Bitfinex Bitcoin long positions reach $5.1B — Is someone buying or hedging?Analysts speculate that the Bitcoin bull run is ready to resume after Bitfinex longs soar to $5.1 billion. Are they mistaken?

Homebrew CPU Gets a Beautiful Rotating Cube Demo[James Sharman] designed and built his own 8-bit computer from scratch using TTL logic chips, including a VGA adapter, and you can watch it run a glorious rotating cube demo in the video below.
The rotating cube is the product of roughly 3,500 lines of custom assembly code and looks fantastic, running at 30 frames per second with shading effects from multiple light sources. Great results considering the computing power of his system is roughly on par with vintage 8-bit home computers, and the graphics capabilities are limited. [James]’s computer uses a tile map instead of a frame buffer, so getting 3D content rendered was a challenge.
The video is about 20 seconds of demo followed by a detailed technical discussion on how exactly one implements everything required for a 3D cube, from basic math to optimization. If a deep dive into that sort of thing is up your alley, give it a watch!
We’ve featured [James]’ fascinating work on his homebrew computer before. Here’s more detail on his custom VGA adapter, and his best shot at making it (kinda) run DOOM.

Krysta Youngs (BTS, TXT, TAEYEON) on songwriting for K-pop artists
Krysta Youngs (BTS, TXT, TAEYEON) shares her tips and perspectives on the world of songwriting for K-pop groups and artists.

BMI Presents 29th Annual Key West Songwriters Festival LineupThe annual Key West Songwriters Festival presented by BMI announced today the first details behind the five-day event, set to take place April 30th through May 4th. In its 29th year, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association and Rams Head Presents will welcome more than 150 BMI creators as the island transforms into Music City. Multi-day offerings of free and ticketed shows will include veteran songwriters to the next big hitmakers as they showcase the artistry behind their songs while also introducing new music to audiences. Additional songwriters will continue to be revealed and schedules will be made available in late March at www.keywestsongwritersfestival.com.The “unparalleled five-day experience for music fans” (Keys News) will feature stripped-down and full-band performances from Nashville’s hit songwriters and local favorites such as Chuck Cannon, Bob DiPiero, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Raul Malo, Lee Thomas Miller, Taylor Phillips, Liz Rose, Jeffrey Steele and Bridgette Tatum. Prominent newcomers like Matt Castillo, Bre Kennedy, Jackson Nance, DJ Smoke and The Kentucky Gentlemen will make their debut. The festival will commence with the official “Sunset Pier Kick Off Party” at the Ocean Key Resort & Spa, on Wednesday (4/30), featuring Dylan Altman, Robert Randolph and Guthrie Trapp. As previously announced, Nate Smith will headline the Coffee Butler Amphitheater on Thursday (5/01) with support from Chase Matthew and tickets are available here. The annual free block party at Main Stage Duval Street will be held on Saturday (5/03) with talent to be announced soon.After making their inaugural debut at last year’s festival, “Sunday Songs: Music & Mimosas” at Williams Hall will return on Sunday (5/04) as well as hourly rounds from the Key West Woman’s Club at Hellings Curry Museum and intimate theater showcases at La Te Da. New venues will be on display such as the Marquesa Hotel, The Alamo and Island Dogs while Rams Head Southernmost Bar & Restaurant will be the event’s headquarters. Longstanding popular destination spots throughout the island will return like Key West Theater, Southernmost Resort, Blue Heaven, Dante’s Key West Pool Bar & Restaurant and San Carlos Institute.“We're excited for another year of collaborating with BMI and the amazing venues across the island to highlight the industry’s best songwriting talent,” said Kyle Muehlhauser, owner of the Key West Songwriters Festival and Rams Head Presents.Additional info on Platinum passes and ticketed shows at the Key West Theater and San Carlos Institute will be available here. Proceeds from the five-day event benefit the BMI Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1985 that supports music education and creation through various grants and scholarships, along with the Michelle Foundation, a Key West-based nonprofit that helps children and families in need. Over the years, the festival has provided a platform for established and emerging songwriters to showcase their work through one-of-a-kind experiences. Notable BMI alums include Luke Combs, Florida Georgia Line, Maren Morris, Jelly Roll, Cole Swindell and more.The 29th Annual Key West Songwriters Festival is sponsored by Delta Air Lines, Gallagher, HD Radio and Texas Roadhouse. Songwriters will have the opportunity to enjoy the “Lift Off to the Kickoff” event at BNA in Delta’s Sky Club as Delta Air Lines is the official airline for the festival.The post BMI Presents 29th Annual Key West Songwriters Festival Lineup first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Cool WAV Vitality Vol. 10 - Vital100 Presets. 7 Custom Themes. Analog Synthesizers sampled: Sequential Take 5, KORG Minilogue XD. Wavetables used: Cool WAV, *Dash Glitch, Ocean Swift, Producer Hive. Great for Trap, Hip-Hop,... Read More

TuneCore launches new ‘Advanced Trends and Analytics’ dashboard for for self-releasing artistsThe new dashboard features cross-platform performance tracking and real-time engagement metrics, among other functions
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BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive will be made available for the first time for use by musical artists and producersPreviously labelled the “unsung heroes of British electronica”, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop had a pivotal impact on electronic music. Their legacy is everywhere, from the grandiose, whirring sci-fi soundtracks of Hans Zimmer to the pulsing dance tunes of Brian Eno. Now, the BBC has compiled the sound effects unit’s rich archive of experimental sounds and samples into one bundle.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive contains a wealth of samples, ranging from vintage synthesisers, tape loops, as well as iconic sounds crafted by the unit. The 98 presets and 1,087 unique sounds allows you to play with the sounds that helped breathe life into shows like Doctor Who – from crafting the theme song, giving the Daleks a voice and even allowing the TARDIS to take flight.

READ MORE: Qrion: “My process is to first sit down in a chair and think about a specific moment – a memory, sound, or smell”

The gang helped soundtrack The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Quatermass and the Pit, and plenty of samples tap into the unit’s love of eerie, unnerving sci-fi. Mark Ayres’ The Top of the Stairs captures a dark, creeping tension, while James Malpas’ Secret Tunnel sample emits a sense of discovery, brighter synths pulsing with curiosity.
The library will also contain recordings from a variety of microphones, as well as the EMT turntable and Rogers loudspeakers made especially for the BBC. There’s also the Maida Vale plate and spring reverbs, modular synthesizers, tape machines, EMS Vocoder, Echo chamber, Roland Vocoder SVC-350 and Eventide H-3000.

While the bundle boasts ample archival offerings, there’s also a slew of newer performances and samples to patch-up older recordings; remaining members of the Workshop such as Dick Mills, Mark Ayres, Glynis Jones have all stepped into the studio yet again to clean up old recordings. There’s also some new collaborators involved, such as ex-The Prodigy drummer Kieron Pepper.
While the original recordings were hand-crafted, Spitfire Audio’s Solar engine will allow even more ways to tweak and manipulate the original samples. Speaking about the new, digital potential of the bundle, composer, sound designer and Radiophonic Workshop archivist Mark Ayres hopes that the bundle will inspire the next generation of electronic musicians.
“As a kid born in the 1960s, I realised there was a department at the BBC that was purely for making bonkers noises. It blew my mind!” he says. “I’m the youngest member of the core Radiophonic Workshop – and I’m 64! We’re not going to be around forever.”
“It was really important to leave a creative tool, inspired by our work, for other people to use going forward,” he continues. “I hope we’ve made an instrument that will inspire future generations.”

Spitfire Audio’s Head of Recording, Harry Wilson has also said that he hopes the bundle will inspire future generations. Just like the forward-thinking unit, the new digital bundle should be perfect for creating even more unique, innovative sounds.
“We’re not just looking back at what the members were doing way back when,” he explains. “We’re projecting a strand of their work into the future and saying: if the Workshop was engaged with a similar process now, what would it sound like?”
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive is currently available at an introductory offer of £119.00 until 17th March.
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“It was like six in the morning…”: How Ian James produced the beat for Doechii’s Denial Is A RiverThis year, Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal was crowned Best Rap Album at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards. The mixtape also saw Doechii herself being nominated for Best New Artist, as well as Nissan Altima earning a nomination nod for Best Rap Performance. However, Denial Is A River has proven to be the stand-out track of the bunch, amassing over 132 million streams on Spotify at the time of writing.
Back in October, producer Ian James took to YouTube to explain how he coined the track’s beat. Inspired by the sound of MF DOOM, James’ first version of the beat was created in 2022 by fluke. It was a last-minute panic, pieced together just to upload something for his followers. “It was like 6:00 in the morning… I’m scrambling through my record collection, trying to find drum breaks to chop up, trying to find samples,” he recalled.

READ MORE: It looks like Spotify lossless audio is coming later this year

He’d set himself a goal to post a new beat every day, and he’d realised he’d forgotten to make something that day. Luckily, he came across a vinyl of Paul Nice’s 5 Fingers Of Death. “I was going through it, and I was like ‘ooo, this has some drums, this has some a sample I can chop up,” he said. “So, I’m making the beat… and I’m super tired. [Eventually,] I’m like man, this beat’s not finished, but I’m just kind of stuck.”

The original beat is called MF DOOM Type Beat – Golden, and can still be found on his YouTube. Despite James not being fully satisfied, it gained traction online. With thousands of people loving the beat, James felt like he was on to a winner. “So, I pitched it around!” he explained.
Walking through the beat, he explains that the original beat was created from a single stab from a sample. Unfortunately, label didn’t have much time to clear the original sample – but it was a quick fix, as James just tweaked one chord. “Luckily, all I had to do was replay one chord and then just pitch it back around!” he said.

Elsewhere, he points out more Paul Nice samples – like the opening vocal snippet of “hey, I thought it was all over.” There’s also another vocal chop right as the beat drops to heighten the “impact”, in James’ words, as well as scratch splices, horn samples, and vocals with added delay.
Throughout, James is adamant that the beat is “simple.” Besides the samples, there’s kick drums, snares and hi-hats, and a simple bassline. “You don’t need to do anything crazy!” he insisted. “You don’t have to have all these layers, it just has to have a vibe… don’t overthink it.”

The post “It was like six in the morning…”: How Ian James produced the beat for Doechii’s Denial Is A River appeared first on MusicTech.

University lecturer claims to have created a new dance genre using AI – but does it sound that new?Lecturer by day, DJ by night, Dr. Somdip Dey has spent years researching how AI might impact the music industry. While his Data Science research at York St John focuses primarily on generative AI and large language models, his latest project could potentially revolutionise EDM forever.
With the help of AI, Dr. Dey has analysed current trends to predict the next successful EDM sub-genre. After processing festival lineups, streaming numbers, online social media popularity and news coverage, the AI cherry-picked the most popular sonic elements and structures. The final product is, in theory, the future of EDM: Infinity Wave.

READ MORE: AI training on copyrighted content ruled not “fair use” by US court – how could this impact the music industry?

Using the AI findings as a guide, Dr. Dey himself then produced the world’s first Infinity Wave track released under the lecturer’s DJ alias, InteliDey. I Don’t Think is EDM on hyperdrive, melding melodic techno with a sprinkle of progressive house. It’s a track bursting with trance-y beat drops, with a thumping beat well-worthy of a packed dance floor.

This isn’t InteliDey’s first time working with AI, either. Back in April 2022, InteliDey released the entirely AI-generated Twerk That Ass, and in 2021 he also released Wake Me Up For The Party.
However, Infinity Wave strives to remain human-produced. The AI research is merely intended to help pinpoint what audiences want. “Infinity Wave introduces an entirely new production methodology that bridges traditional electronic music production with AI-enhanced creative insights,” Dr. Dey explains. “I actively encourage students to experiment with AI as a tool for ideation and sound design.”

The project will not only push forward Dr. Dey’s personal research, but also inspire his students. “Infinity Wave presents an exciting intersection of music and technology that directly benefits our students,” Dr Dey explains. “My research into AI-driven music analysis showcases how machine learning and big data can be applied to the creative industries.”
“Students at York St John are increasingly exploring how AI can generate insights beyond traditional sectors, and Infinity Wave offers a real-world case study,” he concludes.
Dr. Dey’s work is a peek into how AI’s data analysis skills could pave the future for music. And this is only the beginning of Dr. Dey’s musical journey; he hopes to expand the world of Infinity Wave. In the future, he plans to fine-tune “visuals, lighting and evolving landscapes” for a fully immersive live experience.
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Brian Eno: “I am probably one of the most prominent turd polishers in the business”According to Brian Eno, you should never delete even your most horrendous musical creations as you never know when they may come in handy.
Eno himself never deletes anything, with his logic behind keeping and working on his most tragic drafts is that they can’t really get any worse. Because of this, he’s sometimes able to work them into something completely different or even use just a part of a piece for another project.

READ MORE: Brian Eno: “‘Why do we like music?’ is as interesting as ‘How did the universe start?’”

MusicTech attended a series of workshops from Eno ran by the School of Song earlier this year, where he advised participants to work on their crappy demos: Try to polish a turd,” he said. “I am probably one of the most prominent turd polishers in the business.”
Eno also confessed that he’s got thousands of song ideas that he’s collected over the years, and though you may need some strong organisational skills to keep hold of all your off-cuts, it’s a method that he believes can be really useful. He further explained, “I don’t ever let anything go out of play, the point about the archive is to keep all the saucepans on the stove… Sometimes I will give it a title like, ‘Possibly the shittest piece of music I’ve ever done.’”

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A post shared by Brian Eno (@brianeno)

Eno is known for his unconventional and freeing approaches to making music – the ambient legend has previously shared that he loves to use gear in ways it wasn’t designed for: “Most equipment is invented to do an existing job faster, or cheaper, more cleanly, or more easily,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Financial Times. “What I like to do is to discover what you can do with it that isn’t historical – something that it wasn’t designed for, something new (I’m sure the inventors of early microphones didn’t anticipate that their tools would lead to totally new ways of singing, just as the inventors of multitrack recording probably didn’t imagine Bohemian Rhapsody).”
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Music mashup creation tool MashApp launches in the US with licensing deals from all three major labelsMashApp, a new music mashup tool, is now available in the US via the Apple App Store, with licensing deals from all three major labels.
The app allows users to easily mash popular hits together without the need for extensive music production knowledge. It hosts a catalogue of tracks from labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group (including Warner Chappell Music and Warner Recorded Music), as well as Kobalt Music and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG). Featured artists include the likes of Peggy Gou, Doja Cat, Dom Dolla, and a whole lot more.

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Artists, songwriters and rightsholders are provided with content attribution for all user creations made within the app. Users can weave together tracks available through the platform into a single, personalised playback, and can experiment with simple, intuitive settings for duration, start and end points, plus the use of vocals, instruments, and tools for tempo adjustments.
Fans can also share web links to allow MashApp’s userbase to experience their audio combinations as well as follow other creators on the app. Members of the MashApp community can use parts of select tracks and listen to ‘mashups’ for free, or subscribe to MashApp’s Premium tier for unlimited, ad-free mashup listening and to unlock the app’s “full creative potential.”
Check out the video below to see how it works:

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A post shared by MashApp (@mashappmusic)

“MashApp’s mission is to bring the joy of playing with music creation to non-musicians, to let people play with their favourite music, as they have long done through DJing, mix tapes, mashups, and karaoke,” comments MashApp CEO and founder, Ian Henderson (a former Spotify executive). “We want this new creative play to be a great experience for fans, but also for artists. This requires close partnerships with record labels and music publishers, and we’re excited that our partners have embraced our vision.”
Find out more about MashApp or download it now from the US Apple App Store.
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Facebook is deleting all live streams: Act Now!Facebook is deleting all live streams and live video recordings that are 30 days old or older starting on February 19th.
The post Facebook is deleting all live streams: Act Now! appeared first on Hypebot.

Study shows major growth in Patreon Creator incomeThere have been a major growth in Patreon creator income, according to the new State of Create report based on internal data from its creator community.
The post Study shows major growth in Patreon Creator income appeared first on Hypebot.

Analog Obsession Just Released FREE Attractor Dynamics Plugin for Mac and Windows
Developer Analog Obsession is back with its latest release – Attractor, a dynamic processor with transient manipulation for Mac and Windows (VST3/AU/AAX). Analog Obsession has released a swathe of free plugins in the last couple of years, gaining a solid reputation among both professionals and hobbyists in the audio community. The developer is perhaps best known [...]
View post: Analog Obsession Just Released FREE Attractor Dynamics Plugin for Mac and Windows