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165% increase in average number of songwriters on hits since 1970s, study showsHow many songwriters does it take to pen a hit song? Too many to fit in a recording studio, it seems. A recent study by iMusician has highlighted a whopping 165 per cent increase in the average number of songwriters it takes to write a hit today compared to in the 1970s.

READ MORE: The music production industry has a gender problem – here’s how we can fix it

In the 70s, the average number of songwriters contributing to one hit track was 1.7. That’s since risen to 4.5 writers per track.
Boney M’s 1978 hit Rivers of Babylon had four contributing songwriters. The 80s saw Culture Club’s Karma Charmeleon top the rankings with five, while Cher’s iconic Believe in the 90s had seven writers.
In the 2000s, Blu Cantrell and Sean Paul’s Breathe had eight writers, and Drake‘s In My Feelings in the 2010s required 14. Currently, Beyoncé’s Heated tops the 2020s with a mind-boggling 18 songwriters.
iMusician
The fascinating report goes on to point out that in 1975, Freddy Mercury kept Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody – penned by himself alone – at the number one spot in the charts for nine weeks. Compare that to now, and just 10 per cent of the current top 100 singles have a single songwriter.
“Songwriters play a crucial role in the creation of chart-topping hits and have a significant impact on the music industry.” Says Simon Gardner of iMusician. “Their contributions go beyond simply writing lyrics and melodies; they help shape the overall sound and commercial viability of a song.”
“Many chart hits are the result of collaborative efforts between songwriters, artists, and producers. Collaborative songwriting allows for the pooling of creative ideas, diverse perspectives, and the fusion of different musical styles, resulting in chart-worthy tracks.”
Read the full report, How Many Songwriters Does It Take To Make A Hit, over at iMusician.
The post 165% increase in average number of songwriters on hits since 1970s, study shows appeared first on MusicTech.

Divergent Audio Group Violonair Step into a world where tradition meets innovation. Inspired by the timeless elegance of the Renaissance-era viola da gamba, VIOLONAIR emerges as a remarkable new instrument... Read More

Divergent Audio Group The Cuatro An authentic and meticulous Cuatro instrument. The Cuatro is a traditional instrument from Venezuela. It has four strings and a small shaped guitar body. The Cuatro... Read More

Want to submit to a Production Music Library? 6 essential tipsPaul Ortiz of Alibi Music shares his professional experiences and opinions on up-and-coming musicians and producers submitting their works to music production libraries. By Paul Ortiz, Music Director, ALIBI Music As. Continue reading
The post Want to submit to a Production Music Library? 6 essential tips appeared first on Hypebot.

Sony launches new flagship earbuds – and touts them as its “best ever”Sony has debuted a new flagship pair of WF-1000XM5 ANC earbuds.
Launching on 4 August, the new earbuds feature the brand’s “biggest ever step forward in noise cancelling”. There are three mics on each earbud, including dual feedback mics, which improve low-frequency cancellation performance.
They also have Sony’s new Integrated Processor V2 at the helm, which “unlocks the potential of the HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN2e”. These chips control the microphones across both ears for “unprecedented noise cancelling quality” that adapts to changing environments.
The earbuds better reproduce lower frequencies – such as the noise on airplane cabins or buses – than their predecessors, the WF-1000XM4, thanks to the new Dynamic Driver X. The driver enable a wide frequency reproduction for clear vocals and deeper bass, while the ‘Noise Isolation Earbud Tips’  have “a unique polyurethane foam material” to reduce higher-frequency noise.
“The diaphragm structure combines several different materials for the dome and the edge, achieving clear highs and deep, rich bass sound with low distortion,” the company says.

Meanwhile, the WF-1000XM5 are 25% smaller and 20% lighter than the WF-1000XM4, and their design is modelled after the human ear to ensure maximum comfort.
They also support High-Resolution Audio Wireless through the LDAC codec, as well as DSEE Extreme to upscale compressed music in real time.  Furthermore, they also use 360 Reality Audio, complete with head tracking, and support AR games like Ingress from Niantic using immersive sound made using new sensors and spatial sound technology.
Sony promises its best ever call quality on the WF-1000XM5, made possible by “an AI-based noise reduction algorithm based on Deep Neural Network (DNN) processing and bone conduction sensors” and a wind noise reduction structure.
Audio notifications are supported, and the earbuds are compatible with Spotify, Endel and Apple Music. Adaptive Sound Control and Speak-to-chat make a return on the new earbuds, as well as the ability to connect to two Bluetooth devices simultaneously.
They are advertised as having 8 hours of battery life, with a 3-minute charge topping up an hour of play time. They can be charged wirelessly and the earbuds are IPX4 splash resistant.
For more info, head to Sony.
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5 solid strategies to legitimately Increase Spotify StreamsStreams are an important marker on any musician’s career these days, and therefore it’s important to get them as high as you can. Here are 5 tips to help you. Continue reading
The post 5 solid strategies to legitimately Increase Spotify Streams appeared first on Hypebot.

Behringer’s new open-backed Alpha and Omega headphones are just $55 eachBehringer has launched two new pairs of open-backed headphones, Alpha and Omega, designed for producers working with high-fidelity audio who’d rather not blast their projects out loud.

READ MORE: House of Marley launches sustainable earbuds and over-ear headphones

The two pairs of headphones are, as with many of Behringer’s products, affordable solutions for audiophiles and professionals. Put together, both come in at a little over $100, each costing a mouth-watering $55.

Naturally, we’ll begin with Alpha. They’re being described by Behringer as a ‘Premium Retro-Style’ pair of headphones.
They feature a metal grille design and high-grade Neodymium 50 mm drivers, giving you an extended frequency response from 10 Hz to 28 kHz. The open-back design provides a true sound-stage feel, while ultra-soft ear cushions and a self-adjusting headband will keep you comfortable during those long-haul production sessions.
Alpha is optimised for use with various audio devices and comes with a convenient detachable 2-sided audio cable (up to 3m) and a gold-plated 3.5mm to 6.3mm TRS threaded adapter. A zipper case is included for easy storage and transport.
Behringer
The Omega pair doesn’t differ too much from its Alpha counterpart. Omega has the same drivers (10 Hz – 28 kHz), offers the same true sound-stage feel and has ultra-soft ear cushions with self-adjusting headbands, albeit with a more lightweight design.
The main differences are that Alpha has a metal grille, while Omega doesn’t. They also don a gold-plated 3.5 mm to 6.3 mm TRS threaded adapter and are optimised for use with various audio devices.

If you think it’s just headphones Behringer is working on these days, then think again. The brand’s founder, Uli Behringer, is leaving no stone unturned in his quest to provide affordable music-making tools for producers. We’ve compiled every synth, controller and drum machine Behringer is working on in a handy list – and, before you ask, yes, it’s huge.
It doesn’t stop there. The German gear brand’s upcoming Korg SQ-10 replica, the BQ-10, was recently leaked. The brand also recently teased an intriguing new Yamaha DX7-style prototype. For 303 fans, you might be interested to know that Behringer’s modded 303 clone, the TD-3-MO, has been given a cool Nightrider-esque black and red makeover in the new TD-3-MO-BK.
Behringer’s Alpha headphones cost $55 and you can find them at thomann. Likewise, Omega cost just $55 and are also available to buy via thomann.
The post Behringer’s new open-backed Alpha and Omega headphones are just $55 each appeared first on MusicTech.

Romy’s moody new dance anthem The Sea is produced by Fred again..The XX vocalist Romy is back with a brand new single The Sea, ahead of her debut solo album Mid Air arriving this September.

READ MORE: Tony Visconti on saying no to producing David Bowie’s Space Oddity: “I wish I did record it, quite honestly”

Premiering last night (24 July) on BBC Radio 1, The Sea is an emotional dance track produced by British hitmaker Fred again.. and Stuart Price. The song’s music video is directed by Mollie Mills, and stars Romy, her wife, as well as photographer and filmmaker Vic Lentaigne.
Sharing her excitement about the release in an Instagram post, Romy says that the song was “inspired by night drives in Ibiza and moments of second-guessing my heart on Brighton beach”.

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A post shared by Romy (@romyromyromy)

“I’m so excited to share this song with you, this was always my dream for it to come out in the summer,” she writes, adding: “I hope you can take this song with you wherever the summer takes you.”
Of the music video, director Mills describes: “Romy always evokes this feeling of euphoria – and with this track specifically touching on wrestles of romance – through a queer lens, it intuitively evoked something about this kind of intertwinement of bodies, both in intimacy and in club culture.”
“I had loosely referenced Louise Bourgeois’ sculpture ‘The Couple’ which actualises that soul-rupturing entanglement of falling in love – and this is what we wanted to feel in these seascape scenes. This light, blissful, euphoric togetherness that happens alongside these memory slices of euro-heaven.”
She adds: “There’s a power that can live in the simplicity of these domestic moments between two queer bodies too — when I think back to the loves of summers past, the memories I have are always the small details, a billowing curtain or a lovers hair after they shower.”

The Sea marks the fourth track to be released from Mid Air, following Strong, Enjoy Your Life, and most recently, Loveher.
“Mid Air is a collection of songs celebrating love, navigating loss and exploring identity,” Romy said of the record. “It’s a love letter to the queer clubs I first went to when I was growing up and people I met there and the music I heard that has made me feel more alive and less alone.”
Mid Air arrives on 8 September via Young. Pre-order the album here.
The post Romy’s moody new dance anthem The Sea is produced by Fred again.. appeared first on MusicTech.

Tascam and IK Multimedia T-RackS giveaway Tascam and IK Multimedia are currently offering users of qualifying Tascam hardware a copy of the T-RackS Porta One tape recorder plug-in. 

Tony Visconti on saying no to producing David Bowie’s Space Oddity: “I wish I did record it, quite honestly”Tony Visconti has opened up about his creative relationship with the late David Bowie, and the reason he ended up saying no to producing the music legend’s smash hit, Space Oddity.

READ MORE: “Barbie overtook my life for a year”, says Mark Ronson

Visconti, whose production credits run the gamut from Bowie to T-Rex, Thin Lizzy, U2, Gentle Giant and more, tells Classic Rock in a new interview that one of the reasons he worked so well with Bowie was because they were both “idealists”.
“We saw our relationship like a friendship, with an arts lab that was part of it,” he says. “I was very active [with him]. I would be an all-round person to play bass, work the sound, work the lights.”
The producer reckons that the secret to their long partnership was accepting that Bowie wanted to go off and work with other producers.
“It could be very disconcerting for people who work with him,” Visconti explains. “He would go through periods using people like Mick Ronson and Aynsley Dunbar, and they’d think they were in the Bowie band. And then all of a sudden he decides he’s never going to use them any more.”
“Even as a producer. I didn’t produce every Bowie album. He would just drop me, go with [Chic’s] Nile Rodgers [for Let’s Dance], for instance. His explanation would be that he just liked to change things. I got easier with it years later after the first time it happened. He’s an artist. He can work with whom he pleases. This is why his sound is so fresh.”
Despite having met Bowie at a young age, Visconti quickly recognised the star’s talent and potential for what it was. “The minute I met him I thought he was a special guy,” the producer says. “I heard his first album, and I thought the guy was talented even though he lacked direction, and I could hear the star quality in his voice. I was surprised to find out that he was only 19.”
“His personality was very mercurial. A non-stop talker. He was fidgety and very aware of his physical presence. I knew it was going to be a long haul with him, like Marc Bolan. Marc gave me the same goose bumps in the beginning.”
Visconti recalls telling Bowie when the latter wrote Space Oddity, “It could very well be a hit, but you’re going to have a tough time following it up, because it’s not you”. While he did eventually produce the rest of Bowie’s second studio album, Visconti chose to pass up production responsibility for Space Oddity to Bowie’s former engineer Gus Dudgeon.
“I wish I did record it, quite honestly,” Visconti says, though he admits that those worries weren’t unfounded: “We couldn’t follow it up. It was really tough.”

The post Tony Visconti on saying no to producing David Bowie’s Space Oddity: “I wish I did record it, quite honestly” appeared first on MusicTech.

Connext, Alchemix launch cross-chain token standard to reduce bridge exploit lossesThe two protocols will implement a standard for issuers to control the "canonical" minting of tokens, helping to reduce losses from unofficial bridges.

Fitzmaurice Relies on Amphion Atmos SetupAward-winning Irish mixer, engineer and producer Steve Fitzmaurice couldn’t have foreseen that his sessions with Dublin-based rock band, The Frames, in the mid-1990s would eventually lead to him buying a pair of Amphion reference monitors. Now, over twenty years into his career, Fitzmaurice is inspired by Apple Music’s launch of Spatial Audio, in mid-2021, he has since expanded his stereo monitor setup with additional speakers from Finnish manufacturer Amphion to enable him to also mix in Dolby Atmos.

Born in Dublin, Fitzmaurice knew by his early teens that he wanted to work in the record industry. But there were few studio job opportunities in Ireland, so after finishing school he went to London and started knocking on the doors of some of the city’s best known recording facilities. His early career began on the nightshift answering the phones at producer Trevor Horn’s Sarm West Studios. It wasn’t long before he was assisting on sessions with Horn and longtime Sarm West producer, engineer and mixer Julian Mendelsohn. After five years at Sarm, Fitzmaurice moved to New York and got a job at the Hit Factory and after a year went freelance.

Freelancer with new primary speakers

Over the years Fitzmaurice, who is based at Pierce Entertainment’s London studios, has worked with a long list of artists including Seal, Tina Turner, Tasmin Archer, Jodeci, Ian Brown, U2, Depeche Mode, Hikaru Utada, Sam Smith and many others. He has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards, winning five for projects with Sam Smith, Seal and U2, also working on various Oscar, Golden Globe and Brit Award-winning productions.

It was David Odlum, guitarist with The Frames, who first brought Amphion monitors to Fitzmaurice’s attention. Now Odlum is also a successful producer and engineer, currently musical director for Sam Smith, with whom Fitzmaurice has worked since their debut album in 2013. “During lockdown we did a live stream from Abbey Road Studios for Sam,” Fitzmaurice recalls. “I was mixing, and Dave was going on about the Amphions, so I got a pair of One18s to try,” as an alternative to his usual monitors. “At first I found myself using them occasionally and then more and more.”

Fitzmaurice was happy with the results but still unsure, he says, so Odlum suggested that he try Amphion’s Two18 speakers. “I kept them for two or three weeks and the same thing happened — I was using my other monitors less and less. I ended up buying a pair of Two18s, and now they’re my primary speakers.”

Full view of the 7.1.4 Atmos Setup in Fitzmaurice's studio

Dynamic clarity with subtle details

Fitzmaurice has a simple philosophy when it comes to mixing. “I like clarity, low-end and dynamics. I don't really like clutter. My most used piece of equipment is probably the mute button! ​ These days, it’s a constant battle to make loud competitive records — we're in a world where you have to EQ and compress everything — but I try and keep some sense of clarity, bottom end and dynamics while also trying to keep everything as natural as I can.”

His Amphion monitors have certainly helped him achieve those goals. “I think that they’re pretty natural sounding, with clarity in the mid-range, especially, and the top end. But they’re not bland and boring. When you turn them up for clients, they’ve still got a bit of vibe.” His previous speakers worked best when they were loud, he says. “But with the Amphions I definitely mix quieter because they don’t change tonally when I turn them down.”

Fitzmaurice has worked with some of the best singers in the business and has earned a reputation for the sound of the vocals on his projects. There, too, the Amphion monitors are proving their worth. “The Amphions are very good for subtle details, smaller changes in volume and dynamics are easy to hear. ​ Because of this clarity I found them great for balancing vocals.”

Changing monitors is always challenging, but with three years of working with the Amphions behind him, he reports, “Mixes seem to be translating to every other system quite well, which obviously was my main concern, so I'm totally sold. And now I've got an Atmos system which is all Amphion speakers.” The new 7.1.4 setup in Fitzmaurice's room at Pierce Entertainment is comprised of three Amphion Two18 monitors combined with the BaseTwo25 bass extension system, four One18s for the surrounds ​ and four One15 speakers positioned overhead.

Cohesion with immersive mixes

One reason to dive into immersive mixing was that Apple Music’s default playback is the Spatial Audio mix of a song, if it exists, Fitzmaurice says. Having heard other people’s Atmos mixes of his stereo mixes, he says, “I started wanting to do it myself, being a bit of a control freak! Somebody asked me if there was a steep learning curve to mixing in Atmos, but I haven’t really found this as I am simply trying to convey the same feeling of the stereo mix in the immersive world.”

One big advantage of an Atmos mix is being able to spread the tracks out spatially, he continues. “You don't have to fit all this information into two speakers, and make tracks bright and aggressive. In fact, I’m often taking a little top end off my stereo stems, as they don't need it any more to cut through.”

But having heard Dolby Atmos mixes where some of the elements are too spread out, the song loses its power as a result, Fitzmaurice says. He is careful to keep his immersive mixes cohesive. “Primarily, the vocal and the drums are more in the front. Sometimes, with live drums that I've recorded, I might pull the room mics away from the main drum kit. I've mixed a few electronic things in Atmos, and there you've got a bit more freedom to play around. But I'm not a fan of stuff flying around and making myself feel seasick. Occasionally I’ll have something moving around slowly but it's more about placement.”

With the record labels, streamers and broadcasters all clamoring for immersive music mixes, the investment in an all-Amphion immersive speaker system is paying off. “Nearly every time I’m commissioned to do a stereo mix, as long as there's a budget, they want an Atmos mix as well.”

Fitzmaurice mixed eight tracks for the stereo version of Sam Smith’s current album, Gloria, released in January 2023 (Serban Ghenea mixed another three and David Odlum and Kevin “KD” Davis mixed one each). “All the songs that I mixed in stereo I mixed in Atmos as well,” he says. “There’s one song, “Perfect”, where I prefer the end section on the Atmos version because it feels like there’s much more space.”

He also recorded and mixed Smith’s live orchestral performance at Abbey Road Studios in Dolby Atmos. “It was Sam, a 16-piece choir and a 20-piece string section. I laid the studio out in a horseshoe and when I was mixing in Atmos I laid it out exactly like that. I had room mics as well and I put those exactly as they were in the room in the Atmos mix. You perceive it as if you are Sam, standing in the middle, so it envelops you. It sounds amazing in Atmos.”

About Amphion​Amphion Loudspeakers Ltd. was established in 1998. We design and build loudspeakers that are characterized by honest and accurate sound reproduction. Precise driver integration ensures world-class imaging and phase coherency. Controlled dispersion technology helps achieve more stable results in a variety of room acoustics. All products are handmade in Finland (and the Amphion amplifiers are assembled in Finland) to ensure enduring listening quality.

Microsoft’s Bing Chat comes to Chrome and Safari in tests for ‘select users’Microsoft’s AI chatbot, Bing Chat, is coming to non-Microsoft browsers, the company confirmed today following various reports of the AI chatbot being spotted in other browsers like Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari. The expansion will make Microsoft’s ChatGPT-like AI chatbot available to a broader set of users, as it was previously available to consumers only within Microsoft products, like the Bing mobile app and Microsoft Edge browser.
The company confirmed to TechCrunch that Bing Chat is expanding to other browsers, which hadn’t yet been officially announced.
“We are flighting access to Bing Chat in Safari and Chrome to select users as part of our testing on other browsers,” said Microsoft director of communications, Caitlin Roulston, in an emailed statement. “We are excited to expand access to even more users once our standard testing procedures are complete.”
According to those who gained access to the Bing AI chatbot on Windows, they received a pop-up in the Windows 10 or 11 taskbar, offering the opportunity to try the Bing AI in Chrome. Otherwise, users can head to Bing.com from their preferred browser, then click on the “Chat” icon to try out the experience. In our own tests, however, we could access Bing Chat in Chrome, but not Safari at this time. That could be because we’re not among the “select users” who were gaining access during the tests.
Image Credits: screenshot of Bing.com
Bing Chat’s ChatGPT-like experience is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, but some have reported that testing the AI chatbot in other browsers had more limitations than with the original version. For example, the blog WindowsLatest.com, which was the first to spot the expansion, noted that Bing Chat in Chrome supports only five messages per conversation, instead of the 30 available in Microsoft Edge. It was also limiting the character count to 2,000, instead of the 3,000 supported by Edge, the site said.
Microsoft declined to confirm these details or share any further information about the differences between the various versions of Bing Chat when we asked for more information. The company also wouldn’t confirm when the expansion to other browsers first began, which platforms were supported, or whether the tests would include users in global markets. That’s for us to discover in the days ahead, apparently.
In addition to adding support for Chrome and Safari, Bing Chat appears to be testing a native dark theme, too, but this is also not yet broadly available.
Bing Chat has been working its way into other Microsoft products following its launch earlier this year. In a matter of weeks, the new Bing arrived in the Bing mobile app and Edge browser for iOS, Android, and the desktop, in addition to being integrated with Skype. This month, Microsoft announced Bing Chat would also head into the enterprise with a version of Bing Chat that included business-focused data privacy and governance controls. Alongside that announcement, Microsoft also noted Visual Search, which lets the chatbot respond to questions about uploaded images, was rolling out, too.

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