The best of Universal Audio’s native plug-ins, in Spark or standalone

Universal Audio’s Spark subscription (native plug-ins) is on sale for 99 cents for 3 months for new customers through the end of the day Monday the 31st. That seems a good time to check in on the subscription offering, which is on my short list of subscriptions I’d consider. (If you prefer perpetual licenses, though, I’ve got some quick picks on their sale there, too.)

Cat from Flow with Blender logo, cat floating in the water and staring forward Splash artwork: Flow © Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five Image licensed under CC-BY-SA – https://flow.movie/

Free Blender 4.4 adds animation and video features, improves stability

It’s a great week for free and open-source media tools. Hot on the heals of GIMP 3.0 final, we get Blender 4.4. It’s labeled as focusing on stability, but the Blender contributors have packed a bunch of major animation, video, and UI features in there, too. Now, we can say this is the tool used in Oscar-winning films (Flow).

Peter Kirn - March 21, 2025

This artist is connecting Unreal, Ableton Live for production-grade visualizers

For all the ubiquity of Unreal Engine, a small handful of people are pushing the envelope of what Unreal can do as an audiovisual tool. With years of effects and animation production work under his belt, Zack Berwick is uniquely creative and inventive with the combo – and he’s sharing his approach, using Ableton Live, Max for Live, MIDI, OSC, and UE.

Peter Kirn - March 7, 2025

Novation Bass Station gets a GForce software model and it’s perfect

Peter Kirn - January 21, 2025

Working with Alan Parsons, PSP recreates Frequency Translator

Peter Kirn - January 20, 2025

Roland just modeled the JC-120 Jazz Chorus in software

Peter Kirn - January 16, 2025

How Unreal Engine visualizes weather – and shows storm surge is serious

Peter Kirn - October 9, 2024

Review: Arturia AstroLab, the stage keyboard with Arturia instruments

Benjamin Weiss - June 17, 2024

User interface for Creature From the ID, featuring dials, VU meters, and a hexagonal organization with oscillators on the two sides and mixing and send controls at the center.

Creature from the ID lets you live your 50s sci-fi soundtrack fantasies

Peter Kirn - June 9, 2024

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