Symphonic Launches Fifth Annual Women Empowered+ Mentorship ProgramSymphonic, the leading music technology and services company for independent labels, managers, and artists, announced this week that it is "celebrating Women’s History Month by opening applications for its annual Women Empowered+ mentorship program. Mentees can apply today through March 23 to be paired up with established professionals in their area of focus."

Mentors participating in this year’s program include:

Kassandra Robinson, Associate Manager, Label Partnerships, Spotify

Sarah Davis, Director, Global Client Services & In-House Forensic Musicologist, Downtown Music Publishing

Mayra Vargas, VP, Publishing Sync, Concord Music Publishing

Bianca Alarcon, VP of Content Development, Spanish Broadcasting System

Juliette Leparrée, Business Development Manager, Music Story

Bilarys Ramirez, Comptroller (Accounting), Rimas Publishing

Ellen Truley, Chief Marketing & External Affairs Officer, The MLC

Isabel Echeverri, Strategic Partner Manager, Music Label Partnerships, Meta

Laurie Jakobsen, Founder & President, Jaybird Communications

According to a statement, "Additional mentors are also participating from companies including Audiomack, Chartmetric, Cinq Music, FUGA, M for Montreal, Sony, We Make Noise, and more."

"Now in its fifth year, the Women Empowered+ mentorship program has already welcomed 1,011 total participants, connecting 306 mentors from companies across the music industry with 705 mentees spanning 181 cities and 46 countries across the U.S., Mexico, Latin America, South America, Europe, Canada, Asia, and Africa."

"The Symphonic Women Empowered Mentorship Program has been an incredible experience. I’m so grateful to have been paired with my mentor, Maria, who’s shared invaluable advice from both her career and life experiences," Stephanie Falvo Liang, Senior Manager, Artist Relations, Business Development, told MC. "She’s truly gone above and beyond to support me and help shape my next steps. I’m excited to continue our mentor-mentee relationship."

“Having Maya Brown as my mentor has been an incredible experience and a perfect match,” said Patrice Ware, a Music Supervision & Licensing Manager and a mentee in last year’s program. “She’s challenged me with real-world mock assignments in sync, helped me sharpen my critical thinking, and taken the time to walk through new concepts while answering all my questions. I’m grateful to be part of this program and hopeful it opens new doors for me in the music business.”

“Mentoring for Symphonic’s Women Empowered+ mentorship program was honestly one of the best parts of my year,” said Stephanie Santiago-Rolón, Chief Executive Officer at Elevated Music Industries and a mentor in last year’s program. “Sitting with brave, ambitious women and cutting through the noise to talk about real strategy and real doubt felt grounding and energizing. Watching them refine their vision and step more boldly into leadership reminded me why community matters so much in this industry. This program creates space for honest conversation and meaningful growth. I walked away inspired and even more certain that when women support women, everything changes.”

“Five years into running this mentorship program, I am incredibly proud of the meaningful connections we’ve been able to facilitate across the music industry,” said Janette Berrios, VP of Corporate Marketing at Symphonic. “What started as an idea that Ana Maria Gamboa and I launched together has grown into a global community of women supporting one another through mentorship, guidance, and shared experience. The feedback we receive each year reinforces how important it is to continue expanding the program and advocating for female empowerment.”

Those who are interested in applying as mentors or mentees can read more about the program requirements and submit their application at symphonic.com/women-empowered.The post Symphonic Launches Fifth Annual Women Empowered+ Mentorship Program first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Kalshi suffers court loss in Ohio over sports betting lawsuitThe prediction markets platform argued for an injunction against Ohio authorities, claiming that federal commodities laws superseded state laws on sport event contracts.

Google and Tesla think we’re managing the electrical grid all wrongThe duo have teamed up with other companies to launch Utilize, which seeks to change how the grid is used and regulated.

There Are No LEDs Around the Face of This ClockThis unusual clock by [Moritz v. Sivers] looks like a holographic dial surrounded by an LED ring, but that turns out to not be the case. What appears to be a ring of LEDs is in fact a second hologram. There are LEDs but they are tucked out of the way, and not directly visible. The result is a very unusual clock that really isn’t what it appears to be.
The face of the clock is a reflection hologram of a numbered spiral that serves as a dial. A single LED – the only one visibly mounted – illuminates this hologram from the front in order to produce the sort of holographic image most of us are familiar with, creating a sense of depth.
The lights around the circumference are another matter. What looks like a ring of LEDs serving as clock hands is actually a transmission hologram made of sixty separate exposures. By illuminating this hologram at just the right angle with LEDs (which are mounted behind the visible area), it is possible to selectively address each of those sixty exposures. The result is something that really looks like there are lit LEDs where there are in fact none.
[Moritz] actually made two clocks in this fashion. The larger green one shown here, and a smaller red version which makes some of the operating principles a bit more obvious on account of its simpler construction.
If it all sounds a bit wild or you would like to see it in action, check out the video (embedded below) which not only showcases the entire operation and assembly but also demonstrates the depth of planning and careful execution that goes into multi-exposure of a holographic plate.
[Moritz v. Sivers] is no stranger to making unusual clocks. In fact, this analog holographic clock is a direct successor to his holographic 7-segment display clock. And don’t miss the caustic clock, nor his lenticular clock.

Universal Music Nordics restructures, unifying units in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Baltics under ‘One Nordic’ modelBig news today from Universal Music Nordics, a division of Universal Music Central Europe, which has unveiled a new operational structure.
Source

Aspen Instruments releases Black Diamond Distortion, a FREE plugin that can emulate any distortion
Aspen Instruments has released Black Diamond Distortion, a free distortion plugin with a wild concept. It can basically simulate any other distortion, whether it’s software or hardware. This is the developer’s first release, and it comes with a companion plugin called Black Diamond Probe that can reverse-engineer the distortion character of almost any hardware or [...]
View post: Aspen Instruments releases Black Diamond Distortion, a FREE plugin that can emulate any distortion

discoDSP releases Retromulator, a free ROM-based hardware synthesizer emulation
Developer discoDSP just released Retromulator, a hardware synthesizer emulation plugin featuring seven classic synths for that retro goodness. But there’s a twist! Retromulator uses cycle-accurate emulation. It’s not a soft synth programmed to sound like these classic units; it runs the actual machines’ firmware while emulating the chips and bits to get as close to [...]
View post: discoDSP releases Retromulator, a free ROM-based hardware synthesizer emulation

Stereo Miking: The Sound On Sound Guide Designed for recording engineers, audio-technology students and technically minded musicians, our latest free eBook delivers a comprehensive all-in-one guide to stereo miking techniques. 

Sunbunny just released Tentacles, a FREE creative tremolo and spatial effect
According to the developer, Sunbunny, Tentacles is a quadruple-stereo vibrato with spatio-spectral panning, available for free. That is a lot of interesting words in one sentence! The aptly named plugin splits your signal into four parallel processing chains, each with its own band-pass filtering, saturation, vibrato, and stereo-position controls that can be adjusted separately. It [...]
View post: Sunbunny just released Tentacles, a FREE creative tremolo and spatial effect

Lewitt partner with Elgato Lewitt have teamed up with Elgato to create a new processor for the company’s Wave Next product range, introducing some new capabilities that aim to provide content creators with studio-quality audio.

“The guys who write muzak – man, they’re done”: Jazz guitar legend Pat Metheny predicts the future of AI in musicThe topic of AI in music ain’t going anywhere. But how worried should we really be? According to jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, not very.
Artificial intelligence is, of course, a very broad subject, and there’s undoubtedly areas of music that will benefit, and others which will be negatively affected. AI as a means to expedite creative workflows, for example, good, while AI-generated tracks flooding streaming platforms and diluting royalty pools? Not so good.

READ MORE: Jamu: Your ChatGPT-style AI co-producer for Ableton Live is here – just tell it what to do

In a new interview in the latest issue of Prog magazine, Metheny makes clear his measured position on AI, and tries to quell the “fear and anxiety” many musicians have about it.
“I’m all over it,” he says. “Curious and excited. I hear a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety, but I see AI as part of this wonderful array of tools we musicians have available in the 21st century.”
A major concern for established music artists is the idea that their sonic likeness is being used to train AI without adequate compensation or licensing.
“They’ve already done it,” Metheny continues. “But if I type my name in then what I hear back is… well, they can’t really copy a lot of that stuff yet. Okay, there’s a threat to the paying-the-rent part of music for sure. The guys who write muzak – man, they’re done.
“But I got into music so that I can understand it more, and there’s no shortcut to understanding harmony and counterpoint and improvisation.”
He concludes: “The key thing about AI is that it’s still searching and there’s something missing. It’s like if you ask a musician to define ‘soul’, or you ask a neuroscientist to define ‘consciousness’. They can’t do it.”
Metheny’s comments were echoed recently by Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, who is currently writing the score for a movie about ChatGPT makers OpenAI. “I don’t think it’s possible for AI to make soulful music,” he said.
In other AI news from the industry, singer-songwriter superstar Charlie Puth was recently announced as Chief Music Officer at AI music platform Moises.
Announcing his new position at the company, Puth noted the importance of ethics when it comes to AI in music: “AI, when done right, isn’t here to replace musicians. It’s here to help artists learn, explore and bring their ideas to life,” he said.
Read more of the latest news about AI in music.
The post “The guys who write muzak – man, they’re done”: Jazz guitar legend Pat Metheny predicts the future of AI in music appeared first on MusicTech.

Jamu: Your ChatGPT-style AI co-producer for Ableton Live is here – just tell it what to doStruggling to get your ideas from your head into Ableton? Imagine having a co-producer who instantly understands your vision, executes it flawlessly, and never argues about a mix.
Meet Jamu, an AI-powered co-producer for Ableton Live that turns the ideas in your head into action in real time.

READ MORE: The MacBook Neo is Apple’s cheapest MacBook model ever – will it be any good for music production?

A “new interface paradigm”
Unlike a generator or traditional plugin, Jamu sits alongside Ableton as a co-producer, reshaping how you interact with your tools and expanding your creative possibilities. Instead of wrestling with menus, automation, and plugins, just describe what you want in plain language, and Jamu executes it directly to clips, devices and automation directly in Ableton. Every result is fully editable, reversible, and under your control.
“Jamu’s mission is to support producers by removing friction between creative intent and execution in music creation,” the company says. “By using artificial intelligence as an interface for creativity, not a replacement, we reduce the cognitive overhead for producers, helping artists focus on what they want to create rather than how to operate tools.”
Your tireless studio partner
Think of Jamu as a studio partner who never gets tired, never interrupts, and never second-guesses your vision. By lowering the barrier (and cost) to experimentation, it encourages you to pursue ideas you might otherwise ignore.
Jamu leverages natural language processing to translate plain-language instructions into Ableton actions and constantly communicates context and feedback so you can understand, adjust, and redirect every move. As with most AI tools, the better and more detailed your prompt, the closer the results align with your intent. And crucially, the artist always “remains the source of control, taste, and final judgement”.
Real-world use

During closed beta, DJ and producer AND(W)Y used Jamu to navigate label revision notes covering mix clarity, arrangement structure, and specific refinements. By analysing both the session and feedback, Jamu structured a roadmap and helped resolve issues – a process that would normally take hours manually.
“Whether you’re responding to label feedback, fixing a mix that isn’t clicking, or just trying to get unstuck, Jamu gives you a clear path forward without taking the wheel. Your ears, your decisions, your music. Jamu just makes the process faster.”
Pricing & availability
Similar to ChatGPT, Jamu runs on a subscription and token system, with tokens used whenever you send a prompt. The platform includes $1 (1M tokens) in free credits as a demo. Paid plans start at $9 for 4M tokens, $18 for 10M tokens, and $30 per month for the premium model.
Jamu is available now for Ableton Live. Learn more at Jamu.

The post Jamu: Your ChatGPT-style AI co-producer for Ableton Live is here – just tell it what to do appeared first on MusicTech.

Live Nation reaches settlement with Department of Justice in ticketing monopoly caseLive Nation has reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice in the government’s sweeping antitrust lawsuit against the concert and ticketing giant, less than a week after trial began.
Under the proposed deal, Ticketmaster will be required to open parts of its platform to rival companies such as Eventbrite and SeatGeek, while long-term exclusivity contracts with venues would be capped at four years, giving venues the option to distribute some tickets through competing platforms. Live Nation will also divest up to 13 amphitheaters across the country and cap Ticketmaster service fees at 15% of a ticket’s price.

READ MORE: New Music Venue Trust-backed “ethical” ticket platform prohibits ticket resales above face value

The deal will also require Live Nation to pay roughly $280 million in damages to nearly 40 states that joined the lawsuit. Even so, the settlement represents a far less severe outcome than the government’s original proposal, which sought to break up the company.
The Justice Department and a coalition of 40 state attorneys generals first sued Live Nation in May 2024, alleging the company built and maintained an illegal monopoly over live events through its control of ticketing, venues and artist promotion. Regulators argued that dominance allowed the company to stifle competition and lock venues into exclusive deals that ultimately harmed artists and fans.
Live Nation welcomed the proposed resolution.
“We have never relied on exclusivity to drive our ticketing business, it has simply been the result of having the best products, services and people in the industry,” says Live Nation president and CEO Michael Rapino. “We are happy to take greater steps to empower artists and venues in their ticketing decisions, and are confident we will continue to succeed on the quality of what we deliver.”
The process surrounding the deal, however, drew immediate criticism from US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who said it was “entirely unacceptable” that both sides finalised the agreement without informing the court beforehand [via AP].
Meanwhile, some state attorneys say the fight is not over. New York attorney general Letitia James says several states intend to continue pursuing their own claims even if the settlement moves forward.
“The settlement recently announced with the US Department of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case, and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers. We cannot agree to it,” James says. “My attorney general colleagues and I have a strong case against Live Nation, and we will continue our lawsuit to protect consumers and restore fair competition to the live entertainment industry.”

The post Live Nation reaches settlement with Department of Justice in ticketing monopoly case appeared first on MusicTech.

Which operating system is best for music-making in 2026?With the vast majority of DAWs, plugins and other tools being available for both Windows and macOS, choosing which to use in the studio used to be a simple binary choice. There are pros and cons on both sides – price, functionality, compatibility and all the rest of it – but really the choice boiled down to which OS you found the nicer place to work.
But in 2026, the choice is no longer so clear-cut. The differences between Windows and macOS are becoming wider, and users of both are becoming increasingly frustrated with the directions Apple and Microsoft are taking their products. All the while, Linux is increasingly making its presence felt as an attractive alternative to the two mainstream OSs.
This raises a question that we barely had to consider for a long time: which OS is best for making music?
Is Microsoft Windows 11 good for music production?
Best for: Producers who need maximum plugin compatibility and who want to tweak their setup for optimum performance. Also a strong option for producers on a budget.
Windows is by far the most widely used desktop operating system on the planet, and this brings with it a massive advantage over macOS and Linux: compatibility. The overwhelming majority of mainstream software packages are available for the platform, and Microsoft continues to include older code libraries in the OS to maintain backward compatibility with older software — or it attempts to, at least.
Wide hardware compatibility is also a major plus-point of Windows, and makes it possible for users to fully spec and build their own machines using any number of off-the-shelf components. This usually means PCs are more affordable than Apple’s Mac computers, and means they’re more repairable and upgradeable too.
A screenshot of Amplitube 5 running on Windows
When it comes to studio use, one big Windows shortcoming is that the audio hardware built-in to most PCs doesn’t support the low-latency operation required for music making. This can be dealt with by adding a studio-grade audio interface, but the interface manufacturer has to supply drivers – including a special ASIO driver to enable low-latency operation — to make the interface work with the OS. Even then, configuring Windows to use the hardware in the desired manner is often not straightforward, and the OS has an annoying habit of dropping your settings without warning or obvious cause.
I have two PCs – a desktop that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11 despite being a powerful machine, and a laptop that seemingly auto-upgraded itself from Windows 10, and has run like an asthmatic sloth ever since. The laptop’s also become unreliable for audio work, suffering from random audio drop-outs that aren’t anything to do with audio buffer size — it was never a powerful machine, but it worked just fine on Windows 10.
This year, countless users are finding grievances in: the artificial TMP 2.0 chip requirement preventing perfectly capable computers from installing the OS; the need to use a Microsoft account to log in to your computer; advertising and popups being pushed onto desktops and start menus; worse performance than Windows 10 on the same hardware; constant nagging to subscribe to Microsoft’s premium services; poor local search and file browsing performance.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s built-in AI, Copilot, has been pushed into almost every corner of the OS, eating up your computer’s resources without much advantage — it certainly gives no advantage for music production.
Is a Mac still the best computer for music production?
Best for: Producers who want a low-friction setup with plug-and-play compatibility, and who are willing to pay a premium for it.
Being more standardised than the average PC, Apple Macs are a predictable platform for software developers to target, allowing code to be better optimised and reliable. Early in the days of computer-based music making, this predictability was important for music applications which could push the capabilities of the hardware, and ensured all major music software developers targeted the OS.
In the studio, Mac users benefit from the OS’s CoreAudio subsystem, which is excellent. This embeds high-quality, low-latency audio routing and I/O deep into the OS, benefiting both the built-in sound hardware and any external studio interface you attach.
Additionally, macOS supports the USB Class Compliant standard, so as long as your audio and/or MIDI interface supports this standard (most modern gear does) they will work with macOS without needing any drivers or supporting software. It’s what “plug-and-play” was always meant to be!
A screenshot of Cubase running on macOS.
Not everything’s perfect in the Mac camp, of course.
The price of a Mac is usually higher than a PC of similar power — although this has become less true since Apple’s transition from Intel CPUs to Apple Silicon. The 2025 Mac Mini, for example, is a stellar computer at an appealing price. However, Apple makes it extremely difficult for users to upgrade or repair their Macs and, since the 2021 launch of Apple Silicon models, only the $7,000+ Mac Pro allows any user upgradeability at all.
Another common complaint is Apple’s relentless and exhausting update cycle, with each new macOS version dropping a crop of older Macs from support. In addition, each major update can render some music production software incompatible, at least until its developers catch up. Every year, this makes for a slew of online discussions around the question “Should you upgrade macOS?”. The answer is usually “No, not yet.”
Looking ahead, many Mac users are concerned by Apple’s moves to unify macOS with iPadOS and iOS, despite the different requirements of desktop and handheld computing. So far, the company seems to be getting the balance right, adding capabilities to both Macs and iThings without removing features from either. The divisive Liquid Glass UI, now common across all Apple OSs, isn’t to everyone’s taste but can be disabled. Nevertheless, it feels like the risk of macOS being enshittified remains high right now.
Can you make music on Linux in 2026?
Best for: Producers who want maximum control of their software and operating system, who wish to escape the restrictions of the two mainstream OSs, or who wish to setup a studio computer on a limited budget.
Linux isn’t an operating system, but a ‘kernel’ around which operating systems can be built. This kernel is open source, resulting in many different companies, projects and individuals using it as the basis of their own OSs. Linux-based OSs are known as ‘distros’, but it’s common to refer collectively to all these distros simply as Linux (which is what I’ll do here too for the sake of simplicity).
Linux for desktop use has, in recent years, shaken off its reputation for being complicated and fiddly. That said, it still isn’t as easy-to-use as macOS, and there are certain tasks that aren’t as streamlined as in the other two OSs, such as installing software that isn’t managed by the software manager app. But there’s loads of help for this sort of thing online — if you can follow instructions, you’ll be fine
A screenshot of Reaper running on Linux.
Like macOS, Linux supports the USB Class Compliant standard and so any relatively modern USB audio and/or MIDI interface will work just fine. On the software front, there are many truly excellent open-source apps available – DAWs, effects, synths, and all manner of other tool –, and some of the bigger players are now supporting the platform too: Bitwig, Reaper, U-He, Renoise and Tracktion to name but a few.
Where compatibility problems remain, tools such as Wine or Proton can come to the rescue, allowing Windows software to run on Linux, with varying success.
What makes Linux a truly compelling studio OS, though, is JACK. This is akin to ASIO in Windows and CoreAudio in macOS, providing high sample-rate, low-latency audio support. However, JACK is a considerably more flexible system than either of these, presenting every sound source within your computer, right down to individual tracks and busses in your DAW or the output of a drum machine app, as nodes that can be patched and interconnected at will.
Put another way, where macOS and Windows provide an environment in which a DAW can run, JACK turns the entire OS into a DAW. Check out my deep-dive into using Linux for music production.
Verdict: Which computer and OS is best for music production
Unsurprisingly, Apple Macs remain the best choice for music making. They’re stable and fast, user-friendly, widely supported, and macOS stays out of the way and lets you get on with what you’re creating. The old tagline of “It just works” still holds true.
Windows remains a highly viable platform for music production, but given the current state of Windows 11 I would advise anyone setting up a new studio rig to strongly consider the other options. Upgrading from Windows 10 is a different matter, but I still suggest giving the other options some consideration. Windows 11 is awkward, annoying, prone to dropping your settings, and too focused on enterprise users. Copilot is an added layer of irritation that brings nothing to the studio other than to take processing power away from DAW and plugins.
Which means, if Apple’s prices and exhausting update cycles aren’t for you, and you don’t have an overarching need to use Windows, Linux is a no-brainer. The Ubuntu Studio distro is a perfect, free place to start, coming preconfigured for music-making and other creative exploits.
The post Which operating system is best for music-making in 2026? appeared first on MusicTech.

Is Billy Corgan an Underrated Guitarist?In his new book, I Am One: The Smashing Pumpkins Story, 1988-1994, author Greg Prato proposes that Billy Corgan was one of the top guitarists to come out of the '90s alt-rock world, with evidence from The Frogs' Jimmy Flemion, Blind Melon's Christopher Thorn, Matt Pinfield, and more.