I build Blazar Core for composers, and this update goes after everything in your day that isn't music. Game composers, this one is for you. Game Loop exports your intro, your loop and your outro in one go: three files that join seamlessly, and a loop that repeats without a click. No more bouncing the same cue three times and listening for the seam. Every session open at once. Keep the cue you're writing, the one the director just sent back and tomorrow's delivery side by side in tabs. The sessions you aren't in free their memory and CPU. Luminosity tells you in plain words whether your mix is ready for streaming, Apple Music or broadcast, bar by bar. Bolide is a percussion synth with a 16-step sequencer, built right in. Trailer hits and pulsing hi-hats without loading a single plugin. Every alternate mix in one export: the version without the choir, the one without the drums, all at once. Plus three new looks, your own keyboard shortcuts and a tidier mixer. Try the whole program free for 30 days, with nothing held back: https://store.alexpfeffer.com/blazar-core-trial Already on 0.3.9? Click Update in Blazar Core and you're on 0.4.0. Windows and Mac. Early access is $79 now and goes up to $149 at release.

Be honest with yourself for a second. How many hours did you spend on strings last month? What about that mix you kept going back to because something just wasn't sitting right? Do you even know? Most of us don't. We open our DAW, lose ourselves for hours, close it, and do it all over again tomorrow. No record. No awareness. Just vibes. And then there's the graveyard. You know the one. That folder with 47 projects you started and never finished. We all have it. But have you ever asked yourself why? Is it the arrangement that kills your momentum? The mix? Maybe you spend 6 hours on a track, hit a wall at the same stage every single time, and never even notice the pattern. Or maybe there's a whole category of instruments you quietly avoid because deep down you know it slows you down. Strings. Brass. Vocals. Whatever it is, you can't fix what you can't see. What if you could see everything? Imagine knowing exactly how long you spent on each project. Which plugins you actually use (not the ones you bought and forgot about). Which sample libraries you keep reaching for. Which tracks got 20 hours of love and which ones got abandoned after 45 minutes. That kind of clarity changes how you work. That's why I built Aevum. Aevum is a free desktop app that sits quietly in the background and automatically tracks your production sessions. No timers to start. No buttons to press. It detects your DAW, reads the project name, and logs everything for you. Here's what it does: - Automatic DAW detection for Cubase, Logic, FL Studio, Ableton, Reaper, Pro Tools, Studio One, and more - Project tracking so you see exactly how long each track took - Daily and weekly breakdowns of your production hours - Plugin and instrument tracking to reveal your real workflow patterns - Production Coach that gives you AI powered weekly insights on your habits - Goal setting to hold yourself accountable to actual studio time It runs on Windows and Mac. It's lightweight. And it's completely free.

With Christmas around the corner, I wanted to give back by sharing with you the MIDI transcriptions that I've made over the past few years on my Composing Live! streams. I've been quietly building a collection of transcriptions that I've done for personal study from scores like Harry Potter, How To Train Your Dragon, Shrek, Elf, Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain and more. Each of these come with a reference video and a free midi download file, no strings attached. With these MIDI files, you can plug them into your DAW and reassign expression maps to them to fit your orchestral sample libraries, or test out new sample libraries that you've bought over the Black Friday weekend. Some of the sample libraries I've used for these include CSS, CSW, Spitfire Symphony Orchestra, EW Hollywood Opus, Pacific Ensemble Strings, Tina Guo Solo Cello, CS Cineperc, CS Dulcimer, CS Randy's Celeste, Omnisphere, Zebra, Diva, and more. Here's a sample of Hedwig's Theme: https://www.sohncompositions.com/store/free/hedwigs-theme-hp For the whole collection (28 with more coming in the future): https://www.sohncompositions.com/store/free Happy Holidays & Happy Studying!