SP-1200 sampler RZA used on Enter The Wu-Tang is up for sale, starting at $35,000The E-Mu SP-1200 used by RZA to produce Wu-Tang Clan’s seminal 1993 debut album Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is going under the hammer.
READ MORE: The E-mu SP-1200: How one sampler ushered in a revolution
The sampler, which bears RZA’s signature, has been listed by Sotherby’s with bids starting at $35,000 (£27,139) with the value estimated somewhere between $50,000- $80,000 (£38,760-£62,016). It’s available to bid on till 25th July.

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E-Mu’s SP-1200 was seen as a key tool in the progression of sampling as an art. First released in 1987, it has been used by artists the likes of Daft Punk, The Prodigy, Cypress Hill and DJ Premier and was considered a revolutionary piece of equipment by the standards of the day.
However, in 2023, its feature set is considered limited compared to modern music technologies. Still, such limitations are part of its appeal, leading to an official re-release by the original designer, Dave Rossum, and multiple reimaginations, such as the S2400 by Isla Instruments.
It’s not the only relic of hip-hop history that Sotherby’s is currently auctioning off. A collection of 119 hip-hop items are available to bid for currently to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the genre.
There are other pieces of Wu-Tang memorabilia up for grabs, including RZA’s handwritten liner notes for Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and another E-Mu SP-1200 owned and signed by Ice-T and producer Afrika Islam, which comes with four original floppy disks.
Guest curator Kelvin “Posdnuos” Mercer says: “For me, listening to music, and thinking about what that music does to you at that moment, and then being able to touch the equipment that was actually used to create it? That’s special
“It’s one thing to say, ‘Oh yeah, I recognize that drum sound, I know that comes from the SP-12.’ But knowing that you can physically see the exact one that was being used? There’s a level of energy that’s been leaked all over that machine. I feel the same way about it that someone might feel knowing that they can get their hands on Jimi Hendrix’s guitar – to see it and feel it and learn about it.”
Also up for grabs are a crown ring owned by the late Tupac Shakur, an original De La Soul leather pendant from 1989 and David ‘Trugoy The Dove’ Jolicoeur’s prototype De La Soul tour jacket.
Find the entire auction at sothebys.com.
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Sub Focus on the Amen break: “Everyone has manipulated these tiny bits of audio hundreds of thousands of times – theres loads of ways of interpreting this small batch of source material”Sub Focus – AKA Nick Douwma – has revealed his love of the Amen break, a drum solo performed in 1969 by Gregory Sylvester Coleman, that has been sampled on thousands of DnB tracks.

READ MORE: The Chemical Brothers announce first album in four years, ‘For That Beautiful Feeling’

The break has been described as “the most sampled loop in music history”, and in a recent episode of Tape Notes, Sub Focus has broken down how he likes to process it in Ableton Live.
“The way I’ve used is slightly old school,” he explains. “I’ve chopped it up in a sampler and I change the transpose of it as the pattern goes on to give it variation. It slightly shifts up and down as the variation goes on.
“It’s a technique for keeping it more interesting as it continues. Doing it in a sampler really helps because when you’re using an Amen in Ableton, because of the way you’re manipulating it, it will fill all the gaps, whereas in this way you’re working you end up with little silences depending on how pitched up it is, which gives it a bit more definition.
“It seems to feel different when manipulating that way,” he continues. “You tend to gravitate towards different types of edits when you’re dealing with it in a sampler, but it is an old-fashioned way of dealing with it.
“It’s mad the intimate knowledge you get of these breaks. Everyone has manipulated these tiny bits of audio hundreds of thousands of times and theres loads of ways of interpreting this small batch of source material. If you’re a drum ‘n’ bass producer, you just become familiar with the varieties of Amen”.
You can watch the full interview below:

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SoundCloud announces flagship First On SoundCloud 2023 programmeSoundCloud has launched an “all-encompassing” six-month accelerator programme to support selected emerging artists.
The First On SoundCloud (FOSC) 2023 programme offers artists “unique opportunities for career acceleration, education and creative support”, working directly with them to co-produce “a tangible, career-defining roadmap” that will enable them to develop and deepen connections with their fans.
The platform’s selected ‘Next Pro’ artists include wolfacejoeyy, DJ Dave, Nitepunk, Sojabrat, and sim0ne, who were chosen because they represent “an eclectic tapestry of sounds, identities, and backgrounds but unite as a collective voice propelling the future of music”, and because they are creating music in a unique way “that can only be done on SoundCloud”.
The programme has been launched in partnership with Sony’s Audio Team, who will provide the artists with support and resources. Sony is set to invest in each artist through their upcoming Audio Brand Campaign and will support them with provision of their professional audio products and consumer-focused audio products, as well as creative audio technologies.
The company will also provide the ‘Next Pro’ artists with unique opportunities such as as early access to beta tools and pilot programmes, the option to attend and participate in Sony’s annual creator camp, and access to exclusive Sony hosted events, in addition to collaborating on developing assets and content to give FOSC a visual identity.
The artists will also receive one-on-one mentoring from SoundCloud’s creator development team to discuss their goals and strategy.
“First on SoundCloud has always been about empowering emerging artists and fostering music discovery for our listeners,” said Emmy Lovell, Global Head of Music at SoundCloud in a press release. “Partnering with Sony’s Audio Team is a great step in this mission. We’re thrilled to unveil the new class of breakout talent and embark on a collaborative roadmap to hit creative milestones, expand global fanbases, and make a significant impact in each artist’s unique journey.”

“Sony’s Audio Team is always looking towards the future and collaborating with SoundCloud on this artist accelerator program aligns with our mission to support music creation and artists on the rise with our latest products and tools,” added Jordy Freed, Head of Brand & Business Development and Partner Marketing & Strategy and Personal Entertainment Business in Sony Corporation of America. “We hope to further bolster this incredible lineup of talent with our upcoming brand platform and campaign that puts creator vision first.”
SoundCloud’s annual music discovery programme was launched in 2018 and has previously supported the likes of Little Simz, Kehlani and Peggy Gou.

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MIDI Innovation Awards: Last chance to vote The voting for this year's MIDI Innovation Awards will close on 21 July 2023 ahead of the jury deliberation.

“To understand the second half of the 20th century, you have to understand The Beatles”: Paul McCartney podcast editor on the legacy of the Fab FourPaul McCartney’s new podcast A Life in Lyrics is on the way, and executive producer Justin Richmond has revealed what went into condensing the hundreds of hours of recordings between McCartney and biographer Paul Muldoon into 12 hours of audio content.

READ MORE: Ringo Starr on Beatles AI song: “For all the madness going on around it, it’s a beautiful track”

For context, the podcast is a product of the hundreds of hours of audio captured in the writing of the book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present that was published in 2021, unpacking the songs that defined McCartney’s career, from The Beatles, to Wings and beyond.
Understandably, turning all that audio into a 12-hour podcast was not an easy feat.
In an interview with The Verge, executive producer of the podcast Justin Richmond explains how they approached the massive amounts of audio.
“One of the hardest parts about editing, almost carving tape, is that you’re very aware when you’re listening to tapes from, say, a president or a head of state,” he says.
“This is Paul McCartney – and to understand, culturally, the second half of the 20th century, and I would argue the first 23–24 years of the 21st century, you have to understand The Beatles.
“The hard part of editing him was that you almost wanted to treat it like an archive. As a storyteller, because it’s a historical person, you want to save everything. But obviously, we have a mission to tell the most interesting story possible.
“So having gone through hours and hours of tapes, we realized we couldn’t follow every tangent, and we couldn’t, like the book did, really drill down what the lyrics meant for a particular song.”
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics is scheduled to launch 20 September on all streaming platforms.
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Boss launch GM-800 Guitar Synthesizer Boss' latest guitar synth comes packed with a huge selection of sounds which can be layered, triggered by different strings, or even split across different fret ranges. 

The Chemical Brothers announce first album in four years, ‘For That Beautiful Feeling’Thirty years into the game, UK dance music duo The Chemical Brothers have announced a new album, For That Beautiful Feeling, set to be released in September.

READ MORE: Orbital M25 rave barman recounts 90s acid house scene in new book, Rave New World

The album will be The Chemical Brothers – real names Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons – first studio album since 2019’s No Geography. While the band have released anniversary versions of classic albums, Surrender and Dig Your Own Hole, among EPs and remixes, this new music body of work will surely galvanize (hey) boys and (hey) girls who are fans of the superstar DJs and producers.
The album announcement follows the release of singles No Reason, All Of A Sudden and Live Again [ft. Halo Maud], which came out earlier this year and had been a key addition to the boys’ live set in recent years.
Upon the announcement of this, their 10th studio album, The Chemical Brothers have treated us to a music video for the Live Again. It’s directed by long-time visual collaborators, Dom & Nic. Watch below:

On the music video, the directors have said, “Working with the Chemical Brothers is a dream for any video director. We’re really lucky to be still making films together after quite a few years,” Dom & Nic said in a press statement. “The Chems just keep smashing it with great tracks that demand videos that live up to the music and hopefully add something extra to the whole experience. ‘Live Again’ is our 10th collaboration… the woozy, wonky analogue sounds and the dreamlike lyric suggested a hallucinogenic visual journey following a character caught in a loop of death and rebirth.”
The tracklist for the album is as follows:

Intro
Live Again [ft. Halo Maud]
No Reason
Goodbye
Fountains
Magic Wand
The Weight
Skipping Like a Stone [ft. Beck]
The Darkness That You Fear (Harvest Mix)
Feels Like I Am Dreaming
For That Beautiful Feeling [ft. Halo Maud]

For That Beautiful Feeling will release on 8 September 2023. Check out The Chemical Brothers’ back catalogue via their Bandcamp.
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Behringer’s modded 303 clone gets black and red makeover in TD-3-MO-BKBehringer has launched a new black version of its “modded out” Roland TB-303 acid bassline synthesizer clone, the TD-3-MO-BK, inviting you to “embrace your dark side”.

READ MORE: How to create a Chicago-style 303 acid house bassline

This new colourway for the brand’s modded 303 replica is black with red detailing. It has sleek, nightrider-esque red lines on the knobs, red accent and OSC/SUB switches and red lights along its base.
The TD-3, released in 2019, is a “faithful homage” to the classic 1981 Roland TB-303 bassline synthesizer that paved the way for acid house music. A classic piece of gear, the TB-303’s squelching distinctive bass sound can be identified on any track it features in, having even become the defining sound for many popular electronic artists.
Behringer’s TD-3 clone has a fully analogue signal path, a 16-step sequencer, transistor wave-shaping circuitry. Like with the original, it has a built-in arpeggiator and there’s a 4-pole resonant lowpass filter that delivers rich and expressive tones.
The TD-3-MO – previously only available in silver and yellow – is a modded version of the TD-3 and was launched in July 2021. It’s a nod to popular 303 mods like the Devil Fish, which introduced audio in, allowing letting you apply the Filter, Overdrive, and Filter FM to any sound. It also increased the range of the original, with lower Decay and higher Resonance, making for a fatter sound.
The modded TD-3, therefore, follows a similar route of modulation. It features an extra sub-oscillator alongside the primary square/sawtooth oscillator, introducing new circuitry and an extended filter range with FM and overdrive controls. It comes with extra patching points for connecting other equipment.
Furthermore, it offers new parameters like variable slide time and three accent sweep speed modes with three accent sweep modes. MIDI CC support enables seamless control of the TD-3-MO’s filter frequency, allowing easy integration with DAWs and MIDI controllers.
Find out more about the Behringer TD-3-MO-BK at behringer.com.
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New BGM Cast service from Roland Roland's new music service provides royalty-free music and sound effects for live streamers, and integrates directly with their Bridge Cast audio interface and mixer. 

South Korean central bank charts out future course of payment systems, CBDCThe BOK 2022 Payment and Settlement Systems Report is a forward-looking document with ambitious plans for financial technology in the country.

Snowstorm raises seed and launches open beta to keep the internet freeA Created to ensure open and free access to the internet, Snowflake saw a huge uptick in users during the start of the Ukraine War and has grown even more since then. Started as an open source project by Serene (who goes by her first name only for privacy reasons), Snowflake, which began as a pluggable transport for Tor, has had a makeover into Snowstorm, and now promises faster connections and can run as standalone software outside of Tor.
Snowstorm announced today it has raised $3 million in seed funding, led by Seed Club Ventures, with participation from Cabrit Capital, Keppel Capital, EchoVC and Matt Devost. It is also launching Snowstorm’s open beta.
Snowflake started as an open source project eight years ago to keep the internet free. Serene taught herself how to code when she was nine and was hired by Google while still a teenager. She ended up being the first engineer at Google Ideas, now known as Google Jigsaw, and used her time there to find ways to use large scale infrastructure to help the internet.
Part of Serene’s interest in keeping the internet free is that her childhood was difficult and the internet was a refuge for her. “I also knew that the internet would not say the same, especially as things have changed in the last couple of decades and censorship has certainly escalated,” she said. Serene left Google as a top expert on WebRTC, an open-source project that adds real-time communication to web browsers and mobile apps. She saw that it would be useful for a new kind of decentralized tool that could keep the internet free. So she prototyped Snowflake and integrated it into the Tor browser.
“Basically, at the end of the day when you connect to the internet, you’re connecting to other computers. Your ISP, your internet service provider is also computers that connect to the rest of the internet that you connect through to connect to the rest of the internet. And if people have issues with their ISP or they want privacy, usually traditional VPNs are someone’s computer before you connect to the rest of the internet,” she explained, which means VPNs can be monitored and easily circumvented.
Snowflake, on the other hand, is decentralized and is deployed as a pluggable transport for Tor. Instead of trusting a centralized system or a VPN that can be blocked, it consists of about 100,000 people, from all over the world, temporarily stepping up to use their computers to act as brokers, disguised by domain fronting, so it seems as if it comes from a non-restricted service. Users and brokers are connected by WebRTC. “It’s basically a two-sided user base,” Serene said. “There’s people who need help connecting to the internet and people who can help other connect to the internet.”
Millions of sessions are being established every day, with things kicking off last year during the start of the Ukraine war when users needed to circumvent internet censorship.
Snowstorm is an upgrade on all levels, Serene said. She rewrote Snowflake in Rust, partly to help the speed and partly to help it become cross-platform and system wide, instead of just relying on Tor. One of the challenges with Snowflake was that it had a lot more usage than expected and ran into bottlenecks. “The project itself is a lot of interesting, brilliant people coming together to make this happen. And I just happen to be the initial creator of this project, have an understanding of the architecture and where to go.” So when Snowflake ran into bottlenecks, Serene made improvements—for example, Snowstorm can run system wide and is fast enough to stream videos.
Serene will continue to build Snowstorm using its new funding, but she said she doesn’t want to participate in marketing strategies like YouTube ads. “I would rather focus on building the real thing that actually works and less resources with a small amount of resources that I’ve been able to raise with Snowstorm.”
Serene is also a prolific concert pianist, focusing on music after leaving Google. She is going to Europe this month to play Rachminoff Concerto No. 2 and is endorsed by Borsendorferm. the Austrian piano manufacturer.
“In a funny way, being a musician has enabled me to be a better technologist, and being a technologist has enabled me to be a better musician. I find that they are very intimated connected. Music gives me the energy to do everything that needs to be done.” Serene added that during fundraising, some investors asked how she’s able to run a company with her music career. “My answer is that it is some combination of when someone is exercising every morning to stay health. Do you tell them, how can you have time? So I happen to pay concerts and it makes me very healthy and it’s a lot of energy.”

Rhodes Announces Limited Edition Electric PianoIconic musical instrument manufacturer Rhodes announced that it has completed manufacturing of its first strictly limited edition MK8/75AE electric piano. The MK8/7AE — anchored on the design of the classic Rhodes MK8 — has been painstakingly created from the ground up and is a stunning accomplishment of technical craftsmanship and aesthetic design. Each of the 75 new instruments, which have been assembled by hand at the Rhodes factory in Leeds, England, are now shipping to customers around the world and represent an important milestone in musical instrument design and the very fabric of broader musical culture.

"Each of these instruments contain the very essence of Rhodes — the legacy of our 75-year history as a brand, and the inspiring craftsmanship of our modern engineers and product designers," commented Matt Pelling, CEO of Rhodes Music. "The MK8/75AE comprises exacting attention to detail and componentry, superior mechanical engineering and an exquisite aesthetic design. We hope these unique instruments inspire many years of music making among our customers."​

​A classic instrument for the ages​The MK8/75AE is the result of a collaboration between Rhodes Chief Product Officer Dan Goldman and famed industrial designer Axel Hartmann, whose work has touched some of the greatest instruments of our time. The MK8/75AE is based on the foundation of the critically acclaimed Rhodes MK8, but reaches even greater heights with its painstaking aesthetic and performance details, such as analogue effects, a special dark matte finish, and gold accented controls and encasement flourishes.

Following its unveiling at Superbooth and The NAMM Show, the MK8/75AE was met with immediate adulation in the musical instrument community with all 75 instruments selling out within 30 minutes. The company has started shipping these instruments to those who managed to secure one. ​

Rhodes is grateful to its community of loyal customers around the world. For more information on the MK8 or the MK8/75AE, or to learn about our new Rhodes V8 plug-in — the only official Rhodes electric piano software — please visit www.rhodesmusic.com. ​

​About Rhodes​For Rhodes loyalists around the world, this is a new chapter in Rhodes history; not a new book. ​ With the Rhodes MK8, we’re returning to the principles, aesthetic, craftsmanship and pride of Harold Rhodes’ originals. We’re paying homage to the past with our gaze fixed firmly on what lies ahead. 

 Jeff TouzeauHummingbird Media, Inc.Email: jeff@hummingbirdmedia.comWebsite: hummingbirdmedia.com

 Hunter WilliamsPublic Relations, Hummingbird Media, Inc.Email: hunter@hummingbirdmedia.comWebsite: hummingbirdmedia.com