Mastering The Mix’s Faster Master has made me completely rethink my mastering chain£49, masteringthemix.com
It’s always best to get a fresh set of expert ears to master your precious music. But if you’re strapped for cash or just want a clean-sounding demo, then there’s no shortage of all-in-one mastering tools. There are plugins such as iZotope’s Ozone (recently updated to V12), Cradle’s The God Particle, Plugin Alliance’s bx_masterdesk, and Musik Hack’s Masterplan, through to online mastering tools like LANDR that offer a refined set of controls.
This ever-growing list now has a new entry from Mastering The Mix. Faster Master is an easy-to-use plugin that listens to your audio to generate mastering presets. It is co-created by David Guetta and Nicky Romero and offers an affordable alternative to more expensive options as well as simple controls to get results fast.

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I’m a long-term user of Ozone, but it’s expensive, heavy on CPU, its suite of modules can sometimes feel like overkill, and, occasionally, masters end up sounding over-processed. Faster Master is the opposite of all these things. It aims to deliver pro-quality masters in just a few clicks, and includes only a handful of modules: EQ, Transients, Compression, Stereo-width and Limiting.
Faster Master has 166 presets that cover a wide range of genres and styles, including electronic, house, hip-hop, pop, rock, acoustic, country, dubstep, latin, soul and even soundtrack. To get started, place the plugin last on your output chain, and then click Analyze whilst playing the loudest section of your track. After a few seconds, it will give a warning about how much gain it’s about to apply, which you can click through to switch on the processing. You can then choose from 10 different preset profiles from the list that have been specially selected to best match your track.

The plugin looks at your frequency spread and width, and then uses its EQ and Stereo modules to make adjustments to match the reference profile. The overall loudness is your decision, but it defaults to -6 LUFS every time (this can be changed in the settings). The default compression is always light, and transient adjustment is off. This means you can adjust these things if you think they’re needed, but you may often find that they’re not. By giving you 10 potential presets, you can quickly flick through and hear different options before picking your favourite for further refinement.
Crucially, you can also load in reference tracks, which are then saved as new profiles to choose from. As a nice workflow touch, the loudest part of the track is automatically looped and available to listen to so that you can compare your master with the reference at the click of a button.
The modules are simple and intuitive. The EQ features 11 fixed nodes for fast tonal shaping. These are improved versions of the filters found in MTM’s Mixroom and Bassroom plugins, with minimal phase distortion and transient smearing. There’s also a percentage control so you can scale the amount of EQ applied. I find it incredibly easy to make adjustments by ear to tweak the spread to my liking, although some hover-over frequency read-outs would be appreciated.
Presets. Image: Press
The Transients section has a single control that can be increased or reduced to add extra global punch or tame percussive elements that are poking through too much. If your mix is solid enough, then you probably won’t need to use it, but it has a relatively transparent sound, so a small amount can prove useful in the right situation. The Compress section is also incredibly simple, with a slider that changes from Light, to Dynamic, to Tight (an SSL-style squeeze). The threshold is intelligently set based on the audio peaks, and the other parameters change as you adjust the slider, so all you need to do is use your ears and turn it up. As with everything here, it’s well calibrated so that even the most extreme settings won’t totally destroy your audio. There’s also a switchable sidechain filter at 150 Hz that is used to reduce pumping in bass-heavy tracks.
Next up is the Stereo section that has four fixed bands covering Low End, Low Mids, High Mids and High End. It seems to be using some sort of M/S technique for the widening, which sounds best when used sparingly, but thankfully remains mono-compatible.
This brings us to the main element that makes or breaks any mastering plugin: the limiter. Like it or not, modern music has developed with an emphasis on volume, and even though streaming standards have helped matters, dance music in particular still sounds more powerful with a well-balanced and loud-sounding master. I put Faster Master through extensive stress testing alongside Ozone 11, Sonible’s smart:limit and Musik Hack’s FUEL. Each is pushed to the limit (no pun intended) and beyond just to see how much they can handle, and the results are really surprising.
Transients. Image: Press
All three of these alternatives are excellent (and not cheap) plugins, but Faster Master comes out on top, with the most defined transient punch and the least amount of pumping. Be aware that the intricacies of specific tracks and genres may interact differently with these processors, so it’s not gospel that these results will always be the same, but these are my findings on a range of dance music tracks.
Controls for the Limit section are relatively simple. The track analysis will set the timing parameters in the background, and you simply choose what loudness level (in LUFS) you want to aim for. You have a choice of six slider positions from -10 up to -5. Somewhat confusingly, this is measured in LUFS short-term as opposed to integrated, so it doesn’t totally coincide with values that you might be used to. There’s a white line that moves to show the average volume, but it has a habit of continually moving, which leads me to use a separate metering plugin to get more accurate results. There are also times when I want to select values in between the slider positions, but that’s not currently possible. You can, however, add additional thickness and volume using a Drive slider, set the ceiling output, and change the behaviour to true peak. It would be useful if there was a gain reduction meter, as this would help to make more informed decisions when it comes to refining the mix going into the plugin.
Having David Guetta and Nicky Romero’s names on the plugin will come across as an impressive endorsement to some, and a put-off to others. I would say it’s better to just test the plugin and judge it on its own merits. It turns out though, that both artists were fairly heavily involved in the testing and development stages. Guetta, it seems, came up with the idea of having the whole plugin level-matched so that each move keeps a consistent volume. In practice, this is incredibly useful as you’re constantly focusing on the sonic differences rather than on changes in volume, especially when working with the EQ. Ozone can also do this, but it feels a little smoother here.
Limit. Image: Press
I’m really impressed with Faster Master. I generally prefer plugins that offer more control so that I can fine-tune settings, but the results here speak for themselves. It’s so well set up and calibrated to get fast, great-sounding masters with minimal fuss.
I go through a bunch of tracks and switch out my final Ozone plugin for Faster Master, and as much as I hate to admit it (as I spent a long while tweaking those settings), it sounds cleaner and more refined.
With the exception of the aforementioned shortcomings of the Limit module, I don’t have any complaints; given the quality of the sound, the price is highly competitive. It’s an excellent choice for novices or anyone who’s daunted by complex mastering plugins, and it’s even worth considering for more seasoned professionals. I’ll definitely be using Faster Master in conjunction with other plugins in my mastering chain going forward.

Key features

Mastering plugin with auto preset generation (VST3, AU, AAX)
Co-developed with David Guetta and Nicky Romero
5 modules: EQ, Transients, Compress, Stereo and Limit
166 genre profiles
Import your own reference tracks
Auto volume compensation

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Moon Safari Blows Fresh Air on the Hollywood BowlWhen Air's Moon Safari was released in 1998, it really cemented the fact that some of the most exciting electronic music in the world was coming out of France. Just one year earlier, Paris outfit Daft Punk had dropped their debut album Homework, and singles such as "Around the World" exploded into the charts. But Moon Safari was better still--a heady blend of space pop, contemporary jazz and dream pop.Since then, the Versaille duo have released five more studio albums plus a couple of soundtracks, and some EPs. Outside of 2016's compilation Twentyears, however, their last new release came in 2014 with Music for Museum, a commission for the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille as part of their Open Museum project.Their show at the Hollywood Bowl was split into two sets: Moon Safari in its entirety, and then choice cuts from their other records. More special still was the fact that the music was enhanced by the brilliance of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.HB25 Air with Orchestra / KCRW Festival - Hollywood Bowl - September 21, 2025

Truth be told, there were moments when the gentle, orchestral sounds were drowned out by what was going on literally directly above them. But when it did work, when the two worlds collided effectively, magic happened.The order of events for Set 1 contained no surprises. Naturally, "La Femme D'Argent" kicked things off, the opening track on the album. Then came smash hit single "Sexy Boy," with it's cyber hook and gloriously manipulated vocal refrain. It was one of the best electronic tunes of the '90s, and it sounded incredible in Hollywood.Other highlights from Moon Safari included "Talisman" and "New Star in the Sky," and then it was time for set 2.

We got three songs from 2001's 10 000 HZ Legend, including an electrifying "Don't Be Light," and th closing "Electronic Performers." Four were pulled from 2004's Talkie Walkie, with the highlight being a super-sweet "Cherry Blossom Girl." Some of the more gentle moments from that record, such as "Alone in Kyoto" and "Venus" allowed the orchestra to really shine.Additionally, to tracks were performed from Air's score for the movie The Virgin Suicides. These were a real treat and, again, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra beefed up the tunes beautifully.

That was that. An incredible performance, primarily of a 27-year-old album that doesn't sound dated at all. Still, one can only hope that we get something new from Air soon.Photographs taken by Timothy Norris​​​ at the Hollywood Bowl, provided courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association
Edit this setlist | More Air setlists
The post Moon Safari Blows Fresh Air on the Hollywood Bowl first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Bitcoin bulls favored in $22.6B BTC monthly options expiry, but bears still lurkBitcoin’s $22.6 billion monthly options expiry is led by the bulls but macroeconomic headwinds could give the bears a last minute advantage.

Types of microphones: A guide to how they work and best use cases
Join us as we explore a few of the most common types of microphones, what makes them work, and what sets them apart.

3D Printed “Book” Demonstrates Mechanical ActionsA book of mechanical actions is a wondrous thing — mechanically inclined children have lost collective decades pouring over them over the generations. What could possibly be better? Why, if the mechanisms in the book were present, and moved! That’s exactly what [AxelMadeIt] produced for a recent video.
Being just four pages, you might argue this is but a pamphlet. But since it takes up a couple inches of shelf space, it certainly looks like a book from the outside, which is exactly what [AxelMadeIt] was going for. To get a more book-like spine, his hinge design sacrificed opening flat, but since the pages are single-sided, that’s no great sacrifice.
At only 6 mm (1/4″) thick, finding printable mechanisms that could actually fit inside was quite a challenge. If he was machining everything out of brass, that would be room for oodles of layers. But [Axel] wanted to print the parts for this book, so the mechanisms need to be fairly thick. One page has a Roberts linkage and a vault-locking mechanism, another has planetary gears, with angled teeth to keep them from falling out. Finally, the first page has a geneva mechanism, and an escarpment, both driven by a TPU belt drive.
All pages are driven from an electric motor that is buried in the last page of the “book”, along with its motor, battery, and a couple of micro-switches to turn it on when you open the book and off again when you reach the last page. Rather than a description of the mechanisms, like most books of mechanical actions, [Axel] used multi-material printing to put lovely poems on each page. A nice pro-tip is that “Futura”, a font made famous by flying to the moon, works very well when printed this way. If you just want to watch him flip through, jump to 8:00 in the video.
This reminds us of another project we once featured, which animated 2100 mechanical mechanisms. While this book can’t offer near that variety, it makes up for it in tactility.

Neon, the No. 2 social app on the Apple App Store, pays users to record their phone calls and sells data to AI firmsA new call recording app is gaining traction for offering to pay users for voice data from calls, which is sold to AI companies.

On… Spotify and the ‘more free’ burger giveaway.MBW founder Tim Ingham on Spotify making 'free' better, in its bid to fight YouTube and TikTok
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Spotify (finally) slides into Rekordbox, Serato, and Algoriddim djay (again) – for better or worse?Spotify Premium subscribers can now stream playlists directly into Rekordbox, Serato DJ, and Algoriddim's djay. It makes discovery and prep easier than ever, but with no offline mode, limited cue support, and licensing gaps, is it ready for pro DJs?
The post Spotify (finally) slides into Rekordbox, Serato, and Algoriddim djay (again) – for better or worse? appeared first on DJ TechTools.

NoiseRverb is a free convolution reverb plugin capturing historic churches in Quito
NoiseRoom UIO has released NoiseRverb, a free convolution reverb plugin that brings the acoustic character of Quito’s historic churches to your DAW. Created by sound designer Jhonatan López (whose free CCMkI: Classic Compressor plugin we featured a while ago) in collaboration with engineers Analí Pinto and Fausto Espinoza, NoiseRverb is more than just a reverb [...]
View post: NoiseRverb is a free convolution reverb plugin capturing historic churches in Quito

Venn Audio V-Clip 2V-Clip 2 is the sequel to Venn Audio's signature plugin, V-Clip. It offers fully featured multiband saturation, pre/post emphasis, mid-side processing, modular and fully resizable GUI, advanced asymmetric waveshaping with brand new clipping functions, and up to 512x oversampling and more. Video V-Clip 2 offers: Highly customisable levels of saturation, featuring mulitband and mid-side processing, using up to 10 separate clipping stages. A pre/post emphasis stage for advanced tone control of the distortion. Large selection of static and variable clipping sigmoid functions to choose from, including the brand new 'super soft knee', providing a variable knee transfer curve in the decibel domain. A modern all new modular, fully resizable GUI. Almost all components can be popped out into separate floating windows to give you an extra level of control. A brand new interactive live shaper visualisation. Multiple new visualisations to choose from, all resizable to preference: shaper, waveform, oscilloscope, envelope, spectrum and histogram views for each clipper. Up to 512x oversampling with three different filter types. Advanced asymmetric clipping supported natively in each clipper, easily set separate waveshaping and thresholds for positive and negative samples. New test generators to help you fine tune your wave shaping, including an adjustable test tone, noise generators and a sampler. Available in VST3, AUv2 and AAX for MacOS and Windows. Read More

Plugin Alliance release Shadow Hills OptoMax The latest arrival to the Plugin Alliance range delivers a new compressor plug-in based on the much-loved Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor. 

Shadow Hills OptoMax turns the prized optical section of the popular Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor into its own dedicated pluginBrainworx and Shadow Hills have lifted the lid on the new Shadow Hills OptoMax, a new optical compressor which takes the optical section from the popular Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor and reworks it into a “new and exciting beast”.
Brainworx says it has used its “industry-leading analogue modelling expertise” to capture “every nuance” of the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor’s optical circuits.

READ MORE: You can now access your Spotify Premium library directly from rekordbox

“The result is a musical, characterful compressor with multiple transformer colourations and powerful new modes that make it adaptable for everything from transparent levelling to aggressive, saturated compression,” says Brainworx.
For anyone in need of a history lesson, the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor plugin recreated the iconic hardware compressor used by the likes of Muse, Green Day, Gnarls Barkley and many more.
The new OptoMax plugin features an expanded set of controls; ratio and speed controls (slow, med, fast) open the realm of new sonic possibilities, but while retaining the “essential bloom and smoothness of optical compression”.
There’s also a Push mode, which enables the user to tap into an “ultra-fast” timing mode for “aggressive modern sounds”.
Three distinct harmonic flavours are on tap, too, courtesy of Shadow Hills’ Nickel, Iron and Steel transformer circuits from the original Mastering Compressor.
Other modern-thinking features include a dedicated Tone control, with which the user can switch between Air for “silky brilliance” or Smooth to rein in top end.
There’s also advanced sidechain routing options, and the GUI window is resizable for the optimum creative workflow.
“Analogue optical compressors transform the non-linear characteristics of light glowing and fading into smooth, musical compression,” the company says. 
“However, due to this essential mechanism, they are often limited to slower attack and release times. OptoMax preserves that classic, bloom-without-bite feel, but uses the power of digital processing to add deeper timing control and a robust sidechain section for modern engineers.”
Shadow Hills OptoMax is available now for an introductory price of $69 until 24 December, after which it will rise to $150.
Get yours at Plugin Alliance.
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Filterverse 1.2 Review + GIVEAWAY
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You can now access your Spotify Premium library directly from rekordboxAlphaTheta’s rekordbox DJ software now supports playback from Spotify, allowing Premium Spotify subscribers to utilise its library of over 100 million tracks within their mixes.
Spotify’s music catalogue and playlists can be accessed directly from rekordbox, and then mixed with tracks from your rekordbox music library. Spotify’s tracks can be played on all compatible DJ equipment when using Performance mode in rekordbox for Mac/Windows, including any AlphaTheta or Pioneer DJ setup.

READ MORE: AlphaTheta CDJ-3000X review: Bigger, sharper, smoother, and cloud-ready — but you’ll need very deep pockets

The integration is now available as of 24 September in a vast range of countries and regions, including: the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Greece, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and more.
This news arrives just after the launch of AlphaTheta’s next-generation flagship DJ player, the CDJ-3000X. Described as an evolution of the CDJ-3000 – which landed in 2020 under Pioneer DJ (which is part of the AlphaTheta Corporation) – the player brings new features and upgrades including improved online music access, updated connectivity, and multiple hardware improvements.

A software version of the player is also coming to virtual reality thanks to a collaboration with Tribe XR. As part of the partnership, AlphaTheta is bringing the CDJ-3000X and its DJM-A9 professional mixer to virtual reality setups, including Meta Quest and Steam VR, and says they are “authentic 1-to-1 recreations”. These virtual versions are also accompanied by interactive lessons and real-time guidance from AI mentor, DJ Beatbot.
“Our partnership with Tribe XR builds on AlphaTheta’s ‘One Through Music’ mission, enabling DJs everywhere to discover, connect, and perform with a global community through our innovative products in new and inspiring ways,” comments Yoshinori Kataoka, CEO of AlphaTheta.
Find out more about these new launches via rekordbox and AlphaTheta.
The post You can now access your Spotify Premium library directly from rekordbox appeared first on MusicTech.

Chicago house legend and DJ Ron Carroll dies aged 57Chicago house DJ, vocalist, and producer Ron Carroll has died at the age of 57.
Carroll’s passing was confirmed on Monday (22 September) by fellow DJ and close friend Deonte Pennington, who wrote in a Facebook post: “The news we just received while in this hotel room for my birthday just broke my heart. Was not expecting the call to be that.” No cause of death has been disclosed.
Nicknamed the ‘Minister of Sound’, Carroll was born in Chicago in 1968. He began singing in his church as a teenager before discovering the city’s burgeoning house scene and teaching himself to DJ. By the early ’90s, he had stepped into production, releasing his debut record My Prayer in 1993 with Hula, Kay Fingers and Ron Trent.
Carroll’s career reached a turning point in 1994 when Louie Vega asked him to write lyrics for Barbara Tucker’s I Get Lifted, a track that went on to become a house music classic. From then, Carroll’s voice and songwriting became fixtures on dancefloors worldwide.
Over the decades, he collaborated with a long list of artists, including Mike Dunn, Byron Stingily, CeCe Peniston, Hardsoul, David Guetta, Axwell, and French producer-DJ Bob Sinclar – with whom he collaborated with on tracks like Tribute and Love Generation. His music also appeared on key house labels such as Defected, Glitterbox, and his own Body Music Chicago imprint.
Beyond his studio work, Carroll remained deeply connected to his hometown community and the global house circuit. He had just performed at the Summer’s Last Dance festival in Chicago over the weekend and was scheduled to appear at Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) next month.
Tributes from across the electronic music world have poured in following news of Ron’s passing. Fellow DJ and vocalist Mr. V remembers Carroll as “a unique voice in house music, a solid DJ behind the decks, funny enough to share laughs with, but most importantly he was as real as it gets.”
“Was looking forward to seeing him next month at ADE,” he says. “Unfortunately I can only have the moments and memories I had collected.”

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Read more tributes below.

RIP Ron Carroll
One of the best to ever do it pic.twitter.com/dWkwLYE3au
— ARC Music Festival (@arcmusicfest) September 22, 2025

RIP Ron Carroll pic.twitter.com/dfuV8nVfKr
— 𝕍⋓ ꗟ𝕚 (@svukeve) September 22, 2025

I will truly miss my dear friend, a beautiful soul who will forever live in our hearts. Rest peacefully, @RONCARROLLBMC. #RonCarroll pic.twitter.com/FaYfDyuReq
— EDX (@edxMusic) September 22, 2025

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