If you’ve watched my videos on http://www.youtube.com/musicprotutorials you’ll know that i’m a huge fan of Native Instruments and Plugin Alliance tools. The incredible news today is that they’ve combined with Izotope, Brainworx and Sound Stacks to form a truly mighty organisation called Soundwide.

There’s a ton of information here from NI https://blog.native-instruments.com/soundwide/ but right now I need to tell you to get your ass right over to plugin alliance and grab yourself some incredible FREE plugins >> https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/pa-soundwide-bundle.html using the code JOINSOUNDWIDE. There are 6 plugins available for a limited time but my favourites are the beautiful Focusrite SC console and the super useful bx_masterdesk

Focusrite SC

Honestly, I cannot believe this is free so you NEED to grab it now. This is a fantastic channel strip that brings authentic analog style summing if you use it on every channel. It also has a lovely low and high shelf that i’ve used to truly bring tracks to life.

bx_masterdesk

If you want to get a quick DIY Master together this all in one plugin really does a great job and is a great alternative to some of the AI services out there. I’ve genuinely had great results that are totally playable in DJ mixes with this tool.

Offer ends April 26th so get your skates on! I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes from this collective in coming months.

More info below:

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/blog/blogpost/items/introducing-soundwide.html

https://blog.native-instruments.com/soundwide/

If you’re a web developer, Spotify provides a track endpoint that you can hit to pull back its audio characteristics https://developer.spotify.com/console/get-audio-features-track/.

You’ll get a JSON response with a variety of metrics:

• acousticness
• danceability
• duration_ms
• energy
• key
• liveness
• loudness
• mode
• speechiness
• tempo
• time_signature & more

You’ll need the URI – unique Spotify track identifier AND some technical ability BUT why bother when you’ve got something like Musicstax?

It’s (almost) fun to try this across music you love (especially your own) but what does it all mean? How effective is it? I’ve tried a few tracks and I’m currently on the fence. 64% for danceability on one of my tracks? Is it serious?!!! 9% popularity sounds about right though 🤣. Someone help me out and stream my music more!

For tape addicts like me this is amazing news. Now Tascam was a big name back in the day and IK multimedia have just announced as part of the Tascam 50th anniversary The Tape Collection – four new tape decks for T-Racks. This is focused on a selection of classic devices that they have modelled realistically and I can’t wait to try them out.

The first in the list is the Teac A6100 mark II, which was a mastering recorder. The collection also has a Teac a3340S which is a four track tape recorder. Next up we’ve got the Tascam 388 and finally the Porta One.

I remember seeing this advertised in magazines back in the day and the crunchy lo-fi tape sound is something that could be fantastic to run our beats through.

This is really, really exciting. At the moment it’s on an introductory price that you can try from the website, which is exactly what I’m going to do now!

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/trtascam/

Now this is HUGE news! Live 11.1 is on public beta and this is coded specifically for the Apple Silicon chip the M1. Up until now we’ve been running on an emulation of the Intel chipset through Rosetta so this is really the thing that those of us who bought an M1 Mac have been waiting for.

This release also comes with a number of small improvements, including an updated Shifter device, which adds a new mode for real-time monophonic pitch shifting, as well as delay, an envelope section, an LFO and glide functionality.

Two new Max for Live utilities, Align Delay and MIDI Shaper are also added. Align Delay allows artists to compensate for lag when sending signals throughout their system. MIDI Shaper generates modulation data that can bring more expression to MIDI performances.

Additional features include improvements to comping, updates to Clip handling, and more.

Live 11.1 is now in public beta. If you own a Live 11 license, you can test Live 11.1 – join the beta program*.

https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/live-111-apple-silicon-support-now-in-public-beta/

In the 80s I was introduced to underground soul music by my step sister. I used to raid her vinyl collection and tape track after track. This was the time of the original Street Sounds albums and I was introduced to some incredible music that still is a huge inspiration to me. Some of these were club tracks and some of these were ballads but they were always rich with instrumentation be it jazz, gospel or pop in vibe.

Now Native Instruments have just released a new expansion that reminds me so much of a bunch of these old classics (but with a contemporary lean) In the video below I’ll take you through some of the preset kits so you can get a feel for them yourself. I think you’ll agree that they are super lush and totally show off the sounds and presets contained in the bundle. Like the sound of it? Buy from the link here –https://bit.ly/BuyElectricTouch

I have no idea just how long this will last but right now one of the tracks from the album “The 90s Tapes” is number 1 in the Traxsource Classic House Top 100 chart. Berlin Soul was a pseudonym I used for one EP back in the 90s exclusively on vinyl and this new recording is a 2021 remaster that sounds better than ever!

Now this is completely incredible and utterly heartwarming. To be in the same proximity as some huge anthems from back in the day (just take a look at that list above!) is a huge achievement to me and I’m super grateful to all DJs supporting.

I’ll be celebrating this one tonight, Cheers!

Arturia just dropped an emulation of a truly classic synth, the Ensoniq SQ80V. I remember running (dangerously!) across the M4 one Sunday morning, ducking past the services and crossing the police line to get to a massive warehouse where an event called Energy was running. Making my way through the crowd I saw the legend that was Adamski totally rocking this beast and it sounded utterly fantastic on that cavernous sound system. Full of that nostalgia I simply cannot wait to check this one out and so can you – the demo is available here – https://www.arturia.com/products/analog-classics/sq80-v/overview