Celestion Debuts Shades of Greenback Digital IR CollectionCelestion, the world’s premier designer and manufacturer of guitar loudspeakers, well-known as the “Voice of Rock & Roll” behind many of the world’s most memorable guitar performances, is pleased to introduce the digitally downloadable Celestion Greenback Impulse Response Collection, bringing together a collection of seven of the most popular Celestion 12-inch Greenback-style speaker tones favoured by rock legends, available for download at CelestionPlus.This collection brings together the G12M and G12H as well the speakers that have since been inspired by these tonal icons. Fans of classic rock and all things Greenback will be in sonic heaven. Featuring the G12M, G12H Anniversary, Heritage Series G12M, Heritage Series G12H (55), G12-35XC, G12-50GL Lynchback and G12 EVH in all cabinet configurations: 1×12 (both open and closed back), 2×12 (both open and closed back) and 4×12 (closed back).

The Shades of Greenback Collection features the speakers which helped to create the tones of legends, including:

The G12M Greenback – The LegendThe G12M Greenback is the modern incarnation of the speaker that helped define rock tone; played by legends like Clapton, Page and Beck. Expect a broad mid-range attack and a restrained top-end with added grit and aggression.The G12H Anniversary – The Heavy RockerRecreate the classic sounds of the 1960’s and 1970’s hard rock era with the G12 Anniversary. With no quarter given, the anniversary delivers serious swagger with its aggressive low-end, articulate treble and searing midrange.The Heritage Series G12M – Timeless ToneAs materials and manufacturing techniques changed over time, so tones did too. The Heritage Series was the result of Celestion’s quest to build our iconic speakers as close to their 1960s specification as possible. The Heritage G12M delivers a little more openness and room to breathe than the Modern G12M.Heritage Series G12H (55) – The Bass ConeThis G12H Heritage Series speaker features a 55Hz (low resonance) cone. Originally intended for bass guitar, it was quickly adopted by guitar players too, who loved its more pronounced low-end thump. Legend has it that Hendrix played this Greenback in his live rig.The G12-35XC – The Sonic LegacyA key part of the Greenback legend is the Pulsonic® cone. Sadly, they are no more, but for our 90th birthday we tried to replicate the sound of an early 70s Pulsonic Greenback, just to see if we could. The result is the G12-35XC speaker.The G12-50GL Lynchback – Mr. NastyA few years ago, George Lynch came to us and requested we build him his perfect speaker. The G12-50GL is it. Beautiful, saturated vintage rhythm tones together with a modern lead sound that befits a legendary Shredmaster.The G12 EVH – The Ultimate Brown SoundLast but certainly not least is the EVH signature speaker. Eddie Van Halen tried several Greenback variations and he chose this one. As Ed himself put it, “Since day one, the 20-watt Greenback has been a big part of my sound.”Each of these in the Shades of Greenback IR collection include five cabinet configurations: 1×12 (both open and closed back), 2×12 (both open and closed back) and 4×12 (closed back).The new Shades of Greenback Impulse Responses are available individually or as a complete set, representing a significant savings over purchasing the individual IRs. And if you already own any of the speaker responses included in the collection, you’ll also receive an additional discount to complete your Greenback collection!The new Shades of Greenback Collection joins the massive collection of Celestion Impulse Responses available for demo and download at CelestionPlus.

Amanda Rae Kopp promoted to Chief Product Officer at JKBXExec worked at Warner Music Group prior to JKBX
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EastWest update Spaces reverb plug-in The latest version of EastWest’s convolution reverb plug-in extends the plug-in’s feature set as well as introducing VST3 and Apple Silicon support.

Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wallStreaming has come a long way since its days as a pure music service for super fans. Spotify’s announcement that it is making 15 monthly audiobook hours available to premium subscribers is simply the latest step in a journey that has seen streaming become the 21st century’s take on radio. This has been achieved with the steady addition of non-music content (podcasts and audiobooks especially) and a growing emphasis on programmatic lean back consumption. As with all change, when it sits in an extended period of transformation, its immediate impact is often under-recognised. Audiobooks are the completely natural and logical progression for Spotify (and other DSPs), but they are also another waymarker in the journey away from being a pure play music service.

The pandemic was a catalyst for audiobook consumption. Audiobooks had been around for a long time already, with Audible leading the charge, but it was the sudden increase in non-allocated time that people found themselves with that triggered a coming of age for the format. Listening surged, including of podcasts, but as normal life slowly returned, audiobook consumption dipped again, though to a higher point than pre-pandemic levels. 

In many respects, Audible never really managed to push the format out of its niche foundations, with weekly active user (WAU) penetration still stuck at around 10% (Q1 23). DSPs though, represent the opportunity to mainstream the proposition – something that Deezer identified many years ago by becoming the first DSP to integrate audiobooks. Deezer was, however, probably a little too early, launching audiobooks when streaming was still almost entirely about music and still very lean-forward. Now, streaming is the soundtrack to our everyday lives. It is about filling the silence (or blocking out the noise) more than active listening. In this use case, spoken word audio is just as good a fit as music. In fact, it can often be a better fit. For example, getting lost in the narrative of an audiobook can make a daily commute fly by a lot quicker than simply listening to a playlist, in large part because it commands your attention.

Spot the important shift there? Audiobooks can turn passive listening into active listening in a way that music cannot so easily do. Music carved out hours for streaming by being passive, and now audiobooks and podcasts can colonise those hours with active consumption. The more active usage becomes, the more engaged a user is and the less likely they are to churn. Music did the hard yards; audio reaps the rewards.

Music rightsholders have long been concerned about audio eating into listening hours, less because of the cannibalisation of hours and more so because of the risk of DSPs using that as a basis for negotiating down the share of the subscription fee that gets paid to them. 15 hours of audiobooks may not sound like a lot but it represents close to 40% of the monthly music listening hours of the average subscriber. There is a good chance that there will be strong uptake, not least because over half of audiobook WAUs are also Spotify WAUs (which will probably give Audible pause for thought).

Of course, from Spotify’s perspective at least, the benefit of reducing music rightsholder fees simply to replace them with book publisher fees would be self-defeating. That is unless Spotify can secure the latter for less. But there is another crucial variable at play: original content. Back in 2020, when Spotify was hiring its head of audiobooks, the job description included the following: “Develop, pitch and oversee production of high-quality content”.  Just as with podcasts, audiobooks represent an opportunity for Spotify to develop original content and improve its margins.

Vicious Antelope Memory Keys 3 - Memorymode Memory Keys 3 contains 50 vintage keys for Cherry Audio Memorymode synthesizer plugin. All sounds are mainly inspired by the early and middle 80's film music and new age genre. ... Read More

How To Use Facebook Hashtags + Free Hashtag ToolWe all use hashtags to spread content on Twitter, but what role do they play on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, and how do you know which ones to use?. Continue reading
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‘Thinking Out Loud’ about the ‘Blurred Lines’ of U.S. Copyright Law [Wallace Collins]Entertainment lawyer Wallace Collins shares the overlapping impact of two major music copyright court decisions. “Current artists are effectively midgets standing on the shoulders of giants in order to reach. Continue reading
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QUICK HITS: BandLab • SoundExchange • Warner Music + HuManagement • Trevanna Tracks + Synchtank • Cyanite for InnovatorsBandLab is officially expanding its team. Kevin Breuner has joined as Head of Artist Development and Education, and Jessica Strassman as the Head of Industry Relations and Artist Services (Americas).. Continue reading
The post QUICK HITS: BandLab • SoundExchange • Warner Music + HuManagement • Trevanna Tracks + Synchtank • Cyanite for Innovators appeared first on Hypebot.

Emergence Audio Tenor Textures We are thrilled to present our groundbreaking new instrument - **Tenor Textures!** Dive into a world of ethereal and ambient vocal soundscapes, meticulously crafted to elevate your compositions... Read More

PlayFader is a colourful two-channel CV and gate performance looperPlayFader, a new two-channel CV performance looper built by Play All Day, was unveiled for the first time on Saturday at Machina Bristonica 2023, a popular synth exhibition in Bristol.

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Set to start shipping in 2024, PlayFader is a portable looper designed for real-time manipulation and looping of CV signals. It’s the first product set to be launched by the brand, which usually specialises in providing social music tech events, holidays and ‘sound walks’.
PlayFader’s colourful interface features eight colour-coded buttons and two sliders for a stripped-back, simplified operation. Each channel comes equipped with CV and Gate outputs, manipulated using the accompanying faders and buttons. The looper enables synchronised signal looping, accommodating unquantised gates and synced ratchets. It also offers a latch function for dynamic CV adjustments alongside ongoing gate patterns.
Credit: Andrew Hadjiantoni
The PlayFader offers customisation through user scales, including voltage ranges of 2, 3, 5, and 8 volts, with potential accelerometer integration in the future, says the brand. PlayFader boasts an array of connectivity options, such as CV/Gate outs and clock in/out via CV and MIDI.
The Latch feature lets you override the recorded CV in the buffer and generate a CV value based on the live Fader position while the gate pattern continues. This enables dynamic manipulation of CV signals, opening up cool creative options. Users can easily switch between the live Fader-generated CV and the previously recorded pattern by toggling Latch on and off.
The ability to loop sounds on the fly has always been a beneficial feature for performers of an electronic ilk. More tools today are providing more experimental features for loopers, however. Recently, musician and developer Jonatan Krogh launched Cantor, a free software tool described as a “complete self-contained Looping, Sampling and Sound design software”. It’s for musicians who “don’t like computers”, says Krogh.
Play All Day’s PlayFader will be available for pre-order for $420/£345/€399, with shipping beginning in early 2024. Find out more at goplayallday.com.
Sadly, Machina Bristronica has come to an end. However, keep an eye on machinabris.wpengine.com to find out information about next year’s edition.
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Wes Audio release Prometheus & Hyperion Eclipse Wes Audio have announced a limited edition version of their Prometheus and Hyperion 500-series EQ modules, along with a redesigned plug-in interface. 

Warm Audio goes bling with a limited gold version of the WA-8000 condenser microphoneWarm Audio has released a limited edition all-gold version of its best-selling WA-8000 large-diaphragm tube condenser microphone.

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As with the standard black model – which takes inspiration from the legendary Sony C-800G, the WA-8000G boasts a “natural and open top end, supremely clear midrange, and the ability to render brilliant detail”.
At its core, the mic is built using the same carefully selected, premium components, including Swedish-made Lundahl transformer, NOS (New Old Stock) 6AU6 tube, all-brass K67-style capsule, and custom-designed external tube mount and heat sink.
The WA-8000G also comes in a professional-level, hard carrying case to ensure safe transport of the microphone and accompanying components – wherever you record.
Image: Warm Audio
The limited-edition microphone will cost you $1299/£1199/€1399 and is now available for purchase while stocks last at authorised Warm Audio retailers.
In related news, Warm Audio recently launched the WA-14SP, a stereo pair package edition of its WA-14 microphone, available previously only as a standalone mic.
Per the brand, the WA-14 is modelled on AKG’s C414 EB, a now-rare large-diaphragm capacitor microphone launched in 1976, heralded as “the most truthful studio mic of all time”.
The mic costs $462 on its own, while the stereo pair package is priced at $749.
Here at MusicTech, we’ve broken down some of the best microphones for rappers and MCs, with the Warm Audio WA-8000 placing firmly on the list.
Learn more at Warm Audio.
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Yamaha SynthFest UK announcement Yamaha have released a statement regarding the products being showed at this year's SynthFest UK show.

Murlo’s desert island music tool? “A field recorder and a bunch of batteries”Music producer, illustrator and sculptor Murlo makes music in Manchester, but his mind was far from any human world we know when he produced his second album, Puckle.
Driven intensely by a fictional sci-fi narrative, tracks on this album sound at times like UK grime if it was created in an alien bunker in the early 3000s, rather than Jammer’s basement in the early 2000s. Murlo draws further from any conventions in UK club music, falling into four-by-four territories that are by no means straightforward, boasting eerie vocal phrases, otherworldly samples and distinctly ‘Murlo’ synth parts.

READ MORE: How to recreate Fred again..’s “Jungle” bass sound

In our chat with the artist – real name Chris Pell – we catch a lucky glimpse into the creative space of one of the most artistic producers out there right now. His space is full of strange home-made figurines, books on mythology and, not forgetting, a MIDI keyboard.
Puckle by Murlo
Hey, Murlo. You just came back from Korea. How was it?
Korea was great. I spend a lot of time visiting my partner who lives there. It’s become a second home for me, and I wrote half the music from my latest album there. I do find myself less distracted spending time in public spaces due to the language barrier; I can read Hangul, the Korean alphabet, but when it comes to speaking the language, I’ve got a long journey ahead of me.
In the UK, I find it a bit of a sensory overload to try and work in a cafe or public space, but as my Korean is very limited, I can tune out and find my thoughts a lot easier over there.
Tell us more about the rich narrative behind your second album, Puckle.
The world-building was a big part of the album, and the visual side of things, such as the sculptures, were an integral part of it. The story centred around a cult that lived in the forest on the outskirts of a city. They were enamoured by a god they discovered in the wells of an old bathhouse, which began changing their physical form, but it turns out it was actually a sentient AI that escaped from the city.
Murlo’s workstation. Image: Murlo
Does it add another layer to an album when you revolve it around a story and a world?
Yeah definitely. For me, it’s been a way of helping me push my music into directions away from these arbitrary rules I gave myself. Creating music for characters or moments from the story meant I wasn’t so hung up on the functionality of the music as it was much more expressive.
 Tell us a bit about the studio.
My studio is in my flat in Manchester. I once tried having a dedicated music studio in 2016 when I used to live in London, but I realised I couldn’t afford it and it didn’t really gel with how I work. I’ve tried to instead integrate a studio around my daily life. I live alone, which helps a lot in that respect as I’m able to fully surround myself with things that help me write.
Mini sculptures in Murlo’s studio. Image: Murlo
How do you use your studio?
Having a studio in my small flat has broken down the work/home life barrier. It’s not for everyone; I know people like to separate the two to have a healthy balance, but for me, they are now indistinguishable. I don’t view them as separate things. I actually find I’m most relaxed when I’m drawing or sculpting, so the idea that I would have a place away from home with all my gear would be detrimental to me.
What atmosphere do you try and create in the studio, and how does the studio environment help you with your creativity?
I like to be surrounded by things. I collect records, miniatures, books, and I like to have them at arm’s reach to my desk. Not only as references but also to help me give myself breaks to stare at when I hit a creative block.
Mini sculptures in Murlo’s studio. Image: Murlo
You’ve used vocals in an interesting way throughout this album…
From a purely musical point of view, I use voices like any other synth. I have a lot of layered sung chords mixed in with my other synths. From a narrative perspective, I used voices as a mark of the cult in the story, so they appear like chants or choral verses in the music.
Which DAW do you use?
Ableton Live. I’ve dabbled in other DAWs, but for how I work, I think Ableton is the best fit, and I’ve never really strayed from it. It’s great that you can choose to go a lot of different ways to achieve the same desired effect; it feels like a lot of musicians find their way of doing certain things in the program and it encourages people to experiment.
Mini sculptures and plants in Murlo’s studio. Image: Murlo
What is your favourite piece of gear and why?
I’m a very straightforward musician when it comes to hardware. Most of what I do relies on VSTs and software. The only physical kit I rely on is my Akai MPK225 controller. If I’m allowed to broaden the scope, I’d say my Wacom Cintiq tablet. For music production, I use it as a second monitor, but it’s absolutely integral to all the visual work I do alongside it.
What synth or effect can be heard the most on Puckle?
Some VSTs I used were Native Instruments’ Massive X, Pharlight, Straylight, and Errorsmith’s Razor, so a lot of Native Instruments stuff. For effects, I instantly go for Replika XT for any type of delay or reverb; it offers so much quickly. I also enjoyed using Output Portal a lot; it really helped me deconstruct melodies and drums when needed.
Books in Murlo’s studio. Image: Murlo
Your synth riffs are so precise and complex. It sounds almost like you’ve been trained in jazz piano.
Funnily enough, I’m not trained at all. I find chords I like, edit them, run them through arp VSTs like Xfer’s Cthulhu, and write melodies on top. It’s a fun process that helps me quickly develop ideas. After I’ve worked on something a bit further, I go back and look at the chords and do micro edits.
Early on, I used to be embarrassed, especially around people who studied music, but I know there are many people like me. I think all you need to do is train your ear and have personal taste in what you want to create.
What is your dream piece of gear?
I mentioned before that I never really use hardware, but I did once have the opportunity to write music on the Sequential Prophet 6 polysynth. It was incredible. That would be the one I get; I really enjoy working on sounds with sequencers, and I could play with it for hours.
Murlo’s sculpting table. Image: Murlo
If you were left on a desert island, what one item would you take with you to make music with forever?
A field recorder and a bunch of batteries. I cannot sing at all, but there are a bunch of things in nature I can make sounds from.
What is your top piece of production advice?
Don’t let a purist approach stifle your ideas. YouTube tutorials are an amazing source of information but can give the impression that there is a wrong way and a right way to do something. Experiment, and if it works, it works; you can worry about mixing and mastering once the idea is there.
Enter the world of Murlo by heading to his Bandcamp.
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Mastering The Mix’s Fuser helps clean up your mix and reduce frequency clashesEveryone has trouble producing a clean mix from time to time – especially in the low end. One useful way to create space in a mix is to dynamically duck a bass part when the kick plays, for example. Sidechain compression is one way to achieve this but arguably the most transparent way is to only duck the frequencies that are clashing, rather than the entire signal. But plugins using this technique often take a broad approach – Mastering The Mix’s Fuser lets you dial in exactly where you want to clean up your audio.

READ MORE: iZotope Ozone 11 is an unparalleled audio processing suite with future-proof features

To use Fuser, put an instance on the track you’d like to make space in (such as a bass bus), and then feed the sound that you want more prominent (like a kick drum) into the sidechain input. After a few seconds of listening, the spectrogram in the centre will show any frequency collisions, with red areas indicating clashes in the mid-channel, and yellow in the side channel. You can then hit a Resolve Conflicts button, and Fuser will add one or more parametric bands that focus the processing where it’s needed.
At its most basic, this is all that’s required to make a noticeable improvement to the audio without overdoing the processing – but you can go deeper and tweak things to refine the results. You can have up to ten bands, each with controls for quality (Q), attack and release, and where it’s placed between the mid and side channels. You simply pull a band down further to increase the amount of ducking, which is then clearly shown via a reduction curve on the spectrogram. There’s also a mix dial to help quickly pull back on the processing and a useful Delta function that lets you listen to just the clashing frequencies.
Mastering The Mix Fuser main GUI. Image: Mastering The Mix
To get the best results, MTM suggests you do a little gain staging work first. As plugins can’t detect DAW volume fader levels, there’s a feature called Gain Stage Fix, which lets you input an offset for the input and sidechain channels, in case they’re not set at 0dB. There’s also a Level Match Pointer, which moves up and down around the Input level dial, offering a suggestion to help volume-match the two signals. You could choose to ignore it, but it’s possible that the mix collision issue might be improved by having the two tracks sounding more balanced.
The obvious way to test Fuser’s effectiveness is to compare it to other spectral ducking plugins. We place instances of Fuser, Wavesfactory TrackSpacer, and iZotope’s Neutron 4 Unmask plugin on a bus with lots of mid-range music content, and then set each sidechain to receive a vocal. All three capably carve out space to let the vocal shine, but when pushed a little harder, you can start to hear that Fuser has cleaner-sounding filters. Both Neutron and TrackSpacer can sound a little phase-y when you increase the amount of ducking. This is less true of Fuser, especially if you go into the settings and switch the filters from zero latency to linear phase FIR mode. Of course, this will increase your CPU load and latency – and linear phase isn’t always the best option for transient material – but as you’ll potentially be affecting an entire bus, it’s nice to know you can easily increase the sound quality.
Fuser has an interesting feature called Automatic Phase Rotation. At the click of a button, the plugin will listen to your two sources and rotate the track audio phase to find the closest fit. This is a much more nuanced approach than simply flipping the phase 180 degrees, and although it doesn’t have such a noticeable effect on higher frequency content, it’s incredibly useful and effective at increasing punch on kicks, basses and tracks with low-end.
Mastering The Mix Fuser Phase Rotate. Image: Mastering The Mix
Alternatively, you can switch Fuser into Phase Match mode to massage the sound into an exact match of the phase shape at different frequencies. This one is a bit more hit-and-miss, but it’s nice to have the option, and it can double up as a fantastic sound design tool.
Tucked away in the graph above, you also get low-cut and high-cut sliders that let you focus on the region where the phase tool is working.
To fully put the Phase Rotate function through its paces, we load up a mix project that has a ridiculous number of kick drum tracks. In normal circumstances, it would take a lot of work to get these to sit well together and we would likely end up scrapping some of the layers. However, after selecting a single kick as the sidechain input and then using the Phase Rotate (and a small amount of Phase Match), we are able to get a large-sounding and surprisingly usable kick sound.
Our minor gripe with Fuster is that the minimum attack speed for the ducking is 1ms and there’s no lookahead. This means you may find small transients slip through when working on certain percussive sounds. To be fair, it’s unlikely you’ll be using Fuser to duck in this extreme way; it works best when used subtly.
Ultimately, Fuser does what several other plugins already do, but it does it with more finesse and accuracy. TrackSpacer is five years old now, but is still an effective plugin that gets the job done quickly. If you feel like you’d like a little more control though, then Fuser is another step up that lets you hone your ducking with more precision. It also has the excellent Phase Rotate function which is a must-have for anyone who likes to layer drum sounds.
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