’s price down, and overall, I still call it strong value for money. But the one-time purchase of the V Collection is less representative of the cumulative value of its individual instruments, as it is an investment in Arturia’s world (indeed, to buy all its instruments separately would increase its price by just under a factor of ten). This is perhaps best represented in Analog Lab, which allows users to hop between emulations to achieve sounds as breezily as one would between presets on a single synth. In this sense, the V Collection is worth far more than the sum of its parts.
If I were being cynical, I’d say Arturia has an almost Apple-level knack for locking users into its ecology. ‘One canvas for infinite sonic exploration’ is how Arturia described V Collection X and, if V Collection’s 11th edition is anything to go by, one canvas the brand would like it to remain.
But if I’m honest, the developer has not only created an enormous library of virtual instruments boasting top-tier quality, it has made navigating it so marvellously easy that after a while, I’d almost forgotten about my DAW’s other software instruments entirely.
Key features

45 software instruments blending emulations, modern hybrid synth engines, modelled keyboards, and augmented acoustic sounds.
7 new instruments: Jup-8000 V, MiniBrute V, Synthx V, Pure LoFi, Augmented Mallets, and Augmented Yangtze
Rebuilt SEM V
Updated Augmented instruments
Updated MiniFreak V

The post Arturia’s V Collection 11 Pro almost made me forget I had other plugins appeared first on MusicTech.

Viral outrage over Apple’s EU payment warnings misses key factApple says the warning messages now appearing next to EU App Store listings that use third-party payment systems are not actually new. According to a number of recent reports, Apple added a warning with a red exclamation mark next to apps that it found were not using its own “private and secure payment system.” The […]

Fender Collaborates with Gustavo Santaolalla on “The Last of Us” ThemeFender has shared the latest episode of Fender Presents, "featuring two-time Academy Award-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla, the musical mastermind behind The Last of Us. In this exclusive piece, Gustavo performs a hauntingly beautiful new arrangement of the series' iconic main theme — using a truly unique instrument: the 'Guitarocko.'""This 1-of-1 custom instrument, conceived by Gustavo and built with Fender’s support, blends the soul of a traditional Andean ronroco with the form of a mini Stratocaster," they said. "Outfitted with a custom bridge, doubled stringing, lipstick pickups, and a bespoke nut, the Guitarocko delivers a distinct tonal palette that reflects Gustavo’s signature style."

The post Fender Collaborates with Gustavo Santaolalla on “The Last of Us” Theme first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

LACED: Peeling Back PCB Layers With Chemical Etching and a LaserOnce a printed circuit board (PCB) has been assembled it’s rather hard to look inside of it, which can be problematic when you have e.g. a multilayer PCB of an (old) system that you really would like to dissect to take a look at the copper layers and other details that may be hidden inside, such as Easter eggs on inner layers. [Lorentio Brodeso]’s ‘LACED’ project offers one such method, using both chemical etching and a 5 Watt diode engraving laser to remove the soldermask, copper and FR4 fiberglass layers.
This project uses sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to dissolve the solder mask, followed by hydrogen chloride (HCl) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to dissolve the copper in each layer. The engraving laser is used for the removing of the FR4 material. Despite the ‘LACED’ acronym standing for Laser-Controlled Etching and Delayering, the chemical method(s) and laser steps are performed independently from each other.
This makes it in a way a variation on the more traditional CNC-based method, as demonstrated by [mikeselectricstuff] (as shown in the top image) back in 2016, alongside the detailed setup video of how a multi-layer PCB was peeled back with enough resolution to make out each successive copper and fiberglass layer.

The term ‘laser-assisted etching’ is generally used for e.g. glass etching with HF or KOH in combination with a femtosecond laser to realize high-resolution optical features, ‘selective laser etching’ where the etchant is assisted by the laser-affected material, or the related laser-induced etching of hard & brittle materials. Beyond these there is a whole world of laser-induced or laser-activated etching or functionalized methods, all of which require that the chemical- and laser-based steps are used in unison.
Aside from this, the use of chemicals to etch away soldermask and copper does of course leave one with a similar messy clean-up as when etching new PCBs, but it can provide more control due to the selective etching, as a CNC’s carbide bit will just as happily chew through FR4 as copper. When reverse-engineering a PCB you will have to pick whatever method works best for you.
Top image: Exposed inner copper on multilayer PCB. (Credit: mikeselectricstuff, YouTube)

Live Nation has already sold 100m tickets in 2025 so far – compared to 98m sold in all of 2019Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold talks about pricing, facing a potential economic slowdown, and fixing the company's public relations headaches
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Heavyocity Damage MachinaIntroducing Damage Machina — an unconventional and inspiring percussion library, borne from the mechanical world. Chock-full of over 720 unique sources and 2.6 GB of clanks, clangs, and churns of industrial cogs, typewriters, steam engines, antique tractors, pinball machines, and countless other mechanical oddities, Damage Machina is a uniquely inspiring percussion tool designed for modern composers and producers. Heavyocity partnered with acclaimed sound designer, Robert Dudzic, known for his field recordings and percussive flare in the movie trailer and film industries. His style, in combination with Heavyocity's expertise and careful curation, created a truly one-of-a-kind percussion library. Available Now: Heavyocity.com/machina. Watch:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6KNfOVvxo9Xpr3VDCkVUsBU5O1SWCTz-&si=MAZ_kkFWdgKuoFse Listen:http://soundcloud.com/heavyocitymedia/sets/machina. Read More

The new soft power and its hidden rulesThroughout the 20th century, particularly the second half, many Western countries – such as the US, UK, and France – increased their global influence through the use of cultural soft power. This was done through tools like Voice of America and the BBC World Service, as well as via movies, TV, journalism, and music. The oft-discussed ‘globalisation’ of culture was, more accurately, a westernisation of global culture. With local-language entertainment growing more popular, audiences fragmenting, and ongoing budget cuts to the World Service as well as (to put it diplomatically) an uncertain future for Radio Free America, the soft power era may appear to be over. It is not. 

Just as the much-heralded end-of-the-gatekeepers was in fact a replacement of human tastemakers with algorithmic ones, so too the human soft power era has been replaced by an algorithmic one. Over the course of the last decade, American tech companies have assumed a dominant cultural and social role in the lives of consumers across the globe. In doing so, the corporate ideologies of these companies (manifested in their algorithms and strategies) now shape the way the world sees itself, just as – if not more than – traditional soft power strategies did. Most pertinently for entertainment, these companies have collectively formulated a new set of rules for cultural success, that stack the deck so that the house always wins.

The leaders of these companies and their investors often have firmly held political beliefs. They often see the companies as tools for furthering their views and agendas – even if those agendas are to manufacture new problems to sell solutions to (which, of course, is part of why the US is so concerned about TikTok). While the old soft power era aimed to propagate (at least in theory) the cultural and political views of entire nations, US tech soft power furthers the worldview of one particular slice of US society.

Sometimes this is done out in the open (e.g., Elon Musk / X) but most often, the implementation is subtler. Because the inner workings of algorithms are closely guarded corporate secrets, not even governments, let alone consumers, are privy to how they are influencing thinking, beliefs, and behaviour. This is unaccountable, social engineering on a literally global scale. The geo-political and social implications are vast, but the impact on entertainment and culture is also profound.

When you are in the midst of change, it can sometimes be hard to understand just how dramatic and significant it actually is. The numbers alone show just how much the influence of US tech companies has increased over the last ten years.

In that time, streaming has come to dominate music and TV revenues, while social has simultaneously given birth to the creator economy and become the collective gatekeeper for entertainment discovery, with often less-than-satisfactory results. It is social’s role that is the most far reaching and that entertainment companies and creators are least able to influence. The result is that entertainment industries have become governed by a new set of rules that they did not write:

Make more content, more quickly

Try fast, fail fast

Chase virality, not longevity

Bring value to ‘discovery’ platforms but extract little or no value in return

Compete with everything and everyone for attention

Accept toxicity as a cost of doing business

What these rules have in common is that the outcomes benefit the platforms more than they do creators and rightsholders. Social and streaming platforms have an insatiable appetite for content, and the burden for meeting that falls on creators and rightsholders. But this appetite is not some unintended consequence, it has been engineered by the platforms in order to meet and increase demand of their users. Pouring gasoline on the viral fire might burn bright, but once the initial flames die down, they often leave behind nothing but scorched earth.

Meanwhile, entertainment companies have been forced to re-engineer their businesses to abide by these new rules. And there are few among them that would argue that the outcome is positive, with a recent quote from WMG’s Elliot Grainge a case in point:

“The whole point of the algorithm is to feed you content that triggers a dopamine response in your brain. It can be really negative and addicting… Those who truly succeed aren’t the loudest; they’re the ones with their heads down, grinding, unsure if it will even work, but going for it anyway… Don’t take the bait and fall for it.”

AI looks set to knock everything up a notch, not least because some of the investors behind the AI companies favour dramatic copyright reform, in some cases even seeing it simply as a hindrance to tech’s future. If you want to take a conspiracy theory approach, you could make the case that one of the reasons the big AI companies have received such massive levels of investment is to provide war chests for fighting precedent-setting copyright cases that will further the ideological ambitions of their investor backers.

So, what can be done? There are two alternatives:

1.    Continue as we are, with tomorrow becoming an even more intense version of today

2.    Begin plotting a different path

Few would want the first option, but the second could seem like a Herculean task. Yet, it might just be that a window of opportunity has presented itself in the shape of the new US tariff regime. More on that in my next blog post!