Pubbas releases free Vallhund Binaural Panner for Windows and macOS
Pubbas has released Vallhund, a free binaural panning plugin for Windows and macOS. We previously featured Pubbas’ Sheepadoodle Phaser, and to be honest, I’ve used it way more than expected since then. It earned a regular spot in my cinematic sound design toolkit, so I’m thrilled to see another creative effect drop from the same [...]
View post: Pubbas releases free Vallhund Binaural Panner for Windows and macOS

Pubbas Vallhund Binaural PannerVallhund provides precise, independent control over the factors that shape human perception of audio directionality. By closely emulating how our ears naturally interpret spatial cues—subtle variations in volume, timing (latency), and frequency response (filtering) - Vallhund allows you to create immersive mixes that place sounds anywhere in a virtual soundscape. Key Controls Direction: Set the perceived location of your sound source. Virtually place it left, right, or anywhere in between. Latency: Adjusts the strength of the timing difference between the left and right channel, this is essentially a control for the Haas effect. But be careful with this since it can introduce phase issues for playback in mono. Volume: Fine-tune the loudness difference between the left and right channels to reinforce the perceived direction of your source. A subtle shift can add depth and realism, while an exaggerated setting can create a striking directional emphasis. Filter: Control how strongly the HRTF-based filtering is applied. This lets you refine the tonal character of your panned sound, from a neutral balance to a richly emphasized directional signature. YouTube.com/watch?v=pXNlWYah6dM Read More

In The Trenches with Rachel Hunt of indie music venue Grog ShopRachel Hunt is the Marketing Director for independent Cleveland music venues Grog Shop and B-Side Lounge. Her love of music runs deep including a 16 years-and-counting as a non-comm radio DJ. Hunt shares her story as well as what's working in her daily battle to help fans discover new artists and sell more tickets.
The post In The Trenches with Rachel Hunt of indie music venue Grog Shop appeared first on Hypebot.

Massive X Player is a new soft synth from Native Instruments – and it’s freeNative Instruments has launched Massive X Player, a free soft synth offering an intro to sound sculpting.
Available to download right now, Massive X Player comes loaded with 60 presets including basses, pads and leads, so regardless of your skill level with synth programming, you can get creative straight away. READ MORE: Here’s an unprecedented pre-show look at the console setup of Slipknot’s front-of-house engineer

At the heart of Massive X Player’s UI is the Morpher XY pad, which lets you shift between parameters in real time. You can also draw a path on the XY pad, which introduces “evolving movement and rhythmic modulation”, which can loop and sync with a project.
Additionally, the Player’s Animator tool is on hand to provide you with a few preset pathway shapes to choose from, like a square or circular path.
There’s also a Randomize function, which can be hit in each corner of the Morpher XY pad to help spark new creative ideas.
“Whether you’re exploring synths for the first time or looking for a fast and fun way to sculpt sounds, Massive X Player makes synthesis simple,” says Native Instruments. “This is your backstage pass to the music that shapes scenes. From growling basses to shimmering leads and floating pads, explore a vast library of presets for quick inspiration and then make them your own. No steep learning curve, no cost, just playful sound design.”

Massive X Player comes loaded with 60 presets, with more on the way via expansion packs built by expert sound designers.
Massive X Player is included with Native Instruments’ Komplete Start bundle, a free plugin suite loaded with synths, instruments, effects, and loops.
Learn more at Native Instruments.
The post Massive X Player is a new soft synth from Native Instruments – and it’s free appeared first on MusicTech.

How to Build a Fan Community that lastsBefore artists try to make money from superfans, they need to understand what really makes people feel part of a community. These core ideas on how to build a fan community can turn short-term attention into long-term fan loyalty and career growth.
The post How to Build a Fan Community that lasts appeared first on Hypebot.

Here’s an unprecedented pre-show look at the console setup of Slipknot’s front-of-house engineerWhile there’s plenty of chaos when Slipknot take to the stage, there’s a precise formula when it comes to capturing their heavy metal carnage live. And the band’s front-of-house engineer, Bob Strakele, has given an unprecedented tour of his mixing console.
Strakele, who was also worked with AWOLNATION, Avenged Sevenfold and Erasure, explains that he has recently switched to Yamaha’s PM5 Rivage after 11 years on a Solid State Logic console. “I was just kind of ready to make a change,” he tells Kohle Audio Kult. “I went to the PM5 Rivage series by Yamaha, and I’ve done maybe 15 shows on it.”

READ MORE: AI music awards organisation bans viral AI band Velvet Sundown from entering: “This doesn’t align with our values…”

The console is a Rupert Neve Designs collaboration, featuring tech from Bricasti and Eventide. As Strakele shows the host around, he explains: “It’s not just a GUI that looks fancy – it’s the real deal.”
While the number of channels coming out of the PA around “the high 60s, low 70s”, with 96 channels of inputs, Strakele only mixes the groups mid-show. “The fader levels pretty much stay flat,” he explains. “The groups… that’s where I spend the show.”
“I just pretend it’s an analogue console with 4-band EQ,” he says. “Just touch it and turn it and when it sounds good, it sounds good. Whatever, right?”

A handy stream deck helps the engineer easily roll through any intro recordings,. But there’s no backing tracks or click tracks once the band are in full-swing. “There’s no tracks,” Strakele says. “It’s all live. It’s 100% live.”
All fine tuning, EQs, reverbs, and effects are done on the console, with the outboard essentially just being compression. Once the show is in motion, his job is tweaking faders, keeping an eye on the drum buses, aforementioned Bleeps groups, effects, and so on. The outboard is all fixed settings. “I don’t mess with any of it,” he says.
The outboard features a Governer dual slope optical compressor, designed by Hungarian company Gainlab Audio, which Strakele notes “doesn’t really behave like an optical compressor” due to the fact “it can be very gentle if you want it to be – but it’ll get gnarly if you want it to be as well”.
The Governer also boasts an inductor-based passive EQ, which Strakele explains is “similar to a Pultec, but not a clone”, with its own “cut and boost” abilities.

The outboard also has a Dictator flexible compressor, another Gainlab Audio creation. “The Dictator is handling everything electronics-based,” Strakele says. “Sometimes things can get out of control in the electronics world because they’re just tweaking mixers and gain stages and stuff – this thing just works. It gets fatter, but you don’t necessarily hear it hit a knee or a threshold.”
“Everything electronics-based goes to a group, which I call ‘Bleeps’,” Strakele laughs. “It works killer!”
There’s also Wes Audio 1176-style Mimas compressors. “I’ve toured with real 1176s and all sorts of clones, and, for the size and the form factor, it’s perfect,” he explains. “And I honestly prefer it to a real 1176. It does the thing that you want!”
Vocally, Strakele again splits lead singer Corey Taylor, stage right, and percussionist Shawn Crahan (Clown) into three different groups. “I like to do everything on the channel in the box, and this is all the groups,” he explains. “So I know that the round trip is all going to be in phase… If it’s latent, it’s like 0.4 of a millisecond… it’s no big deal.”
Strakele also uses The Wizard as his choice of multiband saturator – a brand new offering from Gainlab Audio. “It’s really interesting, because every part of it interacts with a different part,” Strakele explains. “You have your thresholds for the very mute part, but that’s a feedback off of the output. So you can make it do really cool soundscape-y stuff if you are using synths. I’m using it on guitars, and it’s just locking it all together and adding some warmth.”
“A little saturation, a little compression, and a little bit of EQ,” he continues. “The EQ is pretty gentle. I think at max it’s only a 6 dB boost. So I’m just adding a little pinch of it here. A touch.”
An API 2500 Bus Compressor rounds everything off. “This thing reacts a little bit harsh to low frequency information… so I just add length to the toms, essentially, and some distortion,” he says.
“I keep it pretty simple,” Strakele admits. “A lot of people like to overcomplicate things, but that’s just like not how I work. And I mean, a show like this doesn’t really change that much. It’s mostly the room… That’s what we spend the most time on, the room acoustics.”

Slipknot aren’t ones to carry out excessive sound-checking, so Strakele usually plays back a recording from another show to gauge the room acoustics. “That way, I can basically tune the room the night before a show,” he explains
The Prodigy multifunction audio processor handles all the IO for the outboard and PA drive system. PA-wise, Strakele discussed the band’s Cohesion PA system back in April.
Slipknot’s live set utilises six Cohesion CP218 II+ systems behind each main hang, as well as eighteen CP218 II+ in six ground stacks of three, according to Lighting & Sound America.
“We had a lot of subs, but more for coverage,” Strakele told the magazine. “Brian and I had an agreement that we were going to get most of the low end from what was in the air. It’s honestly impressive that a 12″ goes that low, and you felt that energy. I liked the people in the front row to have a visceral feeling, not an oppressive one. When the guitars were chunking, you felt it on Cohesion.”
“This system was killer,” he added. “It made things easier for me where the guitars and vocals live. I’m a mid-range guy. Heavy metal tends not to have mid-range in the guitars, and it can be a conundrum of pushing the guitars too loud to hear them, but you still don’t hear them. With this system, I didn’t have that problem. This PA is a keeper.”
The post Here’s an unprecedented pre-show look at the console setup of Slipknot’s front-of-house engineer appeared first on MusicTech.

Excite Audio goes metal with its new synth, Evolve AlloyExcite Audio is venturing into new sonic terrain with Evolve Alloy, the first synth in its Evolve series – a line of instruments that each explore the “sonic characteristics” of a different material. This one’s all about metal.

READ MORE: Summer sale at Plugin Boutique: Save up to 74% on Korg synths, Excite Audio’s full suite, and UJAM effect tools

Evolve Alloy combines over 250 sound sources, ranging from tuned percussion like glockenspiels and bells to industrial foley recordings and modern, metallic-sounding synth tones.
The result is a sharp, expressive sound palette that spans cinematic shimmer and tough, digital clang.
The plugin’s interface centres around four sound blocks, each with the option to toggle between sample or synth sources. These four layers feed into a central XY pad, designed for intuitive, real-time morphing between sounds, making dynamic expression just a flick or drag away.
Just below, a rack of effects – including filters, saturation, phaser, delay, and a limiter – gives users even more control to sculpt their sound. A modulation section, meanwhile, rounds things out with envelopes, LFOs, velocity and key tracking.
If you’re on the hunt for more creative tools, the MusicTech team has also rounded up some of our favourite free and paid-for plugins in our rolling guide of the best plugins available right now. And for fans of Excite Audio, there’s more good news: the brand’s Complete Collection is currently 50% off on Plugin Boutique until the end of the month.
The discounted bundle includes 18 plugins, now going for just $259 from the usual $518. Among them are Lifeline Console, the acclaimed all-in-one channel strip praised for its mix-ready warmth; KSHMR Chain, a time-saving utility for syncing FX chains across multiple tracks; and Vision 4X, an award-winning visual analyser developed with feedback from electronic veterans like NOISIA.
Learn more at Excite Audio.
The post Excite Audio goes metal with its new synth, Evolve Alloy appeared first on MusicTech.

RodeCasters gain CallMe function Rode have teamed up with Vortex Communications to bring remote, low-latency audio connectivity to users of their RodeCaster interfaces.

TikTok’s ‘Add to Music App’ feature has fuelled ‘billions’ of streams. Now it’s linked up with YouTube Music.YouTube Music joins Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Melon, Anghami and SoundCloud in TikTok's music-saving feature
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PreSonus unveil StudioLive III SE digital mixers Available in three sizes, the new StudioLive III SE mixers all benefit from Milan-certified audio networking, comprehensive remote access and control, ergonomic improvements and a whole host of enhancements to the line-up’s existing processors.

How Outside Lands Music Festival Keeps Its MagicThis week, Ari is joined by Rick Farman to discuss the business of music festivals.

XRP open interest sheds $2.4B: Is a price crash next?XRP futures data shows neutral sentiment despite the altcoin’s double-digit price drop from $3.66.

“FUTURE PHASES” showcases new frontiers in music technology and interactive performanceMusic technology took center stage at MIT during “FUTURE PHASES,” an evening of works for string orchestra and electronics, presented by the MIT Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program as part of the 2025 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC). The well-attended event was held last month in the Thomas Tull Concert Hall within the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building. Produced in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab’s Opera of the Future Group and Boston’s self-conducted chamber orchestra A Far Cry, “FUTURE PHASES” was the first event to be presented by the MIT Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program in MIT Music’s new space.“FUTURE PHASES” offerings included two new works by MIT composers: the world premiere of “EV6,” by MIT Music’s Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor Evan Ziporyn and professor of the practice Eran Egozy; and the U.S. premiere of “FLOW Symphony,” by the MIT Media Lab’s Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media Tod Machover. Three additional works were selected by a jury from an open call for works: “The Wind Will Carry Us Away,” by Ali Balighi; “A Blank Page,” by Celeste Betancur Gutiérrez and Luna Valentin; and “Coastal Portrait: Cycles and Thresholds,” by Peter Lane. Each work was performed by Boston’s own multi-Grammy-nominated string orchestra, A Far Cry.“The ICMC is all about presenting the latest research, compositions, and performances in electronic music,” says Egozy, director of the new Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program at MIT. When approached to be a part of this year’s conference, “it seemed the perfect opportunity to showcase MIT’s commitment to music technology, and in particular the exciting new areas being developed right now: a new master’s program in music technology and computation, the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building with its enhanced music technology facilities, and new faculty arriving at MIT with joint appointments between MIT Music and Theater Arts (MTA) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).” These recently hired professors include Anna Huang, a keynote speaker for the conference and creator of the machine learning model Coconet that powered Google’s first AI Doodle, the Bach Doodle.Egozy emphasizes the uniqueness of this occasion: “You have to understand that this is a very special situation. Having a full 18-member string orchestra [A Far Cry] perform new works that include electronics does not happen very often. In most cases, ICMC performances consist either entirely of electronics and computer-generated music, or perhaps a small ensemble of two-to-four musicians. So the opportunity we could present to the larger community of music technology was particularly exciting.”To take advantage of this exciting opportunity, an open call was put out internationally to select the other pieces that would accompany Ziporyn and Egozy’s “EV6” and Machover’s “FLOW Symphony.” Three pieces were selected from a total of 46 entries to be a part of the evening’s program by a panel of judges that included Egozy, Machover, and other distinguished composers and technologists.“We received a huge variety of works from this call,” says Egozy. “We saw all kinds of musical styles and ways that electronics would be used. No two pieces were very similar to each other, and I think because of that, our audience got a sense of how varied and interesting a concert can be for this format. A Far Cry was really the unifying presence. They played all pieces with great passion and nuance. They have a way of really drawing audiences into the music. And, of course, with the Thomas Tull Concert Hall being in the round, the audience felt even more connected to the music.”Egozy continues, “we took advantage of the technology built into the Thomas Tull Concert Hall, which has 24 built-in speakers for surround sound allowing us to broadcast unique, amplified sound to every seat in the house. Chances are that every person might have experienced the sound slightly differently, but there was always some sense of a multidimensional evolution of sound and music as the pieces unfolded.”The five works of the evening employed a range of technological components that included playing synthesized, prerecorded, or electronically manipulated sounds; attaching microphones to instruments for use in real-time signal processing algorithms; broadcasting custom-generated musical notation to the musicians; utilizing generative AI to process live sound and play it back in interesting and unpredictable ways; and audience participation, where spectators use their cellphones as musical instruments to become a part of the ensemble.Ziporyn and Egozy’s piece, “EV6,” took particular advantage of this last innovation: “Evan and I had previously collaborated on a system called Tutti, which means ‘together’ in Italian. Tutti gives an audience the ability to use their smartphones as musical instruments so that we can all play together.” Egozy developed the technology, which was first used in the MIT Campaign for a Better World in 2017. The original application involved a three-minute piece for cellphones only. “But for this concert,” Egozy explains, “Evan had the idea that we could use the same technology to write a new piece — this time, for audience phones and a live string orchestra as well.”To explain the piece’s title, Ziporyn says, “I drive an EV6; it’s my first electric car, and when I first got it, it felt like I was driving an iPhone. But of course it’s still just a car: it’s got wheels and an engine, and it gets me from one place to another. It seemed like a good metaphor for this piece, in which a lot of the sound is literally played on cellphones, but still has to work like any other piece of music. It’s also a bit of an homage to David Bowie’s song ‘TVC 15,’ which is about falling in love with a robot.”Egozy adds, “We wanted audience members to feel what it is like to play together in an orchestra. Through this technology, each audience member becomes a part of an orchestral section (winds, brass, strings, etc.). As they play together, they can hear their whole section playing similar music while also hearing other sections in different parts of the hall play different music. This allows an audience to feel a responsibility to their section, hear how music can move between different sections of an orchestra, and experience the thrill of live performance. In ‘EV6,’ this experience was even more electrifying because everyone in the audience got to play with a live string orchestra — perhaps for the first time in recorded history.”After the concert, guests were treated to six music technology demonstrations that showcased the research of undergraduate and graduate students from both the MIT Music program and the MIT Media Lab. These included a gamified interface for harnessing just intonation systems (Antonis Christou); insights from a human-AI co-created concert (Lancelot Blanchard and Perry Naseck); a system for analyzing piano playing data across campus (Ayyub Abdulrezak ’24, MEng ’25); capturing music features from audio using latent frequency-masked autoencoders (Mason Wang); a device that turns any surface into a drum machine (Matthew Caren ’25); and a play-along interface for learning traditional Senegalese rhythms (Mariano Salcedo ’25). This last example led to the creation of Senegroove, a drumming-based application specifically designed for an upcoming edX online course taught by ethnomusicologist and MIT associate professor in music Patricia Tang, and world-renowned Senegalese drummer and MIT lecturer in music Lamine Touré, who provided performance videos of the foundational rhythms used in the system.Ultimately, Egozy muses, “'FUTURE PHASES' showed how having the right space — in this case, the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building — really can be a driving force for new ways of thinking, new projects, and new ways of collaborating. My hope is that everyone in the MIT community, the Boston area, and beyond soon discovers what a truly amazing place and space we have built, and are still building here, for music and music technology at MIT.”

Learnings from Spotify’s Q2 2025 earnings call… including what the company (didn’t) say about that long-awaited ‘Music Pro’ tierMBW's key takeaways from the green giant's latest grilling from investment analysts
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Luma and Runway expect robotics to eventually be a big revenue driver for themBoth Luma and Runway have reportedly held conversations with self-driving car and robotics companies as they look toward the future.