Film - TV - Theater - Games: PROPSThe Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL) is celebrating the passage of the HITS Act, which is designed to deliver long-awaited tax relief for independent music creators across the U.S and align the music industry with other creative sectors such as film, television and live theater. Through the legislation, eligible songwriters, lyricists, composers and music producers can deduct up to $150,000 in recording and production expenses in the year incurred. The SCL, a longtime advocate for the bill, and contributed to coalition efforts to see its passage. With the HITS Act now enacted, independent songwriters, composers, and producers gain crucial financial tools to support their careers in an evolving industry. For more information, contact Ray Costa at rcosta@costacomm.com.Moises, the A.I.-powered music platform with 60 million users across the globe, has announced its 2025 sponsorship of NPR’s Tiny Desk series, in support of a shared mission to uplift musicians. Moises and NPR are launching a major giveaway: one winner and a guest will attend a live Tiny Desk Concert at NPR’s Washington, DC headquarters, with travel, hotel, and NPR+ perks included. All entrants also receive a free five-year Moises Pro license. Open to U.S. and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec), the contest runs through September 12. Contact Emily Frances at emily@rockpaperscissors.biz for details, or visit npr.org/2024/03/14/1235248393/tiny-desk-giveaway. Multi-Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal has been awarded the United Nations-backed High Note Global Prize for the song “We Believe in Hope,” created with renowned Afghan artist and advocate Aryana Sayeed and lyricist Joan Beal for the film Rule Breakers. This marks the first time a song has received the honor, recognizing its powerful message of unity, equality and women’s empowerment. Featured in Angel Studios’ film about Afghanistan’s first all-female robotics team, the anthem—performed by Sayeed and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus—was also dedicated to the UN’s new International Day of Hope. Past recipients of the prize include Cyndi Lauper and John Legend. Find the video on YouTube, and contact Rebekah Alperin at reb@gostoryboard.com for more information. On October 24, the Wild Honey Foundation and the Zevon Family will present Meet Me in L.A.: The Songs of Warren Zevon at the United Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. This all-star tribute concert will feature over 25 songs from Zevon’s celebrated career, performed by the Rob Laufer/Jordan Summers-led Wild Honey Orchestra and Friends and guests including Jackson Browne, Shooter Jennings, Marshall Crenshaw, Jorge Calderón, and more. Proceeds will benefit the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and the Ed Asner Family Center for the Autism Community. For more information, contact wildhoneyfoundation@yahoo.com.From October 16-18, the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester will present the inaugural Soundtrax Film Music Festival, North America’s first dedicated film-music festival and conference, in Rochester, New York, which is considered the birthplace of motion picture film. Co-directed by Emmy winners Mark Watters and Jeff Beal, the event will feature sessions with Oscar-nominated composer Carter Burwell (Twilight, Fargo, True Grit), Disney's former VP of Music Bambi Moé, and Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano (The Red Violin). Attendees will experience concerts of Interstellar, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and John Williams: Reimagined. For more, contact Luci Paczkowski at lpaczkowski@shorefire.com.The post Film - TV - Theater - Games: PROPS first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Alonso Sound Alonso 18 Year Anniversary PackMarking 18 years of sound design, the Alonso 18 Year Anniversary Pack features 128 presets crafted for Diva, Serum 2, Spire, and Sylenth1 - 32 for each synth. Designed for versatility, this collection spans genres from House and Trance to Synthwave, Hardcore, Progressive, Electro, Techno, DnB, and more. Inside you'll discover a variety of leads, bass, plucks, acid, pads, sequences, and synths. Each preset includes intuitive modwheel assignments, with Serum 2 and Spire patches also featuring full macro controls, providing quick modulation options to customize your sound. Whether you are refining your signature sound or exploring new creative directions, the Alonso 18 Year Anniversary Pack gives you a diverse suite of source sounds to inspire and elevate your music to the next level. Read More

Arturia release Explorations Vol.4  Arturia have announced the launch of a new expansion pack that includes a total of 450 presets for their Pigments and Analog Lab software instruments.

Live Review of Laney Jones and The SpiritsSunset Tavern  Seattle, WAContact: andrew.borstein@redlightmanagement.comWeb: laney-jones.comPlayers: Laney Jones, guitar, lead vocals; Carson Lystad, guitar; Glen M. Hruska, bass, vocals; Brian Dowd, drums, vocalsDuring their debut Seattle performance at the Sunset Tavern, Laney Jones and the Spirits unearthed music’s rootsy, lo-fi past and hurled it into the present, blending gritty guitar tones, gravel-edged vocals, and rock-steady song structures.This was clear the moment the Nashville-based band stepped onto the red-lit stage and dug deep into the hazy, stratified sounds of “We Belong Together” and “Bitch Year.” Both tracks — from 2025’s Our Vinyl Sessions EP—were elevated by Laney’s distinctive raspy vocals, effortlessly shifting between registers, cutting through the songs’ sultry, sway-in-time rhythms.  Riding on shotgun old-school sonics, Laney Jones and the Spirits pulled their West Coast fans further along their retro garage rock adventures, dialing into several backroad songs that could just as easily be heard on a staticky AM station, a spotty FM auto-scan, or a carefully curated aux playlist. The band’s attitude-drenched, flanged-filled single, “Another Rolling Stone”—with a dueling guitar shred sesh—drew from the well of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Americana Noir, while the ebullient Nashville twang on “Not Alone”—from 2022’s Stories Up High—rode the radio-friendly, feel-good waves reminiscent of Sheryl Crow’s smooth voiced grooves.Organic rock tunes made a strong statement during Laney Jones’ set, but were beautifully counterbalanced by intimate, singer-songwriter-centered tracks. The aching atmospherics of “Long Way” (Stories Up High) and the spacey textures of the single “Stay at Home” tapped into boygenius’ wellspring of rich, indie-driven sound. Wrapping up their rock-edged set, Laney Jones and the Spirits threw some love to the crowd with a heartfelt “thanks,” followed by the inspiring lyrics and soaring chords of “Secret Weapon” (Stories Up High).  A fitting finale—part resolve, part rally cry—from a band redefining alt-Americana, boldly throwing it into the future.The post Live Review of Laney Jones and The Spirits first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Aiyn Zahev Sounds AZS JUP-8000 TRANCEFORMThe sound of trance at its peak : bold, melodic, and built for the dance floor. Tranceform for the Arturia JUP-8000 brings 280 presets inspired by the original JP-8000, the synth that defined an era. Inside you'll find: • Driving, resonant basses • Pulsing, hypnotic arps and sequences • Soaring pads and massive supersaws • Authentic plucks and leads with that unmistakable early-2000s tone. These are the sounds that powered clubs and festivals worldwide, now reprogrammed with modern weight and punch, while keeping the raw character that made them work so well in the mix. This isn't retro. This is a return. Forged from the past, formed for the future. 280 Presets MIDI Macro Assignments Version 1.0.0.6+ recommended. https://youtu.be/Q71Onb2aqoA Read More

OpenAI warns against SPVs and other ‘unauthorized’ investmentsOpenAI isn't the only AI company looking to crack down on SPVs.

Aave tumbles following rumors regarding World Liberty token allocationRumors on social media about a World Liberty Financial governance proposal from October 2024 drove the Aave token down by over $30.

LeRobot Brings Autonomy to Hobby RobotsRobotic arms have a lot in common with CNC machines in that they are usually driven by a fixed script of specific positions to move to, and actions to perform. Autonomous behavior isn’t the norm, especially not for hobby-level robotics. That’s changing rapidly with LeRobot, an open-source machine learning framework from the Hugging Face community.
The SO-101 arm is an economical way to get started.
If a quick browse of the project page still leaves you with questions, you’re not alone. Thankfully, [Ilia] has a fantastic video that explains and demonstrates the fundamentals wonderfully. In it, he shows how LeRobot allows one to train an economical 3D-printed robotic arm by example, teaching it to perform a task autonomously. In this case, the task is picking up a ball and putting it into a cup.
[Ilia] first builds a dataset by manually operating the arm to pick up a ball and place it in a cup. Then, with a dataset consisting of only about fifty such examples, he creates a machine learning model capable of driving the arm to autonomously pick up a ball and place it in a cup, regardless of where the ball and cup actually are. It even gracefully handles things like color changes and [Ilia] moving the cup and ball around mid-task. You can skip directly to 34:16 to see this autonomous behavior in action, but we do recommend watching the whole video for a highly accessible yet deeply technical overview.

LeRobot is a very flexible framework, capable of much more than just doing imitation learning on 3D-printed low-cost robot arms. But the main goal is to make this sort of thing accessible to just about anyone, as [Ilia] aptly demonstrates. We have seen tons of high-quality DIY robot arms, and since the LeRobot framework is both developing quickly and isn’t tied to any particular hardware, it might be powering the next robot project sooner than you think.

Indie Musician News: Bandsintown, Instagram, Email, PlaylistsAre you an independent musician looking for some tips and tricks for success? Here are some of last week’s top indie musician news including a Bandsintown YouTube integration, an Instagram. Continue reading
The post Indie Musician News: Bandsintown, Instagram, Email, Playlists appeared first on Hypebot.

Music Business News Last Week: YouTube, Scalpers, Spotify, MoreCheck out the most important music business news last week from YouTube's exclusive partnership with Bandsintown., the FTC suing a concert ticket scalper, artists leaving Spotify, and more.
The post Music Business News Last Week: YouTube, Scalpers, Spotify, More appeared first on Hypebot.

Florian Mrugalla releases Absorbiere, a free sidechain ring modulation plugin
Florian Mrugalla has released Absorbiere, a free sidechain ring modulation plugin available in VST3 format for Windows and macOS. Absorbiere takes an intelligent approach to solving one of the most persistent problems in mixing: uncontrolled peak levels that result from stacking multiple tracks. Rather than using traditional compression or volume ducking, Absorbiere uses sidechain-based ring [...]
View post: Florian Mrugalla releases Absorbiere, a free sidechain ring modulation plugin

DiBiQuadro releases Mars800Free, a FREE Marshall JCM800-style amp sim
DiBiQuadro has released Mars800Free, a free amp sim plugin that emulates the classic Marshall JCM800 guitar amplifier. It’s available for Windows and macOS in VST3, AU, and AAX formats. If you’re after that gritty and bright British, Mars800Free is an excellent free option.  This freeware single-channel amp simulates the EL34 power tubes with a precise [...]
View post: DiBiQuadro releases Mars800Free, a FREE Marshall JCM800-style amp sim

Amphion announce the One18X & Two18X Amphion's new One18X and Two18X build on the success of their predecessors, and promise to offer significant improvements in clarity, resolution and transient response. 

Album Review of "American Wasteland" by Whitney Tai (8/10)Self-releasedProducer: TommyHatzThe joy of an album like American Wasteland is that each listen reveals something new. That betrays the fact that there’s a depth to the songwriting that transcends genres and trends. Tai has the sort of voice that tears away at your soul with unrelenting passion; as the emotions pile up, we’re left drained and satisfied. She has a gift for anthemic pop, resulting in swathes of epic melody washing over us in glorious waves. The combo of strength and vulnerability has yielded a killer record. The post Album Review of "American Wasteland" by Whitney Tai (8/10) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

US bill proposes 21st-century privateers to take on cybercrimeThe proposed bill included a list of targetable offenses, including the theft of cryptocurrencies, ransomware attacks, and pig butchering scams.