“We’ve learned what schools, teachers and students want – and we’ve gone further than ever to deliver”: BandLab for Education 2.0 brings new learning tools, streamlined project management and more[Editor’s note: BandLab and MusicTech.com are both part of the Caldecott Music Group.]
BandLab Technologies has introduced a sweeping update for BandLab for Education – its award-winning music creation platform for schools and educational institutions.
Built around BandLab Studio – the highly popular DAW used by over 100 million creators worldwide – BandLab for Education 2.0 is the result of “more than eight years of work with educators worldwide” and sees a number of technical optimisations in order to run lighter and faster across the technology already used by schools.

READ MORE: Wondering if your playlists contain AI-generated music? Deezer’s new free tool can tell you

The sprawling new update brings an all-new BandLab for Education file format, through which teachers can more easily create, manage and reuse assignments. As BandLab explains, teachers can now build an assignment with starting materials and instructions, and then package it as a single file that can be distributed to students via existing systems, like Google Classroom, shared drives and email.
Elsewhere, BandLab for Education 2.0 now gives students access to professional creative tools, including BandLab AutoPitch for vocal tuning, as well as a wide range of samples, loops and one-shots from the BandLab Sounds library.
Utility tools like BandLab’s Metronome and Tuner are now available as standalone tools outside of BandLab Studio, making it easier for teachers and students to quickly open them for lessons and rehearsals.
“The tools to make music should be in the hands of everyone, everywhere, and nowhere does that matter more than in a classroom,” says Meng Ru Kuok, CEO and Co-Founder of BandLab Technologies.
“Since launching BandLab for Education in 2018, we’ve learned what schools, teachers and students want, and with 2.0 we’ve gone further than ever to deliver it. Our goal is and always has been to empower the next generation of music makers with everything they need to set them up for success on their creative journey, wherever it may take them.”
Other new features for BandLab for Education 2.0 include a simplified classroom setup – whereby teachers can create a classroom and share a join code for students to instantly join – and the ability to attach notes and reference materials directly to projects.
The update also expands BandLab for Education’s compliance flexibility. In addition to the platform’s existing COPPA and FERPA support, 2.0 now accommodates the dedicated data privacy agreements required by many US states, districts and other schools around the world.
BandLab for Education 2.0 is also priced for access, at just $2.50 per student per year.
Institutions already using BandLab for Education will remain fully supported, while schools that want to move to 2.0 will have migration support from the BandLab team.
Learn more at edu.bandlab.com.
The post “We’ve learned what schools, teachers and students want – and we’ve gone further than ever to deliver”: BandLab for Education 2.0 brings new learning tools, streamlined project management and more appeared first on MusicTech.

Mercurial Tones releases Dagon FREE resonance control plugin
Mercurial Tones has released Dagon, a free resonance control plugin for macOS and Windows. Dagon sits in the same broad category as plugins like oeksound soothe2 and Baby Audio Smooth Operator. It basically lets you detect resonances, harsh notes, and level spikes in context, then pull them down without flattening the whole track. Similar to [...]
View post: Mercurial Tones releases Dagon FREE resonance control plugin

Startup CEO Charlie Javice is reportedly angling for a Trump pardonJPMorgan can't be pleased by any of this.

discoDSP Discovery Pro Ronei Leite DimensionsRonei Leite Dimensions — Sound Bank for Discovery Pro discoDSP teams up with Ronei Leite da Silva (aka Spectro Senses) — São Paulo–based producer, mix and mastering engineer with over 20 years in the electronic music scene, and a leading name in the progressive psytrance and psytrance worlds (releases on Alien Records, Iono Records and beyond). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAza6BtmXtw Full Presets Showcase https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTHhtqOSqq4 Dimensions is a 128-preset collection built to push Discovery Pro into deep, cosmic, dancefloor-ready territory. From acid lines, rolling psytrance basses and hypnotic plucks to evolving pads, lush choirs, classic-synth emulations and otherworldly FX — every patch is mixed by a producer's ear and ready to drop straight into a track. What's inside (128 presets) 11 Synths (SYN) — TB-303 emulations, FM textures, formant voices and stereo-wide leads. 10 Arps (ARP) — acid lines, chord clavs, FM runs and velocity-driven sequences. 10 Bass (BS) — psytrance, rolling FM, sub and elastic wobble basses. 10 Choirs (CHO) — celestial vox, cathedral spaces and dreamy trance-gate atmospheres. 10 Distortion (DISTO) — gritty, saturated and aggressive lead tones. 10 Keys (KEY) — characterful keyboards, morphing tones and acid keys. 10 Leads (LD) — Goa acid, hyper-unison supersaws, melodic zaps and screaming acid guitars. 10 Noise (NOISE) — rhythmic, modulated and organic noise textures and step machines. 10 Pads (PD) — cosmic, celestial and evolving atmospheres for breakdowns and intros. 10 SFX — risers, sweeps, lasers and morphing sci-fi transitions. 9 Emulations (EXP) — Juno, Jupiter, Prophet, Oberheim, Korg MS-20, TB-303, Virus TI and more. 9 Plucks (PLK) — tight, percussive and phased plucks for hypnotic sequences. 9 Zaps (ZAP) — punchy, formant and reverse zap hits. Highlights Full modulation depth — LFOs, S&H, gate sequencing and morphing all put to work, showcasing Discovery Pro's engine in real productions. Links Buy: discodsp.onfastspring.com Spectro Senses: spectrosenses.com Read More

Bavarian Court Tells Gemini It Can’t Be a Real Boy Until It Tells the TruthDoes anyone like Google’s AI summaries? If so, they weren’t on the Judge’s bench in a specific Bavarian courtroom recently, where it was ruled that yes, Google is liable for the hallucinations of its search engine AI.
This was a civil case brought by a pair of Munich companies, both of whom were wrongfully slandered by LLM hallucinations. Google took the position that this information must have existed somewhere, and like presenting links to libelous websites — something they have no obligation to avoid — they should not be held accountable for what the summary at the top of the search results says.

Understandably, the judges ruled otherwise: this isn’t content Google is linking to. This is text that Google has generated. That they’re using the crappiest LLM model this side of a Commodore 64 to generate it doesn’t matter — the company is creating the text, and the company is liable, just as if a human employee wrote it by hand. If that human employee was so inept that he was giving other meatbags a bad name, like the search summaries do with Gemini, it wouldn’t help Google’s liability, either.
This could be a landmark ruling, though it isn’t final; Google does have the chance to appeal, and they absolutely will. If the appeal falls through, it’s not unlikely that Google will pull the plug on AI summaries on searches from the Federal Republic. Finally, a reason to point your VPN at Berlin. Any Germans hosting their own AI agents may also want to take note of the final ruling.
Header Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

StanChart looks for 3 signs of BTC bottom, including Strategy’s Monday newsStandard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick tells clients “winter is over” as the analyst said crypto prices have likely seen the low for the cycle, ahead of Strategy’s Bitcoin purchase update.

Detroit Drums from Iconic Instruments Detroit Drums includes two vintage kits, offers per-drum tuning and dampening, and includes an authentic-sounding 1960s-era virtual mixer with a wealth of vintage-inspired processing and effects built in. 

KPMG pulls report on AI usage due to apparent hallucinationsOnce again, AI proves to be an unreliable source of information about AI.

Converting a Scanning Electron Microscope Into a TEM is Surprisingly EasyAlthough both a SEM and a TEM are electron microscopes, their working principles and images are very different. Whereas an SEM uses secondary electrons ejected after bombarding a sample’s surface with primary electrons, a TEM works more like an X-ray machine, with a sensor placed behind the sample to record primary electrons after they pass through said sample. It is, however, possible to turn a SEM into a TEM with some creativity, as [ProjectsInFlight] recently did with his SEM.
We previously covered how the SEM in the video was saved from being scrapped and subsequently revived, and now it is getting a pretty nice upgrade. That said, this SEM to TEM change isn’t anything new, with so-called STEM imaging having been possible for ages using a rather simple reflecting adapter. The problem here is that such adapters cost enough to make you dread filing a budget request, yet they are simple enough that you might be able to DIY one.
The main concern with the DIY adapter was clearance between the sample holder and the fragile components inside the chamber. This turned out to be a hair under 14 mm (0.55″), giving not a lot of space to work with, but that was relative to the standard bulky sample holder. With a thinner sample plate machined out of aluminum, significantly more space became available, including for the primary electron mirror and shield for the secondary electrons.
Some more lathe, milling, and tapping work later, the entire sample holder came together. During testing a hack was implemented to enable adjusting the mirror angle while in the evacuated vacuum chamber so that the adapter could be dialed-in. Subsequently, a first sample was imagined in the form of gold nanoparticles, which revealed a leaky secondary electron shield due to bypassing.
Further testing revealed that the shield needed to extend much higher to meaningfully block secondary electrons, after which the TEM image massively improved. Subsequently, a previously expired mosquito graciously donated its wings to science, with TEM imaging clearly revealing the delicate structures within these wonders of evolutionary design.
The next challenge will be to TEM image biological cells, which require substantial preparation.
This isn’t the first STEM converter we’ve seen. The SEM has a long checkered history that we’ve talked about before, too.

Arturia launches MiniLab 37: More keys and more possibilities
Arturia has launched the MiniLab 37, the latest addition to the MiniLab MIDI keyboard controller series. The MiniLab series has been around since 2013 and has become one of the most popular budget-friendly controllers on the market. A new kind of MiniLab Although MiniLab controllers have been around for well over a decade and improved [...]
View post: Arturia launches MiniLab 37: More keys and more possibilities

Anthropic's Mythos AI finds no more 'serious' bugs in Zcash: WilcoxZcash founder Zooko Wilcox said Anthropic's Mythos AI model found no further "serious bugs" in the privacy protocol following the patching of a previously discovered forgery bug.

MetaGrid Pro gains AI Builder The latest version of MetaGrid Pro is able to create fully working grid layouts and take care of shortcut creation, icons and labelling — all from a user's text prompt. 

AudioThing FieldsFields is a portable iOS field recording app designed for capturing, organizing, and editing sounds in one place. Record new material wherever you are, import existing audio files, attach photos, location, and notes, and apply useful edits directly within the app. Whether you are collecting ambiences, textures, found sounds, percussion, or impulse responses, Fields keeps your recordings organized and ready to use. Fields is available on the App Store for iOS and iPadOS (Standalone App). Youtube Video Read More

Rhythmic Filters for Devious Machines’ Infiltrator As its name suggests, Rhythmic Filters focuses on all things filter-related, and includes a collection of Infiltrator 2 presets that have been designed to deliver instant groove, movement and inspiration. 

Why Led Zeppelin IV Has No Title — And Still Sold 24 Million CopiesLed Zeppelin's fourth album had no title, no band name, and no logo — just four symbols. It became their biggest seller, with 24 million copies sold in the US alone.