AES 2018: Waves Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain brings the utmost in vintage mastering

Created with Abbey Road Studios, this is a modular mastering chain which recreates the EMI TG12410's mastering processors, in use at the legendary facility's mastering suites since the early '70s right to this ...

AES 2018: Acustica Audio team up with Grammy producer Greg Wells for vintage comp

At AES 2018, plug-in developer Acustica Audio and producer Greg Wells revealed their latest creation: the 'El Rey', a virtual analogue Greg Wells signature compressor plug-in that certainly looks the part.

Carr Amps Telstar combo amplifier: 17 Watts of organic boutique vintage tone

The Telstar combo uses a 6L6 and EL84 in a push-pull Class A circuit. With two different voicings and plenty of rich, vintage tones, could this be all the boutique amp you'll ever need?

AES 2018: iZotope Nectar 3 automates vocal production with machine learning

Improvements and changes are aplenty, starting with an user interface facelift and moving through five new modules and an AI-powered assistant. Coming next month, N3 will be a free upgrade if you purchase N2 ...

AES 2018: SSL FlexVerb is a brand new reverb plug-in coming in SSL Native v6.1

SSL describes FlexVerb as a versatile reverb that's intuitive. Of note is the split early-late reflection interface, which lets you dial in the natural body and tone of different early room reflections.

Roland VT-4 Voice Processor messes with your voice

Sound like a robot, sing through a megaphone, vocode and harmonise your voice with MIDI controlled chords. The Roland VT-4 is a one-stop vocal messing machine.

AnalogFusion: a dual engine analog and digital polyphonic synthesizer

AnlogFusion is a rather tasty looking polyphonic synthesizer. It fuses two separate synthesizer engines, one analog and one digital making it less of a hybrid and more of a megasynth!

AES 2018: Rupert Neve Designs 5211 2-channel mic pre

The AES goodness has officially began with the announcement of RND's 5211 Two Channel Microphone Preamplifier. Each channel has a generous 72dB of gain on tap, enough to cover even gain-hungry microphones.

D16 Redoptor 2: A revamped, retooled and restyled tube distortion plug-in

Version 2 of Redoptor adds a lot of new functions to D16's distortion plug-in and promises a lot of phat tube goodness (as well as a sleek if busy GUI) in what looks like a stellar release.

Accusonus ERA Voice Leveler: A one-knob cure for your vocal volume woes?

Accusonus' new ERA Voice Leveler is a plug-in to automatically detect level differences in voice recordings and fix them using patent-pending algorithms while presenting a super-simple GUI.

Pipes: 64 voice hardware sample player hits Kickstarter

Pipes holds up to 128GB of sample library in memory for instant, low latency multi-instrument and multi-controller access. It's open source and touchscreen controlled and looking for preorders.

Audio Coach: A free mix training app for your smartphone or tablet

Mix engineer Max Montanez and producer Chizzy Stephens (JLo, Bieber, Chris Brown, and more) released Audio Coach - a free mix and ear training app that's pretty much the first of its kind.

Heritage Audio HA-73 EQX2 dual mic amp/equalizer: two for the price of one?

Two for the price of one and posh audio - these are the HA-73's main selling points. And at around EUR 1500 (excl. VAT), it makes for a fine deal, considering it's built with components like Carnhill ...

MINI.MU: a sewable, codeable, gesture-controlled musical instrument for kids

The MINI.MU is a simplified gesture-controlled musical instrument based on the MI.MU glove developed by Imogen Heap. But this one you get to sew the gloves and write the code yourself.

RectangularThing: a limited edition complete synthesizer voice for Eurorack

This is Not Rocket Science was playing with some Curtis chips and came up with the RectangularThing, a dual oscillator synth voice with some very interesting sync and "Rambler" waveform generation.

Synclavier V2: Arturia brings sampling and resynthesis to their emulation

The original additive, FM and timeslice synthesis emulation of the Synclavier has been expanded to include sampling and the resynthesis of samples as Arturia complete their Synclavier V journey.

Osaka Mix EQ lets you drift into analogue non-linearity

The equalizer stands out with the DRIFT+ feature - an additional preamp stage where the custom circuitry's reaction to component temperature changes over time is modeled, and you have hands-on control over it!

Will CITES II free up trade in music instruments using rosewood in 2019?

The move to extend CITES regulations to all rosewood species caused headaches for instrument makers and buyers alike. Now a proposed rule change may see rosewood exempted from CITES in 2019.

#MyEpicMusicStory Contest: Your chance to win a €200 voucher at thomann

Online music gear retailer thomann is running an interestingly themed competition, #MyEpicMusicStory, with a main prize worth grasping for: a €200 voucher you can cash in on its online shop.

PRS SE Standard 24 gets a new paint job for 2018. Actually, make that six.

Paul Reed Smith's iconic Custom 24 design now available in new colours for the budget PRS SE Standard 24 range in Europe, with a couple of additional aesthetic touches also added to the range.

Grand Canyon: EHX widens the Canyon to add more delay and looper functions

Electro-Harmonix has expanded the Canyon Delay, and not just in terms of its size: The Grand Canyon is a full-blown delay and looper with tap tempo, more presets and lots of control for decent money.

Tanzbär 2 the hybrid drum computer from MFB is ready to make beats

Tanzbär 2 brings 8 channels of analog and 8 channels of samples into its advanced step sequencing eco-system. It includes a little bass synthesizer, 3 sample voices with analog filters and 10 sample ...

MPK Mini Play: Akai puts noises inside their mini controller keyboard

The MPK Mini Play has 128 sounds and 10 drum kits and can also act as a USB MIDI controller, run on batteries and has onboard speakers. So it's a cool little portable music device. But who is it for?

4ms Pods: mini modular cases for holding a Eurorack module or two

Cool little Pods for running a module or two that are cheap, compact, portable and can daisy chain their power for a very versatile desktop bit of modular dabbling.