Hidizs’ AP80 PRO-X portable player is like an iPod for high-res musicChinese audio manufacturer Hidizs has released the AP80 PRO-X digital audio player in the US and UK, and it’s the perfect companion for users looking for a portable hi-res music solution.

READ MORE: BOSS Gigcaster 8 is a powerful audio hub for recording, streaming and live mixing

Boasting Dual ESS9219C DACs alongside a FPGA chip, the AP80 PRO-X is said to deliver incredible audio performance that “greatly exceeds” that of smartphones and laptops.
Despite weighing just 72 grams, the PRO-X is capable of driving high quality headphones, wired or wirelessly, and is described as a great entry-level player for new audiophiles looking for a no-nonsense portable music solution
The PRO-X features Bidirectional Bluetooth 4.2, which allows it to function as a Bluetooth audio source and double as a professional Bluetooth DAC amp. Users can send and enhance all of their smartphone, laptop, tablet or gaming music wirelessly or use a dedicated USB cable for enhanced sound quality.
More importantly, the player supports just about any audio format out there. MQA files, Sony LDAC, and CSR APT-X are supported alongside HiBy UAT, the brand’s proprietary Bluetooth audio codec which allows for sampling frequencies up to 192kHZ. DSD512 playback is also possible and users can use the HiBy app to control music playback directly from their smartphone.
Meanwhile, micro SD cards are supported for storage (the PRO-X does not come with internal memory) — up to a maximum of 512GB. Battery life varies from 8 to 11 hours depending on the file format and whether you’re using the balanced output for playback.
At $169/£199, the AP80 PRO-X sits at a highly competitive price bracket for DAPs (consider its peers: the Fiio M6, Surfans F20, and Shanling M1s), though its ultra-pocketable size and impressive range of functions (step counter & E-book feature, excuse me?) might just cement it as the ideal audio companion for your next adventure.
Learn more at Hidizs.
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Cruise starts initial robotaxi testing in MiamiCruise, the self-driving arm of General Motors, has begun initial testing and data collection in Miami, the company said in a tweet Wednesday.
“Phase 1 is to familiarize our fleet with additional, diverse road conditions while collecting data,” the company said.
Cruise declined to provide any further information, like what Phase 2 entails and when it will begin, how many Cruise vehicles are currently in Miami and when the company plans to start testing.
The news comes two months after Cruise expanded to Houston and Dallas, where the AV company has begun supervised testing and is on track to begin driverless ride-hail service for members of the public “soon,” according to a Cruise spokesperson. Supervised testing just means there’s a human safety driver in the car. Cruise will switch to driverless testing before opening up the service for riders.
Most of Cruise’s operations have been in its hometown of San Francisco, where it competes head-to-head with Alphabet’s Waymo. The two companies are currently in permit limbo as they await California’s Public Utilities Commission to grant them both the right to charge for robotaxi services throughout the city 24/7. Despite support from the technology and business communities, Waymo and Cruise have run up against opposition from residents and city agencies, which may have caused the CPUC to delay hearings to approve their permits.
Cruise did not say whether it plans to launch its autonomous Chevrolet Bolts in Miami (although that might be tough now that GM has discontinued the vehicle) or if it’ll put its own Cruise Origins on streets instead. Cruise’s Origin is a purpose-built electric AV, built with no steering wheel or pedals for a human driver. In October 2021, Cruise’s then-CEO Dan Ammann said the company will launch “tens of thousands” of Origins on public roads in the next few years.
In March, Cruise’s current CEO Kyle Vogt said the company would begin testing its Origins on the streets in Austin within the coming weeks. While human-operated prototypes of the Origin have been manually collecting data used for AV perception system testing and validation, Cruise has not yet begun driverless tests in Austin. A spokesperson told TechCrunch Cruise would begin those tests “soon.”
Cruise isn’t the first AV company to make it to Miami. Last year, Ford-backed Argo AI began testing a driverless service in Miami. The plan was to put the service on Lyft’s platform, but Argo has since shut down.

Hackers compromise Uniswap founder’s Twitter account to promote scamHayden Adams’ account released a tweet encouraging its more than 254,000 followers to click on a malicious link, falsely claiming that users’ tokens were at risk.

John Lennon Songwriting Contest Presents: SUMMER SONGSIf you’re like us, you’re dripping sweat and bargaining, if not fighting, over who gets to sit closest to the air conditioning. Temperatures are HIGH. And that means it’s time for a SUMMER SONGS contest.

Summer songs connect us to some of the most memorable times of our lives.Hot, steamy, lazy, funny, or revolutionary.Pool parties, ocean breezes, BBQs, sweltering streets and ice cream treats. Summer is a vibe.

SUMMER SONGS is a weekly contest. 1 winner is selected each week. Entry deadlines are each SUNDAY at 11:59pm PDT. Winners will be announced on Monday.

Follow @lennonbus on Instagram and @theJLSC on Facebook for the hottest news.

You could win from the following Summer Songs prizes:

Epiphone Casino guitar

Apogee BOOM audio interface

SSL Native Essentials plugins

Audio-Technica wireless headphones

Reason+

Sonicbids Gig-Seeker Pro

Neutrik *Special Edition* John Lennon Educational Tour Bus instrument cable

All Summer Songs entries will also compete in Session II of the 2023 contest. 1 Song = 2 ways to win.

Linux Studio Plugins Project LSP Multiband Limiter This plugin introduces a multiband limiter with flexible configuration. In most cases it acts as a brick-wall limiter but there are several settings for which is acts as an compressor with... Read More

Linux Studio Plugins Project LSP GOTT Compressor This plugins introduces Grand Over-The-Top (GOTT) Compressor which combines both upward and downward compression and allows to smear the dynamics of the music - all what is often required... Read More

What’s new in Arturia’s FX Collection 4?
From cutting-edge distortion tools to a lush reverb unit, here are the four newest plugins added to Arturia's FX Collection 4.

Bad Bunny and Shakira collaborators Albert Hype and Jota Rosas sign to Neon16 Publishing; Gaby Morales extends dealNEON16 was founded by music exec Lex Borrero in 2019 alongside hit producer Tainy
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Nearly 120 historic hip-hop artefacts – including a ring designed by Tupac – go on sale in Sotheby’s auctionAre you a die-hard hip-hop head? A keen collector of musical memorabilia? You may be interested in an auction currently underway containing artefacts associated with the early days of hip-hop.

READ MORE: New documentary MIXTAPE explores impact of mixtapes on hip-hop culture

The collection comprises 119 items, from art to letters to flyers for events to hardware used to create some of the biggest hip-hop anthems to jewellery and more, all available in Sotheby’s auction
Notable lots include a ring designed by Tupac, one of the first-ever KAWS figurines, a pair of rare Nike Dunks, the SP-1200 sampler RZA used on Enter The Wu-Tang, and RZA’S original three-page handwritten liner notes for the Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) album sleeve.
The most expensive item on the list, however, is Lot 75 – a gold, ruby, and diamond ring designed as a crown, set with round diamonds and cabochon rubies. It was designed by none other than Tupac Shakur, one of the biggest names – if not, the biggest name – in hip-hop. The starting bid is set at $180,000, with the estimated final bid to be within the region of $200-300k. No one has kicked off the bidding process yet.

Talking of Tupac, there are loads of other fascinating items associated with the iconic New York rapper up for grabs. There are several handwritten and signed letters written during Shakur’s high school years to a love interest in 1988.
In terms of music tech, the headliner is, of course, the incredible SP-1200 sampler actually used by RZA, which is predicted to rake in a whopping $35,000. It’s a thing of beauty.
One lucky buyer will be able to get their hands on nine cassettes worth of early Wu Tang Clan demos, and there’s even a plaster and crushed glass sculpture of an original eroded cassette of Nas’ Lost Tapes 2 album. There’s also a curated collection of 394 sealed cassette tapes reflecting two decades of hip-hop.
If you’re interested in purchasing one of these 119 special items, or even if you’re just intrigued – it’s well worth a look – head to sothebys.com.
The post Nearly 120 historic hip-hop artefacts – including a ring designed by Tupac – go on sale in Sotheby’s auction appeared first on MusicTech.

Bandsintown passes 80M registered live music fans, 589K artistsTop global live music discovery platform Bandsintown announced today that it has passed 80 million registered users, an increase of 10 million in the last year. The rise reflects the. Continue reading
The post Bandsintown passes 80M registered live music fans, 589K artists appeared first on Hypebot.

Netflix just added 6m subscribers. Should Spotify copy its password crackdown?Netflix subs growth beat analysts’ expectations
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TouchOSC is expanding to AndroidTouchOSC has just received a complete next-generation update, making it compatible with more devices, including Android.
The touch controller had previously only been compatible with iOS, having acted as the first serious solution for making control surfaces when Apple brought apps to its original iPhone.
Now, its new update enables it to function with more operating systems, including Windows touch devices, Linux and even Raspberry Pi and Wacom tablets.
On top of OSC over UDP & TCP, TouchOSC now supports every type of wired and wireless MIDI connection a device can offer, including MIDI over USB on iOS and Android.
It uses a GPU-powered integrated editor on all platforms, according to the website, to help users “create the most complex of control layouts with ease and precision.”
Meanwhile, other key updates include a new Time & Battery example layout, scripting improvements, including how to handle timeouts on long-running scripts and various other minor bug fixes and improvements.
In addition, several other issues have been fixed, including with new documents not respecting “assign new name on copy/paste” preference option, the local message log not respecting “control name as path” preference option, and the fixed script ‘init’ not always being called for example layouts.
The native implementations of Zeroconf – the often archaic underpinnings of how network connections work – have also reportedly been massively refactored.
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Sonible’s smart:gate is a content-aware gate plugin that uses AI to detect specific instrumentsPlugin developer Sonible has launched smart:gate, an intelligent content-aware gate effect powered by AI technology.

READ MORE: Roland launches AI-powered royalty-free sound library for Bridge Cast livestreamers

It gates audio triggered by specific target sources rather than purely by input level using intelligent target source detection. This means you can pick out a kick drum or a snare from a drum loop – identified by AI – for example, and process elements separately without having to spend time chopping up your sample.

The gate works effectively even if a target source varies in level, or if a competing instrument is louder than the signal you want to keep. So, if you’re wanting to pluck out the snare drums from a sample but some are quiet while others are loud, smart:gate still picks these out.
Unlike most level-dependent gates, smart:gate helps with parameterization in music production. Simply select the source from a drop-down menu, say “kick”, “vocals” or “hi-hat”, and the plugin actively singles out that sound source.
You can then adjust the parameters of the gate, with pretty standard controls available, as you’d expect, such as Threshold, Attack/Release, Hold and Tolerance. You can also control the Level Bias, which allows for accurate adjusting of the gating behaviour. Here, you can tell the gate to follow the detected signal closely or loosely, which helps refine transients or keep vocals natural or not.
Sonible smart:gate
There’s Impact Control, so you can adjust the gain reduction when the gate is closed, a Ducking mode, and you can fine-tune the gating even further with a three-band suppression control, so you can set the levels of the lows, mids and highs.
Sonible’s smart:gate also lets you sidechain audio in reaction to external sound sources with an external sidechain input function, which will detect audio in mono/mid or side signals.
On the plugin, Peter Sciri, Sonible’s co-founder and CTO, has said: “Conventional gates have been eyed sceptically in the past – I sure did so. We figured, that the solution to eliminating the uncertainty that comes with gates was to shift the processing’s focus onto the target signal instead of the overall signal. It’s a new approach that might need a little time to wrap one’s head around, but the results speak for themselves.”
smart:gate is available for an introductory price of €89. You can also download a free trial of the plugin, if you want to test it out. Find out more information at sonible.com.
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How to market your music like Taylor SwiftWith her worldwide success, Taylor’s team must be doing something right. Here are seven different T-Swift brand strategies to use to market your music. by Janelle Borg from Amplify You Taylor. Continue reading
The post How to market your music like Taylor Swift appeared first on Hypebot.

How to grow your YouTube channel with YouTube Shorts and ClipsShort-form video content is the key to social media success these days. So here’s how to use Youtube’s features to grow your music career. by Randi Zimmerman of Symphonic Blog. Continue reading
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