Beatchain is a new platform for independent artists and labels that features multiple tools for promoting, distributing and tracking your music. It aims to tie together multiple aspects of releasing music, to combine data and analytics about your audience. You can distribute your music on Beatchain for free to Spotify, Apple Music, Shazam, TiDAL and more. You can then analyse your releases and use Beatchain’s Fan Builder to advertise for more followers or to promote a release, using the data gathered from your releases and social accounts. 

Charlotte de Witte has collaborated with headphone and audio company AIAIAI on a special branded pair of DJ cans. The new headphones which will bear the logo of her label KNTXT on a special version of the TMA-2 DJs, limited to a run of 500 units.

Sample plugin company Spitfire Audio has teamed up with Darkstar on a new plugin instrument called Haunted House, designed to create evolving textures in your music. Spitfire claim the plugin features “processed analogue synth textures and loops, rich sub-basses, pitched-down drums, and icy, warped vocals, each layered with subliminal spectral echoes of rave culture and industrial white noise”. 

ADAM Audio has launched a series of competitions, webinars, tutorials and giveaways in the run-up to Xmas called ‘25 Days of ADAM’. According to the monitor and audio hardware company, the festive campaign will include “exciting giveaways from the likes of Focusrite, Novation, Cymatics, SoundGym, IsoAcoustics, and of course ADAM Audio itself. Meanwhile, webinar topics will include TV and film composing, a tutorial of Audio Test Kitchen, and much more.”

The Chemical Brothers are auctioning off one of the touring Roland Boutique TB-03 bassline synths as part of a fundraiser for the #ILoveLive campaign, aimed to raise money for backline staff and stage crew during the pandemic. Simply donate £5 to get one prize draw entry, £10 for two and so on. 

Recording mixes at home is notoriously tough. Trying to re-create the vibe of the club with no crowd – it usually leads to over-doing it on the FX, or mixing out too early just for something to do, and messing up the transition. Admit it, you’ve done it. A YouTube user called TheRasteri has the solution – he’s has hacked a Pioneer DJ XDJ-R2 to run the classic videogame DOOM. In the video, the user can be seen plugging a USB stick into the R2, as well as a keyboard into the second USB port and loading the game onto the touchscreen. 

Update: Behringer have since responded with a post titled 'Competition: The Facts' 

Behringer is under fire again, this time for allegedly copying the design of the Arturia KeyStep with their new product Swing. Behringer’s MIDI controller has identical form factor to the KeyStep including buttons, knobs, switches and even outputs all in the same position.

Pioneer DJ has announced a new version of its flagship V10 mixer – the DJM-V10-LF. There are two main differences with the LF and the first is the most obvious – there’s no crossfader.

The channel faders are extended to 60mm to take advantage of the extra space from removing the crossfader and Pioneer DJ has also added an extra fader curve for extra detail and more subtle control, depending on your preference.

The rest of the mixer is the same as the original V10, which we previewed in the video below. It costs £3,089 plus VAT.

Online DAW, distribution platform and social collaboration service Bandlab has launched Sounds, offering more than 10,000 samples and loops for free. Packs are made by artists as well as being categorised into genres and moods like drill, neo-soul drums, modern lo-fi and modern p-funk bass. Artists that made packs include Youngr, deep house producer Martin Badder, drum n bass artist Joe Ford and future house producer CAZZETTE. 

NWA founding member Arabian Prince has also made a pack featuring classic hip-hop and electro sounds and loops. 

Junkie XL – aka Tom Holkenborg – is selling some of his key studio pieces with Reverb.com, including kit used on his soundtracks for Deadpool, Mad Max: Fury Road and tons of other movies and Netflix series he’s worked on.