Rhodes reveal Glacial & Monolith Custom Shop Mk8 The Glacial and Monolith limited-edition models will be hand-built to order in Leeds, UK by Rhodes Master Builders, and will not be reissued once the order window closes on 9 January 2026. 

Mesa shuts down credit card that rewarded cardholders for paying their mortgagesFintech startup Mesa has shut down its Homeowners Card, which awarded points to cardholders for paying their mortgages.

Finally, A Pipe Slapophone With MIDIIf you live in a major city, you’ve probably seen a street performer with some variety of slapophone. It’s a simple musical instrument that typically uses different lengths of PVC pipe to act as resonant cavities. When struck with an implement like a flip-flop, they release a dull but pleasant tone. [Ivan Miranda] decided to build such an instrument himself and went even further by giving it MIDI capability. Check it out in the video below.
[Ivan’s] design uses a simple trick to provide a wide range of notes without needing a lot of individual pipes. He built four telescoping pipe assemblies, each of which can change length with the aid of a stepper motor and a toothed belt drive. Lengthening the cavity produces a lower note, while shortening it produces a higher note. The four pipe assemblies are electronically controlled to produce notes sent from a MIDI keyboard, all under the command of an Arduino. The pipes are struck by specially constructed paddles made of yoga mats, again controlled by large stepper motors.
The final result is large, power-hungry, and vaguely playable. It’s a little unconventional, though, because moving the pipes takes time. Thus, keypresses on a MIDI keyboard set the pipes to a given note, but don’t actually play it. The slapping of the pipe is then triggered with a drum pad.
We love weird instruments around these parts.

Memecoins will rise from the dead, but in a new form: Crypto execMemecoins were never about memes, jokes, or financial nihilism; it is the underlying technology and its implications that are promising.

GRAMMY Nominations 2025: Best Country/Duo Group PerformanceThe 2025 GRAMMY nominations are here and we're going to help you to untangle it all right up until the big event, continuing with the Best Country Duo/Group Performance category.

Take a listen to the nominated performances below--who do you think will win?

See the full list of nominees in every category here.

A Song To SingMiranda Lambert And Chris Stapleton

TrailblazerReba McEntire, Miranda Lambert, Lainey Wilson

Love Me Like You Used To DoMargo Price & Tyler Childers

AmenShaboozey & Jelly Roll

Honky Tonk Hall Of FameGeorge Strait, Chris Stapleton

Shaboozey photo by Daniel PrakopcykThe post GRAMMY Nominations 2025: Best Country/Duo Group Performance first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Soundtoys offers Little MicroShift for FREE in its 12 Days of Christmas promotion
Soundtoys is giving away Little MicroShift for free today as part of its annual 12 Days of Christmas promotion, and if you’ve been following BPB for a while, you’ll know this is a big deal. Little MicroShift is hands down my favorite Soundtoys freebie. I originally grabbed it during a similar promotion back in 2020, [...]
View post: Soundtoys offers Little MicroShift for FREE in its 12 Days of Christmas promotion

UltraRare Maestro-1https://youtu.be/F9_v4pjOgcE Maestro-1 is the «little brother» of the famous Soviet Maestro synthesizer. Only one surviving example is known to exist. It is polyphonic, with two tones—high and low—and built-in vibrato on both, giving a total of four tones. Read More

Swamps from BOOM Library BOOM Library’s latest release brings together a collection of sounds captured across two expeditions to the wetlands of Florida over a three year period.

DoorDash driver faces felony charges after allegedly spraying customers’ foodA woman is facing felony charges in Evansville, Indiana over a DoorDash delivery in which she allegedly sprayed the food with a substance that made the customers vomit.

Condensing Diesel Heater Hack Is Dripping With EfficiencyNot a huge percentage of our readers probably get their heat from diesel fuel, but it’s not uncommon in remote areas where other fuels are hard to come-by. If you’re in one of those areas, this latest hack from [Hangin with the Hursts] could save you some change, or keep you  ̶2̶0̶%̶ ̶c̶o̶o̶l̶e̶r̶  25% warmer on the same fuel burn.
It’s bog simple: he takes his off-the-shelf hydronic diesel heater, which is already 71% efficient according to a previous test, and hooks its exhaust to a heat exchanger. Now, you don’t want to restrict the exhaust on one of these units, as that can mess with the air fuel mix, but [Hurst] gets around that with a 3″ intercooler meant for automotive intake. Sure, it’s not made for exhaust gas, but this is a clean-burning heater, and it wouldn’t be a hack if some of the parts weren’t out of spec.
Since it’s a hydronic heater, he’s able to use the exhaust gas to pre-heat the water going into the burner. The intercooler does a very good job of that, sucking enough heat out of the exhaust to turn this into a condensing furnace. That’s great for efficiency — he calculates 95%, a number so good he doesn’t trust it — but not so good for the longevity of the system, since this intercooler isn’t made to deal with the slightly-acidic condensation. The efficiency numbers are combustion efficiency, to be clear. He’s only accounting for the energy in the diesel fuel, not the energy that heats the water in his test, for the record; the electrical power going into the blower is considered free. That’s fair, since that’s how the numbers are calculated in the heating industry in general — the natural gas furnace keeping this author from freezing to death, for example, is a condensing unit that is also 95% efficient.
Another thing you can do to get the most from your diesel heating fuel is add some brains to the operation. Since this is a hydronic system, the cheapest option, long-term, might be to add some solar energy to the water. Sunlight is free, and diesel sure isn’t getting any cheaper.

KV331 Audio makes SynthMaster One FREE until January 4
KV331 Audio has made SynthMaster One free until January 4th (and you can, of course, keep your free license afterwards). The popular wavetable synth is yet another fantastic Christmas giveaway we’ve seen this month, following the freebies from Soundtoys, Universal Audio, iZotope, and others. SynthMaster One typically costs $49 (and often sells for around $25 [...]
View post: KV331 Audio makes SynthMaster One FREE until January 4

Cycles & Spots Reaktor Vectorhttps://youtu.be/vlZta5ctE-k Cycles & Spots crafted a soundscaper which modulates the levels balance of 4 samplers featuring 200 WAV loops implemented. The loops can all have different freely adjustable lengths for polyrhythms and a out-of-phase effect over time. Another huge feature is a randomizer that is well balanced to get best results. In fact because of it this instrument doesn't come with presets (except an intial one for default settings) as it is quick and easy to generate new ones. Of course from there onwards you could further fine-tune if you wish to. A chorus and stereo grain delays are added to the output to make it more thick and rich. Pack Details: Instrument for NI Reaktor feat: Vector XY Mixer With 2 LFOs 200 Implemented Loops Stereo Grain Delay 4 Sample Player Randomizer Chorus. Full Version Of NI Reaktor 6.5.0 (Or Higher) Needed. Read More

TOP MUSIC BUSINESS NEWS LAST WEEKTop music business news last week includes a playbook for small venues, a K-Pop scandal, new mechanical royalty rates, Audiomack, why fans by merch, and much more.
The post TOP MUSIC BUSINESS NEWS LAST WEEK appeared first on Hypebot.

Soundgas’ December Gasaway now live Soundgas have announced that their second monthly Gasway prize draw is now live and open for entries until 7 January 2026.

Sampleson introduce Funkastic Designed primarily to generate Clavinet-style parts, Sampleson's latest offering has been trained on an array of “funky grooves”, and is said to be capable of generating organ and bass lines as well as electric piano parts.