From a Brooklyn guitar shop to a Martin signature: Shawn Mendes gets two new 000s
Martin Guitar has launched two new Shawn Mendes signature models: the limited-edition 000-28 Shawn Mendes and the Road Series 000-10E Shawn Mendes. Both trace back to a 1920s Martin 0-42 that Shawn found in a Brooklyn guitar shop, drawn to its compact body, pyramid bridge and slotted headstock. Martin later built an ornate stage guitar inspired by that instrument, and these two models follow from there.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Limited to 88 guitars worldwide, the 000-28 pairs solid East Indian rosewood back and sides with a solid spruce top finished with antique toner and herringbone trim. Golden Era scalloped X-bracing sits under the top, and the appointments lean heavily vintage: a pyramid-style ebony bridge, slotted headstock with gold Waverly side-mount tuners and a faux tortoise pickguard. Shawn’s custom mother-of-pearl eagle inlay sits on the ebony fingerboard, representing freedom, change and creative renewal. Each guitar comes in a moulded hardshell case with a signed, numbered label inside.
“Martin guitars are my first go-to guitar to pick up when I’m making a song,” Shawn said. “They feel like they have a story in them. They feel like they have songs in them.”
At the more accessible end, the 000-10E is a Road Series build using FSC-certified tonewoods throughout. Solid sapele back and sides pair with a solid spruce top and scalloped X-bracing, and it shares the faux tortoise pickguard with its limited counterpart. The eagle inlay appears here too, made from FSC-certified sapele rather than mother-of-pearl, and it’s the first Road Series model to feature a straightline pyramid bridge. Martin E1 electronics with a built-in tuner make it stage-ready, and a softshell case is included.
“It’s super important to me to have more than one option – a more accessible guitar for people and one that is closer to the thing that I play onstage,” Shawn said.
A portion of proceeds from both guitars goes to the Shawn Mendes Foundation and its work supporting youth changemakers.
Go to martinguitar.com to check out the new models. For local enquiries on Martin, head here.
KORG launches the NTS-4, a build-it-yourself six-channel performance mixer
The NTS-4 is KORG’s latest Nu:Tekt kit – a build-it-yourself six-channel performance mixer that arrives as a flat-pack, requires no soldering and goes together in minutes. It’s the first mixer in the Nu:Tekt lineup, aimed at musicians who’ve built up a collection of compact hardware and need a single place to bring it all together.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Six channels handle up to 10 audio signals across four stereo and two mono inputs, all on 3.5mm minijacks that suit most compact gear. The mono inputs can also take Eurorack-level signals directly, without any extra hardware in between. Dedicated SEND and RETURN connections handle external effects, and the main outputs use standard 1/4″ jacks for connection to a PA or monitors.
Performance controls are built into every channel. The CUE button routes a channel privately to your headphones before it reaches the main mix, so you can prepare a transition or check a sound without anyone else hearing it. MUTE cuts the channel instantly. Both are the kind of controls that make the NTS-4 feel like a proper live performance tool rather than just a routing box.
Each channel has seven send effects to choose from, including delay, ping pong delay, hall and slap reverbs and chorus. The master section adds a separate engine with ten options spanning filters, modulation, drive, distortion, compression and limiting, and both run at the same time independently.
A single USB-C cable handles power, 48kHz/24-bit audio and MIDI together. Record a set directly to a phone or computer, stream live, or send MIDI from a DAW out to hardware through the dedicated MIDI OUT jack.
If you’re looking for a little extra satisfaction by putting a mixer, this is the one for you. The aluminium chassis is built to last, and once it’s assembled it’s ready for the long haul – on the desk, on stage or wherever.
The NTS-4 is available now. For local enquiries, head here.
zplane cuts stem separation latency by 49% with PEEL STEMS 2
zplane has released PEEL STEMS 2, a major update to its real-time stem separation plugin. The headline change is a 49% reduction in processing latency – down from 483ms to 245ms at 44.1kHz – alongside improved separation quality that produces cleaner results with fewer artifacts across stems.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Where a lot of stem separation tools push your audio to external servers for processing, PEEL STEMS 2 runs entirely within your DAW as an AU, VST3 or AAX plugin. Files stay on your machine, an important detail when you’re working with unreleased material or client sessions. Separation happens in real time with no need to bounce files or wait on a cloud process.
The isolation slider now has a broader range of effect, giving finer control over how aggressively each stem is separated. PEEL STEM’s built-in Focus EQ’s Focus Frame now shows upper and lower cutoff frequencies, making it easier to home in on specific frequency ranges and stereo positions within a stem – useful when you’re trying to isolate something sharing space with another element. Visually, the interface has been redesigned with new stem colours and clearer feedback.
“With significantly reduced latency and improved audio quality, PEEL STEMS 2 represents a major step forward in stem separation technology,” said zplane Co-Founder and CTO Tim Flohrer.
Intel Mac users are supported, with processing latency sitting at 385ms on those systems rather than the 245ms available on Apple Silicon and Windows.
PEEL STEMS 2 is a one-time purchase with no subscription or login required, bucking the trend in a market that has largely moved toward recurring pricing. Existing PEEL STEMS users can upgrade at a reduced rate. The plugin is available here.
The Backpack Studio: Oliver Tree’s Love You Madly Hate You Badly
Eight pairs of underwear. A toothbrush. Two pairs of pants. And a complete recording studio.
That was the backpack. That was the whole operation. When Oliver Tree walked away from Atlantic Records, he didn’t lock into another record deal handshake, or book studio time to produce his next record. Instead, he asked “How do I make memories out of it?”. The answer was a plane ticket. Then another. Eighty countries, seven continents, two years, one bag on his back. The result was Love You Madly Hate You Badly, released independently on April 24, 2026, under his own Alien Boy Records label. It was also the last album he would ever make.
Oliver Tree Nickell died on June 14, 2026, in a helicopter crash in Rio de Janeiro, aged 32, just weeks into the world tour he had waited his whole career to play. This is a look at how he made the record.
Read up on all the latest interviews, features and columns here.
His way or no way
Tree wrote and produced the entire album himself. No co-writers, no outside producers, no studio engineers. Just him, a laptop, and wherever he happened to be sitting that week. He had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on studios before and decided he was done with that. This time the budget went on the journey instead.
He was candid about what that decision cost him. “I’ll be honest with you guys, that takes way too fucking long,” he said in an interview, laughing. “I see why people don’t do this. It’s a nightmare.” Then, almost immediately, he said it was the most inspiring thing he had ever done. That he loved the freedom. That he remembered every crazy thing that happened along the way and every beautiful person he met.
The rig
What is striking about the setup is how deliberately he built it. Every piece of gear is compact, lightweight, and purpose-built for travel. He went deep into the Akai ecosystem and stayed there.
Akai MPK Mini MKII, Special Edition Red is the centrepiece. A 25-key mini controller with eight MPC-style drum pads, a thumbstick and arpeggiator, all under a kilogram. The special edition red finish is a small but very Oliver Tree detail. This is the controller bedroom producers learn on. It retails for well under $200.
Akai LPK25 Controller Keyboard sits alongside it, twenty-five keys, USB bus-powered, lighter than most paperback books. Pure keys, nothing else, fast to grab and fast to play. Together the two controllers cover serious musical ground for the price of a single studio session hour.
Akai Professional LPD8 Wireless Drum Pad Controller brings eight pads, eight knobs, and Bluetooth, no cables required. In the kinds of locations Tree was recording in, one less cable is one less thing to lose or forget.
Akai Professional MIDImix completes the system. Sixteen faders, twenty-four knobs, deep Ableton integration, bus-powered via USB. The kind of hands-on mix control engineers normally need a full-sized console to achieve, sitting flat in a backpack.
Ableton Live tied it all together. The entire Akai lineup maps to Ableton with minimal setup; perfect for mashing together sounds, melodies, and beats with next to zero creative friction.
A second hand audio interface for around $150 and a microphone for around $100 round out the rig. Models unconfirmed. Tree did not agonise over either. He found ones that worked and moved on.
The world as an instrument
Tree did not just record music in these places. He recorded the places themselves, capturing field recordings everywhere he went: Antarctic wind, Emperor Penguins, the resonance of ancient European spaces, the noise of cities across eighty countries. He then fed those recordings into Ableton and transformed them into synth sounds, bending raw environmental audio into something melodic and entirely his own.
Diplo, who joined Tree on the Antarctic leg of the journey, wrote on Instagram after his death: “He was a monumental, endless fountain of creativity. His confidence was on a biblical level, and he could back it up.” He added: “I don’t think we’ll ever have another human like this again. No rules. No apologies. He was 1000% himself.”
The last word
His family have since launched Dr. Oliver Tree’s Extremely Epic Grant For Baby Geniuses, fulfilling his final wish to redirect his estate and future royalties back into the creative community. The grant funds young creators in music, film, installation, and performance art, covering gear rental and production costs but not equipment purchases or formal education. The grant is expected to run for fifty to one hundred years.
He spent two years making a record with a backpack full of budget gear, asking himself how to make memories out of it, and then going out and doing exactly that. He treated every album like it could be his last, noting openly that you could die at any moment. In a way none of us could have anticipated, it was.
Rest easy, Oliver Tree. 1993–2026.
Stream, sync, perform: AlphaTheta launches the XDJ-AN all-in-one
AlphaTheta has launched the XDJ-AN, a 2-channel all-in-one DJ system with a layout modelled on the CDJ-3000X and DJM series gear. Aimed at DJs moving from controllers to clubs, it covers USB playback, streaming services and cloud-based library management in one unit.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Features at a glance
- StreamingDirectPlay: direct access to Apple Music, Beatport Streaming, Tidal and Spotify (Spotify coming in a future update)
- rekordbox Cloud Library Sync with CloudDirectPlay via Dropbox or Google Drive
- Playlist creation and editing on the touchscreen – no laptop needed
- Mobile DJ app support (rekordbox for iOS, djay for iOS) – a first for the all-in-one category
- DJM-REC app support for live streaming and recording
- Built-in SonicLink transmitter for wireless monitoring at up to 9ms latency
- Club-standard layout based on the CDJ-3000X and DJM series
- USB drive playback
- Compatible with rekordbox for Mac/Windows, Serato DJ Lite, Serato DJ Pro and djay Pro
- XLR and RCA master outputs, Bluetooth input/output
The XDJ-AN pulls from USB drives, PC/Mac and mobile DJ apps, and streaming services directly via StreamingDirectPlay, so you can access tracks from Apple Music, Beatport Streaming, Tidal and Spotify (Spotify is coming in a future update) without building a separate collection first. The Info Search feature also digs up related tracks based on artist or album data, which speeds up discovery across large catalogues.
Library management works from the touchscreen. Playlists and cue points prepared on your PC/Mac sync automatically via rekordbox Cloud Library Sync, and the cloud-connected Playlist Bank keeps everything waiting when you power back on – re-loading, no laptop. You can also create, reorder and rename playlists directly on the unit.
Mobile app compatibility is a first for the all-in-one category, states AlphaTheta. The XDJ-AN works with rekordbox for iOS and djay for iOS, so you can DJ straight from your phone, even offline, using tracks saved locally. For anyone who streams live sets, the DJM-REC app will handle that too.
The built-in SonicLink transmitter handles wireless monitoring without the usual extra hardware. Paired with compatible headphones like the HDJ-F10, latency sits as low as 9ms – close enough to wired that it shouldn’t factor into your performance. XLR and RCA master outputs cover the physical connections, with Bluetooth input/output thrown in as well.
Software compatibility spans rekordbox for Mac/Windows, Serato DJ Lite, Serato DJ Pro and djay Pro.
Check out the XDJ-AN here. For local enquiries, head to Jands.
Ten of the best mastering engineers you should know about
The elusive work of the mastering engineer is often considered a dark art within the audio realm. Usually working with just a stereo audio file, they manipulate audio to create consistent and well levelled tracks that aim to sound incredible on any audio system.
Utilising custom built equipment and extremely well treated rooms, mastering engineers are the last step before created music hits the world. Their ability to decide where to apply subtle eq and compression to recorded music is an incredibly delicate art that makes the good ones highly sought after.
Today we’re taking a look at six mastering engineers that you should know, as their work today and in the past has shaped the musical landscape with these experts collectively working on tens of thousands of high profile releases. Let’s dive in!
Read up on all the latest interviews, features and columns here.
Bob Katz
Bob’s work within the mastering field, not just as an actual engineer, but an educator cannot be understated. Penning material including Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science which has been the holy grail of understanding the depth of knowledge required to be a mastering engineer.
Starting his career in 1972 as a supervisor for a public television network, Katz honed his craft mixing programs live including music, which became his true pursuit. In 1977 he relocated to New York and embarked on a storied career as a recording, mix and mastering engineer.
Katz engineered the first 96kHz/24bit audio DVD, which was groundbreaking in pushing digital audio quality to high levels in the early days of the format. In addition to this, he also created the worlds first oversampling recording technology with the DBX/UltraAnalog 128x oversampling A/D converter.
Working with a large slew of artists during his tenure as a mastering engineer including three Grammy award winning releases—Ben Kingsley’s The Words of Gandhi, Paquito D’Rivera’s Portraits of Cuba and Olga Tañon’s Olga Viva, Viva Olga.
Even after all these years as a legendary engineer, Bob Katz is still available to master your music, an amazing feat for someone who has been in the industry for such a long period of time. Cheers for all your work Bob.
Standout Works:
- Ben Kingsley – The Words of Gandhi
- Paquito D’Rivera – Portraits of Cuba
- Olga Tañon – Olga Viva, Viva Olga
Bob Ludwig
Another name synonymous with Mastering is Bob Ludwig, whose career has spanned work with Beyonce, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Bruce Springsteen and Metallica just to name a few.
Originally a classically trained trumpet player, Ludwig was inspired hearing Phil Ramone teach a summer recording workshop he attended and ended up working with him at A&R Recording. Moving between a few legendary studios including Sterling Sound and Masterdisk, he established Gateway Mastering Studios in 1992 where he still operates as a mastering engineer.
Along with mastering thirteen Grammy award winning records which include a few wins in the Surround Sound category, Ludwig has undertaken mastering entire back catalogues of artists such as Rush, Dire Straits and The Rolling Stones.
Bob Ludwig’s commitment to the industry through the AES (Audio Engineers Society) and Advisory Council of the Producers and Engineer’s Wing of The Recording Academy shows his commitment to mastering as a lifetime endeavour and establishes his place as one of the best mastering engineers to ever do it.
Standout Works:
Emily Lazar
New York based mastering engineer Emily Lazar is a world class talent, working on close to 4000 releases in her career. Founding the Lodge in 1996, Lazar has mastered works for Sia, Foo Fighters and Beck, with the latter awarding her the 2019 Grammy award for Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical) being the first female mastering engineer to do so.
Lazar studied at Skidmore College, studying Creative Writing and Music before completing a masters of music from New York University. Through her hard work studying and freelance as an engineer she was offered a position at Masterdisk, one of the best mastering facilities on the planet.
Leaving Masterdisk in 1997 to establish The Lodge, Lazar went on to master records by David Bowie, Lou Reed, Paul McCartney, Madonna and even work on the sound track for American Psycho.
Early in 2021, Emily established the We Are Moving The Needle foundation which supports women recording industry professionals, audio engineers and producers through scholarships, internships, education and mentoring. This much needed foundation was created after a study revealed that only 2% of producers and audio engineers within the top 900 songs of the year were female.
Standout Works:
Don Bartley
Don Bartley is an Australian based mastering engineer who worked with both RCA and EMI before establishing his own studio, Benchmark Mastering, in 2006.
Working with EMI at their cutting plant working directly with large artists, Bartley was able to use their 1:1 copy of the Abbey Road studios mastering and vinyl cutting setup. With ten years experience behind him at the point he started working there, he utilised the equipment to cut masters for high profile artists including Alanis Morissette, Icehouse and even the ubiquitous track John Farnham’s You’re the Voice.
Don cut vinyl masters for large international releases to be produced in Australia from as early as the 70’s, including a highly sought after re-release of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was released in limited numbers, sold at a HiFi convention and is considered to be the best sounding version of the album available.
Standout Works:
- John Farnham – You’re The Voice
- The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Australian limited Reissue)
- Icehouse – Man of Colours
Mandy Parnell
If you’re looking for a mastering engineer who has worked with successful dance music artists, look no further than Mandy Parnell. Her work with critically acclaimed artists Aphex Twin, Bjork, Jamie xx and Brian Eno (!) have pushed Parnell into the conversation of one of the best.
The British based Parnell was one of the first graduates from the UK branch of SAE when they expanded globally from their home base in Australia and cut her teeth working at The Exchange—first as a trainee, then as a fully fledged mastering engineer in later years.
Parnell currently runs her own mastering space, Black Saloon Studios, from her converted warehouse home in the UK. The operation is run off green energy courtesy of solar power in which she leads the way within the recording industry.
Standout Works:
Brian ‘Big Bass’ Gardner
If you’re looking for a big bass sound, look no further than this legendary mastering engineer. Brian Gardner has been around since the mid-’60s, working on a large range of recordings. He was given the nickname ‘Big Bass’ by the one and only Dr. Dre who connected with him through Bernie Grundman mastering studios.
Working for RCA in the ’60s cutting lathes, as was common for mastering engineers of the time, Creedence Clearwater came through his studio and they couldn’t get the mix to sound right once it was cut. Gardner immediately got onto the Pultec and Fairchild and produced a fantastic sounding record. After a few years of cutting Clearwater’s records he got hired by him exclusively at Fantasy Studios and the rest is history.
Records mr. ‘Big Bass’ has mastered include Michael Jackson’s Bad, Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP and Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV. Potentially the highlight of his career was mastering the second half of the double-lp Speakerboxx/The Love Below which was granted a Grammy award. Although getting his nickname through the hip-hop and R&B scene, Gardner also worked with artists of other genres including Linkin Park, Madonna and David Bowie solidifying his position as one of the best mastering engineers going.
Standout Works:
Brad Boatright – Audiosiege
Broad Boatwright is a musician turned mastering engineer and is hugely successful mastering engineer in the rock, metal and hardcore world. He operates out of his studio, Audiosiege, in Portland, Oregon and has the art of providing world class masters down to a science. His Instagram is worth a follow, if solely for the analysis of hardware and harmonics he uses to complete and refine his masters.
Brad’s credits include Modern Life Is War, Necrot, Misery Signals, Twitching Tongues and more!
Katie Tavini – Weird Jungle
Katie Tavini is a mastering engineer based in London. She operates in conjunction with the Weird Jungle mastering collective, having founded it, and has a stellar list of credits including Bloc Party, Rudimental, We Are Scientists and a slew of other indie, rock and alternative sounding artists. She’s an MPG award-winning mastering engineer and industry leader who’s focused on amplifying the emotion of the music she works on.
Nicholas Di Lorenzo – Panorama
Nicholas Di Lorenzo is a bit of a home grown hero. Owner and head mastering engineer, he also runs a hugely successful and informative YouTube channel, letting you into his world of sessions, time, life and health management, as well as mixing and mastering tips.
At this point, Nicholas has literally thousands of credits to his name.
Heba Kadry
Heba Kadry is a New York-based mastering engineer with an edge: she’s a vinyl cutting engineer as well. Her mastering room is a vision of peace and clarity, much like her masters for the likes of Björk, Slowdive, Hailey Williams, Chelsea Wolfe, The Mars Volta and more. She also masters soundtracks for wildly successful films like “Midsommar” and “The Lighthouse”.
Liking the idewa of pursuing a career in mastering? Learn to ride the vinyl wave here.
Heritage Audio launches the Tubestrip, an all-tube channel strip
Heritage Audio has launched the Tubestrip, a 3U all-tube channel strip that combines a tube preamp, inductor EQ, Vari-Mu compression and a de-esser in a single rack unit.
The preamp accepts mic, instrument and line-level sources and runs on NOS (New Old Stock) vintage tubes. Heritage Audio describes it as having “morphing capabilities” – a variable tonal character adjustable to the source. Four custom-wound transformers sit at the input, output and both sides of the Vari-Mu stage, keeping the signal transformer-coupled throughout.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
At a glance
- All-tube signal path from input to output
- Tube preamp accepting mic, instrument and line-level sources, with variable tonal character
- Inductor-based EQ – uses coils rather than capacitors for a musical, characterful response
- Vari-Mu tube compressor based on the Lang P.LANE circuit, with Seawell mode for an additional compression character
- Single-knob 1B mode for fixed, transparent compression
- De-esser for sibilance control
- NOS vintage tubes for preamp and Vari-Mu stages; JJ tubes for the output
- 4 x custom-wound transformers (input, output, Vari-Mu in/out)
- Universal power supply built in
- 3U rack unit, 7.6 kg
Compression comes from a full Lang P.LANE Vari-Mu circuit, with the Seawell mode built in as an additional character option. Vari-Mu is a tube-based compression approach where the ratio shifts with signal level, giving a program-dependent response that works well across a wide range of material. A separate single-knob 1B mode delivers fixed, transparent compression for more controlled results. The EQ section uses inductors rather than capacitors for a characterful response typical of classic outboard designs.
De-essing rounds out the four processors, handling sibilance without needing a separate unit in the chain. The full signal path stays in the tube domain from input to output.
NOS tubes handle the preamp and Vari-Mu stages, JJ tubes cover the output, and four custom-wound transformers run throughout.
Heritage Audio describes the Tubestrip as its most ambitious outboard piece to date, and it’s easy to see why.
Learn more at Heritage Audio. For local enquiries, head here.
Tone Projects’ Uni-L V1.0.1 is here
Tone Projects has released V1.0.1 of Uni-L, a free update for its mastering limiter that addresses CPU and stability issues across several hosts.
Read our review on Uni-L Master Limiter here.
The fixes cover excessive CPU usage in WaveLab, a crash when loading projects or chains in WaveLab, a hang when loading .vstpreset files in Ableton Live, and a crash in Blue Cat PatchWork and Pro Tools AudioSuite triggered by unsupported channel configurations. The trial version has also been updated, giving new users a fresh run at the plugin.
Uni-L is a mastering limiter from Copenhagen-based Tone Projects, co-developed with British mastering engineer Bob Macc over more than two and a half years. It combines wideband limiting with multiband detection – wideband for tonal consistency, with multiband detection guiding timing and response without the crossover artefacts that come with conventional multiband processing.
The signal chain runs a slow limiter for average dynamics, a fast limiter for peaks and a tightly integrated clipper. Transient Override lets you route specific transients – a snare hit, for instance – to the fast limiter or clipper independently. True Peak mode, EBU R128 metering, adaptive lookahead with independent band timing, up to 32x oversampling and TPDF dithering round out the feature set.
The V1.0.1 update is free for existing owners. Log in to your account to download or head here.
Strymon reimagines the TimeLine with dual engines, a reverb and a five-minute looper
Strymon has launched the TimeLine MX, the follow-up to its flagship delay pedal, with 12 engines, dual-engine routing and a five-minute stereo looper.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Eleven of those engines are delay machines, including new Oil Can, Spectral, Drum and MultiTap algorithms, alongside updated versions of the classic TimeLine sounds. The twelfth is a reverb, making the TimeLine MX a delay-plus-reverb pedal without needing anything else on the board. Both engines run simultaneously, routable in Series, Parallel or Split, and panned independently.
The Digital engine breaks into four distinct voicings: 24/96 for clean modern delay, ADM for snappy early-80s character, 12 Bit for darker and warmer repeats, and Classic, which recreates the sound of the original TimeLine pedal.
The integrated five-minute stereo looper includes a 1 Button Mode that stays active without switching to a dedicated looper mode, making it easier to build layers mid-performance. It sits before or after the delay engines, and MIDI access to reverse, redo and half speed doesn’t require entering looper mode.
On the signal path, a JFET input preamp and an analog dry path keep the dry signal out of digital conversion entirely. Stereo I/O with a hardware insert covers stereo effects loops, wet/dry and wet/dry/wet setups. MIDI runs via USB-C, TRS or DIN, with Nixie 2 editor support on the way. The EXP input takes expression pedals, MultiSwitch and MultiSwitch Plus, and also handles TRS MIDI. True bypass uses relay switching, with buffered bypass selectable.
For anyone running the original TimeLine, dual-engine routing and the 1 Button Looper are the biggest changes – the MX gives you a lot more to work with across the board.
For local enquiries on the TimeLine MX, head here.
Numark launches two new DJ controllers: Party Mix III and MixTrack Go
Numark has launched two new DJ controllers simultaneously: the Party Mix III and the MixTrack Go, both featuring Stems control and Bluetooth MIDI.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
The Party Mix III is the third generation of Numark’s beginner-focused controller, a popular entry point for new DJs for a decade. Performance pads double to eight per deck across five modes: Cues, Loops, Sampler, Stems and FX. Dedicated Instrumental and Acapella buttons sit alongside the pad section, Fade FX adds crossfader-activated mixing effects, and Beat Align indicators on each deck assist with learning manual beatmatching. The beat-synced LED light show carries over in a more modern design.
The MixTrack Go is the most compact controller in Numark’s current lineup, USB-C bus-powered from a computer, tablet, phone or power bank. Pad modes cover Cues, Loops, Sampler and Stems, with Channel, Filter and Main gain knobs and a non-mirrored layout.
Both share Bluetooth MIDI for wireless control from compatible smartphones and tablets, 24-bit/48 kHz audio and a built-in audio interface with headphone output. Software is the same across both: Serato DJ Lite, Algoriddim djay and djay Pro are included free, with Serato DJ Pro and VirtualDJ supported via purchased licence.
“MixTrack Go is for the DJ who wants to mix anywhere from their home studio to the back of an Uber,” said Jake Hill, Senior Marketing Manager – DJ Brands at Numark. “Both of these controllers bring modern DJ tools like Stems control and Bluetooth MIDI control to price points where more people than ever can pick them up and start playing.”
Stems control showing up on an entry level controller is an important detail for the majority of new DJs who want to learn on current tools.
For local enquiries, head here.
Heritage Audio’s Mix Buddy puts 19 JFET inputs and a transformer output on your desk
Heritage Audio has launched the Mix Buddy, a 19-input desktop instrument mixer built around JFET circuitry throughout, with a dedicated mic preamp and two independent master outputs.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Eight hi-gain inputs (four stereo pairs) use Toshiba 2SK JFET 12dB gain buffers, voiced for organic instruments and lower-level sources – for example, passive basses, vintage synths, Rhodes – where the slight colouration adds character. Six unity channels (three stereo pairs) use the same JFET topology at unity gain, staying out of the way of higher-output sources like drum machines, active basses and modern synths. Both channel types include a THRU output, volume control, mute and a pre/post fader AUX send.
Mic preamp duties fall to a JFET input stage with up to 70dB of gain, phantom power and AUX loop routing, so vocals can run through a pedal chain without external gear. A balanced stereo line input handles interfaces and computers and supports daisy-chaining multiple Mix Buddy units, while a stereo FX return doubles as an additional input pair.
The main output runs through Heritage Audio’s 73 DI transformer circuit, the same one used in their standalone DI boxes, with a switchable line or mic level output for going direct to a console or front of house. Main Out 2 is transformerless, for a clean, uncoloured mix path. A headphone amplifier with its own volume control on the front panel gives a third independent listening path, and a global FX on/off switch handles instant wet/dry comparison.
The Mix Buddy sits on the desk rather than in a rack. For studios juggling passive instruments, drum machines, mics and modern synths through a single mixer, the input channel diversity alone makes it worth a look.
Learn more at Heritage Audio. For local enquiries, head here.
Review: Minimal Audio Memory Rites Current Expansion Player
In the modern world of music production, the set of tools available to us is immense. Most DAWs come shipped with at least a few different synths, and with the endless possibilities from synthesis types, filter selection, modulation, FX engines and not to mention affecting your sound with other VSTs, the ability to commit to a sound texture, or to know how your ideas will translate to the club or a festival sound system becomes a complex question.
It’s this complexity that can sometimes get in the way of creating. Personally, the idea of loading up a synth and preset hopping can be inspiring in a way that crafting all of your own sounds individually can’t do – it’s instantaneous and most of the time backed by a preset creator with serious synth chops.
Catch up on all the latest reviews here.
Enter the Memory Rites Current Expansion Player, a new plugin from Minimal Audio which offers a stripped back interface while still packing the full power of their flagship Current synth. This audio plugin launched alongside Memory Rites, the new set of sounds built for Minimal Audio’s Current by experimental electronic musician, EPROM.
For those unfamiliar with EPROM, he’s an electronic music artist with releases spanning back to 2007, making music in the broader experimental and bass music genres, alongside IDM, drum and bass, acid and downtempo electronica. It’s from this wide-ranging bed of sound design expertise that this collection of sounds is birthed.
Under the hood, the implementation of EPROM’s vision is the same – it’s the same fully capable Current synth engine with its deep synthesis tools. The Expansion Player is just a cool way to let users play and own these sounds without purchasing Current itself, although those who want to dive in and tweak the presets further can get the full version and have immediate access.
This player comes with 60 sounds to play with, including 25 basses, 14 leads, 9 pads, 6 keys and 6 SFX patches, although some of these could be used interchangeably. Take the Sheffield to Groningen preset for example – it’s listed as a pad but could very easily be a soft lead sound by playing it an octave higher than usual. Or Chainsaw Badness, which is a gritty bass but played in the C3-C4 range becomes a saw-ish lead sound.
The Expansion Player satisfies the complexity issue I was talking about earlier with ease. Its four macros offer enough control over the overall timbre to shape the sound in a way that felt like my own while staying true to the original vision of EPROM. While I was using it, inspiration struck at multiple times, especially when using the randomise feature which alters the position of the four macros.
During testing, the player performed great – no technical hiccups, pretty modest CPU usage and the presets change and load almost instantly. Now onto the sounds.
In the plugin overall there’s a great range of sounds, from subtle and deep pads to disgusting crunchy leads that make you pull a stank face every time you press a key. There are full frequency spectrum bass patches that sound both fat and focused at the same time, alongside a sprinkling of SFX.
Log or Riddim is one of my favourites – it’s the kind of plucky bass you’d hear in a UKG track with an ephemeral reverb on the ‘space’ macro knob that really puts it into another dimension. As an electro head, the Aquabahn Speed Limit preset is my personal favourite. It exudes the pokey, ever-changing, LFOs-applied-all-over-the-place sound that the name references while still being consistently interesting. Chuck a short gated arpeggiator on it and it sings like the deep sea. I definitely spent over half an hour playing with this sound and it will find a place somewhere in my productions sometime soon.
For most of the sounds, the macros do a great job of allowing the creation of movement and transforming a sound from dark to light, or straight up to spacious and vice versa. Quite a few of the presets, like Sequenz Alpha have a macro dedicated to “breakdown”, pulling the sound out of the full frequency spectrum and dousing it in FX to create effortless transitions between sections. This preset in particular could form the basis for most of the melodic parts of your track – with one key push there’s a pulsing bass, a lead sequence and a small noisy rhythmic shaker.
There is some very tidy routing and signal chain management to FX on some of these sounds, like Raw Data Stab or Trance Slicer, where when notes are held, the main sound is pushed forward in front of the FX, and when released, the tail is more effected. Very typical for genres where your full-spectrum bass takes up most of the mix while it’s in there.
There are some output limiter options, with a soft clip mode which is more subtle, and a “glue” mode which sounds a touch more aggressive than the soft clip option when pushing sounds far into the red. Most of the presets stay out of the red zone, but the option to push them is there if you choose to.
You can obviously find some of EPROM’s signature concepts executed in this plugin, with the patches Exponent Advisor and Stereolake having a changing speed arpeggiator similar to the lead arpeggiator used in the track Motion Blur from his Syntheism album from 2023.
Overall, my experience with the Current Expansion Player and the Memory Rites sounds from EPROM was great – most presets were highly usable and had a unique flair that would help them stand out in a mix. The macros are expertly tuned and the plugin performance was excellent.
For electronic music producers, especially those who come from the bass music side of the spectrum, this range of sounds is a sure-fire win with playable, mix-ready tones that can be tweaked to suit your taste and vibe. Even if you’re not from the bass music side of things, the 808-style bass as well as complex keys, pad sounds and SFX could fit within many genres of music.
There are two ways to get access to these sounds: the Memory Rites Expansion Player, the subject of this review, which gives access to the 60 sounds and macro-level control over the sound timbre, or purchasing Current, the fully fledged synth, and buying the preset pack there. Minimal Audio also has a rent-to-own program, which gives access to their whole suite of plugins, sounds and presets with credits to purchase the things you want to keep forever later.
Check Memory Rites out yourself here.
Sony steps onto the stage with the IER-M500 in-ear monitors
Sony has launched the IER-M500, in-ear monitors built for live performance with input from professional monitor engineers.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Four sizes of noise-isolating earpieces are included, with a polyurethane layer in the earpiece construction adding to the isolation. Sony’s original fitting supporters and flexible ear hangers provide extra stability for performers who move around.
Inside, a dynamic driver paired with a large acoustic chamber handles the low end, while the optimised internal structure is tuned for high-frequency reproduction. The fully sealed housing adds to the overall isolation, and the IER-M500 is fully high-resolution compatible.
For stage use, the approximately 1.6m detachable cable is built to handle repeated plugging and unplugging, and the housing is moisture resistant for sweat and splashes. Cable clips are included, and each unit is clearly marked left and right. Available in clear, black and a red-and-blue combination.
Monitor engineer Noel Edwards, who works on major international tours, worked with Sony on the IER-M500: “I usually use custom-fit in ear monitors, but the sound quality of these in-ear monitors is pretty close for comparison. If you are in a situation where you need universal in-ear monitors and want a reliable pair, these are a great option.”
The IER-M500 arrives in Australia late August 2026. Check them out here.
Vater adds Dom Famularo’s Pad Stick to its official lineup
Vater has officially added Dom Famularo’s Pad Stick to its product lineup, bringing the long-sought teaching tool into worldwide distribution for the first time.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Famularo, who passed away in September 2023 at the age of 70, was one of the most influential drum educators of his era. Known as “Drumming’s Global Ambassador,” he studied under Joe Morello and Jim Chapin, presented clinics across more than 40 countries over four decades, and was voted Best Clinician by readers of Modern Drummer in 2005 and 2006.
He modelled the Pad Stick after a vintage stick from his studies with Morello, and it became a fixture of his curriculum for students of all levels working on hand and grip technique, rudiments, stick strokes and warm-up exercises. He also kept one close for his own maintenance practice, using it to strengthen and stretch his hands between performances.
Built from Sugar Maple with a 0.675″ grip diameter and 16 3/8″ length, it has a drastic taper and a large ball tip that produces a clear, articulate response on a practice pad – so it’s responsive enough to reward the slow, deliberate work it was designed for.
For Australian drummers, the Pad Stick arrives through Australis Music Group in mid-August 2026.
Audiotool 3.0 turns music production into a multiplayer experience
Audiotool has launched version 3.0 of its browser-based DAW, rebuilt from scratch to support real-time multiplayer music creation across web browsers and tablets, with native mobile apps on the way.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Multiple creators can now work on the same project simultaneously from any device, with Audiotool stating it offers the lowest latency of any online music tool. The platform has built a large following among gaming communities (holding partnerships with the Esports World Cup and Esports Nations Cup), and those users are already used to the format: drop in, collaborate with whoever’s there and make something.
“Music’s past was highly social. So is music’s future,” said Andreas Jacobi, co-founder and CEO of Audiotool. “We reimagined Audiotool from the ground up to serve that future and help music break away from today’s fragmented, gated production ecosystem.”
NEXUS is an open-source SDK included with 3.0, allowing musicians and developers to build instruments, effects, visualisers, music games, educational content and hardware-connected apps directly into the platform. Low and no-code development tools are included, so it’s not limited to people with a programming background. NEXUS also supports AI integration via MCP and Context I/O, connecting a creator’s preferred LLM to Audiotool. Launch partners include Splice, Ujam, BandM8 and Fraunhofer, Europe’s largest applied research organisation.
“Think Google Docs meets a creative sandbox like Fortnite or Minecraft. The DAW becomes a platform where creators can build, experiment, and make music together.”
Audiotool has been working on cross-device music collaboration since 2010, when it launched one of the first browser-based DAWs running on Flash. A full HTML5 rebuild followed in 2017, and version 3.0 is the first complete rewrite.
“I’ve spent most of my life in studios, and the thing that got in the way of creativity was almost never the people in the room. It was the software,” said co-founder and producer Daniel Rowland. “Audiotool 3.0 takes that wall down.”
Musicians and developers can build with NEXUS now through Audiotool’s Let’s Build! Hackathon series, running through August 2026, with partners including BBC’s Research & Development department and Music Hackspace. An in-person event has already taken place as part of Berklee’s AIMS Summit.
For more information, head here.
The importance of room sounds in a home studio recording
Here, we’ll discuss both recording the space itself as well as digitally adding ambience and depth to your home studio recordings. Our reasoning here is that, usually, home studio recordings are very dead, often being recorded under doonas, in cupboards or other overly treated spaces because of the imperfect and unpredictable acoustic quality of home studios— we get it! However, a little liveliness can breathe life back into your recordings.
Catch up on all the latest features and interviews here.
Select a single reverb
Digitally, we have a world of reverb plugins available, and while expansive, shimmering reverbs that sound like the echo of a canyon are fun, there are also some great room sounds available. A great option in the digital world is to select a single reverb to be used as an auxiliary, or to use 2-3 reverbs for your entire mix.
With a single reverb, you can send as much or as little of each signal in your mix to it, adding more or less depending on your preferences. Having multiple signals sent to the same source removes a bit of separation from the reverb itself, but it does a better job of mimicking the bleed and ambience of a real room. Even a single reverb per instrument, i.e. drums, can help glue everything together a bit more, and give a better sense of identity than multiple reverbs for each source.
Use three dedicated reverbs
Another great way to add space to a mix is to use three dedicated reverbs for short, medium and long reverb, for close, mid and far sounds respectively. For example, you might use a long reverb time and longer pre-delay for your ‘Long’ reverb, and sending things like drums to this will help them feel further back in the mix. Something further away in the room will both take an extra moment to reverberate to the walls (pre-delay) as well as the reverb being longer as it echoes through the space (reverb time).
A guitar might be a bit further forward, so this would be sent to your mid reverb, and a vocal might be your short. Don’t forget that there’s a secret fourth tool for this, in that some sources can have no reverb! If the whole band has a little reverb and the lead vocal or guitar solo has none, that source will feel much closer to you than the others, making for a very in-your-face sound.
Record the ambience
Another surefire way to add character and space to your recordings is to just record it! While this’ll eat up an extra microphone and preamp with every recording, it can be great to just have an extra ambient mic recording while you record other things. It doesn’t need to be a world-class room sound; simply the extra ambience, distance and space captured by the mic, when compared to the main source mic, can add a sense of the real world to your recordings. Stereo pairs are great, but this will work just fine in a mono context, these being a great sound to blend in as is or process to your heart’s content (maybe a 100% wet reverb?) These roomy mics can be great to stereo-fy a mono signal, or to process heavy-handedly in parallel with your main source that remains clean and dry. An ambient mic on every track can give a sense of space, even if that ‘space’ is your bedroom!
Re-amp your home studio recordings
One final trick is re-amping your home studio recordings. This takes a little extra know-how and a bit more gear, but a finished and mixed song can be played through a speaker into a room, the room itself being mic’d up as if the ‘band’ (your mix) were playing in it. This recorded sound, mono or stereo, can then be blended back into the space to reinject some reality into your mix. Keep in mind that when you’re recording a signal that’s being played back in the same room, you can create a feedback loop pretty quickly! So mute or unmute any tracks before they take off.
The name of the game in all of this is character. Sterile, dry home studio recordings are sometimes unavoidable, and until the first cheque clears from a #1 smash hit, a lot of us are stuck producing, creating, writing and mixing in whatever space we have available – and that’s okay!
Using the space itself will give your music identity and character, even if it’s imperfect acoustically. Some of the best recordings of all time sound the way they do because of the spaces they were made in, warts and all, and that’s what I implore you to do. Digital reverbs are a great way to bring a sense of reality to dry home studio recordings by using roomy reverbs and short, medium and long auxiliaries to limit yourself to one ‘space’. Re-amping your sounds into a real room can also give a sense of space, and even blended at a low level, add depth, body and a sense of the real world to your music.
Arturia paints the KeyLab mk3 in ultra orange
Arturia has launched the KeyLab mk3 Ultra, a special edition of its flagship MIDI controller now available in ultra orange.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
Colour aside, it’s the same KeyLab mk3. The semi-weighted keybed carries over Arturia’s mk3 rework of balance, weighting and spring tension, along with the updated aftertouch. Nine touch-sensitive 360° rotary potentiometers and nine touch-sensitive faders handle parameter control, while velocity and pressure-sensitive RGB pads cover clip launching, drum triggering and anything else you want to map. A colour display shows contextual information and real-time feedback as you navigate. Adaptive mapping adjusts the controls to match whatever you’re working on, so you’re not manually reassigning things as you switch between instruments and projects.
On the creative side, the mk3 includes Chord play (full voicings from a single key), Scale mode (which locks the keybed to a chosen scale, making wrong notes structurally impossible) and an Arpeggiator with a Hold function for hands-free pattern generation. For fast composition and musical experimentation, they cover a lot of ground without complicating the front panel. Connectivity covers MIDI I/O, USB-C and a pedal input. Build quality runs to high-density plastic, ruggedised knobs and real wood panelling, and every unit goes through 180 individual tests before leaving the factory.
The software bundle includes Analog Lab Pro, Ableton Live Lite and a selection of instruments from Arturia’s V Collection – enough to start making music right away.
If you’ve been waiting for a reason to pull the trigger on a mk3, this bold orange addition might be the one for you.
For local enquiries, head here.
Eric Church’s touring guitar gets the Epiphone treatment
Epiphone has released the Inspired by Gibson Eric Church Hummingbird Dark, a limited-edition signature acoustic-electric that Church has been playing live for more than two years.
Modelled after Church’s Gibson Hummingbird from a decade ago, the Hummingbird Dark arrives in Cobra Burst with black binding, darkened hardware and a custom pickguard. Under stage lights, that combination reads clearly from the back row.
Catch up on all the latest news here.
A solid Sitka spruce top pairs with layered mahogany back and sides for warmth and midrange punch with clear articulation. The neck is a Rounded C mahogany profile, comfortable over long sets, with a rosewood fingerboard, grey pearloid parallelogram inlays, Graph Tech nut and saddle, and Nickel Grover tuners. Body depth tapers from 4 inches to 3 inches at the neck joint, a detail that makes more difference than it sounds on a full square-shoulder body over a two-hour show.
Church says the guitar is where “songs take shape, where ideas turn into something real,” and two years of nightly use backs that up. The guitar has been part of his live rig throughout the Free the Machine Tour and a run of sold-out Red Rocks shows this July. It ships in a custom Eric Church signature hardshell case.
Alongside the guitar, Gibson and Church’s Whiskey JYPSI label have announced Tonewood, a collaboration built around two limited whiskey expressions finished using maple tonewood offcuts from Gibson’s guitar production. Where you’d usually expect the relationship to run the other way (whiskey barrels becoming guitar parts), here it’s reversed: guitar wood shapes the whiskey. A portion of proceeds benefits Gibson Gives.
The Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Eric Church Hummingbird Dark is a limited edition – so keep in mind, it probably won’t be around indefinitely.
For local enquiries, head here.