Apple raise Mac & iPad prices As of 25 June 2026, almost the entire Mac and iPad line-up has been subjected to worldwide cost increases, along with a number of the company’s home and consumer devices. 

Southwest Airlines Broke the Law – Yes, You Can Carry Your Instrument On the PlaneBy now I’m sure you’ve seen the video of Southwest Airlines preventing the musician Samantha Henson from boarding the plane with her guitar.

Morphoice announces EightyEight, a new Roland Jupiter-8 emulation
Developer Morphoice is back with another vintage synth emulation, a free public beta of the new Roland Jupiter-8 emulation. EightyEight. The developer has already tackled iconic synths like the Roland Juno-6 (EightySix) and the Yamaha CS-80 (Unstable). This time around, developer Morphoice is taking on the Roland Jupiter-8 with the EightyEight. Roland’s 1981 Jupiter-8 is [...]
View post: Morphoice announces EightyEight, a new Roland Jupiter-8 emulation

Shy Audio release Shy 90s Smack For their latest release, Shy Audio have recreated the ‘crunchy’ sound of a rackmount compressor that found its way onto countless 90s techno, house and hip hop records.

GForce Software’s Sequential Prophet-5 is the best Prophet-5 emulation ever, hands down£70 / £100, gforcesoftware.com
In 1978, an upstart American company called Sequential Circuits surprised the industry with the Prophet-5, a five-voice analogue polyphonic synthesizer that managed something no one had up to that point: programmable memory. Because of this, the instrument was soon on everyone’s radar. And thanks to an incredible sound that could magically fit into any mix, it found its way onto hit records by artists such as The Cars, Phil Collins, Michael Jackson, and many more.

READ MORE: Arturia Memory V turns the rare vintage Memorymoog into a modern synth

The stature of Dave Smith’s Prophet-5 has only grown with time, graduating from coveted instrument of the day to bona fide classic. Like the Moog Minimoog, it’s become a synthesizer standard, a yardstick by which other instruments are measured. Because of this, it’s unsurprisingly been emulated in software many times, with big-name companies like Arturia and u-he all producing impressive takes on it. Now, you can add GForce Software to that list — with a twist. They’ve partnered with Sequential to create the first-ever official plugin version of the legendary instrument.
Does it live up to the Prophet name? Yes, and then some.
Main instrument expanded GUI. Image: Press
A Sequential Prophet-5 through and through
GForce Software’s Sequential Prophet-5 (to use the full name) doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. It aims for authenticity, but with a few nods towards modern workflows.
All of the features of the 1978 original are present, such as the dual oscillators with simultaneous waveform selection, the ability to use Oscillator 2 as an additional LFO, and the Poly-Mod section, which lets you apply filter and frequency modulation to a variety of destinations. This can result in some pretty clangorous sounds, something put to excellent use by the band Japan on their Tin Drum album.
The Prophet-5 famously went through three revisions in its original run from 1978 to 1984, with Rev1 and Rev2 having SSM chips handling the 4-pole low-pass filter and envelopes, and Rev3 passing those duties over to more stable Curtis chips. Rather than choose one or the other, GForce has done what Sequential did when it re-released the Prophet-5 in 2020 and gone with both, with a Rev select button in the filter section. Both are powerful in their own way, with the SSM on the more analogue side and the Curtis a tad sharper.
X-Modifier. Image: Press
What’s new in Sequential Prophet-5?
Although it seems the goal was not to go wild with new features — like with an Arturia emulation — GForce does provide enough new features to make the new Prophet emulation useful in a modern context.
While the original hardware only had five voices, this new take generously doles out 10 voices per layer. Yes, per layer. That’s the other big addition: this Prophet can do layers and splits, giving you essentially two Prophets in one go. Each layer is a unique instrument with its own presets, meaning you can use different revision settings on each layer.
Other new features include an arpeggiator, a chord generator with a lovely strum option, an effects section, full MPE compatibility, and GForce’s excellent X-Modifier section, which provides additional modulation control with an added visual component.
Filter. Image: Press
How does Sequential Prophet-5 sound?
Given GForce’s track record in making emulations of classic synths (including official Oberheim ones, which are also part of the Focusrite family), it’s no surprise that Prophet-5 sounds unbelievably good.
There’s a depth and richness to the sonics that will have you gasping with delight, and wondering how this can really be software. And, if it’s still not analogue enough for you, crank up the Vintage knob for extra smush and smear.
Although this new Prophet sounds amazing across most styles, it’s particularly bold in the bass department. There’s a reason that the monophonic Pro-One spin-off became one of the biggest bass synths of the early 80s, and all that low-end power is on full display here too. Set the voice mode to Mono, dial in the new Q-Comp on the filter resonance to preserve low frequencies, and get funkin’.
FX. Image: Press
Do you really need another Prophet-5 emulation?
Chances are, your plugin folder already has a Prophet-5 emulation or two in it. Do you really need another one then? The short answer is yes, just because this new take sounds so bloody good.
The long answer is also yes, but with a few caveats. There’s very little that’s wrong with the software, although we would like to see a few small issues addressed. The arpeggiator and chord mode controls, for one, are minuscule, and with the grey text on black background, they’re almost impossible to see. The graphics displaying the different chorus and reverb modes could be easier to see as well. These are small points, though, and definitely things that could be addressed in future updates.
GForce Software’s Sequential Prophet-5 is a worthy emulation of the hardware original and a triumph of a software instrument. It’s also extremely affordable. A real winner.

Key features

Officially developed in partnership with Sequential
Both Rev1 & Rev2 SSM and Rev3 Curtis filter and envelope characteristic models are available
Dual-layer architecture with Layer, Split and Alternate modes
Up to 10 voices per layer
Redesigned GForce Software X-Modifiers
Two selectable effects slots with Chorus, Phaser, Filter, Distortion,
Tremolo and Compressor, plus dedicated Delay, Reverb and Pan
Spread effects
Over 460 presets, including the original 1978 factory patches
Independent arpeggiator and chord modes for each layer
Full MPE compatibility

The post GForce Software’s Sequential Prophet-5 is the best Prophet-5 emulation ever, hands down appeared first on MusicTech.

Release Title:
Я уйду
Main Artist:
Даня Юрк
Release Date:
28/06/2026
Primary Genre:
Hip Hop/Rap
Secondary Genre:
Hip Hop/Rap
https://publme.lnk.to/453915-
#newmusic #Release #Music #indepedent #artist #hiphop #rap

AllMusic Has Rated All 4 Lauryn Hill Albums — Including The Miseducation of Lauryn HillTwo albums earned 5 stars. One earned 4. One earned 2.5. AllMusic has rated all four albums in Lauryn Hill's 28-year catalog — here's the definitive breakdown, album by album.

Kirk Franklin Honored, NSAI Rise ProgramKirk Franklin Honored

With 30+ years of hits, multi-Grammy winning artist-songwriter-producer Kirk Franklin receives SoundExchange’s Hall of Fame Award as one of the most-streamed artists of the past 20 years. Part of inaugural Rise and Rhythm Cruise, he headlines August’s Gospel Garden event in London.

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NSAI Rise Program

The 2026 Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) Summer Rise Program kicks off this month. For artists ready to pursue an in-depth study of songwriting, the remote interactive program runs for five weeks, July 20 – August 18, with NSAI delivering an incredible group of industry guests ready to answer questions and offer their best insight and advice to help writers improve in their craft.

Topics covered include co-writing, the music business, publisher pitching, and professional songwriter feedback.

Limited to 25 participants, all genres and levels of songwriters are welcome, with details and registration at: nashvillesongwriters.com/RISE / for questions, please email: maxwell@nashvillesongwriters.com.The post Kirk Franklin Honored, NSAI Rise Program first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Chamath Palihapitiya raises $135M Series A for his AI coding startup, takes CEO roleVCs remain thirsty to fund AI coding startups. This one, founded by investor Chamath Palihapitiya, is no exception.

Piano Escapement Migrates to Drum KitFor as popular as the piano is in music studios, homes, and schools, it almost defies logic. Compared to a guitar, harmonica, or drum set, pianos are incredibly complex machines that can have somewhere on the order of 8,000 moving parts in a case that can easily weigh hundreds of pounds and which often responds quite poorly to seasonal changes in temperature and humidity. But for putting up with all of these downsides, musicians are rewarded with an instrument that uniquely responds to touch, style, and emotion. A big reason for that is that mechanical complexity, and [Super Valid Designs] is attempting to bring that design to a drum set.
Compared to the complex machinery that connects the movement of a piano’s key to its hammer striking a string, a kick drum pedal is much simpler. It can only bounce off of the drum or get “buried” where the beater remains pressed up against the drum after hitting it. [Super Valid Designs] wanted something with a bit more finesse and control, so he first 3D printed a mechanism that throws the beater towards the drum head and then disconnects it mechanically from the pedal, so that it rebounds even if the pedal stays depressed. The next steps were more difficult, which involved making sure the mechanism reset itself in a repeatable way, without making too much noise of its own. This involved trying out a few different ideas and printing a massive amount of subtly different linkages, but in the end he’s left with a machine that nearly replicates all of the parts of a piano’s escapement,
The end goal of this project wasn’t simply to reproduce piano mechanisms on a drum set, though. [Super Valid Designs] hopes to make a kick drum that’s much smaller than those found in traditional kits, and since smaller drums respond poorly when the beater remains on or near the drum after striking it, a mechanism like this will dramatically improve the performance of the smaller drum and help reduce the requirement for perfect technique. And, maybe in 50 years or so, these types of escapements will take over the drumming world just like the piano escapement took over keyboards after its invention in the 1700s. Some simpler piano actions have been built before, but the complexity seems to be a requirement for all of the tasks they need to do whether its for a piano or a drum.

Inaugural Music Technology Research Showcase celebrates work of new graduate program’s initial studentsThe MIT Music Technology and Computation (MTC) Graduate Program — launched in fall 2024 as a collaboration between the Music and Theater Arts Section in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), and the School of Engineering (SoE) — presented its inaugural MIT Music Technology Research Showcase on May 13. The event played to a standing room-only house in the Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building’s Thomas Tull Concert Hall and featured diverse and captivating research presentations and music performances.The celebratory occasion featured MTC’s first five enrollees (all of whom were previously MIT undergraduates), alongside several PhD students and faculty. Each scholar presented inspiring exemplars of artful engineering that reflected the broader and burgeoning music technology scene at MIT. The 90-minute event exhibited a broad array of research projects, including a real-time visualization of what an AI co-improvising agent is about to play on a piano; a sound-art installation based on noisy network communication; a hip-hop dance circle where music is generated from dancing; and the use of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to identify the musical tunes that our brains are imagining.“A new space for exploration and insights” An interplay of technical presentation with live performance, the showcase began with remarks from SHASS Dean and professor of philosophy Agustín Rayo, SOE Dean and professor of chemical engineering Paula Hammond, and MTC Director and professor of the practice of music Eran Egozy.Rayo began, “The goal of this program is simple — for MIT to lead the world in music technology theory and application,” adding “it’s not just about making music with technology; it’s also about working across disciplines to help better shape the future of expression in an AI-driven world, all while reflecting MIT at its best.” Rayo noted the graduate program was made possible in part by the opening of the Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building in 2025, which provided new classrooms, studios, rehearsal spaces, and a dedicated music technology lab. He also credited the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing for its support for the graduate program. Hammond followed: “As those in this room already know, music and engineering share some common roots. Both rely on mathematical precision and are informed by defined structures, rhythms, and frequencies. Both demand hard work and technical know-how, paired with inspiration and imagination, to create something entirely new. Given those congruities, it’s no surprise that so many faculty, students, and staff members across MIT are also accomplished musicians and artists.”  She continued, “Our music program is a gem. Only at MIT could we bring the top technologists and the top musicians together to create unique opportunities for collaboration. Here we have brought together faculty and students who identify strongly with both music and engineering to form a new space for exploration and insights. It’s a strong example of the collaborative culture that defines the Institute.”  Egozy called the event a “harmonious hybrid of concert and symposium,” and recollected, “it’s a little mind-boggling to see what our students have achieved in just one short and fast-paced year. While we originally debated the trade-offs between a one-year and a two-year master’s program, I think this cohort really showed us that we can make huge strides in learning and research abilities in a concentrated period of time.” Student research on displayOne of those students is Claire Southard ’25, SM ’26, who developed a machine-learning model used to identify musical notes hidden in EEG signals.  Southard explains, “every year, musicians are diagnosed with movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and dystonia, or experience injuries that prevent them from controlling their hands and bodies in the ways required to play their instruments. Because of this, too many musicians are forced to stop doing what they love. My work explores one strategy to help such musicians perform again by translating the music they’re trying to play directly from their brain activity — bypassing the need for motor control altogether. To do this, I trained machine-learning models to predict the music a person is imagining from their brain activity measured using EEG, and many of the predicted pieces were found to be recognizable representations of what the user imagined. By designing a system that allows musicians to create music regardless of their physical abilities, I hope this work helps bring a more accessible future for music performance closer to reality.”  Before joining MTC, Southard was initially unaware of the breadth, scope, and magnitude of what the program could offer for further pursuing and realizing her interests. “The MIT Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program taught me so much about the possibilities at the intersection of STEM and the arts," she says. "When I first started the program, I honestly wasn’t sure what counted as ‘music technology.’ Through classes, research, and conversations with faculty, guest speakers, and peers, I learned the field was far broader and more fascinating than I could have previously imagined.”  She continues, “coming from a background in neuro- and computer science, many of my undergraduate projects happened entirely on devices. But this program allowed me to encounter more hands-on experiences, from conducting audio recordings to building electronic musical instruments from scratch.” Another MTC graduate, and student speaker at the 2026 SHASS Advanced Degree Ceremony, Mariano Salcedo ’25, SM ’26, presented a custom web application allowing anyone to create unique emergent visuals that are driven by real-time streaming music. To accomplish this effect, Salcedo built algorithms that leverage the complex visual behavior of self-organized systems as the means toward an aesthetically synergetic end.  In his Advanced Degree Ceremony oration, Salcedo expressed his gratitude and admiration for the passionate people that he’s met not only in MTC, but at MIT overall. In an appropriately compassionate mode, he empathetically opined, “I think what times like this call from us is to lead the way in human and humane-centered technology, which means we don’t only just ask what we can build, but we also ask who is it going to affect, who is not going to affect? Who does it benefit?”  Music technology thriving at MITAssociate Professor Anna Huang SM ’08 of MTA and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS, through SCC), a graduate of the MIT Media Lab, and one of the world’s leading researchers in collaborative human-AI music-making, echoed both Southard and Salcedo’s sentiments through her keynote presentation, “In Search of Resonance in Human-AI Interaction.” A compelling and intimately conversational address, her speech emphasized the importance of centering the human musician in all that is done relating to AI, while also making efforts to include all musics of the world in its discourse at every opportunity. With many of her family members in the audience, Huang reflected, “I have the privilege of being in both MIT Music and EECS — an interdisciplinary, shared space. What does it mean to build music technology in this context? We’re surrounded by extremely talented musicians, so we take this co-design approach: We work with these musicians, we go into the studio, and every week we try something. And the technology grows with the creative process. We’re always trying to push both of these forward, and it’s always on the edge. It’s very, very rewarding. It’s where I feel most at home.”   Huang also explained how this practice sets the stage for a new Studies in Music Technology subject that she will be co-teaching in the fall with recently appointed Professor of Theater Arts Grisha Coleman. Class 21M.369/569 (Tuning Attention: Creative Practices in Movement, Sound, and AI) proposes that the study of sound and movement practices can inform how we build and envision computational systems, focusing particularly on our relationship to AIs. It will introduce students to a range of musical practices in improvisation and somatics by way of motion-capture technologies, critical interaction design, generative modeling, and algorithms for interpretability and learning through human feedback. All considered, the future of the MIT Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program is bright. Egozy says MTC admitted 10 master’s students for the 2026-27 academic year from over 100 applicants. Unlike this year’s class, next year’s students will not only include recent MIT undergraduate alumni, but also new faces to campus. “Widening the pool to graduates of other schools and institutions will bring an extraordinary wealth of perspectives and experiences to the program. Additionally, all three shared faculty between MTA and EECS — including Mark Rau, Paris Smaragdis SM ’97, PhD ’01, and Huang — are inviting new Music Technology PhD students to their labs by way of EECS,” Egozy says. Embodying its mission, MTC is proving to be a vibrant, multidisciplinary program that attracts many kinds of students with a variety of career objectives from wide-ranging backgrounds. “Despite their diversity, our students all possess a central commonality,” Egozy says, “not just a shared love for music, but also a deep desire to augment that passion by way of technology in a very warmhearted, humanitarian way.” List of projectsRachel Loh, Quanta Fellow in Music Technology and Computation: “Visualizing the Internal State of Music Models for Live Human-AI Improvisation” Noble Harasha, Quanta Fellow in Music Technology and Computation: “Modeling Subjectivity and Collective Sensory Perception as Noisy, Analog Communication in Feedback-Driven Networks” Z Chen, Quanta Fellow in Music Technology and Computation: “Generative Music as a Catalyst for Social Choreography” Nithya Shikarpur: “The Moving Drone: A Live Improvisation in the Context of Hindustani Music with the Human Voice, Generative models, and Loops”Mariano Salcedo, Alex Rigopulos (1992) Fellow in Music Technology and Computation: “Neural Cellular Automata for Interactive Music Visualization”Claire Southard, John Piscitello Fellow in Music Technology and Computation: “Neural Decoding of Imagined Music”Stephen Brade, Suwan Kim, Valerie Chen: “Whale, Cello (there?): A Musical Dialog between Cello and a Real-time Diffusion Model Trained on Whale Songs” 

AOFN Audio KompisKompis is a minimal reference plugin, designed to help you make better mixing decisions. Referencing is one of the most powerful habits in mixing. Kompis lets you load your reference tracks and run any AU or VST3 plugin you already own directly on your reference tracks, your loudness meter, your spectrum analyser or your favourite EQ ... If it loads in your DAW, it loads in Kompis. No need to learn a new tool, use the tools you already trust and know. What it does: Load multiple reference tracks drag in MP3s or WAVs, drop multiple files at once or right-click to browse. Switch between them instantly, loop sections you want to focus on. Run any VST3 or AU plugin on your references iZotope Insight, Youlean Loudness Meter, SPL Hawkeye, anything. Kompis automatically routes your DAW's signal to the plugin's sidechain input, so you can for example overlay the spectrums of your track and the reference track (i.e. with TDR Prism or similar plugins). One-click loudness matching Kompis measures integrated LUFS and adjusts the reference so volume differences don't fool your ears. A/B toggle flip between your mix and any reference track in real time while you work. Filter bank isolate and compare specific frequency ranges between your mix and the reference. You can customise the ranges to fit your needs. Load and save Presets save your reference tracks and loaded plugins together as a preset and recall the whole setup in one click. Start every session with your go-to references and analysers already in place. Auto bypass on bounce Kompis detects when your DAW is rendering and bypasses itself automatically. It never ends up in your export. Resizable UI make it the focus when you need it, shrink it out of the way when you don't. No hub, no account, no companion app. Formats: VST3, AU. System requirements: macOS 10.15+ (Apple Silicon native). 49€ or pay what you like (minimum 9.99€). If you make use pay what you like please tell a friend about the plugin. Buy Read More

Google says AI training is fair use and copyright should be policed on outputs, not inputsThe tech giant has published a new policy paper outlining the company's preferred approach to AI regulation
Source

Focusrite publish 2026 Sustainability Report Following a long audit process, the Focusrite Group have published their 2026 sustainability disclosures, which are available in three separate reports alongside their usual annual report and accounts documents. 

Tracktion releases Waveform 14 Free: our best FREE DAW for macOS, Windows, and Linux
Tracktion’s Waveform Free has been updated to v14, remaining our best free DAW for macOS, Windows, and Linux. We’ve covered Tracktion’s Waveform Free multiple times, and we like it. So much so that we named it our best free DAW in 2026, despite sme stiff competition from the likes of Cakewalk and GarageBand. The reason [...]
View post: Tracktion releases Waveform 14 Free: our best FREE DAW for macOS, Windows, and Linux