Low End Candy release Preverb Preverb comes with six onboard reverb models that can be used to create riser, transition and lead-in effects without needing to bounce tracks and manually reverse the resulting clips.

FILM - TV - THEATER - GAMES: Game Music Festival, Moonlight PaleGame Music Festival, a leading organizer of videogame music concerts and events that celebrate game soundtracks, hosted a symphonic concert in June, The Colors of Harmony, to celebrate the 40-year career of video game composer Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Held at Fairfield Halls in London, the event featured the London Mozart Players under conductor Timothy Henty, with Sakimoto himself in attendance. The program drew from four decades of his work, including 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy XII. VIP ticket holders also gained access to a full-day celebration featuring a pub quiz and a masterclass with Sakimoto.

Contact Jayson Napolitano at jayson@scarletmoonproductions.com for more information.

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Independent game developer Blue Lily launched a Kickstarter campaign for Moonlight Pale, a 2D hand-drawn survival horror game set in a late 1800s female seminary. Players followed Juliette, a student who pursues the ghost of her dead cat into an abandoned building deep within the school gardens, navigating hidden monsters and spirits while attempting to rescue fellow students.

Inspired by Silent Hill, Signalis, and Rule of Rose, the game features two modes including one that focuses on puzzle-solving, and another that allows for combat. The campaign aims for a late 2026 or early 2027 Steam release, with voice work from cast members including Kira Buckland, Lizzie Freeman, Diana Garnet, Chiisa, and Michelle Marie.

For more information, contact Jayson Napolitano at jayson@scarletmoonproductions.com.The post FILM - TV - THEATER - GAMES: Game Music Festival, Moonlight Pale first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

S&P launches blockchain fundamentals index for digital assetsThe benchmark tracks blockchain networks using protocol revenue, offering an alternative to traditional market capitalization-weighted crypto indexes.

Treasury threatens sanctions after White House claims Moonshot distilled Anthropic’s FableTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned the U.S. government could sanction Chinese AI companies after White House officials accused Moonshot of distilling Anthropic's Fable model to develop Kimi K3.

RIPPLES Music Industries CascadeCascade runs audio through four fixed parallel chains - C1 Distortion/EQ/OTT/Spectral, C2 Bitcrush/OTT/EQ/Envelope Shaper, C3 Reverb/DigiClip/Comb/OTT, C4 Noise/Feedback/OTT/EQ - and a 16-step by 4-channel sequencer gates which chain is live per step, in time with your track. Two synced LFOs (four shapes) modulate up to 40 targets; per-chain mute and solo. With the sequencer off it is a deep parallel multi-effect; on, it is a stutter and glitch performance engine. The UI is a canal lock system with four color-coded water lanes. VST3 and AU for macOS and Windows. Read More

FLOSS Weekly Episode 876: There Is No Money FairyThis week Jonathan chats with Michael Meeks about Collabora! What’s the origin story in this consulting company, why do they have an outstanding office suite, and where is the world headed to accomplish digital sovereignty? Watch to find out!

Collabora Productivity – https://www.collaboraonline.com/
Michael’s person blog – https://meeksfamily.uk/~michael/
Michael’s comic strip – ‘The Open Road to Freedom’ (TOTF) https://www.collaboraonline.com/torf-index/

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.
If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.
Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:

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Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Key Principles for Ethical AI Use in Music CreationThe following MBW op/ed comes from John Meller, a Partner in the Entertainment practice at law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
Source

Electro-Harmonix launch the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2 Electro-Harmonix say that the new Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2 offers their latest take on the classic dual-op-amp design and represents the final chapter in the long-lost Big Muff 2 story.

Fracture Sounds releases Blueprint: Textural Sax, a FREE experimental woodwind library for Kontakt Player
Blueprint: Textural Sax is the latest addition to the free and wonderful Blueprint collection by Fracture Sounds. More specifically, it’s the latest addition to Blueprint’s Textural cinematic libraries. Previous releases include Textural Cello and Textural Violin. Like the other Textural libraries, Textural Sax isn’t about making an exact recreation of the instrument. It’s about taking [...]
View post: Fracture Sounds releases Blueprint: Textural Sax, a FREE experimental woodwind library for Kontakt Player

“We had some quite heated talks about this”: This is the perfect number of tracks on an album, according to Charli xcx, A. G. Cook and Finn KeaneWhat’s the perfect number of tracks for an album? According to Charli xcx, A. G. Cook and Finn Keane, its 11 – or at least that was the case for Charli’s forthcoming record, Music, Fashion, Film.
In a new episode of the Tape Notes podcast, which goes inside the making of the new album with the trio, they reveal how they settled on 11 for a “concise” feel after some heated debates, as a total of 12 felt too tidy, and even a little bit “lame”.

READ MORE: Charli XCX has invested in consumer tech brand Nothing

“We had some quite heated talks about this,” says Charli. “There were lots of opinions about why 12 was just absolutely embarrassing, awkward, lame, there was a lot of heat around not having a 12 track album.”
“But also not 10…” says Cook.
“We’ve had a conversation about track numbers on Charli [self-titled third album]. You wanted 20!” Charli says to A. G. “I remember I was taking the tube from one side of London to the other and I didn’t get through the album. I was like, ‘It can’t be 20, people wanna travel and listen to it.’”
“We finished 20 and it became 15,” he clarifies.
Going back to the new album, Keane weighs in: “It feels quite chic! I think we all felt that in some way, there’s also something about the first two Strokes records that are 11 tracks and [are] really concise. I think what we were all trying to do with this is make it feel really concise… All the songs being quite tight made sense with the material. 12 suddenly felt too  neat, [11] seemed to fit the music we were making.”

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Charli later goes on to address how some people might not understand the shorter track lengths of the songs on the new album or the decision to land strictly on 11 in total, but she argues that they enjoy combing through every tiny detail when working together, with valid creative decisions in mind.
“Every single decision we make, sonically and production-wise, songwriting-wise, all of these little things we really think about them intricately, and we do that thought process across each album that we make together,” she says.
“There is a reason behind all of the decisions, with this record [there was] an immediacy we felt was really important to capture… I think that it’s so fun to work in that three dimensional capacity.”
Check out the podcast below:

Support the Tape Notes podcast on Patreon. Music,Fashion, Film by Charli xcx is out on 24 July, and you can pre-order it now.
The post “We had some quite heated talks about this”: This is the perfect number of tracks on an album, according to Charli xcx, A. G. Cook and Finn Keane appeared first on MusicTech.

Cloudvocal's improved FlashTrack FT-15 DSP Microphone Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing a series of new features which they say make the recording process more intuitive and efficient than ever before.

Splice confirms staff layoffs and “strategic restructuring”: “These changes will help us move with greater focus and agility”Music production platform Splice has confirmed to MusicTech that it has announced a “strategic restructuring” of its team, including the reduction of some of its staff roles.
Limited information is available at the time of writing, but a representative for Splice says it is “deeply grateful to the talented teammates who are leaving Splice”, and has outlined that the company is re-focusing its investments to benefit creators.

READ MORE: Splice partners with ElevenLabs on “next-gen AI-powered creative tools”

The full statement reads:
“Today, we announced a strategic restructuring of our team, including the reduction of some roles. Decisions like these are never easy, and we are deeply grateful to the talented teammates who are leaving Splice for their many contributions to our company. 
“As music creation continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, we’re aligning our organisation to focus our investments where they can have the greatest impact for creators. These changes will help us move with greater focus and agility as we build the next generation of tools and experiences that empower musicians to create, collaborate, and bring their ideas to life. Our mission remains unchanged: to help every creator bring their music to life.”
Splice acquired Spitfire Audio last year, in a bid to expand its reach into the plugin market, for a reported $50 million. Spitfire Audio offers a collection of virtual instrument libraries, including collections made in collaboration with Hans Zimmer, Ólafur Arnalds, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Abbey Road Studios.
It is not yet clear how or if employees from Spitfire Audio are impacted specifically by the restructuring.
Earlier this month, Splice announced the launch of four new Spitfire Audio Originals libraries, with virtual instruments spanning strings, brass, woodwind and keys. Their arrival comes alongside the upgrade of Spitfire’s 17 existing Originals libraries to full fidelity.
Check back on MusicTech for more updates as we get them.
The post Splice confirms staff layoffs and “strategic restructuring”: “These changes will help us move with greater focus and agility” appeared first on MusicTech.

UnplugRed and BlepFX release FREE Sucrose harmonic generator
UnplugRed and BlepFX have released Sucrose, a free harmonic and subharmonic generator for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Sucrose was created as an entry for the 2026 KVR Developer Challenge, and I will cover several plugins I really liked from this year’s KVRDC. This is definitely one of them. I love the overall concept a lot. [...]
View post: UnplugRed and BlepFX release FREE Sucrose harmonic generator

Udio is suing Sony again…Sony Music Entertainment is suing Udio…again. The two parties have been involved in copyright infringement litigation since June 2024, and this recent development surrounds 30,117 recordings that Sony attempted to include in the first lawsuit. A judge struck down that motion on June 29, so now Sony has filed a second lawsuit specifically focusing on those initially rejected recordings.
The first lawsuit was part of a concerted effort between Sony, several of its subsidiaries, and the other two major record labels: Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. The Recording Industry Association of America coordinated this comprehensive effort from the music industry. However, the other two major labels have since settled their litigation and struck licensing deals with Udio.

READ MORE: Hackers reveal Suno scraped music data from YouTube, Deezer, Genius, and more

This second lawsuit will fall specifically on Sony. When the judge dismissed the order to add the 30,117 recordings, the ruling stated that “Plaintiffs have the right to seek to stop infringement of, and recover damages for, all copyrighted works” and that “there is no requirement that it be done in [that] lawsuit.” Sony is citing the latter quote as the basis for the second suit.
Sony selected the 30,117 recordings after discovery on the first suit let it use audio fingerprinting software on Udio’s training data. Apparently that number reflects “only a small portion” of what Udio used without permission. Some of the works come from major artists such as Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Johnny Cash, and Harry Styles.
“Udio’s belated embrace of licensing only underscores the unlawfulness of its decision to copy Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings, without a license, in the first place,” reads Sony’s complaint.
Sony remains the only major label to not have a deal with Udio. Other major companies who have entered into licensing agreements include Merlin, Kobalt, Believe and the National Music Publishers’ Association.
Read Sony’s full complaint in the new lawsuit.
The post Udio is suing Sony again… appeared first on MusicTech.

Addictive Drums 2 vs EZdrummer 3 vs Superior Drummer 3: Which drum plugin is best?If you’re looking for more out of your MIDI drum kits, there are a handful of excellent plugins that offer more realistic expression, sounds and grooves. XLN Audio and Toontrack’s software, for example, go far beyond a drum machine’s capabilities, and are trusted by professional producers and mix engineers for their authentic sounds. But they’re not exactly cheap.

READ MORE: The best new music plugins this week, free and paid

XLN’s Addictive Drums 2 and Toontrack’s EZdrummer 3 and Superior Drummer 3 are all immensely capable drum plugins. The cheapest also starts at around £145 and, with all the drum sounds you can purchase, can get expensive very quickly.
All three drum plugins are regularly maintained, and are arguably the best three out there. But which one should you invest in? I’ve tested all three of them against each other — there’s not a clear winner, but one software has the edge.

Which should you buy — EZdrummer 3, Addictive Drums 2, or Superior Drummer 3?
After trying all three, my personal choice is XLN’s Addictive Drums 2 because of the immediacy of its sound-shaping workflow. While Superior Drummer offers unique professional features, especially in terms of electronic drum kit MIDI mapping and achieving the most realistic drum sound possible, these features aren’t required by the average producer.
When you’re creating music predominantly within a DAW, having a plugin that is fun to use makes the process more inspiring, and this is where Addictive Drums has a slight edge over Superior Drummer due to the immediacy of its workflow.
Arguably, the redundant choice of the three is EZdrummer, because AD2 offers so much more for the same price.
Below, you can read the breakdown of how I reached that verdict.
Addictive Drums 2. Image: Press
Which Drum plugin is the most versatile — Addictive Drums, EZdrummer, or Superior Drummer?
Drum plugins are used in different ways. While some producers want to create the most authentic replication of acoustic drums possible, others are looking to design unique sounds.
Addictive Drums (AD) and Superior Drummer (SD) have the most similarities in this area, with high-detail velocity-sensitive multisampling and a wide range of kits that can be assembled piece-by-piece to build your own customised sound. The primary difference between the two is that, while they perform many of the same basic functions, Superior Drummer is almost like a DAW in itself, whereas Addictive Drums is more of an extension of your DAW.
Superior Drummer offers a far deeper level of articulation control, with multiple articulation layers per drum and even positional sensing, which can be accessed from programmed or real-time triggered MIDI data. Instead of being limited to stereo overhead pairs, SD has specific sample libraries for room mics, additional bleed, and surround that provide over 11 room mics and per-channel bleed controls for recreating each aspect of a studio drum performance.
EZdrummer 3. Image: Press
Meanwhile, the scaled-down EZdrummer doesn’t have the per-channel sound shaping as its more elaborate sibling, SD. However, it does still offer impressive arrangement tools, with its integrated grid editor, Song Creator, and Bandmate Engine, which allow you to generate arrangements from imported audio or MIDI files. In addition, EZdrummer has many of SD’s advanced e-drum mapping features, such as manufacturer presets, positional sensing and hi-hat control, which is exciting if you plan on using it with e-drums.
Addictive Drums offers a huge selection of MIDI grooves with the ADpaks, plus tools to customise each MIDI loop within the Beats page — but Superior Drummer has a far more comprehensive sequencer. This gives you precise control over editing the timing and velocity of individual notes, as well as block-based multitrack arrangement with quantise and humanise functions. What’s more, there are convenient arrangement tools for creating tempo changes and a Song Creator feature that suggests compatible MIDI loops and structures to build cohesive drum parts.
When it comes to trigger integration, both AD and SD offer a range of preset mappings for popular e-drum brands. However, SD has local and global mapping settings. Not only is there a range of factory mappings, there are also specialist features like positional sensing for harnessing Roland’s multizonal trigger pads, as well as cymbal choking support for e-drum kits that send aftertouch MIDI data. What’s more, SD also offers more advanced mapping customization, with velocity curves to match the response to your playing style, and hi-hat calibration to ensure realistic open and closed transitions.
Winner
When it comes to versatility, Superior Drummer is the clear winner, with its detailed customization features in almost every area. While its baby brother, EZdrummer, offers a simple platform for accessing acoustic drum sounds, and Addictive Drums provides some excellent sound shaping tools, Superior Drummer is the most advanced drumming platform overall.
Superior Drummer 3. Image: Press
Which drum plugin is the easiest to use?
Naturally, as EZdrummer is the scaled-down version of Superior Drummer, you’d expect it to be the best option for beginners or those seeking a fluid workflow. However, it’s the Addictive Drums interface that is far more inviting, and it allows even an uninitiated user to dive straight into sculpting each piece of the kit. For starters, the AD interface doesn’t follow a traditional drum kit layout the way that the Toontrack drum plugins do, and the preset and kit piece browsers are intelligent workflow appendages that let you find sounds quickly and easily.
When you swap out a kick drum in EZdrummer for a larger size, for instance, nothing changes visually, whereas the AD interface gives each kit a visual identity that you develop a relationship with, as we all have with iconic kits like the green Ludwig Vistalite kit from the 1970s. While this may have little appeal to engineers who’ve been replacing drums since the nu-metal era, it certainly endears the AD plugin to new users in a way that makes it fun and inspiring to use. In contrast, Superior Drummer and even EZdrummer feel cold and clinical in comparison. While there’s no questioning how good they sound, making music is also about ideas and using tools that allow fluidity.
Addictive Drums 2 kit. Image: Press
Another key workflow aspect is the implementation of the mixer and effects. Both EZdrummer and SD have dedicated mixer tabs, but EZ is extremely limited with only mic bleed and tape saturation, which are global effects that affect the entire kit. Although SD excels in this area with access to plenty of effects per-channel from the mixer, there isn’t a definitive drum shaping workflow.
This is where AD leaves the Toontrack plugins dead in the water. For starters, the mixer is ever-present, situated below the Kit, Edit, and FX tabs, so you always have an overview of your levels and routing. The AD Edit tab lets you shape each individual kit piece with pitch and volume envelopes, and a tight selection of insert effects designed specifically for drum shaping.
Winner
While there’s no denying the great sound and level of expression you get from EZ and Superior Drummer, they just aren’t as fun or intuitive to use as Addictive Drums. SD has more advanced features in many areas, but many producers may never have recorded drums or connected a set of e-drums. The realism debate aside, AD provides a more cohesive interface for creating drum sounds, regardless of your prior experience level.
Superior Drummer 3 mixer. Image: Press
Which drum plugin has the best sound quality?
When I focus on the sound of a drum plugin, I look at two approaches to DAW-based drum production: Either aiming to program and engineer the most realistic-sounding acoustic drums ever, or simply use a creative tool to build unique and exciting drum sounds for your next production.
As far as realism goes, there is no question that the Toontrack plugins, especially Superior Drummer, offer a deeper set of features for using articulations, MIDI editing, and even following the groove of an existing audio or MIDI file, which is useful for locking your drums and bass guitar. Also, SD uses uncompressed audio samples, with a massive 230GB library that offers specially recorded bleed and surround sample packs. This delivers unparalleled realism when combined with the over 25 velocity layers per articulation.
AD is far more streamlined in comparison, making use of XLN Audio’s proprietary audio compression format, which keeps the file size to under 3 GB per kit for the most part, and uses far less system resources as a result. While AD’s philosophy leans toward round robin sampling for variation, SD combines this with additional velocity layers for an uncompromising level of detail. In simple terms, AD is a more straightforward creative tool that quickly delivers mix-ready results, whereas SD takes the more purist approach, delving into every subtle aspect of drum recording to provide the most customisable and realistic drum production tool.
Winner
Addictive Drums is an incredibly realistic drum plugin, but it just doesn’t simulate almost every aspect of drum performance and recording the way that Superior Drummer does. SD simply offers more depth, but requires more knowledge and input from the user.
EZdrummer 3 grooves. Image: Press
Which drum plugin has the best preset library?
Presets are absolutely essential in drum plugins. You want to be able to load up something quickly that suits the genre of music you’re working in, customise the kit sounds tonally, and adjust the ambience to fit your mix.
EZdrummer, Superior Drummer and Addictive Drums can all do this, and all three can also load a range of MIDI expansion packs with beats and drum riffs across a wide range of music styles.
When it comes to kits, EZdrummer has a selection of over 70 EZX Sound Expansion packs you can buy, which are all compatible with Superior Drummer. SD also has its own line of around 30 SDX Sound Expansions, ranging from electronic drum sample kits to kit packs designed by top producers like Tony Visconti and Sylvia Massy. The initial SD core library consists of seven kits recorded at Galaxy Studios by George Massenburg, while the EZdrummer one is the same size and was created by Michael Ilbert at Hansa Studios.
XLN Audio takes a slightly different approach to expanding the library, allowing you to choose each kit pack included with your initial purchase, which is usually three different kits. Although there are only 24 ADpaks to choose from, these cover a wide range of modern and classic music styles. For the most part, ADpaks are more affordable than the SDX Sound Expansions, and you can add individual kit pieces to take your library in a particular direction and expand when you need to.
While both XLN Audio and Toontrack use their own proprietary audio compression algorithms, the Addictive Drums ADpaks take up far less storage space, averaging around 600-700 MB each. On the other hand, the EZdrummer expansion packs are usually between 3 and 6 GB in size, while Superior Drummer’s are often over 65 GB, which is staggering.
Winner
As all the respective preset libraries contain brilliantly crafted sounds, there is no clear winner. While the Superior Drummer library is far more extensive, it also has the highest storage requirements. This means if your disk space is limited, the Addictive Drums route might be preferable, as you can tailor the library kit by kit to match your workflow, and the content is far more economical in terms of storage.
Addictive Drums 2 edit. Image: Press
Which Drum Plugin is the best value?
For $179 / €179, you can choose one of the basic offerings from either XLN Audio or Toontrack. With the AD2 Custom Collection, you get to pick any three AD packs, three MIDI packs, and three Kitpieces from the entire range, while EZdrummer 3’s core library gives you seven multi-sampled kits across 3 rooms for the same price.
However, AD2 is a more complete drum kit design platform with more detailed shaping tools. While Superior Drummer has all these features, EZdrummer does not, which funnels users to purchase the scaled-down version of the Toontrack software with the intention of upgrading to SD at a later stage, which can work out quite costly once you start buying add-ons.
Winner
AD2 gives you the full functionality of the plugin from the get-go, and you can choose the exact kit sounds you want, making it a clear winner in the value department.
The post Addictive Drums 2 vs EZdrummer 3 vs Superior Drummer 3: Which drum plugin is best? appeared first on MusicTech.