France opens criminal investigation into X for alleged algorithmic manipulationFrench J3 cybercrime unit launches probe into X’s algorithm as EU scrutiny intensifies.

Steve Aoki Launches Aoki Labs to Shape the Future of WellnessSteve Aoki is expanding his portfolio far beyond music festivals and global tours. The internationally renowned DJ, producer, and entrepreneur has officially launched Aoki Labs—a venture platform focused on innovation at the intersection of entertainment, wellness, consumer products, and longevity.A statement from the company shares that “Aoki Labs is committed to enhancing human well-being by backing companies that are reimagining how we live and feel.” The platform’s mission is guided by Aoki’s long-standing passion for community and meaningful connection—with a focus on redefining human experience, strengthening social networks, and creating long-term impact.“This is about channeling the same energy and curiosity I’ve brought to music into a new chapter—one focused on investing in things that make life better,” Aoki said. “Whether it’s longevity, mental performance, or culture-shifting consumer brands, I want to help build the future I want to live in—and create a better world for future generations.”While Aoki has been quietly investing in early-stage companies for more than a decade—including early personal stakes in Uber and Pinterest—Aoki Labs represents the first time he’s formalized those efforts into a structured investment platform. He is joined by longtime managers and partners Matt Colon and Dougie Bohay, with Tashi Nakanishi, CEO of X& Financial, serving as Aoki Labs' CEO.A statement from the company notes that X& “anchors people of influence who are looking to build institutional VC funds,” and currently works with HartBeat and other high-profile partners. Nakanishi brings significant venture experience, having co-founded Dreamers VC with Keisuke Honda and Will Smith, as well as launching X&KSK—one of Japan’s first influencer-led investment vehicles.“This fund reflects a serious commitment to long-term value—for founders, for culture, and for human health,” Nakanishi added. “Steve brings a rare combination of global influence and entrepreneurial insight, making him an invaluable partner to both consumer and frontier-tech companies. He’s not just investing—he’s actively building in these spaces.”Early Aoki Labs investments reflect its broad but intentional scope. The initial portfolio includes:Audio Media Grading, a collectibles grading company founded by Aoki in 2022

Mantel, Alexis Ohanian’s content and community platform for collectors

Freaks of Nature, Kelly Slater’s skincare line

Neuro, a functional gum and mints brand for energy and focusAoki Labs is also investing in underrepresented founders and mission-driven consumer brands, with a strong emphasis on community. One example is Sanzo, an Asian-inspired sparkling water brand. A statement from the company highlights Aoki’s “continued focus on AAPI-led ventures across wellness and lifestyle,” signaling a broader goal of expanding access and amplifying diverse voices within venture capital.Looking forward, Aoki Labs plans to continue investing in technologies that sit at the convergence of health and A.I., with a focus on companies creating measurable, positive impact. Deeply connected to the communities he serves, Aoki brings an intuitive understanding of culture and timing—often spotting emerging trends before they hit the mainstream.“Aoki Labs partners with founders building at the intersection of well-being, innovation, and community,” the company states. “We offer not just capital, but hands-on brand strategy, cultural positioning, and access to a powerful network across entertainment, tech, and lifestyle.”The post Steve Aoki Launches Aoki Labs to Shape the Future of Wellness first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Designing a CPU with only Memory Chips
Building a simple 8-bit computer is a great way to understand computing fundamentals, but there’s only so much you can learn by building a system around an existing processor. If you want to learn more, you’ll have to go further and build the CPU yourself, as [MINT] demonstrated with his EPROMINT project (video in Polish, but with English subtitles).
The CPU began when [MINT] began experimenting with uses for his collection of old memory chips, and quickly realized that they could do quite a bit more than store data. After building a development board for single-chip based programmable logic, he decided to build a full CPU out of (E)EPROMs. The resulting circuit spans four large pieces of perfboard, weighs in at over half a kilogram, and took several weeks of soldering to create.
The star of the system is the ALU, which runs an instruction set inspired by the Z80, but with some optimizations and added features. In particular, it has new operations for multiplication, division, bitstream operations, more advanced bit shifting, and a wide range of mathematical functions, including exponents, roots, and trigonometric functions. [MINT] documented all of this in a nicely-formatted offline booklet, available under the project’s GitHub repository. It’s currently only possible to program for the CPU using opcodes or a custom flavor of assembly, but there are plans to write a C compiler for it.
Even without being able to write in a higher-level language than assembly, [MINT] was able to drive a VFD screen with the EPROMINT, which he used to display some clips from The Matrix. This provided an opportunity to demonstrate basic debugging methods, which involved dumping and analyzing the memory contents after a failed program execution.
Using memory chips as programmable logic gates is an interesting hack, and we’ve seen Lisp programs written to make this easier. Of course, this isn’t the first CPU we’ve seen built without any chips intended for logic operations.

Thanks to [Piotr] for the tip!

Karanyi Sounds Lofi Keys is FREE for BPB readers (10,000 licenses available)
Karanyi Sounds is offering Lofi Keys, a lo-fi-inspired virtual instrument, completely free for BPB readers. This is an exclusive deal limited to 10,000 licenses. Bedroom Producers Blog readers get the full version of Lofi Keys v1, usually priced at $59.65, with all the latest updates included (before the v2 update). It’s also worth noting that [...]
View post: Karanyi Sounds Lofi Keys is FREE for BPB readers (10,000 licenses available)

Sonatura Audio MIDIGatorWhen trying to gate an audio signal, it's often easier to use an external trigger, also called a sidechain. MIDIGator allows you to use any MIDI signal to control an audio gate. To make the setup fast and easy, every note on every channel is listened to for the sidechain trigger, along with the sustain pedal on every channel. Upon opening MIDIGator, the gate is completely closed, and will not open until a MIDI note is played, or the sustain pedal is pushed down. Upon sensing either of those events, the gate opens fully. But that's not all! The depth of the gate effect is adjustable, from 100% (normal) to 0%. This allows you to have a portion of the original audio signal coming through all the time, only "pusling" when the gate opens. The Attack and Release controls can also give you a smoother response, easing the audio in and out. And finally, a Dynamics controls rounds out the panel, allowing the gate to respond to the incoming note's velocity to figure out how much to open the gate. (The sustain pedal always acts like a maximum-velocity note.). When multiple notes are held, the velocity of the first note played controls the dynamics, and the gate remains open at that setting until ALL notes are released. A simple plugin, performing a simple task, with some additional control when needed. And for a limited time, it's FREE. Read More

Billy McFarland is selling the Fyre Festival brand on eBay – yes, we’re seriousAfter announcing his plans to sell the Fyre Festival brand back in April, the mastermind behind the ill-fated festival, Billy McFarland, is casting his net for a buyer, listing the brand on eBay.
The listing offers the winning bidder the chance to own Fyre’s “trademarks, IP, social media assets and more”, and at the time of writing, 133 bids have been placed, with the top sitting at $211,100.

READ MORE: It’s Amazon Prime Day, but these music retailers are also hosting insane deals on keyboards, synths and plugins

Billy McFarland made headlines again earlier this year when he revealed plans to put on a second edition of Fyre Festival.
The first edition was a logistical and PR disaster, with promises of lavish island parties with celebrities and luxury food fulfilled by lacklustre accommodation, no celebrities in sight and very sad looking sandwiches. 
The failed event was even the subject of two documentaries, with Netflix’s calling it the “greatest party that never happened”.
People quickly grew suspicious of McFarland’s reboot this year though, after officials on the Mexican island of Isla Mujeres – where it was purported to be  taking place – denied any knowledge of the event’s existence.
McFarland says his decision to try and sell the brand on eBay comes after a $7 million buyer recently fell through [per Mixmag].

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Billy McFarland (@pyrtbilly)

“I’ve done a lot of crazy things, but this might be the craziest thing yet,” he says in a new video posted on Instagram.
“We’ve had over 1,000 offers for the Fyre brand, but I am done playing games,” he goes on.
“Through all the noise, the chaos, the hype and the craziness, Fyre has had over 32 billion impressions online since 2017. Whoever owns the Fyre brand will have an attention engine to launch festivals, do merch collabs, do insane pop-ups, run livestreams or build a media brand.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Billy McFarland (@pyrtbilly)

You can take a look at the listing on eBay.
The post Billy McFarland is selling the Fyre Festival brand on eBay – yes, we’re serious appeared first on MusicTech.

Oak View agreed to ‘cooperate fully’ with DoJ investigationsEarlier this week news broke that Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke was stepping down after being indicted by the US Department of Justice. To avoid charges Oak View agreed to pay a hefty fine and cooperate with the DoJ.
The post Oak View agreed to ‘cooperate fully’ with DoJ investigations appeared first on Hypebot.

API at GearFest UK API have announced that they will be exhibiting their renowned 1608 console at GearFest UK, as well as showing off a range of their outboard gear.

From Hipgnosis’ return to Suno’s new Chief Music Officer… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days
Source

Spotify Discover Weekly stats shared as playlist turns 5Five years ago Spotify launched Discover Weekly, a playlist that updates every Monday designed to spark music discovery. Spotify Discover Weekly stats show just how important the custom playlists have become for emerging artists.
The post Spotify Discover Weekly stats shared as playlist turns 5 appeared first on Hypebot.

Acon Digital release Verberate Immersive 2.3 Acon Digital have just announced the launch of a powerful update for their acclaimed spatial and immersive audio reverb plug-in. 

Chaos Tones releases Deviant Drums FREE Edition for Kontakt Player
Chaos Tones has released Deviant Drums FREE Edition, a free acoustic drum instrument for Kontakt Player. I already have more than twenty acoustic drum libraries in my collection, but every time a new freebie pops up, I just have to grab it. I’ve always dreamed of learning to play a real drum kit (apart from [...]
View post: Chaos Tones releases Deviant Drums FREE Edition for Kontakt Player

It’s Amazon Prime Day, but these music retailers are also hosting insane deals on keyboards, synths and pluginsPrime Day is, naturally, all about Amazon. But don’t forget that the other online music retailers are also hosting sales right now in a bid for your hard-earned cash.
We’ve clocked some sweet deals on music tech gear over at Sweetwater and Reverb – as well as software at Plugin Boutique – which you can take advantage of as the retailers battle it out for sales supremacy. Here’s what we’ve found:
Over at Reverb, you can make the most of 10% off this uber-portable Korg Volca FM synthesizer, now priced at £58.50 down from £65. Sure, it’s not a massive saving, but an addition to your synth collection for under £60 is never something to be sniffed at…
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Also at Reverb, if you’re looking for something with a little more firepower, this Roland Fantom-X8 88-key Workstation keyboard has had nearly £100 slashed off its price tag, meaning you’ll pay just £499.
The Roland Fantom-X8 comes with 1GB of memory and a powerful synth processor with 128-note polyphony, and users can add up to four SRX expansion boards for even more soundscape customisation. Take a look at the deal below.
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Over at Sweetwater, we’ve spotted $20 off Behringer’s hugely popular Edge semi-modular synthesizer. With a 15×10 I/O Patch Matrix, two VCOs, two 8-step sequencers, a white/pink noise generator, oscillator sync and so much more, the Behringer Edge takes budget synthesis to the next level. Grab yours below:
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You can also save a cool $130 on Behringer’s Poly D Polyphonic Analog Synthesizer at Sweetwater, paying only $499 for a limited time. Specs include 37 full-size keys, four-voice paraphonic synthesizer, four VCOs, Classic Ladder Filter and more. Get yours now at a sweet discount.
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Over at Plugin Boutique, you can grab a cool 50% off the Bloom Bundle by Excite Audio, including all 11 individual Bloom plugins valued at £649 if bought separately. This includes KSHMR, a new virtual instrument which seamlessly blends Indian and South Asian musical heritage with modern production – no matter your genre. Get the whole bundle now for just £159.
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Find more music tech deals via our regularly updated deals page.
The post It’s Amazon Prime Day, but these music retailers are also hosting insane deals on keyboards, synths and plugins appeared first on MusicTech.

Humble Bundle launches Opus FX bundle starting at €2.56
Humble Bundle has launched Opus FX: Superior Plugins & Orchestral Elegance, a brand-new collection of music production tools starting at just €2.56. The Opus FX: Superior Plugins & Orchestral Elegance bundle includes a variety of mixing and sound design plugins, along with several orchestral sound packs, with contributions from W.A. Production, MeldaProduction, United Plugins, and [...]
View post: Humble Bundle launches Opus FX bundle starting at €2.56

How Drops by Colossal makes it easier than ever for producers to earn from their beatsAd feature with Colossal
Drops is a slick new tool by Colossal that promises to help producers get their beats directly into the hands of artists. By folding in licensing, payments and file transfer into a single shareable web link, they’ve managed to simplify selling your beats into a process that is “frictionless, beautiful and optimised to boost sales”, says founder Paul Anthony.
To test this, I jumped onto the Drops platform to see how long it would take to get started. With no need to sign up for a subscription, I was loading in my tracks right away and exploring the different release options, which include the choice of non-exclusive and exclusive licenses, setting my own price and adding some vibrant visuals. It’s an effortless experience, with everything distilled down into a one-page user-friendly design.
Hitting publish on a beat will generate a Drops link which is where the magic happens. The shareable link contains everything that someone else needs to buy your beat using PayPal, agree to the licensing terms, and download the high-quality audio file — no low-quality MP3 allowed here. Drop the link into a post, video description or DM. That’s it!
When someone is interested in buying your beat, just give them a Drops link, and the rest is up to them.
A single shareable link seems almost too obvious. Surely, this exists already? Yet the current alternative is a cobbled-together system that is unappealing to both the producer and artist.
Drops producer UI. Image: Press
A lot of the time, producers end up fielding responses to requests through DM’s, emails, or via messaging apps like WhatsApp. If all goes well, they can then send their track via a file transfer service like Dropbox or WeTransfer, and somewhere along the way, payment has to be arranged via a bank transfer or another payment app. This method makes it incredibly difficult to keep track of who is downloading your music and, in the case that they haven’t actually paid for the download, leaves you with very little you can do about it. These are issues that have long been solved when it comes to selling most digital goods and online services.
Cleaning up this ad-hoc system is what Colossal has set out to do. For this neat all-in-one stack of functions, producers pay a 15% commission only when they make a sale. Adding to the simplicity of using Drops, there is no subscription or payment plan in sight.
So, what else do you get for that fee?
A key feature of Drops is something that has little glamour or appeal, but is essential to every single producer hoping to share their work: licensing.
Image: Press
Cleaning up the murky waters of licensing was a critical mission for Colossal. Most of us hardly ever read licenses, even when we ultimately click ‘Agree’. This can be excused when it’s a software licence, but when you’re licensing your music, there is no room to be so careless. Colossal’s licenses were written with music lawyers and are locked from edits, so neither producers nor buyers can alter the fine print. This approach helps provide a level of consistency for anyone who uses Drops, with the understanding that once you read the license once, you’ll never have to worry that the terms have changed, even if you’re buying from a different producer.
Reading the license isn’t as daunting as we’ve all come to expect. To ensure these licenses are clear to everyone involved, a summary of core terms is displayed right next to the preview of the beat, keeping a fixed spotlight on the legal end of music. For the music industry, renowned for ownership disputes and misuse cases, having a solid licensing framework offers a lot of peace of mind.
Beyond the tedious legal legwork, it’s exciting to see that Colossal has included some innovative features in the service. With each release, you can set a limited number of downloads for your beat or create a limited time for when people can buy your Drop. This nice touch of exclusivity can help producers elevate their work to a more valuable category. With an abundance of music floating around online, and YouTube to MP3 software commonly being used, many producers will relish the chance to add a bit of scarcity back into the equation.
Image: Press
Rounding out Drops’ promotional tool kit is the ability to add your own image or video to each track and have these visuals automatically whipped up into a pleasing layout for your beat’s landing page. These pages are optimised for mobile devices, resulting in beautiful graphics, and a user-friendly interface, that is perfectly suited to how most people browse music.
Looking to the future, Drops by Colossal has a few exciting features in development, including the functionality to unlock a beat by subscribing to a YouTube channel, joining a Discord server, or hitting follow on Instagram or TikTok. Colossal is also looking to expand beyond beats and build a beat marketplace that also supports samples, loops and stems. Sitting alongside Drops is a companion search and discovery platform called Vibes, where you can speedily audition new beats by swiping in the fashion of TikTok, which is coming soon.
Nowadays, most of the work that goes into sharing beats, reaching audiences, and selling your music happens on social platforms. Colossal has formed Drops to fit perfectly into this ecosystem.
Whether you want to get your music out there for a bit of fun or hope to turn beat-making into your full-time gig, Drops will do the heavy lifting while you focus on making the music.
The post How Drops by Colossal makes it easier than ever for producers to earn from their beats appeared first on MusicTech.