Imaginando unveils VS 2 – the next generation of its popular visual synthesizerPortuguese music tech brand Imaginando has unveiled VS 2, the next generation of its popular visual synthesizer, with a host of new features derived from user feedback, including a redesigned interface, new creative tools and improved performance.
Heading up the new changes for VS 2 is a redesigned and streamlined user interface inspired by media editing workflows. It now features a consolidated Layer Properties panel, more intuitive controls, and a clearer overview of all active elements.

READ MORE: Rudimental: ‘Learn one thing and learn it well – I would rather be good at one or two plug-ins than okay at 50’

Users can also now create preset playlists with “individually assigned playback times, enabling automatic timed playback”.
There’s also new Audio Visualisers and an Oscilloscope, with Shaders now being able to receive audio waveform and spectrum data, “enabling detailed sound-reactive visuals”.
Additionally, VS 2 now features support for Syphon, Spout and live camera feeds for seamless integration with other media tools. Users can also insert customisable text elements, and route visual output back into layers for “recursive” effects, fractals, and other unique motion trails.
Other features include improved MIDI mapping, as well as a Media Manager for easily tracking, relinking and organising media assets.
Fundamentally, the soft synth is loaded with eight polyphonic visual layers with blend modes – with four voices per layer – multiple layer sources, four multi-shape LFOs with sync and MIDI trigger options, two MIDI-triggered envelope generators, four audio-triggered modulators with peak and frequency band modes, a Modulation Matrix per layer and loads more.

VS 2 is available now for Windows and macOS, with all existing VS expansion packs fully compatible and importable from the previous VS.
In terms of pricing, VS 2 will set you back €129, while the upgrade price for existing VS owners is just €49. That said, until 31 December, 2025, Imaginando is hosting a special launch offering, where each of these prices is reduced to €99 and €39, respectively.
For more information, head to Imaginando.
The post Imaginando unveils VS 2 – the next generation of its popular visual synthesizer appeared first on MusicTech.

“No more saving credits for ‘important’ moments”: Get unlimited mastering credits with Waves Online Mastering PROBack in 2023, Waves launched its AI-powered Online Mastering platform, which uses advanced machine learning to deliver quick and easy professional audio masters. But like many mastering platforms, users were limited to a set number of mastering credits before having to purchase more.
Now, the brand has added a new PRO tier to its Online Mastering platform, offering users unlimited master credits – meaning as many professional-sounding masters as one might desire.

READ MORE: Bots are flooding Deezer: Nearly a third of music uploaded daily is fully AI-generated, platform reveals

“With the new PRO option, you’ll never have to think about credits again,” says Waves. “Master any track, any time – whether it’s a quick demo, a mix-in-progress check, or a final release.
“No more saving credits for ‘important’ moments. Master your music with professional results – every track, every version, every idea – with nothing holding you back.”
PRO is now one of two plans on Waves Online Mastering, the other being Standard, which offers 36 mastering credits per year.
In terms of pricing, PRO comes in at $169.99 per year – again, for unlimited masters – while the Standard plan is priced at $71.64 per year.
Of course, Waves does offer the option to purchase mastering credits as a one-time purchase, with one credit at $3.99, five credits at $17.45 and 15 at $44.85. If you’re a producer after frequent masters, however, the PRO plan is by far the best value for money.
You can also get a taste of what Waves Online Mastering is capable of using its free 30-second preview feature on any of your tracks.
Learn more about the new Online Mastering PRO tier at Waves.
The post “No more saving credits for ‘important’ moments”: Get unlimited mastering credits with Waves Online Mastering PRO appeared first on MusicTech.

EHX release Pico Swello Attack Envelope Electro-Harmonix have introduced the Pico Swello Attack Envelope, a compact pedal inspired by the popular POG2 Attack slider.

Analogy Instruments releases FREE Mothership Lite sample-based virtual instrument
Analogy Instruments has released Mothership Lite, a free sample-based virtual instrument plugin for macOS and Windows. Based on the same concept as their earlier release, AnaMatrix Lite, this new instrument offers a taste of the full Mothership plugin. Both instruments are built on a collection of multi-samples captured from hardware synths. Like its predecessor, Mothership [...]
View post: Analogy Instruments releases FREE Mothership Lite sample-based virtual instrument

Rudimental: ‘Learn one thing and learn it well – I would rather be good at one or two plug-ins than okay at 50’It’s a big weekend for Rudimental when MusicTech catches up with Piers Aggett, one-third of the world-renowned drum and bass group. The trio — completed by Kesi Dryden and Leon ‘Locksmith’ Rolle — have just dropped their fifth album, RUDIM3NTAL, and played a smashing set at Reading and Leeds festival. The sense of occasion — more than a decade into their career — is not lost on Aggett.
“It’s been the most amazing rollercoaster,” Aggett says. “We’ve been living our dreams for 13 years, but even before that, Rudimental was going for 10 years,” he recalls of the band officially starting around 2006, decades after the three met in preschool. “There’s that whole graft before you make it, and then there’s the graft when you make it.”

READ MORE: “High-end studios are not places I feel comfortable making music”: Why Omar+ is still making hits from his bedroom

While many of the dance and electronic acts that broke out in the 2010s have since disbanded or faded away, Rudimental are still scoring huge hits. Their rave anthem Dancing Is Healing reached the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart last year, and the Skepsis-assisted Green & Gold became the second most-streamed d’n’b tune on Spotify in 2024. This summer, they played Boomtown, and Pukkelpop in Belgium, two of Aggett’s favourite festival shows to date. The trio’s decision to return to the sound they grew up on and first started out creating, then, was perfectly timed yet completely natural.
“We grew up around the corner from Kool FM and my dad was a big junglist, so I was brought up on a lot of those tunes,” Aggett says of his pirate-radio-immersed childhood in Hackney. “My dad and his raving friend, who was like an auntie to me, would almost try and force jungle on me,” Aggett recalls of his teenage years. “I was into it, but I wasn’t as into it as them,” he admits, having also been into grime and garage. This changed, however, as he grew older and began attending jungle raves with Rolle and Dryden.
Even more impactful was taking on an “incredible” collection of jungle vinyls from his aforementioned ‘auntie’ around a decade ago. “She was a collector rather than a DJ, so they were all untouched,” Aggett enthuses, having driven to Scotland to pick them up when he was 29 years old. “Ever since I inherited her records, I’ve always wanted to do a d’n’b/jungle album,” he says.
Image: Press
Fast forward to the 2020s and d’n’b is more popular than ever. Not only has it experienced a massive resurgence, but Rudimental has also played a huge part in its second coming. “The rave culture for d’n’b is so strong and always has been,” Aggett says of the renaissance, “but I really do think it’s the dads of the 90s who play it to their kids at home.
“It’s all passed on, and that’s what I love about drum and bass,” he considers. “While it’s always been a healthy scene, I do feel like it’s most vibrant right now,” he says of youngsters (re)discovering d’n’b via social media and new producers coming through all the time. “It’s never going to die. Like all good genres, they just keep going.”
All this has fed into the changing nature of the group’s live setup, which they stripped back from a full band to a visual-heavy DJ show last year. “It just costs too much to fly people around the world,” Aggett says candidly. “When you fly a 20-strong crew to Australia, it does half your take-home figure.”
Though financial implications have played a part, Aggett felt as though they had exhausted all options: “We’ve done the live show in every format, at every festival, and, creatively, we needed to have a break from that and make this d’n’b album, so it made sense to keep it as a DJ set.” That’s not to say they’ve skimped on the production element, though: “We really got quite tech-y,” he says of the screen-synced vocals that are triggered for specific songs within the mix. “It’s been really fun and I’m very proud of it.”
Image: Press
Similar to their behind-the-decks pivot, the idea of making a genre-specific album was also refreshingly new for Rudimental. Having always hopped between sounds within their records, deciding to stick to just d’n’b led them to return to the mindset they had when making their 2013 debut Home. “We’re well-known for our soulful drum’n’bass hits and we wanted to go back to the roots of that first album, but doing it the 2025 way,” Aggett explains. With this in mind, the trio “went back to the drawing board and made songs — and then added the drum’n’bass afterwards”.
Alongside working together in Major Tom’s — the band’s Hoxton recording studio since their inception — they “tried different things”, like recording in old school studios with vintage pianos, as they did on the first album. “It’s been fun to go back to that sound,” Aggett says, adding that experiencing different approaches to writing sessions (particularly with songwriter and vocalist Mike Needle) was eye-opening. “In the middle of the monitor in his studio, there’s a massive projector screen and we’d all be writing the song together, looking at the words as they appear.” This, he says, was a “really fun way to write a song because it keeps you all engaged rather than being on the phone and using it as a notepad.”
When he wasn’t in rooms with others, Aggett would work on tracks in his garden studio. Built several years ago with the idea of being more productive while staying at home due to having a family, the school hours enabled him to get things done. “I’ve got a code, so if I really want to lock myself in, then I can,” he laughs, before giving MusicTech a virtual tour of the gear-packed space.
“There are various toys — some of them I use a lot, some of them I rarely use, some need to go on eBay,” he concedes. Going on to highlight some of his treasured equipment (variations of which also feature in the band’s own studio), Aggett says the Minimoog Voyager is his “favourite synth by a country mile. It’s got some wacky bass sounds and, instead of going on Splice, you can make a better riser on it. The filter, he adds, is “really simple and not too tech-y” and the patches are “really easy to manipulate and sound like they are from outer space, hence the name.”
Image: Press
When it came to adding the varying styles of d’n’b production to this album, Aggett learned Serum “properly; I tweaked the presets, the LFO and got stuck into it a bit more”, he says, describing the self-education as “quite enlightening”. While he’s not sure if it’ll be Serum for the next album, he followed the advice that he would offer aspiring producers: “learn one thing and learn it well, because I would rather be good at one or two plug-ins than okay at 50.”
Unlike many artists, Aggett and co are bucking the trend by not using artificial intelligence during their creative process. “In some ways, we’ve been using AI for a long time, but if people feel like they need to use it to make music, that’s cool.” Aggett is “not anti-AI”, per se. He’s “just a bit old school. I love vinyl and can’t imagine making music outside of getting the instruments out and jamming.” He continues: “I don’t think I’m going to be in the studio with some AI chord progression generator, not because I’m not open to it, it’s just not my thing.”
Nonetheless, Aggett appreciates it’s here to stay. “With AI, you’ve got to go with it.” He’s confident, though that “as humans, we’ll just smell a rat”; the cancellation of AI-generated rapper FN Meka in 2022 is his music-based example. “We’ve still got to maintain our humanity and decide whether something is even worth listening to or not,” he considers.
“Some of the stuff AI will create will be awful, but you never know. If someone can make the most incredible song with that and it makes me feel good, I don’t give a fuck whether it’s AI or not. Music is subjective, at the end of the day.” He ponders: “It might even create a whole new genre”.

As has been the case with all their albums, RUDIM3NTAL is stacked with guests. Velvet-voiced Texan superstar Khalid brings real emotion to the stunning All I Know, while Rag’n’Bone Man’s unmistakable baritone drives the poignant Nights Like These into anthem territory. The sessions for the latter were particularly memorable, Aggett says. “It took several days and a number of ideas… and then eventually there was a piano moment with Rag’n’Bone Man and we thought ‘wow, that’s amazing’. Those chords didn’t even make the final song, but it then progressed into the hook while we were jamming.”
Getting Jess Glynne (who sang on Rudimental’s 2018 megahit These Days) to feature on Back To Me was a no-brainer: “she’s a friend and we’ve all stayed in touch, so it was easy getting her back in”. While Back To Me was “the one that really popped for this album”, Aggett teases that, having made “a few great tunes”, another song from those sessions might come out in 2026. “She’s got a great voice and really soulful tone. I really enjoy working with her.”
The trio have once again provided a stepping stone for the next generation, too. “There are some great pop singers, songwriters and young d’n’b producers who come through the studio,” Aggett says, adding that the “up-and-comers are always very important to us – that was the whole thing with the first album, there were a bunch of them.”
While 2012 chart-topper Feel the Love made then-unknown vocalist John Newman a household name, this time round there’s Liv Campbell (Thank You), Charlotte Plank (who Rudimental wrote top-10 hit Dancing Is Healing with) and rapper Peter Xan (“we love him so much that we flew him to Los Angeles”) who features on the protest-inspired track London Burning; “he’s good at making serious subjects like riots seem fun”, Aggett says of the track which also boasts a rapid-fire verse from Idris Elba.

As for the future, Rudimental are already busy working on what will follow RUDIM3NTAL. “Creatively and mentally, we’ve moved on from this album already,” Aggett teases, adding that they finished working on the record in 2024. “Being on a major label, things don’t move as quickly as you want them to — no disrespect, but that’s the way it is.”
While he says, “It’s nice to live in the moment of these songs for a bit, we are already planning the next album”. Teasing that “it’s probably one or two tracks from being finished”, Aggett is keen to drop something as early as possible in 2026. As for what it might sound like, he hints, they “really enjoyed exploring all the different types of d’n’b, but we might play around with some genres for the next record.
“… I just feel happy and grateful to still be here,” Aggett concludes. “It’s amazing that we’re still doing albums and having a connection with our fans.”
RUDIM3NTAL is out now
The post Rudimental: ‘Learn one thing and learn it well – I would rather be good at one or two plug-ins than okay at 50’ appeared first on MusicTech.

Roland introduce Aerophone Brisa Roland have expanded the Aerophone family with the launch of the Aerophone Brisa, a new flute-style digital wind instrument.

Nothing Headphone (1) review: Not bad, but definitely quirky£299, nothing.tech
London-based Nothing has made a name for itself with its distinctive Nothing Phone, aimed at people who want something a little different to what the tech giants offer. Headphone (1) is the company’s first full-sized headphone model, following on from its range of earbuds, and it enters into a crowded marketplace of around-£300 models offering a bunch of tech on top of hi-fi sound.
But are the Nothing headphones just about looks, or is there serious sound packed into these cassette-shaped cans?

READ MORE: RØDE’s NTH-50 headphones are $100, but sound like twice the price

The headphones come in black or white, with the white model more clearly emphasising the use of transparent casing and design touches that have a retrofuture feel. Build quality is impressive and blends plastic, aluminium and soft leather pads which sit comfortably over your ears but do not appear to be user-replaceable. At 330g the headphones are solid enough to feel like a premium product yet still light enough not to feel like they are weighing you down.
The battery life is excellent, with a two-hour full charge giving 80 hours with noise cancelling off and 35 with it on, and 54 / 30 hours respectively when streaming using the higher resolution LDAC as opposed to the standard AAC Bluetooth codec. A five-minute fast charge produces 2.4 / 5 hours of playback, depending on ANC. These numbers, which I find to be accurate, mean you’ll not need to worry about recharging even on particularly long journeys. For comparison, Apple’s ageing AirPods Max only manage 20 hours, the Sonos Ace 30 and Sony’s latest around 32, all with ANC on.
Image: Press
The headphones pair easily with up to two devices – the pairing button is somewhat hidden – and Nothing has opted for physical controls rather than the touch-based tactile controls many other manufacturers choose. This is simply a different approach, and there’s nothing wrong with touch except its occasional inaccuracy, but here the controls are a breath of fresh air. Configurable in the app – more on this momentarily – they all live on a single cup and quickly become familiar with use.
First up is the Roller, which works as a combo control. Pressing it and press-and-hold can be assigned to playback and cycling ANC and transparency modes, while rolling it works as a volume control. Then there’s the Paddle, which can skip tracks and answer calls, while press-and-hold here is fast forward and rewind, which you don’t always get as physical options. Then there’s the Button (Nothing keeps the names simple), which triggers your voice assistant and, if you have a Nothing Phone, can cycle through recent audio apps or favourites.
The audio side of the headphones has been developed with hi-fi specialists KEF, and there’s honestly a lot going on here in terms of customisation and playback. You’ll want to get a pretty tight seal of the cups around your ears for optimum playback – not uncomfortably so, but with cancelling on, the mics analyse both inside and outside the cups and adjust continually. Initially, wearing them quite loosely, I find the sound fluctuates in character a little, but this is solved by achieving a snug fit.
The 40mm dynamic drivers have a frequency response of 20 Hz – 40 kHz, topping out far higher than the human ear. We find quite a variation in the sound depending on how we configure the headphones in the app, which provides a bunch of tweaking and tuning options. Listening with active noise cancelling switched on, at any of its levels, provides a well-rounded soundstage with a pleasing balance of low, mid and high frequencies and solid separation. Switching ANC off, however, drops a significant amount of the bottom end out, sounding somewhat thinner.
EQ. Image: MusicTech
Switching on the Bass Enhance control at about 2 or 3 out of five stops returns the richness to the sound. Then there’s also a comprehensive EQ stage you can use to further shape the signal; an eight-band parametric system in which you can save presets, a ‘simple’ option with several presets, or a custom mode where you can draw in your own EQ shape. Combining the ‘wrong’ settings, say full ANC plus bass boost, gives incredibly boomy results, but finding a combo that works best for you shouldn’t take too long.
Headphone (1) also offers wired listening modes, more rarely encountered on wireless headphones but extremely welcome. In addition to a 3.5mm analogue connection, uncompressed digital USB-C is listening, with both cables supplied in the box. The hierarchy here works as you’d expect, with LDAC wireless offering a small but noticeable uptick in sharpness and detail over the standard AAC, then analogue and USB-C a little more again. These aren’t huge leaps but are definitely noticeable, plus wired modes also offer more volume when pushed right to the maximum.
The aforementioned noise cancelling, powered by a total of six microphones, while not quite up there with Sony’s latest, is still impressive, especially on its highest setting and transparency mode feeds the outside world into the cups for better awareness. Making calls works well, and there’s IP52 waterproofing too, which means the odd splash is OK, though anything more is not.
Settings. Image: Press
A couple of other features are worth mentioning, including fast pair for Google and Microsoft, wear detection and low latency mode for movies and gaming, which does seem to speed things up slightly. There’s spatial audio too, which converts stereo signals into a 3D soundstage. This always sounds odd with music, but it’s more useful with movies or games. The headphones also allow dynamic head tracking, which can keep the soundstage centred as you move your head or have it follow you as you move. Again, this is a nice option to have for games or films, but probably not so much with regular music tracks. All this stuff is switched off by default, so you’re free to ignore it if you prefer.
Headphone (1) is an intriguing product. It looks and feels great, has excellent battery life, friendly physical controls and a solid and engaging sound, even if you might have to find the particular setup and combination of settings that suits you personally. Sony’s WH-1000XM6 headphones cost £100 more and don’t have USB-C listening, though they are a little more comfortable, and their sound goes that extra mile in terms of richness and fidelity. Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e are available for £200 and are well regarded, though they lack a wired option, and battery life is a little shorter at 30 hours.
Nothing needs to introduce a little more consistency to the sound, which is possible via software updates. You can get to a really pleasing, rich and balanced playback, but it involves finding the right balance of cancelling, EQ and possibly bass enhancement.
The app is well-designed, though, and battery life, ANC and build are all up to scratch. Having multiple wired and wireless modes is a great bonus and makes them super flexible, while the £299 asking price seems reasonable considering the competition. I’d love to see a little repairability introduced, however.
While it may not quite scale the sonic heights of pricier cans, Headphone (1) is a solid all-rounder with some standout features and a unique design.

Key features

Over-ear wireless/wired headphones
Bluetooth AAC or LDAC codecs, 3.5mm and USB-C digital wired modes
40mm drivers
20 Hz – 40 kHz frequency response
Up to 80 hours of battery life (35 hours with ANC turned on)
Powerful multi-mode EQ
Physical on-body controls
Wear detection, spatial audio and head tracking
6 mics for calls and ANC
Nothing X companion app
IP52 weather proofing
Carrying case

The post Nothing Headphone (1) review: Not bad, but definitely quirky appeared first on MusicTech.

Colin Hay Discusses Men at Work, His Solo Career, and the Music Biz [Part Two]Here's part two of AllMusic's conversation with Colin Hay around the release of his latest solo release, Man @ Work: Volume 2, which like its successful predecessor, contains "re-imagined favorites from across Hay's rich catalog, including Men at Work classics, solo album highlights, and new material."

Jamie Muhoberac relies on Novation Summit for touring work with My Chemical Romance and John MayerKeyboardist Jamie Muhoberac performing live with his Novation Summit. Photo credit: @thomasfalconeAccording to news that emerged on Monday, "renowned session and touring keyboardist Jamie Muhoberac has made the Novation Summit a central part of his live performance rig, bringing its powerful synthesis and sound design capabilities to arena stages with both My Chemical Romance and John Mayer. The Summit is a 16-voice synth that fuses analog warmth with digital flexibility, powered by Novation’s powerful Oxford Oscillators.""With a career spanning more than 1,000 album credits and collaborations with icons from Seal and The Rolling Stones to Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, Dave Matthews Band and Tim McGraw, Muhoberac is widely regarded as one of the most versatile keyboardists of his generation. On recent tours, he turned to the Novation Summit to help shape the sonic energy of two very different live productions: the theatrical, guitar-driven wall of sound of My Chemical Romance, and the expansive, textural atmospheres of John Mayer’s band.""For My Chemical Romance, Muhoberac uses his Novation Summits throughout the show, creating massive, distorted unison tones that double guitars, drive choruses, and fill the sonic space with industrial textures during transitions," a statement reads. “With MCR, I’m often finding ways to glue the guitars together or make the loudest moments even louder,” says Muhoberac. “The Summit’s unison sounds with distortion have incredible weight, exactly what’s needed to push the dynamics over the top in a band that’s already very loud.”“John’s music called for rich, evolving pads, sounds that move and breathe in the background without calling attention to themselves,” he explains. “The Summit gave me that space to create textures that were reminiscent of Richard Wright’s work with Pink Floyd, adding depth while letting the songs remain centered on John’s voice and guitar.”“It’s an instrument with endless creative headroom,” he notes. “If I think of a sound, I can get there quickly, and usually discover something new along the way. That’s why I plan to always keep at least a couple of Summits in my setup.”“The Summit is the rare instrument that feels limitless,” stated Muhoberac. “No matter how many shows I play or sounds I design, it always gives me new possibilities. It’s the kind of synthesizer I trust to inspire me every night on stage.”The post Jamie Muhoberac relies on Novation Summit for touring work with My Chemical Romance and John Mayer first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

SEC, Gemini Trust reach agreement over crypto lending disputeAlmost three years after the SEC filed a complaint involving allegations with the Gemini Earn product, the crypto company and regulator said they had reached a potential deal.

Rodatherm Energy wants to make geothermal more efficient, but will it be cheaper?Rodatherm Energy emerged from stealth with $38 million in Series A funding. It plans to build a closed-loop geothermal power plant that uses refrigerants to move heat to the surface.

Jody Gerson appointed to Board of Directors at retail giant Gap Inc."I’m honored to join Gap Inc.’s Board of Directors and excited to bring my perspective and experience in the creative industries to the table," said Gerson.
Source

Hosting a Website on a Disposable VapeFor the past years people have been collecting disposable vapes primarily for their lithium-ion batteries, but as these disposable vapes have begun to incorporate more elaborate electronics, these too have become an interesting target for reusability. To prove the point of how capable these electronics have become, [BogdanTheGeek] decided to turn one of these vapes into a webserver, appropriately called the vapeserver.
While tearing apart some of the fancier adult pacifiers, [Bogdan] discovered that a number of them feature Puya MCUs, which is a name that some of our esteemed readers may recognize from ‘cheapest MCU’ articles. The target vape has a Puya PY32F002B MCU, which comes with a Cortex-M0+ core at 24 MHz, 3 kB SRAM and 24 kB of Flash. All of which now counts as ‘disposable’ in 2025, it would appear.
Even with a fairly perky MCU, running a webserver with these specs would seem to be a fool’s errand. Getting around the limited hardware involved using the uIP TCP/IP stack, and using SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol), along with semihosting to create a serial device that the OS can use like one would a modem and create a visible IP address with the webserver.
The URL to the vapeserver is contained in the article and on the GitHub project page, but out of respect for not melting it down with an unintended DDoS, it isn’t linked here. You are of course totally free to replicate the effort on a disposable adult pacifier of your choice, or other compatible MCU.

HoRNet Audio HA2A LA-2A-Style Opto Compressor is FREE for 48 hours only!
HoRNet Audio offers the HA2A hardware-inspired opto compressor plugin for macOS and Windows at no cost for a limited time. At the time of writing, there are exactly 48 hours left to claim the plugin for free. HA2A is HoRNet’s take on the legendary LA-2A compressor, and it arrives not long after Universal Audio’s limited-time [...]
View post: HoRNet Audio HA2A LA-2A-Style Opto Compressor is FREE for 48 hours only!

Should you upgrade to macOS Tahoe 26 if you’re a music producer, artist or DJ? Probably not — here’s whyApple has just released a major new version of its Mac operating system, macOS Tahoe 26. And no, you haven’t missed a version – the company is bringing all its operating systems under a new naming convention – hence, “26”. While many producers will be keen to explore its new features, there are important reasons why you shouldn’t update your music Mac just yet. But why, and what’s your best course of action when you do actually perform the update?
Don’t panic. Your Mac won’t automatically install a major new system update without your express permission, even if you have automatic updates switched on. It might download the installer automatically, but it won’t run it. You can check these settings on your Mac in System Settings > Software Update > Automatic Updates.
A new system update houses thousands of changes beyond the major ones you can see. Although Apple tests its OS extensively, the many combinations of software people tend to complicate things.
Apple Music on MacOS Tahoe 26. Image: Apple
For producers, there are lots of possible ways this can happen; there’s your DAW, your plugins, sound libraries, audio interface drivers, MIDI hardware drivers and more. Any one of these going on the fritz will likely make your music rig function sub-optimally or even break altogether. It could be something as simple as application windows not rendering properly because of changes to the graphics system, but it’ll still stop you.
Your first steps should be to check the websites for your products to see the official word on compatibility with Tahoe. If there’s no information, assume that problems are likely. Identify which are vital — your DAW, audio interface, key plug-ins — and wait until you’re sure all have been made compatible before upgrading your Mac. There may be a few plugins that take longer to be updated that you can live without for a while, uninstalling and then reinstalling them later.
The safest bet is to wait a while, even if your software is supported. Sometimes, there can be bugs on Apple’s side that don’t become apparent until the new OS has been out in the wild for a month or two. Some people wait until the first major x.1 release, which often irons out a lot of these kinds of bugs. Quick fixes tend to be released as x.0.1 numbered updates.
We recommend you back up your Mac regularly using Time Machine or a similar system, especially before a macOS upgrade, even a full backup to a new drive if possible. You would then be able to roll back to this working system in the event of problems with the update. Power users sometimes prefer a clean install of a new system and then re-importing their data, though this may be a more complex process. Truthfully, Apple’s update process is pretty slick these days, so the risks are low.
macOS 26 is supported on every Mac with Apple Silicon (an M-series chip) plus a couple of the very last models of Intel Mac, though it will be the last version that supports Intel, and in the not-too-distant future, new versions of DAWs and plugins on macOS will likely stop supporting Intel too.
Liquid Glass on MacOS Tahoe 26. Image: Apple
When you do update, you’ll get the new Liquid Glass theme, common across all the new systems, upgraded Apple Intelligence with live translation (Apple Silicon only), enhanced Spotlight functionality and many smaller changes.
You’ll notice there’s nothing specifically audio-related that’s new, which is another reason to hold off for a while — there’s no killer feature for musicians you’ll be missing.
The new AI features, the new look and myriad smaller tweaks are certainly nice to have and, in time, might improve your workflow. A music Mac, however, is a finely balanced thing; if your system is working well under macOS 15 Sequoia, there’s no reason to rush into upgrading to Tahoe and possibly causing yourself unnecessary problems. The update will still be available in a month or two, and most developers will have had time to deal with any issues.
If you do decide to update and find a few unique bugs with certain software, we’d recommend letting the developer know so they can inform other users. You might just be saving a fellow producer’s magnum opus from corruption!
Check out all the new features of macOS Tahoe 26 at Apple
The post Should you upgrade to macOS Tahoe 26 if you’re a music producer, artist or DJ? Probably not — here’s why appeared first on MusicTech.