Jayda G: “If you’re trying to sound like someone else, you’ll be chasing your tail”In the two months since Jayda G released her deeply-personal second album, the producer, vocalist and DJ has been overwhelmed by how strongly people have connected with it – especially as Guy was pieced together using her late father’s archived home videos.

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“Seeing how it fits in other people’s lives has been cool,” the Canada-born London-based artist says, adding that people have been sharing their stories about parents or friends passing away. This sentiment relates directly to the emotion-filled songs, which lend a gentleness to themes of death and grief. Somehow, Jayda manges to make hard topics (which are not often broached in the club) feel soothing, and not so much of a taboo.
“When it comes to deeper subjects on the dance floor, it’s usually within the LGBTQ+, Black or Brown community, where you’re coming from a place of oppression; not being seen or feeling you can be yourself within the greater world.” While there are such elements within the record, it’s also bringing Jayda’s personal story to the forefront.
The process of creating Guy was a complete contrast to how her 2019 debut Significant Changes came to life: “I just sat down and made music – that was it,” Jayda recalls, having been entrenched in writing her marine biology thesis at the time.
Jayda G. Image: Nabil Elderkin
Consequently, although she had the initial idea for Guy all those years ago, “it just didn’t come out that way”. Retrospectively, Jayda is glad; she didn’t feel ready for it then. “The idea of opening up all those videos seemed overwhelming.” When the time came to start digging through, she “wanted to do everything differently” with her second album.
A key development was that she wanted to sing on all the tracks. This led to her having vocal coaching lessons; though it was unfortunate timing as she started training in the early days of the pandemic. “I can carry a tune; I definitely have a good [sense of] pitch and I’ve always had that,” she says, citing the fact that she played the violin throughout her childhood.
“I just wanted to know how to do it properly and improve,” she adds. “I knew I could get better and I still have so far to go in terms of singing and my vocal training.”
Moreover, Jayda loves to learn. “I don’t like being stagnant,” she explains; “I like biting off more than I can chew, to the detriment of everyone around me,” she laughs. Surrounding herself with people who also believe they can do it all means that the mindset comes naturally to her.
Jayda G. Image: Nabil Elderkin
Jayda was also keen to write with other people for the first time, having done everything herself for her self-produced debut. “I really didn’t want to do it alone, and I wanted this album to be like Jayda 2.0,” she says. “I wanted it to be on another level, sonically,” she adds. This meant working with other people, including singer-songwriters: “I know my limitations, and there are so many people out there who have been doing this much longer than I have,” she explains. “It’s important to have humility around that, and it’s more fun working with people.”
However, when it came to finding collaborators, Jayda wanted to connect with them first in the sensitive subject matter.
“I didn’t want it to be really serious,” she recalls, having learned that some singer-songwriters and producers are “just not able to go there – and that’s okay”. After much trial and error, she worked with several “wonderful songwriters” who understood the concept.
When it came to the production of the album, which she had mostly completed by herself, Jayda “needed help to get it across the line”. This led to her working with British Torn on the Platform musician Jack Peñate, who counts Adele as a close friend and collaborator; he has also worked with the legendary David Byrne. Having co-produced her album, Jayda recalls that “Jack pulled it all together for me”. One of the first people he worked with in a producer capacity, she says “we took a chance on each other in many ways and it turned out to be something really beautiful”.
Jayda G. Image: Nabil Elderkin
Setting a modest two-month deadline to have the album finished, the pair spent every day together, which Jayda now says was “kind of ridiculous”. While commuting to his studio, she listened to Janet Jackson’s 1989 album Rhythm Nation 1814 daily and became obsessed with its production: “Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis; I love all of their productions and, sound-wise, that album is so good at having a stronghold in dance but also leaning to the pop and R&B world”.
While immersing herself in her own work was a “wonderful process”, such intensity took her back to the years when she worked on her thesis. “Whenever you work on something for a long time, you can’t see straight. You’re so close to the material that you can’t really see the difference in it and anything; you start wondering ‘what is music?’ she laughs.
With many of the vocal demos recorded at Jayda’s apartment, the rest was done at Jack’s studio. This included the original cassette sounds, such as a tape rewinding, which Jayda says was very intentional – “as a way of bridging time”.
The inspiring thing about writing with Jack, and something that’s really important to her, Jayda says, is his references. “We listen to very similar music, and he’s a collector, especially of vinyl.” Being a researcher herself strengthens these similarities further. “When you’re writing a scientific paper, you need to have your citations, because everything that you’re writing about and your work has to be based on something that has come before, otherwise it’s not relevant.” This approach extends to how the pair worked together. “We were both really open to the process and tried different things,” she says; “he really held space for me”.
Jayda G. Image: Nabil Elderkin
It wasn’t just other musicians who Jayda worked with, though. Making the album turned out to be a real family affair, especially in its earliest stages. With the daunting task of sifting through 11 hours of archive material, her siblings had already begun some of that work.
“It’s funny because we had the idea of working on my father’s tapes at the same time, in 2018, even though none of us had talked to each other about it,” Jayda says. Handily, her brother had got to it first, having created a documentary based on his experience around grief after their father’s passing; this also involved him digitising all the archive videos – a true repurposing of old technology.
Also helpful was that her sister, a TV producer, had transcribed, categorised and highlighted important parts of the videos to help her brother get the film off the ground. “Every bit of material was put into digestible pieces, which was amazing,” Jayda says, adding that her sister’s laughter or voice can be heard on the album as she interviewed Guy for the home movies two decades ago; “she’s very much a part of it”.
Finding the original videos and watching them to find the audio within the film further aided Jayda’s songwriting – “because everything was written down; we were literally pulling direct quotes from my father”. Also helpful was having his old journals; instead of just reading them, she would type the words out as a form of connection. “That was a real process,”’she recalls; “downloading all this information from his life. Emotionally, it was very hard,” Jayda says. “To get through it, process everything and sit with all of it. Also, it was during the pandemic, so what a time to sit with yourself,” she says with a laugh.
Jayda G. Image: Nabil Elderkin
Something that eased Jayda’s mind during lockdown, despite being “incredibly nerve-wracking”, was a remix request for Taylor Swift’s track Anti-Hero. Aware that she had to impress the Swifties, she asked her “super-pumped” tour manager what stood out most about the original. “I wanted to emphasise that, rather than take things away”.
Although the Taylor remix was a huge moment, Jayda still has a dream list of collaborators: Beyoncé, Rihanna (“I’ll take either”) and “great songwriter” Sampha: “I love that he’s so emotional with his work, which is something that I try to do, and he has a foot in the dance music community from his earlier work with SBTRKT. That would be a really big deal.”
As someone who has managed to stay true to herself despite reaching such lofty heights (Jayda’s also remixed tracks by Dua Lipa and The XX’s Romy), her biggest tip for aspiring DJs and producers is to “stay grounded and to yourself: knowing the things that you love.
“That will set you apart from everybody else. If you’re trying to sound like someone else, you’ll be chasing your tail and feel like you’re not enough”. This, she ponders, is “probably the biggest issue within the music industry in general. If you can stay true to what makes you feel good and listen to that voice, that’s the key to everything – and life in general.”
The post Jayda G: “If you’re trying to sound like someone else, you’ll be chasing your tail” appeared first on MusicTech.

Universal Audio’s UAFX Del-Verb is an all-in-one ambience machineUniversal Audio’s UAFX line already includes several delay and reverb pedals (the Golden, the Starlight and the Galaxy 74), but this latest addition to the lineup combines features from several existing models to create, what the brand describes as, an “ambience companion”. In short, Universal Audio is touting this as the only ambience pedal you need.

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As with all of the UAFX pedals, the enclosure has a reasonably large footprint and weight. It features six rotary knobs, two footswitches, plus two mini switches for selecting which effect mode you’d like to use. The rear panel houses stereo in/out on TS jack sockets, a 9v power jack, a USB-C socket for firmware updates as well as a Bluetooth pairing button (more on this later).

The Del-Verb cleverly combines the core sounds found in the Golden Reverberator and the Starlight Echo Station. The delay contains emulations of an Echoplex EP-3, an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man Deluxe and a digital delay, for pristine repeats.
Universal Audio’s UAFX Del-Verb Ambience Companion. Image: Universal Audio
Meanwhile, the reverb side contains emulations of a Fender ’65 Spring reverb, an EMT 140 plate and the Lexicon 224 digital reverb.
We start by exploring the delay side of the pedal and begin with the tape delay emulation. The Echoplex is one of the ‘big two’ tape delays (the other, the Space Echo, gets its own entire UA pedal in the Galaxy).
The Echoplex EP-3 is prized for its warm sound, in part due to the preamp circuit that some artists, such as David Gilmour, used without the delay engaged. Del-Verb recreates this well; the tape delay adds depth to the bottom end of a Rhodes keyboard with a touch of saturation to create a pleasing, gritty edge.
Universal Audio’s UAFX Del-Verb Ambience Companion. Image: Universal Audio
UA’s Memory Man emulation is equally as convincing. It has the characteristic high-frequency roll-off and the recreation of the modulation circuit from the original unit lets you create chorus and flanging effects when required. The digital delay does everything one might expect – pristine repeats which, when combined with the tap tempo function, create tight and rhythmic patterns.
The pedal’s reverb section has only two controls: the switch to select the type of reverb, and reverb level.
The spring presets contain the usual ‘twang’ that one expects from a spring tank; the plate has that metallic wash; and the digital reverb is simply spectacular!
However, the ability to adjust parameters on each of these would be extremely helpful, such as tweaking reverb time or preamp settings, which could massively change the sound. This can’t be achieved via the pedal interface and instead requires access via the UAFX smartphone app.
Universal Audio’s UAFX Del-Verb Ambience Companion. Image: Universal Audio
The app experience
As with all the UAFX pedals, the UAFX app provides access to some deeper functions that can’t be accessed with the front-panel controls. You can establish a connection via Bluetooth and, despite being occasionally unwilling to connect first time, it works really effectively.
The Del-Verb app lets you toggle delay trails and change the function of the footswitches as the other UAFX pedals do. But this pedal has much more to offer within the app.
A remarkable number of presets for each of the different delay and reverb settings are within the app. Presumably, these are taken from the Golden and Starlight, but provide an incredible array of additional sounds. Most of these are standard sounds, but the Memory Man settings include some heavily pitch-shifted effects, which we find a bit niche for most uses. However, the extra sounds that the app gives you makes this pedal a truly jaw-dropping tool. Maybe this is the only delay and reverb you might need?

The Del-Verb is truly an ambience companion, potentially containing every ambient sound you could ever wish for. But because it’s taking features from two pedals and combining them into one unit, the expense is functionality and control. The footswitches can either turn the effects on and off independently, or have a master on/off and tap tempo – not both. This is limiting, especially considering that other pedals manage to juggle this conundrum more efficiently (e.g. accessing further functions via a long-press on the footswitch). There are also no real ‘deep’ controls for anything, because it’s an all-in-one unit.
Despite all this, this Universal Audio UAFX pedal is exceptional and is likely to find a permanent home in our studio.
Key features

3 different delay types
3 different reverb types
Control app
Tap tempo
Stereo in and out
Contact: Universal Audio

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Celebrating Fifty Years of Hip-HopAugust 11th is being celebrated as the 50th anniversary of the dawn of hip-hop. In honor of DJ Kool Herc's landmark block party, we've collected ten of the groundbreaking and influential albums that came out of that first decade of old-school rap.

Anthropic launches improved version of its entry-level LLMAnthropic, the AI startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI execs, has released an updated version of its faster, cheaper text-generating model available through an API, Claude Instant.
The updated Claude Instant, Claude Instant 1.2, incorporates the strengths of Anthropic’s recently announced flagship model, Claude 2, showing “significant” gains in areas such as math, coding, reasoning and safety, according to Anthropic. In internal testing, Claude Instant 1.2 scored 58.7% on a coding benchmark compared to Claude Instant 1.1, which scored 52.8%, and 86.7% on a set of math questions versus 80.9% for Claude Instant 1.1.
“Claude Instant generates longer, more structured responses and follows formatting instructions better,” Anthropic writes in a blog post. “Instant 1.2 also shows improvements in quote extraction, multilingual capabilities and question answering.”
Claude Instant 1.2 is also less likely to hallucinate and more resistant to jailbreaking attempts, Anthropic claims. In the context of large language models like Claude, “hallucination” is where a model generates text that’s incorrect or nonsensical, while jailbreaking is a technique that uses cleverly-written prompts to bypass the safety features placed on large language models by their creators.
And Claude Instant 1.2 features a context window that’s the same size of Claude 2’s — 100,000 tokens. Context window refers to the text the model considers before generating additional text, while tokens represent raw text (e.g. the word “fantastic” would be split into the tokens “fan,” “tas” and “tic”). Claude Instant 1.2 and Claude 2 can analyze roughly 75,000 words, about the length of “The Great Gatsby.”
Generally speaking, models with large context windows are less likely to “forget” the content of recent conversations.
As we’ve reported previously, Anthropic’s ambition is to create a “next-gen algorithm for AI self-teaching,” as it describes it in a pitch deck to investors. Such an algorithm could be used to build virtual assistants that can answer emails, perform research and generate art, books and more — some of which we’ve already gotten a taste of with the likes of GPT-4 and other large language models.
But Claude Instant isn’t this algorithm. Rather, it’s intended to compete with similar entry-level offerings from OpenAI as well as startups such as Cohere and AI21 Labs, all of which are developing and productizing their own text-generating — and in some cases image-generating — AI systems.
To date, Anthropic, which launched in 2021, led by former OpenAI VP of research Dario Amodei, has raised $1.45 billion at a valuation in the single-digit billions. While that might sound like a lot, it’s far short of what the company estimates it’ll need — $5 billion over the next two years — to create its envisioned chatbot.

Anthropic claims to have “thousands” of customers and partners currently, including Quora, which delivers access to Claude and Claude Instant through its subscription-based generative AI app Poe. Claude powers DuckDuckGo’s recently launched DuckAssist tool, which directly answers straightforward search queries for users, in combination with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. And on Notion, Claude is a part of the technical backend for Notion AI, an AI writing assistant integrated with the Notion workspace.

Federal judge suggests Q2 2024 trial for SEC case against Ripple execsAiming for a jury trial to start between April 1 and June 30, 2024, Judge Analisa Torres laid out deadlines for the SEC and Ripple defense lawyers to submit certain motions.

Beck and Phoenix at the KIA ForumBeck and Phoenix played the KIA Forum Monday night (8/7) with Jenny Lewis and Sir Chloe. 

Following sets from Sir Chloe and Jenny Lewis, French Pop group Phoenix took the stage. This was their second performance there this year having played the iHeart Alter Ego earlier this year in January. Two days later they played an intimate show at the Majestic Ventura Theater and last year played across the street at the YouTube Theater. It was the group’s Grammy winning fourth album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009) that they had breakthrough success with it being their first Gold album and it contained two of their major hits “1901” and “Lisztomania.” Phoenix performed on nearly every major late night show including Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Conan O’Brien (Tonight Show), Craig Ferguson, and David Letterman. Phoenix would have major success in the 2010’s playing Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, and Daft Punk would be surprise guests at their Madison Square Garden Performance. Since the release of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, they have released three more albums with the most recent being Alpha Zulu (2022).

Phoenix opened with their Platinum single “Lisztomania.” The show features the same dual screen like a frame with another screen behind as it did on their tour last year. Phoenix played a 19-song set full of hits like “Entertainment” “If I Ever Feel Better,” and “Ti Amo.” “Everything is Everything” was played for the first time on this tour. The second to last song was “1901,” and singer Thomas Mars walked through the crowd all the way to back and crowd surfed back onstage. Their set ended with “Identical (Reprise).” Phoenix was formed by Mars, brothers/guitarists Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai, and bassist Deck d’Arcy. Drummer Thomas Hedlund has been recording and touring with the group since 2005 and keyboardist Robin Coudert began working with the group in 2000 on United. 

Closing the show was Beck with an incredible band of bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen (St. Vincent/ Nine Inch Nails) who was also with Beck from 1996-2016, drummer Joey Waronker (Roger Waters/R.E.M.) who has been on seven of Beck’s albums and multiple tours since 1996, guitarist Jason Falkner who has been working with Beck since Sea Change (2002), keyboardist Roger Manning Jr. (Air/ Jay-Z) whose first album with Beck was Mutations, and percussionist Ian Longwell who is also Beck's music technologist. Beck has released 14 albums over the last 30 years. Beck won the 2015 Grammy Album of the Year for Morning Phase which came as a big surprise across the globe in a category against Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Pharell, and Sam Smith. 

Beck played a set of 20 songs beginning with “Devils Haircut.” Beck is not only a great writer, singer, and musician, but just a great performer overall. The graphics on the screen played a major part of the show. Beck’s set included his most famous song “Loser” and other hits like “E-Pro,” and “Que Onda Guero.” The second to last song was “Odyssey,” and Beck and his band were joined by Phoenix.  Johnsen let d’Arcy take over bass duties halfway through. For the final song “Where It’s At” beach balls were thrown out.

Hz Box Is A FREE Chorus Plugin by Higher Hz
Higher Hz release Hz Box, a free chorus plugin for Windows and macOS. I really am a sucker for strange effects. About half the time I spend with audio software is just manipulating things to sound like unearthly howls for whatever reason. If you’re a huge fan of off-kilter takes on traditional effects, then Hz [...]
View post: Hz Box Is A FREE Chorus Plugin by Higher Hz

Simon Cowell launches SYCO music publishing company in partnership with UniversalThe new joint venture is part of a growing partnership between Cowell and UMG
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Tom Becci hired as Chief Executive of Concord Label GroupThe announcement comes after a shakeup in the company's management, and a push towards expanding its presence among music labels
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Ampworx High-Gain pedals from TC Electronic The new Ampworx High-Gain series pedals promise to capture the sound of classic Marshall, Mesa/Boogie and Peavey guitar amplifers. 

Grandmaster Flash used to switch labels on records so other DJs wouldn’t copy his drum breaksDJ and producer Grandmaster Flash has shared the secret hack that he used to prevent other DJs from copying his drum breaks.
Flash became known for his Quick Mix Theory technique, where he elongated drum breaks through the use of duplicate copies of vinyl.

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In a new interview with Music News, the prestigious DJ (who also invented the slipmat) explains how he used a secret hack to prevent people from copying his work: “The way I would look for a break on a record is I would buy one copy and I would put it up with a light. And the area where it was the most shiniest was where the least band members was playing,” he explains.
“Now, if there wasn’t a turntable in a record shop, I would look at that, I’d go and I’d say, this is probably a drum break because this area of this composition is shiny. And I would buy two of these and I would take it home. And the shit might be someone on a violin. Them shits was called my stiffs.
“So I had crates and crates of stiffs. So what I would do is, for example, Take Me to the Mardi Gras, I would take two stiffs that I couldn’t return back because once you break the shrink wrap, you bought it. And I would soak the two copies of the stiffs in a bathtub and then sink and then put Take Me to the Mardi Gras in the bathtub until the labels came off. And what I would do is switch the labels on it, so if there was a person from another DJ crew that was trying to see what I was playing, the label was wrong,” he shares.

The DJ went on to explain how his secret gave him “big laughs” over the years, “They like, ‘Flash, we let the record play, we cleaned our house, and we just let the whole shit play from side A to side B, we never found it.’ It’s because I switched the label.
“So I mean, it was somewhat of a secrecy. Now, I don’t mind letting the secrets out now. But that was part of the fun. If I didn’t want to scratch it out, I knew there were spies from other DJ crews that wanted to know what I was playing,” he concludes.
Keep up to date with the latest news from Grandmaster Flash via his official website.
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Sample Logic Animation Station 2.0 The latest version of Sample Logic's MIDI sequencer and arpeggiator introduces more versatile pattern switching, a reworked modulation system, improved transposition and more.

“You know it’s gonna make better songs than you. It’s Super Mario Bros. right now – we ain’t even got to Call of Duty yet”: will.i.am on the future of AI in musicThe subject of AI is virtually inescapable these days, and it’s becoming an increasingly prevalent topic of debate in the music world.
Producers and artists far and wide have offered their opinions on the emerging tech, with David Guetta casting an optimistic view on whether it will lead to the surpassing of human musicians: “If you have terrible taste, your music is still gonna be terrible, even with AI”.
Elsewhere, gear reviewer Cucko recently said artificial intelligence is a “reminder of how important it is to take your artistry seriously”.

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Now, Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am has offered his opinion, reminding people that as incredible as the tech might seem now, it’s still only in its infancy.
“If you’re a marketer, if you’re an artist that works for a brand, if you’re an agency that works for brands – this technology is gonna give super creatives agency,” he says in a new conversation on the Diary of a CEO podcast. “So why do they need agencies?”
“Just the vast transformation – and for hyper creatives, now they just need a new tool to help them birth stuff. It’s a new renaissance.
“It’s the ultimate dream if you’re preparing. A section of the world whose problems have always been ignored [can] now go out and solve those problems with this tool.”
He continues: “Are you using this tool to make songs? You know it’s gonna make better songs than you. It’s Pac-Man right now, we ain’t even got to Halo. We’re in freakin’ Super Mario Bros., we ain’t even got to Call of Duty yet. This thing’s gonna make better songs than you soon, bro.”

The post “You know it’s gonna make better songs than you. It’s Super Mario Bros. right now – we ain’t even got to Call of Duty yet”: will.i.am on the future of AI in music appeared first on MusicTech.