Producers: You can now sample Billie Eilish’s vocal stems — and win exclusive prizes for itBillie Eilish has released an isolated vocals version of her new album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, for producers to sample and remix. Better yet, a remix competition with BandLab and Interscope means you can flip her vocals and win exclusive prizes.
READ MORE: Fabiana Palladino is balancing perfectionism and knowing when to let go
You can download the isolated vocals version of the album by purchasing the Exclusive Digital Album for $7.50 via Eilish’s website — the vocal stems are bundled in with the sale.  The download is reportedly a  205mb ZIP folder that contains each song’s vocal stems as an MP3 file.
Once you’ve got the vocals and remixed them to your taste, you can head to this BandLab post and enter the competition. According to BandLab and Interscope, you can submit your song by leaving a comment on the post and linking to whichever online hosting platform you’ve uploaded it to.
So — what’s up for grabs? According to the post, BandLab and Interscope will be “picking one lucky winner to take home an exclusive merch pack with a “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT” vinyl autographed by Billie, and a pair of tickets to her upcoming tour.”
The competition ends on June 28 2024, so you’ve got some time to upload your track. To access the vocals, you’ll need to be logging in from a US or Australian residence. Also, it’s important to remember that, even after uploading the track for the remix competition, you should clear any samples through Eilish’s label if you wish to distribute your remix.

Billie Eilish has released an isolated vocals version 'HIT ME HARD AND SOFT'.
Containing no instrumentation, only vocals. pic.twitter.com/cxIcgOe1y5
— chart data (@chartdata) May 19, 2024

The pop superstar’s third studio album arrived on 17 May and is already dominating the charts. Her brother and production partner, FINNEAS, says that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is his “favourite thing I’ve ever been a part of making.
“There were so many times during the making of it that I thought we’d never finish it or had no idea what we were doing I lost count- just goes to show- when you’re in it, you might just have to try to keep swimming- you can only really see the ocean once you’re on the shore.
“I’m going offline now because what you all think of this album is your business, not mine but I really do hope you like it- we make everything with you in mind and we owe it all to you- thanks for the sick job/life. We’re so lucky”
Find out more at Billie Eilish’s website.
[Editor’s note: MusicTech and BandLab are part of Caldecott Music Group.]
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Tabletop Handybot is Handy, And Powered By AIDecently useful AI has been around for a little while now, and robotic arms have been around much longer. Yet somehow, we don’t have little robot helpers on our desks yet! Thankfully, [Yifei] is working towards that reality with Tabletop Handybot.
What [Yifei] has developed is a robotic arm that accepts voice commands. The robot relies on a Realsense D435 RGB-D camera, which provides color vision with depth information as well. Grounding DINO is used for object detection on the RGB images. Segment Anything and Open3D are used for further processing of the visual and depth data to help the robot understand what it’s looking at. Meanwhile, voice commands are interpreted via OpenAI Whisper, which can feed prompts to ChatGPT for further processing.
[Yifei] demonstrates his robot picking up markers on command, which is a pretty cool demo. With so many modern AI tools available, we’re getting closer to the ideal of robots that can understand and execute on general spoken instructions. This is a great example. We may not be all the way there yet, but perhaps soon. Video after the break.

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ADK Microphones redesign Z2-Mod series ADK Microphones have announced a design overhaul of their flagship microphone series. 

SUPERBOOTH24: SOMA Laboratory FLUX FLUX is a performance instrument that uses handheld magnets to offer Theremin-style control over pitch and volume, while leaving a hand free for modulation.

“There are very few companies respecting intellectual property rights in this space”: Producer BT blasts “abhorrent” misuse of AI technology in musicAI in music continues to be a hotly contested topic, with some optimistic of its potential to streamline the creative process, and others critical of its lack of regulation and the exploitative nature of some artificial intelligence companies.
In a wide-ranging new conversation with MusicTech, US producer Brian Wayne Transeau – better known as BT – speaks at length about his opinions on AI in music, offering a measured viewpoint that takes into account both sides of the argument.

READ MORE: BT goes deep on his plugins: “There isn’t a producer on the planet that won’t want this” 

First, he takes aim at the “abhorrent misuse” of AI by companies which don’t obtain consent or respect the intellectual property rights of artists.
“I’m a strong believer that the future of music is human,” he says. “I also strongly believe in consensual, ethically trained AI, and there are very few companies respecting intellectual property rights in this space. Some are flagrantly flaunting their first-to-market status from trading text-to-music models by scraping Spotify and YouTube.
“I find this an abhorrent misuse of this technology, one which I believe that, when used responsibly, will unlock infinite creative potential in the next generation of music creators.”
He goes on: “Our large label music partners told us a story about a CEO that came to see them (probably a service you have heard of) where they are clearly in violation of training on IP-protected works just to speed-run a product to market. They asked them how they had trained and he said, ‘We would rather ask for forgiveness than permission.’
“This kind of thinking and irresponsibility could destroy music. Full stop. We must rally against this kind of unbelievable irresponsibility in the development community.”
Image: Lucy Transeau
BT is, however, optimistic about the way AI could enhance music production and creation in the future, but stresses that litigation to combat exploitation is crucial if artists are to benefit as best they can.
“For artists that have a large corpus of work, through a lot of new laws, litigation and the music industry sticking together, they will have a completely new ancillary revenue stream unlocked,” he says. 
“This will be through allowing consensual training on their work and fractionalised revenue share model for different types of tasks, engineering, patch making, and things that are real friction points in the music creation process that take us out of ‘flow’ while we create.
“I’m thrilled about tools that will fairly reward artists they are trained on that unlock brand-new possibilities for young and seasoned artists alike… There are unimaginable future technologies that all artists, singers, producers and engineers will love to use because they do groundbreaking things they currently don’t have access to.”
“So my measured TL;DR answer is: The future is bright and we must as a community (musicians) proactively control and be involved in the narrative of what is acceptable, what is ethical and all couched in a reverence and respect for the large bodies of work created that are needed to train on for effective new tools. There is a lot to look forward to.”
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SUPERBOOTH24: Rodec Audio MX Modular Legendary Belgian mixer manufacturers Rodec Audio are back with the MX Modular performance console, here giving us a quick demo of all the features on the third day of Superbooth 2024.

Arturia announces software version of its MiniBrute synthesizerArturia has unveiled the MiniBrute V, a software recreation of its popular MiniBrute analogue synth.
With an expanded polyphony, a built-in FX rack and classic features like the Steiner-Parker filter preserved, the MiniBrute V is said to deliver the “unruly and aggressive character” of the original while enhancing its usability.

READ MORE: Sony Music sends letter to over 700 firms over concerns they “may already have made unauthorised uses” of its music to train AI

Unlike its hardware predecessor, the MiniBrute V is an 8-voice polysynth, with the option to switch to mono mode for classic monophonic sounds.
There are 4 FX slots available, with 17 FX types to further shape and enhance your sound. Users can mix up to 4 different wave shapes and a sub-oscillator for added punch, and with an expertly curated library of over 150 presets (ranging from classic analogue tones to experimental sounds) to choose from, the results are practically limitless.
The software version also boasts a highly intuitive interface that’s inspired by the original MiniBrute “but with a modern twist”, featuring a sleek 3D hardware design in line with Arturia’s ‘Noir’ aesthetic. The envelope speeds switch has been removed, allowing the envelopes to go from their fastest setting (1ms) to their slowest one (25s). There’s also an added dedicated Velocity modulation to both the Amp Envelope and Filter Envelope.
According to Arturia, the differences of response of the original MiniBrute have been modelled inside the dispersion panel under the ‘wave’ parameter. So make sure to play around with the parameter when trying to match your own hardware unit.
In related news, Arturia has released the PolyBrute 12, a polyphonic analogue hardware synth boasting an expanded 12-voice architecture and the inclusion of a FullTouch MPE keyboard.
Learn more at Arturia.
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Billie Eilish used TikTok Fan Spotlight, and now all musicians canBillie Eilish was the first to use TikTok’s new free ‘Fan Spotlight’ feature, and now every musician can. Fan Spotlight enables musicians to pin up to five fan-created videos to. Continue reading
The post Billie Eilish used TikTok Fan Spotlight, and now all musicians can appeared first on Hypebot.

Questions musicians need to answer when meeting with a marketing teamMusic Biz Weekly co-host Jay Gilbert recently hosted a panel at the Music Biz conference. One of the questions he asked the panelists was: "When you first sit down with the artist and/or manager, what questions do you typically ask?".....
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Check out a Free Music Promotion Masterclass with Groover & SymphonicUnlock the secrets of using modern music marketing techniques to cut through the noise using expert promotion strategies from Groover and Symphonic. by Randi Zimmerman from Symphonic Feeling lost in. Continue reading
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BT goes deep on his plugins: “There isn’t a producer on the planet that won’t want this”Words: Sam Willings, Oliver Payne
BT is truly a music production polymath. That word gets thrown around a lot, but how many other Grammy-nominated producers and audio engineers are, writing code for their own plugins, starting software companies, actively working for a fairer future for musicians and writing critically acclaimed music and soundtracks for movie and video games?
The 52-year-old has more projects on the horizon, too — new music, new plugins and new technologies are expected from BT, real name Brian Transeau. We caught up with Transeau for the first time in a few years, after appearing on our podcast and in another interview, to see what he’s been up to. Alongside his latest release with Shingo Nakamura, Lifeforce on Monstercat, it turns out he’s been up to quite a lot.

It’s been four years since we last spoke to you about music and synthesizers — what’s new?
Without too much of a reveal, we’ve spent the past 18 months starting a new software company, SoundLabs.
We closed our pre-seed round and have been diligently building some wildly new both traditional DSP and machine learning/AI technologies into a suite of plugins. I literally can not live without them at this point. They are totally game-changing technologies, none of which are public-facing technologies available to producers currently. To say I’m excited about them is the understatement of the century.
Image: Lucy Transeau
But, in addition to these three plugins, I’d say another plugin I can’t live without is Oeksound Soothe2. It’s one of the most useful plugins I’ve ever used. Every new version of that is an essential level-up in production for me.
Another essential I should mention is my collaboration with CableGuys. We’ve been working on a plugin for almost seven years (can’t believe it) that has changed shape a couple of times. The final (new) release candidate is something so simple and elegant, that there isn’t a producer on the planet that won’t want this, regardless of the type of music you make.
You’ve got a lot of studio gear. At what point in your production process are plugins making an appearance? Is it when creating the music or only in editing, mixing and mastering?
My DAW autoloads/templates have hundreds of plugins in them — from bus mastering to channel strip, limiting, compression, and spectral sidechain configurations. So they’re there from the start.
Here’s an example: the Roland Jupiter-8 is normaled through an EAR 660 compressor into a Lynx Aurora(n) interface. I can break this normal, but they are such a lovely pairing. In the autoloads, there’s a Softube and Plugin Alliance channel strip configuration and starting EQ points. This channel normals to the synth bus with a clip limiter, some saturation plugins and out to stereo compression (outboard) and finally to a Trackspacer with spectral side chain normaled to my drum bus.
Image: Lucy Transeau
The setups are so complex and refined that I really can sit down and write, and it just sounds like a record.
Once things are taking shape — I frequently do stem mixes — RX spectral artefacts, HPF, general audio repair and design and then flip all stems into a clean (different) autoload that is audio only. This is where more creative sound design plugins come into play.
My Cubase/Vienne Ensemble Pro setup is an interview in itself. It’s 3,200 instances of Kontakt and a plethora of software instruments summed to a 32-track stem template. It’s taken about 12 years to build to this point. It would be a fun one to show at a point.
You and Shingo Naramuka have created this incredible airy, elevated sensation in ‘Lifeforce’. Can you tell us more about its creation?
Shingo is lovely and such a talent. We had as much fun hiking, eating and talking as we did in the studio and it’s really reflected in the sound of that record. It was fairly effortless.

Shingo had a sketch we fleshed out with vintage synthesizers and then I wrote a new drop progression with some Spitfire Felt pianos (and crazy outboard signal path – I remember an Ensoniq DP4, Roland SRV-330 and 737 compressor were involved). I spent a lot of time on this one doing hand editing to final stems in RX before we had a master-ready copy we were excited about. Some of my secret plugins were used on this one as well.
You’re an advocate for – and collaborator with – iZotope. Which are your go-to iZotope products, aside from your own?
For me hands down RX and Stutter Edit 2. I absolutely LOVE the new Trash as well and am so excited they made that. I use that all the time.
Tell us about BreakTweaker and Stutter Edit. What was your role in the creation of these plugins and how do you use them yourself?
Well, this is a long story but my role, broadly, was showing up at former iZotope CEO Mark’s door with a million-line code base and two finished products. I developed these to completion myself and then licensed them to iZotope.
Image: Lucy Transeau
We’ve had a wonderful and fruitful relationship and we worked closely when (I went off to do the same again with Stutter Edit 2). I love developing music software as I find holes in my own personal creation process since I started making music professionally, that there is a needed new ‘thing’. It’s become one of the thrills of music creation for me, creating the tools to augment the process.
I’ve been programming since I was a kid — starting with BasicA and, believe it or not, Fortran. I studied Csound (my main prototyping language and what I have built all my generative music blockchain projects in) under Dr. Richard Boulanger at Berklee (formerly MIT). And regularly prototype in Csound, MAX/MSP, Pure Data and sometimes now just directly to JUCE.
I’ve gone pretty deep down the Python wormhole over the last three years in our AI plugins, too, so I can hack around in there pretty well now too.
Point is, in creating plugins, I’m not just dryboarding and delegating. I like to get my hands dirty doing the fun stuff too — coding.
iZotope RX in BT’s Studio. Image: Lucy Transeau
How are you feeling about the rise of AI implementation in music production tools?
I want to give a very nuanced answer here. I’m a strong believer that the future of music is human. I also strongly believe in consensual, ethically trained AI (across the board) and there are very few companies respecting intellectual property rights in this space. Some are flagrantly flaunting their first-to-market status from trading text to music models (which we don’t believe is a product) by scraping Spotify and YouTube.
I find this an abhorrent misuse of this technology, one which I believe that, when used responsibly, will unlock infinite creative potential in the next generation of music creators.
Our large label music partners told us a story about a CEO that came to see them (probably a service you have heard of) where they are clearly in violation of training on IP-protected works just to speedrun a product to market. They asked them how they had trained and he said, “We would rather ask for forgiveness than permission”. This kind of thinking and irresponsibility could destroy music. Full stop. We must rally against this kind of unbelievable irresponsibility in the development community.
Image: Lucy Transeau
Okay, so now the good stuff. For artists that have a large corpus of work, through a lot of new laws, litigation and the music industry sticking together, they will have a completely new ancillary revenue stream unlocked. This will be through allowing consensual training on their work and fractionalised revenue share model for different types of tasks, engineering, patch making, and things that are real friction points in the music creation process that take us out of “flow” while we create.
I’m thrilled about tools that will fairly reward artists they are trained on that unlock brand-new possibilities for young and seasoned artists alike.
Finally, the tools we are building, and things I see people building behind closed doors, are completely mind-blowing. There are unimaginable future technologies that all artists, singers, producers, and engineers will love to use because they do groundbreaking things they currently don’t have access to.
So my measured TL;DR answer is: The future is bright and we must as a community (musicians) proactively control and be involved in the narrative of what is acceptable, what is ethical and all couched in reverence and respect for the large bodies of work created that are needed to train on for effective new tools. There is a lot to look forward to.
What are your favourite examples of AI-integrated plugins?
There are none available that have impressed me aside from the obvious things in software like RX (dereverb). The things coming, though — WOW!
Image: Lucy Transeau
Check out what else BT is up to at btmusic.com.
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Love Hultén teases “percussive harmonic device” Crum2 – and it will be getting a production runAudiovisual artist Love Hultén has revealed a prototype for a brand new “percussive harmonic device” called Crum2.
Developed by Analog Sweden and Albert Nyström, and designed by Hultén himself in his usual sleek aesthetic, the product will eventually be getting a real production run. Two prototypes were shown at Superbooth last weekend, so it’s likely more work is yet to be done before then.

READ MORE: This alien-looking Love Hultén MIDI guitar comes with a built-in NESpoly synth

Little information is available on what Crum2 actually entails, but Analog Sweden’s website has a small list of prototype specs. It says the device has four channels with six sound engines each, percussive and melodic modes with a master scale, probability beat generation, plus step and live record.
There’s also randomisable parameters, a master offset performance control section, plus master reverb, delay and drive effects, and a whole lot more. Responding to a comment on Instagram in which a user says they hope it will go into production, Hultén has simply replied, “It will”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Love Hulten (@lovehulten)

As GearNews has spotted, Nyström currently sells a DIY four-voice drum machine called Crum Drum. It’s a drum synth with built-in randomisation and probability. So, given this new synth’s name, it looks as though it will be an evolution of that, with new melodic capabilities.
Get a closer look below:

Back in April, Hultén began crowdfunding for his first monograph titled Apparatrum. The book was set to offer an in-depth look into the idiosyncratic influences and inspirations behind his work. Unfortunately, the crowdfunder did not reach its goal and plans for publishing were called off. All hope is not lost though, as Hultén says he “might try this book in the future again”.
Keep an eye on MusicTech for more information on Crum2 as we get it. Find out more about Analog Sweden, Albert Nyström and Love Hultén.
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Producers have discovered the free plugin presets Justice used for their new album, HyperdramaSeveral music producers have recently uploaded videos to YouTube that break down Justice’s track, Generator, from their 2024 album Hyperdrama. And, surprisingly, it sounds like the French duo opted to use some preset patches from a bizarre free plugin released seven years ago.
The Grammy-winning group (Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé) seemingly downloaded Rave Generator 2, made by Christophe Tudela in 2017 as the follow-up to version 1 from 2014. As YouTuber Dylan Tallchief points out, Justice probably named the track after the plugin. It’s seems pretty likely, right?

READ MORE: “He was like, ‘I only work with people who use Pro Tools’”: Sarz says using Fruity Loops once cost him a job with one of Nigeria’s top artists

Justice’s use of Rave Generator’s presets wasn’t subtle, either. According to Tallchief and another channel, Synth No More, the track’s gritty intro synth is a preset called ‘Braincrash’. The hoover sound, that drops in just after, is the preset ‘Cubik.’ The bass part is a preset called ‘Overdub test’.

Dylan Tallchief recreates most of Generator, with pretty impressive results. He’s using mostly Rave Generator 2, of course, but also shows some of the production and arrangement techniques that Justice likely used.

We’d love to believe that Justice decided they’d make a rave-inspired track and just searched ‘rave plugins’ online, taking them to the Rave Generator 2 page.
For years, producers have battled online about whether you should look to presets to build your tracks or create your own patches to make original music. But it’s nice to be reminded that even some of the most celebrated electronic music producers on the planet are just using presets from a freebie. 
Justice haven’t been quiet about their use of free tools. According to a Pitchfork interview in 2008 (via MusicRadar), they were using GarageBand around the time their acclaimed debut album was released. They wouldn’t be the first Grammy winners to use GarageBand — Steve Lacy has been making hits on his iPhone using GarageBand for years. 
“It’s not the gear that matters. Do you get it now?”, asks one commenter on Synth No More’s video… Yeah. We get it.
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