Carl Cox is bored of DJing: “Instruments don’t play themselves; you have to create the sounds”Oh yes, Carl Cox loves playing to crowds just as much as when he started four decades ago:

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“The idea of my performance is always excitement. What’s going to happen? The creativity of that — what can I achieve? How do I connect with people?” Cox says.
But these days, his excitement, creativity, and connection come from his live electronic set, not DJing. Cox has completed the DJ game. In this phase of his career, the 62-year-old steps on stage, and, with the help of a Pioneer V10, a bevy of machines, and his inimitable ability to respond to crowds, he creates music that will never be heard again.
“It’s only me, from my point of view, coming down from the DJ pedestal to go into realms of creativity. The machines don’t play themselves. You have to create the sounds. You have to find the rhythm. You have to find its soul. When it all comes together, it comes through the speakers, and everyone’s got their hands in the air — there’s your moment,” Cox says. “That’s where I’m happiest because I’m being challenged.”
Image: Dan Reid
Cox is currently preparing to debut his brand new live set, Evolution, at Ultra Music Festival on 29 March. But he’s been seeking challenges onstage long before he developed this show.
“I’ve always had aspirations of being a live electronic artist,” Cox says. He recalls watching Liam Howlett perform for The Prodigy with an Ensoniq SQ-80 in the early 90s, when Cox was opening for him as a DJ.
Inspired, Cox decided to start the Carl Cox Concept, a trio that included Cox on keys, MC Magika on the mic engaging with the crowd, and Neil McLellan, a producer who worked on The Fat of the Land and other albums from The Prodigy, also using an SQ-80.
But Cox stopped the trio — he was too in-demand as a DJ and hungry for growth.. “I hadn’t reached the highest heights as a DJ to be able to say to myself, ‘I’m going as a live act.’ So I dropped the live,” Cox says.
Cox didn’t perform a live electronic set from 1992 until 2010, when he finally assembled a couple of shows in Melbourne for his album All Roads Lead To The Dancefloor. The album got a lukewarm reception, despite his diligent work with vocalists and instrumentalists, so he quickly reverted to DJing and swore he was never going to make another album. 10 years later, two things happened in quick succession in 2020: the pandemic eliminated live events and he received a beta version of the Pioneer DJ V10.
Image: Pres
“I said to the world, ‘That mixer is a game changer’. People were like, ‘How much is he getting paid to say that?’ But every DJ now wants to use a V10 mixer,” Cox says. “I never was a massive Pioneer fan. I always felt that the sound of Pioneer would be cheapened based on the components they used to use back in the day, but now it’s as good as any [premium] mixer out there.”
The most groundbreaking aspect of the V10, for Cox, is its ability to separately record each channel into Ableton Live, while many other mixers can only output a stereo feed. “When I told people you can record each channel like they’re stems in Ableton, people thought I was mad. I was using Richie Hawtin’s Model One mixer before I changed over to the Pioneer. It doesn’t do that.”
With this new tech available while he was on a forced break from touring in 2020, Cox spent his time off the road jamming on hardware. He would plug his Moog Labyrinth, Moog DFAM, Roland TR-8S, and various other machines into the V10, link them with Ableton, hit record, and start making music.
Image: Press
After one particularly fruitful jam session, he realized he had a whole album’s worth of material recorded into Ableton — after just 90 minutes. Just as new tracks unfold before him during his live set, new tracks were revealing themselves to him in the studio. That material became his 2022 album, Electronic Generations.
“I found as I was doing all these different ideas while I was jamming that I was actually making a live album. I wasn’t expecting to do an album. But everything that was coming about, I could tell — ‘That’s another track. That’s another track. That’s another track.’ I found myself doing about 25 tracks,” Cox says. This process birthed the new live setup he’s been touring since events resumed.
“I didn’t want to come out of COVID and just continue to DJ. I [like to] dive into the machines, swim around in all their components, and find out all these wonderful things that can come out of them that turn a corner on people’s expectations,” Cox says.
Cox will always be a legendary DJ but many of his world-class contemporaries are yet to follow him on this creative path. David Guetta put it similarly in 2024 — “In our profession, there are now…Entertainers and DJs.” These ‘entertainers’, says Guetta, stand behind decks of CDJs playing their own songs in their entirety, with little improvisation and a focus on props and stage production. “I don’t think that’s DJing,” adds Guetta.
DJs, on the other hand, read the crowd, play the music that fits the moment and introduce audiences to new music. Such entertainers, Cox says, are squandering their skills as a DJ.
Image: Press
“It’s the reason why a lot of DJs are bored. They’re playing the same tune, week in, week out,” Cox says. His remedy to that boredom is the machines, but in his experience, very few DJs have any interest in playing a live set.
“If you stick most DJs in front of [a live setup], they’ll just walk away. I feel there’s laziness to that, because when you go in the studio to record, you use these machines. You use a drum machine. You use synths. You use keyboards. So why don’t you do what we’re doing in the studio, and then create that live?” Cox says.
Cox is creating tracks in the studio and on stage with 13 different pieces of gear including his MacBook Pro running Ableton Live, an Ableton Push, Novation Launch Control XL, Abstrakt Instruments’ Avalon (to emulate the sound of the Roland TB-303), and a MOTU Ultralite mk5. All this runs into the six channels on the V10, and he puts a DOCTron IMC on the master chain.
Channel 1 is a palette of kick drums in Ableton. His music is based heavily on four-to-the-floor beats, which allows him to manipulate the sound of his set drastically. He can infuse any track with a different energy, from round and funky house kicks to deep and throbbing techno kicks.
Image: Press
“If I’m using a track, I normally take the kick out of that, and then put a new kick on top, so the track sounds different. But sometimes, that track has a good kick. I don’t even use any of mine. So I exchange, or I use the kick in a track and then use my kick to really get that bottom slamming,” Cox says.
Channel 2 is reserved for the TR-8S for the classic Roland drum machine sounds. Channels 3 and 4 include the full tracks he wants to play during his set that he can then manipulate with the machines and the mixer. Channel 5 controls the Abstrakt for the 303 bass, and then channel 6 is a submix of the rest of his Moog synths, percussion clips, and samples from Ableton for any further sonic decoration.
“I hear a track, find a good loop area, and I basically make a track from that loop. Then I work that, and take the channel from the Ableton out, and already have another new track being created. So I use that as my paint board,” Cox says.
For past live shows, he’s used mixing desks with 64 channels to give him all the room he needs for all of his desired functions. However, the tactility of the V10 allows him to perform like he does when he’s DJing. Still, Cox remarks that routing all of this into the V10 is still limiting him a bit because it only has six channels: “I could actually use two more extra channels on this mixer, but [Pioneer DJ]’s not listening to me,” Cox says with a laugh.
“I create the energy of my music through the mixer. Cuts, fades, and effects. I use it as an instrument. Where all the other mixers you put the fader up and fader down, you go to a channel on an insert and find an effect that you want to use. That slows me down,” Cox says. “Having a V10 as my only DJ tool within my live set keeps me on my toes.”
Image: Press
Keeping his eyes off his computer screen is crucial to remaining on his toes. He wants to give his attention to the machines and the crowd, absorbing their energy and transmuting into the music as directly as possible.
“I don’t want to be seen scrolling the menu. It makes me a very dull looking performer,” says Cox.
Though he’s concerned with how he looks, he is more concerned with sound quality. That’s why he has the DOCTron IMC. Given that Cox is combining numerous live elements rather than outputting tracks that have already been properly mastered, the extra bit of compression and limiting from the DOCTron (made by fellow techno gearhead, Stimming) helps him glue everything together.
“The difference is unbelievable. It takes what you’ve got and makes it into the most beautiful butterfly. The sound guys love me for it because they cannot believe the signal that they get,” Cox says. “You just feel the sub level tones you never thought existed. It brings it all out. I want this to sound live.”
Over the past 40 years, millions of people have heard Carl Cox say “Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!” on the mic at his shows. He says this to fire up crowds into uproaring cheers, and as he challenges himself with new machines, new methods of performance, and new ways to deliver top tier musical experiences, he is just as excited as they are.
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Hans Zimmer says his Rain Man score was the “beginning of orchestras having to adapt” to synth-written movie scoresHans Zimmer feels his score for the 1988 film Rain Man marked the start of orchestras adapting to working with synthesizers for movies.
Rain Man won Best Picture at the 1989 Academy Awards, with Zimmer being nominated for Best Original Score. He went on to be Oscar-nominated for a number of other synth-laden scores, including Interstellar and Dune: Part One, the latter of which he won Best Score for in 2022.

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Speaking to Josh Horowitz for the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Hans Zimmer says, “I wrote Rain Man on a synthesiser with weird sounds and there’s an orchestra trying to play my music.
“Actually it’s really interesting that you say this because I’m only just realising as you’re saying it, it was the beginning of orchestras having to adapt. Like, ‘there’s this new guy in town and he works with weird electronic instruments, so we better have some stuff in the orchestra as well that can go and do that!’
“The following year I wasn’t up but Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture so they kept playing that tune over and over again, and then Gladiator won Best Picture and I was nominated but again it was like they played the tune over and over and over again… and then winning for Dune: Part One, I was so grumpy about the whole affair.”
Hans Zimmer goes on to recall what turned out to be his most-loved Oscars experience from his win in 2022, which didn’t actually involve his presence at the ceremony itself: “I phoned my PR people and said, ‘don’t bother me, I want to go to sleep’. I had my kids with me and they were downstairs doing whatever, and then the phone rings and it’s my publicist going, ‘It’s your category!’ and I’m going, ‘I told you I don’t want to be disturbed.’
“Two minutes later the phone rings again and I’m going, ‘I told you!’ and she goes, ‘But you won!’ At that moment the door burst open and I realised there was a devious plot between [my partner] and my children and they flew in and there’s a big party going on downstairs with the whole band. They didn’t care if I won or lost, they just wanted a great big party! That was the best Oscars I ever had.”
Check out the full podcast below:

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💬 Introducing the new BPB Community
Bedroom Producers Blog has launched an improved commenting system and a new BPB Community. Introducing the New BPB Community After months of planning and testing, I’m excited to launch the new BPB Community. This update brings a new and improved commenting system and a dedicated Community section, making it easier than ever for readers to [...]
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The Les Paul Recording Studio The Les Paul Recording Studio features a restored collection of Les Paul’s original gear, including his groundbreaking audio console and eight-track recording setup.

Mixing Dune 2 OST: Alan Meyerson Webinar Sound Particles and Apogee have announced an upcoming webinar with none other than Alan Meyerson, the Grammy-winning mix engineer behind blockbuster films such as Inception, The Dark Knight, and Dune.

Unofficial Guide to Music Tech events during SXSW: Top PicksThe free Unofficial Guide to Music Tech events during SXSW in Austin next week is live and we share out top picks.
The post Unofficial Guide to Music Tech events during SXSW: Top Picks appeared first on Hypebot.

Should voice actors be concerned about being replaced by AI? The Simpsons’ Hank Azaria thinks so – maybeHank Azaria, known for voicing multiple characters in The Simpsons, has given his thoughts on how AI may affect careers like his in the future.
In a video for The New York Times, Azaria records the voice he uses for the character of Moe in The Simpsons, to see how well AI can recreate it. Within the video, Azaria likens the future of AI in the voice acting industry to how streaming has currently impacted music – if something is readily available for free or at a low cost, he feels many people opt to use it, despite the ethics behind it.

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“I think there’s a humanness that the AI can’t do right now – at least vocally, and may never be able to do – that involves a character’s motivation, certain emotions, subtleties of physicality, facially or otherwise, that add up to a human being,” Azaria says.
Looking to the future, he adds, “People are going to listen to and enjoy and watch what they like, and they’re not going to care whether AI generated it or a human generated it, or some combination of the two. Right now, what AI generates by itself as Moe the bartender or anything else isn’t going to cut it. But if it does start to cut it, people are going to listen to it, and they’re going to be grateful that it’s so readily available.
“Look what happened to the music industry. Do you think I cried a tear because the record industry reinvented itself? I got to listen to all the music for free all of a sudden,” he explains. “I don’t think people are going to feel much differently about any of this.”
You can watch the full video below:

Currently, the UK government is considering proposed changes to copyright law, which could allow AI developers to mine from creators’ content on the internet. The suggested change would mean creative works could be used to develop AI models unless the rights holders actively opt out. A number of musicians have since spoken out about the suggested changes, including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Max Richter.
Richter made his thoughts on the matter known earlier this week with a speech to MPs calling for greater protection for music creators: “Music is the closest thing humanity has to magic,” he said, “But all of this will fade into history unless we support creators’ rights because, unless artists can be fairly rewarded for their work through copyright, there is no future for human creators.”
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Indie Artist Playbook: Tips for a Sustainable Music CareerWant to make a living from your music while staying independent? The Indie Artist Playbook shares 25 years of insider knowledge, giving you the tools to build a sustainable career, market your music, and thrive in today’s music industry.
The post Indie Artist Playbook: Tips for a Sustainable Music Career appeared first on Hypebot.

“A f**king nightmare!”: Watch tensions rise between Elton John and Andrew Watt in behind-the-scenes footage of the recording of Elton’s forthcoming albumElton John has teamed up with Brandi Carlile for a new collaborative album, Who Believes In Angels?, which will be released on 4 April – but the making of it was far from plain sailing.
For the first time ever, cameras were allowed in the studio to capture the making of the record in full, with footage compiled into a candid short film that documents the turbulent creative process of making an album in just 20 days – including tensions with producer Andrew Watt.

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The recording process began back in October 2023 at Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound Studios, just off the back of John’s colossal Glastonbury headline set. John, Carlile, and Watt were also joined by John’s longtime friend and lyricist Bernie Taupin, and a band that also consisted of Chad Smith and Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers’ current drummer and former guitarist), plus bassist Pino Palladino, who’s just released a new set of strings with Ernie Ball.
Narrating over the captured footage, John admits that during the process he was exhausted and had a lot of doubt, leading to him being “a nightmare” as he tore up lyrics sheets, and even nearly gave up on the project, declaring “I’m going home”. One particularly tense encounter shows Watt defending himself, saying, “Dude, I’m just trying to make the song as best as it can be! You’re so impatient!”
Thankfully, tensions eventually subsided, and the music began to flow – there were even tears of relief at one point. You can watch the full Who Believes In Angels? trailer below, and listen to the first single:

John describes the project as “one of the greatest musical experiences of my life. In a statement he comments, “It has given me a place where I know I can move forward. Who Believes In Angels? feels like going into another era and I’m pushing the door open to come into the future.”
You can pre-order or pre-save Who Believes In Angels? now.
The post “A f**king nightmare!”: Watch tensions rise between Elton John and Andrew Watt in behind-the-scenes footage of the recording of Elton’s forthcoming album appeared first on MusicTech.

FKFX Audio LovPassFilter 2 Plugin is FREE for BPB readers until February 12
In this BPB exclusive offer, you can download FKFX Audio’s LovPassFilter 2.0 filter delay plugin for free until February 12, 2025.  LovPassFilter 2.0 is a macOS (AU, VST, VST3) and Windows (VST, VST3) release. To claim your free copy of LovPassFilter 2, hit the “Get The Plugin” button on the product page and sign up [...]
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Warner Bros. Discovery strikes JV with Cutting Edge to co-own vast catalog of film and TV music, in deal worth $1bn+Companies create a JV to co-own catalog of more than 400,000 compositions and song cues
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Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to score soundtrack for Naughty Dog’s new video game franchiseNine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are scoring the soundtrack for Naughty Dog’s brand new video game franchise, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, which is currently in development for PlayStation 5.
Reznor and Ross have been composing for a range of films over recent years. So far, the duo have composed music for movies such as Challengers, Queer, and the new Tron film which will release in 2025. Reznor has worked on a number of games in the past, including Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Ross has formerly composed for the FIFA franchise.

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In a blog post from Neil Druckmann, Studio Head at Naughty Dog (the same studio which delivered games such as The Last Of Us and Uncharted) he states, “Our incredible voyage into the cosmos also needs an equally incredible soundtrack. As tremendous fans of their work, I’m excited to announce our collaboration with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross who’ll be scoring Intergalactic! The guys are cooking, and the trailer is just a small tease of their work for the game.”
The game marks the studio’s first new franchise in over a decade, and follows protagonist, Jordan A. Mun, “a dangerous bounty hunter who ends up stranded on Sempiria – a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago… Jordan will have to use all her skills and wits if she hopes to be the first person in over 600 years to leave its orbit.”
You can check out the first trailer below:

In a recent interview with IndieWire, Reznor opened up on his film score work alongside Ross, and explained how the pair are flourishing within its industry as opposed to the music world.
“What we’re looking for [from film] is the collaborative experience with interesting people. We haven’t gotten that from the music world necessarily, for our own choice. You mentioned disillusionment with the music world? Yes. The culture of the music world sucks,” he said.
“That’s another conversation, but what technology has done to disrupt the music business in terms of not only how people listen to music but the value they place on it is defeating. I’m not saying that as an old man yelling at clouds, but as a music lover who grew up where music was the main thing. Music [now] feels largely relegated to something that happens in the background or while you’re doing something else. That’s a long, bitter story.”
Read more music technology news.
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How to organize and revisit your ‘leftover’ music projects
From bouncing demos to revisiting your folder structures, let's explore a few techniques for maximizing your 'leftover' project files.

GC Audio finalise Inherit Bank design GC Audio's clever modular system is now available in a four-channel version, along with with an extended range of processor cartridges.

Shazam has identified 100 billion songs since its launch in 2002Since launching in 2002, music discovery app Shazam has identified 100 billion songs, according to a new report. To put this gargantuan number into perspective, that’s 12 songs for every person on Earth. Or if an individual were to identify a song per second, it would take them 3,168 years to reach 100 billion.
“This monumental milestone not only reflects how much people enjoy using Shazam, but also their appetite for new music,” says Oliver Schusser, Vice President of Apple Music and Beats, in a press release. “Music discovery is at the core of everything we do, and we keep innovating to make sure music lovers around the world can tap the Shazam button no matter where they hear music playing!”

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The first iteration of Shazam was a text message service for the UK only. Users could dial “2580” and hold up their phone to a speaker so the music could reach the receiver. Then the service delivered the song and artist info via text message.
The current Shazam format launched in 2008 with the advent of the App Store. By 2011, the company’s new iOS app already recognised over 1 billion songs. Apple purchased Shazam in 2018.
Since solidifying this partnership, Apple Music has used the software as a means to share DJ mixes from events for streaming. By using its song identification technology, Apple Music can distribute royalties to rights holders for each song DJs played in their mixes, similar to if the song was streamed individually.
Further innovations that have come from Shazam and Apple’s partnership include integrating the function into the Action Button on newer iPhone and Apple Watch models. This allows song recognition with the touch of a button no matter what other apps may be running on the device.
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