Sarah Sommers to follow up Detroit Underground release with ‘Exit Planet Pink.’ Sarah Sommers has been rapidly building a reputation for her live techno performances and production skills. The Berlin-based musician has cultivated a loyal army of followers in a short space of time. Her debut album ‘HeartCore,’ released at the start of 2024 on Doll Time Records, helped her gain notoriety across Europe. She then followed up with ‘Lost In Berlin’ released on Detroit Underground earlier this month.  The next step for Sarah is she is set to release her EP ‘Exit Planet Pink'. Fans can expec ..read more

Getting good quality audio from YouTube into your DAW to use in your compositions is surprisingly convoluted. Here are the seven best ways to capture YouTube audio for sampling for both Mac and Windows PCs. YouTube has changed many things about modern life, from how we watch media to what we sample. Back in the day, if you wanted to capture audio for a song you had to either hold a microphone up to the TV speaker or, if you were really serious, run the audio out from your VCR into your sampler. Thankfully those lo-fi days are past us, with pristine, high-quality audio ready for the sampling o ..read more

Taiki Nulight's latest release, The Box, continues his trajectory of melting UK dancefloor sounds with bass, garage, and house blending seamlessly together. He's had support from Pete Tong, Annie Mac, and Mistajam to date and is fortunate enough never to have had a "real" job. We put him to task in our QnA. Why music? The only language that really makes sense to me. If you weren't making music what would you be doing? I was studying to be an architect, so probably that! What's the best advice you’ve ever received? Comparison is the thief of joy. P Money & Taiki NulightWhat inspires you? A ..read more

If an original TR-909 unit is out of your price range, Roland's digital recreation, available through Roland Cloud, offers an impressively accurate alternative. This walkthrough aims to help you get started programming techno drums using the TR-909. The Briefest of Brief Histories of the TR-909 The TR-909 from Roland, released in 1983, is a seminal drum machine that profoundly influenced techno music. Despite not catching fire immediately with producers, it soon gained prominence in the mid-1980s in particular with Detroit's techno pioneers and forefathers such as Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunde ..read more

A hidden Dutch festival gem – The Dockyard Warehouse Festival – unveils a special edition of their ADE showcase at Hembrugterrain on October 19th This special event is designed to celebrate 10 years of Dockyard. However, instead of presenting a retrospective of the past ten years, promoters Coen van Dongen and Tania Davison are showcasing the future of Dockyard, and the techno scene it serves. HE.SHE.THEY Stage British outfit, HE.SHE.THEY, are on hand to take over one of the four stages bringing with them an array of talent that includes Cera Khin, Chippy Nonstop, SNTS and Wax Wings. Also on ..read more

Already established in the Indian music scene, Stoked has recently been growing a fanbase beyond his home country. He's the first Indian artist to headline Sonne Monde Sterne & Grune Sonne in Germany, as well as the iconic Rave the Planet (ex Love Parade). It's therefore about time we asked him to Introduce himself. Who are you? I am ‘’Smoosher’’ aka Stoked, a techno DJ + Bitonal Agency / Label dude who thinks four-on-the-floor music and Smooshing are the solution to all of life's problems. If you see someone with a massive grin behind the decks, that’s probably m ..read more

A unique semi-modular analog synth with new voice architectures, unique oscillators and a new direction for Moog inspired by some West Coast synthesis. Moog Music has announced the release of Labyrinth. It introduces new voice architecture with unique oscillators, a different filter topology, wavefolding, and parallel processing. Going deeper it also features unique dual intertwining generative sequencers. Labyrinth Key Features Dual Generative Sequencers: Construct intertwining melodies and rhythms that mutate over time, uncovering new patterns and textures. Parallel Voice Architecture:&nbs ..read more

The vintage tape echo is available now as a plugin on Roland Cloud. The Roland Space Echo, introduced in 1974, is an iconic tape-based delay unit renowned for its warm, rich sound and vintage character. Using a magnetic tape loop, it creates echoes with a distinct analog warmth that digital units struggle to replicate. It became popular very quickly as its versatility from subtle reverb to wild, oscillating delays gave musicians lots of sonic options. From Pink Floyd to Radiohead to Massive Attack, it's been a staple for five decades and will continue to be so in its digital format. Roland ..read more

Imaginando's VS is a visual synthesizer for musicians and producers. It provides a visual dimension to your creativity, adds interest to a live set, or can easily create captivating content for social media. It used to be that producers could get away with just banging out beats and twiddling knobs. Those days are long over. Now, you also have to know how to mix, master, market, and promote, and in this era of the ever-increasing importance of visual channels like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, you must make videos.  Knowing how to generate visuals is undoubtedly a useful skill to have ..read more

In today’s Synth Secrets we’re cooking up a gritty bass patch that would sound right at home in a jump up D&B track along the stylistic lines of artists like Amplify, Upgrade, or even more recent offerings from the venerable Chase and Status. Several times along the way you’ll probably say “Yeah that sound works” and we could just stop there. But the synth we’re using – u-he’s Zebra 2 – is very deep and it allows us to take sharp turns in sound design as we add different synthesis elements and processing, and that’s what we’ll do. Really though, a seven-step tutorial only hints at the de ..read more