IK Multimedia launches the TONEX Board, a full rig on one pedalboard

IK Multimedia has released the TONEX Board, the biggest unit in its TONEX range and a full amp-and-effects rig on a single pedalboard. It runs two independent signal paths with up to four Tone Models at once, paired with 76 effects drawn from AmpliTube and TONEX.

TONEX Board

• Two independent signal paths, up to four Tone Models running at once
• 76 effects – 51 from AmpliTube 5, 15 from TONEX, 10 new – across 12 slots
• 5-inch colour touchscreen with six push-rotary controls
• 2,000 Premium Tone Models included, plus 60,000-plus on ToneNET
• Stereo outputs (one balanced XLR pair), splittable stereo effects loop, MIDI, expression and four-cable method
• USB audio interface (4-in/2-out) via free firmware update on 1 October

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Two signal paths set the Board apart from the smaller TONEX pedals, with up to 12 Tone Model and effect slots to position and route freely across them – enough for a single-amp setup, a dual-amp stereo rig, a wet/dry rig or a two-instrument configuration on the one board.

Editing runs off a 5-inch colour touchscreen and six push-rotary controls, and Preset, Scene and Stomp modes cover the main ways of working live, from recalling a full rig to changing several settings at once or switching individual effects from the footswitches.

For a board this size the connectivity runs deep, with two independent stereo output pairs, one on balanced XLRs, alongside individual output EQ, MIDI, expression control, four-cable method support and a stereo effects loop that splits into two mono paths. USB audio interface functionality, 4-in and 2-out with direct monitoring, arrives as a free firmware update on 1 October.

The Board comes with 2,000 Premium Tone Models, drawn from the TONEX MAX library, the TONEX ONE+ Signature Collection and new captures made for it, close to 200 of them from IK’s Tone Partners. ToneNET opens up more than 60,000 more, and existing TONEX users can import their own presets and pick up where they left off.

TONEX Board is available now, and ships with IK’s TONEX software for capturing gear, managing Tone Models and recording as a plug-in, plus early access to the TONEX Player 2.0 beta for editing both rigs across all 76 effects.

Learn more here. 

Roland releases Melody Flip, a co-writer for the blank page

Roland has released Melody Flip, a software built to help producers find the first idea for a track. Developed with research from Sony Computer Science Laboratories, it suggests melodies and accompaniment that you audition, pick apart and reshape into your own.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

The software is made for the blank-page moment before you have a direction. It opens with around 250 Palettes, small libraries of musical ideas that each hold a melody, chords, bass and drums. Each one is a jumping-off point rather than a finished loop, meant to push you past your usual habits into grooves and styles you might not have reached on your own.

When you import an audio file, Melody Flip analyses its structure, tempo, key, chord progression, genre and mood, then suggests melodies and accompaniment that share the feel of the track without copying it. You can generate ideas again and again, keeping the directions that resonate rather than taking the first thing it hands back. The analysis comes from Sony CSL’s work in music information retrieval, so the software reads a song’s harmony, groove and mood and shapes its suggestions around them instead of pulling from a bank of stock loops.

Melody and backing parts for chords, bass and drums export as audio or MIDI, ready to import into a major DAW for further editing and the rest of the production. Roland calls Melody Flip a “music creation partner” – it floats options and you decide which melody and which direction are worth keeping. The software runs on macOS and Windows through Roland Cloud.

Head here to learn more. 

klang.io brings Transcription Studio to iOS and Android

klang.io Transcription Studio has arrived on iOS and Android, putting music transcription on your phone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, the mobile version includes the same tools as the desktop version, that turn a recording into notation, from an audio file or a take on your phone’s microphone.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

A riff recorded at soundcheck or a melody caught on the train can be fed straight in to the app to analyse the audio and write out the notation. It reads multi-instrument recordings from any source, detecting the separate instruments automatically and setting them out in the format you’re after.

It works fairly simply – drop in an audio file, a social media link or a microphone recording, then choose a transcription mode suited to the material – solo and songwriting, small groups, guitar-focused bands, larger classical ensembles, instrument-specific arrangements, or a lead sheet built around melody and chord symbols. A new Record Mode adds an integrated metronome so a take stays in tempo and the rhythm comes back cleaner. Finished transcriptions can be read as notation or as a piano roll, and fine-tuned in the Editor before export.

More than 25 instruments are supported, among them piano, guitar, bass, vocals, drums, strings, woodwind, brass and ukulele, with more to come. Because projects live on your account rather than a single device, an idea recorded on the phone will be also be on desktop so you can refine it, as well as on a tablet to read at rehearsal. All project can be exported across to a DAW or notation program the same way.

“Musical ideas don’t wait until you are back at your desk,” says klang.io co-founder and CEO Sebastian Murgul. “Now you can capture one the moment it happens and have the notation before the idea is gone.”

Founded in 2018 in Karlsruhe by Murgul and Alexander Lüngen, klang.io builds transcription tools for musicians, producers and educators.

A free trial is available here. 

Soundscaping: The 7 best guitar pedals for ambient guitar

For some guitarists, there’s nothing that comes close to the sensation of chaining a dozen stompboxes together and creating atmospheric loops and drones that swirl, fizz and bubble into the realms of infinity – ahh, ambient guitar and music. Exploring ambient guitar pedals is a rite of passage for anyone who’s off-put by the cranked amps and power stances that tend to dominate popular guitar music, and translate just as well to the studio and stage as they do when you’re jamming solo at home.

Summary

• Complex delay, reverb and modulation guitar pedals can be used effectively to create soothing, atmospheric sounds perfect for ambient guitar styles.
• By chaining these effects in strategic order, guitarists can create swelling loops, drones and great washes of noise to suit styles such as post-rock, shoegaze, dream-pop and electronic music.
• Pedals such as the Chase Bliss MOOD, Montreal Assembly Count To Five and Hologram Electronics Infinite Jets are renowned as being some of the best stompboxes to use for ambient.

Read all our latest features and gear columns here. 

Although ambient music has proved to fascinate musicians and listeners for decades now, it’s undeniable that in today’s age, it’s more prevalent than ever.

The rise of YouTube phenomenons like ASMR, tape loop drones and lo-fi beats to study/chill to has seen ambient music thrust into the mainstream like never before, and provides musicians with a perfect solution for creatively improvising while staying indoors and self-isolating.

Today, we’re exploring the world of ambient guitars and ambient music by checking out seven awesome stompboxes that are suited for creating atmospheric textures, loops and drones.

Ambient pedals

While many of these units require a lot more attention and technicality than a typical delay or reverb, it’s their complexities that make them the special effects that they are, and once you conquer these kinds of guitar pedals, you’ll become a true master of ambient guitar. Let’s check them out!

Chase Bliss MOOD

Chase Bliss Audio have been considered as trailblazers in the boutique pedal community for a long time now, with units like the Warped Vinyl, Thermae and Tonal Recall being celebrated for their creativity, versatility and design.

However, nothing comes close to topping their mighty MOOD – a wildly unique dual channel granular delay and micro-looper. If that sounds like it’s complicated, it’s because it is: I’ve pored over so many demos for this pedal, and still have no idea what’s exactly going on.

At a basic level, the MOOD lets you create mini loops and then manipulate them with a range of parameters to create an wide range of textures, ranging from dissonant bit-crushed drones to whistling birdsong, washes of pink noise, hazy evaporating delays and so much more.

There’s a smattering of dip-switches on the back to tweak the unit even further, while full MIDI implementation makes the MOOD friendly with all kinds of setups – pair it with a droning wavetable synth or a fully fleshed-out pedalboard of your own, and you’ll have Brian Eno sliding into your DMs in no time.

Best ambient reverb pedal

Empress ZOIA

Potentially one of the most groundbreaking effects units released in recent memory, the ZOIA from Empress Effects is nothing short of revolutionary.

At its core, the ZOIA is a modular synth in the form of a stompbox, utilising a wonderful matrix to let you tweak and combine modules to create whatever sound you please from the ground up.

The ZOIA isn’t just limited to guitar, either: this unit can be used to create synth patches, control virtual pedalboards, interact with MIDI devices and so much more.

To get you started, the ZOIA includes a gamut of pre-built patches for guitar such as phaser, chorus, delay and reverb. However, deep-diving into the programming of the pedal reveals its full potential, letting you create dizzying reversed reverbs, wobbly LFO-like waves, funky filters and roaring feedback.

The limitless potential of the Empress ZOIA makes it a surefire pick for any punter looking to invest in a multi-effects that will truly handle it all, and also makes for a dangerously addictive ambient tool in the hands of the right player.

Montreal Assembly Count To Five

Many musicians believe that the Montreal Assembly Count To Five sampler/delay is one of the most confusing pedals ever made, and to be honest, they’re right – it’s a total head-scratcher for first-time users.

However, confusion tends to coax out creativity in a manner which creates startling results, and it’s here where the Count To Five shines. This pedal is perfect for those who love glitchy, unpredictable tones, and the minimal design of the unit only makes it even more alluring for a number of players.

The Count To Five specialises in creating stuttering mini loops, fluttering tape flourishes and blurring reversed textures out of your clean tone, making for a unit that never fails to amaze.

Once you master the interface, you can use the Count To Five to pitch-shift, slice and overdub your loops into oblivion to deliver one of the most fascinating ambient pedals ever.

It’s almost as if Montreal Assembly kidnapped Jonny Greenwood and made him into a pedal – there’s some seriously fascinating stuff going on with this thing.

Earthquaker Devices Avalanche Run

Everything that Earthquaker Devices release tends be solid gold these days, but the Avalanche Run is something else entirely.

This stereosonic delay / reverb boasts up to two seconds of delay time and a reverse delay mode, as well as a tap-tempo knob with subdivision controls and five different tail lengths.

A tone knob lets you shape the character of the delay to achieve a bunch of different delay tones like tape, bucket brigade and more, while the plate style reverb offers modulation, adjustable decay, dynamic swelling and a reverse reverb mode for all your shoegaze needs.

Each side of the Avalanche Run is incredibly useful on its own, but when you combine the delay and reverb, you’ll be gifted with a glorious cavernous tone that’s perfect for ambient endeavours. You can even use the Avalanche Run as a Frippertronics-style sound-on-sound lo-fi looper, while its potential to self-oscillate will make you want to shoot off into space to explore the cosmos.

A truly wonderful unit from Earthquaker Devices, and maybe even their best pedal yet.

Hologram Electronics Infinite Jets

Hologram Electronics have pumped out a bunch of these large format pedals that are aimed towards knob-fiddling guitarists; the Dream Sequence is also worthy of a mention, and their brand new Microcosm looks like it might even be the winer of the bunch.

However, it’s the Infinite Jets that’s snagged the most attention from the guitar community, and rightfully so.

Referred to by Hologram as a ‘resynthesizer’, the Infinite Jets takes an array of LFOs, envelopes, filters and voices and squeezes them into a guitar-friendly package for those who aren’t too savvy with keyboards.

The Infinite Jets is responsive to the attack of your picking, and its two independent channels allow you to create infinitely sustaining tones with two different notes or chords at any time. This lets you build ambient swells, filtered fuzz, scary drones and glitchy sequences with ease, and you can even record your knob movements to customise things even further.

It’s a bulky pedal and requires a bit of deep-diving into demos and manuals to really master, but it’s 100% worth the effort when you achieve those end results.

Meris Polymoon

Whether it’s the Hedra, Mercury7 or Ottobit Jr., there’s a whole bunch of excellent guitar pedals in the Meris catalogue that go above and beyond to define what’s expected from a stompbox today.

The Polymoon is the company’s take on a stereo delay, and takes inspiration from some of the most pristine cascaded rack units in history to deliver its soothing, atmospheric tones.

Like any Meris pedal, the Polymoon has a minor learning curve, but once you acquaint yourself with its functions, you’ll truly understand what all the fuss over this company is really about.

The delay sounds absolutely beautiful and easily conquers both traditional and experimental styles, while the stereo field is a shoegazer’s dream.

However, it’s the gooey modulation that makes the Polymoon such a viable device for ambient styles, offering flanger, chorus and reverb-style effects that boast their own unique tonal flavour.

When combined with the Polymoon’s powerful delay modes, you’ll never want to stop strumming.

Mastro Valvola LEM Lysergic Emotions Module

These guys mightn’t be as well known as some of the other names we’ve included on this list, but we’ve got a funny feeling they might be the next big thing in the boutique world.

Handmade in Italy, Mastro Valvola’s guitar pedals truly are the real deal, and they’ve got a bunch of awesome boxes under their belts, from the AREA Multi-Reverb to the very cool LFO Optical Tremolo – all of which we’ve been able to sink our teeth into recently for a review.

At the moment, however, we’re completely fascinated with the LEM Lysergic Emotions Module: an awe-inspiring multi-head delay that is guaranteed to blow your mind.

With eight effects modes that range from reverse delay to multi-head modulations, pitch-shifting and shimmer verb with an intuitive rotary sector knob to flick between them, the LEM is a soundscapers delight.

This pedal lets you tap into weird tape stutter effects, cloud-like ambience and even gnarly bit-crushed tones to really flesh out your sonic palate, and even features a dedicated filter knob to shape your signal frequency to achieve the best tone possible.

For ambient guitar styles, this could become a modern essential – make sure you’re ahead of the curve and get onto the LEM before it’s unobtainable.

For more of the best guitar pedals, keep watching at Reverb’s The Pedal Movie here. 

Win a Fluid Audio Strum Buddy Pro!

Nothing to set up, no cables across the room, ready to play in an instant – if that sounds good to you, the Strum Buddy Pro is your new best friend.

It suction-cups to the body of your guitar, takes a lead from the output and turns any electric into a practice rig you can carry in one hand. Thanks to Fluid Audio, we’ve got two to give away.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Built for practice, writing and lessons, the palm-sized monitor runs six watts, cabinet-modelled EQ and up to 3.5 hours of battery. Whether you’ve only got five minutes to play, don’t own an amp or just want to get something down before the moment passes, the Strum Buddy Pro makes it easy. For something so small it packs plenty in, with a six-watt amp, a 45mm speaker and onboard effects for clean, chorus, distortion and reverb. Headphones plug in for silent practice, and the USB-C battery runs up to 3.5 hours.

“The idea is to remove the little obstacles that stop people from picking up the guitar,” said Kenneth Rustad, Partner and Sales & Marketing Director at Fluid Audio. “Strum Buddy Pro is ready in seconds, works quietly with headphones and is small enough to stay with the instrument. It gives players one less reason to put off practising.”

Enter here

 

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Two winners will each take home a Strum Buddy Pro (RRP $129).

Entries close the 13th of September and the winners will be announced 14th September. Only open to Australian residents. 

Mix, render Stems and run your lights from the new Denon PRIME 4 G2

Denon DJ has updated its all-in-one standalone controller with the PRIME 4 G2, a four-channel, four-deck system that runs without a laptop and now handles Stems, lighting and a redesigned set of performance pads on board. It follows the original PRIME 4, a regular sight in mobile, club and event booths, and adds the kind of tools that used to mean bringing extra hardware or software along.

Denon PRIME 4 G2

• 4-channel, 4-deck standalone system, no laptop required
• 16 MPCe velocity- and pressure-sensitive multi-zone pads with 3D-sensing
• Onboard Stems rendering with Instrumental/Acapella buttons, Stem FX and Stem Level EQ
• Built-in 3-pin DMX lighting control via SoundSwitch, plus Philips Hue and Nanoleaf
• Full-size 8-inch jog wheels with LED displays and a 10.1-inch HD touchscreen
• 8-core ARM processor and 4GB RAM, four times the previous generation
• OmniSource playback from USB, SD and optional internal SATA, plus Serato, djay and VirtualDJ (coming soon)
• Wi-Fi streaming from Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Beatport, SoundCloud Go+ and TIDAL

Catch up on all the latest news here.

The headline update is the MPCe pads, a set of 16 velocity- and pressure-sensitive pads that Denon calls a first for a standalone system. Using 3D-sensing, each pad reads position as well as pressure, so a single pad can cover more than one job across Hot Cues, Stems, Rolls, FX and lighting, which Denon reckons quadruples the triggering options over a standard pad.

Stems rendering runs on the hardware itself, with dedicated Instrumental and Acapella buttons, Stem FX and a Stem Level EQ for pulling a track apart live. Lighting is built in as well, through a 3-pin DMX output powered by SoundSwitch that drives a rig directly with no dongle or laptop, and hands control of colour, position, strobe and intensity to the pads, with Philips Hue and Nanoleaf supported for smaller setups.

An 8-core ARM processor and 4GB of RAM give the G2 four times the processing power of the first PRIME 4, for quicker library navigation and smoother Stems work, alongside full-size 8-inch jog wheels with LED displays, redesigned dual-rail faders and a 10.1-inch multi-touch screen. Denon’s OmniSource architecture moves between saved media and software including Serato DJ Pro, Algoriddim djay and VirtualDJ, though that software support is coming soon rather than at launch.

inMusic DJ Brands Product Manager Jason Stout, who DJs events, says the G2 gives DJs “the freedom to shape both the music and the atmosphere without missing a beat.”

The PRIME 4 G2 is available now, with the software side of OmniSource due to follow.

Check it out at Denon DJ. For local enquiries, head here. 

Run your modelling pedal through HeadRush’s new FRFR CAB Series

HeadRush has built a pair of amp-style cabinets for players who’ve moved their sound into modelling pedals and want a real box to run it through. The FRFR CAB Series comes in two sizes, the compact FRFR-8 CAB and the louder FRFR-12 CAB, both designed to amplify a modelled tone accurately rather than colour it the way a traditional guitar amp would.

FRFR CAB Series

• FRFR-8 CAB – 8″ cab, 480W peak / 240W RMS, 14.3 x 14.1 x 8.5″
• FRFR-12 CAB – 12″ cab, 750W peak / 325W RMS, 18.4 x 19.1 x 9.6″
• Custom woofer plus a 1″ compression driver and a 90° conical horn
• 3-band Baxandall EQ with a variable high-cut filter
• Combo XLR/TRS input, XLR line output, stereo pairing
• Bluetooth 5.3, closed-back wooden cab, built-in kickstand

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Full-range, flat-response cabs reproduce whatever you feed them without adding their own character, which is the point when the tone is already shaped inside a pedal, amp profile, third-party IR or Neural Amp Modeler capture. Both cabs use a custom low-frequency woofer with a 1-inch compression driver and a wide 90-degree conical horn, for even coverage that lets those tones translate in the room. A 3-band Baxandall EQ with a variable high-cut filter handles quick adjustments for a new room or stage, without touching the sound built into the pedal.

Connections run to a combo XLR/TRS line input for a modelling pedal, profiler or digital processor, and an XLR line output that feeds a PA or links a second cab. Running two of them gives you a stereo rig from a pedal’s stereo outs, and Bluetooth 5.3 streams backing tracks or a band mix through the cabinet.

The FRFR-8 is the portable one, built for home, recording, rehearsals and smaller rooms, while the FRFR-12 steps up to a 12-inch driver and more headroom for louder stages. HeadRush Director of Product Development John Boudreau says the cabs “pair that accuracy with the feel of a real amp cabinet, so the rig sounds and feels like home no matter where you’re plugging in.”

Learn more at HeadRush. For local enquiries, head here. 

AIR Music Tech launches the Stereophonic Bundle for wider, warmer mixes

AIR Music Tech’s Stereophonic Bundle gives MPC and DAW producers two stereo processors for wider, warmer mixes, matching a Pultec-style EQ with a mastering-grade stereo enhancer. Stereophonic EQP and Stereophonic Enhancer run in MPC Standalone, MPC Desktop and any major DAW, in VST, AU and AAX, and can be bought together or on their own.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Stereophonic EQP

Stereophonic EQP is a modern take on Pultec-style equalisation, with four bands plus a high-pass filter, Tube Warmth saturation and switchable Stereo or Mid/Side modes. It shapes the tonal foundation of a track, bus or full mix with broad, musical curves, and adds a little stereo width on the way, with 28 presets, per-band bypass and an output control on hand.

Stereophonic Enhancer

Stereophonic Enhancer works the stereo image and low end at the bus and mastering stage. A Sub Enhancer adds low-end weight, Glue tightens stereo cohesion, and separate Harmonics and Air controls bring richness and top-end presence. Mid/Side processing adds Side Mix and Compensation controls, and a minimal phase-shift design keeps the sound mono-safe.

Used together, the two plugins cover production, mixing and mastering without piling on complexity. “Whether you’re finishing a beat inside your MPC or polishing a full mix in your DAW, these two processors work together to make every mix feel wider, warmer, and more complete,” said Neal Gustafson, Software Marketing Manager at AIR Music Tech.

AIR started life as Digidesign’s in-house instrument team before growing into an independent developer under the inMusic umbrella, and the MPC focus here reflects that hardware connection. Beatmakers get more punch and polish on MPC productions, while mix engineers get mastering-grade EQ, Mid/Side tools and harmonic enhancement in one place.

The Stereophonic Bundle is available now from airmusictech.com and thempcstore.com, with a 10-day free trial for anyone who wants to test the two plugins first.

Yamaha Creator Pass puts your whole music setup under one login

Making music shouldn’t be gatekept. For anyone just dipping their toes into the world of writing and producing music, it can feel like a pretty deep dive, with no shallow water to tread in – and for those who are already in it, the process is often more complicated than it needs to be.

Somewhere between the idea in your head and a finished track sits a pile of software, subscriptions and logins, and working out which ones you need and where to find them is half the battle. This is the kind of admin that stops people before they start, and the numbers back it up: a Yamaha Music Innovations survey found that 80% of people want to make music, but only 19% ever follow through. 

Yamaha Creator Pass sets out to remove that friction, pulling more than 20 music and podcast tools together under one login and one subscription, with education and accessibility built in. As our digital lives become more cluttered, there’s something to be said for having everything you need in one place.

Catch up on all the latest features here.

Having debuted at SXSW in March, Yamaha Creator Pass has since been refined with a group of artists on board, and it’s now available in Australia. The platform covers the whole production process, from first idea to release, rather than scattering it across a stack of separate subscriptions and apps. Yamaha Creator Pass brings access to services from more than 20 partners into one central account, with tools from Output, LANDR and Groover, DAWs including Cubase AI 15 and Ableton Live 12 Lite, and benefits and add-ons from partners including DistroKid, Adobe, Linktree and more.

The platform is designed mainly with emerging artists, songwriters and producers in mind – especially those looking for an easier way to start making, finishing and sharing their own music. It’s built to make that first step feel more approachable, without needing to have your whole setup figured out from day one.

It’s also built around a creator-led approach to making music. Rather than generating a finished track for you, it gives artists the tools to build their own – working in a DAW, shaping sounds, recording, arranging and refining ideas along the way. The creator stays in control from the first idea through to the finished release, with the platform designed to support the process rather than take it over.

Yamaha Creator Pass wants to meet artists and producers where they are and splits passes into four tiers – Starter, Growth and Pro, as well as a Podcaster Pass.

Starter Pass (US$9.99/month)

The entry tier comes with Output’s songwriting and idea-building software, plus more than 15 benefit-partner discounts. It’s built for someone starting from scratch with no production background, just trying to get a first song going.

Growth Pass (US$19.99/month)

On top of everything in Starter, Growth Pass offers two DAWs: Cubase AI 15, with Ableton Live 12 Lite on the yearly plan – however, if you already have a DAW you love, you can stick with it. Along with the two DAWs, you’ll get more than 80,000 samples from LANDR and Output Arcade, AI mastering and distribution to the major streaming platforms through LANDR, LANDR’s online courses, and four Groover credits to pitch tracks to curators, playlists, media and labels. It suits anyone ready to make, finish and release music.

Pro Pass (US$39.99/month)

Pro adds Output’s premium plugins and effects (Output One) and bumps you up to 10 Groover credits on top of the Growth line-up. This pass is for the artists releasing regularly and looking to build their fanbase and revenue, who want a fuller plugin set and more promotional reach.

Podcaster Pass (US$29/month)

Made for podcasters, this pass is built around Riverside rather than music tools. With this pass you can record at up to 4K video and 48kHz audio, 15 hours of multitrack, text-based and AI editing and publishing straight to YouTube and podcast directories with analytics to match. 

Add-ons and benefits

Yamaha Creator Pass keeps everything in the one account, right down to the extras. Add-on services let you buy more tools to suit your goals, like Mogul’s royalty management add-on, without setting up a separate subscription. Benefit services cover discounts and free trials across design, mixing, promotion and distribution partners – from a year of Linktree Pro to 60% off a la carte purchases on Audioshake Indie and a two-month trial of Adobe Express.

Learning and accessibility

Yamaha is intent on building a more accessible way into creating music, with step-by-step guides and video tutorials on ideation, DAW and samples, plugins, arrangement, mastering, release and promotion. Production has long been a bit of a secret club that’s hard to get entry to, so having everything you need laid out in one place is not only convenient, but essential for beginners.

Producer and artist Max Frost points to the convenience of having everything on one page. Being able to try tools without buying each one blindly, or needing someone to show you the ropes first, is a huge benefit to the platform.

For anyone who’s been put off making music because of the sheer admin of it all, there’s a new place to start that won’t make you dizzy. You won’t need to have fifteen tabs open, with payments leaving your account left, right and centre from a whole slew of accounts.

Yamaha Creator Pass gives you one account, one login, and everything you need to create, without all of the distractions. To get started, head here. 

Mackie launches the Thrashv2, its most accessible powered PA yet

Thrashv2 is Mackie’s most accessible powered PA yet, available in 12″ and 15″ versions built for players, DJs and anyone tired of being drowned out. It continues a line that started with the SRM450 more than 25 years ago, when Mackie helped define the powered PA category, but strips the idea back to the essentials.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Both models cover the usual jobs – main PA, foldback or a full-range monitor for an amp sim – without much fuss to set up. Connections are kept simple, with one combo input for a mic or line source and a thru output that passes the signal, Bluetooth included, to the next speaker along. Streaming reaches up to two speakers at once, enough for a small DJ setup or a bit of music before doors.

Four voicing modes retune the speaker for the room, so a unit used as foldback sounds different to one out front, while the one-touch Feedback Eliminator clears microphone feedback in a press.

Mounting is flexible, with a built-in pole socket and tightening screw that takes the T100 tripod or an SPM400 pole above a Mackie sub, and the cabinet works just as well upright or on its side. Branded bags are on hand for the trips between rehearsal and the gig.

The new speakers arrive as the latest release under The Freedman Group, the RØDE owner that now runs Mackie alongside Lectrosonics.

For more information, visit Mackie.

Meet Ibanez’s new Felipe Andreoli and Marcelo Barbosa signatures

Ibanez has three new models heading to Australia through distributor Australis Music Group, including signature instruments for two members of Brazilian prog-metal band Angra. Bassist Felipe Andreoli and guitarist Marcelo Barbosa each get their own Ibanez, and they’re joined by the RGV250, a lower-cost entry in the long-running RG line.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Ibanez RGV250

The RGV250 has the RG body that’s anchored the Ibanez range through three decades of metal, with a thin, fast neck built for speed. It comes in Jewel Blue.

Ibanez FAB1-WK Felipe Andreoli signature

Andreoli, long rated among Brazil’s top bassists, worked with Ibanez to build a signature around the BTB that stays within reach of more players without losing the specs he cares about. The FAB1-WK has neck-through construction, a 35″ scale, a zero fret, a mono-rail bridge and Ibanez’s α1 pickups. It comes in Weathered Black with all-black hardware and white pearloid block inlays, chosen to suit his technically varied playing.

Ibanez MB10-BKN Marcelo Barbosa signature

Barbosa’s MB10-BKN is his first Ibanez signature, based on the AZ Standard. It comes in a Black Night finish with metallic flakes and the black circle inlays from his own AZ Prestige, plus metal dome knobs picked for his playing. His signature is printed on the rear control-cavity plate. Barbosa started on guitar at 12, raised on Brazilian rock and bands like Rush, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

All three models are available now through Australis Music Group.

The Bob Moog Foundation opens its Memorymoog Plus and Moog Muse raffle

The Bob Moog Foundation has opened its summer raffle, and this time two synths are up for grabs: a vintage Memorymoog Plus for the first prize winner and a new Moog Muse for second. Entry is open worldwide, Australians included, with tickets on sale until 11:59pm EDT on 21 September, which works out to just before 2pm AEST on 22 September here.

Memorymoog Plus and Moog Muse raffle

• Prizes: vintage 1983 Memorymoog Plus (~US$12,500 / AU$17,400) and a new Moog Muse (~US$3,500 / AU$4,900)
• Tickets: from US$25 (about AU$35)
• Closes: 21 September, drawn 25 September
• Who: open worldwide, 18+
• Enter: Bob Moog Foundation

Catch up on all the latest news here.

The headline prize is a Memorymoog Plus, serial number 3067. Moog Music released the Plus in 1983 as a follow-up to the previous year’s Memorymoog, adding an onboard sequencer, CV outputs and MIDI in, out and thru. The Memorymoog was one of Moog’s first synths to store programmable patches, with up to 100 sounds saved to memory and recalled instantly. Its signature is the voicing, with six-voice polyphony with three oscillators per voice, the same triple-oscillator layout as the Minimoog Model D.

This particular example has had the Bell Tone Synth Works Liberator F-RAM upgrade fitted, so it no longer relies on a battery, and it’s been serviced by Rob Rosen of Rosen Sound. It arrives with an Anvil flight case and an original manual written by Dominic Milano, and the Foundation rates it in excellent physical and technical condition, valuing it at around US$12,500 (about AU$17,400).

A second prize is up for grabs – the Moog Muse, the analogue polysynth Moog released in 2024, valued at US$3,500 (around AU$4,900). Alongside its analogue voice it runs digital control and effects including Diffusion Delay, an arpeggiator and a sequencer, with an OLED programmer and a deep control surface of 44 knobs, 16 sliders and 129 buttons for hands-on tweaking. It has 61 semi-weighted keys and dual CV in and out on the back panel for tying it into analogue and digital rigs.

“The Bob Moog Foundation is proud to be offering two massive synthesizers representing a continuum of Moog ingenuity over a 40-year period,” said executive director Michelle Moog-Koussa.

Tickets start at US$25 (about AU$35), with discounts for buying in bulk, and the Foundation covers up to US$400 of international shipping, so an Australian winner would be up for any freight or customs beyond that.

All proceeds from the fundraising raffle benefit the Bob Moog Foundation’s three hallmark projects: Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool, the Bob Moog Foundation Archives, and the Moogseum.

Polyend Keys: a QWERTY keyboard and MIDI controller in one

If you’ve ever used your computer keyboard as a temporary MIDI on your DAW, now you can get the real thing – Polyend has built a mechanical QWERTY keyboard that works as both a standard keyboard and MIDI.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Keys works as a normal computer keyboard, with the added bonus of being a playable keyboard – and one that doesn’t cost you the desk space of a full-size controller. The number and function rows double as a three-octave piano, so there’s plenty of territory to cover. Nine rotary controls can be assigned freely to MIDI CCs for software or hardware, or mapped to everyday computer tasks like volume, scrolling and brightness, and a built-in display shows what you’re adjusting as you go.

Keys isn’t tied to a computer, either – a TRS MIDI output connects it straight to a synth, drum machine or other hardware, so it can work as a standalone controller with nothing else plugged in.

The body is machined from a single piece of aluminium and runs hot-swappable Kailh low-profile switches, so individual switches can be swapped without soldering, and the keys are backlit. Polyend is also making the firmware open source, leaving room for alternative layouts, different control modes, custom MIDI tools and sequencers to be built in software.

For now Keys is a prototype and so are the details, so its functionality, colour and hardware are still in the early stages and could change. Polyend gave it its first public showing at Gamescom in Cologne, which ran from 26 to 30 August, at Hall 02.2 | D031.

Price and availability are yet to be announced. Stay up to date at Polyend. 

SoundCloud opens direct music sales with zero commission

SoundCloud is letting artists sell their music directly to fans. The new beta lets a select group of Artist Pro creators sell tracks straight from their SoundCloud profiles, with listeners able to buy and download without leaving the platform. SoundCloud keeps no commission on each sale, so the proceeds go straight to the artist, minus the usual fees and taxes.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

More than 250,000 artists have linked over 2.4 million tracks to outside music platforms, and SoundCloud already sends more than half a million users a year elsewhere to buy music. In its own research, 28% of artists surveyed either sell downloads already or want to, split evenly between the two.

During the beta, participating artists set the price on eligible tracks, open streamed music up for purchase and follow sales through Artist Studio and the Fan Support Dashboard. Fans buy and download in whatever format the artist provides, MP3 or WAV. It joins the other ways SoundCloud artists can already earn, alongside Fan-Powered Royalties, Fan Support, on-demand vinyl and ticketing.

“Artists should be able to build their audience in one place, on one platform,” said SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton. “SoundCloud has always been where artists find their first fans and build real communities. We’re continuing to bring more of what they need to grow their careers into that same experience, while letting fans directly support the music they love.”

SoundCloud‘s own numbers put superfan spending at up to five times that of casual listeners, which is the money the feature is meant to capture.

For now the beta is small and US-only, starting with about 200 US-based Artist Pro creators who have Fan Support switched on. Access will widen to all eligible creators later in 2026, so Australian artists on Artist Pro will have to wait a little longer for the rollout.

In Focus: Squier Paranormal Series

This is the idea behind the Squier Paranormal Series – a run of instruments that mash up parts of Fender history and morph them into something different. From a Tele neck pickup in a Strat, a six-string strung like a guitar but shaped like an Electric XII and a P Bass gone semi-hollow, the latest batch certainly does bring a paranormal spirit to Squier, and there’s plenty here for players after something off the beaten track.

Five models make up the series: the Stratocaster Deluxe, the Troublemaker Telecaster Deluxe Bigsby, the Electric VI, the Baritone Jazzmaster HH and the Precision Bass Thinline SJ. Each one takes a familiar shape, with a slightly tweaked recipe.

Catch up on all the latest features here.

Paranormal Stratocaster Deluxe

The Strat Deluxe takes the world’s most-played guitar and reworks the pickup layout, with HS in place of the usual trio of single-coils. Up at the neck you’ll find a Fender-Designed alnico single-coil pinched from a Tele, voiced for snap and clarity, while the bridge runs a Fender-Designed alnico humbucker for a thicker and more saturated tone. It’s a pairing that makes a lot of sense on paper, with the Tele neck pickup covering the bright, chimey stuff, and the humbucker there for more weight. If you tend to hop between clean and heavy, it’s a handy spread to have under one set of strings. 

The looks nod hard to the Deluxe era, with a large ’70s-style headstock and skirted amp-style knobs, in three finishes: Vintage White, 3-Color Sunburst and Lake Placid Blue, all over a nyatoh body. Depending on the colour, you’ll get either an Indian Laurel or maple fingerboard. With its “C”-shaped neck, a 9.5″ radius, satin urethane on the back, a vintage-style tremolo and the usual belly and arm contours, you can expect pure Squier comfort. 

Paranormal Troublemaker Telecaster Deluxe Bigsby

True to the name, the Troublemaker is out to cause a bit of chaos. A bound Tele body and two Fender-Designed alnico humbuckers give it the bite, and the B50 Bigsby up top is there for wobble and shimmer whenever you lean on the arm. That Bigsby is the tell that this is no working-man’s Tele; it’s hardware you’d sooner find on a hollowbody or a rockabilly guitar, and it nudges the Troublemaker toward the shimmery, slightly unhinged end of the Tele family.

There’s independent volume and tone for each pickup, plus push/pull coil-splitting on both tone controls, so you can split the bridge and neck separately and move between single-coil and humbucking voices on the 3-way toggle. That’s a serious spread of sounds for one guitar. Split, it should come close to a bright, snappy Tele voice, and when you want something thicker and louder the full humbuckers are right there, which makes the coil-splits a real draw for anyone after versatility.

Keeping intonation in check is an Adjust-O-Matic bridge, and the “C” neck and its satin urethane finish offer classic Squier comfort. Pearloid block inlays and a bound Indian Laurel fingerboard round off the upmarket Deluxe look – proof that something paranormal can still be a thing of beauty.

Paranormal Electric VI

This one’s a deep cut. The Electric VI takes the striking body shape of the 1960s Electric XII and rebuilds it as a six-string you play like a guitar. The original Electric XII only lasted a few years in the mid-’60s, a 12-string that never really found its home. Even still, it turned up on some big records. Jimmy Page tracked the 12-string parts of “Stairway to Heaven” on one, and Pete Townshend used one across Tommy. Reviving an offset silhouette like this is exactly the kind of thing the Paranormal series love to do. 

Pickup-wise, you’ll get a pair of Fender-Designed Split-Coil “VI” alnico units wound to guitar spec, voiced for fat, punchy tones with a good dose of vintage character. A 4-way rotary switch cycles through four voices – bridge, both pickups in phase, both out of phase, and neck. The out-of-phase setting leans toward a hollow, quacky voice – thin and honky but brimming with character. It might not be a tone you use for every song, but it’s a great one to have up your sleeve when a part need a bit of extra bite.

Elsewhere, a Mustang-style tremolo take cares of vibrato, and the Coronado-inspired headstock and Electric XII control plate keep the retro nods coming. The shorter 24.75″ scale should make it an easy switch if you’re coming off a Les Paul or an SG, or any other short scale. The two finishes, 3-Color Sunburst and Daphne Blue both come with a nyatoh body and an Indian Laurel fingerboard.

Paranormal Baritone Jazzmaster HH

Baritones have been creeping back into fashion lately, and for the low-tuned crowd this is Squier’s way in, dropping the offset shape into much deeper water. The sleek Jazzmaster body pairs a 27″ baritone scale with two Fender-Designed alnico humbuckers, and strung with a baritone set tuned B to B, it’s built for crushing riffs and big cinematic textures. The longer scale and low tuning serve up a dark, ominous rumble that suit anything from doom riffs and film-score textures to extra weight underneath a track. Holding it all steady is an Adjust-O-Matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece for solid intonation and sustain, while a 3-way toggle runs between bridge, both and neck for a decent range of low-end voicings.

Comfort isn’t an afterthough, despite the extra length. With a bound Indian Laurel fingerboard, pearloid blocks and a satin urethane neck all present, the longer scale shouldn’t feel like hard work. It comes in Oxblood or Sea Foam Green over a nyatoh body – the latter looking suitably otherwordly.

Paranormal Precision Bass Thinline SJ

Bass players get the strangest and maybe the most tempting of the bunch.

The Precision Bass Thinline SJ reimagines Fender’s original bass as a semi-hollow, with an unusual pickup pairing to match: a Fender-Designed alnico ’51 P Bass single-coil at the neck and a Fender-Designed alnico Jazz Bass single-coil at the bridge, wired through a 3-way blade. If you’ve spent time with a PJ bass, this is a twist on the format. The single-coil ’51-style P in the neck is in place of the usual split pickup, so you can expect grittier, more aggressive, old-school edge than a modern P/J.

Between the two pickups there’s a lot of ground to cover, from the deep, thumping warmth of an old P Bass through to the focused growl of a J, and plenty of shades in between. The thinline semi-hollow body brings a bit of natural acoustic resonance into the mix and shaves off some weight, which your shoulder will appreciate over a long set. If you’ve spent your life on a solid-body P, the semi-hollow version will understandably feel a little different. It’ll give you a more loose and a woody warmth, as well as noticeably less heft on the strap once you’re a couple of sets deep.

Rounding it out is a “C” neck and a 4-saddle vintage-style bridge with slotted barrel saddles and open-gear tuning machines, keeping the whole thing grounded in tradition. The SJ comes in Olive, Vintage White or 3-Color Sunburst over a nyatoh body, with your choice of an Indian Laurel or maple fingerboard.

While none of these are trying to be your main workhorse, they’re full of character – exactly what makes the Paranormal Series worth a look. If any of these mash-ups have caught your eye, they’re worth tracking down for a play.

Head to Fender to check out the full range.

Code Drum Heads arrives in Australia through Dynamic Music

Code Drum Heads has arrived in Australia, with distributor Dynamic Music now carrying the UK brand’s range. Designed by drummers for drummers, Code has built its name on matching the established head makers on quality while costing less, and the local rollout brings its coated and clear series across tom, snare and bass sizes to Australian drummers and stores.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

A cheaper alternative

The head is one of the most important parts of a drum kit, and swapping it changes the character, response and feel of the instrument. Remo, Evans and Aquarian have had the drumhead market largely to themselves for a long time, so another name worth a look is welcome, especially one coming in cheaper. Code’s pitch is comparable heads for less, so changing a full set of tom heads or grabbing a spare kick head needn’t feel like a real outlay every time.

Built around Grip-Tight

Every Code head uses a rim design the company calls Grip-Tight. A deep, double-knurled steel core is crimped into an aluminium or steel outer rim, depending on the range, so the head stays put in the hoop. Built that way, it tunes easily, holds its tuning and resonates freely, with no breaking-in, stretching or seating needed to get it settled. The heads use PET polyester film rather than the usual mylar, which Code says gives them their own tonal character, and on the coated versions a hard-wearing texture coating tames the tone slightly, toughens the surface and gives brushes something to bite on.

The range

Code’s range runs well beyond a dozen heads, covering single-ply, double-ply, coated, clear and specialist options for rehearsal, recording and touring:

• Signal – a thicker 14-mil single-ply with deep tone and plenty of attack, built for harder hitters
• Law – a 10-mil single-ply with a centre dot for a more focused hit and extra durability
• Generator – a twin-ply head (two 7.5-mil plies) for a warmer, fatter tone, and one of Code’s most popular
• DNA – a standard 10-mil single-ply in clear or coated, the all-rounder of the range
• Boomer – Nicko McBrain’s signature snare and tom heads, with a reverse donut dot
• Blast – a single-ply kick head with a built-in dampening ring to control overtones

Recyclable by design

Because Code uses PET film and no glue or bonding agent, just the steel and aluminium Grip-Tight crimp, the company says a finished head is fully recyclable, so worn heads can go to a recycling centre rather than landfill. It’s a fair point of difference in a category where most heads end up in the bin.

Where to buy Code Drum Heads

New South Wales

• Allison Music
• Capitol Music
• High Street Music Penrith
• Legends Music (formerly Old Bank)
• Music Centre Gosford
• Muso’s Corner

Victoria

• Angkor International Music
• Billy Hyde Music – Nunawading
• Drumtek
• Oxygen Music
• Pony Music
• Sky Music Supplies
• The Little Music Shop

Queensland

• Gold Coast Music
• Infinite Music (formerly Shake It Up)
• Music Spot Browns Plains
• Vivace Underwood

South Australia

• Billy Hyde Music – Adelaide
• Derringers

Western Australia

• Billy Hyde Music – Perth
• Mega Music

Code’s range is available now through Dynamic Music. For local enquiries, head here.

Parish Audio launches Aethon, a granular engine that reshapes audio as it plays

Parish Audio’s new Aethon works on the sound already moving through your session, chopping it into small grains and setting them loose to drift, reverse and recombine as the track plays. It’s a granular effect rather than a synth, so the raw material is whatever you feed it – a synth pad, a vocal take, a drum loop – and the results stay tied to that performance even as they wander somewhere stranger.

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Aethon at a glance

• What it is: a granular transformation effect from Parish Audio that captures the audio moving through your track and breaks it into grains
• Effect, not a synth: works on whatever you feed it – synth, vocals, guitars, drums – rather than generating sound on its own
• Range: subtle movement and space at one end, grain clouds, synced pulses, reversed fragments and fully reorganised textures at the other
• Grain Engine: Size, Rate, Density, Position, Jitter, Drift, Reverse, Spread, Width, Feedback, Smooth and capture length
• Freeze function: holds captured audio in place so a single instant stays suspended while processing continues
• Tempo: grains run free or lock to the host tempo
• Finishing FX: high- and low-pass filtering plus Color, Motion, Diffuse, Space, Width, Mix and Output
• Presets: factory bank from gentle atmospheres to experimental sound design
• Formats: Windows VST3, macOS VST3/AU
• Availability: out now

How far it wanders is up to you. Longer grains, a little Drift, some stereo Spread and smoothing keep it gentle, adding movement and a sense of space while the source stays recognisable. Shorter grains push the other way, and with Jitter, Reverse, Position, Density and Feedback in play they pull a performance apart, letting the pieces move independently through time – a sustained chord dissolves into a cloud of grains, a melodic phrase turns into a synced rhythmic pulse.

A continuously recording capture buffer feeds the whole thing. Position reaches back through recent audio, while Jitter and Drift loosen grains from where they started and let them travel through the captured material. The Freeze function stops fresh audio from overwriting what’s been captured, so a single instant can hang suspended while Aethon keeps reworking it into new textures – handy when one half-second of a take turns out more interesting than the rest of it.

The Grain Engine covers Size, Rate, Density, Position, Jitter, Drift, Reverse, Spread, Width, Feedback, Smooth and capture length, with grain timing that either runs free or locks to the host tempo so rhythmic transformations stay in step. A separate Finishing FX section handles high- and low-pass filtering plus Color, Motion, Diffuse, Space, Width, Mix and Output, where the grains can stay clean and recognisable or move into hazier, wider and more distant territory without a separate chain of effects after it.

A bank of factory presets spans the same range, from gentle atmospheric movement through grain clouds, synced pulses and reversed textures to deeper experimental sound design – a decent starting map for anyone new to granular processing. Aethon is out now for Windows and macOS in VST3, with AU for Mac users.

Learn more here. 

Arturia releases Pure SUB, a dedicated bass synthesizer

Arturia has released Pure SUB, a software instrument built for one job: designing bass. Rather than treating low end as one output among many, Pure SUB breaks a bass sound into three stages – Sub, Harmonics and Texture – each with its own controls, then runs the result through a bass-focused processing chain.

Pure SUB at a glance

• Three-stage bass design – Sub, Harmonics and Texture, each shaped on its own
• Sub Regen keeps the fundamental clean and stable through heavy processing
• Sub Processor with 33 modes, more than 40 filter modes and an FX rack of 18 effects across 12 slots
• Maximiser with a Hard clipping mode for loudness, pump and grit
• Three envelopes plus a dedicated pitch envelope, and six modulator slots, with MPE support
• 300 presets covering 808s, Reeses, wobbles and distorted growls

Catch up on all the latest news here.

Building the core

The Sub stage shapes the fundamental on its own, with independent control over its level, phase and pitch. Because heavy filtering and effects can knock the low end around, a Sub Regen function restores a clean, stable fundamental anywhere in the chain, so you can process hard without losing weight.

Harmonics builds the body of the tone, switching between Pressure and Reese modes and running from clean 808s to evolving, stereo-wide shapes. Texture rounds out the core with Noise or Corroder modes, bringing in ring modulation, AM or distortion, or key-tracked white noise and simple waveforms for grit and presence. That noise layer also has a practical use, making a sub audible on small speakers where the lowest frequencies tend to vanish.

Processing and movement

The Sub Processor reshapes the harmonic profile through 33 modes of distortion and texture, backed by more than 40 filter modes and an FX rack holding 18 effects across 12 slots. A Maximiser adds loudness and pump at the output, with a Hard mode that brings in clipping grit.

Three envelopes plus a dedicated pitch envelope cover punchy transients and gliding 808 slides, while six modulator slots take envelopes, functions, random sources, a voice modulator or a step sequencer. Modulators drag and drop onto any parameter, and can be routed onto each other’s amounts, so a single macro fires several modulations at once. Pure SUB supports MPE too, for players after per-note expression.

Pure SUB ships with 300 presets spanning clean subs, gliding 808s, rolling Reeses, wobbles and distorted growls, made for dubstep, drum and bass, club and other bass-led styles.

Learn more here.