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Inspired by Four Tet and Bonobo: Excite Audio unveils Bloom Drum Kits, the latest addition to its much-loved Bloom plugin seriesExcite Audio has expanded its much-loved Bloom series of plugins and virtual instruments, this time foraying further into the world of live drums with Bloom Drum Kits.
Inspired by the raw drum sounds used by the likes of Four Tet, Bonobo, Nicolas Jaar and Geese, Bloom Drum Kits has been built using kits played “in the room”, offering a “rough sense of motion and individuality” to your tracks.READ MORE: Claude can now be plugged into Ableton to assist with your music projects
Bloom Drum Kits offers up both raw, closed mic’d drums and “tape-worn, processed hits”, with a collection of professionally played rhythms and one-shots spanning detuned toms, snare sounds, and so much more.
It sports a similar minimalist user interface featured on the rest of Excite Audio’s Bloom line, and even allows producers to upload their own samples and play them using the Bloom Drum Kits interface.The plugin arrives with 250 presets organised into seven different categories:
Basic (BA) – Straightforward drum beats built from each factory kit.
Experimental (EXP) – Abstract, offbeat presets with a more sound design-focused feel.
Kits (KIT) – Single hits and phrases created entirely from one-shots.
High Energy (HI) – Fast, busy, and more aggressive beats for added momentum.
Low Energy (LO) – Laid-back, minimal grooves for softer and more downtempo tracks.
Percussion (PC) – Rhythmic sequences built entirely from percussion loops and samples.
Processed (PRO) – Heavily treated beats featuring distortion, effects, and macro-driven movement.
Top Loops (TOP) – Snare and hi-hat loops for layering and groove.Bloom Drum Kits is available now at an introductory price of just £19 / $19 until 31 May.
Learn more at Plugin Boutique.
The post Inspired by Four Tet and Bonobo: Excite Audio unveils Bloom Drum Kits, the latest addition to its much-loved Bloom plugin series appeared first on MusicTech.Inspired by Four Tet and Bonobo: Excite Audio unveils Bloom Drum Kits, the latest addition to its much-loved Bloom plugin series
musictech.comExcite Audio has expanded its much-loved Bloom series of plugins and virtual instruments, this time foraying further into the world of live drums with Bloom Drum Kits.
- in the community space Tools and Plugins
iZotope RX 12 is here RX 12 introduces two entirely new modules, Stems View and Scene Rebalance, and boasts a number of improvements to its existing tools thanks to some behind-the-scenes tweaks.
iZotope RX 12 is here
www.soundonsound.comRX 12 introduces two entirely new modules, Stems View and Scene Rebalance, and boasts a number of improvements to its existing tools thanks to some behind-the-scenes tweaks.
- in the community space Tools and Plugins
Expressive E launch the Osmose CE The latest additons to the Osmose family deliver the same playing experience as the originals, but with a companion software suite rather than an internal synth engine.
Expressive E launch the Osmose CE
www.soundonsound.comThe latest additons to the Osmose family deliver the same playing experience as the originals, but with a companion software suite rather than an internal synth engine.
- in the community space Tools and Plugins
Sentinel AV and Bladerunner release Folda, a 4-group morphing distortion plugin
Sentinel AV and UK drum-and-bass producer Bladerunner have released Folda, a 4-group morphing distortion plugin. Folda is available as VST3 for Windows and as VST3/AU for macOS (Universal Binary), with an intro price of $67 for the first seven days after launch (until May 2), regular price $99 thereafter. The main idea behind Folda is [...]
View post: Sentinel AV and Bladerunner release Folda, a 4-group morphing distortion pluginSentinel AV and Bladerunner release Folda, a 4-group morphing distortion plugin
bedroomproducersblog.comSentinel AV and UK drum-and-bass producer Bladerunner have released Folda, a 4-group morphing distortion plugin. Folda is available as VST3 for Windows and as VST3/AU for macOS (Universal Binary), with an intro price of $67 for the first seven days after launch (until May 2), regular price $99 thereafter. The main idea behind Folda is
Claude can now be plugged into Ableton to assist with your music projectsClaude – the AI assistant and chatbot from Anthropic – can now be directly plugged into Ableton, as well as a raft of other creative platforms, including Blender and Photoshop.
The move follows the launch of Claude Design, a new product by Anthropic Labs that lets you collaborate with Claude to create “polished visual work” like designs, one-pagers and more.
With the new set of connectors for Claude, the popular chatbot is able to plug into Ableton, and act as an AI assistant within your music projects. Anthropic says its partnership with a “coalition of partners” – which also includes Blender, Adobe (Photoshop and Premiere Pro) and Affinity by Canva.READ MORE: Focusrite unveils ISA C8X, its first ISA audio interface built on Rupert Neve’s preamp legacy
Interestingly, Splice is also named in the list of brands integrating Claude into its products. It means producers can now search Splice’s catalogue of royalty-free samples directly within Claude.
According to a blog post on the Anthropic website, within these platforms, Claude can be used in a variety of ways. Users can ask Claude complex questions about the software, with the chatbot acting as a virtual tutor to help you better understand your workflow.
Elsewhere, Claude Code can write scripts, plugins, and generative systems for these platforms.
And perhaps most importantly for creatives, Claude can be used to take care of manual, repetitive tasks that get in the way of the creative process.
“Claude can’t replace taste or imagination, but it can open up new ways of working – faster and more ambitious ideation, a more expansive skillset, and the ability for creatives to take on larger-scale projects,” Anthropic says [via The Verge].
“AI can also help shoulder the parts of the creative process that eat up time by handling repetitive tasks and eliminating manual toil.”
Check out the video below for a walkthrough on how to integrate Claude into Splice:Anthropic has also now become a Corporate Patron of the Blender Development Fund, helping the open-source platform to stay free, and to allow developers to “keep pursuing projects independently, and to focus on building tools for artists and creators”. Anthropic will give Blender €240,000 every year.
The post Claude can now be plugged into Ableton to assist with your music projects appeared first on MusicTech.Claude can now be plugged into Ableton to assist with your music projects
musictech.comClaude – the AI assistant and chatbot from Anthropic – can now be directly plugged into Ableton, as well as a raft of other creative platforms, including Blender and Photoshop.
- in the community space Education
MIT engineers’ virtual violin produces realistic soundsThere is no question that violin-making is an art form. It requires a musician’s ear, a craftsperson’s skill, and an historian’s appreciation of lessons learned over time. Making a violin also takes trust: Violin makers, or luthiers, often must wait until the instrument is finished before they can hear how all their hard work will sound.But a new tool developed by MIT engineers could help luthiers play around with a violin’s design and tweak its sound even before a single part is carved.In a study appearing today in the journal npj Acoustics, the MIT team reports on a new “computational violin” — a computer simulation that captures the detailed physics of the instrument and realistically produces the sound of a violin when its strings are plucked.While there are software programs and plug-ins that enable users to play around with virtual violins, their sounds are typically the result of sampling and averaging over thousands of notes played by actual violins.In contrast, the new computational violin takes a physics-based approach: It produces sound based on the way the instrument, including its vibrating strings, physically interacts with the surrounding air.As a demonstration, the researchers applied the computational violin to play two short excerpts: one from “Bach’s Fugue in G Minor,” and another from “Daisy Bell” — a nod to the first song that was ever produced by a computer-synthesized voice.The computational violin currently simulates the sound of plucked strings — a type of playing that musicians know as “pizzicato.” Violin bowing, the researchers say, is a much more complicated interaction to model. However, the computational violin represents the first physics-based foundation of a strung violin sound that could one day be paired with a model of bowing to produce realistic, bowed violin music.For now, the team says the new virtual violin could be used in the initial stages of violin design. Luthiers can tweak certain parameters such as a violin’s wood type or the thickness of its body, and then listen to the sound that the instrument would make in response.“These days, people try to improve designs little by little by building a violin, comparing the sound, then making a change to the next instrument,” says Yuming Liu, senior research scientist at MIT. “It’s very slow and expensive. Now they can make a change virtually and see what the sound would be.”“We’re not saying that we can reproduce the artisan’s magic,” adds Nicholas Makris, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “We’re just trying to understand the physics of violin sound, and perhaps help luthiers in the design process.”Makris and Liu’s MIT co-authors include Arun Krishnadas PhD ’23 and former postdoc Bryce Campbell, along with Roman Barnas of the North Bennet Street School.Sound matrixThe quality of a violin’s sound is determined by its dimensions and design. The instrument is made from thoughtfully crafted parts and materials that all work to generate and amplify sound. In recent years, scientists have sought to understand what artisans have intuited for centuries, in terms of what specific parameters shape a violin’s sound.In one early effort in 2006, scientists, as part of the Strad3D project, put a rare Stradivarius violin through a CT scanner. The violin was crafted in 1715 by the master violinmaker Antonio Stradivari, during what is considered the “Golden Age” of violin making. To better understand the violin’s anatomy and its relation to sound, the scientists scanned the instrument and produced 600 “slices,” or views, of the violin.The CT scans are available online for people to view and use as data for their own experiments. For their study, Makris and his colleagues first imported the CT scans into a solid modeling software program to generate a detailed three-dimensional model of the violin. They then ran a finite element simulation, essentially dividing the violin into millions of tiny individual cubes, or “elements.”For each cube, they noted its material type, such as if a cube from the violin’s back plate is made from maple or spruce, or if a string is made from steel or natural fibers. They then applied physics-based equations of stress and motion to predict how each material element would move in relation to every other element across the instrument.They also carried out a similar process for the air surrounding the violin, dividing up a roughly cubic-meter volume of air and applying acoustic wave equations to predict how each tiny parcel of air would move and contribute to generating sound.“The entire thing is a matrix of millions of individual elements,” explains Krishnadas. “And ultimately, you see this whole three-dimensional being, which is the violin and the air all connected and interacting with each other.”A plucky modelThe team then simulated how the new computational violin would sound when plucked. When a violinist plucks a string, they pull the string sideways and let it go, causing the string to vibrate. These vibrations travel across the instrument and inside it; the air’s vibrations are amplified as they travel out of the violin and into the surroundings, where a listener hears the vibrations as sound.For their purposes, the engineers simulated a simple string pluck by directing one of the virtual violin’s strings to stretch out and then rebound. The simulation computed all the resulting motions and vibrations of the millions of elements in the violin, and the sound that the pluck would produce.For notes that require pressing down on a violin’s fingerboard, they simulated the same plucking, and in addition, included a condition in which the string is held fixed in the section of the fingerboard where a violinist’s finger would press down.The researchers carried out this computational process to virtually pluck out the notes in several measures of “Daisy Bell” and “Bach’s Fugue in G Minor.”“If there’s anything that’s sounding mechanical to it, it’s because we’re using the exact same time function, or standard way of plucking, for each note,” says Makris, who is himself a lute player. “A musician will adapt the way they’re plucking, to put a little more feeling on certain notes than others. But there could be subtleties which we could incorporate and refine.”As it is, the new computational model is the first to generate realistic sound based on the laws of physics and acoustics. The researchers say that violin makers could use the model to test how a violin might sound when certain dimensions or properties are changed. For instance, when the researchers varied the thickness of the virtual violin’s back plate or changed its wood type, they could hear clear differences in the resulting sounds.“You can tweak the model, to hear the effect on the sound,” Makris says. “Since everything obeys the laws of physics, including a violin and the music it makes, this approach can add an appreciation to what makes violin sound. But ultimately, we get most of our inspiration from the artisans.”This work was supported, in part, by an MIT Bose Research Fellowship.
MIT engineers’ virtual violin produces realistic sounds
news.mit.eduMIT researchers developed a “computational violin” — the first computer simulation that captures the detailed physics of the instrument and realistically produces the sound of a violin when its strings are plucked. Violin makers could use the model to test how a violin might sound when certain dimensions or properties are changed.
iZotope RX 12’s focus on improved accuracy and quality pays offElements: $99
Standard: $399 (update from RX 11 Standard $129)
Advanced: $1399 (update from RX 11 Advanced $269)
iZotope.com
Despite impressing me upon its launch in May 2024, RX 11 had already gained a patina of age bycthe turn of the year thanks to the ever-growing crop of machine-learning-based audio tools hitting the market.READ MORE: Steinberg’s new SpectraLayers 12 has “a strong focus on the needs of the post-production industry”
Steinberg SpectraLayers Pro is RX’s closest competitor — it quickly trumped RX 11 with its own v11 release in June 2024, followed a year later by the even more impressive Pro 12. Also, given one of RX’s biggest draws is its stem-splitting tools, the growth and quality of services such as LANDR Stems and LALAL.AI, not to mention native stem splitting within DAWs, had made RX 11’s stem splitting look – and sound – increasingly tardy in comparison.
This left users wondering how and when iZotope was going to respond, and what that response would look like. Well, wonder no more because RX 12 is here. Is there enough in the update for it to regain its premiere position? Let’s see…
Image: Press
What’s new in iZotope RX 12?
The obligatory user interface update expected of all software updates is, in RX 12’s case, fairly subtle. So much so that one aspect flagged by iZotope – namely a larger spectrogram – is so marginal that I wouldn’t have noticed had it not been pointed out. Nevertheless, features such as an ever-present monitor volume slider, resizable History panel, and a small reworking of the colour palette, make for a pleasing refresh.
I’m more interested in the consequential stuff, though, and here there’s a lot more meat on the bones…
The majority of processing modules now offer difference (delta) monitoring/processing, which reverses what is output from the module. For example, with Dialogue Isolate, engaging difference processing means the dialogue will be removed from the audio, leaving background noise. While this is handy as a way of extending the functionality of modules (sticking with the example, Dialogue Isolate also becomes Background Foley Isolate!), it’s perhaps most useful when configuring module parameters, making it easier to judge the impact of those parameters.
Moving to specific modules, there’s an all-new Trim Silence processor that’s particularly useful when editing podcasts, voiceover tracks and field recordings, making it easier to move between sections of dialogue (or whatever you’ve recorded) during editing. It’s a big time-saver too and, unlike stripping silence in a non-destructive environment like a DAW or NLE, Trim Silence produces entirely new – and often much smaller – audio files, and so can significantly reduce the total file size of a project.
Trim Silence in iZotope RX 12. Image: Adam Crute
Machine learning enhancements in RX 12
Of course, RX’s biggest attractions are its various machine-learning-powered rebalancing and separation modules. New here is the Scene Rebalance module, which does for video production what Music Rebalance does for music production. The new module recognises dialogue, music and effects, allowing the volumes of these elements to be rebalanced in-place or split into separate audio streams. This it does with an impressive degree of accuracy and a minimum of audible artefacts. Moreover, as with all of RX’s separators, Scene Rebalance is 100% lossless – that is, if you separate a source and play it back alongside a phase-reversed copy of the original audio, all you hear is silence. Unfortunately, Scene Rebalance is only included in RX 12 Advanced, the pricing of which I’ll return to later.
Music Rebalance and Dialogue Isolate, whose results had not kept up with those of competing stem separators, now deliver markedly higher quality than previously – as convincing as any I’ve heard! I’m somewhat disappointed that Music Rebalance can still only recognise vocals, drums, bass and ‘other’, but this is because iZotope’s focus was on improving the quality and accuracy of separation in RX 12, something it’s achieved effectively. Extended instrument recognition is very-much on RX’s development roadmap, however.
Scene Rebalance in iZotope RX 12. Image: Adam Crute
The De-bleed and Breath Control modules have both received ground-up rebuilds to embed ML-based features within them. In De-bleed’s case, this allows the module to automatically isolate a variety of common sources from the mic-bleed captured from other instruments, thereby saving you from having to train the module yourself (although this mode is still available). With Breath Control, machine learning makes for a far faster setup, and much more accurate recognition and removal of unwanted breath sounds than previously. Once again, the classic operation mode is still available for those who want to use it.
Alongside improved results, the overhauled ML processing is noticeably faster than previously, even when operating at the highest quality level. For example, splitting a 4’30” test mix in RX 11 took around 2’30”, but the same task in RX 12 took around 1’45”. The results sounded significantly better too. Not only does this mean less thumb-twiddling, it’s also allowed Music Rebalance and Dialogue Isolate to join the suite of real-time RX plugins that can be used natively in a DAW. Nice!
De-bleed in iZotope RX 12. Image: Adam Crute
Stems View
Another common gripe about RX’s stem splitting has been that separated stems are opened in their own tabs. Playback of those tabs could of course be synchronised, but editing meant a lot of fiddling and switching between different screens.
RX 12 addresses this with a new Stems View that displays stems as lanes within a single tab. Lanes can be muted and soloed as needed, and selections – both time and frequency – affect all lanes simultaneously. When you need detailed control over a single stem, you can select that stem from a dropdown menu to switch to a standard full-window view of the audio. Not only is Stems View infinitely better than how previous RX versions handled things, it’s more natural and intuitive than the approach taken by SpectraLayers.
Stems View is also massively useful when working with RX as an ARA plugin in your DAW. Annoyingly, though, RX 12 still only supports ARA in Apple Logic and PreSonus Studio One 7 / Fender Studio Pro 8. Extended ARA support is on iZotope’s to-do list, though.
Stem Split View in iZotope RX 12. Image: Adam Crute
What’s the difference between the different RX 12 editions?
As previously, RX 12 comes in three editions. Elements is the most affordable, providing a set of six RX plugins for use in your DAW, although the standalone RX audio editor and modules are not included. Elements is useful for dealing with common problems like clicks and hums, and includes the Repair Assistant that combines various types of corrective processing into a single plugin.
RX 12 Standard is solid value, including the standalone editor and the vast majority of RX modules along with their plugin counterparts. It only lacks the processors and modules aimed at TV and film post-production – Scene Rebalance, Ambience Match, and so on.
These additional modules are only found in RX Advanced, but are they really worth an additional $1000 over the cost of Standard? They’re impressive tools, for sure, and aren’t widely useful in a music production context, but they are useful to podcasters, streamers, independent filmmakers, and many others who wouldn’t have access to the big studio budgets this pricing assumes. Given that RX isn’t the only rooster in the henhouse, this premium may be costing iZotope sales.
Nevertheless, Advanced is an incredibly powerful proposition, as is RX generally, and this latest version is a big step up from its predecessor. There remain some gaps in its capabilities compared to competing systems, such as the limited number of stem types recognised by Music Rebalance, but RX is very much back to the top of its game.
Image: Press
Key featuresSpectral audio editor with advanced processing modules
Many processing modules included as plugins (AU, AAX and VST3 formats)
NEW Scene Rebalance, Stems View and Trim Silence
REBUILT De-bleed and Breath Control
IMPROVED Music Rebalance, Dialogue Isolate, Difference (delta) monitoring and processing, user interface and workflow
Requires macOS Sonoma (14.7.x) and upwards; Windows 10 (22H2) or Windows 11 (24H2)
ARA plugin compatibility with Apple Logic Pro and PreSonus Studio One 7 / Fender Studio Pro 8The post iZotope RX 12’s focus on improved accuracy and quality pays off appeared first on MusicTech.
iZotope RX 12’s focus on improved accuracy and quality pays off
musictech.comIn the realm of machine learning technology, two years is a long time. Can iZotope’s RX 12 put a spring back into its step?
- in the community space Music from Within
Thurston Moore on New Collaboration With Bonner Kramer and Sonic Youth's Early YearsThurston Moore discusses how his project with highly collaborative musician, producer, and songwriter Kramer finally took place, and goes into detail about the early years of Sonic Youth, guitar, and an appreciation of a certain classic rock band's early work (which may surprise you).
Thurston Moore on New Collaboration With Bonner Kramer and Sonic Youth's Early Years
www.allmusic.comSome collaborations feel inevitable in hindsight, even if they take decades to materialize. And the pairing of Thurston Moore and Bonner Kramer on They Came Like Swallows: Seven…
Payphone Tag Is Australia’s New National SportAustralia’s payphones are an iconic part of the national landscape, even if they’re not as important as they once used to be. However, they’re having a resurgence of late, in part thanks to a new national pastime—the sport of Payphone Tag!
Created by [Alex Allchin], the game is simple. To play, you first sign up on the website and get your emoji and 5-digit PIN. You then go out and find a payphone, dial the Payphone Tag number, and enter your PIN when prompted. This lets you “capture” the phone, raising your score in the game. If a phone is already captured, no matter—just head out there, dial the number, and key in your own PIN to steal it. You can also push your score even higher by capturing three payphones in a triangle on the map to get bonus points.
It’s a fun geospatial game that’s also free to play, because Telstra made payphone calls free back in 2022. It might cost you a bit to get out to some phones, but there are plenty you can reach with the aid of free public transport at the moment, anyway. Protip—at the time of writing, there are a ton of easy captures to be had on Kangaroo Island. It might just cost you a pretty penny to get out there. Have at it!
We’d love to see some stats from Telstra as to whether this is making a dent in overall payphone usage rates. In any case, there were 800 players in the last 7 days and a full 36,640 captures so far, so a lot is happening out there. We fully expect to see this concept spread to other nations in turn, though it might be less attractive in places where you still need to dig out a coin to make a call.
We’ve featured a few payphone hacks over the years. If you’re doing something rad with these telecommunication devices of yesteryear, we’d love to hear about it on the tipsline.Payphone Tag Is Australia’s New National Sport
hackaday.comAustralia’s payphones are an iconic part of the national landscape, even if they’re not as important as they once used to be. However, they’re having a resurgence of late, in part…
Bitcoin Coinbase Premium turns negative as BTC price drops, weekly losses top $829MBitcoin price followed weakening US spot market demand as the Coinbase Premium Index turned negative for the first time in three weeks.
https://cointelegraph.com/markets/bitcoin-coinbase-premium-flashes-red-in-three-weeks-as-weekly-losses-top-793m?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound- in the community space Music from Within
BMG+Concord is the music industry’s biggest bet in years. What’s the plan?Thomas Coesfeld and Bob Valentine answer MBW's questions on a mega-merger – and ambitious targets
SourceBMG+Concord is the music industry’s biggest bet in years. What’s the plan?
www.musicbusinessworldwide.comThomas Coesfeld and Bob Valentine answer MBW’s questions on a mega-merger – and ambitious targets…
Amazon is already offering new OpenAI products on AWSA day after OpenAI got Microsoft to agree to end exclusive rights, AWS announced a slate of OpenAI model offerings, including a new agent service.
Amazon is already offering new OpenAI products on AWS | TechCrunch
techcrunch.comA day after OpenAI got Microsoft to agree to end exclusive rights, AWS announced a slate of OpenAI model offerings, including a new agent service.
- in the community space Music from Within
Focusrite ISA C8X: Vintage Studio DNA Meets a Modern WorkflowThere’s legacy gear, and then there’s ISA—the kind of circuitry that’s quietly shaped decades of recordings without ever needing to scream for attention. Now, for the first time, Focusrite has pulled that DNA into a full audio interface with the ISA C8X.
To understand why this matters, you have to go back to 1985, when Rupert Neve designed a custom console for George Martin. That lineage—the transformer-driven sound built around the Lundahl LL1538—has remained at the heart of every ISA preamp since. It’s not marketing fluff; it’s the same sonic fingerprint that’s been sitting at the front end of countless recordings for nearly four decades. As Focusrite puts it, “ISA is what Focusrite was founded upon… beloved by artists and engineers worldwide for over 40 years.”
What makes the ISA C8X interesting isn’t that it preserves that sound—it’s that it finally integrates it into a modern workflow without compromise. On paper, it’s a 26-in, 28-out USB-C interface housed in a sleek 2U rack unit, but that spec sheet undersells what it actually does. Two of its eight preamps carry the original transformer design, delivering up to 79dB of gain—more than enough to handle low-output ribbons and dynamics without breaking a sweat—while the remaining six offer ultra-low-noise performance and plenty of headroom. It’s a hybrid approach that balances character and clarity rather than forcing you to choose between them.
The real personality comes through in its analog shaping options. The all-analog Console mode adds harmonic saturation and low-end punch via a soft-clip circuit, while 430 Air mode—lifted directly from the ISA 430 MkII—introduces a high-end shimmer that feels more like expensive signal path enhancement than a typical EQ boost. These aren’t afterthought features; they’re the kind of tonal tools that encourage you to commit to sounds on the way in, which is increasingly rare in an era obsessed with fixing everything in post.
Or, as Jack Cole, Product Manager at Focusrite Professional Solutions explains, “ISA has been a staple in studios for over 40 years and it’s been at the front of the signal chain for some of the greatest recordings ever made. We’re really excited to present the sound and ethos of ISA in an audio interface for the very first time. The sonic signature remains the same but workflows have been updated and modernised, with remote control and recall functionality alongside tonal enhancement features and a vast array of analogue and digital I/O. We hope that users will see, feel and, most importantly, hear the attention to detail that the entire Focusrite team have put into ISA C8X."
And that modernization is where the ISA C8X really earns its place. It’s built to function as the centerpiece of a studio, not just another interface on your desk. With 24-bit/192kHz conversion and up to 125dB of dynamic range, it delivers the kind of fidelity you’d expect from Focusrite’s higher-end systems, while the connectivity—ADAT, S/PDIF, MIDI, Word Clock—makes it easy to expand. Monitoring support goes all the way up to immersive formats like 7.1.4, and the ability to control everything remotely via Focusrite Control 2 (even from mobile) means it slots into modern, flexible workflows without friction. It’s equally at home in a hybrid analog setup or a streamlined in-the-box environment.
Even the bundled software feels intentional rather than obligatory. The inclusion of Brainworx’s console emulation and Sonnox’s Oxford plugins ties the hardware back to its roots, giving users access to the tonal philosophy behind the original Focusrite Studio Console. Optional Sonnox bundles push that even further into mixing and mastering territory, making the ISA C8X feel more like a part of a broader ecosystem than a standalone piece of gear.
What ultimately sets the ISA C8X apart is that it doesn’t chase the ultra-clean, hyper-transparent trend dominating much of today’s interface market. Instead, it leans into character—warmth, depth, subtle saturation—while still delivering the precision and flexibility modern studios demand. It’s not trying to be everything; it’s trying to be something specific, and it does that with clarity of purpose. As Cole puts it, “We hope that users will see, feel and, most importantly, hear the attention to detail…”—and that attention shows up in the places that actually matter.
For anyone who’s spent years chasing that elusive “record-ready” tone before even opening a plugin, the ISA C8X feels like validation. A reminder that great sound doesn’t start in the mix—it starts at the source. And now, finally, that classic ISA sound has an interface to match.
The post Focusrite ISA C8X: Vintage Studio DNA Meets a Modern Workflow first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.
Focusrite ISA C8X: Vintage Studio DNA Meets a Modern Workflow
www.musicconnection.comThere’s legacy gear, and then there’s ISA—the kind of circuitry that’s quietly shaped decades of recordings without ever needing to scream for attention. Now, for the first time, Focusrite has pulled that DNA into a full audio interface with the ISA C8X. To understand why this matters, you have to go back to 1985, when
- in the community space Tools and Plugins
NatLife Sounds True Trance Sounds V4 for Arturia JUP-8000 VLet's welcome True Trance Sounds V4 for Arturia JUP-8000 V by NatLife. Version 4 is an absolute True Trance blockbuster of sounds for Arturia JUP-8000 V. An exceptional set of diverse sounds was created for this installment, which perfectly complement each other. Every sound is steeped in the atmosphere of 90s Trance, the era when it was born and sounded incredibly inspiring. The soundbank contains 70 Trance presets & patches for JUP-8000 V, which are: 4 Special voice-type AAH sounds. 2 new ARP's. 17 Punchy Basslines, which include special Uplifting Trance Basses and the deepest Basses. 3 Unusual FX's for your transition. 13 absolutely incredible Leads, in which you will find everything from new Supersaw's to Vintage-inspired, poignant Lead sections. 14 super deep Pads that will take you from Classic Trance pads to the most unusual and deep atmospheres. 12 of the Most Beautiful Plucks Ever Created. 3 Sequences packed and ready to go. 2 Synth sounds All of this was created with absolute love for the true and divine Trance music that we all fell in love with in the 90s, and so that you could enjoy these beautiful sounds that take us back to that golden era.\. https://youtu.be/2a_qwcmOhd4?si=lgTaNTzshzs0iAmr Read More
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/true-trance-sounds-v4-for-arturia-jup-8000-v-by-natlife-sounds?utm_source=kvrnewindbfeed&utm_medium=rssfeed&utm_campaign=rss&utm_content=35362 - in the community space Tools and Plugins
Chaos Tones releases Deviant Drums FREE II, a FREE acoustic drum kit for Kontakt Player
Chaos Tones has released Deviant Drums FREE II, a free acoustic drum instrument for Kontakt Player 8.1 and up. It’s the sequel to the Deviant Drums FREE Edition we covered last July, and it builds on the same concept. You get one kit pulled from the paid version, served in a 2GB download. The thing [...]
View post: Chaos Tones releases Deviant Drums FREE II, a FREE acoustic drum kit for Kontakt PlayerChaos Tones releases Deviant Drums FREE II, a FREE acoustic drum kit for Kontakt Player
bedroomproducersblog.comChaos Tones has released Deviant Drums FREE II, a free acoustic drum instrument for Kontakt Player 8.1 and up. It’s the sequel to the Deviant Drums FREE Edition we covered last July, and it builds on the same concept. You get one kit pulled from the paid version, served in a 2GB download. The thing

