What is it?

Berlin-based manufacturer HEDD Audio is well known for its quality studio monitors, so the move into premium headphones with their original AMT driver HEDDphone came as no surprise. This was followed by the D1, a more affordable and more traditional driver based design. However, they have now added a new studio headphone design - HEDDphone Two - that aims to improve on the original HEDDphone.

Designed primarily for audio professionals, and with a price tag to match, the new model features a redesigned AMT (Air Motion Transformer) driver with VVT (Variable Velocity Transformation). This delivers excellent frequency extension (10Hz to 40kHz) and transient handling, and is also lighter than the original. Weight has been reduced using materials such as carbon fibre and magnesium, and the overall headphone weight comes in at roughly 75% of the original HEDDphone.

The headband design is also new, incorporating an adjustable strap system and padded headband. This and the newly-designed earpads both feature a faux leather finish for better comfort. Meanwhile the earcup mechanical attachment provides much better rotational flexibility.

The standard HEDDphone Two package includes a zip up hard shell case and a spare pair of earpads. There are also two 2.2m Y style cables - a regular cable with 6.35mm plug and a balanced cable with 4.4mm plug. Two corresponding adapters (3.5mm and XLR) support further connectivity. It’s worth noting HEDDphone Two is also available as a cable-free ‘Unplugged’ option, which at $1,699/£1,222 reduces the price considerably.

Performance

At this price point presentation is important and if you opt for the Standard package, HEDDphone Two arrives in a black desktop style storage cube comprising two slide-in boxes - one for the headphones and one for the accessories. This may seem a little over the top, but the latter does provide a suitable storage option for the rather fancy Kevlar infused braided cables and adapters. You’ll find the hard shell case can also accommodate one cable in its interior pocket.

As you may have deduced, HEDDphone Two uses detachable cables, and these follow a standard split design, connecting independently to each earcup. The included cables are clearly labelled, as are the earcups, so connecting up is self explanatory. Meanwhile, the plug connectors on the bottom of the earcups are angled forward, so orientating the headphones correctly when you put them on is straightforward.

HEDDphone Two is not a slimline design and at 550g not lightweight. However, the padded headband design, soft earpads and flexible earcup orientation make it an incredibly comfortable fit. You can also make some adjustment to the headband, although the unclipping process is somewhat fiddly.

HEDDphone Two is an open back design and undoubtedly one of the most open back headphones I’ve tested. What this means in the first instance is there’s very limited passive isolation from your surroundings. It also means that if you put your hands on the outside grilles of the earcups it influences the sound, and also that anyone nearby can hear the headphones pretty clearly. This last point is worth considering if you’re thinking of using them for recording in a microphone rather than DI’d scenario. The flipside of this is that the open back design contributes to a very comfortable and natural listening experience.

Sonically, HEDDphone Two is designed for critical listening and that’s exactly what it delivers. There’s no hyped low end, and the highs are crisp and detailed without sounding overly harsh at higher listening levels. The biggest win is in the mid-range which is easy to interpret, particularly with more complex or dense sounds such as electric guitars.

Collectively the design also delivers excellent stereo imaging. In essence HEDDphone Two is perfect for critical listening and is a fantastic audio tool, but is also a really enjoyable listen.

Verdict

HEDDphone Two offers improvements over its predecessor and noticeably better comfort, yet remains a task focused design that’s best suited to mixing, mastering and critical listening. It’s an expensive headphone, but in return you get balanced sonics, precise imaging, great dynamics and a wonderful listening experience.

Also try

Specification

• Design: Open back over-ear
• Driver: Air Motion Transformer with VVT technology and Kapton polyimide diaphragm
• Impedance: 41 Ohm
• Frequency response: 10Hz to 40kHz
• Power: Min 200mW, recommended ≥1000mW
• Maximum SPL: 89dB at 1mW
• Pads: Faux leather ear pads and head cushion
• Cables: Two Kevlar-infused braided detachable cables - one with 6.35mm jack and one balanced with 4.4mm jack. Two corresponding adapters for 3.5mm and XLR connections.
• Accessories: Rigid carry case, two part presentation storage box, 5 year warranty
• Weight: 550g
• Contact: Hedd Audio

Hands-on demos

The Headphone Show

Super* Review

Today's free sample pack focuses on the hard-hitting sounds of warehouse techno, a spin on the conventional techno template that's highly suited to cavernous and industrial spaces like Berlin's legendary Berghain nightclub.

This collection of sounds is made up of four sets of percussive, tempo-labelled loops between 125 and 128bpm – throw a few of these together and you're on the way to building a warehouse-ready techno track. We've also included a selection of individual drum hits with which to build your own beats. 

What you need to know

All the samples are supplied as WAV files so can be imported directly into your DAW or sampler of choice. Because they're royalty-free, you're welcome to use the samples in your music in any way you like - all we ask is that you don't re-distribute them.

The samples are supplied in a zip file, so you'll need to extract them before you can see them. Enjoy!

Example sounds

Warehouse techno samples: click to download

Warehouse techno samples (222MB)

Head over to the SampleRadar hub to download over 95,000 more free samples.

Audient has unveiled the next generation of its iD series of audio interfaces, built on what the company is calling the Analogue Intelligence platform, bringing together Audient’s analogue mic preamps with onboard DSP, monitor correction and new tone-shaping tools.

The range is made up of four USB-C bus-powered interfaces, the iD1, iD2, iD2+ and iD4+, each replacing an existing model. The new names refer to the number of mic preamps onboard, while the plus models add balanced hardware inserts, ADAT output and more advanced monitor control.

The preamps in question are Audient’s Console Mic Preamps, based on the discrete Class-A preamp design from the company’s ASP8024-HE console, and delivering 75dB of gain, up from 58/60dB on the previous generation. The range’s converters are 32-bit with 128dB of dynamic range, and the maximum sample rate has risen from 96kHz to 192kHz.

Audient has brought over its Orbit Control tech from the recently launched Horizon range, giving you control over the preamp’s impedance and bringing different characters out of your microphone. This is part of what Audient is calling the Analogue Tone Suite, which comprises three additional tone-shaping tools designed to colour sounds at the source: HMX introduces harmonic saturation, LIFT adds high-frequency sheen and GLOW combines the two.

The headline upgrade in iD’s third gen is RoomTune, Audient’s new proprietary monitor correction software – this adjusts the signal sent to your monitors to compensate for your room’s acoustics, helping you achieve a more balanced mix. RoomTune runs on the interface’s DSP, applying system-wide correction to everything played through your speakers. You’ll need Audient’s RM1 reference mic to get set up, which is included with the iD2+ and iD4+ and sold separately for £39.99. Headphone correction is on the way in a future update.

The onboard DSP that handles RoomTune also runs hardware-accelerated effects, letting you apply EQ, compression and reverb to input signals with no latency without using your CPU. Smartgain, which has been borrowed from Audient’s EVO range, sets input levels automatically, and you’re now able to recall preamp settings digitally too.

“With the next-gen iD range, we've built a range around four things most interfaces in its class can't offer: real analogue preamps, built-in RoomTune™ Monitor Correction, onboard DSP FX and a discrete Analogue Tone Suite," Audient’s Chief Product Officer Andrew Allen said in a press release. "This isn't a spec refresh - iD is a completely new technology platform built on our Analogue Intelligence Platform.”

Audient iD2, iD2+ and iD4+ are available now, and iD1 will be available in early 2027. We’ve copied prices, specs and channel counts for each model in the range below.

Find out more on Audient’s website.

• iD1 (formerly the iD4) - £169 / €199 / $199. 2-in / 2-out interface with one Audient Console Mic Preamp and a JFET Instrument Input.
• iD2 (formerly the iD14) - £229 / €249 / $299. 10-in / 6-out interface with two Audient Console Mic Preamps, ADAT expansion for eight more inputs, and Pro Monitor Control with two speaker outputs.
• iD2+ (formerly the iD24) - £329 / €379 / $499. 10-in / 14-out interface with two Audient Console Mic Preamps, two balanced hardware inserts on channels 1 and 2 and 8 channels of ADAT in and out. RM1™ Reference Microphone included.
• iD4+ (formerly the iD44) - £499 / €549 / $699. 20-in / 24-out interface with four Audient Console Mic Preamps, two JFET Instrument Inputs, two balanced hardware inserts and 16 channels of ADAT in and out. Two independent headphone amplifiers with up to four cue mixes. RM1™ Reference Microphone included.

AI-assisted ‘vibe coding’ is rapidly changing the music technology landscape and established brands are being forced to make quick decisions about how they are going to react.

While the phenomenon of users creating their own DIY firmware, mods or plugins isn’t necessarily anything new, both the volume and speed of these community projects has accelerated rapidly in recent weeks. Now, user communities are often developing ideas and new features for their hardware at a pace the official developers can’t match.

The question for music tech brands is, how do you respond to this? While some hardware developers are so far choosing to ignore or actively block DIY firmware, others, including the likes of Behringer and Polyend, have made moves to embrace community development.

Akai is another brand that falls into this latter category. While teasing its upcoming Sample Key hardware last month, the company signposted its intention to move towards making elements of its product line open source. In the weeks since, we’ve seen the first glimmers of what this might look like in practice, and now with its latest MPC update, Akai is making good on its promise of opening up the MPC ecosystem.

With the launch of software update 3.10.1, Akai is now letting users create their own custom plugins for the MPC and Force hardware, assisted by the newly released SDK (software development kit). The update also unlocks the MPC platform’s 'enhanced development' features, which lifts limitations on plugin and track counts within the hardware, as well as adding mouse support.

This isn’t exactly the fully all-guns-blazing open source approach the Behringer is promising for its – as yet unreleased – MPC-alike Kick. Rather, Akai’s approach appears to be a more measured middle ground, where the company is opening up specific elements of the hardware to custom development without encouraging users to completely rewrite the entire system. It's more akin to Korg’s approach to its ‘Logue’ and Nu:Tekt instruments.

In a video announcing the update, Akai Pro’s Andy Mac explains the need to balance the creative possibilities offered by AI-assisted coding with the risk of cutting corners. While, as he acknowledges, AI tools allows the company itself to speed up elements of development, that doesn’t mean the company will be churning out updates to keep up with the community.

“Faster development doesn’t mean taking shortcuts,” Mac says, “the same focus on testing, stability, and reliability remains essential before we put any releases into the hands of the community.”

Personally, I think this is the right approach for Akai. As I wrote in relation to Behringer’s Kick announcement, I worry that the ease and abundance of unofficial firmware risks leading to a situation where developers feel they can offload some responsibility for ongoing development to their user communities. By trying to balance focused support for DIYers with a steady stream of properly tested and stable official updates, Akai can hopefully find a happy middle ground.

Alongside the update to the bigger MPCs, the MPC Sample gets an update to version 1.4. This adds a variety of new workflow features, but most significantly it also adds community development support and an official SDK to allow users to create their own effects for the unit.

Again, this is something of a middle ground approach to open source, which follows in the wake of numerous high-profile DIY firmware mods that have appeared for the MPC Sample in recent weeks, such as the popular SampQOL mod that, among other things, expands the device’s track and effect counts.

Akai isn’t ignoring these completely though, stating in the announcement video that the company is “already working alongside some of these new community developers, offering ongoing support” – which certainly seems to imply that some of those popular mods may become at least semi-official.

These updates aren’t purely about the SDKs, however. Another handy feature added to the MPC and Force range is the ability to mirror the touch interface and audio to a desktop computer, which is likely to be handy for streamers and content creators.

Akai is launching two new official plugins too. The first is an emulation of the classic SP-1200 vintage sampler, while the second is an SSL SL 4000-style channel strip plugin.

You can hear more about all of these updates in the video above, or head to the Akai site to download the latest firmware.

Never has there been a better time to be an in-the-box producer than 2026. Modern processors are lightning-fast, DAWs are more powerful than they’ve ever been, and the sheer breadth and variety of audio effects and virtual instruments on the market is something to behold.

Barely an hour passes without a new plugin popping up in our inbox, and with the recent explosion in AI-powered vibe coding making development more accessible than ever, the floodgates have well and truly opened.

Faced with this deluge of digital audio tools, it’s not easy to figure out which plugins have the potential to switch up your workflow, and which simply aren’t worth your time.

That’s where we come in. Each month, we comb through the latest releases to pick out the plugins that you need to know about, picking out the instruments and effects that deserve a place in your plugin folder.

1. Native Instruments Vertikal

Formats: Kontakt | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: $149/€149/£129 | Find out more

Have you ever played a piano that’s 14 feet tall? Me neither. Thanks to Native Instruments, though, now you can. The Vertikal sample library captures the sound of one of the tallest pianos ever built, a vertical concert grand found in the Berlin-based Funkhaus studio belonging to contemporary piano maestro Nils Frahm.

The super-sized piano in question has been meticulously multi-sampled by piano library experts Galaxy Instruments, and is presented in two versions: Pure is a clear and expressive tone with wide dynamic range and defined attack, and Felt is a muted and soft alternative that’s reminiscent of the hushed, intimate sound heard on Frahm’s album of the same name.

Vertikal is a beautiful instrument in its own right, but those seeking something more sonically adventurous will find much to explore in the Particles 2.0 engine, which complements the core library with a four-slot effects rack, flexible modulation system and generative note-clouds that algorithmically follow your playing.

2. XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color V2

Formats: VST3, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: $99/£84 | Find out more

XLN Audio’s RC-20 is a modern classic in the plugin world, a creative multi-effects processor that’s a kind of Swiss Army knife for sonic character. Offering up an abundance of ways to imbue your audio with imperfection, it delivers the vintage vibes, lo-fi texture and faux analogue warmth that’s become increasingly sought after in the era of all-too-clean in-the-box production.

On the verge of its tenth birthday, XLN Audio has unveiled the next version of RC-20, an update that the company says isn’t intended to “reinvent the wheel”, but instead build on the retro stylings of the original plugin with fresh effects and more flexible processing.

The six effects modules found in V1 are all present and correct, but they’ve all received an upgrade and can now be reordered in the signal path. V2 brings new types of noise, distortion and reverb to the plugin, along with a new Codec mode that recreates the glitchy, fragmented sonics of lossy digital audio, making your track sound a bit like you downloaded it from Limewire in 2002. V2 also adds an Echo module, a feedback delay with ping-pong and granular modes that sounds gloriously degraded after its repeats have cycled through the plugin’s other sound-shaping modules.

Since launching in 2016, RC-20 has become an essential tool for thousands of producers seeking an antidote to digital sterility – V2 is a worthy successor.

3. KNOCK AUDIO KNOCK 2

Formats: VST3, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: €199/$199/£179 | Find out more

DECAP is the producer behind Drums That Knock, a ubiquitous sample library that’s popped up in tracks by everyone from Charli XCX to Kendrick Lamar. Last year, he shifted his focus from sample packs to software, developing a drum mixing plugin under the banner of Knock Audio that’s designed to deliver the same hard-hitting sonics you’ll hear in his productions: KNOCK.

A year on, and DECAP has released a successor. The original plugin had five drum processing modules: a transient shaper, a saturator, a sub generator, a top-end enhancer and a clipper. KNOCK 2 gains a sixth, a multiband compressor based on classic hardware designs with five character modes. This is joined by Purr, a subtle flutter effect that adds character to your top-end. Modules can now be reordered in the signal path, and automatic gain-staging has been added to ensure your levels stay in check.

4. Native Instruments Massive XL

Formats: VST3, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: €199/$199/£179 | Find out more

A supersized upgrade to Native Instruments’ long-running wavetable synthesizer, Massive XL builds on the core synth engine of its predecessor with expanded sonic capabilities and an enhanced workflow, introducing custom wavetable creation, polyphonic aftertouch support and Synplant-style audio-to-patch preset generation, while borrowing preset mutation from Absynth, another recently revived NI classic.

There's a lot that's new in Massive XL, but it’s the Generate function that’s going to steal the headlines. This is an AI model that analyses any imported audio file and recreates it as a fully editable patch. Generate creates four different patches by default, and you’re able to adjust how much variation there is between presets and how closely they match the timbre of the original audio file. Each preset variant is automatically assigned six macro controls that let you make quick edits to the character of the sound.

Placing the kind of audio-to-patch technology pioneered by Sonic Charge’s Synplant plugin in a more sophisticated synth architecture while giving you more control over the results, Generate is a massive step forward for this long-established soft synth.

5. iZotope Photon

Formats: ARA2, Standalone | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: €199/$199/£179 | Find out more

Photon is iZotope's first software release since the company was acquired by Boris FX in July, following the sale of iZotope’s former parent company Native Instruments to inMusic.

A stem separation tool that’s available as both a standalone app and an ARA plugin, Photon is equipped with 12 custom-trained machine learning models for stem splitting and audio repair that run locally on your computer’s GPU. Models onboard include a music separation model that splits mixed tracks into stems for Voice, Bass, Drums and Other, and a drum separation model that can separate mixed drum recordings into Kick, Snare, Hi-hat, Toms and Cymbals. You also get a variety of models geared towards post-production.

Photon's GPU-powered stem separation is both fast and high-quality, as you’d expect from a veteran audio brand like iZotope, and the app’s simple and intuitive workflow is a breeze to use. It doesn’t come cheap, though – at $259, it’s probably the most expensive stem splitter we’ve come across, and considering that many of the leading DAWs now have stem separation built in, it might prove a difficult purchase to justify.

Anna Lapwood’s life could easily have turned out differently. After studying piano, harp, viola, and violin at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, in 2012 she became the first woman in the 500-year history of Magdalen College, Oxford, to be awarded an organ scholarship.

Aged just 21, she then made more history by becoming the youngest ever Director of Music at either Oxford or Cambridge, taking up the post at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Her path appeared to be set, but after becoming a breakout social media star and making headlines for her organ cameos during Royal Albert Hall shows by Bonobo and Raye, she stepped down from her Cambridge role in 2025, and is now pursuing a career as a concert organist.

Lapwood is also on a seemingly never-ending quest to expand her musical horizons: her latest journey is to Middle Earth, as she releases a new album – Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost – that reimagines Howard Shore’s iconic Lord of the Rings film soundtracks for the organ.

Next year, she’ll embark on a UK arena tour, playing the organ in the kinds of venues that are more commonly filled by established rock and pop stars.

To paraphrase JRR Tolkien, it’s clear that Lapwood has decided to do rather a lot with the time that’s been given to her – we caught up with her over Zoom to discuss the new album, organ playing, and those high-profile collaborations…

Congratulations on the album – could you tell us why you chose to tackle film soundtracks, the Lord of the Rings pieces in particular? Do you think there's something about them that lend themselves to being played on the organ?

“Those are my deepest loves. I grew up with those stories, with those films, with that music. I grew up playing it in school orchestras. My favourite thing when I was growing up was figuring out how to play my favourite soundtracks on the piano.

“With the Lord of the Rings, I loved those stories for such a long time. And a couple of years back, I was in New York, and this little girl came up to me in a coffee shop. She was coming to my concert the next day, and I said, ‘Do you have a favourite piece that I could play for you?’ because it was her birthday, and she said Concerning Hobbits from Lord of the Rings. And that was the catalyst. That made me go, ‘Oh, hang on a minute! I haven't done Lord of the Rings yet,’ and I will say I did not realise at that moment how huge this project was going to get and how colossal it was going to become. But it has been so cool. There are three films, and there's a lot of music there to choose from.”

And you spoke to Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore as well, didn’t you?

“Yeah – firstly he didn't say I couldn't do it, which is always nice. Because you never want to assume that a composer is going to be happy with you taking a new approach. And he was amazing. We had a lovely chat about the soundtracks more generally, but then his team and him, they checked through everything I did. They sent me their notes.

“Then on the last day of recording, the night before the last day, I decided to write an extra movement [based on the soundtrack]. And with the rest of it, I did it all by ear – I listened over and over again and wrote it – but with that, I didn't have time to do that. So I said, ‘Is there any chance you could send me the full score of this movement so I can work out how to transcribe it overnight?’ And they did, and they were so fantastic all the way through.

“I think for me, it's been such a moving experience delving into those scores in depth and seeing how much time and effort and brain went into them. And development – that's the big thing for me. This, like, Wagnerian leitmotific development.

“I think there are different levels of that: there's the kind of basic level – when you see a certain character, you hear a musical theme – but what Howard does, and this is the full Wagnerian idea, is give places, people, and emotions their musical themes, and then those themes develop in direct parallel with the plot. So the Fellowship theme, whenever a member of the Fellowship is missing, you hear it differently, with a different voicing, with parts missing. And so when Gandalf falls, and then when Boromir dies, we never hear the Fellowship theme in the same way again because one member of the Fellowship is always missing.

“It's things like that which I think you absorb on a subconscious level, even if you don't realise it's happening. But when you start to look at it consciously, it is mind blowing. And no one should ever watch Lord of the Rings with me now because I literally sit there going, ‘And here, the leitmotific development is doing this.’”

How did you go about pulling apart the orchestral scores and working out which bits you were going to play on the organ?

“Well, this is why I decided to do it by ear instead of with the scores, because I wanted to fixate on what you actually experience as a listener. So I would listen over and over and over and over again, and write down different layers. I would write down what my ear was drawn to initially, and then think, ‘OK, now what do I miss if I just played that?’ Which bit of the texture is missing? Which bit of the harmony is missing?’

“One of my favourite examples from the process was when there was this one bit where there was a gong roll and there was a harmonic of the gong, I think it was an E, but there was no E in the chord. And so when I sent my version to Howard and his team to check, they came back and said, ‘Oh, there's actually no E in this chord,’ and I listened over and over again to that one chord, and I was like, ‘There is an E, so where is it coming from?’ And it was the gong. And so I said to them, ‘Do you mind if I keep the E? Because otherwise, this chord has a completely different character because we don't have the gong?’ And they said yes.

“And so little things like that I would have never noticed had I gone from the full score, because I would not have notated a gong roll because I can't. I'm not a gong, but it’s that cool thing of, we experience things differently with our ears.”

The Lord of the Rings inspired quite a lot of prog rock back in the ‘70s, and a lot of those prog keyboard players, like Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson, used the Hammond organ. So it feels like there's a bit of symmetry to actually rearranging the film scores specifically for the pipe organ…

“Yeah, but also, I constantly come back to this idea that musical boundaries and genre boundaries are so much less fixed than we think they are. I think the current young generation don't really see genre boundaries because I think they listen in the same way that they scroll on TikTok – they listen to the music that sparks their fancy, whatever the genre.

“And actually, I had a really lovely thing today. I'm in Canterbury rehearsing for a concert, and I was rehearsing in the cathedral this morning, and there were these quite big muscly policeman guys doing bodyguard training, all the tattoos and everything. And one of them was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I love your music! I love Barber’s Adagio for Strings.’ And it kind of blew my mind because, based on appearances, and I shouldn't judge at all, but my brain went, ‘I'm really surprised that he likes Barber’s Adagio.’ But these boundaries do not exist. We create them in our own heads.”

Do you think the pipe organ has been held back from being used in more popular music because of its association with the church?

“I think maybe part of the barrier is that, because a lot of organs are in churches, it's not something that people in the rock world and pop world are necessarily going to stumble across when they're doing their creative thing. If they're mostly doing concerts in arenas, concert halls and whatever that don't necessarily have organs – they don't stumble across it and think, ‘Hmm, I'll include that.’ And I think unless they happen to have had organ in their life growing up, they might not even think of it as something that you can integrate.

“I guess that's a lot of what I've been trying to do with the Royal Albert Hall – take the opportunity where you do have these iconic people coming in and playing in this space that does have an incredible organ, and trying to make it something that they stumble across through that or through social media, so that they realise how cool it is musically to have that different texture.

“The way I think about it is, if there's a massive amplified gig at the Albert Hall, the music is in 3D. And then when the organ comes in, it's like it's in 4D, because suddenly the whole room is resonating with the music as opposed to just the speaker system, and people lose their minds. And it's so cool, and it makes me so happy every time.”

How do you go from playing the piano to playing the organ?

“Patience. I found it so hard. Because I was a harpist before, I was used to using my feet in an active way. With the harp, you've got the pedals, and so you've got to have your brain in your feet at the same time as in your hands, so I should have had an advantage. But even with that, I found it so difficult because what you have to do, which is the challenge, is you have to sever the link between your left hand being the bottom; your left hand becomes the middle, and your feet become the bottom, and that's the hard rewiring that needs to happen, because the left hand has such a fixed identity as the bass, and that has to shift.

“So for me, it was a lot of patience, and eventually one day it just clicks, and it's a bit like riding a bike. I think you just have to keep working at it until it works.”

And if you sit down at a new organ, is it like getting into a different car, or do you feel immediately at home?

“It takes time. If you’re playing lots of organs by the same builder, they have similarities, but I do a lot of playing in Germany, and the pedal board layout in Germany is completely different to the English one. In England, the pedals, instead of just being straight on, they’re [in a layout] called radiating concave [the pedals are curved vertically like a ‘dish’]. So it means the pedals at the outer end are closer in, basically, so that you can reach them, whereas in Germany a lot of the pedal boards are completely flat and completely straight.

“So if I have just done a run of concerts in England and then I go to Germany, my muscle memory for the low notes and the high notes is a third out, basically. It's that extreme. I will go and try and play a C and I play an E, so you can't trust your muscle memory.

“And whereas, if you're going between different pianos, middle C is kind of going to be in the same place, middle C can move on organs. The sounds that they make are totally different. Some have different numbers of keys at the top, different numbers of keyboards, so many different variables.

“And so, for any concert, I need about 18 hours minimum to set my programme into the organ and then to retrain my muscle memory for that specific instrument.”

You've said in the past that playing with Bonobo at the Royal Albert Hall in 2022 was a big moment for you because it changed the way you thought about music. What did you mean by that?

“I grew up in a classical bubble, basically. I grew up only really listening to classical music and film music, and I didn't really ever explore much outside of that. And I think what was amazing about that Bonobo gig is I'd never really thought I liked electronic music. I thought it wasn't my thing, and then I remember vividly sitting there waiting to play, and the track before was the one with the disco ball and all the strings, and I just burst into tears while I was listening to it, and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this music is so beautiful and so powerful and so moving, and I don't know it, but I love it,’ and I just felt my musical world kind of… it was like the goggles came off in that moment, and I went, ‘Oh my gosh! I feel like my whole musical world has been a lie!’ Or not a lie, but I feel I've been stuck in one room, and actually I've got a whole house to explore.

“I have talked a lot about kind of seeing my musical life as before that gig and after that gig because of the way it took those blinkers off, and has led me to explore so many different genres, and that's something I'm still still exploring and still learning the whole time.”

Is that how the 2023 collaboration with Raye came about? [Lapwood recently performed with Raye again at the Royal Albert Hall]

“Bonobo was the catalyst for a number of other collaborations with different artists, and I'm trying to remember where Raye fell in that. But that was such an amazing gig – I'd never heard of her at that time. I didn't know her music at all, and now I'm utterly obsessed with her. And her new album is my favourite thing in the entire world.

“And yeah, I just remember thinking, ‘God, everyone knows the words. This is mad. Everyone’s rapping along and singing along with these really wordy choruses and things.’ That was a very cool gig. She's an amazing artist.

“Her new album is extraordinary, and I think, like, what an inspiration in terms of following the music that she feels is most authentic to her. She's not let herself be restricted by genre, and I find that really really inspirational. But also musically, it is just so clever and so advanced and so mad and also it has such a deep emotional heart. And when it first came out, I listened to it something like 16 times in the first week, cover to cover. And I've never done that with an album, ever.”

Obviously you're big on social media as well, and you've used the organ in different contexts. So have you encountered any pushback from the traditional musical world you've come from?

“I've got quite used to the fact that not everyone is going to like what I do, and that I have to be OK with that. A lot of people have seen the choices I've made as being the wrong choices, or going down the wrong path, or selling out, or whatever. All of this stuff, whether that's the music I play, or the social media, or even leaving my job in Cambridge, I got pushback for that as well. And I think, ultimately, the thing I've learned is that I'm the one who's doing it. I'm the one who is living this life. So it has to be the thing that makes me feel the most fulfilled and the most happy and the most myself while I'm on stage. And certainly with the music that I play, if I'm the one practising for eight hours every day, I'm going to make sure it's music I really want to be playing.”

We were going to quickly ask you about the arena tour. Are you going to have a full pipe organ in there!?

“No – moving a pipe organ around is, basically, I would say an impossible task. So I have a digital touring organ, and the thing that I find really cool about this is that it doesn't just play one organ. I can choose organs from all over the world. I can be like, ‘Right, these pieces I'm going to play on the organ of Salisbury Cathedral. These pieces I'm going to play on the organ of Rotterdam,’ and it means that I can show people in real time in one concert how varied organs can be and how they have totally different characters. Every organ has a different character, and you can illustrate that in real time in a very exciting way.

“The touring organ, she's very small and sweet and she's called Georgie, but her sound is huge. And when you pump her through an arena sound system it’s quite something.”

And can you change the sound as you go or does everything have to be decided and set before you play?

“You have to decide it completely in advance because, for my main solo touring programme, it's something like 420 presets. And to cycle between them, you basically have to shoot your foot out and hit a button in a microsecond. In order for that to work, and in order for it to sound right, you've got to have everything in the right place.

“There are so many variables for every single sound of a concert, and there are 400 and something of them, and so it has to be pre-set. You don't really have flexibility – you can't change it as you go. If you're on a piano and you decide you want to play louder, you just play louder; on the organ, it doesn't quite work like that.

“It means you can't be quite as spontaneous, but often with encores, I will set a whole load of different pieces and then let the audience choose which one I play and stuff like that. So I try and find ways to bring spontaneity in different ways.”

Are you planning big staging and lighting as well?

“I love working with lighting designers, and with Lord of the Rings in particular, I've done a whole lighting design which is based on the leitmotifs – so it brings a whole new meaning to the leitmotifs. Each motif has its own colour state, and then that develops as the plot develops and as the motifs develop.”

Finally, is there anyone else you'd like to work with, particularly from the pop world?

“Taylor Swift. I have said it so many times, and I'm just going to keep saying it until it happens. I would love to play for Taylor Swift. I think it needs organ, live. Doing recordings is fun, but I love the energy of when people aren't expecting to hear the organ, and when they hear it, they lose their minds. It's one of my favourite things.”

Anna’s new album Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost is released on 13 November on Sony Classical. Anna tours the UK in October next year.

If you’re looking to upgrade your home studio setup, expand your pedalboard, or grab top-tier gear for your upcoming gigs next year, the early Black Friday deals at Musician’s Friend have arrived in impressive fashion. As always, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the price drops, and this year’s initial round of discounts is rather impressive.

Now, on top of the already slashed prices, there is a special one-day flash sale happening today only! That means extra savings on select gear. So don't sleep on it if you have been waiting to pull the trigger on a new setup. Even better, you can unlock additional sitewide savings by entering the pre-Black Friday coupon code HOLIDAY at checkout.

Whether you are hunting for legendary acoustic tone, upgrading your electronic drum kit, or picking up a classic studio microphone, I’ve tracked down the absolute best value for your money. Below, I’ve highlighted a few standout offers available right now that are well worth your time.

First up is the Kawai ES920 digital piano. For me, this digital piano blends an authentic grand-piano feel with portable convenience, making it a stellar choice for gigging musicians and home players alike. With a Responsive Hammer III keyboard action, Harmonic Imaging XL sound technology, and integrated Bluetooth MIDI and audio connectivity, it’s a steal at only $1,549.

Next is the Martin D-16E Rosewood. Built with a dreadnought body and solid Sitka spruce top matched with rosewood back and sides, the Martin D-16E provides classic Martin tone, projection, and resonance, and better yet, there's a whopping $450 off right now.

Delivering exceptional feel and dynamic response, the Alesis Command Mesh Kit features tightly woven mesh heads on all drums for quiet practice and realistic stick bounce. The Advanced Drum Module includes hundreds of sounds, custom kit slots, and USB-MIDI integration for home recordings and live MIDI triggering. Save $240.

Next, I need to shout out the D'Angelico Premier Series Bedford. Classy looks go hand-in-hand with classy tones on an electric that is evocative of the guitar-making of yesteryear but is well and truly a 21st-century original. Honestly, this is a fantastic guitar and $374.99 off is genuinely insane.

Of course, there are more savings to be had, so I strongly suggest looking through the entire sale. For even more Cyber Weekend discounts, head over to our Black Friday Music Deals page.

Unless you’ve been taking a mental health break from screens, you’re likely aware of the hacking revolution happening in music production. Whether hardware or software, coders are whipping up new firmwares for existing instruments and expanding the features of products like the M-Vave FM-1 and Akai MPC. This hackathon isn’t limited to just synthesizers and grooveboxes, though.

Another cadre of hackers is turning its attention to handheld video game consoles and porting new – and very sophisticated – life into outmoded devices, with unheard of functionality like granular sampling and even full-on plugin compatibility now very real possibilities.

Portable consoles and music production have, of course, crossed over before. Korg made its Gadget DAW available for the Nintendo Switch, and even created a version of the classic MS-10 synthesizer for the Nintendo DS back in 2008 (called, naturally, DS-10).

On the homebrew side, it doesn’t get much more classic than LSDJ, a chiptune tracker for the Game Boy.

These were one-offs though, novel outliers. Thanks to a confluence of often AI-assisted coding, a dearth of cheap but powerful obsolete consoles, and a generation of gamers grown into developer adults, we’re now seeing a sort of mass side-quest happening, with both amateur and professional developers reaching for PSPs and Nintendos alongside Macs and PCs.

Here are three worth looking into…

1. Light Reft DZA.grain

Tokyo-based LightReft is best known for its two Brutalist-inspired hardware devices, the Monolit MIDI controller and the Concrete multi-effects unit. Yet its current project is very different. Called DZA.grain, it’s a freeware granular sampler that runs not as a plugin in your DAW but on a Nintendo 3DS or Sony PSP. The instrument uses the controls of the devices just like a game would, but instead of playing a game you’re processing samples. You can even sample live via the onboard microphones.

“I hope granular synthesis becomes the new Doom, something people try to run on all kinds of musical devices,” enthuses Sasha DZA, co-founder of LightReft. Sasha, who cut his teeth at synthesizer company Black Corporation before starting LightReft, says the inspiration for DZA.grain came while considering what to make next.

“My first thought was to make something for (open source music device) monome norns,” he says. “But an old PSP was sitting on my desk, and I wondered whether I could make something for that console instead.”

Early-2000s consoles are particularly ripe for this kind of experimentation, being cheap, plentiful, and relatively powerful. There’s also the nostalgia factor. “Both consoles are connected to my 20’s,” explains Sasha when asked why these two particular platforms, “and the PSP still appeals to me as a piece of hardware. I wanted to see whether I could make an instrument for it that people would enjoy using today.”

There is an aesthetic reason as well. “The PSP and 3DS came from a time when industrial design felt bolder and more distinctive,” he says. “I enjoy holding them and interacting with them as physical objects. A new musical purpose is a reason to take an old console out of a drawer, carry it around again, and enjoy using it.”

E-waste is also on Sasha’s mind. Video game handhelds are cheap and plentiful, but must be bought new every few years. Because of this, there are literally millions of them in existence that no longer have any purpose other than to clog up landfills. By bringing them back to life and providing them with a new purpose, Sasha (and other developers like him) are pushing back against this unfortunate aspect of modern society.

“I do not like the idea that you should buy a new device instead of an old one that is still useful,” Sasha says. “That cycle encourages us to produce and buy more electronics than we need. It does not feel sustainable to me. I want to give these consoles another life, at least as musical instruments, and perhaps inspire other people to make homebrew applications for them.”

Sasha is currently working on expanding how people can use DZA.grain by developing a VST plugin, a standalone desktop application, and a version for iOS tablets. These won’t be ports but native versions, he stresses, each with its own specialised interface.

“The console versions are important to me,” he says. “The physical buttons and the character of the PSP and 3DS affect how the instrument feels to play. But the idea behind DZA.grain is not limited to consoles. A computer, a DAW, and a tablet each offer different ways for a musician to interact with sound.”

DZA.grain is currently available for the Sony PSP and Nintendo 3DS. You can download the software free of charge by signing up for the LightReft newsletter at its website You can also purchase it as part of a bundle with an album on Bandcamp.

2. Melted Electronics Glitch Boy

DZA.grain lets you put an original instrument inside an existing console. Glitch Boy from Melted Electronics, however, allows you to do the opposite: install a console, in this case a Nintendo Entertainment System, inside a custom housing and play it via MIDI.

Further blurring the lines between gaming and music production, Glitch Boy comes bundled with an emulation of the classic Nintendo NES gaming system.

Load a game in via microSD card and play it wth the onboard Game Boy-like controls. That’s just the game part, however. Where the music production half comes in is the 8-bit chiptune synthesizer. With four voices, one each for the two pulse channels, triangle and noise, you can control them with a MIDI controller. It also allows you to affect changes to parameters such as pulse duty, volume, envelope, and length with MIDI CC.

As the name Glitch Boy suggests, though, there’s more to this console in disguise than just chiptune. It’s also a video synthesizer. “Built by intentionally breaking a NES emulator, it's a tool for video artists and creatives, perfect for creating authentic 8-bit glitch aesthetics for visuals, music videos, and video art,” says the Kickstarter page (which racked up nearly €40,000 of pledges for a €4000 goal).

You can freak out the visuals either with the built-in controls or over MIDI. Glitching extends to the chiptune synthesizer too, which comes from the emulator’s APU console soundcard, “letting you corrupt your own MIDI sequences at will.”

Glitch Boy is available standalone or in Eurorack format. The firmware is open source and on GitHub if you fancy glitching it out even further.

3. Sndstation: Plugins on a retro hardware console

You’ve probably seen them for sale online, cheap Chinese handheld gaming devices with names like Anberic RG 35 and Game Console My Mini that run classic console emulators. Shockingly cheap, but also shockingly powerful.

Many of these have a Rockchip RK3326 chipset inside, a Linux-based system on a chip that is now being commandeered to run original music production software – including professional plugins you already have in your DAW. This is the work of sndstation, a collective developing a Linux distro operating system to take over modern cheap handhelds.

Sndstation was conceived of by David Viens of Plogue, a software development house that has spent decades turning classic video game chips into soft synths. Now, along with Audio Damage, Baconpaul of Surge Synth Team, and others, David is preparing to unleash the new open-source music-making platform, one that will not only work on these cheap game systems but is optimised especially for it.

“Sndstation's main goal is to allow you to run CLAP plugins without modifications on a portable and self-contained device, but in unique ways,” explains David.

The idea is to not only put plugins on a console, but to turn the console into an instrument itself, with the buttons and controls as the interface. “Yes, you can just plug a MIDI keyboard in it, but the novelty is how you can express yourself with the 17 buttons and two analog sticks. What new forms of gestures will be imagined is what is most exciting to me here.”

The birth of sndstation was not dissimilar to how Sasha ended up developing DZA.grain: by having a few devices laying around and thinking, 'What if…?'

Porting Plogue plugins to Linux led David down a few rabbit holes, and he eventually ended up with a lot of cheap Linux-based devices on his workbench. Then, while researching arm64 chipsets, namely the Rockchip RK3326 used on cheap handhelds, lights suddenly went on.

“I always dreamed (Plogue) would try its hands on its own synth hardware (and I've done quite a few prototypes), but never wanted to risk the company's future on manufacturing, investments, liabilities etc,” David explains. “On top of this, putting potentially more e-waste out there is against my 'recycle/repair/repurpose' modus operandi, so the idea of reusing cheap mass-produced devices packing such power and so many great features was a no-brainer. The form factor was also unique and, of course, resonated even more with us, as our main specialty is video game audio hardware emulation.”

David, who stresses that his answers represent only himself and not the sndstation team itself, sums it up like this: “In short, we were in fact doing ‘firmware hacking’ much before FM-1 but behind closed doors for a while now. But we are all busy surviving the ‘slop-pocalypse’ so it took longer to materialise.”

As for that FM-1, would it be possible to port sndstation to M-Vave’s mini synthesizer? “It’s probably more realistic to do it the other way around,” he says. “The FM-1 is very fun, but it’s not powerful enough to play off the shelf 64-bit CLAP plugins unless they are rewritten due to its lower power dual-core chipset. However the FM-1 firmwares are more easily portable to sndstation. I've done a proto or two of that. In any case, one has more knobs and a keyboard while the other has two analog sticks and a USB MIDI input. It would need adaptation on either end anyway.”

Along with the CLAP plugins you already have on your hard drive, there will be original software for sndstation. Baconpaul has already revealed a beta of his BaconBeats, a fully-featured sequenced instrument designer.

Sndstation isn’t quite ready yet, but it’s coming very soon, and will be free and open source when released. “We didn't think of any other monetisation than making this as a fun alternative way for our customers to use the desktop plugins they they've already bought from us, and (hopefully) bring some of the 'hardware only' musicians to try our synths as well,” says David.

Find out more about sndstation on the team’s Bluesky account.

AlphaTheta’s latest 4-channel DJ mixer is all about adaptability. Based around the same layout and channel strips as Pioneer DJ’s flagship DJM-A9, the A7 incorporates a variety of connectivity and customisation options designed to help it fit into a broad variety of bar, club and venue settings.

The most notable of these is the new Master Texture feature, which is being pitched as an industry first by AlphaTheta. Designed to “tune the audio to the space – without the need for a sound engineer”, Master Texture adjusts the frequency response of the mixer’s output.

It does this using two controls labelled Smokey/Bright and Smooth/Punchy, which adjust the high-end and low-end response respectively. According to AlphaTheta these parameters “can tweak harsh highs or add extra punch to your kick drums and lows to process targeted frequencies and shape a unique sound characteristic that EQ alone can’t match.”

The A7 also aims for flexibility with its range of connectivity. Its four channels each have line and phono inputs handling traditional analogue connectivity, along with a single mic input. On the output side these are joined by master, booth and recording outputs, along with dual headphone ports.

There’s also an abundance of digital connectivity included though. The mixer has two USB-C ports that allow for laptop or iOS connectivity for use with major DJing platforms including rekordbox, Serato and algoriddim Djay Pro. The inclusion of two ports also means that it’s possible to switch between DJs and platforms with a seamless transition.

Like other recent AlphaTheta gear, the A7 also includes a top panel ‘Multi-IO’ USB connection that can be used for, among other things, single-cable integration of the company’s Remix-Ignite effects unit. The mixer also incorporates the company’s SonicLink tech with one-touch pairing, for use with AlphaTheta’s low-latency wireless headphones.

Around the back there’s also a Pro DJ Link port for connectivity with compatible players. When used with AlphaTheta’s newer multi-player devices, this allows users to make use of the Touch Cue and Touch Preview features that allow DJs to preview tracks without loading them to the deck.

Elsewhere, much of the DJM-A7’s design is inherited from the DJM-A9. Each channel has a three-band EQ and access to the Sound Color FX and Beat FX found across much of the AlphaTheta range. The mixer does add in the Soft Mix Curve channel fader setting also seen on the DJM-V5, which subtly cuts the high frequency of each track as it is lowered in the mix.

The DJM-A7 is available now priced at €1,599 including VAT/£1,369 including VAT/$1,499 excluding tax/$1,599 (Only in the US, excluding sales tax). Head to the AlphaTheta site for more information.

Nick Cave has taken aim at AI song generators such as Suno and, with his trademark eloquence, has calmly dispatched them.

The 69-year-old singer-songwriter was writing on the Red Hand Files on his website, a regular feature in which fans ask philosophical questions and Cave, like a modern-day Socrates, offers some sage words in return.

The subject of AI has come up before, but on this occasion two fans brought it up, with one, Catherine, asking “Are you a doomer or a boomer?”

Cave replied by writing: “Artificial Intelligence, Catherine, may save the world, annihilate it, or do something in between. I don’t know. But song generator platforms are, in my view, indicators of this nascent technology’s demonic potential to hollow out human endeavour and sever our connection to the divine.

“They mock creation itself by rendering humanity unnecessary, taking the fruits of human striving and reducing them to mere products. It is, perhaps, our final, most soul-destroying humiliation.”

An adjacent question came from Nuno, who asked whether art can be separated from the artist. In return, Cave said: “Nuno, we cannot separate the art from the artists, for they are as inseparable as the waves from the sea they rise from. That may be an uncomfortable truth for some but, for me, the matter was settled. Until now.”

“With the advent of song generation platforms, the thorny issue has been upended. At last, the artist can be separated from the art. Not just that, the artist – that flawed, messy, broken, woeful, joyful problem – can be removed from the equation altogether, like so much dross.”

He then brought up the controversial AI platform: “Suno, the Great Cancellator, which has never loved or laughed or grieved, never experienced joy or loss or heartbreak, never felt boredom or its adjacent epiphany, produces an imitation of the soul – a song – in fifteen seconds flat. This is an affront to any songwriter who has lived and struggled in this world and earned the right to create a song.”

He concluded: “For those eager to rid the world of problematic artists – for these censorious forces remain persistent – it is surely cause for celebration, as these platforms promise to rid the world of artists altogether.”

Cave hasn’t always been this negative about the technology. Indeed, last year he allowed the filmmaker Andrew Dominik to use it in a new video to his 1986 track Tupelo. The clip, which shows still photos of Elvis ‘moving’, was described by the singer as “an extraordinarily profound interpretation of the song” and with it, “I felt my view of AI as an artistic device soften. To some extent, my mind was changed.”

Anyway, if the man’s engaging, nuanced take on our world is your bag, then you’ll be interested to know that the Bad Seeds leader has announced a solo North American ‘Conversations With Nick Cave: An Evening Of Talk And Music’ tour for next spring.

When Apple announced Logic Pro 13 late last month, the most headline-grabbing new feature was undoubtedly the AI-powered intelligent assistant that's designed to help you out with various production tasks as you make music.

At the time, it was assumed that this would be included in both versions of the DAW – the one that you can buy outright and the one that features in the subscription-only Creator Studio bundle – but we now know that this isn’t the case.

When Apple rolled out the Logic Pro 13 for Mac updates last week, it quickly became apparent that the assistant is only included in the Creator Studio version. So, although the pay-once-only Logic Pro has the same version number and looks the same (there's a new dark-themed 'Liquid Glass' UI), it isn’t quite the same product.

As you’d expect, there’s been a certain amount of hand-wringing about this in the days since, so it’s worth taking a step back and considering how much of a big deal it actually is.

A clean break?

On the one hand, the very fact that Apple is effectively separating its two Mac versions of Logic Pro is significant. It reinforces the perception that the company would much rather get users onto its subscription service, and indicates that it’s comfortable with the idea of running a two-tier ecosystem.

You could argue that this is fair enough: there are a lot of long-term Logic Pro users who made their one-time purchase more than a decade ago and have been getting completely free updates ever since, so it’s not unreasonable to ask them to put their hands in their pockets again at some point.

The counterpoint, though, is that, Logic Pro for iPad aside, many of these users won’t care about having all the other apps in Creator Studio, and will feel aggrieved that buying into it for $/£13 a month or $/£129 a year is the only way for them to access absolutely everything that their DAW of choice has to offer.

Having played with the assistant, though, we do wonder how many of these diehards (the ones who paid for Logic Pro outright before the subscription era began) should actually care. Yes, it can be useful for carrying out basic housekeeping jobs – creating tracks with certain plugins installed, making basic settings and answering questions – but we suspect that it will be most attractive to beginners who don’t know the software very well and need help learning it.

It’s also worth remembering that the assistant is currently in beta – there’s still a chance that Apple might make it universally available at some point down the line.

That said, even if you have Creator Studio, you don’t have unfettered access. Only a certain amount of AI usage per month is priced into your subscription – Apple says that, in Logic Pro for Mac, “your usage limit is impacted by the complexity of conversations you have with the assistant” – after which you’ll have to buy a $50 ‘Intelligence Usage Pack’ that gives you more. Any unused ‘credit’ from this will roll over from month to month until it expires after a year.

Intelligence isn’t everything

The good news is that the best of Logic Pro 13’s new features are available to all. Perhaps the most notable of these is the Unified Browser, which combines all of the bundled content (loops and instruments) and your own patches and samples (including ones downloaded from Splice) into a single view. You can now search your library using ‘natural language’ – based on vibe rather than specific instrument type, for example – and audition sounds in sync with your current project.

Everyone gets the enhanced Stem Splitter, too – specific drum kit parts can now be isolated – and Sidecar support means that you can now use your iPad as a multitouch controller for both Logic’s features and third-party plugins.

This functionality comes into its own when combined with the new Play Surface – a supercharged version of the old typing keyboard that offers chord pads, velocity, modulation and pitch controls, and an arpeggiator. This can be clicked with your mouse/trackpad if you wish, but it’s when used with an iPad (or, if you’re lucky enough to own one, a touchscreen MacBook Pro) that it really comes into its own.

The bottom line is that there’s a fair bit more to Logic Pro 13 than the AI assistant, and at this point it’s not worth worrying too much if you don’t have it. The concern, of course, is that this could be the thin end of the wedge, and that Creator Studio users will soon start getting more exclusive enhancements that everyone does actually want. If that happens, then the game really will have been changed.

Ableton has unveiled the public beta of Live 13, the next version of its flagship DAW, a major update that the Berlin-based developer promises will “help music-makers keep ideas moving and shape sound in new ways”. There’s a lot to dig into in Live 13, from new instruments and effects to long-awaited workflow enhancements – here’s everything you need to know.

Let’s start with a crowdpleaser. Until now, writing MIDI patterns in Live was accomplished in the Notes window of the Clip View using a standard piano roll-style interface, but Live 13 introduces a Step Sequencer that offers an entirely new way to enter notes in a MIDI track.

Live’s new Step Sequencer is a classic X0X-style sequencer with a few twists. Patterns can range from eight to 128 steps, and each lane has its own settings for step count, playback rate, direction and swing, so you’re able to dial in polyrhythmic patterns that evolve and change as the sequence plays through.

Along with the notes themselves, five additional parameters are visualised on the sequencer itself – the default is velocity, but you can also tweak offset, step length, step repeat, pitch bend and probability individually by adjusting the height. Clips can be converted from MIDI notes to the Step Sequencer format in one click, so you can jump between each view when it’s needed.

Step Sequencer is fast and intuitive to use and – for us, at least – has largely replaced the Notes window for drum programming. And though it’s great for drums, it’s also a fun alternative to the regular piano roll for melodic writing too, especially when using the Fold to Scale option that makes sure every lane is a note that’s in key with your project. This is something that could change the way that almost everyone, from complete beginners to seasoned producers, uses Live – it’s long overdue, if we’re honest, but very much worth the wait.

We’ve got a new sequencer, so how about something new to sequence? Drum Synth is a dedicated drum synthesizer device with 25 unique percussive presets spread across nine different categories, covering imitations of classic analogue drum machines like the TR-808, TR-909 and CR-78, synthesized recreations of acoustic percussion like the bongo, guiro and timpani, and a handful of more overtly digital, experimental and even melodic sounds.

Each category (Kick, Snare, Rimshot, Hi-hat, Clap, Tom, Percussion, Cymbal and FX) features a handful of drum synth models, each designed to produce a specific type of sound while offering some guided control over the details. Four dials let you tune each model, adjust decay, brightness and volume, and some models have a few additional model-specific controls: you can dial in the level of transient click on the 808 kick, for example, or add a pitch envelope to the 909.

Though these are the headline additions when it comes to instruments, we’d be remiss not to mention Looplet, a new Max for Live device for Live 13 Suite that’s one of our favourite things about Live 13.

Looplet is a four-track looper inspired by classic tape looping techniques. Load up a sample or record a loop, and you can play back a different chunk of audio on each of its four playheads, with per-playhead settings for playback direction, transposition and time-stretching, and a mixer section with panning, filters and routing. There’s even an authentic tape-style pitch glide effect when playback stops and starts, which is a nice touch.

Alongside the instruments, Live 13 features two new stock effects, both simple but effective dynamics-shaping tools that get their job done with minimum fuss. The Clipper device is well-equipped to tame peaks and boost loudness, with Soft and Hard modes and a Delta control for isolating artifacts, and the new Transient Shaper features sidechain functionality, allowing you to drive the effect using the attack and sustain from an external signal.

Along with these new devices, Live 13 introduces dedicated Racks for multiband and mid-side processing, making it easier to apply precisely targeted effects processing across different frequency ranges or portions of the stereo field.

Instruments and effects aside, there’s a whole host of workflow improvements in Live 13. The most significant of these is ARA 2 support, something that many Live users have been after for some time. ARA is an extension to VST3 and AU plugins that allows the plugin to edit audio on the timeline directly, rather than working on a stream of real-time audio that’s coming in through the DAW’s playback. Ableton says "most" ARA plugins now work with Live 13, with a few exceptions: check the release notes for details.

ARA plugins have a range of uses, but one of the most common is polyphonic note editing, using tools like Celemony’s Melodyne. Without ARA, working with Melodyne entailed capturing audio with the plugin, making edits and then playing it back to the timeline, a time-consuming process that forced many to do this kind of work in another DAW. With Live 13’s ARA 2 support, the editor can be opened up in the Clip View for any audio file, letting you make quick edits in real-time without opening a separate window or leaving the DAW. Live 13 Suite now comes bundled with Melodyne Essential, too, which is a major boost for Live's top tier.

Another handy workflow upgrade is Contextual Browsing, which lets you load up instruments, effects and presets from the Device Chain without navigating Live’s main browser: the menu can be opened up with the Option key and navigated with the arrow keys, so you can load up your most commonly used devices with a few keyboard strokes.

That’s a real time-saver, much like the new Capture Automation feature, which works much like Capture MIDI, except with parameter automation. Capture Automation records all your knob-tweaking in the background, so if you edit a few parameters and like how the changes sounded, but you didn’t hit record first, you can simply hit the Capture button and the changes will be laid out as editable automation on the relevant tracks.

Racks have received an upgrade, too, and they can now hold 32 macros (up from 16) that can either be dials or off/on buttons. Macro mapping can now be shaped using custom response curves, and a new Modulation mode lets you offset mapped controls using the Macro while leaving their underlying value open for manual tweaking.

Our favourite improvement, though, is the new Round Robin mode for Instrument and MIDI Effect Racks, which cycles incoming MIDI notes through multiple chains. This can be used to introduce subtle variations for realism, as you would in a sampler, or more creatively; send in a rapid arpeggio with Round Robin set to Random, for example, and each note can be routed to a different instrument in the chain with kaleidoscopic results.

That’s all of the major upgrades, but there are more minor enhancements to explore, including Device Slots in the Mixer that display all the devices on a track at a glance, Envelope Clips that hold automation and modulation for effects on Return tracks, and a bundle of new Core Library presets.

In an age when most DAW developers seem to be focused on shoehorning in AI-powered features that their users never asked for, Ableton is refusing to jump on the bandwagon, and Live 13 is all the better for it. The update is packed with smart, sensible improvements and creatively inspiring features, and there’s something here for every Live user.

Live 13 is out in public beta today. Head over to Ableton's website to find out more and join the beta program.

Look, I'll be honest, an unprecedented number of early Black Friday music deals have dropped weeks ahead of the traditional Cyber Weekend rush.

The retail landscape has shifted significantly this year, with major gear dealers kicking off their main holiday sales early rather than holding back stock until late November. I've been covering these sales for years, and I don't think I've seen so many sales this early!

So if you want to skip the rush this year, or make sure you bag the biggest discounts before they sell out, then now is the time.

Here are the best early Black Friday sales active today.

Nile Rodgers has upset some people over his use of AI. Not on a song, it must be said. But in an upcoming video.

The clip in question is a new version of The Christmas Song with the singer Rebecca Ferguson. Rodgers began by posting on social media footage of him on a photogrammetry rig with the words: “Working on a great art project that’s next level. This is the start of the process. This AI capture was very thorough and I’m so excited about the finished project.”

The backlash was immediate with comments ranging from the witty (“Drop the slob dude! Not very chic!”) to the merely disappointed: (“It’s wild how fast you can lose respect for someone you’d considered an absolute legend for decades. You didn’t need this.”)

Rodgers chose to respond to those comments though, posting: “Do you have a problem with CGI? I can’t believe you’d go on record without even seeing what I’m doing. Oh well… sending love anyway. Let me know after you see the work if you feel the same way your brain is taking you.”

When the negative comments kept on coming (“Big fan and I know this comes from a good place but AI use like this is actively damaging our planet and livelihoods. Thumbs down”), Rodgers dug himself deeper and got into some perhaps ill-advised what-aboutery.

“By the way you’re using AI daily,” he wrote. “You just hit me on Instagram. You’re being hypocritical. It’s ok for you to use AI in your way but you have problem with my way. Do you use Google, or get driving directions? Look at your own daily actions and check how much you use AI.”

The guitarist is certainly not the first public figure this week who’s underestimated the public anger there is about AI.

Rodgers has previous when it comes to voicing his support for AI. In 2024 he told Euronews: “So, I think using AI-generated vocals to copy another person’s sound is horrible, but using AI to artistically express yourself and make better music, I think, is fantastic.

"The way I want to look at AI is from the positive side. I want to look at it as just another color on your palette.”

He went on to compare the reaction to AI as similar to that when drum machines and synths first came out in the 1970s: “I think that creativity comes from the artist. Now, if you have a tool to help you become more creative, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Apparently, the finished video will be unveiled on 20 November, so we’ll all have a chance to judge for ourselves whether it was worth it then.

Has Nile got a point? Are we all as guilty as each other, or is using generative-AI a step too far for an artist? Let us know what you think below...

Pink Floyd’s Animals album turns 50 early year and so almost half a century to the day since its initial release, it’s been announced that an anniversary edition of the album is on its way.

Animals saw the skies over Floyd-land turn dark (literally, look at the black clouds above Battersea Power Station on its famous sleeve). Unleashed just as punk was breaking, it was in many ways as angry and bleak as anything released that year.

David Gilmour, considering the reissue, says, "The mood in music was changing in ’77. Punk music was hitting everything and I suspect that had a little bit of an influence on the way we were working. I mean it’s quite an aggressive, stripped-back album."

It was also the first Floyd album to be recorded at their own studio in Islington.

This was Britannia Row, which opened in 1975. Situated within walking distance of both Roger Waters and Nick Mason’s houses, the idea was that it would be simpler to operate and would – in theory – speed up the process of making Floyd albums.

In a 2022 interview, Mason compared it to their previous experience of using Abbey Road. “It was very different. But I think it was good - although the result, sonically, was inevitably not quite as good, quite simply. But it was this thing of, we’d sort of done it all at Abbey Road - and that was great - but we wanted to build our own studio with this idea we’d build one that was very simple to operate.

"The idea being, particularly if we wanted to do something individually, we wouldn’t actually need a lot of staff, and maybe even we could engineer it ourselves. It was a much more intimate, relaxed operation - very different to what we’d done in the past. I think it was very enjoyable. It was sort of ‘home’, in a way.”

The new studio had a MCI JH500 console and an MCI tape machine. “It was a perfectly good, workable piece of kit,” Mason recalled. “But not quite as good as the studio stuff at Abbey Road - and, inevitably, not as well-maintained. I mean, it was looked after, but Abbey Road would go to enormous lengths to do the set up each day.”

Despite Mason’s reservations, Britannia Row would become a widely-used studio for the next two decades. Pink Floyd cut parts of The Wall there in 1979 and Mason himself produced the Damned’s second album Music For Pleasure at the facility later in 1977.

The (very) wide variety of artists that recorded there includes everyone from New Order to Peter Gabriel, from Kate Bush to Kylie. The building was later used as office space, and – inevitably - was converted into flats.

Now, as Animals is re-issued, Mason says, "The big thing was the development of Britannia Row. Britannia Row was this building we’d bought some few years before in which we’d actually started building our own recording studio.

"We tried to design the studio in such a way that any of us could operate it and all the trunking was labelled clearly so anyone could plug in a set of headphones without someone else having to do it for us."

As for Animals, the reissue will be – as per usual – in an array of different formats: Deluxe Box set, one LP, two LP, two CD, Blu-Ray Audio and digital. Amongst the goodies in the box set is a disc of rarities that includes a previously-unheard Roger Waters track Young Nicolas Jon, as well as a 64 page hardback book. They all come out on 22 January next year.

Splice is best known for its three-million strong sample library, a vast collection of sounds that have made their way into thousands of popular songs by everyone from Sabrina Carpenter to Kendrick Lamar.

In recent years, though, the company has grown into a multi-million-dollar music tech behemoth, diversifying into mobile music-making apps, virtual instruments and even soft synths. Today, Splice takes the next step in its evolution from sample platform and software marketplace to an end-to-end music creation ecosystem by releasing its very own DAW.

Launching in beta today for Mac users, Create is a fully-fledged digital audio workstation with all the functionality you’d expect (and some you probably wouldn’t), Splice’s sample library embedded directly into its workflow, and the most advanced AI-powered features we’ve seen in any DAW to date. It’s free to download, but exporting songs requires a Create Pro subscription, currently priced at $9.99/month.

Create’s workflow will feel familiar to anyone that’s used a DAW before. You’ve got a central timeline that can be populated with five types of track, including the expected audio, instrument and return tracks, along with dedicated tracks for the native Sampler and Drum Rack plugins. Below that you’ll find the mixer, or the clip editor, piano roll, sequencer, or device chain for each track, depending on what’s selected.

Create can host third-party plugins, and it arrives with five instruments included: the aforementioned Sampler and Drum Rack are joined by Splice’s INSTRUMENT, a virtual instrument released last year, and two stock soft synths. Synth is a new two-oscillator subtractive affair, while Astra is a hybrid synth with virtual analogue, wavetable, granular, FM and sample-based engines that was already available through Splice’s Creator plan. There’s a collection of 38 stock audio effects and utilities onboard, too, covering all the usual bases.

On the left-hand side of the interface is a browser that provides direct access to Splice’s extensive library of samples. Several DAWs, like Live and Pro Tools, already have Splice integration built-in, but the integration in Create is much deeper. Create an empty clip in an audio track and Splice will show a search bar that’s linked directly to the sample platform. Type in what you’re after, (“female R&B vocal”, for example) and Splice will choose a sample for you and load it up on the timeline, transposed and time-stretched to match the key and tempo of your project.

Select the clip, and a list of alternative Splice samples that fit your brief will pop up next to the clip editor below. Here you can search by similarity for sounds in Splice’s library (this even works with non-Splice sounds) or create Variations. This is an AI-based feature Splice added to the Splice Sounds plugin back in April that generates unique alternatives to an existing sound that are close to, but not the same as the original. Using an in-house model trained on Splice’s catalogue, Variations are covered by the same license as the original sample, and the creator of that sample is compensated when a Variation is licensed.

What’s more, Create lets you drag any sample into your project without automatically licensing a sample or using a Splice credit. They land in your project as MP3 previews, allowing you to build a track in Create using as many unlicensed samples as you want – when your track is finished, you’ll need to license those samples before you can export the project, otherwise they bounce as silence.

For producers that rely on Splice samples in their music-making, having this kind of direct access to the platform embedded into the DAW could prove to be a significant upgrade to their workflow – especially if their current DAW doesn’t already have Splice integration. The ability to audition samples on the timeline in the context of a project without licensing them or spending any credits is useful too, and means you don’t have to spend a dime on a sound until you’re sure it’s the right one for your track. On the whole, though, none of this is particularly game-changing.

Create is a perfectly serviceable DAW, then, and though it obviously doesn’t have the depth of Live or Logic Pro, it’d be well-suited to anyone that already works with Splice’s existing tools. What really sets Create apart, though – for better or worse – is its AI chatbot, Rheo.

Like most chatbots, Rheo can offer guidance on how to use the DAW and give you advice on music-making more generally. Where it goes beyond anything we’ve seen in other DAWs, though, is its ability to control the software, taking actions inside the DAW in response to the user’s instructions, whether that’s through text commands in the chatbot interface or voice control. This kind of “agentic” AI – AI that can control computers, make decisions and complete tasks for you, rather than just generating text – poked its nose into the mainstream in 2026 with the release of tools like ChatGPT Work and Meta’s Muse.

It’s creeping into the music production world, too: Image-Line was an early adopter with its Gopher chatbot in FL Studio, and Apple has just added an AI assistant to Logic Pro 13, which will be released later this month. Some users have already been getting ahead of the game on this, connecting DAWs like Ableton Live to third-party AI models via MCP servers, and it’s fast reshaping the world of hardware, too, as AI-powered ‘vibe coding’ tools are being used to write custom firmware, gifting synths and grooveboxes with new off-label abilities.

The level of control that Rheo provides is much deeper than anything we’ve seen in another DAW, though. Rheo can search for sounds, generate melodies, design synth patches, create arrangements, analyse audio and execute multi-stage tasks that would usually take minutes in just a few seconds, all in response to conversational, natural-language instructions. Using Rheo requires “Rheo units”, which are distinct from Splice credits, and cost $10 per 1000. (Free users get 100 units to start off with.)

Rheo has two modes, Assist and Point. Point shows you how to do the task you ask it to complete, not only guiding you through the process with text instructions, but actually pointing out each step with a glowing cursor on the screen. Not sure how to set up sidechain compression on your kick and bass? Struggling to get set up for recording a vocal? Just ask Rheo, and it’ll walk you through it, step-by-step. This will be immensely helpful for beginners, and it’s a welcome alternative to simply having the AI do something for you, which won’t help to build skills in the long run.

Assist goes one step further and actually executes the task for you. As we mentioned, the AI can do almost anything in the DAW, with a few exceptions: it can’t access third-party plugins and it won’t replicate material from commercial songs. (It will pull out a collection of samples from Splice to imitate a given artist’s style, though, which could prove problematic.)

This kind of agentic control can be a real time-saver, taking the faff out of routine or repetitive tasks. For example, you could ask Rheo to create a full multitrack session with subgroups and return tracks, ready to record a full band, or generate an arrangement layout with custom bar lengths and timeline markers for you to fill in with your own material.

It’s pretty good at understanding specific instructions: we asked Rheo to slice up a vocal loop into sixteenth-note chunks and reverse every other chop in an alternating pattern to create a fluttering, glitchy effect, something that would’ve taken at least a minute to do manually, and it nailed it on the first try. Admittedly, saving a few clicks on tasks like these isn’t going to make a dramatic difference to your workflow, but it’s still genuinely useful.

Of course, as well as these more practical tasks, Rheo can take on a more “creative” role. Ask it to design a TB-303-style acid bass patch in Astra, generate a MIDI clip with a specific chord sequence, or even polish up your mix with some EQ and compression, and it will gladly oblige. And yes, Rheo will even produce a full song on demand, pulling samples from Splice and building parts using its stock instruments. (There’s no Suno-style audio generation in Create, though – it’ll write MIDI and pick sounds for you, but it doesn’t generate audio from scratch, other than when it’s producing Variations.)

This is where things get more complicated. Many opponents of AI-powered musical tools justifiably take issue with how they were trained – AI music generator Suno’s early models were trained on millions of copyrighted songs without permission, leading to an outcry among musicians who feel their IP was stolen. Splice tells us that Rheo uses a combination of in-house models and third-party models, including “classic LLMs” that hold a conversation with the user and translate their intent into actions. We’re told that all models were trained using “fully licensed” data, but exactly what that covers is an open question, given that LLMs are typically trained on vast amounts of web data.

Training aside, though, there’s a more fundamental problem. Handing over creative control to an AI agent runs counter to the spirit of creativity – designing patches, writing melodies and digging out samples are the way that artists develop their own sound and imprint a unique personality on their music. They’re essential elements of the creative process, and if delegating them to an AI model makes us less creative, then our music will suffer as a result.

Create’s assistive features could be a real help for beginners learning their craft, but if the software makes it easier for beginners to ask for a melody instead of actually learning to write one, then perhaps it’s not pushing them in the right direction after all. (As one commenter on our Instagram wryly put it: why even make music when music can be made for you?)

For its part, Splice says that it wants Create to “amplify” human creativity, not replace it. “Most music tools either make the song for you, or assume you already know how to do everything. Create is different,” Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava says in a press release – but Rheo can make the song for you, if you let it. Splice wants Create to help you go “deeper into the creative flow”, but go far enough down the AI rabbit hole, and you might stop being creative altogether.

Regardless of where you stand on the ethics and utility of AI in music creation, Rheo is an impressive piece of engineering, and whether we like it or not, agentic AI is spreading fast across the creative software industry, not only in music-making but also apps like Photoshop and DaVinci Resolve. But should DAWs really be following suit?

Splice’s surge in popularity over the past decade has already opened the doors to a new style of paint-by-numbers production that relies on pre-made loops, a method some view as cheating, or at least close to it. We wouldn’t go that far – plenty of brilliant music has been made solely from samples. But this latest push into AI-assisted music-making feels like another step in the same direction, and one that some will see as a step too far. Create feels like music production on easy mode, but what if the hard parts are what make the music your own?

What is it?

My current desktop interface still sounds good. It might be quite long in the tooth, and have the odd dent in it, but it does a job for me.

The problem is that, over time, I’ve accumulated more instruments than it has inputs, so recording often begins with a round of unplugging things and generally annoying faff. A new synth here, another microphone there, perhaps a drum machine or two, and suddenly the trusty desktop audio interface starts looking rather inadequate. It's a familiar problem, and one (of many) that Audient believes it has the answer to with its new Horizon 8P interface.

The Horizon 8P is a professional, 19-inch rackmount Thunderbolt audio interface, offering 24 inputs and 32 outputs, eight of which are Audient's console-derived microphone preamps. There’s 32-bit conversion and extensive analogue and digital connectivity. There's also ADAT expansion, digitally recallable preamp settings and sophisticated monitoring and routing capabilities, all designed to make managing larger recording setups considerably easier.

At £2,199, this is an altogether different proposition to the two and four-input USB interfaces most home producers will be familiar with. Where those smaller devices are designed to capture a handful of instruments or microphones at a time, the Horizon is built to sit at the centre of a much larger recording environment, bringing multiple instruments, microphones and external processors together under one roof.

I've been using the Horizon 8P in my own home studio, where my collection of guitars, synths, drum machines and other electronic instruments has steadily grown over time. On paper, it's probably more interface than I strictly need, although I was intrigued to find out whether its considerable capabilities would translate into tangible benefits.

As it turns out, the biggest revelation wasn't necessarily how good it sounded, but how much easier it made everything else.

Pricing

Launch price: £2,199/$3,499/€2,499

Performance

At first glance, the Horizon 8P looks every inch the professional studio workhorse. Housed in a standard 19-inch, 1U rackmount enclosure, its stealthy black finish gives it a pleasingly sleek, understated appearance. There's nothing particularly flamboyant about the design, but it looks suitably expensive, well made and, in purely subjective terms, very cool.

The front panel features a series of buttons for selecting its myriad channels and a single rotary control wheel, accompanied by a compact colour display. It's a relatively small screen considering the complexity of the device, but in practice I found it perfectly readable on the fly, presenting information clearly without resorting to unnecessary visual gimmicks.

Where the Horizon distinguishes itself from smaller desktop interfaces is in its connectivity. Eight combination microphone and line inputs provide the foundation, with a couple of additional dedicated JFET instrument inputs on the front for plugging in guitars or basses. There's also a comprehensive selection of analogue and digital connections, including DB25, ADAT and dedicated monitoring outputs.

For the uninitiated, those DB25 connectors might look a little intimidating. Essentially, they allow multiple balanced audio signals to travel through a single multicore cable, making them useful for connecting banks of external preamps, compressors, EQs and other outboard studio equipment. The Horizon provides eight line inputs and eight independent outputs through these connections, although the line inputs share their recording channels with the built-in microphone preamps.

There's plenty of scope for digital expansion too. The dual ADAT connections allow another 16 channels of audio to be added at standard sample rates, provided you have suitable external equipment. For a studio recording live bands or larger ensembles, that opens up considerably more possibilities than the eight onboard preamps alone. Intricate drum mic setups are well within reach if you have the extra input capabilities.

It's worth noting that the Horizon's headline 24-input, 32-output specification doesn't mean you'll find 24 microphone sockets on the rear. Much of that capacity comes through digital connectivity, and unlocking its full potential requires additional equipment. Nevertheless, the possibilities for growing a recording setup are considerable.

Studio control

At the heart of the Horizon 8P are eight of Audient's console microphone preamps, derived from the company's respected ASP8024-HE mixing console. Audient has built a strong reputation for its analogue circuitry over the years, and there's plenty of that expertise on display here.

Each preamp offers up to 75dB of gain, alongside phantom power, a pad and a variable high-pass filter. More interestingly, the gain settings are digitally recallable, allowing you to return to a previous recording session without having to manually recreate the same input configuration.

There's also Audient's ORBIT variable impedance technology, which allows users to change the input impedance presented to a microphone. This can influence the way certain microphones interact with the preamp, potentially altering their response and character. It's an intriguing addition, particularly for engineers working with a variety of dynamic or ribbon microphones, for example, although it's a feature I wasn't able to explore in depth during testing.

Much of the day-to-day operation is handled by Horizon Control, Audient's accompanying software mixer and routing application. Anyone familiar with applications such as Focusrite Control will recognise the general approach, with access to input settings, monitoring, routing and different mixer configurations.

I'll admit that the initial presentation is a little overwhelming. There's a considerable amount of information to take in, and this clearly isn't a device designed solely around plugging in one microphone and pressing record. However, once I'd spent some time getting everything configured, the logic became clear. The complexity is largely front-loaded, and the payoff comes when you can move between recording tasks without continually revisiting your setup.

Another important feature is Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, which provides a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection between the Horizon and your computer. The benefit here goes beyond simply moving audio data more quickly. Combined with Audient's drivers, it allows musicians to monitor their performances through software instruments and effects with very little delay, something that becomes increasingly important when working with demanding plugin chains or larger recording sessions.

Audient quotes round-trip latency as low as 0.99ms at 192kHz with a 64-sample buffer. That's an impressive figure, although it's worth remembering that real-world performance depends on sample rate, buffer settings, computer performance and the processing you're asking your DAW to handle.

Recording performance

Getting the Horizon up and running proved pleasingly straightforward. Connected to my M4 MacBook Pro, it was recognised immediately by both macOS and Ableton Live 12, with no unexpected glitches or installation headaches. Aside from digging out a few extra cables and spending some time configuring the software, the whole process was reassuringly uneventful.

For my first recording tests, I connected an ESP Eclipse guitar, equipped with a high-output humbucker, directly to one of the front-panel instrument inputs. The signal was routed through Ableton Live 12 and into AmpliTube 5, where I could experiment with a fairly extensive selection of virtual amplifiers and effects.

At 48kHz, the Horizon sailed through recording at buffer sizes of 128, 256 and 512 samples without pops, clicks or unwanted interruptions. More importantly, the experience felt immediate and responsive, even with substantial plugin processing taking place. Dropping as low as 32 samples introduced the occasional crackle, but I couldn't identify any meaningful practical benefit to running at such an extreme setting anyway, certainly not for my use-case.

Next, I turned my attention to the microphone preamps, using a Shure SM57 to record my Orange TH30 guitar amplifier. This is a particularly useful amp for testing recording equipment, offering both an exceptionally clean channel and a wonderfully hairy, harmonically rich overdrive sound.

The results were excellent, with recordings from the SM57 being clean and with little in the way of audible hiss. Audient's preamps have earned their reputation, and I found nothing here to challenge it. I'd have no hesitation using them in a more demanding recording environment.

Monitoring was handled by a pair of M-Audio Forty Sixty studio monitors I’ve been testing, through which I played a selection of my own productions. These ranged from generative ambient pieces built around modular synthesis and an Elektron Digitakt, through to heavy doom metal arrangements featuring AmpliTube and Toontrack Superior Drummer. I also recorded some intricate fingerstyle acoustic guitar passages, providing a more exposed setting in which unwanted noise might become apparent.

Playback quality was superb across the board. Yet, despite Audient's impressive conversion specifications, I struggled to identify a dramatic sonic improvement over my existing PreSonus interface. Using macOS's aggregate device functionality, I was able to switch between interfaces, and in my relatively modest, acoustically treated home studio, the differences were difficult to discern.

In my setup, the extra money bought connectivity and control rather than an obvious improvement in sound. I think excellent sound quality should be expected from a product costing over £2,000, but there's a limit to how much better an already good recording can realistically become simply by changing the interface.

Where the Horizon really came into its own was when I started connecting more of my equipment. At one point, I had my modular synth, Elektron Digitakt, a direct input from a Boss Katana amplifier, Moog Mother-32, microphone and even a small Korg synthesizer I'd built from a kit integrated into the recording setup. With Live handling MIDI sequencing and control, I could record the audio from different instruments onto individual tracks without constantly dismantling and rebuilding the signal chain.

This, more than anything else, transformed the experience of using the Horizon. Having everything connected and ready to record made moving between instruments effortless. Better still, recallable preamp gain settings meant I could return to sessions with much of the configuration already in place.

Anyone who has spent time scrabbling around behind a desk, trying to remember which cable connects to which instrument, will appreciate the difference. Once the initial setup was complete, I could simply concentrate on making music. For me, that was the Horizon's most compelling feature by some distance.

Value and applications

Of course, my home studio is only one possible environment for the Horizon 8P. In a professional recording facility, the advantages become potentially more significant.

For engineers recording bands, eight high-quality microphone preamps provide a solid starting point for capturing drums, amplifiers and vocals simultaneously. Additional ADAT channels allow the system to grow as recording requirements become more demanding, while the monitoring and routing facilities can accommodate more complicated sessions involving multiple performers.

Studios using external analogue processors will also appreciate the DB25 connectivity, which allows outboard equipment to be integrated into their signal chains without constantly reconnecting individual cables. Furthermore, Audient's ability to combine multiple Horizon interfaces through Thunderbolt provides an expansion route for facilities requiring considerably more I/O.

There's a possible application in professional podcast production too. Eight microphone preamps, flexible monitoring and comprehensive routing could serve a multi-person recording environment well. For a typical two-person podcast, however, the Horizon would be an extraordinarily expensive way of accomplishing something a much smaller interface could handle comfortably. And that brings us to the question of value.

At £2,199, the Horizon 8P is undeniably expensive, and for musicians working predominantly with one or two instruments, it's difficult to recommend on audio performance alone. An established home producer with a competent USB interface is unlikely to discover that their recordings suddenly sound dramatically better after making the switch.

There's also the small matter of compatibility. At over £2,000, you might reasonably expect the Horizon 8P to get along with most computers. Windows users, however, aren’t invited, with Audient currently restricting support to macOS.

For the right user, though, the calculation changes considerably. If you're running a busy recording studio, building a substantial hardware-based production setup or regularly working with numerous audio sources, the Horizon's combination of professional recording quality, flexible connectivity and expansion potential becomes much easier to justify.

I'd certainly consider it near the top of my list if my recording requirements demanded this level of capability. Just don't assume that moving from a smaller USB interface to something like the Horizon represents a natural upgrade path for everyone. For many musicians, it's an entirely different class of equipment designed to solve an entirely different set of problems.

Verdict

For me, the real revelation in using the Horizon 8P was the improvements it made to my workflow. Having an entire collection of instruments connected, configured and ready to record made the creative process considerably more enjoyable, removing many of the small frustrations that come with managing a hardware-heavy setup.

At £2,199, it's undoubtedly overkill for many home producers, and its sonic advantages over less expensive interfaces won't necessarily justify the investment. But for musicians and engineers who genuinely need its capabilities, the Horizon 8P is an exceptionally accomplished piece of equipment that should serve them well for years to come.

Hands-on demos

Audient

Alternatives

Specifications

Earlier this year, we were wowed by Dubreq Stylophone’s growing stable of wares at NAMM. While we were having endless fun with its handheld orange pocket sampler, Stylophone Voice, we also clocked a rather extraordinary little mixer that was able to – with a few minor twiddles – completely change the character of incoming signals.

That was back in January, and now in November, Stylophone’s On-The-Fly Performance Sequencer (aka OTF) has finally been released. The latest addition to Stylophone’s Pro Range and Music Lab series, the OTF strips things back to the fundamentals - no distracting screens or menu-diving required. Just adjust the pitch, alter the rhythm or switch up the playing style and explore the numerous performance-angled ways in which your musical ideas can be sculpted in a live context.

Encouraging experimentation is the central concept here. With OTF, you can program just eight steps and the sequencer will open up multiple patterns of 16, 32 or 64 further steps, with eight pattern chains that can be changed live. You can then switch the sequence to one of either Forward, Reverse or a Bounce which can keep your tracks sounding dynamic in the midst of a live performance.

OTF features 24 sequence memories, with per-step pitch and gate duty cycle control. OTF also sports adjustment controls for the note scale and transposition, to take your ideas in new directions.

It can also be relied upon for all manner of rhythmic interest – you can add skips, rests, ties, slides, ratchets and controlled randomness to individual steps as the sequence plays. You can also set it to introduce variation as a pattern develops. The slides make transitions smooth between notes, while ratchets create repeated triggers within a step. Rests give - as the name implies - a bit of a space between note playback, and ties extend notes across steps, allowing you to alter the phrasing of a sequence as it runs.

On top of all that, tempo, swing, lead and lag timing, note length and gate length controls give complete mastery of the rhythmic qualities of a sequence. Swing moves the rhythm between straight and shuffled in real time. The in-built loop record function captures performances of up to 128 steps, with 24 dedicated memories for loops.

OTF’s CV and Gate inputs and outputs alongside MIDI and Sync connectivity are designed for a range of Eurorack, MIDI and hybrid systems. Eight separate gate outputs (one for each step) are placed alongside a summed gate output. With a lightweight footprint, the mobile-ready OTF can also be powered by six AA batteries or a 12V DC, centre-positive 1A supply.

The CEO of Stylophone, John Simpson, states; "OTF turns sequencing into an instrument. No screens. No menu diving. No clutter. Nothing in the way between your ideas and sound. That's what Stylophone is all about."

The On-The-Fly Performance Sequencer is on sale now priced at £149/€169/$199. Find out more and order here.

There’s no better time than Black Friday to pick up a plugin deal, and Waves has decided to start the festivities early. The company has launched its Black Friday plugin deals now, so you can expand your arsenal earlier than anticipated. With some sweet multi-buy deals of three for $49.99, or six for $99.98, it’s a great opportunity to pick up some classic and new Waves plugins or less.

While just about every one of their plugins is already significantly discounted – with some starting as low as $24.99 – the headline deal is their multi-buy special. This deal covers the vast majority of their standalone plugin range, including staples like Abbey Road Reverb Plates, Scheps Omni Channel 2, and the PuigTec EQs.

Doing a little bit of early Black Friday shopping myself, I scoured through the early sale to see what the best deals I could find were.

For me, the standout bundle is the Abbey Road collection, now with a massive 86% off. Featuring exceptionally faithful models of the tech and rooms at Abbey Road, these plugins aren’t found in any other bundle that Waves produces. They’re well worth investing in to add warmth and character to your productions and can be picked up now for just $164.99, down from $1,199. The Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain is a particular favorite of mine and is basically a cheat code for producing great masters.

If you’re trying to be restrained and are only looking to purchase a single plugin, Waves has a plethora of different channel strip options, which is like having several plugins in one. My pick of their channel strips is the SSL E-Channel, which offers a 4-band EQ, a compressor/limiter, and an expander/gate all in one. It’s a do-it-all plugin that you’ll want to put on every channel of your mix, and it costs just $29.99 in the sale, down from $149.99. That’s a hefty 80% saving.

And as my final pick of the best deals available, if you don’t have the CLA Classic Compressors bundle, this is a great opportunity to get it while it’s just $49.99, with $150 off the regular price. It features the Chris Lord-Alge models of three of the most infamous compressor/limiters ever made: the CLA-2A, the CLA-3A, and the CLA-76 (bluey and blacky variants). These are staple compressors modeled on vintage gear that work across just about every instrument you can think of. If I only had access to three compressors for the rest of my life, these would be more than adept enough.

More Black Friday plugin sales

• Plugin Boutique: Early plugin savings
• Waves: Up to 93% off
• Native Instruments: Up to $666 off
• IK Multimedia: Save on Max software
• Guitar Center: 30% off pre-Black Friday
• Gear 4 Music: Early Black Friday sale

The annual free Waves plugin has become a bit of a tradition for music makers, and the company has just announced that its latest freebie will launch on November 27. To get in on the action, all you need to do is head over to their landing page and input your email, and you’ll be notified as soon as it drops. Be advised, they’re only giving away a limited number of licenses, so you’ll need to get in there quickly.

The decision to keep the details of their free plugin secretive is always a cause for excitement, and all we have to go by is a hand-drawn control knob on a pink background this year. Any ideas what it might be? Drop us a line in the comments if you think you know what it is!

Last year Waves gave away the Magma StressBox plugin, an intuitive dynamic shaping tool that transformed your drums, bass, vocals, and more. Waves said: "Turn right for explosive punch and energy, or left for intimate control and focus. Each twist transforms your track’s feel, adding drama, contrast, and movement in a single knob."

With the Black Friday plugin deals just around the corner, deals are already there to take advantage of on the Waves site. There’s a huge sale been launched with three plugins for $49.99, and six plugins for $99.98.

Plugins start from as low as $24.99, with pretty much every Waves plugin apart from a select few on sale. Plugins like the Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain, SSL E Channel, CLA compressors, and loads more have all got hefty discounts of up to 95%. There are also some serious money-off bundles like the Horizon Bundle and Abbey Road collection.

More Black Friday plugin sales

• Plugin Boutique: Early plugin savings
• Waves: Up to 93% off
• Native Instruments: Up to $666 off
• IK Multimedia: Save on Max software
• Guitar Center: 30% off pre-Black Friday
• Gear 4 Music: Early Black Friday sale

Reverb is an essential and ubiquitous effect. It provides a sense of depth and distance that allows us to stage our music in realistic – or surrealistic – acoustic spaces. It can bring shape, movement and life to a part. And yes, we do rather like it. But doesn’t it get a little... boring?

Historically, reverbs have fallen into two categories: convolution and algorithmic. The former can sound great, but the limited ability to shape and hone the reverb (short of loading a different impulse) is restrictive. Plus, any reverb generated from an impulse will sound fairly similar to any other reverb generated from the same impulse. It’s like ‘90s ROMplers but for reverb, and it’s just as boring.

Algorithmic ‘verbs can also sound great, but too many modern examples are simply emulations, rehashes of the same old “classic” algos developed by EMT and Lexicon more than 40 years ago.

Surely the untrammelled possibilities afforded by modern computing can be harnessed to do something new and interesting with this decades-old effect? Surely there’re some plugin designers out there with a sufficiently vivid imagination to come up with something fresh and exciting?

Of course there are! Below, we’ve gathered together seven of the weirdest 'verbs we could find to discover which unconventional approach to simulated reverberation would produce the most inspiring results. For each plugin, we've included five audio examples, with both dry and wet examples to demonstrate the effect.

1. AberrantDSP Lair

Formats: VST3, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows, Linux | Price: $24 | Find out more

Lurking deep inside Lair you’ll find an algorithmic reverb generator, but things get weird from the get-go. Rather than run-of-the-mill algorithms for rooms and halls and what-have-you, we have a choice of “Devices”: Artifact, Mirror and Rift, which are (very) loosely based on spring, plate and hall/cavern algorithms, albeit warped and twisted in intriguing ways.

In addition (and announced just as we were about to publish!), the new Lair 1.5 update gains Cascade and The Swarm devices, these being more echo- or delay-like in their effect although, again, these are fascinatingly contorted compared to conventional algorithms. Also new in v1.5 is the ability to combine in parallel any two devices, with each having its own independent mix level and stereo spread.

Nevertheless, many of these controls also stretch their tendrils into unexpected areas of the chosen Device, eliciting quirky and unexpected responses that catch the attention and tickle the ear. Moreover, these parameters can have a very different impact depending on the currently chosen Device; taking the oddness a step further are a pair of modulators that insinuate their way into various areas of the plugin to add their own peculiar slant on proceedings.

Lair can be tamed to deliver conventional reverbs, but is at its best when its peculiarities are embraced. One doesn’t so much hone in on a reverb sound as fiddle around listening for interesting responses, an approach that sits perfectly with the more experimental side of music-making that is Lair’s natural domain.

As its name suggests, then, Lair is a deep, dark and brooding reverb plugin. Its gothic design, unconventional labelling, and peculiar under-the-hood interactions result in characterful and tonally complex reverbs that are endlessly fascinating, and the newfound ability to combine Devices – in particular, combining delay- and reverb-style effects – vastly extends the plugin's already impressive peculiarities.

2. ADPTR Utopia

Formats: VST3, VST2, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: $150 | Find out more

“We weren’t going to make just another reverb, that would be boring”, says ADPTR Audio’s Marc Adamo – great minds think alike, I guess! Adamo’s search for a non-boring ‘verb led him to Signalsmith Audio’s Geraint Luff and an intriguing prototype for a reverb algorithm that he’d developed.

Rather than generating the same-old wash of delay lines, or harnessing convolution processing, Luff’s algorithm utilises a spectral processing engine to re-synthesize audio into “spatial textures”. So ADPTR and Signalsmith teamed up and, after a couple of years of R&D, came up with Utopia.

Utopia does an excellent line in conventional hall and room ‘verbs, its novel approach creating results that sound simultaneously familiar yet different to what you’ve heard before: richer, silkier, more sumptuous and, as a result, stunningly realistic. Where Utopia truly excels, though, is in the more colourful and elaborate ends of reverb: shimmering modulated dreamscapes, dancing reflections, otherworldly resonances, twisted echoing tunnels and so much more.

Despite this sonic complexity, Utopia’s basics are easy to work with, and the plugin features many familiar controls: pre-delay, decay, early-reflection level and so-on. There are some additional, more esoteric parameters on offer, and these can take a bit more effort to get to grips with. But experimenting with the large library of excellent presets, and keeping an eye on the tips shown at the bottom of the window whenever you hover over a control, helps make things clearer.

Rarely has a reverb plugin been as aptly named as Utopia! No matter the source (leads, pads, vocals, bass… whatever!) the results are sumptuous, rich and satisfying. Or weird and unhinged, if that’s your preference. Even its common-or-garden reverbs have a classiness that’s all their own.

3. Arturia REV Ocean

Formats: VST3, VST2, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: $49 | Find out more

One tried-and-tested way of making reverb more interesting is to chain it with other effects and processors – delays, dynamics, pitch-shifters, choruses, etc. Throw in some modulation and ingenious routing and your reverbs can become bold sonic features rather than timid afterthoughts. The downside is that creating, configuring and fine-tuning such processing chains can be immensely fiddly.

Sailing to the rescue is Arturia’s REV Ocean. Although it’s an algorithmic reverb, the plugin doesn’t present a choice of reverb types, nor does it overwhelm with a plethora of settings for shaping the reverb. Rather, it wraps all of these finer details into a succinct and accessible interface that makes light work of dialling in basic reverbs of any flavour.

Where REV Ocean steps outside the norm is with its three so-called Macro Modes, these being hidden processing chains that enhance, colour and animate the reverb (accompanied by suitably aquatic animations in the plugin’s visualisation). Abyss adds layers of reverse reverbs and octave shifts; Foam fills the reverb tail with expanding resonant reflections; and Tide injects semi-random phaser-like filter sweeps into the ‘verb. A simple slider controls the strength of the chosen Macro Mode’s effect, but the conventional reverb parameters also impact on the character of the Macro Mode modulations.

The deceptively simple user interface makes it ridiculously easy to create complex and evolving reverbs, and the plugin itself is sufficiently versatile to complement a wide range of sources and situations, happily swinging from conventional acoustic space simulations through to shifting and animated reverbs.

4. BLEASS Spectral Reverb

Formats: VST3, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: $39 | Find out more

Like all spectral effects, BLEASS Spectral Reverb works in the frequency domain, converting incoming audio to spectral data before processing it, but it doesn’t employ some novel or elaborate reverb generation technique: its spectral billing refers chiefly to the way each reverb parameter can be applied differently across the frequency spectrum.

The reverb generator itself is straightforward, even simple, with a pair of input filters for basic colouring and just three actual reverb generation parameters: attack, decay and width. This basic recipe allows the plugin to do a good line in conventional reverb sounds, from tight, intimate rooms to wide, echo-laden caverns.

The controls for these reverb parameters are accompanied by BLEASS' unique Spectral Map controls, which determine how the accompanying parameter's effect will be distributed across the spectrum. Clicking-and-dragging (or tapping-and-dragging if using the AUv3 version in iOS) in a Spectral Map creates peaks, troughs, or ascending and descending slopes across the vertical bars drawn within the map.

The resulting height of each bar represents the strength with which the accompanying parameter is applied at the frequency represented by each bar in the Map. The bars aren't individually editable, and are intended as a handy visualisation rather than a scientifically accurate representation of the spectrum. This may sound a bit confusing, but it's actually super intuitive to use. For example, creating an increasing left-to-right slope in the Decay time’s Spectral Map will cause higher frequencies to have longer decay times than lower ones.

Adding to the core reverb generation are four slots into which any of six different processors can be placed, all designed to do interesting things within the frequency domain, and many of which are rather novel. Some, such as Harmony Follow and Spectral Enhancer, modify the entire signal.

Others, such as Spectral Gate and Pitch Shifter, incorporate their own Spectral Maps that allow their effect to be varied depending on frequency. For example, the Pitch Shifter’s Spectral Map varies the amount of pitch-shifting that’s applied at different frequencies… which can sound kinda mad!

A large realtime spectrogram helps make sense of what the plugin’s doing, and dragging within this visualisation provides another tactile way to mess with the reverb’s spectrum. As a nice final flourish, the plugin’s spectral processing settings are always on-hand, so you can crank them up for pristine reverbs, or drag them down for some nice, dirty, lo-fi fun.

Blessed with BLEASS’ trademark tactility and immediacy, Spectral Reverb’s surface simplicity hides an endlessly fascinating reverb. The additional processors massively expand the scope for creating original and unique reverb effects.

5. Eventide Temperance Pro

Formats: VST3, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: $199 | Find out more

Additive synthesis works on the principle that any sound can be deconstructed into a set of simple sine wave “partials”, and be accurately recreated by reproducing those partials. We mention this because additive synthesis is a close analogue to the novel Tempered Ambiance technology found in Temperance Pro and its little brother, Temperance Lite.

Tempered Ambiance constructs reverberations by combining many simple single-frequency resonances, or “modes of vibration”. This allows reverbs to be defined in terms of frequency resonances instead of delay and decay times; put another way, Temperance Pro operates in the frequency domain rather than the time domain.

Perhaps the biggest practical upshot of this approach is that it allows the reverb to be tuned, or “tempered” (hence the name!). Taking advantage of this, Temperance Pro offers three different Note Selection modes: manual, sequence and MIDI. Manual allows you to define a fixed set of resonant notes; sequence allows an up-to 64 bar sequence of notes to be defined; MIDI uses incoming MIDI messages to select resonant frequencies.

The strength of the tuning impact – or Temper – is adjustable from -100% to 100%. Positive Tempers enhance resonances around the currently selected note(s) while reducing other resonances; negative values reduce resonances around the current note(s) and increase other resonances; no tempering is applied when Temper is “0”. A Note Width parameter determines the bandwidth of frequencies that will be affected by the Tempering.

This is all very intriguing, and allows the plugin to produce various resonance-type effects alongside its main line in reverbs, giving it a broad range of creative uses. Sound quality is pristine, as you would expect from Eventide, and everything is beautifully presented (which is also as you’d expect). And of course the idea of a playable reverb is an enticing one, so it’s all the more disappointing that Temperance Pro isn’t as interesting as it should be.

Don’t get us wrong, it’s a good reverb processor – excellent, in fact – and its Tempered Ambiance technology does bring with it some useful abilities, most notably reducing frequency masking between a reverb and its source, and creating harmonised ringing within a reverb. It’s just that the originality of the results doesn’t quite match the novelty of the reverb technology that produced them.

In summary, then, Temperance Pro is a clean, detailed, high-quality reverb processor but, just as with its spiritual forebear, additive synthesis, the theoretical promise of its Tempered Ambiance technology doesn’t quite carry over into real-world results.

6. Lese Hikari

Formats: VST3, AU, AAX | Platforms: macOS, Windows | Price: $55 | Find out more

Lese Hikari’s reverb generator is a fairly standard affair, emulating ‘90s and ‘00s digital hardware reverb units, but what makes it interesting are the number of ways in which stochastic randomness can be introduced into proceedings (“stochastic” meaning the random generation is probabilistic rather than purely random).

The centre of the plugin window is occupied by a topographical map that can be dragged around manually, or an Autopilot can be engaged to cause the map to move by itself. Either way, the currently visible topography is used to seed the plugin’s random generators and, additionally, X and Y movement of the map can be assigned to any other reverb control as a modulation source.

The map features so-called Anomalies, randomly generated points where the processing changes, sometimes bringing in extra effects not heard elsewhere, and sometimes doing nothing at all. The closer the map comes to an Anomaly, the more noticeable the sonic impact should become. Arrows at the edge of the map point towards these Anomalies, and as you drag closer to them, the map changes colour to indicate their proximity.

The plugin provides a choice of different early reflection patterns, all the better for creating unique and off-the-wall effects. There are nine patterns in total, although these tend towards just three or four sets of closely related (and therefore largely indistinguishable) patterns. There’s also a gate that can be triggered manually or via a sequence/pattern, and damping to shape the reverb time across the frequency spectrum.

Finally there’s an Illusion parameter controlling a granular processor that stores audio grains from the input signal, reverses them, and then plays them into the reverb. This doesn’t deliver much in the way of desirable results, the most obvious outcome being that it can, for some inexplicable reason, choke off the reverb altogether.

Overall, then, Lese Hikari’s random colourations and adjustments ensure its sound departs decisively from the old-school Lexicon/EMT algorithms, and give it real potential as a creative and unconventional reverb. Sadly it doesn’t fully live up to that potential, the stochastic randomness at its heart tending to translate to relatively subtle changes in sonic outcome.

7. Soundtoys SpaceBlender

If you really want unconventional reverb, you'd be best placed to start with an unconventional reverb generation engine, and that’s exactly what SpaceBlender does with its implementation of a novel synthesis technique known as Swarm Synthesis.

Central to the plugin window is a so-called texture, essentially a waveform whose complexity can be varied from a simple pattern of individual transients through to a complex noise-like wave. The length of time represented by the wave can be varied from 100 milliseconds to one minute, and its dynamics – how its volume changes over time – are shaped by dragging a pulsing node across the waveform.

Incoming sounds pass through the texture (and are animated passing through it), interacting with it to generate shifting reverbs that follow the texture’s complex transient and dynamic patterns. When the sound reaches the end of the texture, it stops generating reverb. A simple set of dials allow the length and tone of the reverb to be adjusted, and for a touch of chorus-like modulation to be added.

From these basic ingredients comes a lavish banquet of rich, luscious, and wholly unnatural reverbs that truly tickle the ears, and that stand in contrast to the chunky and slightly simplistic look of the plugin itself. All manner of reverb types can be generated too, from sparse, almost delay-like echoes through to dense, complex washes that can stretch for up to a minute. The plugin’s speciality, though, is reverb pulses and gated reverbs, easily created by dragging the time and texture knobs to create the desired shape and length.

Overall, SpaceBlender is without doubt the most immediate and easy-to-use plugin in this roundup, so it’s impressive that its reverb sounds are also amongst the most pleasing too. It’s not really suitable for creating realistic ambiences and acoustic spaces, but if you want big, washy tails, easy density control, or timed reverb pulses and gates, SpaceBlender is the solution you’ve been looking for.

Working through this varied collection of plugins has restored our faith in the originality and inventiveness of reverb designers. All of them explore new avenues for creating ambiences and (sur)real acoustic spaces, and all try their best to come at things from a new angle, rather than just reinventing an already overly-reinvented wheel.

For this reason alone, each and every one of these reverbs is a sparkling gem (or perhaps, in Lair’s case, a seething monster), and far more worthy of your attention than the same-old common-or-garden convolution and algorithmic options that likely fill your plugin folder.

Of course, those conventional ‘verbs have their place, but when you need something richer, denser, wilder, more complex or more attention-grabbing, any one of these plugins would serve you well.

iZotope has launched Photon, the company’s first software release since it was acquired by Boris FX in July, following the sale of iZotope’s former parent company Native Instruments to InMusic.

A stem separation tool that’s available as both a standalone app and an ARA plugin, Photon is equipped with 12 custom-trained machine learning models for stem splitting and audio repair that run locally on your computer’s GPU.

Models onboard include a music separation model that splits mixed tracks into stems for Voice, Bass, Drums and Other, and a drum separation model that can separate mixed drum recordings into Kick, Snare, Hi-hat, Toms and Cymbals. A dedicated voice model splits a recording into Voice and Music stems, quickly lifting out an acapella for sampling or remixing purposes.

You also get a variety of models geared towards post-production: Voice Restore enhances speech and cleans up noise in spoken recordings, while a handful of additional models are optimized for reducing specific types of environmental noise in both indoor and outdoor recordings. Finally, the Cinema model can separate audio and video files into dialogue, music and sound effects.

The plugin’s clean and simple interface shows a layered waveform with each stem represented in a different colour; here you can preview audio, adjust levels, and solo and mute each stem before exporting. New and updated models can be downloaded in the Model Manager window without reinstalling the software.

As mentioned, Photon runs as a standalone app or an ARA plugin in compatible DAWs, making it possible to separate stems offline on the DAW’s timeline. Stems can be exported in WAV, FLAC and MP3 formats.

While iZotope’s RX 12 audio restoration software and Ozone 12 mastering suite both feature stem separation functionality, Photon is the first dedicated stem separation tool that we’ve seen from iZotope. We’re told that the models powering Photon were developed in collaboration with the Boris FX team following the acquisition.

“Whether you’re cooking up a remix, adjusting the kick volume, exporting a quick acapella, untangling multiple speakers in a podcast or interview, or cleaning up spoken word, Photon delivers,” reads a press release from iZotope. “Choose your model, let the magic happen, export, and you’re done.”

iZotope Photon is available now for macOS and Windows. It's priced at $349 but is currently discounted at $259 until Dec 7, and there's a subscription option available priced at $19/mo or $119/year. Crossgrade pricing is also on offer for those that own RX Elements, RX Standard and RX Advanced.

Find out more on iZotope’s website.

Why fork out loads of cash on a fancy synth stand? One crafty Dutch musician has constructed one from bits and bobs they purchased from Ikea.

The individual in question is a YouTuber called, mysteriously, WhenZenEnds, and in a video that was uploaded last week, they’ve shown us how to do it.

You need just one Mosslanda picture ledge – the 55 centimetres one – two Betydlig wall/ceiling brackets and two Fixa worktop support fitting kits. Oh, and some screwdrivers, bolts and a reel of double-sided tape.

As you can see from the vid, WhenZenEnds guides us, wordlessly, through the steps. All the components are available, cheaply, via the Ikea website. You then get busy with your screwdriver and the sticky tape and at the end of it you should have a very nifty little two-tier stand on which to place a synth or two and a sampler. A small one, mind – don’t think for a minute about plonking bulky old analogue gear on there.

His viewers seem on board with this little hack, with comments like: “Looks very good and is definitely convenient!”, “Genuinely how did I not know that DIY furniture could be this easy and cheap. Such a useful skill to develop for producers!” and “this is genius thanks”.

And the total outlay? WhenZenEnds spent just €11, which is just over £9 or $12.30.

Polyend’s range of Tracker samplers are the latest hardware instruments to go open source, as the developer makes their code available on GitHub to coincide with what it’s calling the range’s “biggest update yet”.

The first released in 2020, the original Polyend Tracker was a hardware sampler with a sequencing setup based on the vertically scrolling, numerical format of software trackers like Ultimate Soundtracker, Sunvox or Renoise. The concept was developed further with the launch of the pocket-sized Tracker Mini in 2023 and Tracker+ in 2024, which added extra capabilities including stereo sampling and new synth engines.

With the rise of AI-led ‘vibe coding’, open source hardware is suddenly the hottest topic in music technology, with several brands making a rapid pivot towards open source firmware in recent weeks. In fairness though, Tracker feels like a particularly appropriate product line to go down this route, given the long history that tracker software shares with DIY programming and the Demoscene subculture.

“Here at Polyend, creativity is what we value most,” says Polyend CEO Piotr Raczyński. “We’ve seen it firsthand in the unofficial Tracker mods you’ve built, and we’re sharing the firmware source code to support that work.

“Maybe you want to build an entirely new instrument on the Tracker hardware? Or maybe there’s just one thing you wish your Tracker did differently? Either way, you can now try it on the unit you already own. I bet some of you already have ideas for the original Tracker that never crossed our minds.”

Handily, Polyend has also supplied a Tracker recovery system to aid any user that accidentally bricks their hardware.

Polyend hasn’t given up on firmware updates of its own though. Alongside the release of the source code, the company has launched an update named Tracker Community Edition 1.0. This brings a variety of enhancements across the range including the ability to stream samples directly from an SD card.

There is also a new Sample Editor that allows users to create and load effect and generator plugins. The initial firmware includes six plugins that range from a multi-mode filter and stereo delay to an analogue-style kick generator. Tracker+ and Tracker Mini also gain new synth modes, Chip, which is the first to use the new open Synth SDK, and Dirt, a new wavefolding/distortion synth.

Other updates added with the firmware include wavetable envelope and wavetable LFO modulation sources, custom colour and font configurations, new chance conditions and dedicated Micro-Move and Volume steps for the sequencers, the latter meaning its possible to input timing and volume level changes without occupying one of the two available FX slots.

Take a look at the changelog for full details and head to the Polyend site for more information.

Released in 2022, the Casiotone CT-S1 has long been one of our favourite beginner keyboards, and it’s also a great option for the more proficient player who wants a lightweight and portable digital piano. An expanded 76-note version arrived in 2024, but we weren’t quite prepared for where the range would go next.

The new Casiotone CT-FS1, you see, doesn’t just give beginners a keyboard they can learn to play on – it enables them to play the songs they know and love without actually having to learn them at all.

Confused? We can understand why, but the crucial added ingredient here is the companion Feel Sync app, which not only comes with a library of songs but also enables you to import your own MP3 or WAV files. The app can analyse any song and work out its chord progression, melody and rhythm; a proprietary algorithm then works in the background in real-time as you play along with it on the keyboard itself, and ensures that every note you play harmonises correctly.

The theory is that you can never hit a bum note – you can just concentrate on getting your timing right. You can also change the rhythm and experiment with adding more notes and varying the dynamics.

Naturally, there will be those who sneer at the very idea of being able to play along with a song without learning it ‘properly’, but Casio’s argument is that the CT-FS1 is designed to motivate people to become better musicians and act as a ‘gateway’ instrument.

“There’s something special about sitting down at a keyboard for the first time and discovering you can make music that sounds good,” says Brian Piccolo, Senior General Manager, Sound and Innovation Division at Casio. “Feel Sync lets people experience that feeling immediately with songs they love. Our hope is that the enjoyment becomes the motivation to learn those songs and discover how rewarding playing music can be.”

It’s also worth noting that the Feel Sync zone can be split, so you could have a total novice sitting at one end and bashing away mindlessly while a more experienced player does their thing in a more musical manner at the other.

And of course, once you’ve moved past the Feel Sync stage, you’ve still got a great little portable keyboard that has all the things that made the CT-S1 so appealing. These include 61 touch-sensitive keys, an AiX sound generator with 61 tones, and a decent built-in speaker system with a surround sound effect. Casio’s WU-BT10 Bluetooth MIDI and Audio Adapter comes in the box, so you can connect wirelessly to the Feel Sync app right away.

The CT-FS1 is available in two colour options: Midnight Black or Alpine White. And these really are completely monochrome – the case and every single note has the same hue, emphasising the fact that, with Feel Sync mode engaged, it really doesn’t matter which note you play.

The CT-FS1 is available now priced at $339/£335 and you can find out more on the Casio website.

It looks like Spotify will finally launch an AI remix service early next year.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the Swedish streaming platform are looking to get the service underway in the first quarter of 2027, with the unveiling possibly happening around the time of the Grammy Awards in February.

The idea is that, for an extra $4 to $5 per month, users would be able to use AI to create their own remixes – you could press a button and transform a classical piece into a dance track, or cover one artist in the style of someone else.

Before Spotify goes ahead with its plans, there are still some ruckles it needs to straighten out. Whilst the streaming firm has struck deals with Universal Music Group and the French music company Believe for the remix feature, it is still in negotiations with the two other majors – Sony Music and Warners.

Another challenge may be persuading major contemporary artists to take part in the scheme. Though artists will have a veto on whether they want their work to be transformed in this way, many may be reluctant.

Olivia Rodrigo was just one who told Hollywood Reporter in October that “I would never use AI in any of my music, absolutely no.” While artists will receive a share of extra fees when their songs are remixed by AI, that may not be enough for some who – quite understandably – want to retain control over their body of work.

It may well be that Spotify will go ahead even if they don’t get the agreement of Sony, Warners or a large proportion of current artists. All will no doubt be revealed over the coming months...

Pioneering techno producer Juan Atkins has died aged 64, his management company has confirmed.

Atkins was due to perform at Mexico City’s Yu Yu Club on the night of 31 October, but is reported to have been found unresponsive in his hotel room before his scheduled appearance.

Born in 1962, Atkins was one of the most notable figures within the Detroit music scene that birthed techno in the 1980s. He was a member of The Belleville Three, alongside school friends Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, a trio of producers widely credited with inventing and nurturing the genre in its early years.

Atkins released some of his earliest music as a member of Cybotron, a duo he formed at the age of 18 with Richard “3070” Davis. Cybotron’s fusion of influences from funk acts like Parliament-Funkadelic and, notably, Kraftwerk, helped shape the synthesized, groove-focused sound of early techno across influential tracks including Alleys Of Your Mind and Clear.

Later work included releases as Model 500, including the 1985 classic No UFO’s. Atkins also formed close ties with the second generation of producers shaping a European take on techno in Berlin, most notably with Basic Channel founder and dub techno pioneer Moritz von Oswald, who he later collaborated with as Borderland.

Atkins came of age at a time when synthesizers and drum machines were becoming more widely available, a fact that was very influential on the toolkit that shaped the sound of early techno. His first electronic instrument was a Korg MS-10, but gear including the ARP Odyssey, Sequential Pro-One and Roland TR-808 and TR-909 all helped shape the sound of his early releases.

Speaking to MusicRadar in 2012, Atkins said that his all-time favourite instrument was the Boss DR-55 drum machine. “It was the most quantum innovation that ever happened. If I had to pick one machine, that would be it. Being able to program a drum machine was a huge thing."

Ministry of Sound opened in 1991 in a disused bus garage in South London's Elephant & Castle and has since become a nightlife institution, expanding into a record label and worldwide events operation.

Now, the award-winning Martin Audio sound system that's soundtracked thousands of sweat-soaked, hedonistic nights in the club's main room is up for sale through music memorabilia auction house Wax Poetics.

The mammoth rig is made up of six stacks, each combining two Martin Audio W8C cabinets with two 18-inch bass bins and two passive 21-inch subs. Wax Poetics says the output is around 25kW per stack, and six XTA amplifiers are included. It's up for private sale, with price available on request, and Wax Poetics is taking enquiries from venues, hire companies, festivals and collectors.

Described by Wax Poetics as a "once-in-a-lifetime piece of dancefloor history", the system was used in the club's main room from 2010 to 2025, earning the title of Best Club Sound System at the International Dance Music Awards four years running.

It's now being retired on the club's 35th anniversary as part of a major refurbishment, which saw the Martin Audio rig replaced with with a bespoke four-point KV2 system made up of KV2 SL412 top speakers alongside VHD2.21 and VHD2.16 subwoofers.

Also up for sale by auction is a collection of memorabilia from the club's 35-year history, including two mirror balls, club flyers from the Ministry of Sound archive, a 12-issue run of the club's annual magazine, and the sales award for Eric Prydz's Call on Me, one of the label's biggest releases. If you're really feeling nostalgic, you can even bid on a actual piece of the club's dancefloor itself.

"Each piece in this collection tells part of Ministry of Sound's story, from the line-ups on the flyers to the nights captured in photographs", Wax Poetics co-founder Dave Holt said in a statement.

"The soundsystem has a different role. It's the equipment through which records became a shared experience, night after night. This rig connects directly to The Box and the generations of people who made it their dancefloor."

Head over to Wax Poetics to find out more.

Back in May, a leak appeared to reveal 14 unreleased products from Behringer, including an E-mu SP-1200 clone and a Roland-inspired, hybrid drum machine/sampler called the RD-765, prompting budget-minded gearheads to collectively lose their shit across the internet.

This week, a flurry of new products from Behringer have either been put up for preorder or teased through the company's social media channels, including several that were unveiled in the leak, along with a few totally unexpected drops.

Alongside its long-awaited Korg Polysix clone, Behringer has launched a trio of open-source, ultra-affordable pieces of gear, hinting at a new direction for the company with their user-modifiable firmware: the Kick sampler/groovebox, the Ignite sequencer, and Anima, a standalone DJ system priced at only $400. Here's what we know so far.

Behringer RD-765

First up, we've got the RD-765, a freshly-unveiled hybrid drum machine that – like most of Behringer's most popular products – draws inspiration from classic gear of yore. This isn't a clone of a single Roland drum machine, though, but a kind of Frankenstein that bolts together pieces from four models in the Japanese manufacturer's '80s lineup.

Bearing a strong visual resemblance to the TR-707 – the first Roland beatbox that exclusively used samples rather than analogue sound generation – the RD-765 is equipped with eight banks of 176 sounds based on that machine, the TR-505, TR-626, and TR-727, giving you a broad array of vintage-style samples to work with. If all those retro Roland sounds aren't doing it for you, then you can load up samples of your own using a companion app or sample directly through its 1/4" input.

Elsewhere, you get a bundle of features that you'd rarely find in a drum machine retailing at £329/$459: a dual-mode analogue filter; a flexible 64-step sequencer with microtiming, probability, polyrhythms and per-step filter automation; and heaps of connectivity from per-voice outputs and trigger outputs to MIDI In/Out and analogue sync. The RD-765 is available for preorder now.

Find out more

Behringer Polyeight

Another affordable recreation of an '80s gem, Behringer's Polyeight is a 49-key, eight-voice take on the Korg Polysix, a 61-key, six-voice analogue synth released in 1981 that – along with Roland's Juno series, launched only a few months later – brought polysynths to the masses with its accessible price point and straightforward design.

We're promised a "faithful recreation" of the original, right down to its single per-voice VCO, 2044 low-pass filter, and BBD effects section with chorus, phaser and ensemble. However, it wouldn't be a Behringer clone without a few modern enhancements thrown in to bring the synth into the 21st century: along with the two extra voices, the Polyeight gains polyphonic aftertouch, velocity sensitivity, a noise generator, LCD display and MIDI/USB connectivity. Priced at £429/$699, it's also up for pre-order now.

Find out more

Behringer Ignite

Behringer upended the music tech world this week with the news of Kick, a sampler, groovebox and MPC lookalike with open-source firmware. Spurred on by the recent trend of users using AI-powered 'vibe coding' to modify their gear's firmware or even build their own, Behringer is encouraging Kick owners to develop their own firmware for the instrument by making the code available on GitHub, opening the door for users to “create, modify and reinvent" what Kick can do.

Along with Kick, Behringer has teased a hardware sequencer built around the same open-source concept: Ignite. A 64-channel multi-track sequencer with USB-C, Wi-Fi, five pairs of 5-pin DIN MIDI In/Out jacks, 8 CV outputs, 8 Gate outputs and analogue sync, Ignite is more than capable of acting as the sequencing brain for an entire set-up with multiple synths, samplers drum machines, Eurorack modules or a laptop.

A generous touchscreen is joined by eight assignable knobs for sound-shaping, and a row of 16 RGB step buttons and LED-ringed encoders below for sequencing. The 64-channel sequencer in the stock firmware can program patterns of 16 bars with 16 steps per bar, crafting songs out of multiple scenes of up to 200 bars in length, but there's no telling what it'll be capable of once the community starts experimenting with custom firmware.

Ignite really is an ugly piece of gear – its crude, paint-by-numbers aesthetic looks about as basic and uninspiring as they come – but nonetheless, it could become a powerfully versatile sequencer once the vibe-coders get their hands on it. We've no word on price or release date yet, so watch this space.

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Behringer SP1200X

Behringer's "tribute" to the classic E-mu SP-1200 sampler has been in the works since 2019, but the company didn't publicly acknowledge the product until early 2025, when it asked users for feedback on what kind of features they'd like to see in it.

Nearly two years later, and the company has shared an update in a typically hyperbolic Facebook post, telling its customers that it's "pushing hard" to get the SP1200X into their hands as soon as possible, and that it's aiming for a price of only $200, which – for something like the SP1200X – is low even for Behringer. It seems as if Behringer's embrace of open firmware will be going beyond its original product designs and stretching to its clones, too, as the company has also declared that the SP1200X will be open-source.

The company has yet to share any finer details on features or functionality, but the unit looks reasonably SP-1200-ish, and seems to update the original with a larger, full-colour display, stereo sampling inputs and USB connectivity. The big question is whether Behringer will successfully nail the SP-1200's famously gritty, 12-bit/26.04kHz sound, and what compromises it might have to make to hit that $200 price point.

Find out more

The hype around early Black Friday music deals is officially in full swing, and retailers aren't hanging about this year. A whole bunch of them are launching sales way ahead of schedule. That's brilliant news if you're keen to bag a bargain on fresh gear without waiting around until late November.

Guitar Center is leading the charge right now. Head over to their site, and you'll find up to 30% off a massive range of big-name brands in their early Black Friday sale.

As you can imagine, there are plenty of discounted electric guitars, doorbuster savings on selected desktop amps, and tasty savings on drum kits and recording gear. Honestly, there's something for every type of musician here. If this is how good the pre-sale is, I can only imagine how big Guitar Center will go for Black Friday itself!

Just keep in mind that this early event finishes on Wednesday, 11th November. You haven't got long to grab something before it wraps up, though the main sale will likely follow right behind it.

As always, you’ll find a few of my sale highlights below.

If you like your Les Paul a little less traditional and a bit more ‘metal’, this amazing-looking Epiphone Les Paul Custom Widow might just take your fancy. It’s got a nice $120 off and is exclusively available at Guitar Center, so you won’t find this finish anywhere else.

Next up, I've found a sizable discount on the IK Multimedia TONEX, which is down from $429.99 to only $299.99. The TONEX amp models are excellent, as you’d expect from a company that has been at the forefront of amp modelling for a decade. From Fender Cleans to Dumble Crunch and even metal chug, all the tones you’d expect are here. If amps all day is the goal, then the TONEX may well be the best-sounding unit in this price bracket.

Next, the Casio CDP-S110 is down from $499.99 to only $ 399.99. For my money, the Casio CDP-S110 is easily one of the most impressive beginner digital pianos on the market, combining quality sounds, a fantastic-feeling keyboard, and stellar build quality. Right now you can save $100 at Guitar Center.

Lastly, a pair of KRK Kreate 3 studio monitors are down from $179 to only $149. I found these monitors particularly good for production duties despite the tiny price tag! Okay, they have a sound that's a little more 'hyped' than pure mixing monitors, but they sound good. Because of the rear ports, they're best placed slightly away from the wall, though you can correct this with the low-frequency EQ controls on the back.

For more music deals, check out the entire sale. The event ends on Wednesday, 11th November, and we're sure the official Black Sale will start immediately after, so stay tuned!

A touchscreen MacBook has long been talked about, but when Apple launched the iPad, in 2010, the assumption for many years was that the company wouldn’t put touch on a laptop for fear of cannibalising sales of that. Times change, though, and a touchscreen MacBook Pro – or the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display to give it its full title – was officially announced yesterday.

As you’d expect, Apple hasn’t skimped on the internals here: you can choose between an M5 Pro and M5 Max processor; up to 128GB of memory can be installed; and you can have up to 16TB of storage. It’s the display, though, that the company is really talking up, and the specs sound undeniably impressive.

Whether you go for the 14- or 16-inch model, PROLED XDR uses “tandem OLED technology” to deliver “Extreme Dynamic Range (XDR)” and high levels of detail and brightness. In fact, the display engine is said to control each pixel in real time.

And then there’s that touch interface, which brings swiping, pinch-to-zooming and all those other gestures we’re familiar with to the Mac for the first time. Apple says that the touch sensor is built into the display panel rather than layered on top of it, the theory being that this will reduce latency.

This could be important, of course, if you’re playing keys or tapping drum pads in Logic Pro, as Apple’s launch video suggests you might. We’re intrigued to find out how this feels; while touch certainly makes sense in iPad music making apps, where the device can be placed flat on the desk or slightly angled, we’re yet to be convinced that leaning across a laptop keyboard and tapping keys on an upright screen (the one on the new MacBook Pro can’t be folded back on itself) is going to be conducive to an accurate or pleasurable playing experience. We shall see.

Elsewhere, Apple has also kitted the new MacBook Pro out with an enhanced six speaker audio setup. We’re promised 50% deeper bass and newly-designed tweeters, while the mics are said to be of “studio quality.”

Connectivity options are plentiful, too: we’re talking three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI, an SDXC card slot, MagSafe, and a headphone jack.

None of this comes cheap, of course – the 14-inch model starts at $2,749/£2,899 and the 16-inch machine at $3,399/$3,399. Pre-orders are being taken now, and shipping will start on 6 November.

Find out more on the Apple website.

Sought-after super producer Andrew Watt has opened up about his experiences working with some of the most iconic musicians on the planet.

The 38-year-old has built up a very particular niche for himself: the ability to coax the best out of legendary rock and roll stars in their twilight years, from Elton John to Iggy Pop, Paul McCartney to Ozzy Osbourne.

Speaking to Vulture, he shone a light on the process: “I believe it’s cool to be a fan. I don’t think you have to pretend you’re cool or act like you don’t like this person.

"I’m a giant music fan. That’s all I know. I've had it before where I’ve met someone and talked to them about how much I love them, because I can be very vocal about that."

Watt first started racking up huge production credits in the 2010s, working with major pop stars like Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and Post Malone. His collaborations with the latter singer-songwriter helped spawn new connections with some of the world's biggest rock legends, leading to a Grammy-winning 2021 track with Ozzy Osbourne (Ordinary Man) that tipped him into a whole new stratosphere.

Recent projects Watt has helped deliver include Foreign Tongues by the Rolling Stones, The Boys of Dungeon Lane by Paul McCartney, and Dark Matter by Pearl Jam. It’s a list of rock legends that would intimidate plenty of younger producers, but not Watt. Partly, that's because he recognises a key thread that runs between each artist.

“They all have an overwhelming kindness,” he explained. “All the great achievers are kind to the people they work with. They go over and beyond to make sure everyone feels good.

"They come down to your level. Or they invite you up to theirs. People ask that all the time: ‘How the fuck are you giving the guys suggestions?’ Because that’s what you’re paid to do. What the fuck else are you there for?”

On how he wins artists' trust in the first place, Watt added: "This is a results-based business, it's that simple. If they’re happy and they’re jumping up and down about the art that they made, that’s the reason I do what I do. I don’t know if that’s the reason why I get hired, but I like to think they’re happy with the sound I make.”

Behringer is teasing a forthcoming hardware sampler, Kick, which looks an awful lot like Akai’s recently-updated MPC One. That in itself isn’t especially noteworthy. Barely a week goes by without Behringer teasing a new product concept, many of which are very obviously inspired by existing, pricier hardware from rival brands.

What makes Kick different is the fact that, even before the hardware itself has been released, Behringer has uploaded resources for its open source firmware to GitHub, inviting potential users to “create, modify and reinvent what an instrument can do.”

Although the Kick hardware itself largely mimics the format of Akai’s MPC, with 16 pads, four assignable knobs, a touchscreen and a mix of audio, MIDI and CV connectivity, there are a couple of intriguing features mentioned in the specs.

One of these is the inclusion of an ‘AI camera’, which is said to allow for gesture control. Kick also includes a small touchstrip, similar to that found on Akai’s higher-end MPCs but not the similarly-sized MPC One.

Behringer announced Kick on Facebook in typically modest fashion, with a post that reads:

“HE WAS KICKED OUT OF A MUSIC STORE BECAUSE HE COULDN’T AFFORD ANYTHING.

That young musician was Uli Behringer.

That experience inspired a mission: Democratize music technology and empower those who have not and cannot.

Nearly 40 years later, we’re taking that mission to another level.”

Sure. This mission, the post goes on to explain, not only guided Kick’s affordable price point – which at a promised $150 is certainly very cheap – but also the decision to open the hardware and software resources in order to allow the user community to shape the device’s capabilities.

This sudden shift towards open source isn’t happening in a vacuum, of course. With the rise of AI-powered ‘vibe coding’, DIY firmware and custom plugins have become a topic of hot discussion in music technology circles. This same emphasis on open firmware is what has powered the whirlwind success of M-Wave’s FM-1 digital synth, which has inspired countless user-generated reimaginings thanks to its FM1 Open SDK.

In the same Facebook post, Behringer is explicit about the role it sees AI playing in the ongoing development of Kick: “With AI, even people without programming experience can turn their ideas into new features and firmware.”

Behringer is hardly alone in jumping on the open source bandwagon. Akai itself looks set to embrace an open approach with the recently teased MPC Sample Key, which is reported to be open source too.

There are a few ways to look at this industry shift. There are obvious benefits in this embrace of community collaboration. Open source music technology is nothing new, and there are numerous examples – such as software like Surge XT or VCV Rack, or Mutable Instruments’ digital hardware – where open source code has resulted in thriving communities of like-minded collaborators.

There is also an obvious danger though, that this move ends up shifting certain responsibilities from the brands themselves onto their user bases. Over the past few decades, it’s become standard practice for makers of music tech hardware to issue post-release firmware updates, used to fix bugs and improve performance, but also often as a way to extend a product’s lifespan by adding new features. By opening a product up to AI-generated firmware, at least the latter part of that deal becomes more of a community responsibility.

It will be interesting to see what Behringer Kick is capable of – and how it runs – when it hits the market. Its Github specs tout capabilities including sample editing, step sequencer and looper, and appears to be based around something called 'JAM DAW', implying it should ship with fairly capable ‘official’ firmware. For users, the ideal setup would be one where a product arrives with a broad set of features that make Kick a worthwhile purchase in its own right, and any user-generated content becomes an entirely optional bonus.

It’s not hard to imagine a world, however, where brands see AI-empowered users as a way to save money on the development, testing and updating of products. Effectively striking a deal whereby hardware brands put hardware in the hands of users in a minimal viable state and let the community refine it themselves.

Which is not to say this is what Behringer, Akai or any other brand has planned. It’s also worth acknowledging that users have started creating AI-generated firmware for a multitude of hardware devices whether officially sanctioned or not – a fact that likely contributed to Elektron banning unofficial updates from its forums.

This could well be the dawn of a newly democratised hardware market where a single cheap desktop device unlocks a multitude of inspiring workflows. Then again, five years from now we could be looking back wistfully on the days when we didn’t have to wade through a mountain of AI slop just to get our new synths to function properly.

Akai Professional has previewed a new keyboard sampler in two teaser videos shared on the company’s Instagram account. Sample Key appears to be a keyboard-equipped counterpart to the MPC Sample, released in March this year, but Akai has yet to share any details on specs, price or release date.

The Sample Key has a two-octave, 25-key mini keyboard in place of the MPC Sample’s 4x4 grid of pads, with pitch and mod wheels, a built-in speaker and a central display surrounded by knobs and buttons. In the video, Akai’s Dan Gill explains that Sample Key can sample on individual keys and create automatic key splits, but that’s about all we know so far when it comes to the sampling features.

What sets Sample Key apart is the firmware. Akai has said that it will be “embracing the AI and vibe-coding community” by opening up the instrument's firmware for users to modify, giving them the ability to design new features, add new sound engines, and effectively turn it into a different instrument; Gill says that the Sample Key “can be whatever you want”. Akai hasn’t yet clarified whether the source code for Sample Key’s stock firmware will be published, or whether modding will be limited to tools Akai provides.

In the first video, two of Gill’s colleagues discuss their own mods for Sample Key; one has used Claude to transform the sampler into a chord machine, with the keys acting as a strum plate and the pitch wheel selecting the chord type, while another has loaded up a version of Native Instruments’ Massive soft synth on the device.

In a second video, posted today, multiple Sample Keys are lined up next to each other, each loaded with a different custom vibe-coded synthesizer, covering virtual analogue, FM and wavetable synthesis. Several MPC Sample units are also shown running the same synths, as Akai confirms that its firmware will be opened up in the same way.

Akai’s teasers arrive as the music tech world is engulfed by a wave of custom firmware, much of it vibe-coded. Since September, independent developers have been modifying or replacing the firmware on existing instruments using AI coding tools. The M-Vave FM-1 – a budget FM synth – has been the focal point, but the trend has spread well beyond the FM-1 to devices from Elektron, Roland and even Akai itself.

The timing of Akai’s teaser is worth noting, as it arrived a day after Behringer unveiled Kick, a prototype sampler and groovebox that looks suspiciously similar to Akai’s MPC One. (Though Akai hasn’t referenced Behringer’s Kick, it’s hard not to read the Sample Key teaser as a response.)

A sampler, step sequencer and looper equipped with 16 RGB pads, a large touchscreen, four assignable knobs and a jog wheel, Kick also features an “AI camera” for gestural control, along with USB, MIDI and CV/gate connectivity on the rear. The price could reportedly be as low as $150, seriously undercutting the $799 MPC One Gen 2.

Like Sample Key, Kick is designed to be reprogrammed by its users, but Behringer has potentially gone further by making its firmware open source, allowing users to build their own custom OS for the hardware that suits their own workflow. Music Tribe, Behringer’s parent company, has already published its own code for Kick on GitHub under the AGPL-3.0 license, which permits anyone to use, modify and share it, provided that anyone who distributes a modified version releases it under the same terms.

Whether Akai's Sample Key will be opened up to the same degree remains to be seen, but with two major manufacturers embracing the custom firmware boom in the space of two days, it looks like community firmware is about to go mainstream.

It’s been a busy month for Apple: following the release of the iPhone Duo last week, the tech giant has dropped a major iPad Mini update and launched the next generation of MacBook Pro and iMac with M6 chips onboard.

But that’s not all – yesterday, Apple unveiled the next version of its long-established DAW Logic Pro as part of a broader update to the Creator Studio suite, sharing a feature overview ahead of the update's launch in November.

The headline addition to Logic Pro 13 may be a controversial one: Apple has launched an agentic AI assistant designed to help users make music. Offering users advice and instructions in a chatbot-style interface, the Assistant can control a project by adding tracks, opening plugins and adjusting levels in response to the user's instructions.

The limits of what exactly the Assistant can do aren’t yet clear – Apple has said that it’s capable of helping users “navigate production workflows, start a new song, set up a vocal track from a single prompt, or refine an active project” – but we’re curious to find out whether it can generate MIDI notes or create arrangements out of existing regions on the timeline, for example.

Powered by a combination of AI models from OpenAI and built in-house by Apple, the Assistant will require users to be running macOS 27 Golden Gate or later on an Apple Intelligence-capable Mac. It’ll only be available in English when it launches in beta in November.

Logic Pro’s Browser has been redesigned to make sound selection more intuitive, and is now equipped with an on-device audio analysis tool that automatically analyses, classifies and tags sounds in your library to make hunting down the perfect loop or sample faster and more efficient. It’s now possible to search for sounds with natural language (ask for “heavy techno drums” or “jangly electric guitar”, for example) or even drop in an audio file to discover results that sound similar. Apple has followed Ableton and Avid in adding native Splice integration to the Browser, too.

Apple first brought stem separation to Logic Pro in 2024 with Stem Splitter, an AI-powered tool that can isolate vocal and instrumental elements of a multitrack mix and extract them as stems. Stem Splitter has received an upgrade in Logic Pro 13, and is now capable of splitting drum recordings into six individual stems: Kick, Snare, Hi-hat, Toms, Cymbals and Other.

Not only giving users the ability to isolate individual drum parts, this also allows them to replace a dodgy-sounding hi-hat, for example, or adjust the levels of a snare in a mixed drum recording without reaching for an EQ. It’s a welcome upgrade to a stem separation tool that was already one of the best on the market.

Logic Pro 13 also boasts a slick new look, bringing the Liquid Glass design language rolled out in 2025 to the DAW with its translucent surfaces and rounded edges. The colour scheme is a touch darker, too, making coloured elements pop out a little more.

Finally, Apple has dropped another of its Producer Packs for Logic Pro – sound and preset libraries created by prominent artists and producers – from Grammy-winning pianist and producer Sergio George, a leading figure in salsa and Latin music. The pack gives users access to George’s “signature piano sound”, along with a variety of Latin jazz and salsa loops, including a full salsa percussion section and brass ensemble.

Logic Pro 13 signals a clear direction for Apple: the company is doubling down on AI, not only in its music software but across the entire Creator Studio suite. It comes as no surprise, as earlier this month we learned that Apple had acquired Swiss AI music company Samplab, hinting at an expansion of the DAW’s AI-powered functionality.

Logic Pro 11 and 12 were already heavily AI-focused, but 13 goes even further – every new or updated feature detailed above is AI-based. They all sound mighty useful, but we’re hoping that Apple implements some substantial, bread-and-butter improvements to Logic’s core DAW functionality alongside its shiny new AI tools when the full extent of the update is revealed in November.

Logic Pro 13 will be a free update for existing users. New users can purchase the software outright for £199.99/$199.99, or access it as part of a Creator Studio subscription, priced at $12.99/£12.99 per month or $129.99/£129.99 per year.

Find out more on Apple's website.

What is it?

The t.bone Free 300 HT 823 and PT 823 are two separate wireless audio packages from Thomann, designed to provide an affordable route into wireless performance. Although sold individually, we've chosen to review them together because their real appeal lies in the flexibility of combining the two systems.

At around £159 each for either package, the free 300 range builds on the foundations of the t.bone freeU HT 823 we reviewed previously, adding a few useful improvements without straying into expensive professional territory. Both systems operate within the 823-832MHz and 863-865MHz frequency bands, offering a practical solution for musicians, presenters and event organisers who want to lose the cables without spending a fortune.

The HT 823 package includes a handheld dynamic wireless microphone and a receiver, while the PT 823 provides a pocket transmitter, or bodypack, for connecting an instrument or a compatible lavalier microphone. The bodypack uses a 3-pin TQG connector, so you'll need to purchase a suitable cable separately if you want to connect your instrument or microphone. These cables are available from Thomann, but they're not included in the box.

One of the biggest improvements over the freeU HT 823 is the receiver's flexibility. The free 300 receiver can switch between handheld and pocket transmitter modes, allowing you to choose the setup that best suits your application. The two modes cannot be used simultaneously, but having both options available makes the system considerably more versatile than its predecessor.

The receiver itself feels solid and measures 210 x 45 x 193mm, weighing just under a kilogram. It features two BNC diversity antennas, balanced XLR and unbalanced 6.5mm jack outputs, and an adjustable gain range of 0-25dB. Power comes from a 12V 1A DC supply with a cable that measures around 115cm, which feels a little short if your equipment rack or power socket isn't close by. On the plus side, a UK plug adaptor was included this time around.

The receiver's LCD is another welcome improvement. It's brighter, clearer and provides more useful information at a glance, including the selected frequency, battery status, audio-frequency and radio-frequency signal strength, and volume. Three pre-programmed frequency groups offer ten channels each, and the system supports up to six units operating in parallel. An infrared link transfers settings from the receiver to the transmitter, helping to keep setup simple, while a frequency-scanning function makes finding a suitable channel less of a chore.

The handheld microphone has also received some attention. The slimmer grille and improved feel give it a more refined appearance than the freeU version, while the cardioid dynamic capsule provides a slightly different pickup pattern from the older model's supercardioid design. It operates on two AA batteries, with approximately eight hours of talk time and up to 12 hours on standby. The pocket transmitter offers similar battery life, a detachable antenna and an LCD showing the selected frequency and battery status.

Overall, this is a straightforward system with a few useful additions that make it more adaptable than the older freeU range. It's not designed to compete directly with premium wireless systems, but the extra flexibility is a welcome bonus at this price.

Performance

For anyone familiar with the t.bone freeU HT 823, the free 300 will feel reassuringly familiar. The general approach remains the same – keep things simple, make setup accessible and provide enough functionality for everyday performance without introducing unnecessary complexity.

The receiver is easy to get to grips with, and the improved display makes a genuine difference. Being able to see the selected frequency, battery level and signal strength more clearly is useful when setting up in a hurry, particularly in a dimly lit venue. The infrared synchronisation also helps remove some of the guesswork from pairing the transmitter with the receiver.

The additional flexibility is arguably the free 300's biggest selling point. With the receiver switchable between handheld and pocket transmitter modes, you aren't restricted to a single type of performance. The handheld microphone is convenient for speeches, presentations and casual vocal performances such as Karaoke, while the bodypack opens the door to instrument or lavalier microphone applications. Just remember to budget for the appropriate TQG cable, as this isn't supplied with the PT 823.

The stated line-of-sight operating range of up to 100 metres is another advantage over the freeU HT 823. That's a useful amount of freedom for larger rooms, stages and event spaces, although actual performance will depend on the surroundings, obstacles and radio interference. The receiver's diversity antenna arrangement and multiple frequency options also provide useful tools for maintaining a stable connection.

In terms of build quality, the handheld microphone is a noticeable improvement. The slimmer grille gives it a more conventional appearance, and the overall feel is more reassuring when picking it up. However, there's a difference between a microphone feeling well made and being comfortable to use for an entire performance. Unfortunately, handling noise remains a weakness. Movement and contact with the microphone can introduce unwanted noise, so we'd be more inclined to use it on a microphone stand rather than holding it throughout a set.

Sound quality is perfectly acceptable for the intended audience, but it's important to keep expectations realistic. The microphone produces usable vocals for general announcements, presentations and entry-level musical performances, but it doesn't have the same refinement, clarity or consistency as a more established microphone such as the Shure SM58. That isn't entirely surprising given the price, but it's worth bearing in mind if you're planning to use it as your main vocal microphone in a professional band.

For public speaking, weddings, community events and smaller venues, the free 300 should be more than capable of doing the job. In these situations, convenience and dependable wireless operation can matter more than squeezing every last detail out of a vocal performance. For musicians who regularly perform live and place a high priority on vocal sound, however, we'd recommend investing in a more capable microphone and wireless system. For our ears, the vocal signal is a tad too bass-heavy, so we were inclined to roll off a little of the lower frequencies at the desk. The performance for instruments using the bodypack also seemed to colour the sound with slightly exaggerated bass levels, so this is something worth accommodating when dialling in your preferred tone.

Battery flexibility is another practical advantage. Both transmitters run on two AA batteries, including rechargeable AA options, so you're not tied to a proprietary battery pack. The quoted eight hours of talk time should be sufficient for many performances and events, while the additional standby time offers some reassurance when the system is switched on but not in constant use.

There are a couple of smaller frustrations. The power supply cable feels unnecessarily short, and the need to buy a separate cable for the bodypack adds a little extra expense and preparation. Neither issue is a deal breaker, but both are worth considering before purchasing.

Ultimately, the free 300 doesn't reinvent the budget wireless microphone, but it improves on the freeU formula in several practical ways. The receiver is easier to read, the handheld microphone feels better designed, and the option to switch between transmitter types makes it a more flexible choice for users whose requirements might change over time.

Verdict

The t.bone free 300 HT 823 and PT 823 make a compelling case for anyone looking for an affordable, uncomplicated wireless audio setup. For around £159, you get a useful combination of handheld and bodypack options, a more informative receiver display, a line-of-sight range of up to 100 metres and support for multiple systems operating in parallel.

The improved microphone design is welcome, although handling noise remains an issue, and the sound quality doesn't quite reach the standard we'd expect for regular professional band work. The short power cable and separately purchased bodypack cable are also worth factoring into the overall cost.

That said, this isn't a system pretending to be something it isn't. It's aimed at people who need practical, accessible wireless audio without a hefty price tag, and in that respect, it does an excellent job. We'd happily recommend it for beginner musicians, public speakers, wedding speeches, and smaller events where convenience and value are the priorities.

If you're already familiar with the freeU HT 823, the free 300 is a sensible step up, particularly if you need the added flexibility of a bodypack transmitter. Just don't expect it to replace a professional wireless rig or a quality wired vocal microphone. At this price, the t.bone free 300 HT 823 and PT 823 offer a well-judged balance of features, usability and affordability.

Hands-on demos

the t.bone

Alternatives

Specifications

Freshly launched today, Moog Music’s all-analogue path amplifiers, the Model 112 and Model 210 have been carefully crafted to make sure that the unique characteristics of a wide array of electronic instruments are retained when being performed on stage.

On top of the all-analogue internals of both these models, they offer full-range, flat response (aka FRFR), 4 stereo inputs and an integrated four-channel stereo mixer. There’s Bluetooth 6.0 streaming functionality too, alongside dedicated headphone monitoring and balanced PA connectivity.

The points of difference between the two amplifiers comes with the oomph of their respective outputs. The lighter (47.84 lbs/ 21.7 kg), handle-equipped Model 112 is angled at - what Moog describes as 'everyday versatility’ for users who travel gig-to-gig. Inside a 440W RMS bi-amplified system powers a 12-inch woofer and a 1-inch compression driver with a frequency response of 40Hz-20kHz.

In comparison, the larger (69.89lbs/31.7 kg) Model 210 sports a 550W RMS bi-amplified, 2.5-way design which combines its 1-inch compression driver with a pair of 10-inch woofers. One of these woofers is purpose-designed for full-range audio, while the other is specifically targeted at lower frequencies that extend beneath 35Hz. This, in words of Moog ensures a robust response for ‘synthesizer bass, electronic drums, sound design and bass modelling systems.’

“Every great electronic instrument has its own sonic identity,” states Joe Richardson, President at Moog Music. “Model 112 and Model 210 were designed to preserve that identity, not colour it. From the unmistakable warmth of a Moog synthesizer to the transient snap of a drum machine, these amplifiers allow the true character of the instrument to come through. Musicians work hard to shape their sound. They deserve amplification that delivers it honestly, consistently, and exactly as intended.”

Both amplifiers also feature an integrated four-channel analogue stereo mixer that allows the inputting of numerous instruments at the same time, allowing you to manage their respective outputs via the four front panel knobs.

The first channel also includes a microphone preamp. A Baxandall master EQ allows master control over the full mix, which can be sent to the front of house or used as the basis for onstage monitoring. Stereo Link allows you to combine two compatible Moog amps to build a robust stereo system.

Moog Model 112 and Model 210 are available now. With the Model 112 priced at $799/ €799.99/£679.99 and the Model 210 at $999/€999.99/£849.99 respectively. For more info head to Moog.com

Released two decades ago this month, Native Instruments’ Massive became one of the most influential soft synths of its era and a staple in the toolbox of countless producers, before a belated sequel, Massive X, was released in 2019.

Today, Native Instruments unveils Massive’s third generation, the successor to Massive X and the company’s most significant instrument release since it was acquired by inMusic, owner of Akai and Moog, earlier this year, after going into preliminary insolvency in January.

A supersized upgrade to its flagship wavetable synthesizer, Massive XL builds on the core synth engine of Massive X with expanded sonic capabilities and an enhanced workflow, introducing custom wavetable creation, polyphonic aftertouch support and Synplant-style audio-to-patch preset generation, while borrowing preset mutation from Absynth, another recently revived NI classic.

Though there are tons of improvements and new features in Massive XL, it’s the Generate function that’s going to steal the headlines. This is an AI model, developed in-house by NI, that analyses any imported audio file and recreates it as a fully editable patch in Massive XL.

Drop an audio file into the newly-added menu on the right-hand side of the synth’s interface, and you can select a slice of up to four seconds in length to use as the basis for a patch. NI has added stem separation here, so you’re able to drop a sample from an existing song, split it into its constituent stems (Vocals, Bass, Drums and Other) before running a slice into Generate.

Generate creates four different patches by default, and you’re able to adjust how much variation there is between presets and how closely they match the timbre of the original audio file. Each preset variant is automatically assigned six macro controls that let you make quick edits to the character of the sound. Placing the kind of audio-to-patch technology pioneered by Sonic Charge’s Synplant plugin in a more sophisticated synth architecture while giving you more control over the results, Generate is a huge step forward for Massive.

Massive XL also inherits a much-loved feature from Native Instruments’ Absynth 6: preset mutation. This automatically creates variations of the currently loaded preset by introducing algorithmically-generated parameter changes that borrow settings from other presets in your library.

An entire preset can be mutated at once, or you can apply mutation selectively to its oscillators, noise sources, filter, inserts, effects and amp envelope; you’re also able to choose between four levels of divergence, which determines how extreme the transformation is. There’s also a randomization function that applies random values to every parameter in a preset.

Like Massive X, Massive XL is built around two wavetable oscillators with 10 oscillator modes, plus phase modulation oscillators, two noise generators and a filter with nine types, three insert slots, three effects slots, semi-modular routing and a flexible modulation system.

Both the Generator and Mutator give users new ways to access fresh sounds at the click of a button, but Massive XL has plenty of upgrades for more traditional sound designers too. You can now create your own wavetables – something Massive users have been asking for for a long time – by dragging-and-dropping any audio file or single-cycle waveform into the oscillator section, and there’s a new single-oscillator view that lets you see the whole wavetable in a waterfall display too.

Joining the 170+ wavetables already in Massive X’s library are more than 100 new wavetables designed for XL, including some retro options lifted from classic PPG synths and the original Massive, and you get over 100 new noise tables as well.

There are three new effects onboard based on existing NI plugins: Raum is a three-mode algorithmic reverb, Replika Shimmer combines delay, reverb and pitch-shifting to create classic shimmer effects, and Tape Wobble adds wow, flutter, saturation and noise in the style of analogue tape machines. Sub-presets for effects, inserts and filters can now be saved too.

Massive XL also introduces polyphonic aftertouch support, so controllers that send per-note pressure can shape the sound of each note independently – any existing aftertouch assignments, including those in older presets, will automatically switch over to per-note response. (Unlike Absynth 6, there’s no full MPE support.)

That’s not all, either: there’s a long list of minor improvements, including animated modulators, interactive envelope graphs with draggable handles and curve segments, custom user banks for user presets, and undo/redo functionality.

Along with Massive XL, Native Instruments is releasing Massive XL Player, a free version of the synth that lets you load and play a limited selection of presets in the Play view but doesn’t give you access to full editing, or the new Generate or Mutate features. NI has confirmed that Massive X and Massive X Player are both being retired with the release of Massive XL.

“Massive has always been about giving producers the freedom to create sounds that feel uniquely their own,” Native Instruments' Senior Director of Product Management Tim Adnitt said in a press release.

“With Massive XL, we’ve focused on helping users reach those sounds faster. It delivers the character, flexibility, and control Massive is known for while introducing new tools that make exploration, experimentation, and sound creation more immediate.”

Massive XL is available now for €199/$199/£179, with an introductory price of €99 / $99 / £89 from October 27 through December 31. Owners of Massive X and Massive are eligible for upgrade discounts.

Find out more on Native Instruments’ website.

Portable hardware samplers are well and truly in vogue at the moment, and leaping into the competitive fray with a tasty-looking new offering comes the feature-packed Sample Boy from Donner Music.

Introduced at this year’s Beijing Modular 26 show, this new (and recently leaked over the summer on Amazon) handheld sample workstation from the Chinese-based manufacturer is ostensibly a prototype of something that Donner Music state will hit shelves within the next 12 months.

While some have already noted its resemblance to the aesthetics of Teenage Engineering's products, Sample Boy sports several features that set it apart.

As the company revealed to Sonicstate in an exclusive video, the rectangular Sample Boy features a 2.8-inch full-colour IPS LCD display, four colour-coded parameters, six touch points and 16 backlit buttons. At the heart of the unit are a fader, jog wheel and navigation pad. The prototype also comes equipped with a 7-track sequencer which allows users to build an entirely new track from raw materials captured with the unit.

The Sample Boy also features a built-in speaker and microphone, meaning that it can be an entirely standalone hub if you so wish. However data can be shared with a DAW-equipped computer via the USB-C cable.

What’s particularly appealing about Sample Boy is that the unit can receive samples from a vast range of sources. It can capture incoming audio via its line input, the internal mic, USB audio or can be processed via an internal digital tape mode for classic resampling, boasting 32-voice sampler polyphony.

The Sample Boy allows you to apply an input effect to the incoming sample too, allowing users to change its characteristics via an in-built filter, EQ, its compressor, distortion mode or coloured mode. The internal sample engine runs at 48kHz/24-bit

Using the unit’s controls and the LCD display, users are then able to adjust and slice the sample to taste using its dedicated modes.

In terms of connections, the aforementioned USB-C charging port also allows the communication of audio and MIDI data to an external computer. There’s also a mini jack MIDI IN and OUT, analog sync IN and OUT and a line input and output. Then there's a microSD slot for saving and loading samples outside of the unit.

With the hardware close to completion - and the software still being developed - the unit still has some way to go before we can expect it to retail.

Beyond this technical information, imparted to Sonicstate we have little else to report for now, other than the Sample Boy is expected to launch 2027, with its price TBC. Check out Donner Music for the latest updates.

The licence holders of the Elvis back catalogue have filed a $41 million lawsuit against the AI Anthropic for the illegal use of scores of the King’s songs.

They allege that Anthropic has trained its AI model Claude on some 274 Presley songs, without permission. Authentic Brands, which is the group that currently holds the Elvis copyright, is seeking roughly $150,000 per song, which works out to $41 million in total.

In a statement, the group’s lead attorney Richard Busch has written: “The Elvis Plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before. The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs.”

It’s not the first time Anthropic has been hit with a lawsuit for stealing copyrighted material. Just last week, Universal Music Publishing, Concord and ABKCO slapped an action on the San Francisco-based tech firm for infringing the copyright of over 500 songs, including Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come, Every Breath You Take by The Police and Beyoncé’s Halo. This, though, is the first time the owner of a single artist’s catalogue has sued.

According to Authentic, the AI model Claude has used the Elvis songs to create ‘unlicensed derivative works’ which were ridiculously close to the originals.

The lawsuit reads: “Even after the Defendant supposedly put up ‘guardrails’ after being sued, in one of its latest iterations, Claude continues to infringe: when recently asked to recreate specific songs ‘for a modern audience,’ Claude did so and admitted: ‘These renders keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges.”

“That’s edging past ‘inspired by’ into reproducing the copyrighted song, even when the words are swapped out.’”

Needless to say, Anthropic denies the allegations. “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” it has said in a statement.

What is it?

At first glance, RND doesn’t look much like a synthesizer – it looks like a big black button set in a square of orange plastic. But what exactly is it? An eccentric doorbell? A sci-fi thermostat? A nuclear detonator?

Nope. Believe it or not, RND is a musical instrument: a pocket-sized, multi-timbral generative synthesizer. According to its creators, Parisian synth-makers Cyma Forma and producer Bambounou, it’s an “inspiration machine”, an “infinite source of sounds” that holds the potential for more than 4 billion musical ideas. It’s also, quite literally, just a button.

RND is a synth with a single control. No keys, no knobs and no display, just one button that produces a randomised musical idea every time you press it. Hit that button and RND generates between one and four sequences that play on four instrument tracks, each feeding into a randomly selected synth engine loaded with a randomly generated patch. Hit it again, a new musical idea appears, and the previous one is gone forever.

RND certainly looks simple, but there’s more going on under the hood than you might expect. Though the sequences are randomly generated, they follow some rules. Each one takes the form of a looping pattern, a “jingle” (a one-shot sequence that doesn’t repeat) or a drone, the rhythms follow Euclidean algorithms, and the melodies and chords adhere to a randomly selected scale from a bank of 20 that includes multiple modes and some more exotic options alongside the typical major and minor scales.

Each sequence runs into one of eight synth engines, each of which can randomly be monophonic or four-voice polyphonic: you’ve got subtractive, FM, Karplus-Strong, supersaw, additive and noise, along with a 303-style acid engine and a speech synth reminiscent of the classic Texas Instruments Speak & Spell. After the sequences have been generated, the tracks are randomly panned, mixed together and sent through a randomised reverb on the master output.

RND is a bold idea, and it’s one that split the crowds when it was unveiled earlier this year at Superbooth, producing strong opinions on both sides. It’s not hard to see why: all of the features we expect from a synthesizer – sound design, manual sequencing, preset selection – are largely absent from RND. All you’re left with is a button, and the decision to either work with what that button creates, or hit it again and try something else.

Pricing

Launch price: £149/$150/€169

Performance

Despite its extreme simplicity, there’s a lot more to RND than meets the eye, and there are a few different ways that you can work with it in a musical context. The simplest is to just plug in a pair of headphones and listen. (There’s no battery or built-in speaker, so you’ll always need a USB-C power source and something to listen with.) This is where the definition of RND as a “synthesizer” feels a little stretched; with no way to tweak the patch, edit the sequence, or actually interact with the music, RND feels more like a generative music player than an instrument.

Press the button a few times and you’ll realise that RND is a kind of musical slot machine. It’s very unpredictable – that’s the whole idea – and a significant chunk of what it comes out with isn’t usable. It’s all subjective, of course, but much of the output sounds too chaotic or atonal, some just isn’t very musical, and a minority is borderline unlistenable. As a test, we hit the button 100 times and tallied up the ideas we liked and those we didn’t, and just under half of them got our thumbs-up. That’s not a bad result, and it’s not hard to find something to work with after doing a bit of button-pushing, but it’s fair to say that RND requires a little patience.

There’s a decent amount of sonic variety across its eight synth engines, and it comes out with everything from biting plucks and wobbly basses to ethereal pads and noisy textures. At its best, it can produce bubbling, Buchla-esque sequences in the vein of Suzanne Ciani or Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, or floaty ambient soundscapes that could pass for an Eno outtake. We were particularly taken with the speech synth, which can sound brilliantly weird and glitchy. Some of the patches might sound familiar, as Cyma Forma has borrowed open-source code from Mutable Instruments – the now-defunct Eurorack brand responsible for much-loved modules like Plaits, Rings and Beads – for its synth engines.

When you land on something you like, you can sample RND’s output and work with it elsewhere; either record it into a hardware sampler via the 3.5mm stereo output or run it into your DAW. You can sample the whole mix, or you can record each instrument track separately in your DAW, as RND sends out multi-track audio over USB-C. This comes in useful when you like a part that’s being played on one track but not the others, which can happen quite often. (The USB stems come in mono and skip the reverb, though, so you’ll have to add panning and effects after the fact.)

On its own, then, RND is a fairly limited proposition, but it becomes a much more versatile instrument when you hook it up to a laptop or another piece of gear. It can send and receive four-channel MIDI over USB, or receive four-channel MIDI through a TRS Type A mini-jack. Two additional mini-jacks handle analogue sync, too, so you can send its clock out to another piece of gear or sync RND’s sequencers to another clock.

By routing MIDI into RND, you get a lot more control over its output. MIDI channel 1 has global controls: you can transpose the sequencer by sending in a root note, and use MICI CC to adjust the master volume and reverb level or choose scales. It’s great to have these extra controls, and they make it much easier to fit RND into a setup with other instruments, but we’d prefer it if they could be tweaked in a companion app rather than only by MIDI.

Sending in MIDI data on channels 2-5 will take over a specific track and leave the others playing, and MIDI sent on channels 6-9 will play an individual track solo. Using it like this and bypassing the sequencer, RND can become a kind of random preset generator – you control what’s being played, but you can switch to a fresh patch with the press of a button, cycling through until you land on something inspiring.

This is a fun way to discover new sounds without handing creative control over to RND completely. It’d be nice to be able to save presets that you want to use later, though, even if that does go against the spirit of the thing.

Another way to use RND is by treating it like a generative sequencer. We set up four different instruments in Ableton Live, each receiving MIDI from a different track in RND, and let the synth drive them while changing scales via MIDI CC. This produced some interesting results that we could record, edit and arrange later on, and sounded like nothing we’d have come up with ourselves. You could also use RND to sequence up to four other hardware synths if you wanted to, but you’d need to route it through the computer or a standalone USB MIDI host, as MIDI output is only available over USB.

Verdict

In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, RND is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get. Oddly, this is both its greatest strength and its biggest drawback. One minute, it’s coming out with something that sounds like you let a five-year-old loose on your modular rig, and the next it’s serving up lush, layered soundscapes that are begging to be sampled. Finding the good stuff takes a lot of button-pushing, though, and when it arrives you’d better be recording.

RND is probably the simplest (and silliest?) synthesizer we’ve ever seen, but the simplicity is kind of the point. It’s not going to replace your do-it-all workstation synth, and it’s not meant to. What it will do is provide an instant bolt of inspiration with each press: a one-of-a-kind sample that can be reworked in your DAW, an unpredictable sequence that can be brought to life by another instrument, or a freshly made patch that’s never been heard before. It’s an inexpensive way to shake up your workflow, a tool for breaking through creative block when every idea starts to sound the same – and at its best, it’s pretty good at it. It’s often said that limitations breed creativity – is there anything more limited than a one-button synth?

RND is understandably divisive. It’s tempting to dismiss it as a gimmick, a toy, or even a meme. A harsher critic might call it the Suno of synthesizers, stripping away any meaningful sense of authorship from the creative process by reducing it to a single button-press. Is RND just a synth-shaped symbol of our doomscrolling, dopamine-hungry digital lives, where an endless stream of fresh content is served up effortlessly at the touch of a button?

We don’t think so, or at least not entirely. RND doesn’t hand you a finished track, it hands you a unique starting point you’d never have found without it, and the interesting part is where you choose to go from there. Used standalone, it’s hardly an instrument – it’s something you can listen to and sample rather than actually play – but when you add a laptop, a controller or a sampler into the mix, it turns into something much more creative. RND is a strange and sometimes frustrating little synth, but it’s capable of surprising you in a way that few other instruments can.

Editor's note: Since we published this review, Cyma Forma has released Pixels, a web-based companion app that allows users to load patches, change settings and visualise RND's output in the browser.

Hands-on demos

Specifications

Earlier this month, we reported on a leaked FCC filing that indicated Teenage Engineering was working on a portable instrument amp for outdoor jams, the EP-35. Well, the amp has arrived sooner than expected, it’s only $349, and it’s just as wacky as we thought.

EP-35 is a battery-powered multi-input 35W amplifier that can be hooked up to your guitar, synth, microphone, laptop or even mobile phone. Teenage Engineering is pitching it as a “hub for all your audio-producing devices”, a cross between a budget amp for casual jams and a portable party speaker, with a sprinkling of the playful design magic that makes the company’s products so popular.

On the front panel you have a 30-watt woofer and 25-watt tweeter with a frequency response of 50Hz-20Khz. All of the ins and outs can be found on the top of the amp, where you’ll find a 3.5mm line input, an XLR microphone input with +48V phantom power, a ¼” Hi-Z guitar input and a 3.5mm line output, along with three USB-C ports, along with the majority of the controls. These all feed into a summing mixer before reaching the main outputs, so you can hear multiple instruments simultaneously.

There’s more, though, hidden in a storage compartment accessed by popping off the plastic grille on the amp’s side, revealing a handy space for cables (or a crisp beverage) and a built-in “camp light” with a “disco mode” that reacts dynamically to the audio coming out of the EP-35. Here you'll also find a phantom power switch, gain and tone controls.

The EP-35 has dedicated effects for both the guitar and mic inputs. Guitarists get eight multi-effects presets that combine amp emulation, reverb, delay, tremolo, distortion and modulation effects in genre-themed combinations, covering surf rock, blues, acoustic, “smooth indie tone” and more. The microphone effects cover pop and rock styles, along with some fun voice-changing presets that’ll make you sound like a frog, a bass synth or a choir of robots.

The only control you have over these effects is via the dry/wet amount dial – Spinal Tap fans will be pleased to know that the dial goes from zero to 11 – but if you need to tweak effects during a performance, Teenage Engineering have released a wireless pedal controller with two pressure-sensitive buttons that can be used to adjust volume, control effects and trigger the EP-35’s onboard looper hands-free.

As mentioned, the EP-35 doubles as both a portable speaker via Bluetooth and a USB 2.0 audio interface. It supports Auracast, so you’re able to link up multiple EP-35s together as a single Bluetooth device for extra volume, and you can even pair two amps together to listen in stereo – tilting the EP-35 left or right before engaging its broadcast mode sets the speaker as the left or right channel, which is a nice touch.

Along with the EP-35, Teenage Engineering has launched a bundle of accessories, including the aforementioned pedal controller, the “handy mic” (an XLR electret condenser microphone for “for vocals, karaoke or whatever needs saying a little louder”), a USB drive preloaded with backing tracks, and an “amptenna” that turns EP-35 into a portable FM radio. And if you own the EP-133 K.O. II sampler, you can pick up a K.O. dock kit that connects it to the side of the device.

It looks like there may be more new products on the way, too: the company is also teasing what looks like a CDJ equivalent (that plays actual CDs) or DJ controller that's the perfect size to be paired up with its EP-136 Sidekick mixer, so watch this space.

Teenage Engineering’s EP-35 is available now and priced at $349.

Find out more on Teenage Engineering’s website.

What is it?

In-ear monitors have been a core part of pro audio for decades now, and particularly central to the task of saving gigging musicians’ skins. They’re a lynchpin of modern live audio monitoring - a welcome reprieve from the feedback-y squall of the monitor wedge, and a vital barrier against the often-damaging sound levels on stage. In recent years, their appeal has broadened, as has their affordability.

Today, in-ear monitoring is much less a preserve of the touring pros, and more so an option for bands, musicians and artists of every stripe. Building a budget IEM rig for your band is easier and more cost-effective than ever, and building your own self-monitoring system is as easy as buying a splitter cable. DJs are even getting in on the action, with in-ear monitors being a welcome alternative to bulky DJ headphones for sound isolation and accurate sound reproduction. As such, there’s an extremely vibrant market for beginner-grade, entry-level and otherwise cost-effective IEMs - at the centre of which, you’ll find the Sennheiser IE 100 Pro.

Sennheiser’s IE 100 Pro are a set of wired in-ear monitors that set out to marry affordability with pro-grade monitoring accuracy, and throw in some viable sound isolation and hearing protection in the process. They are single-driver in-ears, each bud sporting a 10mm dynamic driver with a frequency range of 20Hz to 18kHz - plenty for a clean, natural sound that’s honest without being unpleasant.

The IE 100 Pro are low-impedance at 20 ohms, enough to be driven by pretty much anything you’d want to use to drive them (smartphones inclusive). Despite the low impedance, they promise low distortion too.

Being also tasked with isolating your lugholes from the sounds of the outside world, the IE 100 Pro aim to create some decent in-ear conditions for piping in your monitor feed. The specs state noise attenuation of up to 26dB, which is some not-inconsiderable reduction - particularly when many of the best earplugs for musicians aim somewhere around the 21dB mark.

There are three colour variants of the IE 100 Pro: a tasteful matte black, a somewhat-nostalgic translucent red and a clear version. It’s the clear set on my desk for this review, and at first glance they look every bit the part. In the box you get the in-ears, their 1.3m connecting cable (which terminates in a 3.5mm stereo jack), three sizes of silicone ear tip, an additional pair of foam ear tips, a handy-dandy cleaning tool and a pleather carry pouch to keep it all in.

Sennheiser also sells a wireless bundle, which swaps out the analogue connecting cable for a Bluetooth be-dongled cable with a built-in mic and aptX codec support. This wireless cable system can be bought separately as an accessory, if you ever have the desire to make your IE 100 Pro drivers do double duty as day-to-day earbuds.

But here, I’m reviewing the IE 100 Pro as they come and at their most basic: a wired set of passive IEMs for analogue connection to sound sources, monitoring rigs and DJ mixers inclusive. And, in a word, I’m impressed.

Performance

From first impressions and on build quality alone, the Sennheiser IE 100 Pro are a compelling pair. The earbud bodies are plastic, but they’re in no way thin or flimsy; they feel fully robust in-hand, without being too heavy to wear comfortably.

Being small of earhole, I elected to install the smallest size of provided ear tip. The IE 100 Pro ship with the medium tips attached, but replacing them proved to be remarkably easy – without being too easy. The new ear tips snapped into place, and felt extremely secure thereafter.

The silicon ear tips provided with the IE 100 Pro are familiar in form and feel; they’re single-flanged, which is a small shame when other shapes with better fits are a possibility. I, personally, don’t love single-flanged ear tips much, for the fact there’s so much material contact in your ear - which can lead to sweatiness and irritation in short order, against the gentler yet tighter-fitting potential of a double flange. This is nitpicky stuff though, really, and especially so at this price.

Where the wires connect to each earbud, there’s a length of posable cable so you can route them comfortably around the back of your ear, and be sure that they stay when you move your hands away. Putting the earbuds in and getting the cables settled feels as natural as tucking your hair behind your ears. More generally, the IE 100 Pro are surprisingly comfortable at first ‘plug’; they slot gamely into place, and are very content to stay without much in the way of rubbing or discomfort.

My first test with the IE 100 Pro was at my desk, listening to audio streamed from Qobuz via my laptop’s headphone output, so as to get a sense of their sound profile. I was happy with what I heard, too. Queens Of The Stone Age’s Era Vulgaris was my go-to album, and the separation between parts was remarkable. I did find the sound itself to be oddly impersonal; it’s an analytical frame that gives a lot of definition and even preference to mids and high mids especially. Coupled with a bit of treble roll-off, it adds up to something that initially feels quite biased – but on further testing, makes perfect sense.

Taking the IE 100 Pro out to the studio for a live rehearsal, much of the low end that I felt was getting short shrift simply made it into my body via other means. I wouldn’t use these for mixing at home, but they prove hugely beneficial for making mix decisions in loud rooms. That preference for upper-range information was not only analytically representative, but also hugely practical for filling in everything that gets attenuated by plugging your ears airtight with two plastic clumps.

Speaking of which, the isolation here is great. Even at home, typing on a keyboard and auditioning some DAW mixes, I couldn’t hear my own keystrokes, or even the slam of the front door when my wife returned home. In practice, I found it very easy to focus on what I was hearing in-ear against a loud PA system.

The final test, really, was the longevity test. After a certain point, you simply forget that they’re in there; I could easily have gone over an hour wearing them without needing to take a break, and that’s not really how any of us wear in-ears anyway. One time, I took them out after a long stint at the DJ decks, and my ears sort-of missed them.

Final verdict

I think the Sennheiser IE 100 Pro, ultimately, are excellent. They’re as comfortable as they could ever be at this price point, they do an excellent job of feeding you exactly what you need to hear in a loud, boomy environment, and they’re hardy enough that I’m not too worried about dropping them a bunch at soundcheck (though I’d be a little more worried if I stood on them).

There are some shortcomings to the IE 100 Pro; useful as the sound profile is, there’s still a little missing low end that could be useful elsewhere – and the high end does roll off in a noticeable way, though not in a gig-breaking way. If these are the kinds of things that are likely to get in your way on the IEM front, you simply need to be upping your budget. In my view, these exemplify value for money.

Specification

• Drivers: Single 10mm dynamic
• Frequency range: 20Hz – 18kHz
• Impedance: 20 ohms
• Sound pressure level: 115dB (1kHz/1Vrms)
• Total harmonic distortion (THD): <0.1% (1kHz, 94 dB)
• Noise attenuation: <26 dB
• Weight: 160g
• In the box: 1.3m cable; x3 silicone ear tips (S, M, L); x1 foam ear tips (M); soft pouch; cleaning tool
• Contact: Sennheiser

Also consider

Hands-on demos

Sennheiser

The Headphone Show

Released in 2022, the MPK Mini Plus is a plus-sized version of the MPK Mini, a budget MIDI keyboard that delivers a respectable amount of functionality in a compact and affordable package. With more keys, more control and more connectivity than its 25-key sibling, it’s since become a rival to established controllers like the Arturia KeyStep.

Today, Akai Professional has unveiled the second generation of MPK Mini Plus, bringing an improved keybed, aftertouch-enabled RGB pads, a full-colour display and generative sequencing tools to this $169 MIDI/CV controller, while adding direct integration with Akai’s MPC software.

On first glance, you’ll notice a distinct cosmetic shift: Akai has decked out the Plus in a pleasantly retro, MPC-style grey/red colour scheme that’s in line with the MPK Mini IV (launched last year) and the MPC Sample, a marked improvement on its predecessor’s businesslike black. This, along with the enhanced 160x80 LCD display, make the MPK Mini Plus far easier on the eye than the controller it replaced.

The changes aren’t only skin deep either, as Akai has introduced an upgraded 37-key mini keybed that the company says delivers superior playability and response, while adding polyphonic aftertouch to its already velocity-sensitive RGB pads. The keys and pads are joined by 8 assignable encoders, transport controls and pitch and mod wheels, and the joystick found on the previous version has been dropped.

The controller’s sequencing tools have been expanded, too: you get a refreshed arpeggiator, Scale and Chord Modes for staying in key and building chord progressions, and an array of new generative functions for transforming melodies, rhythms and chords, including Glitch, Mutate, Strum, Freeze and Follow tools.

Alongside out-of-the-box integration with most of the major DAWs, MPK Mini Plus II has been built to integrate directly with Akai’s MPC Standalone and MPC Desktop software, making it quick and easy to control other Akai hardware without the hassle of manual mapping.

In the connectivity department, the MPK Mini Plus II swaps its predecessor’s USB-B port for a more convenient USB-C, but Akai has sadly ditched its 5-pin MIDI input and analogue sync connections. This leaves you with a MIDI output, ¼” sustain pedal jack and three 3.5mm CV/Gate outputs.

The controller ships with a generous collection of bundled software: the Studio Instrument Collection features over 1000 sounds from AIR Music Technology, Moog and Akai, and you also get a special edition of Native Instruments’ Komplete Select, along with the free MPC Beats DAW.

"MPK Mini has introduced a lot of creators to hands-on making music, and MPK Mini Plus II is built for the creator who's ready for the next step," Akai Professional's Andy Mac said in a press release.

"Tools like Glitch, Mutate, and Strum help turn simple ideas in new directions, while deeper MPC, DAW, MIDI, and CV integration gives creators room to build a much bigger setup around one compact keyboard."

Akai MPK Mini Plus II is available now and priced at $169.

Find out more on Akai's website.

Apple Music has been given a redesign, and it turns out that Fred Again was involved in the making of its new visual.

“For the rebrand of Apple Music, we wanted sound to create the visuals,” we learn in an explainer video. “How do we take this idea of music and distill it into something visually beautiful?”

Working with Nest Acoustics, the creative team decided that the answer to this question was to create “the perfect sound wave” and use it to generate a new and fluid visual identity.

“We take a frequency and we play it through a rig,” we’re told. “This rig then moves a large amount of liquid at the frequency of the notes.”

It was Fred Again – “one of the world's best music artists” – who came up with the musical motif that was used for the final mnemonic, though we don’t actually see or hear from him in the video.

In collaborating with a big tech company, he follows in the footsteps of his mentor Brian Eno, who created the famous startup sound for Windows 95. There was a certain irony, though, in the fact that Eno actually created this on a Mac: “I’ve never used a PC in my life,” he would later admit.

In the era of AI, Apple’s decision to generate its new visual by capturing something real on camera is certainly refreshing. What’s more, we suspect that it will be better received than its infamous 2024 ‘Crush!’ ad for the new Apple iPad Pro, which depicted a collection of objects associated with creativity - including a number of musical instruments and a mixing desk - being crushed by a gigantic slab of metal.

The company later apologised for the clip and withdrew it, saying: "We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry."

What is it?

There’s a certain point in every home studio’s evolution where the limitations of smaller speakers become difficult to ignore. You can only ask so much of a compact set of budget monitors, particularly when you’re working with bass-heavy music or need something capable of filling a larger room. With its Forty Sixty monitors, M-Audio is offering a relatively affordable route to something altogether more substantial.

The Forty Sixty is a two-way active studio monitor built around a 6.5” Kevlar woofer and a 1” soft dome tweeter. Each speaker has its own 100W Class AB bi-amplification system, split between 60W for the woofer and 40W for the tweeter, with a rear bass-reflex port helping to extend low-frequency response. Internally, M-Audio has also incorporated some fancy DSP-based crossover and equalisation to help it thrive in different listening situations.

Where the Forty Sixty differs from more conventional studio monitors is in its willingness to embrace features usually associated with consumer audio equipment. Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, for example, allows wireless playback from a phone or tablet, while a dedicated button on the front panel provides quick access to different listening modes, including ‘Flat’ for flat-frequency response studio work and ‘Hype’, which provides a more flattering output designed for gaming, movies or regular music listening. There’s also a custom setting, accessible through a companion app, which incorporates a five-band EQ for tailoring the sound to individual preferences or room characteristics.

For conventional studio duties, connectivity comes courtesy of balanced XLR and quarter-inch TRS inputs, with a rear-mounted level control. At 335mm tall and weighing over seven kilograms each, these are large speakers, particularly if you’re graduating from smaller desktop monitors.

The overall proposition is straightforward though. Heavy-duty amplification, larger drivers and modern connectivity, all at a price that puts the Forty Sixty within reach of home producers looking for a more capable monitoring setup.

Features & performance

Coming from a pair of 5” monitors, namely the trusty M-Audio BX5 D2 I’ve been using for donkey’s years, the first thing that struck me about the Forty Sixty was their sheer physical presence. These are relatively large speakers, and positioning them in my studio required a little more consideration than I’d anticipated. In fact, their weight was enough to make my generic metal speaker stands wobble slightly under the weight, although that probably says more about my habit of cheaping out on the non-exciting parts of my studio than the speakers themselves. Either way, you’ll want to make sure you have somewhere suitably sturdy to place them.

Once everything was connected, however, the benefits of larger cabinets and drivers became immediately apparent. The Forty Sixty sounded phenomenal in my studio, providing a sense of scale and authority that represented a significant improvement over the smaller monitors I’d been using previously.

Most of my testing involved a MacBook Pro, connected through a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 interface and running Ableton Live 12 and IK Multimedia’s excellent Tonex amp simulator, providing a familiar setup for evaluating the speakers across music production and everyday listening tasks. I also connected a Eurorack modular synthesizer, giving the Forty Sixty pair an opportunity to handle a different type of sound source.

Across these more traditionally studio-based applications, the speakers performed superbly. I had in mind the smaller speakers I was used to and found the difference was almost night and day. There was much more clean headroom, and the greater low-frequency capability was particularly welcome, giving bass tracks on a song I’m working on in Live much more definition which, in turn, made mixing much easier.

Likewise, the overall experience felt far bigger and more rounded than I was used to from my previous setup. Testing out some streamed video content - Visionquest, if you’re interested - demonstrated a much broader sonic palette too although, realistically, these are likely to be pure studio monitors in my possession rather than do-it-all speakers. Nice to hear the difference a larger speaker can make in everyday life though.

Of course, it’s important to distinguish between a speaker that sounds impressive, and one that provides an accurate reference for mixing. Larger drivers and greater bass extension can make an immediate difference to how enjoyable music sounds, but room acoustics, speaker position and familiarity remain just as important when making critical production decisions. Here, the Forty Sixty pair made a compelling case for moving up from a smaller monitoring system. It’s everything you think you’ve heard previously, only more of it.

Connectivity is another strength. The balanced analogue inputs made integration with my existing studio equipment straightforward, as you’d expect, while the Bluetooth is a useful thing to have alongside. I also like that the pairing button is on the front, not hidden away round the back of the unit. Would I use the Bluetooth functionality regularly? Probably not. My studio is primarily a music-making space, and a wired connection through my interface remains the obvious choice for recording and production. Bluetooth introduces latency, making it less suitable for time-critical monitoring, but it’s handy for casual listening or checking material from another device.

I felt similarly about the selectable listening modes. Being able to switch between Flat and Hype modes from the front panel is convenient, and the additional custom EQ functionality adds flexibility. However I suspect many users with dedicated studios will set-and-forget their chosen mode and rarely, if ever, change it.

Competition is strong in this category. While a step up in price is clear, Adam Audio’s T7V offers a 7” woofer and the brands’ distinctive U-ART tweeter, while KRK’s Rokit RP7 G5 combines a 7” driver with extensive DSP equalisation options. Pioneer’s VM70, meanwhile, provides similarly sized drivers and flexible voicing options, particularly for producers and DJs. All three deserve consideration, however the M-Audio Forty Sixty stand out through their combination of features and their pricing. For someone upgrading from basic monitors, or looking to equip a slightly larger studio without spending a fortune, the Forty Sixty makes a persuasive argument.

Final verdict

The M-Audio Forty Sixty shows you can buy a lot of monitor for not a lot of cash, relatively speaking. With powerful amplification, large drivers and a surprisingly comprehensive feature list, they deliver an experience that feels considerably more ambitious than the price might suggest.

For me, the biggest revelation was the improvement over my previous 5” monitors. Pound for pound, the old speakers have done well over the years but the additional scale and low-frequency presence made working with synths, tracking guitars and mixing a much more pleasurable experience. That alone makes them a compelling upgrade for anyone who feels they’ve outgrown a smaller monitoring setup.

There are compromises. These speakers need space and appropriate support, and their size might make optimal placement more difficult if your space is smaller. Likewise, some of the headline features might prove unnecessary in a dedicated production environment.

Bluetooth and selectable EQ modes are welcome conveniences but they’re unlikely to change the workflow of someone who already has a well-established studio setup.

Still, those extras don’t detract from the fundamentals. The M-Audio Forty Sixty offers impressive sound, straightforward connectivity and enough flexibility to appeal to producers, creators and enthusiasts alike.

Specifications

• Type: Two-way active nearfield studio monitor
• Woofer: 6.5-inch / 165mm Kevlar
• Tweeter: 1-inch / 25mm soft dome
• Amplification: 100W per speaker, bi-amplified Class AB (60W LF / 40W HF)
• Frequency response: 39Hz–22kHz (-10dB)
• Maximum SPL: 113dB
• Inputs: Balanced XLR and 6.35mm TRS
• Wireless: Bluetooth 5.3, True Wireless Stereo
• Processing: DSP crossover, Flat/Hype/Custom modes, app-based five-band EQ
• Enclosure: Rear-ported, vinyl-wrapped MDF
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 335 × 216 × 218mm
• Weight: 7.2kg per speaker
• Contact: M-Audio

Hands-on demos

Gear4Music

Taps Das

Three years on from the launch of its CK Series of stage keyboards, Yamaha has unveiled a 76-key CK76, positioned between the 61-key CK61 and and the 88-key CK88, and shared a 2.0 OS update for all CK owners.

A compact, lightweight and battery-powered keyboard with built-in stereo speakers and Bluetooth connectivity, the CK76 is geared towards players looking for a balance between the portability of the CK61 and the full-size piano-style experience of the CK88.

The CK76 is stocked with over 360 sounds, including acoustic pianos, electric pianos, organs, strings, brass, guitar and more. Its “one-to-one” interface design limits menu-diving by providing hands-on controls for the most commonly used features: 9 physical drawbars for its vintage organ emulations, filter and envelope controls for the synth, and dedicated controls for drive, delay, reverb and EQ, alongside two additional effects slots.

The keyboard features the same semi-weighted Future System Basic (FSB) action that you’ll find on the CK61, but Yamaha says the CK76 offers heavier initial key resistance and increased key travel for more expression and stability. In contrast with the CK88’s Graded Hammer Standard (GHS) action, which mimics the feel of a Yamaha grand piano, the CK76’s FSB action is more suited to synth and organ players.

Yamaha has squeezed in plenty of connectivity to the CK76, its audio outputs joined by 5-pin MIDI In and Out, dual foot pedal inputs, Bluetooth audio and a built-in stereo USB audio interface for hooking up to microphones or external instruments or recording to your computer.

Alongside the CK76, Yamaha has also shared CK OS V2.0, a firmware update for owners of any keyboard in the CK Series. This adds three new electronic piano sounds, 16 new Live Sets and extra configurations for splitting and layering multiple sounds across the keyboard.

"Designed for musicians on the go, the portable 76-key CK76 stage keyboard brings together realistic acoustic pianos, vintage organs and modern synths from our CP and YC lines into a streamlined, highly intuitive interface," Yamaha’s Nate Tschetter said in a press release.

"From the rehearsal room to the stage, the CK76 delivers the sounds, control and portability musicians need to create, perform and play anywhere."

Yamaha’s CK76 is priced at $1,249.99. Find out more on Yamaha’s website.

Spotify finally appears to be taking the problem of AI slop seriously – it’s announced that it has removed more than 75 million tracks that it has identified as slop or spam.

In addition to this, a further 50 million tracks have been filtered out of recommendations for users after repeated complaints about their quality. In a newsletter that it has posted online, Spotify said that: “We looked closely at the tracks listeners were skipping, ignoring, or telling us they didn’t want to hear. A clear pattern emerged: these tracks were consistently ones identified as slop or spam.”

It comes a year after the platform unveiled a series of measures to stop AI slop from overwhelming their system, including a new spam filtering system to identify uploaders and stop the tracks from being recommended by its algorithm. It also cracked down on ‘impersonation violations’ ie fraudsters who create deepfakes of an artist to hoover up royalties.

In addition to the filtering system, the platform has also put in place a ‘verified by Spotify’ scheme which shows listeners that there is a real human being behind a particular track – over 300,000 artists are now verified on Spotify.

In the newsletter, Spotify pointed out that it has used a combination of tools to identify AI slop: “listener engagement and feedback, upload patterns, metadata, and information from multiple third-party AI detection tools.”

However, they admit that as generative AI technology develops it will inevitably get harder. So they are looking at new tactics, including “mass uploads, duplicates, SEO manipulation, spammy playlist networks, and artificially short tracks. As spammers change tactics, we’ll keep updating our systems.”

It is a constant battle, which the platform acknowledges. But after a number of years during which Spotify seemed quite content to let AI completely swamp their system, their belated decision to combat the problem appears to be a step in the right direction on at least one front.

Technics has unveiled the SL-1210MKX, the latest evolution of its classic SL-1200 direct-drive DJ turntable.

Designed specifically for people who mix in demanding club, festival and other live performance environments, the SL-1210MKX was created with input from DJs and sound engineers. The result is said to be a deck that offers greater stability, as well as more precise pitch control and expanded creative options.

The SL-1210MKX is built around a significantly heavier, optimally balanced chassis that promises greater resistance to external vibrations. The isolation feet have been redesigned for improved stability and feedback isolation, too, so users can feel even more confident when they’re scratching, for example. These benefits are said to come without compromising the ‘feel’ of the deck.

One of the other key enhancements is the dedicated ±4% pitch range, which should enable even more precise control when beatmatching and subtly correcting tempos. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s also a ±50% pitch range setting, giving DJs more creative options to explore.

There are some less obvious refinements and notable features, too: a quieter reset switch inspired by earlier SL-1200 models; a Technics coreless direct-drive motor with adjustable start-up torque and brake speed; and 78 rpm playback and reverse functionality.

“The SL-1200 Series has earned its reputation through decades of real-world performance in clubs, on stage and in studios around the world,” said Stefanie Baron, Manager Technics DJ Channel Europe, Panasonic Consumer Europe (PCEU).

“With the SL-1210MKX, we wanted to build on that legacy by working closely with professional DJs and sound technicians to better understand the challenges they face. The result is a turntable that delivers even greater stability, precision and creative freedom while staying true to the qualities that have made the SL-1200 an industry standard for more than five decades.”

The SL-1210MKX will be shipping from January 2027 priced at £1,299/€1,499. Find out more on the Technics website.

The Beatles are well-known for experimenting with tape recording techniques throughout their career, from multi-track recording to reversing, looping, flanging, varispeed and artificial double-tracking, many of them pioneered alongside producer George Martin at Abbey Road Studios.

In 2026, tape has largely gone the way of the dodo when it comes to studio recording, long since supplanted by digital tools. Not for Paul McCartney, though, who has maintained a fondness for working with tape, even decades on from his time with the Fab Four.

In a new interview with Reverb, McCartney’s longtime studio engineer Steve Orchard reveals that the sessions for Macca’s latest solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, saw the former Beatle and producer Andrew Watt make liberal use of tape machines that reside in McCartney’s private studio, Hog Hill Mill.

Orchard, who joined McCartney’s team in 2014, reveals that despite the bulk of the recording being done in Pro Tools, he still finds a way to incorporate vintage tape machines into the creative process, driven by McCartney’s ceaseless desire to experiment. “We're always doing interesting stuff like changing tape speeds and recording things in different octaves,” he says. “There's never two days the same, you know what I mean? There's always something cool going on.”

Hog Hill Mill transitioned away from a tape-based workflow in the early ‘00s, but thankfully kept their tape machines, Orchard says: “We've got the Studer J37, which is fantastic. There’s the fabulous valve four-track, but we've also got two A827s… Everything's sort of plumbed in. I've got the studio kind of set now, so we can do virtually anything at any time straight away.”

It was the Studer J37 – a legendary four-track tape machine that was used for numerous Beatles albums in the mid-to-late ’60s – that caught producer Andrew Watt’s eye. “Andrew saw it when we were doing the session here and he was like, ‘We’ve got to do a song on that,’” Orchard recalls.

The Studer ended up being used to record We Two, a loping and nostalgic cut that many have speculated reflects fondly on his relationship with John Lennon. With Watt on guitar and Paul on drums, the trio landed a take they were happy with, before realizing that there was a slight tempo drift towards the end.

Working with tape, of course, meant that fixing the recording after the fact wasn’t quite as simple as it might’ve been in Pro Tools. Orchard decided that they would record a pickup – a short section recorded separately to fix part of a take – and splice it with the original. Splicing (the act of physically cutting and joining tape to edit takes together) was once routine, but has since become something of a lost art in the age of the DAW. “I hadn't done a razor blade edit for over 20 years,” Orchard admits.

As if being two decades out of practice wasn’t bad enough, Orchard was waylaid by an unexpected observer moments before putting razor to tape. Not just any observer, though, but Elton John himself. “I queued the tape up and got the edit points marked up on the head on the tape. Andrew's phone went off and suddenly he was like, ‘Oh, hi Elton,’” Orchard laughs.

“He was FaceTiming Elton John. I had Andrew and Elton on one shoulder and Paul on the other whilst I was doing this edit. I was thinking, ‘okay, better get this right. No pressure then.’ But thankfully it worked out perfectly.”

Read the full interview with Steve Orchard on Reverb’s website.