#MadeWithComposerCloud - EastWest giveaway Creators are being invited to submit musical pieces that have been made using EastWest instruments to be in with a chance of winning one of 50 one-year ComposerCloud+ subscriptions.

Talks from Spotify, TikTok and YouTube will feature in ADE’s Essential Insider Knowledge SeriesAmsterdam Dance Event has announced a new series of keynotes and talks, the Essential Insider Knowledge Series, which is set to feature industry insights from leaders at TikTok, Spotify, YouTube, Beatport, and TuneCore.

READ MORE: Avicii’s Wake Me Up hits two billion Spotify streams

This new series, which will be part of ADE’s new strictly industry-focused programme ADE Pro, will feature TikTok’s Global Head of Music, Ole Obermann. Obermann will share useful insights and strategies adopted by the global platform.
ADE-goers will also be able to discover how music communities are forming on YouTube via YouTube’s Mathieu Rousselot and the head of STMPD RCRDS, Coen Calkhoven.
Top-level names from major streaming platform Spotify are also set to “demystify the platform’s vast opportunities and provide hands-on tools to empower artists and music professionals alike”.
Electronic music distribution and production will be discussed by Beatport’s SVP of Creator Services, Helen Sartory. And, rather excitingly, TuneCore’s CEO, Andreea Gleeson, will explore the link between music creation and AI.
ADE Pro 2022 / Credit: James Ryan
In July, ADE revealed a string of immersive experiences and exclusive performances for the 2023 edition, including a deep immersion masterclass and audiovisual performance by Max Cooper.
Amsterdam really does care about dance music, with the city’s mayor recently saying that nightlife plays a “significant role in the renewal of Amsterdam’s culture”. Earlier this month, Dutch officials pledged to give €2.2 million to nightlife institutions over the next four years in a bid to boost the city’s nightlife scene.
Don’t know about ADE? Taking place from 18 – 22 October 2023, ADE is an annual city-wide event taking place in multiple venues throughout the Dutch capital. Regarded as probably the biggest date in the calendar for the global electronic music industry, each year the city is dominated by music tech brands, record labels, events brands and artists who deliver panel talks, workshops, exhibitions and gigs.
Find out more information and buy tickets to ADE at amsterdam-dance-event.nl.
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InMusic seeks to block AlphaTheta Corporation’s $100m Serato acquisitionUS audio equipment manufacturer InMusic has threatened legal action in several countries in an attempt to block the acquisition of Serato by AlphaTheta, Pioneer DJ’s parent company.

READ MORE: “Now you can do an orchestral piece on a computer with 200 tracks – but it’s good to impose your own restrictions”: Calvin Harris on the benefits of limitation in music production

AlphaTheta announced the $100-plus million buyout last month and said in a statement that both AlphaTheta and Serato will continue to operate as standalone companies after the deal.
Significantly, the move brings under the same umbrella Serato and Rekordbox DJ, which together account for a massive 90% of market share in the DJ software business.
Concerned that the buyout will “eliminate competition”, InMusic has taken out full-page advertorials in New Zealand media to publicise its position. The company says that it will be forced to discontinue a 20-year partnership with Serato (InMusic uses Sertao software in its DJ controllers) should the deal go through, given that Pioneer DJ is a direct manufacturing rival.
“When we work with Serato, we give them our product up to a year ahead of time so they can analyse it and put the software in. If I was handing it to the new dominant player, I’m essentially handing it to my competitor,” InMusic CEO Jack O’Donnell told The Auckland Post.
“I am quite confident what’s happening here and it’s an outrage as far as I’m concerned,” he continued. “In any market when you eliminate competition, it has an effect on consumers. It’s going to raise prices, eliminate innovation and limit choice. So it’s a big thing for a small industry.”
Speaking to the press, O’Donnell said that InMusic had “engaged legal representation in the US, UK, and Japan”.
“While New Zealand is the battleground, this is a global fight, as this is a global issue,” he said. “We’re in early discussions with them, but we think we have legal grounds to fight in multiple jurisdictions.”
As of now, the buyout is still subject to approval by the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office.
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YouTube is testing a search by hum feature on Android devicesYouTube is currently testing a new search tool which allows users to track down music by humming or recording a song that is currently being played.
The search tool rivals Apple-owned music search tool Shazam, which the tech giant acquired in 2018. Shazam, however, can’t recognise a song you hum yourself, but only a song being played.

READ MORE: YouTube partners with Universal Music Group to develop AI tools that offer “safe, responsible and profitable” opportunities to music rights holders

YouTube’s search by hum tool is currently available to Android users only, and is confirmed by the video sharing and music app on its official help page, as of 22 August.
YouTube says that those in the experiment can toggle from the voice search feature to the new song search feature, where here you can record a playing track or hum a song. You’ll need to do this for at least three seconds, from which it will then suggest relevant music content, user-generated videos and possibly even YouTube Shorts (its rival to TikTok).
The company says it is rolling out this feature to a “small percentage” of users across the globe who use Android devices.
Google, the parent company of YouTube, launched the hum-to-search capability across the Google app, Google Search widget and Google Assistant back in 2020. YouTube’s offering appears to be slightly more advanced though, as Google’s version required a much longer 10-15 seconds of humming to identify a song.
It has not been specified exactly how the new YouTube search tool works, but Google rolled out its own AI tool, Music LM, back in May this year. Users can feed Music LM text prompts such as “soulful jazz” or “a calming violin melody backed by a distorted guitar riff” for it to create two versions of a song for you. Users can then vote on which one of the tracks they like better, which serves to “help improve the model”.
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Andrew Huang teams up with Baby Audio on new FX plugin, TransitProducer extraordinaire Andrew Huang has teamed up with Baby Audio to create Transit, a multi-effects plugin that will give your mix “transitions super powers”.

READ MORE: AI-powered music creation app Moises launches new tools for easier production

Transit hosts 18 powerful effect-modules, freely loadable across 7 slots. You get classic modulation effects, distortion and degradation options, motion FX, reverb, delay, two filter types – and even a synth oscillator and noise generator for adding risers and sweeps to your transitions. All effect parameters can be linked to a global Macro Control, which you automate to create complex FX transitions with one knob movement.
There’s also a Sequencer Mode allowing users to program and trigger DAW-synced automations at the click of a button. Perfect for live use or for writing perfectly timed automations into your mix session without entering the automation lanes.
In addition, Transit comes preloaded with more than 300 presets created by Huang and sound designers at Baby Audio. Users can also get creative with a flexible randomisation engine that lets you set specific random-ranges and lock modules/ parameters to only randomise certain parts of the plugin.
“We wanted to create a type of plugin that hadn’t been done before – one that would make it easier and more creative to dial-in the transitions and ‘ear candy’ that modern tracks rely on,” a statement from Baby Audio reads. “Transit delivers on this idea, and its semi-modular architecture, along with 300+ high quality presets, makes it as deep or as fast as you need it to be.”
“Initially the concept was about speeding up the workflow when you’re creating transitions in songs, but as the development process went on, we just kept discovering new, really cool possibilities with it,” Huang says, adding that he’d had this plugin idea “kicking around for a while”.
“And then I decided there’s no way I could make it myself. And when I started thinking about who I’d want to collaborate on with it, Baby Audio was at the top of my list just for their sound quality, their aesthetic… So I reached out to them and it was just this amazing moment of serendipity because they got back to me and they were like, ‘hey, we were actually thinking of reaching out to you just because we think you have cool ideas and maybe you’d wanna do a plugin together.’”
The plugin is compatible with all major DAWs for Mac and PC and is fully Mac M1 native.
You can now pick up Transit at an intro price of $59 (U.P $99).

Learn more at babyaud.io
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BLEASS Fusion’s wavetables open up a near-limitless world of distortion for $20There are many different degrees of audio distortion, ranging from supremely subtle to devastatingly destructive – and within that range exists an infinite potential for tone and character variation. Most plugins therefore hone in on a particular flavour of distortion, such as tape saturation, valve overdrive, or bit crushing.

READ MORE: IK Multimedia’s UNO Synth Pro X is what the synth community deserved from the start

Fusion, the latest desktop and iOS plugin from French developer BLEASS, promises to do the lot (and a bit more).
Wavetable waveshaping
Fusion uses waveshaper processing to distort audio. Waveshaping works by applying a mathematical shaping function to a source signal to reshape (distort) it. That shaping function is usually derived from a static waveform, with the shape of that waveform determining the intensity, tone and character of the resulting distortion.

Fusion is not unusual in using waveshaping for distortion; many plugins use it to emulate the sound of different types of analogue distortion, and some even let you choose from a selection of waveforms to vary the sound of their effect. But Fusion has a unique quirk that takes this concept to a new level: it sources its shaping waveforms from a selection of 58 wavetables.

BLEASS already developed a powerful wavetable engine for its acclaimed Megalit synth, and it has repurposed the same engine for use in Fusion. Like any wavetable engine, BLEASS’ design allows you to extract different waveforms from the wavetable by adjusting the wavetable position.
When applied to the world of waveshaping, this means you can, for example, morph a distortion from a gentle soft clipping to an intense tube saturation, so long as you have a suitable wavetable.

The engine also features wavetable folding, a technique that compresses or stretches the wavetable’s waveforms either symmetrically around the centre point or asymmetrically from beginning to end.
When operating symmetrically, this tends to impact the intensity of the distortion, with lower fold values equating to more intense distortions. In asymmetric mode, the impact tends to be more radical and unpredictable. All told, this adds completely new dimensions to the different distortion characters that can be teased out from any of the included wavetables, or from your own custom wavetables, which Fusion is able to import.

Distorting signals can lead to some very loud levels, and one of Fusion’s few shortcomings is its lack of a limiter. This can surprise you with sudden intense blasts of sound when loading presets and adjusting settings. The master output gain isn’t stored and recalled with presets, though, so you can dial in some protective headroom when needed.
Shaping the waveshaper
You can shape the base distortion tones with a pair of resonant multimode filters. The first offers high-pass, bell and notch modes, while the second filter replaces the high-pass option with a low-pass.
BLEASS Fusion filters. Image: BLEASS
Each filter can be switched to operate pre or post the waveshaper’s effect.
In the pre position, a filter allows particular frequencies to be driven harder (or softer) into the waveshaper, which significantly impacts the tone and character of the resulting distortion.
In the post position, the filters shape the spectrum of the distorted signal, removing low-end woolliness and high-end fizz, for example. Further tonal variations are possible thanks to each filter’s independent input gains and wet/dry mix controls.
The filters sport the standard BLEASS design, with an interactive visualiser that lets you control the cutoff and resonance of both bands with a drag of the mouse or finger. This is very intuitive, especially when using the iOS version of the plugin, but it can feel a little bit inexact too. We were pleased, therefore, to see that BLEASS has added cutoff and resonance dials to its standard filter design as an alternative, more accurate, method of setting filter parameters.
Modulated movement
Having an apparently limitless pool of different distortions at your fingertips is powerful, but a sound can quickly become boring if it’s static and unchanging. This is where Fusion’s various modulators come in handy.
The pair of advanced LFOs which, like the wavetable engine, are taken from Megalit, allow you to create surprisingly complex modulation patterns. This is thanks to their Time Shape and Smoothing parameters, which can run freely or be synced to the host DAW. For dynamic modulations that respond to transients within the input signal, there’s also a simple envelope follower.
The final modulator is a built-in pattern sequencer. Patterns can consist of up to 16 steps in length, and each step can produce either a static modulation value, or a ramping one that changes over the duration of the step.
BLEASS Fusion modulators. Image: BLEASS
Fusion’s sequencer only syncs to the host DAW – it can’t be induced to free-wheel – but it can add a randomising factor to the values it creates, and automatically smooth the changes between values. What we particularly enjoy here is how easy it is to create really juicy, rhythmic effects by using the sequencer to drive the wavetable position and fold, and/or the filter cutoffs.
You can route each modulator to any two destination parameters with varying strength and polarity. This does sometimes feel limited though, especially when it comes to the pattern sequencer which just cries out to be mapped all over the plugin. On the other hand, this limitation helps minimise the plugin’s resource usage (a common BLEASS feature) and ensures patches never become overly complicated.
BLEASS Fusion sequencer. Image: BLEASS
The full gamut
It’s only when you’re presented with so many different characters of distortion – and so many ways of tweaking, adjusting and evolving them – all in one place, that you really start to appreciate just how vast and deep the world of distortion truly is.
The most remarkable thing about BLEASS Fusion is that it can run this entire distortion gamut, from smooth valve saturation to hard-edged transistor trashiness, from subtle colouration to full-on frequency frying, and from the lightest sprinkle of fizz to the most depraved depths of sonic destruction. And you get all of this for less than $20!
Key features

Waveshaping distortion plugin for AAX, AU, AUv3 and VST hosts
Desktop and iOS versions; Apple Silicon native
58 included wavetables plus custom wavetable import
2 multi-mode filters
2 LFO, envelope follower and sequencer modulators
Low system resource footprint
Price: Desktop: $19.99 / €19.99; iOS: $9.99 / €9.99
Download: bleass.com

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Transit plug-in from Baby Audio Baby Audio's latest plug-in, Transit, has been designed as the ultimate all-in-one toolkit for creating interesting transitions between song sections. 

Multichain wallet Exodus posts $12.4M revenue, $1.9M net income in Q2In the quarter ended June 30, Exodus' revenue declined by 4% year-over-year, but its results were boosted by 6% cost reductions.

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Nvidia is flying high thanks to AIWhen Nvidia announced eye-popping earnings on Wednesday with three-digit year-over-year growth, it was easy to get caught up in the excitement. The company brought in $13.5 billion for the quarter, up 101% over the prior year, and well over its $11 billion guidance. That’s certainly something to get excited about.
Nvidia is benefiting from being a company in the right place at the right time, where its GPU chips are in high demand to run large language models and other AI-fueled workloads. That in turn is driving Nvidia’s astonishing growth this quarter. (It’s worth noting that the company set the groundwork for its current success some time ago.)
“​​Data center compute revenue nearly tripled year on year, driven primarily by accelerating demand for cloud from cloud service providers and large consumer internet companies for our HGX platform, the engine of generative and large language models,” Colette Kress, Nvidia’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said in the post-earnings report call with analysts.
This kind of growth brings to mind the heady days of cloud stocks, some of which soared during the pandemic lockdown as companies accelerated their usage of SaaS to keep their workers connected. Zoom, in particular, took off with five quarters of absolutely astonishing growth during that time.
Zoom pandemic fueled growth. Image Credits: TechCrunch
Today, even double-digit growth is long gone. For its most recent report earlier this month, the company reported revenue of $1.138 billion, up 3.6% over the prior year. That follows five straight quarters of single-digit growth, the last three in the low single digits.
Could Zoom possibly be a cautionary tale for a company like Nvidia riding the generative AI wave? And perhaps more importantly, will this drive unreasonable investor expectations about future performance as it did with Zoom?
Data center demand isn’t going anywhere
It’s interesting to note that Nvidia’s biggest growth area is in the data center, and that web scalers are still building at a rapid pace with plans to add over 300 new data centers in the coming years, per a Synergy Research report from March 2022.
“The future looks bright for hyperscale operators, with double-digit annual growth in total revenues supported in large part by cloud revenues that will be growing in the 20-30% per year range. This in turn will drive strong growth in capex generally and in data center spending specifically,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group, in a statement about the report.
At least some percentage of this spending will surely be devoted to resources for running AI workloads, and Nvidia should benefit from that, CEO Jensen Huang told analysts on Wednesday. In fact, he believes that his company’s expansive growth is much more than a flash in the pan.
“There’s about $1 trillion worth of data centers, call it, a quarter of trillion dollars of capital spend each year. You’re seeing that data centers around the world are taking that capital spend and focusing it on the two most important trends of computing today: accelerated computing and generative AI,” Huang said. “And so I think this is not a near-term thing. This is a long-term industry transition, and we’re seeing these two platform shifts happening at the same time.”
If he’s right, perhaps the company can sustain this level of growth, but history suggests that what goes up must eventually come down.
Business gravity
If Zoom is any indication, some businesses that see rapid growth for one reason or another can hold onto that revenue in the future. While it’s certainly less exciting for investors that Zoom’s growth rate has sharply moderated in recent quarters, it’s also true that Zoom has continued to grow. That means it has retained all its prior scale and then some.

European concert and ticketing firm CTS EVENTIM generated €1bn in the first six months of 2023Revenue haul marked the first time the company generated in excess of €1 billion within a six-month period
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5 vocal production and songwriting tips from NERVO
DJ and production duo NERVO (Kylie Minogue, Steve Aoki) sat down with us to share five timeless vocal production and songwriting tips.

Word Collections secures $5m in funding from investors led by Metallica’s Black Squirrel PartnersFunds will be used to accelerate Word Collections’ global direct licensing business
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Sony Playstation is acquiring Audeze, maker of planar-magnetic studio headphonesEsteemed headphone manufacturer Audeze is set to be acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment, with a focus on PlayStation.
READ MORE: Sony’s MDR-MV1 headphones offer a stunning insight into your mixes and masters
In a statement released today (24 August), Sony announced that it has “entered into an agreement to acquire Audeze.” The California-based tech giant said that the purchase will assist in the innovation of audio experiences of PlayStation games.
Audeze will continue to operate independently, which likely means it will continue to build its high-end planar magnetic studio headphones, such as the £1,699 Manny MM-500s.
However, elsewhere in Audeze’s catalogue is a selection of award-winning “audiophile gaming headphones.” Also built with planar magnetic tech, these headphones – such as the Maxwells – offer 24-bit, 96kHz via wifi dongle, plus Dolby Atmos capabilities.
Audeze x Microsoft Ultraviolet Maxwell.Image: Audeze
On the latter, Sony’s senior vice president of platform experience, Hideaki Nishino says: “We’re excited to bring Audeze’s expertise into the PlayStation ecosystem, building on the great strides we’ve made with PlayStation 5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech and the Pulse 3D wireless headset.”
Meanwhile, Audeze’s CEO Sankar Thiagasamudram suggest that the acquisition will provide the brand with opportunities to expand its business and amp up PlayStation’s audio tech.
“Sony Interactive provides Audeze with a unique opportunity to scale our business, as we continue with our mission to deliver best-in-class headphones to recording professionals, audiophiles, and gamers.”
“We’re also looking forward to contributing to Sony Interactive’s efforts to take PlayStation audio experiences to the next level.”
Previously, Audeze has collaborated with one of Sony’s main competitors, Microsoft, on limited-edition headphones for the Xbox. Sony’s press statement suggests that, as its fellow California-based company is still operating independently, it will continue to collaborate with Sony’s competition. No doubt Sony and Audeze co-branded products are in the works, though.
Sony has recently been in the news for another announcement: PlayStation Portal, a new handheld gaming device to accompany the PS5.
The statement ends, “Terms of this transaction, including the acquisition cost, are not disclosed due to contractual commitments.”
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Scotland’s first-ever vinyl pressing plant set to arrive in the autumnScotland is set to welcome its first ever vinyl pressing plant later this year.
Seabass Vinyl is an independent, family-owned pressing plant launched by Dominique and David Harvey, and it’s set to open in October at the Macmerry Industrial Estate in Tranent, East Lothian. They’re hoping to press between 50,000 and 60,000 records each month once they’ve got things set up properly, and want to become one of the greenest plants in the world too.

READ MORE: US vinyl record sales increased by 21.7 per cent in the first half of 2023

“We’re artist-centric with an emphasis on quality and sustainability,” they said to Resident Advisor. “We offer fair prices, short production runs and optimised production lead times.
“Our ambition is to become a valuable partner to artists and the music industry in general, as well as our local community. We’ve recently been announced as a partner of the Scottish Album of the Year award and will be pressing the records for the winner of the Sound of Young Scotland award free of charge.”
While Seabass Vinyl is yet to launch, they’re already active on Instagram. On there, Dominique and David have shared a glimpse of the plans for the plant.

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A post shared by Seabass Vinyl (@seabassvinyl)

It’s been in the works since at least 2022, when the first post on the Instagram account was posted, telling followers to “Watch that space”. According to a post from April this year, the company was blocked for six months as it waiting for confirmation that the plant could be built, and wasn’t going to be on a coal mine.

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A post shared by Seabass Vinyl (@seabassvinyl)

And it’s coming at a good time, too. Just under a year ago, vinyl became the UK’s second biggest selling physical format, overtaking PlayStation games. It’s overtaken CDs and DVDs too – it’s only Nintendo Switch games that are currently selling more copies.
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