Just over a year ago, it was announced that Native Instruments and iZotope were coming together to form a music technology alliance with the financial backing of investment firms Francisco Partners and EMH Partners. Now, two more companies - Plugin Alliance and Brainworx - have joined the party, with the parent company being named as Soundwide.
Soundwide says that its aim is to make music-making “a more joyful and inspiring experience for creators everywhere by helping them to find, and stay in, their creative flow”.
The two new members of the Soundwide family will both be familiar to hi-tech music makers. Plugin Alliance is a software sales, marketing and delivery platform with more than a million account holders, while Brainworx specialises in creating plugin emulations of analogue hardware.
There’s also an all-new brand, Sound Stacks, which is the brainchild of Cesare Ferrari and Julian Storer, creator of the open-source audio application framework JUCE. Sound Stacks aims to drive development of new audio platform technologies for improving productivity and performance for developers.
Soundwide also has a new Artist Board, which features some big names. These include singer-songwriter Alicia Keys, musician/producer/composer Jacob Collier, recording and mix engineer Ann Mincieli, producer and rapper EL-P of Run the Jewels, composer Ludwig Göransson, producer and engineer Noah “40” Shebib, production duo Take A Daytrip, singer-songwriter Tayla Parx, and producer and engineer Young Guru.
The board will advise the Soundwide team on a regular basis, discussing creator needs, product roadmaps, community development and new methods of fostering inclusivity.
To celebrate the foundation of Soundwide, it’s giving away Native Instruments’ Ethereal Earth, iZotope’s Neutron Elements and Plugin Alliance and Brainworx’s six plug-in Welcome Bundle for free. This offer is available until 26 April, and you can find out how to claim your free software on the Native Instruments and iZotope websites.
