“The first synth that made dreaming big accessible to a schlub like me”: Rush’s Geddy Lee teams up with Moog Music on a special-edition, red-finish Minimoog Model DMoog has teamed up with Rush’s Geddy Lee on a special edition of the Minimoog Model D.
This custom-built version of the legendary analogue synth stays true to its classic sound while incorporating modern upgrades and a striking design inspired by the Rush frontman’s stage instruments back in the day.

READ MORE: “The SEM is nothing but a copy of the Odyssey or a copy of the Minimoog, or a little mixture. But I loved it, and so I wanted to do it”: Tom Oberheim on designing synths

To start, the Geddy Lee Minimoog Model D arrives in a lovely custom, satin red finish with metallic flecks that brings to mind Lee’s keyboard rig from Rush’s Grace Under Pressure tour. The synth also sports a special ‘Starman’ logo on its front and back, making it a true collector’s piece.
Image: Moog Music
Features wise, the new Minimoog Model D delivers all the rich, analogue circuitry that made the original a household name. Though it does contain several upgrades, including a hot-rodded VCA circuit, dedicated LFO controls, and modern MIDI integration.
Each purchase also comes with a Rush-themed merch bundle, which includes an exclusive 10” red vinyl featuring Xanadu and Jacob’s Ladder, a collectible poster, commemorative manual, gift box, as well as a certificate of authenticity that’s individually numbered and hand-signed by Lee.

Image: Moog Music“It’s a thrill to see the Minimoog Model D in that stunning red, so representative of one of the most fertile periods in Rush’s creative history,” says Lee of the new release. “I’ve always been mad for custom colour instruments, many inspired by automotive hues, and I’m thrilled with how it turned out — it’s just so beautiful.”
“The Minimoog Model D was the first synth that made dreaming big accessible to a schlub like me. Its intuitive design lets you learn waveforms, blend sounds, and experiment with the modulation wheel. That’s its legacy: a fat, sophisticated sound in a package that’s not daunting to get your hands on.”
In a video accompanying the launch, Lee speaks about Rush’s introduction to synths back in the 70s, saying: “For me I graduated to the Minimoog as a natural part of evolution from the tease that was that little squeaky sound you could get out of the Taurus pedals.”
“I wanted a more substantial tone and then we were writing songs that were quite adventurous like Xanadu and A Farewell to Kings and by the time we were going to write Farewell to Kings I knew I wanted a Minimoog. And I wanted to see if I could figure out how to get a noise out of it.”
Priced at $5,499, the Moog Music Geddy Lee Minimoog Model D is now available exclusively at Reverb (US), Andertons (UK) and Thomann (EMEA/Germany).

Learn more at Moog Music.
The post “The first synth that made dreaming big accessible to a schlub like me”: Rush’s Geddy Lee teams up with Moog Music on a special-edition, red-finish Minimoog Model D appeared first on MusicTech.

Brian Eno: “The biggest problem about AI is not intrinsic to AI. It’s to do with the fact that it’s owned by the same few people”Brian Eno has never been one to shy away from conversations about technology’s role in music and society. From pioneering ambient music to his latest generative AI-powered feature film Eno, he’s always found ways to push boundaries. But when it comes to artificial intelligence, the producer says his biggest concern’t isn’t the tech itself — but who controls it.

READ MORE: Brian Eno hates how Auto-Tune “turns a voice into every other voice” – but feels it can be useful for this one reason

Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Eno says [via Stereogum]: “The biggest problem for me about AI is. It’s to do with the fact that it’s owned by the same few people, and I have less and less interest in what those people think, and more and more criticisms of what the effect of their work has been.”
For Eno, AI is part of a broader issue: the concentration of power in the hands of a few tech giants.
“I think social media has been a catastrophe and mildly useful at the same time,” he says. “It’s possible for both things to coexist, but I think in terms of what it’s done to societies, it’s been a catastrophe.”
“Again, that could have been avoided, I think. If it had started out in a not-for-profit regime, it would’ve been different, because ‘maximise engagement’ wouldn’t have been the headline of the whole project,” Eno continues. “Maximising engagement is just another word for maximise profit. If that’s your intention, then you get what we got, just like in the American food industry is maximise profit, which is why you have a lot of very, very unhealthy people.”
Despite his concerns, Eno admits he’s always been fascinated by the creative potential of new tools, and AI is no exception. He sees it as part of a long tradition of musicians repurposing technology in ways its creators never intended.
“Talking about AI itself, I’ve always been happy to welcome new technologies and to see what you could do with them that nobody else thought of doing with them, and what things they could do, other than those that they were designed for,” he says.
“Because with all music technology, it’s always very interesting that stuff is designed for one reason, and then people start to find new things they could do that are completely beyond what the designer was thinking about.”
He points to distortion as a perfect example of this phenomenon: “Distortion is, in a way, the sound of popular music,” Eno explains. “A lot of the things that we find uniquely exciting has to do with equipment kind of going wrong. That’s quite a bizarre thought, isn’t it? That you design equipment to do this. Then, you start using it to do something else, which it doesn’t do very well, and you get to like the sound of the not very wellness.”

Brian Eno’s new ambient record Aurum is now available exclusively on Apple Music.
The post Brian Eno: “The biggest problem about AI is not intrinsic to AI. It’s to do with the fact that it’s owned by the same few people” appeared first on MusicTech.

Moog announce Geddy Lee Minimoog Model D The latest iteration of Moog’s ever-popular Minimoog Model D has been developed in collaboration with Geddy Lee, the bassist, vocalist and synth pioneer of the legendary band Rush.

UMG strikes partnership with HEAT to bring Lil’ Wayne, CG5 music to game developersUMG labels and artists will be 'the first to effectively distribute new tracks into gaming development tools and platforms'
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BMI & White Bear PR to Present "The Art of Music in Horror" at WonderCon 2025WHO: BMI®& White Bear PR are excited to present “The Art of Music in Horror” panel at WonderCon 2025. The discussion will feature BMI composers Charlie Clouser (Saw), Bobby Krlic (Midsommar), Harry Manfredini (Friday the 13th) and Dara Taylor (The Invitation), and will be moderated by White Bear PR’s Chandler Poling. BMI’s Director of Film, TV & Visual Media Louie Stephens will introduce the panel. WHAT: “The Art of Music in Horror” panel will feature an ensemble of renowned BMI composers who will discuss the unique challenges and creative process involved in scoring horror films and television. Discover how music elevates the fright factor and plays a key role in shaping iconic scenes that haunt audiences long after the credits roll. WHERE: Anaheim Convention Center (800 W Katella Ave. Anaheim, CA 92802)                Panel Room: 213CD       WHEN: Saturday, March 29, 2025TIME: 7:00 P.M. - 8:00 P.M. ***Press is invited to conduct one-on-one interviews with panelists prior to the panel, upon request. Contact Chandler Poling (chandler@whitebearpr.com) for more details.*** ABOUT THE PANELISTS:Charlie Clouser is a composer who specializes in dark and moody scores for film and television. He is best known for his intense scores for all ten of the SAW horror movie franchise and has also scored action films like Death Sentence, Dead Silence, Unhuman, and Resident Evil: Extinction, as well as over 250 episodes of television series like Fox’s Wayward Pines, CBS’s Numb3rs, NBC’s Las Vegas and the fan-favorite main title theme for Fox’s American Horror Story.Bobby Krlic is a British musician, producer and composer. In addition to his work collaborating and scoring both film and television with Atticus Ross, Krlic has been releasing his own often harrowing electronic music for the better part of the past decade under the moniker of The Haxan Cloak. Harry Manfredini has scored nearly 250 films and television shows to date. He is best known for his iconic scores on horror films like the Friday the 13th franchise, Wishmaster, Swamp Thing and House. Manfredini’s multi-faceted catalog also includes comedy films like Spring Break, and action films like Deep Star Six, Aces, Iron Eagle, and The Omega Code. Additionally, he’s scored numerous TV dramas for Lifetime and Hallmark, as well as many award-winning children’s films like Corduroy and A Boy, A Dog, And A Frog.  Dara Taylor has emerged as a fresh voice in the world of scoring music to picture. Her credits include Amazon Studios’ The Tender Bar, Universal Pictures’ Strays, Amazon’s The Boys: Diabolical, Warner Brothers’ Scoob! Holiday Haunt, the Lionsgate comedy Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar, which she co-scored with Christopher Lennertz, Netflix’s and Shondaland’s Black Barbie, and Netflix’s Meet Me Next Christmas, The Noel Diary, and Bookmarks.Taylor has received recognition for her works in the Karen Allen-starred drama Colewell, for which she won a 2019 Hollywood Music in Media Award. In 2023, she received an SCL Award nomination for Sony Pictures/Screen Gems’ The Invitation. Next up for Taylor is Tyler Perry’s Straw starring Taraji P. Henson.ABOUT BMI:Celebrating over 80 years of service to songwriters, composers, music publishers and businesses, BMI® is a global leader in music rights management, serving as an advocate for the value of music. BMI represents the public performance rights in over 22.4 million musical works created and owned by more than 1.4 million songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The Company negotiates music license agreements and distributes the fees it generates as royalties to its affiliated writers and publishers when their songs are performed in public. In 1939, BMI created a groundbreaking open-door policy becoming the only performing rights organization to welcome and represent the creators of blues, jazz, country, and American roots music. Today, the musical compositions in BMI’s repertoire, from chart toppers to perennial favorites, span all genres of music and are consistently among the most-performed hits of the year. For additional information and the latest BMI news, visit bmi.com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @BMI or stay connected through BMI‘s Facebook page. Sign up for BMI’s The Weekly and receive our e-newsletter every week to stay up to date on all things music.ABOUT WHITE BEAR PR:White Bear Public Relations specializes in PR for composers, music supervisors, and film & music festivals around the world. The company is built on relationships and creativity, thrives on innovation, and gets results. Since its inception, White Bear PR has produced award-winning campaigns, represented clients at all major film festivals, and created popular composer-focused panels at Comic-Con and WonderCon. More at www.whitebearpr.com or follow us on social media @whitebearpr.The post BMI & White Bear PR to Present "The Art of Music in Horror" at WonderCon 2025 first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Apple faces lawsuit over Apple Intelligence delaysApple has been sued in federal court over what plaintiffs allege is false advertising of several Apple Intelligence features. Filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, the suit seeks class-action status and damages on behalf of those who purchased Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones and other devices. Plaintiffs claim that device owners haven’t received the […]
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Laser Harp Sets the ToneIn many ways, living here in the future is quite exiting. We have access to the world’s information instantaneously and can get plenty of exciting tools and hardware delivered to our homes in ways that people in the past with only a Sears catalog could only dream of. Lasers are of course among the exciting hardware available, which can be purchased with extremely high power levels. Provided the proper safety precautions are taken, that can lead to some interesting builds like this laser harp which uses a 3W laser for its strings.
[Cybercraftics]’ musical instrument is using a single laser to generate seven harp strings, using a fast stepper motor to rotate a mirror to precise locations, generating the effect via persistence of vision. Although he originally planned to use one Arduino for this project, the precise timing needed to keep the strings in the right place was getting corrupted by adding MIDI and the other musical parts to the project, so he split those out to a second Arduino.
Although his first prototype worked, he did have to experiment with the sensors used to detect his hand position on the instrument quite a bit before getting good results. This is where the higher power laser came into play, as the lower-powered ones weren’t quite bright enough. He also uses a pair of white gloves which help illuminate a blocked laser. With most of the issues ironed out, [Cybercraftics] notes that there’s room for improvement but still has a working instrument that seems like a blast to play. If you’re still stuck in the past without easy access to lasers, though, it’s worth noting that there are plenty of other ways to build futuristic instruments as well.

Orchestral Tools releases Berlin Free Orchestra for SINE Player
We’re just a few months into 2025, and it’s already been a fantastic year for orchestral freebies with the latest offer Orchestral Tools’ Berlin Free Orchestra for SINE Player. Sonixinema’s Delicate Strings and Sona/Chroma by Tempest Audio are two real standouts. If we go back to the end of last year, we can throw in [...]
View post: Orchestral Tools releases Berlin Free Orchestra for SINE Player

Source Elements Source-Connect 4The Highly Anticipated Evolution of the Globally Renowned Source-Connect 4 is Finally Here! Source-Connect 4 marks the arrival of an important update to the remote recording platform.... Read More

Active listening: What it is and why it matters for musicians
Let's explore how you can use active listening to strategically learn from the songs you love and the artists you look up to.

Early stats point to Mixed 2025 for Live MusicAfter several years of meteoric growth in live music, an analysis by Pollstar of the period of November 14, 2024 to February 12, 2025 point to a mixed 2025 for live music.
The post Early stats point to Mixed 2025 for Live Music appeared first on Hypebot.

Music Tech takes center stage in Miami next weekThe first Miami MusicTech Summit is set for next Tuesday, March 25. The gathering will bring together global music tech leaders while showcasing the city’s exploding music tech and innovation scene.
The post Music Tech takes center stage in Miami next week appeared first on Hypebot.

Brian Eno hates how Auto-Tune “turns a voice into every other voice” – but feels it can be useful for this one reasonBrian Eno seemingly has a love-hate relationship with Auto-Tune, as the ambient music legend feels that sometimes it just “turns a voice into every other voice”.
Auto-Tune, a plugin launched by Antares in 1997, is known for the way it distinctly processes vocals and adjusts pitch. Though some artists are happy to utilise the tech in their music (to much success), Eno feels it can sometimes contribute to a “super-pasteurised” sound.

READ MORE: Brian Eno taught me these 10 lessons in his music-making workshop

During an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage, hosted by Brian Cox and Robin Ince, accompanied by music academics Sam Bennett and Trevor Cox, Eno explains [via MusicRadar]: “It’s really quite unusual to have an actual performance recorded now – and I don’t see anything wrong with that. Nobody would expect every painting to be done on the same day it was started. We’re quite used to the idea in other media that you do something over an extended period of time, and that you can retract steps as well.”
However, he adds, “The problem of all of this is that you end up with super-pasteurised music where everything has been nicely finished and ironed out, and there’s no fibre left at all.” Moving on to how Auto-Tune can sometimes contribute to this, he continues, “I love the sound of Auto-Tune when it’s used for what it can do that human voices can’t do; I hate the sound of it when it just turns a voice into every other voice.”

Auto-Tune can form a significant and intentional part of the musical styles of electronic artists, such as the Brat summer queen herself, Charli xcx – who even previously joked during her SNL show, “I want to take a moment to thank someone who’s been there for me my entire career: Auto-Tune.” Other artists who have utilised its distinctive style are Daft Punk, T-Pain, Travis Scott, and many more.
You can listen to Brian Eno’s full appearance on Infinite Monkey Cage via BBC Sounds.
The post Brian Eno hates how Auto-Tune “turns a voice into every other voice” – but feels it can be useful for this one reason appeared first on MusicTech.

Ethera Gold Odyssey & Atlantis 3.5 from Zero-G Zero-G's latest two Ethera instruments promise to deliver unparalleled vocal realism thanks to the use of their Adaptive True Legato technology.

Qobuz is the first streaming platform to have its average payout per stream officially validated – this is its rate and how it achieves itQobuz, the platform for high-resolution music streaming and purchasing, has shared the results of an independent review into its average royalty payout per stream.
The platform is the first of its kind to have its average payout rate per stream officially validated, which it says forms part of its “commitment to fairer compensation for artists”. The review reveals that on average, it pays five times more revenue per user than the market average.

READ MORE: The music streaming revolution is here, thanks to these new streaming platforms

In the 2024 fiscal year, Qobuz paid an average of US $0.01873 per stream to labels and publishers. As a press release from the brand clarifies that if a track reaches 1,000 plays on Qobuz, this represents US $18.73 paid to these rights holders, who then pay out to the artists, songwriters and composers, according to the terms of their contracts.
In terms of average revenue per user (ARPU), Qobuz generated an average revenue of US $121.13 per year, where the market average is US $22.38 per year. The platform offers alternative approaches to streaming compared to its industry competitors, by offering an exclusive paid model only (no ad-free tier) to ensure higher compensation, for example.
Qobuz also offers access to uncompressed (lossless) and high-resolution audio quality to justify its premium positioning, and also has a download store where users (not limited to streaming subscribers) can buy albums in Hi-Res and CD quality.

Georges Fornay, Deputy CEO at Qobuz, comments, “Although numerous reports highlight our payout rates as among the highest in the industry, no streaming service had officially disclosed its rates until now. Today, we are taking this step for greater transparency.
“Our payout rates are now public. This unprecedented move in our industry is a necessary first step toward promoting a fairer and more sustainable streaming model. Choosing Qobuz means taking concrete action for fairer compensation for all artists and supporting musical diversity, values that our customers cherish.”
Find out more via the official Qobuz website.
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