Alexkid’s SEQUND plugin is a polyrhythmic pattern sequencer that’s escaped Max4Live’s confinesFor French-born and German-based producer Alexkid, the arrival of Max4Live ignited a deep interest in creating custom sequencers for the platform.
READ MORE: The 12 best Max for Live devices in 2023
“I love polyrhythms,” he says when chatting about SEQUND on The Josh Baker Podcast. “There’s things that you could do with two analogue sequencers, synchronising them, and I decided this is something I would try to do with Max”.
Although the development process was slow, the resulting sequencers, when offered up for sale via a small online store, enjoye wide interest and strong sales. Inspired by this, Alexkid teamed up with Tadashi Suginomori of HY-Plugins and Resonant Design on a project to combine and streamline his Max4Live devices into a format compatible with any DAW. The result is SEQUND.
SEQUND sequencer. Image: 510k
Polyrhythmic patterns
The sequencer’s polyrhythmic abilities stem from each of its 13 lanes having an independent length up to a maximum of 16 steps. This is rather a low sequence length for a modern pattern sequencer, but on balance it does keep things focused, ensuring an entire pattern can be viewed and edited within a single, non-scrolling window.
Lane length and play direction are very easy to configure, but the absence of a means to set the length and/or direction of all lanes simultaneously can be a nuisance. Also, step resolution is a global setting so, with no provision of per-lane subdivisions, it isn’t possible to have one lane progress at a different rate to another, which is a shame.

SEQUND’s advance mode has a bearing on polyrhythms too. This determines how the plugin syncs to the host, with options of clock or gate. The former locks each lane’s play position to the host song position, and so the length of a lane has a bearing on that lane’s current play position relative to lanes of different length, and relative to the host’s bar-and-beat position.
This makes perfect sense, but can throw up problems when switching between patterns of different lengths, or when you want a polyrhythmic pattern to start from its beginning at some point other than the host’s song start position. This can be worked around via the plugin’s ability to render a pattern so that it can be dragged to a MIDI track in the host DA; this fixes any random variations in place, so is an imperfect solution.
When running in gate mode, each activated step on SEQUND’s gate lane causes the play position of all other lanes to advance a step (if a probability test is passed – see below). This can make for more complex polyrhythms and pattern variations, but still wants for some means of resetting all lanes to their initial step.
SEQUND CC Mapper
Probably maybe
Probability comes into play in two ways. The first is the Chance lane, which defines the percentage chance that a step will actually play when triggered by the Gate lane. The other comes courtesy of three pitch lanes: Pitch A, Pitch B, and Prob A/B.
The Pitch A and B lanes define sequences of notes, whilst the Prob A/B lane defines a per-step probability that governs whether it is Pitch A or Pitch B that will be heard when the step plays. Factor in different lane lengths and play directions, and any semblance of robotic repetition quickly disappears. And if you’re hankering after a bit of true randomness, though, clicking a lane’s dice button will fill that lane with random values, albeit within user-definable maximum and minimum constraints.

Helpfully, with all this randomness flying around, SEQUND features a global pitch quantiser that imposes a user-selected key and scale on proceedings. The plugin comes with a choice of 36 scales built in, as well as a tool that allows you to define and store your own custom scales.
The quantiser’s key and scale are applied directly to the pitch lanes themselves, limiting the notes that can be selected, and whilst this does make sense up to a point, we feel it smears different aspects of SEQUND’s pitch logic across different parts of the plugin. Throw in the Octave and Transpose lanes (not to mention the ability to transpose the pattern based on incoming MIDI notes) and it can become very tricky to understand exactly how SEQUND is choosing the notes it is playing. Moreover, as a side-effect of this restriction, changing the quantiser’s key or scale causes the notes in the pitch lanes to change too, and often in a way that breaks the intervallic relationships within the sequence.
With these issues in mind, we would have preferred for the pitch lanes to remain fully chromatic at all times, and for the pitch quantiser to impose its diatonic restrictions in a standalone way.
On SEQUND thoughts…
Most lanes represent their values with vertical faders, but in the case of the Pitch A and B lanes the combination of a limited lane height and a three-octave note range can make things fiddly when setting specific notes.
Alexkid. Image: Alexkid Facebook
Furthermore, when dragging a fader the value is displayed on the step itself, which is good, but this only appears during dragging, which is not so good, especially when dealing with note names because they can’t be estimated by looking at the fader position. An option to make the note names visible at all times would fix this.
All of which is to say that there is scope for SEQUND to be further honed and fine-tuned, but taken as a first foray into the wider world of plugins it is very impressive. The plugin is a lot of fun to use and gives a satisfyingly organic and experimental feel to your music-making sessions. The advantage of this is probably best explained by Alexkid himself: “When you work with [pattern sequencers] you always have a bit more experimentation going on […] Sometimes you have accidents because you messed up, and the results can become interesting. I wanted to have something that was giving that feeling.”
Check out SEQUND at 510k’s website.
Key features

Price: €59
Polyrhythmic pattern sequencer plugin for AU and VST hosts
Monophonic note output plus three assignable MIDI CC lanes
Independent lane lengths allow the creation of complex polyrhythmic patterns
Note pitch can be selected from two options based on probability
Storage for 12 patterns per preset
Global swing setting
Multiple undo and redo

 
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Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sells $100m worth of Spotify sharesSpotify’s CEO, Daniel Ek, is selling off $100 million worth of shares in Spotify, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission file published last Thursday.

READ MORE: ReverbNation is relaunched by BandLab Technologies with a new visual identity

675,000 shares are being sold, with 471,565 of these having been acquired via the open market on the day of 5 May 2022; Ek took to Twitter the following day to share that he’d purchased $50 million in Spotify stock.
In the SEC file, J.P. Morgan Securities is recognised as the broker for the sale, while it shows that D.G.E Investments Limited, an entity indirectly wholly owned by Ek, is selling the $100 million worth of stock.
Currently, the streaming platform’s share price stands at $149.28 on the NYSE, reaching its highest levels in over a year. Spotify’s market capitalization experienced a peak of up to $70.5 billion in February 2021, as reported by MBW, underwent a decline to about $14.5 billion, and now stands at around $27.95 billion. At the current share price, Ek’s total shareholding is valued at approximately $4.6 billion.
By the end of 2022, MBW reports that Ek held 31.93 million shares, making him the largest shareholder in Spotify with a 16.5 per cent stake. The majority of his shares are owned through holding companies, based in Cyprus, named D.G.E. Investments and D.G.E. Holding.
Spotify’s 2023 Q2 financial results shows €3.17 billion in total revenue, a 14 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase. However, the company still reported a net loss of €302 million for the quarter.
On a positive note, monthly active users (MAUs) increased by 36 million to 551 million and paid subscribers rose by 10 million to 220 million.
Ek hasn’t shied away from publicising his decisions at Spotify. In 2022, the Spotify CEO said in an investors call that Spotify’s “next wave of growth” was superfan monetisation. Also in 2022, when Kanye West fell under scrutiny for his views, Ek condemned Ye’s “awful” comments, but not his music, saying, “His music doesn’t violate our policy”.
Earlier this year, after six per cent of Spotify’s total staff were laid off due to cuts, Ek said “I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today.”
He has also been at the forefront of issues involving the use of AI in music production. In April, he assured artists and rights holders that the platform was working with record labels to address concerns over AI use in music.
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SOS Case Study: Atmos at The Village Atmos at The Village details the design and installation of a Kali Audio 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system in Studio F of The Village in Los Angeles, California. 

Can plants sing? Here’s how they can be used to make musicSTIGA, a manufacturer and distributor of equipment for garden care, has created an instrumental album using the “voices” of plants.
The brand says that this is the “first time ever” that the music of plants has been used to create a record.

READ MORE: Biologist produces world’s first “living record” made from yeast cells

Available on an entirely eco-friendly vinyl record, STIGA’s The Garden Sounds hosts six tracks aptly titled Climbing Ivy, Blooming Tulip, Pale Iris, Night Lavender, Laurestine Dream, and Spontaneous Grass. “Plants have a voice, which deserves to be heard today more than ever,” says STIGA.
It later adds, “Of all habitable land on our Earth, only 37 per cent are forests and 11 per cent shrubs and grassland. It was with these figures that, in April this year, STIGA participated in Fuorisalone 2023 with its #MyPatchOfGreen installation, encouraging visitors to reflect on the alarming reduction of green spaces and natural areas in the world.”

To find out more about how STIGA crafted The Garden Sounds, MusicTech reached out to the company and spoke to the musician and sound designer behind the project, Andrea Baroldi:
What recording software was used for the album?
“I worked with Logic Pro X.”
Tell us about the tech used for recording the album…
“I used a Motu M2 audio interface, M-Audio Keystation Mini 32, AT 2020 Audio-Technica microphone, Apple iMac 2021 M1 chip, a Moog Sub Phatty, and an iPad Pro with Animoog and iMaschine.”
How was it arranged and produced?
“I wanted to avoid producing an anonymous ‘spa music’ album, so I tried to give character and beat to every single track with a strong electronic imprint.
“I decided to arrange each piece with a special distinctive sound used as the lead synth associated with each single plant. I tried to imagine how a tulip might sound rather than sage or an iris, and I built each sound using different timbres, pitch, and range.
“After setting up a rhythmic and harmonic base, I made each different plant voice ‘sing’, making it the protagonist of the track, entrusting it with the main theme or the solo.”

The Garden Sounds is available now on all well-known streaming platforms.
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Burglars steal $100k+ worth of mics from KMR Audio – but forget the power packsBurglars have allegedly stolen upwards of $100,000 in microphones from London-based pro audio supplier, KMR Audio.

READ MORE: The best microphones to buy in 2023: 12 best microphones for rappers and MCs

According to a Facebook post by KMR Audio on 27 July, 42 mics were stolen, with models ranging from mid-tier to high-end. Included in the list are a Sony C800G (listed at £11,500), a Neumann U87Ai and a Flea ELA M 251.
The extensive list is, we must add, just a taste of the range of expensive gear taken by the thieves. The burglary, which apparently took place on 25 July, is no doubt a devastating loss for the music tech store.
Music tech pros can rejoice in one small pinch of pleasure, however – the fact that the culprits left each microphone’s respective power supply behind. Whoever took the products was/were unaware that they could only work with these additional units, resulting in a swag bag of $100,000 worth of dud tech.
KMR Audio is now urging all music gear consumers to email sales@kmraudio.com if they spot any of the following microphones – listed with their serial numbers – up for sale without their relevant power packs:

Neumann U67
Neumann U87Ai
Sony C800G
Telefunken ELA-M 251 E
AEA KU5A (271)
AEA R84 (3878)
AEA R88 Mk2 (636)
Austrian Audio OC18 (1384)
Austrian Audio OC818(1135)
Brauner VMA
Chandler REDD.47 (489)
Chandler TG Mic (165)
Coles 4038
DPA 4011A
DPA BOBOX1 d:vote
Flea 47 (10293)
Flea ELAM 251
Gefell M930 (4263)
Golden Age GA-8000G (21076)
Hammer Audio HA-872 (8700002)
Josephson C42 Pair (1,408,914,090)
Josephson C705 (11)
Josephson e22s (11168)
Manley Reference Cardioid (REFCARDT3247)
Melodium 42Bn (12)
Microtech Gefell UM900 (316)
Microtech Gefell UMT70S (3987)
Peluso 22 251 (2021)
Peluso 2247LE (469)
Peluso 2247SE (A02624)
Peluso P12 (1221)
Peluso P280 (124)
Peluso P414 Pair (00159, 00160)
Peluso P67 (650)
Peluso P87 (3)
Sennheiser MD421 II (277718)
Shure SM7B
Sontronics Apollo 2
Sony C100 (100270)
Stager SR-1A
Stager SR-3 (34)
Townsend Labs Sphere
Vanguard V13 (11948032)

One commenter also makes the wise point that we should also be on the lookout out for any shady characters purchasing multiple power supplies for different microphones from the list. Read the full post below:

Sadly, this is in no way the first gear burglary story we’ve notified MusicTech readers of in recent years. In January, techno artist, Pfirter, had over £15,000 worth of gear stolen from his studio while on tour.
In July 2022, Dustin Zahn urgently sought the help of fans after revealing that all of his music hardware had been stolen. “This has been particularly devastating because my studio was an accumulation of my last 10-15 years of work,” he writes, “and now I have nothing left to show for it. I am completely wiped out.”
Visit kmraudio.com.
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Xfer Records OTT Plugin Review
OTT plugin by Xfer Records is one of the most popular free VST plugins and has been for some time. It’s particularly popular with electronic music producers, some of whom wouldn’t even consider making music without it now. With that in mind, this won’t be a blast from the past like our recent CamelCrusher review. [...]
View post: Xfer Records OTT Plugin Review

Mark Ronson-produced Barbie soundtrack makes UK chart history The soundtrack for the Barbie movie has made UK chart history for having the most amount of songs ever in the top of the Singles Chart.
Produced by Mark Ronson, the vibrant record, which features the likes of Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice, Dua Lipa and Sam Smith, accompanies the Greta Gerwig-directed box office hit which stars Margot Robbie as a “stereotypical” Barbie in Barbieland, as she tries to grapple with her sudden human-like changes.

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

The album is now the first soundtrack to have three songs all feature in the Top Five, as well as breaking the record for most songs (six in total) in the Top 40, these are:

What Was I Made For, Billie Eilish – number three
Dance The Night, Dua Lipa – number four
Barbie World, Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice – number five
Speed Drive, Charlie XCX – number 19
I’m Just Ken, Ryan Gosling – number 25
Pink, Lizzo – number 39

It landed at the same time as the film’s release just over a week ago, which has already grossed $700 million at the box office, on Friday 21 July.
Speaking to the BBC, Barbie music supervisor George Drakoulias says: “Nobody said no. Everybody was really excited. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship of the music driving the movie and the movie driving the music.
“Once you saw the movie and how well the music works, as soon as they left the theatre people went out and got the album,” he concludes.
You can listen to the album below:

Following its release, Ronson explained how he tried to serve the movie, without being generic or predictable: “I wanted to get the job, but I also didn’t want to just give them some generic dance shit. I wanted to do something I’ve never done before,” he told NME.
He later added, “The thing I learned very, very quickly doing the score for Barbie is that you’re always serving the picture. You’re always serving the emotion. You have to turn off all the things you know about making pop and rock and soul music for the last 30 years. Yes, it needs to be beautiful, but sometimes you just need to get the fuck out the way.”
Ronson also recently revealed that the Barbie soundtrack “overtook his life for a year”, and that gathering and recording the soundtrack’s A-list artists was “a ton, ton, ton of work”.
The post Mark Ronson-produced Barbie soundtrack makes UK chart history  appeared first on MusicTech.

99Sounds Release FREE Water Sounds Loop Library
99Sounds released Water Sounds, a free collection of looped wave sounds, beach sounds, water flow sounds, and stream sounds in WAV format. Water Sounds is a royalty-free collection of water audio recordings by Régis Royer. He captured high-quality recordings of ocean waves, water streams, and other water sounds in various locations during a trip around [...]
View post: 99Sounds Release FREE Water Sounds Loop Library

Watch: Jungle release interactive music video for new track Back On 74Electronic music duo Jungle (formed by Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland) have released an interactive music video for new single Back On 74. Described as a “music video art gallery”, it showcases a clickable, interactive range of 10,000 images changing on each view.
The single lands as part of their forthcoming album, Volcano, which is due for release on 11 August.
READ MORE: Jungle say they wouldn’t exist “without Jai Paul, Justice and Child Of Lov”
The pair launched their new chapter with single Candle Flame back in March, followed by Dominoes in May, with I’ve Been In Love having released in June.
Created with WeTransfer, fans viewing the new interactive video are able to download any of the framed images featured in the video, with another piece of artwork then taking its place.
Framed art pieces often appear in the backdrop of the video, or are sometimes carried and held by the dancers featured throughout.
Head to junglejunglejungle.wetransfer to view the new video for Back On 74.
Speaking to NME, Lloyd-Watson says of their soon-to-be new record,  “I think, for Jungle, it’s actually really the most honest record we’ve made.”
He adds, “In my head, I see us as like Daft Punk or Chemical Brothers – that sort of duo that makes electronic music. But we’ve always had this soul side and this love for soul music, so it’s always been a little bit more song-based. The new record is just an extension of that journey.”
​​Speaking to MusicTech in 2021, Jungle cited MF DOOM, J Dilla, DJ Shadow, and Madlib as influences on their production and ambiguity.
When asked why they remained elusive and “behind the scenes” in the early stages of their career, Lloyd-Watson said: “It’s not part of our personality, but because we make music, everybody kind of wants to know [who we are]…We ain’t beautiful celebrities”.
Get tickets to catch Jungle live via junglejunglejungle.com.
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Aphex Twin shares two archival tracks via ‘secret’ Soundcloud accountTwo previously unheard tracks have been uploaded to SoundCloud by user18081971, an account widely believed to belong to electronic producer-DJ, Aphex Twin.

READ MORE: Georgia on feeling “liberated” working with Rostam and Dave Fridmann on new album Euphoric: “I was very open-minded; I wanted to learn everything”

Per their descriptions, the new tracks — titled Short Forgotten Produk Trk Omc and 2nd Neotek Test Trac Omc — were recorded approximately between 2006 and 2007. The latter also features the use of a Kawai K5M, an additive synthesizer from 1987.
Since 2015, the anonymous account, user18081971, has been connected to Aphex Twin, sharing dozens of unreleased tracks over the last eight years. In 2020, the artist surprised fans by dropping a series of new tracks on the same account within a week.
Meanwhile, Aphex Twin has recently released a new EP titled Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760. The four-track record marks the musician’s first official release in five years, following his 2018 EP, Collapse.
In related news, Aphex Twin, who last month performed at Barcelona’s Sonar 2023, is also set to headline Field Day in London this August.
Listen to the new tracks, Short Forgotten Produk Trk Omc and 2nd Neotek Test Trac Omc, below.

The post Aphex Twin shares two archival tracks via ‘secret’ Soundcloud account appeared first on MusicTech.

EastWest announce Hollywood Fantasy Percussion Hollywood Fantasy Percussion expands EastWest's new collection with a range of drums and percussion instruments designed specifically for the scores of fantasy film, TV and video game scores.

Vyper vulnerability exposes DeFi ecosystem to stress testsA number of pools using Vyper have been exploited due to a malfunctioning reentrancy lock that potentially exposes all pools with wrapped Ether (WETH).

Justice Department eyes Live Nation, Ticketmaster anti-trust lawsuit this FallThe US Department of Justice could file an antitrust lawsuit against concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary Ticketmaster before the end of the year, according to a new. Continue reading
The post Justice Department eyes Live Nation, Ticketmaster anti-trust lawsuit this Fall appeared first on Hypebot.

Is Black news VC backable?Lately I’ve been thinking about media publishing startups (think Semafor and Puck) and their fundraising rounds.
Semafor recently raised a $44 million seed round, and Puck raised a $7 million Series A in 2021. The Messenger, among the newest in the industry, recently raised $50 million. Publishing media jobs are uncertain, pushing those with an entrepreneurial spirit to start their own companies, giving them more ownership over their work. But compare their experience to that of Dana Amihere, who is still trying to find support and funding for her news media startup.
She launched AfroLA News in 2022 to cover the Black community in Los Angeles. So far, she won’t even touch venture capital. The outlook is bleak for people who look like her, she said. People in the startup world keep telling her things are getting better, but “Who are things improving for?” she asked.
“Knowing what the landscape looks like, it almost feels more worthwhile to dedicate the limited time I do have to other things,” she told TechCrunch+. “I don’t think backing Black news outlets is seen as inherently risky. Rather, I think it’s not seen [at all]. Investors don’t see it as a viable or worthwhile investment unless it’s splashy or fits their idea of what Black news should be.”
Part of the problem is that the pool of investors who like investing in media, specifically publishing, is already small. The industry is risky, and not in the startup sense where one might strike big returns one day. Last year the media sector raised a healthy $15 billion, according to PitchBook; within that, publishing raised just $298 million.
Charles Hudson, a managing partner at Precursor Ventures who invests in new media, said that the funding landscape for most media companies, B2B or B2C, is limited when it comes to venture. “What dollars do get invested tend to go to categories that feel big, like national news, industry-specific vertical pubs like Skift or The Information or B2B media companies,” he told TechCrunch+.