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Ardour 8.0 Released, What’s New?
Free and open-source digital audio workstation Ardour is updated to version 8.0, including several new features and improvements. Fans of the free and open-source digital audio workstation Ardour have plenty to celebrate this week! October 8th marks the release of Ardour 8, and the new version brings a bevy of interesting and useful features to [...]
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“We went into the darkness looking for something”: Pharrell recalls studio sessions with Daft PunkIn a new interview, Pharrell reveals how studio sessions with Daft Punk opened his eyes to the magic that comes from doing things “over and over and over and over again”.

READ MORE: AI-powered loop stacking tool Splice Create has been revamped

Speaking on episode six of Daft Punk’s Memory Tapes documentary series, the musician shares some of his takeaways from working with the legendary duo on their final album, Random Access Memories.
“I’ve always been like ‘okay I’m gonna go in there and once it feels good to me that’s it.’ But it’s really not, that’s just the beginning,” says Pharrell, who co-wrote and featured on the tracks Get Lucky and Lose Yourself to Dance.

“I’ve never went in there to perfect it and he continued to push me. So it might have been written, but he’s like ‘Okay now record it again. Okay cool. Now record it again. Okay cool take this again. Okay cool stack this again. Okay do it again, do it again, do it again.’”
“It was like over and over and over and over again which is the right way to do it, right? You get all the knots out and for me that’s what I learned in working with the robots,” he says.
“Now I understand the value of just taking the time to iron it out – that it could be perfection. That’s the difference between a human and a robot.”
Describing his songwriting process with Daft Punk as “all feeling”, Pharrell says: “We went into the darkness looking for something.”
“Working with them is just very magical because I feel like we all see music the same way. We saw music as just like, gift that was given to us to connect with people and set people free and liberate people.”

Also in the chat, Pharrell recalls how the band surprised him by using his recorded vocals on the final versions of Get Lucky and Lose Yourself To Dance.
“I didn’t know who was gonna end up singing it. I left the studio thinking, ‘Okay, can’t wait to see who sings and what it sounds like,” he said. “I didn’t hear it for a year, so I forgot what the song sounded like – both of them.”
The post “We went into the darkness looking for something”: Pharrell recalls studio sessions with Daft Punk appeared first on MusicTech.

AI-powered loop stacking tool Splice Create has been revampedCloud-based sample library platform Splice has launched a new version of Splice Create, an AI-powered tool that generates arrangements using loops and sounds from its library.

READ MORE: Syd teams up with Splice to release ‘Heartfelt’, her first ever sample pack

With Splice Create, the company aims to simplify the creative music-making process by offering ideas that can kickstart projects quickly. It shifts the focus from sample searching to creative flow and inspiration, drawing from Splice’s vast library of over 300 instruments and 130 music genres.
It works by letting you build ‘Stacks’ of loops to see which combinations might work together. You simply drop in loops and can swap them out in exchange for others.
While this feature is not wholly new to Splice (the initial version let you create sound combinations based on genre-based seeds), this updated version lets users create Stacks from any available loop. This version is more flexible as the BPM of a loop will instantly quantise to your chosen tempo, and you can create stacks by combining sounds related to a variety of genres, and shuffle sound layers, reducing the need for manual loop searches and increasing user control.

“We invited artists and creators deep into our development process to build Create, and they’ve been clear, they wanted this experience integrated across core workflows,” says Splice CEO, Kakul Srivastava. “The result is a new entry point into the world of Splice sounds, where any loop can be the start of a new creative journey. And we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible.”
In July, Srivastava appeared on the Music Ally Focus podcast to talk about how the technique of sampling has changed music production. She says, “It’s just how people create now. It’s become mainstream and it’s definitely gone past those initial genres to every genre. If you look at someone like Taylor Swift and folk music or Americana or country and the use of samples in all of these things that were not traditionally sample-based music genres.
“It’s part of how music is done and we don’t see that slowing down. In fact, we see it accelerating. For that same reason it was used in hip-hop, it just makes music creation that much more fun – that much more accessible.”
Find out more at Splice.
The post AI-powered loop stacking tool Splice Create has been revamped appeared first on MusicTech.

The Haas effect: What it is and how to use it
Learn about what the Haas effect (also known as the precedence effect) is, its unique history, and how to apply it in your music.

What should the music industry learn from the world of e-Sports?On this 'cast Tim Ingham, founder of Music Business Worldwide, is joined by Maria Egan, the Global Head of Music – as well as events – at Riot Games.
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Universal Audio Teletronix LA-2A Tube Compressor Is FREE Until October 31st!
Universal Audio offersthe Teletronix LA-2A Tube Compressor as a FREE download until October 31st! It’s been a rare period for Universal Audio plugins! First, we had the big flash sale at Plugin Boutique, and now UAD is going one better, with the only thing better than a big sale is giving stuff for FREE! Universal [...]
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Early Indian electronic music found on tapes in a university cupboard released in a compilationA compilation showcasing India’s history of electronic music through the 1960s and ’70s has been released by the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
The tapes were recovered from a cupboard at the university in 2017, and released on 29 September as NID Tapes: Electronic Music from India 1969-1972.

READ MORE: Moog CEO “reached out to Uli Behringer” to try and sell company, Behringer claims

In 1969, over 20,000 people came to the university to hear the groundbreaking Moog synthesiser, which was shipped from the US alongside a dual ring modulator, a bode frequency shifter, and tape machines.
The late American composer David Tudor conducted workshops on them, and musician Paul Purgas, who found the lost tapes, was there himself. Once he found the tapes, he reassembled and digitised 19 tracks across 27 tape reels.
He described it as a “victory for good record keeping”, via The New York Times, as he took details from handwritten notes and brought together music made from both the Moog and homemade equipment too.
In the compilation, there are field records, tape collages, soundtracks and other recordings. Purgas describes them as taking on a “dreamlike” quality, showcasing a “perfect, utopian moment of India post-independence”. Among the composers featured are Atul Desai, Jinraj Joshipura, I.S. Mathur, Gita Sarabhai and S.C. Shama.
Meanwhile, it’s set to be accompanied by a book from Purgas, entitled Subcontinental Synthesis: Electronic Music at the National Institute of Design, India 1969–1972. It’s set for release on 7 November, and features essays and handwritten texts from the same period.
You can view the tracklist below:
1. S.C. Sharma – After the War
2. Atul Desai – Compositions
3. S.C. Sharma – Dance Music I
4. Gita Sarabhai – Gitaben’s Composition
5. David Tudor – Tape Feedback with Moog
6. Jinraj Joshipura – Space Liner 2001 I
7. S.C. Sharma – Electronic Sounds Created on Moog
8. S.C. Sharma – Dance Music II
9. I.S. Mathur – My Birds
10. I.S. Mathur – Moogsical Forms
11. Gita Sarabhai – Gitaben’s Composition II
12. I.S. Mathur – Once I Played a Tanpura
13. S.C. Sharma – Electronic Sounds Created on Moog II
14. Atul Desai – Recordings for Osaka Expo 70
15. S.C. Sharma – Wind & Bubbles
16. S.C. Sharma – Dance Music III
17. Jinraj Joshipura – Space Liner 2001 II
18. I.S. Mathur – Shadows of the Show
19. I.S. Mathur – Soundtrack of Shadow Play
The post Early Indian electronic music found on tapes in a university cupboard released in a compilation appeared first on MusicTech.

How To Achieve Tonal Balance In Mixing And Mastering
Getting the right tonal balance is one of the hardest aspects of mixing a piece of music. Tonal Balance in Mixing Balance: the holy grail of life, the secret of not falling over, and the key to great chocolate brownies! In our daily lives, balance is everything. Likewise, a good tonal balance makes an awesome [...]
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Inner Pitch Is A FREE Pitch Shifter By Auburn Sounds (Enter To Win Full Version)
Auburn Sounds released Inner Pitch, a pitch shifter plugin for Windows and macOS, available as a Free Edition (with limited features) and Full Edition. Enter our giveaway to win the Full Edition (three FREE copies available). Let’s take a look at the Free Edition first. Inner Pitch Free Edition Inner Pitch is a pitch-shifting delay [...]
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Songtradr, Epic Games respond to Bandcamp Union concerns [UPDATED]UPDATE: Epic Games has joined Songtradr in responding to a letter from the Bandcamp United union expressing employee concerns after it was announced earlier this week that Epic Games had. Continue reading
The post Songtradr, Epic Games respond to Bandcamp Union concerns [UPDATED] appeared first on Hypebot.

Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wallStreaming has come a long way since its days as a pure music service for super fans. Spotify’s announcement that it is making 15 monthly audiobook hours available to premium subscribers is simply the latest step in a journey that has seen streaming become the 21st century’s take on radio. This has been achieved with the steady addition of non-music content (podcasts and audiobooks especially) and a growing emphasis on programmatic lean back consumption. As with all change, when it sits in an extended period of transformation, its immediate impact is often under-recognised. Audiobooks are the completely natural and logical progression for Spotify (and other DSPs), but they are also another waymarker in the journey away from being a pure play music service.

The pandemic was a catalyst for audiobook consumption. Audiobooks had been around for a long time already, with Audible leading the charge, but it was the sudden increase in non-allocated time that people found themselves with that triggered a coming of age for the format. Listening surged, including of podcasts, but as normal life slowly returned, audiobook consumption dipped again, though to a higher point than pre-pandemic levels. 

In many respects, Audible never really managed to push the format out of its niche foundations, with weekly active user (WAU) penetration still stuck at around 10% (Q1 23). DSPs though, represent the opportunity to mainstream the proposition – something that Deezer identified many years ago by becoming the first DSP to integrate audiobooks. Deezer was, however, probably a little too early, launching audiobooks when streaming was still almost entirely about music and still very lean-forward. Now, streaming is the soundtrack to our everyday lives. It is about filling the silence (or blocking out the noise) more than active listening. In this use case, spoken word audio is just as good a fit as music. In fact, it can often be a better fit. For example, getting lost in the narrative of an audiobook can make a daily commute fly by a lot quicker than simply listening to a playlist, in large part because it commands your attention.

Spot the important shift there? Audiobooks can turn passive listening into active listening in a way that music cannot so easily do. Music carved out hours for streaming by being passive, and now audiobooks and podcasts can colonise those hours with active consumption. The more active usage becomes, the more engaged a user is and the less likely they are to churn. Music did the hard yards; audio reaps the rewards.

Music rightsholders have long been concerned about audio eating into listening hours, less because of the cannibalisation of hours and more so because of the risk of DSPs using that as a basis for negotiating down the share of the subscription fee that gets paid to them. 15 hours of audiobooks may not sound like a lot but it represents close to 40% of the monthly music listening hours of the average subscriber. There is a good chance that there will be strong uptake, not least because over half of audiobook WAUs are also Spotify WAUs (which will probably give Audible pause for thought).

Of course, from Spotify’s perspective at least, the benefit of reducing music rightsholder fees simply to replace them with book publisher fees would be self-defeating. That is unless Spotify can secure the latter for less. But there is another crucial variable at play: original content. Back in 2020, when Spotify was hiring its head of audiobooks, the job description included the following: “Develop, pitch and oversee production of high-quality content”.  Just as with podcasts, audiobooks represent an opportunity for Spotify to develop original content and improve its margins.

Monster Toys Is A FREE Toy Instrument Plugin By MonsterDAW
MonsterDAW releases Monster Toys, a FREE toy instrument plugin for macOS and Windows. MonsterDAW is the brand behind previous releases like Monster Synth, Monster Strings, and generally, all things monster-related around here. Agus Hardiman is the mastermind behind MonsterDAW, and it’s fair to say that his latest development is his most serious work to date. [...]
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Spotify prompt-driven AI playlists risk devaluing many artists, genresSpotify is testing AI-generated playlists based on custom prompts. The streamer successfully launched its AI-powered DJ feature last year. Code pointing to prompt-driven AI playlists was discovered within the Spotify. Continue reading
The post Spotify prompt-driven AI playlists risk devaluing many artists, genres appeared first on Hypebot.

Tokenization is “securitization done on steroids" — Franklin Templeton CEOSpeaking at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha event, Jenny Johnson discussed how digital assets are disrupting securitization and the financial markets.