Airwindows Releases Consolidated, A FREE Multi-Effects Plugin
Airwindows has released Consolidated, a free multi-effect plugin that combines 400 effects into one multi-fx plugin. It is hard to think of a free plugin developer more dedicated to his craft than Chris Johnson over at AirWindows. You get constant regular releases, and it is evident the amount of passion and love that goes into [...]
View post: Airwindows Releases Consolidated, A FREE Multi-Effects Plugin

“If I record everything dry and put a bunch of plugins on it, I’ve made no decisions”: St. Vincent on the importance of “committing” to sonic ideasSt. Vincent has appeared in a new episode of the Tape Notes podcast detailing her music production approach, and explaining, again, why she prefers not to rely heavily on plugins in the studio.
The musician – who just released her new album All Born Screaming – recently explained why she’s not a fan of plugins in the studio, saying their “flashy” interfaces “make you think they’re doing more than they’re actually doing”.

READ MORE: Save nearly $2,000 on Brainworx’s Heritage Bundle at Plugin Boutique

Now, she has doubled down on her aversion to plugins, saying they don’t allow producers to “commit” to the “firm foundation” of an idea.
“Creative people will use whatever tools they have at their disposal to make cool shit. I firmly believe that,” she says. “Me personally, I like drum machines. I like oscillators that I can mess with. I find that sometimes when I’m working with plugins, you can sometimes hear with your eyes instead of with your ears, and that’s not that cool to me.
“And I like committing things to tape. I like committing the sounds, because instead of building a house on sand, you’re building a house on a firm foundation of an idea. It would make me too crazy, I think, with unexplored possibilities, to record everything dry and then put a bunch of plugins on them. That would make me crazy – because you’ve made no decisions. 
“That’s my approach to things because that’s just how my brain works, and that’s what it is. I don’t begrudge anybody else’s process cause like I said, great artists will make great work on whatever they’re given.”
She concludes: “[I’m] not a snob here, in terms of creation, but I personally prefer to make big sonic decisions and stick with them so that you can actually build upon something.”

St. Vincent – whose real name is Annie Clark – released All Born Screaming, her first entirely self-produced album, last month. Listen to its lead single, Broken Man, below.

And for more Tape Notes episodes, head to tapenotes.co.uk/
The post “If I record everything dry and put a bunch of plugins on it, I’ve made no decisions”: St. Vincent on the importance of “committing” to sonic ideas appeared first on MusicTech.

“The best-selling tools from Native Instruments, iZotope, and Brainworx”: Native Instruments announces tiered NI 360 subscription platformNative Instruments has announced a new tiered subscription model – NI 360 – which will begin rolling out fully in late 2024.
Billed as a replacement for the company’s current Komplete Now model – which gives users a curated selection of plugins for a monthly fee – NI 360 offers a wider selection of tools from Native Instruments, iZotope and Brainworx.

READ MORE: Apple unveils Logic Pro For Mac 11 and Logic Pro For iPad 2 – with AI front and centre

NI 360 is available via three price tiers: Essentials, which for $15 a month comes with 50+ plugins; Plus, $25 a month with 100+ plugins; and Pro, which, designed for professional producers, offers 130+ including “top-tier” instruments and effects. Users get access to new instruments, effects and production tools as they are released.
Headline tools included in the Essentials subscription include Ozone Elements and Guitar Rig 7 Le, while Plus features Ozone Standard and Guitar Rig 7 Pro, and Pro features Kontakt 7, Ozone Advanced and more.
Additionally, NI 360 is a flexible subscription model, meaning users can modify, pause or cancel their subscription at any time without losing access to previously created projects. Projects remain playable and exportable.
Native Instruments also remains “committed to maintaining the availability of perpetual licences”.
“360 is designed to complement, not replace, perpetual licences, offering additional flexibility and access to an expanding array of tools.”
“This service grants access to one of the largest collections of music production software in the world,” says Native Instruments. “Whether you’re sketching out a new idea or applying the final touches to a masterpiece, 360 equips you with an extensive range of best-selling tools from Native Instruments, iZotope, and Brainworx.”
Early May is seeing the beginning of the NI 360’s soft rollout, with select users invited to try the subscription to provide Native Instruments feedback that will inform the full rollout. This will take place later this year.
For more information, head to Native Instruments.
The post “The best-selling tools from Native Instruments, iZotope, and Brainworx”: Native Instruments announces tiered NI 360 subscription platform appeared first on MusicTech.

Native Instruments preview NI 360 Available to a limited number of users now with a full launch planned later in 2024, NI 360 will offer subscription-based access to products from Native Instruments, iZotope and Brainworx.

Understanding How Digital & Physical Mechanical Royalties WorkThis week, Ari is joined by Serona Elton, head of educational partnerships at the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), to discuss mechanical royalties and licensing in the music industry.

Musik Hack Master Plan plugin: Mastering isn’t supposed to be this easyPerpetual: $175 ($89 offer until 31st May 2024)
Rent-to-own: 5 x $35 (5 x $18 offer until 31st May 2024)
musikhack.com
The tools and processors involved in mastering are similar to those in mixing, but they also tend to be pricier, more nuanced and more complex. Plus, they’re used in a way that’s quite different to the techniques we learn to use when mixing.
As a result, we’ve seen a significant uptick in the number of all-in-one mastering solutions coming to market. That includes AI-driven online services through to conventional mastering plugins that hide the complexities of mastering behind simplified controls.

READ MORE: dSONIQ’s Realphones 2.0 offers a realistic and affordable one-stop solution to headphone mixing

Master Plan from Musik Hack falls squarely into the latter bracket, packing a full mastering chain into a single plugin with just a handful of large, welcoming, and intuitive controls.
What is Master Plan?
At the centre of Master Plan – both figuratively and literally – sits the big, chunky Loud dial. This controls an underlying limiter/clipper circuit that can deliver an astonishing loudness boost while never letting the audio exceed 0dB-FS.
At lower settings, the boost is pleasingly clean and transparent, while at high settings the sound becomes aggressive and in-your-face — as you would expect. Impressively, though, this doesn’t break up into a wall of noise. What inspires us most with the Loud circuit is how well Master Plan keeps the peaks under control, especially when the optional TruePeak mode is enabled. Other all-in-one plugins and online services tend to get this wrong — kudos to Musik Hack here.
Also often overlooked is the need for dedicated input and output level controls, the latter of which is vital during mastering, so it’s great to see that Master Plan features both.
Talking of inputs and outputs, Master Plan’s Unity mode cleverly matches your master’s volume with the source. This means that when bypassing the plugin, you can hear the tonal and dynamic results of your settings without being (aurally) blinded by the additional loudness they create.
Another tool when judging your masters is an output filter that simulates different listening scenarios – mono, phone speaker, and such. Although not exactly scientific or super-accurate, these filters do at least give some idea of how your masters will sound on different devices.
Musik Hack Master Plan (dark mode)
How do you use Master Plan?
Master Plan is so simple that, if the source mix is well-balanced, you can get a near-perfect master with a quick twiddle of the Loud dial. Still, the plugin does allow you to delve much deeper than this — and rightly so.
Low- and high-shelf EQ bands each offer ±8dB of boost/cut. The shelving is pleasingly smooth and gentle, allowing for easy broad-brush adjustment of the overall tonal balance of your master, but there is no way of changing the EQ corner frequencies.
Preset frequencies are reasonably well-chosen, but we often find the low band to be a touch too high, and the high band to be too low. Of course, it all depends on what you throw at the plugin, but we would prefer a choice of two or three frequencies per band, which would make all the difference here, adding tons of flexibility without detracting from the plugin’s ‘easy mastering’ paradigm.
The Wide dial adjusts the apparent width of the stereo image but is more subtle than the basic mid/side balance adjustments found on many other mastering plugins, and much more akin to what a professional mastering engineer may do. Here, low and low-mid frequencies get barely any widening while higher frequencies become progressively wider the higher they are. This allows the stereo image to be widened significantly without the core of the music sounding distant or lost. It’s very effective although, as with all stereo width enhancers, it’s quite easy to overdo things.

How do you actually master your mix with Master Plan?
Beyond these primary controls – characterised by their vintage-looking knob controls – are six additional processing stages that can be used to further hone a master. These are all presented in an immensely simple way: an on/off button plus a slider to control the processor’s strength.
The first of these, Thick, enables a saturation processor that sits at the front of the processing chain from where it can add extra harmonics and sparkle to a mix. This is followed by Clean, which removes muddiness (geddit?), essentially applying a dynamic EQ that kicks in when things get too intense in the low-mid range.
A three-band multiband compressor comes next, its many underlying parameters gathered together into three simple faders that set each band’s gain reduction amount. We usually adjust thresholds, ratios and such to achieve a targeted amount of gain reduction, so directly selecting that gain reduction feels a bit back-to-front – a feeling enhanced by the faders being moved upwards to create a gain reduction. But it works well and makes it effortless to shape the tonal and dynamic balance of your music.
The Multi stage is followed by a second, exceptionally gentle, compressor intended to even out longer-term dynamics within a mix. This in turn is followed by another dynamic EQ-style stage, targeted at controlling harshness at the upper end of the mid-range. The chain is rounded off with a tape emulator.
The plugin constantly monitors and measures various loudness metrics: short-term and integrated loudness, peak/true peak, and crest factor (the difference between peak and short-term loudness). However, it only displays these as a numeric readout at the bottom of the plugin window, which is useful but not as intuitive as a graphical meter – we fix this by adding a loudness metering plugin in the chain after Master Plan.
We also find we often need to add a high-pass filter before Master Plan because the plugin lacks any way of taming the very low end of a mix – a frequency range that is often over-cooked during mixing and that needs dealing with during mastering.
The need to add filter and metering plugins ironically denies Master Plan’s intention to be the only plugin you need in your mastering chain.
Should you buy Master Plan?
Such grievances aside, Master Plan’s supreme simplicity masks a surprisingly deep and extensive chain of well-chosen mastering processors, while the basic controls reach into those processors and tweak them in just the right way to provide you with loads of tonal and dynamic control.
Master Plan isn’t going to do a better job than an experienced mastering engineer wielding an arsenal of high-end mastering processors, but it comes remarkably close at a fraction of the cost.
Key features

All-in-one mastering plugin for desktop hosts
Designed to make mastering quick and easy
Two-band shelving EQ
Limiter/clipper Loud circuit
Stereo width adjustment
Additional stages for saturation, dynamic EQ, compression and tape emulation
Input and output gain control
Unity bypass mode
Numeric readout of loudness metrics
Dark or light user interface design

The post Musik Hack Master Plan plugin: Mastering isn’t supposed to be this easy appeared first on MusicTech.

The Art of the RebrandMany artists have changed their name, look, or genre throughout the years, but some have been far more successful and well-accepted by their audience than others. So what marks the difference between a smooth transition and a failed one?

Tesla is Luminar’s largest lidar customerTesla CEO Elon Musk has said that lidar sensors are a “crutch” for autonomous vehicles. But his company has bought so many from Luminar that Tesla is now the lidar-maker’s top customer. Tesla accounted for “more than 10%” of Luminar’s revenue in the first quarter of 2024, or a little more than $20 million, the […]
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Philosopher Yuval Noah Harari warns of AI’s risks in financeThe bestselling author, philosopher and historian sees grim potential for AI to get out of control in the financial system.

David Kushner Wins Grand Prize at International Songwriting CompetitionThe International Songwriting Competition (ISC) has announced the winners of its 2023 competition. After careful consideration by a distinguished panel of judges comprising iconic music artists, songwriters, and industry professionals, the winners have emerged from a diverse pool of approximately 14,000 entries spanning a multitude of genres and 140 countries.

Established in 2002 to honor and promote the art of songwriting, ISC gives away more than $150,000 in cash and prizes, including a $25,000 cash prize to the overall Grand Prize winner. Since its inception, ISC has become the most respected and influential international competition in the music industry, and winning ISC is a significant accomplishment for a songwriter.

This year the overall Grand Prize is awarded to the song “Daylight,” co-written by David Kushner, Hayden Robert Hubers, Jeremy Fedryk, Joshua Bruce Williams, Edison Boon Eason, and Drake Jon Livingston Jr. The song is a collaborative effort and reflects the individual perspectives and writing skills of these talented songwriters.

“The first time I heard the Grand Prize-winning song “Daylight,” I knew that it was extraordinary,” said Founder Candace Avery. “It is a song that showcases a profound understanding of the art of songwriting, not just as a composition but also as an anthem that beautifully reflects the complexities of the human spirit. It is truly a tour de force of songwriting and as such has earned its rightful place as a beacon of musical excellence in the International Songwriting Competition.”

As the performer of “Daylight,” Kushner is an incredibly gifted artist who brings the song to life in such a memorable way, and he is poised to leave an indelible mark on the music world. In a very short time, David Kushner‘s career skyrocketed after achieving huge success with his first single “Miserable Man” which went viral on TikTok.” This single, along with the second single, “Forgettable,” appeared on his debut EP Footprints / Found which was released in 2022. The ISC-winning song “Daylight” was released in April, 2023 and since then has amassed more than a billion plays on Spotify alone - and growing daily. It was also nominated in the 2024 BRIT Awards for International Song of the Year. Originally from Chicago, IL, Kushner now resides in Los Angeles and continues to put out new songs.ISC winners have included many artists who have gone on to achieve great success, including Vance Joy, Bastille, Tones and I, Coco Jones, Gotye, Illenium, Fantastic Negrito, Faouzia, Lindsey Stirling, Rachel Bloom, The Teskey Brothers, Ondara, Passenger, The Band Perry, Dean Lewis, Gregory Porter, Amy Shark, and many more.In addition to the Grand Prize winner, ISC awards a First, Second, and Third Place in each category. These winners embody the spirit of musical diversity and continue to inspire and captivate audiences worldwide with their distinctive voices and unique perspectives. Hailing from all over the world (50% of this year’s winners come from outside the USA), they range from talented amateurs to seasoned songwriting veterans.Judges include:Celebrity judges include: Mariah Carey, Tom Waits, Jennifer Hudson, Joe Hahn (Linkin Park), Reba McEntire, Gabby Barrett, Steven Curtis Chapman, Arlo Parks, Rosanne Cash, James Adam Shelley (American Authors), Kristian Bush (Sugarland), Stephen Sanchez, Shooter Jennings, Lonnie Liston Smith, Steve Lillywhite, Sidewalk Prophets, Kim Wilson (The Fabulous Thunderbirds), Nancy Wilson (Heart), Glen Ballard, NEEDTOBREATHE, Dubfire, Ian Felice (The Felice Brothers), Danilo Perez, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Jordan, Tim Rice-Oxley (Keane), Danny Gokey, James McNally, Jordan St. Cyr, Martin Tungevaag, Gordon Goodwin, Joe Louis Walker, Ashwin Batish, Carter Burwell, Nicholas Gunn, Nate Bargatze, and Fortune FeimsterIndustry Judges: Bruce Iglauer (Founder/President, Alligator Records); Daniel Glass (President/Founder, Glassnote Records); Richard Stumpf (CEO/Founder, Hawkeye Music Group); Ed Vetri (President, Wind-Up Records); Golnar Khosrowshahi (President, Reservoir Media Management); Will Speer (Managing Director, Magic Star Records/Sony); Kim Buie (VP of A&R, New West Records); Kate Labrel (VP of A&R, Warner Records); Christophe Muller (Global Head of Music Partnerships, YouTube); Jacob Edgar (Founder, Cumbancha); Garrett Davis (Director of A&R, Word Entertainment); Matt D'Arduini (Sr. VP of A&R /GM, Last Nite Records/Arista Records); Steven Rosen (President/Creative Marketing and Music Publishing, Regime Music Group); Joel Timen (VP of A&R and Publishing, Curb/Word Entertainment); Gina Tucci (Sr. VP of A&R /Gen Mgr., Big Beat Records/Atlantic Records); Justin Prager (Sr. Dir. of Programming, VEVO); Cesar Gomez Montoya (A&R, Codiscos); Cory Robbins (Founder/President, Robbins Entertainment); Julie Kertes (Editor/General Manager, Hot Diggity Media); Jacqueline Post (Head of Publishing, Connection Music Publishing); Leib Ostrow (Founder/CEO, Music For Little People); Katherine Dines (Advisory Board and Magic Penny Award Chair, Children’s Music Network); Claire S. Green (President, Parents' Choice Foundation); Benjamin Groff (President, Brill Building Music Publishing); Tamara Conniff (EVP, Roc Nation Music Publishing); Carl Caprioglio (Founder & CEO, Oglio Entertainment); Elena Epstein (Director, National Parenting Product Awards); Sarah Wanstall (Production Mgr., ARC Music Productions)For a complete list of winners and to listen to the winning songs, visit the ISC website at www.songwritingcompetition.com.Entries are now open for ISC 2024. For more information and to enter, go to https://www.songwritingcompetition.com

Z80s From the ’80s Had Futuristic DesignEver heard of a Dutch company called Holborn (literally, born in Holland)? We hadn’t either, but [Bryan Lunduke] showed us these computers from the early 1980s, and we wondered if they might have appeared in some science fiction movies. They definitely look like something from a 1970s movie space station.
The company started out tiny and only lasted a few years. The Holborn 9100 looked like a minicomputer and, honestly, other than the terminal, looks more like an air conditioner or refrigerator. While it was a Z-80 system, it was clearly aimed at business. The processor ran at 3.5 MHz, there was 72K of RAM that could expand to 220 K — a whopping amount for the early ’80s. They also could accept loads of 8-inch floppies. It even had a light pen, which seems exotic today but was actually fairly common back then.

When we heard you could go to 220 K of memory, we assumed it used a version of CP/M or MP/M that understood bank switching. Nope. They developed their own multiuser operating system. The OS was totally in ROM, so finding out any details about it is difficult.
Their next computer was a cheaper version that only supported two terminals, the Holborn 7100. There were only 200 9100 systems sold (or at least, claimed to be sold), and presumably fewer of the stripped-down model.
By 1982, CP/M was rising, and the company realized that its OS was not catching on. That led to the Holborn 6100 which was a CP/M machine that could handle 192K of RAM. Same mod terminal, but a much smaller box that could pass for a floppy disk NAS today. They sold about 100 of these computers.
The next computer was to be the 6500, but the company filed for bankruptcy before any of them could be shipped. The bankruptcy proceedings revealed that the company had actually sold only 50 units of the 9100 and 7100 combined! They also had about $7 million in debt.
The post has lots of pictures, ads, and even an internal shot of one of the devices. You can imagine with 50 units in the wild, there is little left of the Holborn computers today. But if you happen to run across one, you should definitely rescue it!
Old computers are like actors. Some are remembered, and some are forgotten. Despite looking like a minicomputer, a typical mini of that era would have had a bitslice CPU, not a Z80.

Universal Music Group sees a future where 1 in 5 streamers pays for a ‘super-premium’ tier (and 3 other things we learned from UMG’s Q1 earnings call)MBW listened into UMG's Q1 earnings call. Here are a few things things that stood out...
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Streams of Música Mexicana soared by 440% in five years on Spotify, platform saysThe trend is most pronounced in Latin America, the music streaming service says in a new report
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Bluepad32 Brings All the Controllers To Your MCUAs much as we enjoy spinning up our own solutions, there are times when you’ve got to look at what’s on the market and realize you might be out of your league. For example, take Bluetooth game controllers. Sure, you could make your own with a microcontroller, some buttons, and a couple joysticks. But between the major players like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, as well as independent peripheral companies like 8BitDo, there’s some seriously impressive hardware out there that can be easily repurposed.
How, you ask? Well, Bluepad32 by [Ricardo Quesada] would be a great place to start. This Apache v2.0 licensed project allows you to easily interface with a wide array of commercially available BT controllers, and supports an impressive number of software and hardware platforms. Using the Arduino IDE on an ESP32? No problem. CircuitPython on the Pico W? Supported. There’s even example code provided for using it on Linux and Mac OS. Sorry Windows fans — perhaps there’s a sassy paperclip or sentient dog built into your OS that can instruct you further.
A few of the controllers supported by Bluepad32.
The nature of the Bluetooth Human Interface Device (HID) protocol means that, at least in theory, pretty much all modern devices should be supported by Bluepad32 automatically. But even still, it’s hard not to be impressed by the official controller compatibility list. There’s also separate lists for Bluetooth mice and keyboards that are known to work with the project.
While it’s somewhat unlikely to be a problem in this particular community, there is an unusual quirk to this project which we think should at least be mentioned. Although Bluepad32 itself is free and open source software (FOSS), it depends on the BTstack library, which in turn uses a more ambiguous licensing scheme. BTstack is “open” in the sense that you can see the source code and implement it in your own projects, but its custom license precludes commercial use. If you want to use BTstack (and by extension, Bluepad32) in a commercial product, you need to contact the developers and discuss terms.
License gotchas aside, Bluepad32 is definitely a project to keep in the back of your mind for the future. You can always build your own controller if you’re looking a challenge, but you’ll have a hell of a time beating the decades of testing and development Sony has put into theirs.

Techivation Releases FREE T-Saturator Saturation Plugin
Techivation released T-Saturator, a free saturation effect for Windows and macOS. T-Saturator is a smart level-independent saturation plug-in that gives you precise control over your track’s tone and character and it is available for free. Ah, saturators, you’ve got to love how spoiled for choice we are these days. Techivation is a regular presence here at [...]
View post: Techivation Releases FREE T-Saturator Saturation Plugin