SAMPLED▌ FRONT AND CENTER
Is LUNA Really Free? The Free DAWs Worth Downloading on Mac, Windows and iPad
Universal Audio's LUNA now costs nothing on Mac and Windows. Here is what that gets you, plus the other free DAWs worth your time, including Sampledex on iPad, Mac and Windows.
// also right now
GearWhat Equipment Do You Need to Start a Video Podcast at Home?
A home podcast studio built from gear I actually use: a 4K webcam, a pair of tracking PTZ cameras and the headphones every broadcast booth already owns.
FeatureIs Sampledex for iPad a Real Free DAW, and What Can It Do?
Robert Clemons has brought Sampledex from the Mac to the iPad as a free download. Here is what it does, what it can't do, and who it's for.
// from the dispatch
Music charity, audited: how to give to the industry without wasting the money
Benefit shows, donation tins and relief funds move real money through music every year. Here is an effective altruism framework for checking whether yours does anything — plus the paperwork that tells you the truth.
Effective altruism for creative entrepreneurs: the part that actually helps your business
Strip away the campus-debate baggage and effective altruism is a resource-allocation discipline — scale, neglectedness, tractability, evidence. Here is how it applies to running a small creative brand, and how Sampled uses it.
Open Mike Eagle and Kenny Segal finally made an album — DOOMED! is a breakup record with jokes
Two Project Blowed lifers, twenty years of friendship and fifteen songs about a relationship coming apart. Backwoodz calls it the world's first half-whimsical breakup album.
What Are the Best Free Production Plugins in 2026?
The free synths, EQs, compressors and reverbs that hold up against paid tools — plus what changed this year, including the end of standalone LABS.
Sampledex Indie Verb 2.0 is a reverb built around ducking and Freeze
Sampledex's newest plugin is a reverb with early-reflection control, a built-in ducking circuit and a Freeze mode, in VST3 for Windows and VST3/AU for Apple Silicon. Here is what it does and how to dial it in.
Kenny Beats Unlocked 2: Denzel Curry's II Sequel, Aug 21
Kenny Beats Unlocked 2: Denzel Curry's II Unlocked sequel lands Aug 21 with JPEGMAFIA, Westside Gunn and Yebba — tracklist, dates and the rebrand.
DJ Haram's Aug 20 Brooklyn show is the real start of her next era
The Thot Daughter Tour lands at Baby's All Right on August 20 with Bbymutha, Sha Ray, Archangel, Nappy Nina and JWords — and it says more about where DJ Haram is heading than any single release has.
The best synths of 2026: Korg phase8 leads a strange, strong year
Our picks for the best synthesizers of 2026 so far — Korg's acoustic phase8, Modal's ELEMENT One, Behringer's JT-2 and Arturia's Memory V — with specs and prices taken straight from the manufacturers.
The 1982 acid house record that predates acid house is back in print
Light in the Attic's remastered reissue of Charanjit Singh's "Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat" is finally in listeners' hands — and on August 11 it got the national radio treatment it never got in 1982.