PRS for Music and PPL are using Audoo’s audio meters to detect songs at public spaces for fairer royalty paymentsBritish music copyright collectives PRS For Music and PPL have joined forces with music technology company Audoo, to improve music royalty detection and distribution for creators, using Audoo’s audio meters.

READ MORE: AVID acquired by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $1.4 billion

The installation of Audoo’s audio meters in businesses including cafés, bars, hair salons, restaurants, and retail locations across Great Britain, aims to help drive forward and accelerate accurate and transparent royalty distribution to music creators. The device works by identifying the background music being played and reporting this usage back to PRS for Music and PPL.
According to Audoo, the audio meters installed are designed to be GDPR-compliant and use smart plug-in technology to securely track and report the music being played in quasi-real-time, without capturing any non-music audio such as private conversations.
The move will help PRS for Music and PPL enhance distribution efficiency by delivering optimum payments for their 300,000 collective members – including artists, recording rightsholders, music publishers, writers and composers.
“We are continually investing in new technologies and services to ensure we can pay out royalties more quickly and accurately, delivering the best possible service to members,” said Tim Arber, PRS for Music’s Director of Operational Improvement.
“We have been working with music recognition technology for many years and are excited to see how this collaboration with Audoo can support our ambition to pay out over £1 billion annually in the next few years. Helping businesses across the UK to report the music they play through smart data capture will be integral to reaching this milestone and maximising our members’ public performance royalties.”
Russell Chant, PPL’s Head of Distribution, said: “At PPL, we’re always working to ensure that performers, record labels and self-releasing artists are fairly and accurately paid for the music they create. This initiative with Audoo will complement our existing suite of advanced technological tools and public performance music usage data, offering us a further way to check that our distributions are as accurate as possible.”
Ryan Edwards, Audoo’s founder and CEO, said: “This collaboration with PRS and PPL is a milestone in the evolution of the public performance royalty space, for creators, performers and rights holders, as well as licensees delivering an enhanced experience for customers through the joy of music played in public spaces.”
Learn more at Audoo.
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GameSoundCon 2023 registration now open The world’s largest professional conference for video game music and sound design will be held at Burbank Convention Center in Burbank, California on 17 - 18 October 2023.

AVID acquired by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $1.4 billionAVID Technology Inc – the company behind Pro Tools and Sibelius – will be bought by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $1.4 billion, in a deal reported by Reuters.
The news comes after it was revealed that US firm Francisco Partners – a major investor in Native Instruments and iZotope – made a bid to acquire AVID just earlier this week.

READ MORE: Four Tet played at his daughter’s birthday to “deeply unimpressed” teenage girls following Coachella set

As reported, the all-cash deal means that AVID shareholders will receive $27.05 per share in cash.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023, and AVID says Sixth Street Partners and Silver Point provided debt financing for the deal.
“Since our founding over 30 years ago, AVID has delivered technology that enables individuals and enterprises who create media for a living to make, manage and monetise today’s most celebrated video and audio content across the globe. We are pleased to announce this transaction with STG, who share our conviction and excitement in delivering innovative technology solutions to address our customers’ creative and business needs,” says Jeff Rosica, AVID’s Chief Executive Officer and President.
“STG’s expertise in the technology sector and significant financial and strategic resources will help accelerate the achievement of our strategic vision, building on the momentum of our successful transformation achieved over the past several years. This transaction represents the start of an exciting new chapter for AVID, our customers, our partners and our team members and is a testament to the importance of AVID and our solutions in powering the media and entertainment industry.”
“After carefully evaluating a variety of options, the Board determined that this transaction is in the best interests of AVID and its stockholders,” adds AVID Chairman John Wallace.
AVID is an industry-leading provider of music software, owning both digital audio workstation Pro Tools and music notation software Sibelius. Its products are among the most popular in the music world, with Pro Tools likely the most used digital audio workstation.
Sibelius is also one of the most commonly used scoring softwares in the composition world, and counts the likes of Hans Zimmer among its users.
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Kits.AI voice generation technology Kits.AI are a new AI-generated voice platform who are working directly with artists in order to licence and release their voice models. 

First-generation iPod sells for $29,000A first-generation iPod bought in 2001 as a Christmas gift has been sold for $29,000 (approximately £22,750).
The iPod, sold on August 4 via Rally Alternative Asset Investment platform, was originally purchased by the parents of a teenager at an Apple store in Plano, Texas for $399. Its sky-high price now is commanded, in part, by the fact it remains in its original packaging.

READ MORE: Nearly 120 historic hip-hop artefacts – including a ring designed by Tupac – go on sale in Sotheby’s auction

“He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with it, so he put it on a shelf, and then, inevitably, time passed,” explains Rally co-founder Rob Petrozzo.
He adds that the owner found the iPod in the original blue Apple bag while cleaning out his childhood home after the passing of his father. “It truly is a time capsule,” says.
Rally, the platform which hosted the sale, allows investors to own shares in collectible assets in an NFT-style framework.
Per NME, ownership of the iPod was originally split into 5,000 shares each valued at $5 through an LLC, but a private collector unexpectedly acquired all 5,000 shares and secured exclusive possession of the iPod.
Last year, Apple officially discontinued the iPod after more than 20 years. At the time, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak said: “Today, the spirit of iPod lives on. We’ve integrated an incredible music experience across all of our products, from the iPhone to the Apple Watch to HomePod mini, and across Mac, iPad, and Apple TV.
“And Apple Music delivers industry-leading sound quality with support for spatial audio — there’s no better way to enjoy, discover, and experience music.”
Legacy Apple products regularly command high resale prices. Just last month, an original factory-sealed 2007 4GB iPhone was sold for a record-breaking $200,000.
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BandLab announces support for Human Artistry Campaign – which favours the ethical development of AI in creative industriesBandLab has announced its support of the Human Artistry Campaign, an organisation which champions the ethical development of AI in creative industries.
In a presentation delivered at Ai4 2023 – a renowned artificial intelligence conference held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas – BandLab CEO Meng Ru Kuok confirmed the company’s support of the initiative.

READ MORE: Researchers find that AI can turn brain scans into music

The presentation – titled Augmenting the Artist: How AI is Redefining Music Creation and Innovation – saw Meng showcase BandLab’s SongStarter technology, a musical idea generator powered by artificial intelligence within the BandLab platform.
Credit: BandLab
SongStarter generates unique beats, melodies, and chord progressions based on user input, and is built, BandLab says, to “empower new musicians by encouraging their creative exploration”.
According to BandLab, in the past 12 months, the platform has seen 15x growth in music created using its AI tools.
Elsewhere, Meng’s presentation highlighted BandLab’s commitment to ethical AI training and development. As the company reiterates, it is the first music creation platform to support the Human Artistry Campaign.
“BandLab reinforces its commitment to the thoughtful development of AI-driven solutions to ensure they support and protect emerging creators worldwide,” it says.
“By prioritising the responsible use of AI, BandLab aims to elevate human expression while driving innovation forward.”
Notably, BandLab stands out as the sole company representing music creation at Ai4 2023.
Formed only this year, the Human Artistry Campaign is a “coalition” that represents “countless types” of creatives, including actors, musicians, authors, journalists, visual artists, athletes and more.
Boasting 150 global members at the time of writing, the organisation is built around the fundamental belief that AI can never replace human creativity and spirit, and the rights of human creators must be protected.
The organisation champions seven core principles, which outline how AI can be responsibly used to support human creativity with respect to the “inimitable” value of human artistry and expression. These principles are:

Technology has long empowered human expression, and AI will be no different
Human-created works will continue to play an essential role in our lives
Use of copyrighted works, and the use of voices and likenesses of professional performers, requires authorisation and free market licensing from all rights holders
Governments should not create new copyright or other IP exemptions that allow AI developers to exploit creators without permission or compensation
Copyright should only protect the unique value of human intellectual creativity
Trustworthiness and transparency are essential to the success of AI and protection of creators
Creators’ interests must be represented in policymaking

To learn more about the seven core principles, head to Human Artistry Campaign.
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HoRNet SpringVerb Is FREE For A Limited Time (12 Hours Left)
HoRNet Plugins offers the SpringVerb spring reverb plugin as a free download until 11:59 pm (CET) on August 8th, 2023. There are 14 hours left to get the plugin for free at the time of publishing this article. I love the metallic sound of spring reverbs. It’s no substitute for “normal” reverbs types like plate [...]
View post: HoRNet SpringVerb Is FREE For A Limited Time (12 Hours Left)

Meta’s AudioCraft AI music tool could cut multiple revenue streams for musiciansMeta has launched AdudioCraft, a free generative AI text-to-audio and music tool, and announced that it is open-sourcing it for research purposes “to help advance the field of AI-generated audio.”. Continue reading
The post Meta’s AudioCraft AI music tool could cut multiple revenue streams for musicians appeared first on Hypebot.

The life cycle of a Sync placementLearn more about the process of getting music into TV. film and games. A quick but thorough guide that goes from pitching to placement to payment. by Jon Mizrachi of. Continue reading
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Layer Engine is a Free Granular Engine Plugin for Windows and Linux
Independent audio developer Eoin O’Dowd has just released a free/donationware plugin called Layer Engine, and it’s available for Windows 10/11 and Linux. It’s still in development, so the developer suggests following his Gumroad page to be aware of future updates. Anyway, Layer Engine already looks and sounds like a very powerful instrument! It features two [...]
View post: Layer Engine is a Free Granular Engine Plugin for Windows and Linux

Major investor of Native Instruments and iZotope bids to acquire AVIDUS firm Francisco Partners, a major investor of Native Instruments and iZotope, is among private equity firms competing to acquire AVID, otherwise known as Avid Technology Inc.

READ MORE: “I saw you spreading lies on your Facebook group”: Loopop on Behringer not sending ‘free gear’ to reviewers

Earlier this year, Francisco Partners backed up the new partnership with iZotope and Native Instruments, which saw the two manufacturers team up to “shape the future of music making and audio production”.
Another company that is currently bidding for acquisition of AVID is Symphony Technology Group, a private-equity firm focused on technology investments. Earlier in the year, STG made a deal to take Momentive Global Inc, the parent company of SurveyMonkey.
AVID provides valuable software for the music industry, owning both digital audio workstation Pro Tools and music notation software Sibelius. Its products are widely considered to be industry standard, with Pro Tools likely the most used digital audio workstation in the world.
Sibelius is also one of the most commonly used scoring softwares in the composition world, and counts the likes of Hans Zimmer among its users.
Therefore, the potential purchase is a monumental move, especially considering that AVID has a current value of $1.2 billion.
According to Reuters, AVID started exploring options, including the sale of the company with the help of investment bank Goldman Sachs, earlier this year. Anonymous sources have since told Reuters that a deal could be signed as early as this month.
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iZotope Nectar Elements Plugin Is FREE At Plugin Boutique
Plugin Boutique offers the Nectar Elements ($129 list price) vocal processing plugin by iZotope as a free download for a limited time. Nectar Elements is a streamlined tool for correcting your vocal’s pitch, dynamics, frequency response, and general quality. Its workflow is mostly automated, taking advantage of iZotope’s unique Vocal Assistant feature. I always found [...]
View post: iZotope Nectar Elements Plugin Is FREE At Plugin Boutique

AI.com flips from ChatGPT to Elon Musk’s X.aiThere was a bit of a hubbub in February as it emerged that OpenAI had seemingly purchased AI.com in order to redirect it to the ChatGPT web interface. But now erstwhile backer, Twitter haver, and X lover Elon Musk appears to have taken the valuable domain off their hands, or else someone has done it for him: AI.com now redirects to X.ai, the billionaire’s embryonic machine learning research outfit.
Of course domains are bought and sold every day. But two-letter .com domains are rare and highly expensive, especially those that form words or familiar abbreviations. When AI.com started redirecting to OpenAI’s site, Mashable pointed out that the domain could hardly have sold for less than IT.com’s $3.8 million the previous year, and likely attained a far higher price given the hype around artificial intelligence in general.
No doubt OpenAI hoped that the purchase of AI.com would turn confused URL bar typers into lifetime users. Or perhaps it intended to eventually move its consumer-facing operations (like ChatGPT’s web client) over to the shorter domain. It seems we’ll never know, because now the domain goes to X.ai.
The news seems to have first been reported by Analytics India Magazine (perhaps a bidder itself at some point), but the truth is outside the transfer, there is precious little to say about the switch. It’s just bizarre and expensive enough to warrant noting here.
X.ai is still a largely notional organization, with a handful of academics and engineers working on, one imagines, whatever Musk tells them to. Its stated goal is “to understand the true nature of the universe,” but they haven’t made any visible progress since the site went up in July. Admittedly Musk has been busy during that time.

Elon Musk wants to build AI to ‘understand the true nature of the universe’

What could it mean? Did Sam Altman tire of his toy? Was the plan to shift to the new domain scrapped in favor of a new one? Was the sale tentative to begin with, or perhaps a month-to-month lease? Was there a bidding war, or did someone lose interest?
Whatever the case, it ends up just feeling like a couple rich guys squabbling over a shiny object. ChatGPT is the most recognizable brand in AI — so why pay millions to start a new one from scratch? And X.ai is already short and memorable (or at least it will be until there are 8 other Musk companies called X), and there’s nothing worth looking at on the site, so why pay so much to redirect another empty site? It’s worth noting that OpenAI never did actually confirm it bought the domain, and Musk has not yet, and would never return our emails.
Logo from a recent staging site for AI.com
I will say that if I had $10 million and the opportunity to buy AI.com, you know what I would do? Redirect it to the obvious candidate and then dangle it in front of their competitors for a 50% markup. If that didn’t work, I’d switch it to the rival and offer it to the first company. Here’s hoping some information superhighwayman (if you will) had the same brainwave and squeezed one of these billionaires for a solid payday. If so, well played.
I suspect that ultimately no one actually cares who owns AI.com, and people in fact may be suspicious of whatever corporate entity controls what is obviously a vanity domain. Let’s all just agree not to use it. That will teach everyone a lesson.

Age of AI: Everything you need to know about artificial intelligence

Songwriters are using AI Generated voices for song pitchesSome may see it as cheating while others find it genius, however no matter what you think AI will not be stopped by creating new strides for music professionals. by. Continue reading
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Best free plugins and freeware of the month: August 2023It’s always nice when you uncover some useful or creative tools online – and it’s even nicer when they turn out to be free.

READ MORE: Best sample packs of the month

We’ve rounded up a handful of this month’s free releases for you to check out, including a chord-based ROMpler, a transparent limiter, a fully-featured spatial 3D instrument, an epic, endless reverb, and a fun sample chopping sequencer.
Monster DAW – MONSTER OctaChord v1
MONSTER OctaChord v1. Image: Monster DAW

macOS and Windows
64-bit VST/VST3/AU
Download OctaChord

If you’re looking for some inspiration to get you started, then Monster DAW’s chord plugin with built in sounds could be just the ticket. There are 18 presets for different styles including lo-fi, techno, cinematic, R‘n’B, pop and more.
Each preset includes a full set of 12 scales, plus an Ornament set of fill-ins, melodic lines and sound effects that match the chords. Additional features include master volume, pan, reverb and delay controls, plus separate volume controls for the chord and ornament sections. It’s easy to build up progressions, but with so many different sounds and chord samples, note that the full plugin library size is over 6GB.
Press Play – Wave Breaker
Wave Breaker. Image: Press Play

macOS and Windows
64-bit VST/VST3/AU
Download Wave Breaker

Press Play is best known for its excellent free oscilloscope plugin, Wave Observer. Its new release uses the same waveform display engine, but this time puts it to use as instant visual feedback within a true-peak stereo limiter plugin.
Wave Breaker offers a transparent sound with precise true-peak detection, look-ahead audio analysis and 4x oversampling. You can use the Drive control to push volume into the limiter at a desired threshold and choose from manual output compensation, or target peak-level normalisation. You can also add a touch of saturation, choose from a range of colour schemes and resize the GUI.
SpatStrument SM24
SpatStrument SM24. Image: Acousmodules

macOS and Windows
64-bit VST3
Download SpatStrument SM24

SpatStrument SM24 is a beast. It’s an effect, a synth, a sampler, a 3D panner and a controller all in one. It’s designed to offer a fun and playful approach to audio-spatial sculpting, especially if you have an MPE controller.
Its whopping feature set includes up to 24 output channels with free arrangement in 2D or 3D space, Periphonic and Volumetric Spatial modes, Spatial Shaper and Animator, live input processing, an eight-voice sampler, a three-oscillator synth with FM, cross modulation and ring modulation between the sampler and synth, eight-channel delay/resonator and hall reverb, lockTrigger and VeloPad for granular effects and more.
Airwindows – Galactic 2
Galactic 2. Image: Airwindows

macOS, Windows, Linux, Pi
32/64-bit VST/AU/VCV Rack
Download Galactic 2

Airwindows has built up a massive library of excellent free plugins over the years, with an emphasis on sound rather than snazzy GUIs. Its latest release is a massive-sounding reverb that gives a different twist on Airwindows’ first Galactic reverb plugin.
You get simple controls for drive, sustain, Darken and wet, which can all be manipulated to craft epic-sounding, infinite drones and pads. With sustain on full, it will even start to feedback on itself. You can also put in mono signals and get a wider-sounding stereo reverb out.
HY-Plugins – HY-Slicer2 free
HY Slicer2. Image: HY-Plugins
This cut-down version of HY-Slicer2 can be used as a fun and creative way to re-invigorate your loop library. You get 3 slicer units where you can load three different samples that get chopped into smaller pieces. These can then be sequenced in the Sampler Track where you can rearrange up to 16 slices.
Things get a little more interesting when you start using the additional lanes that let you sequence things like chance, reverse, tune, pan, filter, effect sends and more. You also get built-in effects and master effects to refine your new loops, and a Pattern chainer to help develop longer ideas.

macOS, Windows, Linux
64-bit VST/VST3/AU
Download HY-Slicer2 free

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