“Screw the gear. Develop your skills before you go and buy something”: Emma-Jean Thackray explains why musicians should invest in creativity, not gearWith thousands of new pieces of gear and software being released every day, it’s easy to assume that the key to making great music lies in having the perfect collection of tools. But for Emma-Jean Thackray, that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.
The producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist – whose sophomore album, Weirdo, is due out 25 April – speaks in a new interview with MusicTech, where she opens up about her creative ethos and her views on gear.

READ MORE: YouTuber says music theory makes you a “good analyst or technician” – but not necessarily a good songwriter

According to Thackray, one of the biggest myths in music production is the idea that acquiring the right gear will get you to where you want to be.
“What really matters is your ideas and your performance. Sure, you can perhaps better communicate your ideas with good gear, but if you only have an iPhone, your voice, and a great song, then you can still do something really powerful,” she explains.
“Most of your effort should go into gaining more knowledge and working on your composition skills. A lot of post-production is unnecessary if you get the performance and sound right while tracking. If you can arrange well, some of the mixing process is done for you already.”
While a well-mixed track is, of course, “invaluable”, Thackray argues that it’s the “icing on the cake” and that the foundation of a song is far more crucial.
“It’s pointless icing a shit cake,” she says. “Develop your skills before you go and buy something.”
For Thackray, the most valuable investment a musician can make isn’t in gear — it’s in themselves. And she speaks from experience: her forthcoming album, Weirdo, is a testament to her philosophy. She didn’t just write and perform the songs — she recorded, mixed, produced, and arranged the entire project herself.
“Truthfully though, I think my biggest investment is me. I’m the one with all the ideas. Gear means nothing without the creativity behind it,” she says. “The investment is my education, the time I’ve spent listening to so much music, and the performing, composing, arranging, and mixing techniques I’ve honed over the years. Screw the gear.”
Listen to Thackray’s latest single Wanna Die below.

The post “Screw the gear. Develop your skills before you go and buy something”: Emma-Jean Thackray explains why musicians should invest in creativity, not gear appeared first on MusicTech.

Carl Cox is bored of DJing: “Instruments don’t play themselves; you have to create the sounds”Oh yes, Carl Cox loves playing to crowds just as much as when he started four decades ago:

READ MORE: Deadmau5 sells his catalogue for $55 million: “We inherit a legacy that changed music forever”

“The idea of my performance is always excitement. What’s going to happen? The creativity of that — what can I achieve? How do I connect with people?” Cox says.
But these days, his excitement, creativity, and connection come from his live electronic set, not DJing. Cox has completed the DJ game. In this phase of his career, the 62-year-old steps on stage, and, with the help of a Pioneer V10, a bevy of machines, and his inimitable ability to respond to crowds, he creates music that will never be heard again.
“It’s only me, from my point of view, coming down from the DJ pedestal to go into realms of creativity. The machines don’t play themselves. You have to create the sounds. You have to find the rhythm. You have to find its soul. When it all comes together, it comes through the speakers, and everyone’s got their hands in the air — there’s your moment,” Cox says. “That’s where I’m happiest because I’m being challenged.”
Image: Dan Reid
Cox is currently preparing to debut his brand new live set, Evolution, at Ultra Music Festival on 29 March. But he’s been seeking challenges onstage long before he developed this show.
“I’ve always had aspirations of being a live electronic artist,” Cox says. He recalls watching Liam Howlett perform for The Prodigy with an Ensoniq SQ-80 in the early 90s, when Cox was opening for him as a DJ.
Inspired, Cox decided to start the Carl Cox Concept, a trio that included Cox on keys, MC Magika on the mic engaging with the crowd, and Neil McLellan, a producer who worked on The Fat of the Land and other albums from The Prodigy, also using an SQ-80.
But Cox stopped the trio — he was too in-demand as a DJ and hungry for growth.. “I hadn’t reached the highest heights as a DJ to be able to say to myself, ‘I’m going as a live act.’ So I dropped the live,” Cox says.
Cox didn’t perform a live electronic set from 1992 until 2010, when he finally assembled a couple of shows in Melbourne for his album All Roads Lead To The Dancefloor. The album got a lukewarm reception, despite his diligent work with vocalists and instrumentalists, so he quickly reverted to DJing and swore he was never going to make another album. 10 years later, two things happened in quick succession in 2020: the pandemic eliminated live events and he received a beta version of the Pioneer DJ V10.
Image: Pres
“I said to the world, ‘That mixer is a game changer’. People were like, ‘How much is he getting paid to say that?’ But every DJ now wants to use a V10 mixer,” Cox says. “I never was a massive Pioneer fan. I always felt that the sound of Pioneer would be cheapened based on the components they used to use back in the day, but now it’s as good as any [premium] mixer out there.”
The most groundbreaking aspect of the V10, for Cox, is its ability to separately record each channel into Ableton Live, while many other mixers can only output a stereo feed. “When I told people you can record each channel like they’re stems in Ableton, people thought I was mad. I was using Richie Hawtin’s Model One mixer before I changed over to the Pioneer. It doesn’t do that.”
With this new tech available while he was on a forced break from touring in 2020, Cox spent his time off the road jamming on hardware. He would plug his Moog Labyrinth, Moog DFAM, Roland TR-8S, and various other machines into the V10, link them with Ableton, hit record, and start making music.
Image: Press
After one particularly fruitful jam session, he realized he had a whole album’s worth of material recorded into Ableton — after just 90 minutes. Just as new tracks unfold before him during his live set, new tracks were revealing themselves to him in the studio. That material became his 2022 album, Electronic Generations.
“I found as I was doing all these different ideas while I was jamming that I was actually making a live album. I wasn’t expecting to do an album. But everything that was coming about, I could tell — ‘That’s another track. That’s another track. That’s another track.’ I found myself doing about 25 tracks,” Cox says. This process birthed the new live setup he’s been touring since events resumed.
“I didn’t want to come out of COVID and just continue to DJ. I [like to] dive into the machines, swim around in all their components, and find out all these wonderful things that can come out of them that turn a corner on people’s expectations,” Cox says.
Cox will always be a legendary DJ but many of his world-class contemporaries are yet to follow him on this creative path. David Guetta put it similarly in 2024 — “In our profession, there are now…Entertainers and DJs.” These ‘entertainers’, says Guetta, stand behind decks of CDJs playing their own songs in their entirety, with little improvisation and a focus on props and stage production. “I don’t think that’s DJing,” adds Guetta.
DJs, on the other hand, read the crowd, play the music that fits the moment and introduce audiences to new music. Such entertainers, Cox says, are squandering their skills as a DJ.
Image: Press
“It’s the reason why a lot of DJs are bored. They’re playing the same tune, week in, week out,” Cox says. His remedy to that boredom is the machines, but in his experience, very few DJs have any interest in playing a live set.
“If you stick most DJs in front of [a live setup], they’ll just walk away. I feel there’s laziness to that, because when you go in the studio to record, you use these machines. You use a drum machine. You use synths. You use keyboards. So why don’t you do what we’re doing in the studio, and then create that live?” Cox says.
Cox is creating tracks in the studio and on stage with 13 different pieces of gear including his MacBook Pro running Ableton Live, an Ableton Push, Novation Launch Control XL, Abstrakt Instruments’ Avalon (to emulate the sound of the Roland TB-303), and a MOTU Ultralite mk5. All this runs into the six channels on the V10, and he puts a DOCTron IMC on the master chain.
Channel 1 is a palette of kick drums in Ableton. His music is based heavily on four-to-the-floor beats, which allows him to manipulate the sound of his set drastically. He can infuse any track with a different energy, from round and funky house kicks to deep and throbbing techno kicks.
Image: Press
“If I’m using a track, I normally take the kick out of that, and then put a new kick on top, so the track sounds different. But sometimes, that track has a good kick. I don’t even use any of mine. So I exchange, or I use the kick in a track and then use my kick to really get that bottom slamming,” Cox says.
Channel 2 is reserved for the TR-8S for the classic Roland drum machine sounds. Channels 3 and 4 include the full tracks he wants to play during his set that he can then manipulate with the machines and the mixer. Channel 5 controls the Abstrakt for the 303 bass, and then channel 6 is a submix of the rest of his Moog synths, percussion clips, and samples from Ableton for any further sonic decoration.
“I hear a track, find a good loop area, and I basically make a track from that loop. Then I work that, and take the channel from the Ableton out, and already have another new track being created. So I use that as my paint board,” Cox says.
For past live shows, he’s used mixing desks with 64 channels to give him all the room he needs for all of his desired functions. However, the tactility of the V10 allows him to perform like he does when he’s DJing. Still, Cox remarks that routing all of this into the V10 is still limiting him a bit because it only has six channels: “I could actually use two more extra channels on this mixer, but [Pioneer DJ]’s not listening to me,” Cox says with a laugh.
“I create the energy of my music through the mixer. Cuts, fades, and effects. I use it as an instrument. Where all the other mixers you put the fader up and fader down, you go to a channel on an insert and find an effect that you want to use. That slows me down,” Cox says. “Having a V10 as my only DJ tool within my live set keeps me on my toes.”
Image: Press
Keeping his eyes off his computer screen is crucial to remaining on his toes. He wants to give his attention to the machines and the crowd, absorbing their energy and transmuting into the music as directly as possible.
“I don’t want to be seen scrolling the menu. It makes me a very dull looking performer,” says Cox.
Though he’s concerned with how he looks, he is more concerned with sound quality. That’s why he has the DOCTron IMC. Given that Cox is combining numerous live elements rather than outputting tracks that have already been properly mastered, the extra bit of compression and limiting from the DOCTron (made by fellow techno gearhead, Stimming) helps him glue everything together.
“The difference is unbelievable. It takes what you’ve got and makes it into the most beautiful butterfly. The sound guys love me for it because they cannot believe the signal that they get,” Cox says. “You just feel the sub level tones you never thought existed. It brings it all out. I want this to sound live.”
Over the past 40 years, millions of people have heard Carl Cox say “Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!” on the mic at his shows. He says this to fire up crowds into uproaring cheers, and as he challenges himself with new machines, new methods of performance, and new ways to deliver top tier musical experiences, he is just as excited as they are.
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Chromatic Instruments release free Casiotone MT-65 emulation for NI Kontakt
Chromatic Instruments has released Pistachiotone MR-65, a free Kontakt library that faithfully captures the nostalgic sounds of the Casiotone MT-65 synthesizer. To function, it requires the full version of Kontakt 6.8.0 or later. For those of us who grew up with—or at least picked up—second-hand vintage Casio keyboards, this release hits right in the nostalgia [...]
View post: Chromatic Instruments release free Casiotone MT-65 emulation for NI Kontakt

Kemper update Profiler Player Kemper have announced that their compact amp and effects modeller has received a free software update that introduces a whole host of powerful new features.

Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz is retiringDustin Moskovitz is retiring from Asana, the software company he founded in 2008. Asana, a task management platform, announced his retirement as part of the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report, CNBC reported. Moskovitz informed the board he intends to move into a chair role when a new CEO starts. The company has raised more than […]
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Ben Winship & Tim O'Brien Wins 9th Annual Christmas Songwriting CompetitionThe list winners and finalists of the 9th Annual Christmas Songwriting Competition have been released. Songwriters Ben Winship and Tim O'Brien of Victor, ID won top honors with their song "Santa Ate a Gummy".“This is a great honor to win the top prize. We are thrilled to have been selected - happy and proud that you have selected our song!” said the top winners Ben Winship and Tim O'Brien.Victor, ID based Ben Winship is a songwriter and producer with credits from Mike Dowling that won a Grammy award in 2005 in the Best Pop Instrumental category. Ben has performed at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion".Tim O'Brien is a songwriter as well as a former member of the group "Hot Rize". His songs have been recorded by kathy Mathea, Garth Brooks, Nickel Creek and the Dixie Chicks (now called the Chicks). He has won 2 Grammy awards: 2014 - Awarded Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album for "The Earls of Leicester" and 2005 - Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album for Fiddler's Green.Karin Bachner & Tobias M. Hoffmann from Vienna, Austria won the second prize with their song “In the Mood for Christmas”. "Mingle Neath the Mistletoe" by Jan Edwards, Lucy LeBlanc and Corey Lee Barker from Naples, FL won the third prize with their song “Mingle Neath the Mistletoe”.All top three songs were multi-way co-writes.Here is the list of the winners:1st Prize:"Santa Ate a Gummy" by Ben Winship & Tim O'Brien; Victor, ID 2nd Prize:"In the Mood for Christmas" by Karin Bachner & Tobias M. Hoffmann; Vienna, AUSTRIA 3rd Prize:"Mingle Neath the Mistletoe" by Jan Edwards, Lucy LeBlanc & Corey Lee Barker; Naples, FLTop 20 Finalists:"Santa Ate a Gummy" by Ben Winship & Tim O'Brien"Nights and Christmas Lights" by Robin Sandoval, Paul Laliberte,  Jeffrey Laliberte & Shelby Archer"Once Again It Is Christmas" by Clive Kennedy & Justin Wilde"Reindeer Rebellion" by Ava Della Pietra, Shane Stevens & Nash Overstreet"What Santa Wants" by Jan Edwards, Deema Homsi, TJ Kirby"Mingle Neath the Mistletoe" by Jan Edwards, Lucy LeBlanc & Corey Lee Barker"Song To The Longest Night" by Patti Shaffner"In the Mood for Christmas" by Karin Bachner & Tobias M. Hoffmann"Christmas X12" by Michelle Rose Bergh & Andy Karg"Christmas Angel" by Nadine Stockmann & Torsten Bader"Little Christmas Song" by Ayesha de Groot & Jan Flubacher"Ornaments" by Tamsin Lancaster, Max Jackson & Liam Quinn"There's A Candle" by Calvin Bridges & Tore W Åas"1-800-Santa-Helpline" by Marissa Hernandez, Joe Gautrey & Sean Price"Greater Than That" by Mary Dawson & Beverly Houston"Oh! Santa, Please" by Robby Johnson, Clarence Jey & Danny Rader"Sing His Name" by Harrison Kraft"Christmas Star" by Katie Pederson & Frankie Jason Turner"Wishlist" by Damon Sharpe, Eric Sanicola & Laura Bryna"Christmas Kiss" by Randi Soyland Sparrman & Donald James HarperFor more information, please visit:
https://www.songwriting.net/xmas-results
The post Ben Winship & Tim O'Brien Wins 9th Annual Christmas Songwriting Competition first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Patrick Moxey’s publishing company files amended copyright complaint against Sony MusicOriginal lawsuit was filed in New York in November on behalf of Ultra International Music Publishing LLC (UIMP) and Ultra Music Publishing Europe AG
Source

Klamper Audio Simple Reverb 2Simple Reverb 2 is an intuitive and lightweight reverb plugin designed for musicians and producers who need high-quality sound with minimal CPU usage. Key Features: WET – Controls t... Read More

Live Music Stocks continue to fall faster than MarketsLive music stocks from Live Nation, Sphere Entertainment. and MSG Entertainment followed the markets downward Monday continuing their week long spiral.
The post Live Music Stocks continue to fall faster than Markets appeared first on Hypebot.

Solar-Powered E-Reader With No ButtonsModern e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle are incredible pieces of engineering, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. A device custom-built to your own specifications is always going to provide a more satisfying experience than something purchased off the shelf. That’s why [fel88] put together this custom e-reader which offers a number of unique features, such as a solar panel on the back and button-free operation.
One issue with modern e-readers, at least as [fel88] sees it, is that they have a lot of unnecessary features. This project removes most of them, stripping down the device to its core functionality: a straightforward menu for selecting books and gesture-sensing for navigating the menu as well as changing the pages. The only physical input on the device is a small reed switch to turn the device on. A 3D printed case holds the e-ink display and encloses the inner workings, driven by an Arduino Mega 2560 and powered by three lithium-ion capacitors (LICs) and a small solar panel.
By dropping all of the unnecessary features, the device doesn’t need to waste energy with things like WiFi or Bluetooth and can get around 880 pages on a single charge, not counting any extra energy coming in through the solar panel while it’s operating. The LICs will also theoretically improve its life cycle as well. If you’re still stuck with a paperweight when you formerly had a working e-reader, though, there are plenty of ways to bring old devices back to life as well.

This industry-favourite hardware EQ by Heritage Audio has been turned into a plugin – and it’s much more affordableHeritage Audio and its sub-brand LANG Electronics have revealed the LANG PEQ-2 plugin, emulating the Lang PEQ-2 program equaliser from the ’60s, which was reissued in 2023.
Heritage has given several of its own hardware classics similar treatment in the past, recreating all of its Successor stereo bus compressor’s features as a plugin with new features. It also similarly transformed its Symph EQ, and its BritStrip console channel strip.

READ MORE: A recording studio honouring Les Paul has opened in LA – and it even features the pioneer’s own 8-track recording console

Available in both native and DSP formats, this authentic recreation of the PEQ-2 boasts a simple layout and user interface, with independent controls for Boost and Droop (cut) for high and low frequency bands.

The PEQ-2 also features a high peak boost with variable high frequency boost bandwidth settings that range from sharp to broad, covering a multitude of needs.
What’s more, all owners of the existing PEQ-2 hardware unit can fill in an online form to redeem a native version of the plugin for free. Native and DSP versions are also available for free to anyone who owns any of the Heritage Audio i73 Pro family products. For everyone else, a set price of $99 applies.
LANG was based in New York through the ’50s and ’60s before being acquired by Heritage Audio in 2022. The original PEQ-2 was released in the 1960s under the LANG brand, before Heritage reissued it in 2023 after extensive research and backward engineering. The visual design is the same, but it now has additional frequency adjustments for more accurate control. Its passive, inductor-based EQ saw it draw a lot of comparisons to the Pultec EQP-1A, but it’s significantly less expensive.
Learn more at Heritage Audio.
The post This industry-favourite hardware EQ by Heritage Audio has been turned into a plugin – and it’s much more affordable appeared first on MusicTech.

JMG Sound introduce WideFire  JMG Sound and United Plugins have announced the launch of a new, packed down version of their innovative saturation and widening processor.

SXSW Music Top Picks 2025: Panels, Meetups & ShowcasesAs the music takes center stage, we've got the SXSW Music Top Picks 2025 including panels, meetups, a free Summit, showcases and more.
The post SXSW Music Top Picks 2025: Panels, Meetups & Showcases appeared first on Hypebot.

A recording studio honouring Les Paul has opened in LA – and it even features the pioneer’s own 8-track recording consoleA state-of-the-art studio created to honour the legacy of legendary inventor and audio pioneer Les Paul has opened in Los Angeles.
The studio is located in the historic United Recording building at 6050 Sunset Blvd and features meticulously restored original equipment used by the legendary inventor and guitarist.

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No doubt, the centrepiece of the studio is Les Paul’s groundbreaking audio console and 8-track recording set up referred to as ‘The Monster’, which he built with Rein Narma in the 1950s. Sitting alongside the original console is his prized Ampex 5258 Sel-Sync machine affectionately known as ‘The Octopus’, the first 8-track recorder ever produced.
Credit: Les Paul Recording Studio
The studio is now open for use by the next generation of musicians, whether they are recording or studying music.
“We’ve painstakingly restored Les Paul’s original gear to working condition, allowing today’s artists to record using the exact tools that revolutionized popular music,” says producer and engineer Michael Braunstein in a press release. “Combined with the newest technology and digital recording tools, the Les Paul Recording Studio will welcome musical artists, producers, engineers and students to a new and innovative studio environment that is the only one of its kind in the world.”
Paul was responsible for pioneering a series of revolutionary recording techniques that would massively shape popular music to come. These included multi-track recording, sound-on-sound, close miking, overdubbing, speed manipulation, echo and more. Of course, he also had a prominent role in creating the solid body guitar. His prototype, the Log, served as the inspiration for the iconic guitar that bears his name, the Gibson Les Paul. Paul died in 2009 at the age of 94.
Learn more about the Les Paul Recording Studio at les-paul.com.
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Hans Zimmer says his Rain Man score was the “beginning of orchestras having to adapt” to synth-written movie scoresHans Zimmer feels his score for the 1988 film Rain Man marked the start of orchestras adapting to working with synthesizers for movies.
Rain Man won Best Picture at the 1989 Academy Awards, with Zimmer being nominated for Best Original Score. He went on to be Oscar-nominated for a number of other synth-laden scores, including Interstellar and Dune: Part One, the latter of which he won Best Score for in 2022.

READ MORE: Hans Zimmer concert film coming to cinemas to offer “peek behind the curtain” at his work

Speaking to Josh Horowitz for the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Hans Zimmer says, “I wrote Rain Man on a synthesiser with weird sounds and there’s an orchestra trying to play my music.
“Actually it’s really interesting that you say this because I’m only just realising as you’re saying it, it was the beginning of orchestras having to adapt. Like, ‘there’s this new guy in town and he works with weird electronic instruments, so we better have some stuff in the orchestra as well that can go and do that!’
“The following year I wasn’t up but Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture so they kept playing that tune over and over again, and then Gladiator won Best Picture and I was nominated but again it was like they played the tune over and over and over again… and then winning for Dune: Part One, I was so grumpy about the whole affair.”
Hans Zimmer goes on to recall what turned out to be his most-loved Oscars experience from his win in 2022, which didn’t actually involve his presence at the ceremony itself: “I phoned my PR people and said, ‘don’t bother me, I want to go to sleep’. I had my kids with me and they were downstairs doing whatever, and then the phone rings and it’s my publicist going, ‘It’s your category!’ and I’m going, ‘I told you I don’t want to be disturbed.’
“Two minutes later the phone rings again and I’m going, ‘I told you!’ and she goes, ‘But you won!’ At that moment the door burst open and I realised there was a devious plot between [my partner] and my children and they flew in and there’s a big party going on downstairs with the whole band. They didn’t care if I won or lost, they just wanted a great big party! That was the best Oscars I ever had.”
Check out the full podcast below:

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