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Splice is now built directly into Pro Tools

Avid has released the latest version of Pro Tools, and with it unveiled an unexpected partnership with Splice that integrates the leading sample platform directly into its flagship DAW.

Following Studio One’s update late last year, Pro Tools is now the second DAW to fully integrate Splice, allowing its users to browse, preview and access the company’s millions-strong library of royalty-free samples without leaving their session.

Pro Tools users will now be able to make use of Splice’s AI-based Search With Sound feature, which analyzes audio clips from the DAW timeline to suggest Splice samples with a similar rhythm, key or tempo. Pro Tools users will be given access to more than 2,500 free Splice samples, but the full library requires a monthly subscription.

“Whether producers and artists are sketching out ideas, building out tracks, or applying final touches, Pro Tools’ Splice integration provides a more powerful environment for creating music – giving users the ability to quickly find the perfect sound while staying in their creative flow,” said Kenna Hilburn, Avid’s SVP of Product.

“Putting Splice directly into the creative workflow is core to our mission,” added Splice’s Kenny Ochoa. “This integration makes it easier than ever for Pro Tools users to access our AI-powered discovery and world-class sound library – right where they’re making music.”

Alongside the Splice integration, Pro Tools 2025.6 brings with it a raft of updates that includes MIDI improvements, AI-powered Speech-to-Text functionality, an expanded ARA ecosystem, enhanced ADR and reconform workflows, and a new in-app dashboard.

Pro Tools’ new Speech-to-Text engine streamlines dialogue and music editing by enabling users to search any audio file in a session for speech or lyric information via a dedicated transcript window, making it quick and easy to locate specific dialogue or vocal takes.

Avid says Pro Tools 2025.6’s MIDI improvements enable “faster, smarter MIDI creation” thanks to the integration of key editing tools in Pro Tools’ MIDI Editor, new MIDI note labelling functionality and enhanced input monitoring.

Pro Tools 2025.6 also expands ARA integration to two third-party vocal production tools, Waves Sync Vx and Dreamtonics Synthesizer V, allowing users to process audio directly in the timeline without time-consuming roundtripping.

Pro Tools 2025.6 will be available to all Pro Tools Artist, Studio, and Ultimate subscribers, as well as perpetual license holders on an active support plan.

Find out more on the Avid site.

Sonicware’s LIVEN Evoke is a ‘nostalgia-evoking ambient music box’ fusing acoustic and electronic sounds.

Today, Japanese manufacturer Sonicware has introduced another instrument to its LIVEN series, a collection of affordable synths, drum machines and grooveboxes that includes the LIVEN Ambient Ø, LIVEN Texture Lab and LIVEN Lofi-12.

Described as a “nostalgia-evoking ambient music box”, LIVEN Evoke is a polyphonic synthesizer utilizing what Sonicware is calling “acoustronic” synthesis. Evoke’s Acoustronic Flux Oscillator blends acoustic and electronic elements together through a combination of sample-based and wavetable synthesis to create a diverse spectrum of sounds that the company says includes “nostalgic pianos, drone strings and bizarre vibraphones”.

Evoke’s sample engine is equipped with 34 acoustic instrument sounds, and patches are created by blending these with a noise generator and a wavetable oscillator armed with bank of 20 wavetables, with dynamic reversed movement applied through the synth’s Backtide Modulation system.

Multiple timbres can be layered across Evoke’s four tracks, each of which is equipped with its own amp envelope, two LFOs and a multimode filter with low-, high- and band-pass modes. The synth’s four-track sequencer stores up to 128 patterns, each of which can stretch up to 64 steps in length, and you’re able to adjust probability and record specific parameter settings for each step in a pattern. There’s also a multimode arpeggiator on board.

Effects include Evoke’s Grain FX, a granular engine that slices sound into minute grains, transforming and reconstructing these via a range of granular synthesis parameters, and a reverb with ten different algorithms. Effects can also be applied to external sources via the synth’s audio input.

Hardware-wise, Evoke is based on the same platform as several other instruments in the Liven series, with a 27-key keyboard and internal speaker on board. As for connectivity, you’ve got 3.5mm stereo line in/out, 5-pin DIN MIDI in/out, sync in/out on mini-jacks, and a 3.5mm headphone output. The synth can be powered via mains power or 6 AA batteries.

Sonicware LIVEN Evoke is priced at $239/£229 and ships June 30.

Find out more on Sonicware site.

Universal Audio Anthem synth plugin promises to ‘put the biggest, baddest analogue sounds at your fingertips’. A growling analogue-modelled filter, flexible sequencer and vintage-style modulation effects give UA’s new monosynth an edge.

Just a few weeks giving one virtual analogue synth plugin away for free, Universal Audio has announced the release of another soft-synth inspired by classic analogue instruments: Anthem.

Designed to capture the warmth and character of ‘coveted monosynths of bygone eras’, Anthem is a virtual analogue instrument built on a classic dual-oscillator architecture. Though it’s fundamentally monophonic, Anthem has both Unison and Paraphonic modes, the latter allowing you to play up to four voices through the same filter and amp envelopes.

Anthem’s two analogue-modelled oscillators produce four continuously variable waveforms spanning triangle, saw, square and pulse waves, alongside a sub oscillator and noise generator, and oscillator sync and ring modulation are both accessible via Anthem’s warp control.

The synth’s resonant low-pass filter offers both Drive and Growl controls for dialling in saturation and grit, and there’s an additional high-pass filter onboard too, along with keytracking and modulation controls.

Modulation comes courtesy of two ADSR envelopes for amplitude and filter and a single tempo-syncable LFO, which offers triangle, square and random waveforms that can be shaped via its Tilt control. Along with the filter cutoff, these can be routed to the oscillators’ waveshape, pitch and warp controls.

Anthem’s effects panel includes a stereo chorus and Mod FX section that features a phaser, flanger and tape-style warble effect, along with a Space FX panel comprising tape echo, spring reverb and hall reverb effects. There’s also a three-lane, 16-step sequencer on board with swing and accents, along with polyrhythmic and randomized sequencing modes.

Overall, Anthem is a stripped-back synth with relatively limited capabilities, and some will surely question the decision not to include an optional polyphonic mode, but it’s clear that Universal Audio isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel here, instead offering music-makers an intuitive instrument that makes it easy to craft bold, punchy and authentic analogue-style sounds.

Priced at an introductory discount of $149, Anthem is available for macOS and Windows in VST3/AU/AAX formats.

Find out more on Universal Audio site.