Bitcoin vs gold: ETF flows point to early capital rotation signsBitcoin ETF inflows have turned positive as gold ETFs see record outflows after a historic rally. Is capital beginning to rotate from gold to Bitcoin?

Electric air taxis are about to take flight in 26 states The federal government has selected eight proposals to test electric aircraft across 26 states.

beatBread makes run of new appointments, including ex-Spotify and CD Baby execsNew hires from CD Baby, Spotify and Countsy bring finance, operations and AI expertise to the music funding company’s leadership team.
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Real-Time ISS Tracker Shows Off the GoodsWhat hardware hacker doesn’t have a soft spot for transparent cases? While they may have fallen out of mainstream favor, they have an undeniable appeal to anyone with an interest in electronic or mechanical devices. Which is why the Orbigator built by [wyojustin] stands out among similar desktop orbital trackers we’ve seen.
Conceptually, it’s very similar to the International Space Station tracking lamp that [Will Dana] built in 2025. In fact, [wyojustin] cites it specifically as one of the inspirations for this project. But unlike that build, which saw a small model of the ISS moving across the surface of the globe, a transparent globe is rotated around the internal mechanism. This not only looks gorgeous, but solves a key problem in [Will]’s design — that is, there’s no trailing servo wiring that needs to be kept track of.
For anyone who wants an Orbigator of their own, [wyojustin] has done a fantastic job of documenting the hardware and software aspects of the build, and all the relevant files are available in the project’s GitHub repository.
The 3D printable components have been created with OpenSCAD, the firmware responsible for calculating the current position of the ISS on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is written in MicroPython, and the PCB was designed in KiCad. Incidentally, we noticed that Hackaday alum [Anool Mahidharia] appears to have been lending a hand with the board design.
As much as we love these polished orbital trackers, we’ve seen far more approachable builds if you don’t need something so elaborate. If you’re more interested in keeping an eye out for planes and can get your hands on a pan-and-tilt security camera, it’s even easier.

Live Review of TwiceKia Forum Inglewood, CA

Contact: greg.cortez@42west.comWeb: twice.jype.comPlayers: Dahyun, Chaeyoung, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, Mina, Momo, Nayeon, Sana, Tzuyu

With 10 years under their belts, it’s no surprise that TWICE is one of the best-performing girl groups in K-pop. The group (who graced the cover of Music Connection in 2024) is currently touring across North America for their 2026 THIS IS FORWorld Tour and stopped by the Kia Forum in Inglewood for four sold-out shows. The tour is different from any other tour they’ve done before. It’s more ambitious thanks to the 360-degree setup with the stage extending throughout the entire floor. 

Marking the start of the show on January 22nd, the venue lights dimmed as the words “TWICE THIS IS FOR” dramatically appeared on the screens. The screens then lowered down as the opening visuals showcased Dahyun, Chaeyoung, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, Mina, Momo, Nayeon, Sana, and Tzuyu. It was fun seeing fans cheer with their glowing candybong light stick for their favorite member when they appeared onscreen. As the video montage ended, the screens raised to reveal the group on stage. TWICE aptly began their performance with “This is For,” from their fourth Korean studio album of the same name. This was the perfect song to start the night as the opening verse from Momo is meant to energize fans, “This is for all my ladies who don’t get hyped enough / If you’ve been done wrong, then this your song, so turn it up.”

With a discography of over 200 songs, it’s no surprise that the setlist leaned heavily on their biggest hits. The first act started off strong with fan-favorite songs, including “SET ME FREE” and “I CAN’T STOP ME.”The stage setup allowed the group to freely move around with their dance routines, switching sides throughout the songs. Unfortunately, Dahyun sustained an ankle injury and remained seated for the entire show. That didn’t stop her as she participated by doing the dance routines with her hands. Most K-pop acts sing with a backing track, but that wasn’t the case for TWICE, as they had a live band performing alongside them. Each girl has a distinctive vocal tone that complements the others very well. The R&B track “Gone” specifically stands out for highlighting the group’s strengths. Jiyho, Jeongyeon, and Naeyon have powerful vocals with dynamic vocal ranges. Momo, Chaeyoung, and Daeyon have great rhythm and rapping delivery, while Mina, Sana, and Tzuyu have softer and breathier vocals. 

The group saved the best for last as the fourth act of the show included all their biggest hits, including “FANCY,” “What is Love?,” ”YES or YES,” ”Dance the Night Away,” and “ONE SPARK.” After a short break, the girls returned on stage dressed in their own merchandise for a very casual encore. The post Live Review of Twice first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

In need of new headphones? Check out these great deals on studio cans and earbuds for casual listening at SweetwaterWe’ve scoured through a bunch of different deals at Sweetwater on a wide range of headphone types, so you can find the best pair for you at the right price.
It might be a standard pair you’re looking for to use on your commute, in the gym, or for casual listening at home, or perhaps you might want something more apt for the studio. Headphones come in a whole bunch of differing designs, including open and closed back, and their visual looks are not always for aesthetic purposes.

READ MORE: How Apple’s new M5 Pro and M5 Max-equipped MacBook Pro could supercharge your music projects

Open-back designs make the sound feel more immersive, as if it is playing out in the space around you rather than just in your head, which tends to feel the case for closed-back designs.
Closed-back headphones tend to be a popular choice for recording and monitoring, while open-back headphones are often a top choice for mixing. At Sweetwater, there’s a range of Sennheiser headphones on sale across its HD open back line – including models like the 600, 650, and 660S2 – with $200 or more off each.
[deals ids=”6gGOH7XYkhBiQCHM3UnGXZ”]
Also from Sennheiser, you can save on its Momentum 4 wireless closed cup headphones, which have a built-in EQ system, automatic start and stop capabilities, and adaptive noise cancellation, making them versatile for use in everyday scenarios or for budding bedroom producers. These come in a range of colours, each with $170 off.
[deals ids=”77bfw0iC8MUioQ027lNNjL”]
If you’d prefer something even more budget friendly, Sweetwater also has a range of Sony and JBL headphones for standard use. Ear buds are also a popular choice for casual listening, and we’ve found the following reduced deals:

Sony WF-1000XM5 Wireless Noise-cancelling Earbuds (in black or silver, $248)
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 Earbuds (in three colours, $199.95)
Beyerdynamic Amiron 300 True Wireless Earphones (in black or cream, $179.99)
JBL Vibe Beam 2 True Wireless Earbuds (in black or white, $39.95)

To shop all of these deals and more, head over to Sweetwater.
The post In need of new headphones? Check out these great deals on studio cans and earbuds for casual listening at Sweetwater appeared first on MusicTech.

Sender Spike releases filter.tank, a FREE plugin inspired by the Sherman Filterbank (Windows)
Developer Sender Spike has released filter.tank, a free, modulated dual-filter plugin inspired by the Sherman Filterbank 2, the iconic Belgian analog filter unit from Sherman Audio. It is available as a 64-bit VST plugin for Windows. The Sherman Filterbank is known for its extreme resonance and nonlinear saturation. Many people claim the sound can’t be [...]
View post: Sender Spike releases filter.tank, a FREE plugin inspired by the Sherman Filterbank (Windows)

Candela Audio LitmusLitmus by Candela Audio is an internal plugin host that lives right in your mix chain and acts as an objective second set of ears for every decision you make. Instead of being just an analyzer, Litmus automatically gain‑stages your processing, lets you hear exactly what each plugin is doing, and helps you choose settings and tools based on evidence, not guesswork. Insert Litmus on a track or bus, load your favourite VST3 or AU processors inside it, and mix as normal – compression, EQ, saturation, clipping, whatever you like. Litmus constantly matches loudness in the background using ITU‑R BS.1770‑4 LUFS, so every tweak you make is instantly level‑matched, forcing you to judge tone, punch and clarity instead of being fooled by "louder is better". Whenever you want to zoom in, delta monitoring lets you solo the exact sonic footprint of a plugin or chain – the added harmonics from a saturator, the "air" an EQ boosts, or the transient changes from a compressor – so you can really learn what each tool contributes to your sound. When it's time to commit, blind A/B mode anonymises chains, plugins or dry vs wet, tracks your votes, and reveals the winner only at the end, helping you pick the best‑sounding option without brand or UI bias. Back up your ears with Litmus's built‑in spectral, harmonic, phase and loudness analysis, then collapse it back down and keep mixing – it's designed as an everyday utility that stays in your template, not a one‑off lab tool. Built with automatic latency compensation and crash‑safe scanning, Litmus runs as a VST3 (Win/macOS/Linux) and AU (macOS) effect and hosts your VST3/AU processors inside a single managed chain, with one license covering all formats and platforms. Key features Internal VST3/AU plugin host with up to 8 slots per chain (VST3 on Win/macOS/Linux, AU on macOS). Per‑slot Auto Gain with ITU‑R BS.1770‑4 LUFS matching, three‑phase measurement, and 100 ms smoothed gain. Delta monitoring with wet/dry blend, dedicated delta gain, LUFS/RMS/peak readouts, and latency‑compensated alignment. Blind A/B engine for Chain vs Chain, Plugin vs Plugin, and Dry vs Wet with randomized labels, crossfaded switching, and vote history. Analysis toolkit: 2048‑point FFT spectral comparison, harmonic analyzer (fundamental + 16 harmonics, note + THD%), phase correlation and full loudness metering (momentary, short‑term, integrated LUFS, RMS, peak). Automatic and FFT‑based latency detection, crash‑safe plugin scanning, sidechain support and extensive DAW automation for hosted plugins. Tech specs Formats: VST3 (Win/macOS/Linux), AU (macOS). Hosts: Any VST3‑ or AU‑compatible DAW (effects only; instruments are filtered out). Audio: 32‑bit float, stereo I/O, optional stereo/mono sidechain. OS: Windows 10+, macOS 11+, Ubuntu 22.04+ (x86_64; Apple Silicon and Intel on macOS). Read More

The MacBook Neo is Apple’s cheapest MacBook model ever – will it be any good for music production?Apple has overhauled its current lineup of MacBook models, recently introducing the 2026 MacBook Pro and Air equipped with the brand’s latest and most high-performing M5, M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
But perhaps most intriguing of the Cupertino tech giant’s latest round of launches is the £599 MacBook Neo, the brand’s most affordable MacBook ever, powered by an A18 chip, the same used in the iPhone 16.

READ MORE: How Apple’s new M5 Pro and M5 Max-equipped MacBook Pro could supercharge your music projects

Designing the perfect music production rig is a costly endeavour, helped in no part by the inevitable expense of the machine at the heart of the thing. Tech brands are very good at enticing you into considering the latest and highest-spec gear, but if you’re a hobbyist producer – or even a professional not working with heavily CPU-intensive projects – springing for top of the line is probably a little overkill and will leave you with an unnecessarily large hole in your wallet.
But is a laptop powered by an iPhone chip going too far the other way? Let’s take a look at the MacBook Neo’s specs, and the system requirements for music producers at different levels.
Credit: Apple
The performance of your computer is dictated largely by the processing power of the chip at the heart of the circuitry, but also by RAM – effectively the machine’s headroom or short-term, high-speed memory for performing tasks.
Generally, most music producers are recommended to get a computer with 8GB RAM minimum, with many recommending 16GB for more complex projects running a large number of tracks or plugins concurrently.
The MacBook Neo comes standard with 8GB RAM, so it certainly meets that minimum requirement, but again, it may struggle with more complex projects. It’s also worth noting that the base Neo has only 256GB of storage which, with the ever-increasing data size of software libraries and plugins – plus the masses of files you’ll invariably accrue during your creative endeavours – you’ll most likely need to spring for an external hard drive before long. There is a 512GB MacBook Neo available, too, for £100 extra. In terms of connectivity, the MacBook Neo features a 3.5mm headphone jack plus two USB-C ports.
The MacBook Neo is currently accompanied by all the shiny marketing Apple is so very good at, making it a pretty tempting prospect. But could you be better off as a music producer in this budget range going for a second-hand MacBook Pro – with an M1 or M2 chip, let’s say – that’s a couple years old? Honestly, probably.

Personally, I’ve got an M2-equipped MacBook Pro which comfortably handles my Logic Pro projects, even those that become a bit unwieldy with loads of plugins (including several instances of the same plugin on multiple channels when I should have one instance on a single send, but let’s not get into that).
The point is that music production is not as CPU-intensive a discipline as, let’s say, video editing or animation, so shelling out for the new M5 MacBook Pro is probably a bit unnecessary for the average producer (assuming music production is the main thing you’re buying it for). But might you run into issues running the Neo with its A18 iPhone chip? Perhaps. Simple programmes like GarageBand you’ll probably be flying. But complex Logic or Ableton projects, or Pro Tools? That remains to be seen.
As I publish this it’s 9 March, two days before the MacBook Neo – and new MacBook Pro models – hit the market. So we can’t say for sure yet whether the Neo will be any good for music production. But we’re certainly excited to find out.
Check out the MacBook Neo at Apple.
The post The MacBook Neo is Apple’s cheapest MacBook model ever – will it be any good for music production? appeared first on MusicTech.

BPB Deal: Get the UnitedPlugins MasterMind mastering plugin for €19 (normally €129)
UnitedPlugins is offering BPB readers an exclusive discount on MasterMind, a mastering channel strip developed by Soundevice Digital. The plugin normally costs €129, but you can get it for €19 by applying the coupon code BPBMM110 at checkout. BPB readers can use this discount until March 28, 2026. MasterMind is basically an all-in-one tool for [...]
View post: BPB Deal: Get the UnitedPlugins MasterMind mastering plugin for €19 (normally €129)

Kobito just released GrabTone, an experimental synth, for FREE for a limited time
GrabTone from Kobito is an experimental synthesizer plugin that lets you turn any sound into a playable instrument with MIDI, and it is free for a limited time. It uses two audio files, A (Shape) and B (Tone), to create a new synthesizer voice. Sound A provides the movement, articulation, and rhythm, while Sound B [...]
View post: Kobito just released GrabTone, an experimental synth, for FREE for a limited time

Diginoiz releases Layer It Lite, a FREE drum layering plugin with one big limitation
Diginoiz has released Layer It Lite, a free version of its Layer It drum layering plugin for Windows and macOS. Layer It is a sampler built specifically for layering drum sounds. It lets you load samples as stacked waveforms and trigger them all with a single MIDI note. You can offset the timing of each [...]
View post: Diginoiz releases Layer It Lite, a FREE drum layering plugin with one big limitation

Blinksonic release ECLO.RE/GEN The latest arrival to Blinksonic's ECLO.RE PLAYER series delivers a DAW-style instrument that's capable of transforming loops and stems into new sounds. 

Get 92% off this SSL Mixing Bundle in celebration of Plugin Boutique’s Mixing MonthPlugin Boutique is currently offering a whole bunch of deals on mixing tools as part of its ‘Mixing Month’ promotion, and you can get 92 percent off an exclusive Solid State Logic mixing bundle.
The bundle deal runs until 15 March, though many of its other mixing deals last until the end of the month or longer. Other brands included in the promotion include IK Multimedia, Sonarworks, Slate Digital, and Universal Audio.
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The SSL bundle consists of four of its top-rated plugins, all for just £58. Inside, you’ll get the SSL Native X-EQ 2, X-ValveComp, X-Gate, and its Native FlexVerb plugins.

READ MORE: The best free and paid-for plugins you need to know about this week

Find out more about each one below:
SSL Native X-EQ 2
The X-EQ 2 is a highly configurable 24-band EQ plugin built upon SSL’s proprietary anti-cramping algorithms. This EQ toolkit offers 17 different EQ types and filter shapes, and each band is switchable between bell, shelf, low pass or high pass filter types, with both classic and customisable shapes available for each band. It also offers spatial processing options, band soloing, and the classic X-EQ ‘Parallel’ mode for recreating the characteristic sound of old parallel passive EQ circuits.

X-ValveComp
This plugin is a fully-featured mono or stereo channel compressor with a full set of classic channel compressor controls and an added ‘valve’ emulation stage. The valve emulation stage sits after the compressor in the signal path and adds a variable degree of primarily 2nd order harmonic saturation and distortion that “thickens and colours the sound”, according to Plugin Boutique. The compressor can be switched between Peak or RMS modes and has a full set of controls including; Threshold, Ratio, Knee, Attack, Release and Hold.

X-Gate
This visual gating plugin is inspired by the workflow from SSL’s digital broadcast consoles, and features a rolling waveform graph, mid/side processing options, plus tweakable hysteresis using independent open and closed thresholds. For extended sound sculpting there’s an intuitive sidechain filter interface and mid/side balance options to focus the gate on unwanted sounds and leave the processed signal as natural or affected as you’d like.

Native FlexVerb
FlexVerb is a reverb plugin designed to deliver a “professional mix-ready sound”. It has a split early-late reflection interface, allowing users to experiment with the sounds of different early room reflections, and a variety of expansive reverb tail options. It features a six-band EQ, High and Low Pass Filters, three-band reverb time multipliers and an input sidechain compressor.

To shop this Mixing Month deal and more, head over to Plugin Boutique.
The post Get 92% off this SSL Mixing Bundle in celebration of Plugin Boutique’s Mixing Month appeared first on MusicTech.

“Record, chop, and perform your sounds anywhere”: The Groovesizer Mynah is a pocket-sized, build-it-yourself sampler with bags of characterIf you’ve ever wished your sampler could fit in your pocket – and maybe look like a toy straight from your childhood – Groovesizer’s new release, Mynah, just might be your dream come true.
With its bright red, chunky plastic case and a delightful grid of round white buttons, Mynah looks more like a vintage handheld game than a serious piece of music gear. But don’t let its playful design fool you.
Beneath the cheerful exterior lies a powerful 6-voice polyphonic sampler equipped with a 16-step sequencer, real-time effects, and enough sonic possibilities tools to keep you busy for hours.

READ MORE: How I built a live track from scratch using only the Roland TR-1000

Powered by an ESP32 microcontroller and designed for musicians who want a “truly tactile creative tool”, Mynah lets you sample from dual inputs – whether a microphone or line-level source – and load up to 16 samples per song. These samples live on an SD card but get loaded into RAM, offering over two minutes of total sample time.
Real-time effects including delay, reverb, filter, stutter, gate, and bit crusher let you sculpt and twist your sounds on the fly, whether you’re programming beats or performing live.
Mynah‘s 16-bit, 32kHz ADPCM audio engine also delivers the gritty, crunchy tone reminiscent of classic vintage samplers. To keep your workflow fresh and modern, a companion web app lets you manage and import samples, build songs, and export high-quality stems directly from your browser.
If you enjoy soldering and tinkering, Mynah comes as a DIY kit with everything you need, including the PCB, enclosure, and all necessary components. “Basic soldering skills are all you need,” says the company. For those who’d rather skip straight to making music, Groovesizer also offers a fully built (and tested) version, ready to play right out of the box.
Thanks to its compact design and versatile features, Mynah puts sampling power literally in the palm of your hands. MIDI in/out jacks and MIDI clock sync mean it integrates easily with your other gear and setups, keeping everything locked in tight whether you’re in the studio or on the road.

Learn more at Groovesizer.
The post “Record, chop, and perform your sounds anywhere”: The Groovesizer Mynah is a pocket-sized, build-it-yourself sampler with bags of character appeared first on MusicTech.