OpenAI alums have been quietly investing from a new, potentially $100M fund Zero Shot, a new venture capital fund with deep ties to OpenAI, is aiming to raise $100 million for its first fund. It has already written some checks.

Watch salem ilese make a song with an assortment of mystery sounds
Watch singer-songwriter salem ilese write a demo out of nothing but the objects and prompts within our box.

Polymarket drops USDC.e for USDC-backed token in exchange overhaulPolymarket is upgrading its exchange infrastructure in the coming weeks, introducing new contracts and a USDC-backed token while phasing out a bridged stablecoin.

FILM - TV - THEATER - GAMES: PROPS AND OPPS FOR APRIL '26PROPS

The LA Philharmonic will open its 104th season at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, with performances at the Hollywood Hills amphitheater running from June through September 2026. The season will kick off on June 20 with Opening Night, benefiting the LA Phil's Learning and Community Programs. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, led by Principal Conductor Thomas Wilkins, will salute the stars and legacy of Broadway with a program spanning beloved ballads and show-stopping dance numbers in celebration of American musicals. The night is set to culminate in a fireworks display. For tickets and a rundown on all the programming in store at Hollywood Bowl this season, visit hollywoodbowl.com.

The Game Music Festival will return to London in June 2026 with five live concerts across two major venues—Royal Festival Hall and Fairfield Halls. The festival will open on June 6 with The Infernal Symphony, a sweeping orchestral tribute to three decades of Diablo soundtracks, followed by concerts celebrating 40 years of Hitoshi Sakimoto’s work on soundtracks, as well as the music of Hades, Hades II, Persona and more. Special guests will include original composers and performers. Alongside the concerts, an educational program of masterclasses, panel discussions, and other industry sessions will offer something for any aspiring game music composer. For more information, visit gamemusic.net/events.

Dance Against Cancer will bring the global arts community together once again for its annual, one-night-only benefit performance set for May 18. Proceeds will support the American Cancer Society's lifesaving mission to end cancer, building on the organization's record of raising more than $4.5 million to date. The stage will feature celebrated stars from the worlds of ballet, contemporary dance, hip-hop, and Broadway in continuation of a tradition of collaboration among top dance talent. Past performers have included Misty Copeland, Tiler Peck, Ayodele Casel, Alex Wong, and many more. Find all the details and purchase tickets at nycitycenter.org/pdps/2025-2026/dance-against-cancer.

OPPS

Calling all young filmmakers: The All American High School Film Festival—the largest student film festival in the world—is accepting submissions for the October 16-18 event. Though the free deadlines have passed, submit by April 27 for $20, with entry fees increasing up until the final, July 3 deadline. There are a dozen categories, including for music videos, with more custom categories to be announced. Learn more at hsfilmfest.com/submit.

If you want to be a part of Showstopper, America’s first and most prestigious dance competition, register by May 4 for the May 22-25 event in Anaheim, California. Information on registration, the competitions, and more are at goshowstopper.com/competitions_cpt/anaheim-ca-3.

There’s still time to submit your film score to Cleveland’s 2026 Horror Hotel Film Festival, with the late registration deadline falling on April 17. The 15th annual event—slated for June 18-21 this year—is inviting composers to score a trailer that the festival provides. Learn more about the festival and how to submit your work at instagram.com/horrorhotelfilmfest.The post FILM - TV - THEATER - GAMES: PROPS AND OPPS FOR APRIL '26 first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Playing DVDs on the Sega DreamcastAlthough the Sega Dreamcast had many good qualities that made it beloved by the thousands of people who bought the console, one glaring omission was the lack of DVD video capabilities. Despite its optical drive being theoretically capable of such a feat, Sega had opted to use the GD-ROM disc format to not have to cough up DVD licensing fees, while the PlayStation 2 could play DVD movies. Fortunately it’s possible to hack DVD capability into the Dreamcast if you aren’t too fussy about the details, as [Throaty Mumbo] recently demonstrated.
For the Tl;dw folk among us, there’s a GitHub repository that contains the basic summary and all needed files. Suffice it to say that it is a bit of a kludge, but on the bright side it does not require one to modify the Dreamcast. Instead it uses a Pico 2 board that emulates a Sega DreamEye camera on the Dreamcast’s Maple bus via the controller port. The Dreamcast then requests image data as if from said camera.
On the DVD side of things there’s a Raspberry Pi 5 that connects to an external USB DVD drive and which encodes the video for transmission via USB to the Pico 2 board. Although somewhat sketchy, it totally serves to get DVDs playing on the Dreamcast. If only Sega had not skimped on those license fees, perhaps.

Kreuzberg Audio KA-303KA-303 Acid Bassline Synthesizer The sound that invented Acid House, Acid Techno and Hard Acid. Built for your DAW. No compromises, no hardware required. The KA-303 takes the legendary 303 sound as its starting point but goes far beyond cloning. Circuit-modeled at component level, not emulated. With a full Composing Engine, four distortion models, a Unison Engine with up to 7 voices and the Angel Fish Mod as a standalone sound extension, the KA-303 is its own instrument with its own character. Circuit-Modeled Diode Ladder Filter A detailed reproduction of the original diode ladder circuit at component level with Zero Delay Feedback architecture. Four cascaded integrator stages with asymmetric coefficients, soft-clipping saturation modeled after 1S2473 silicon diodes, the original 150 Hz highpass in the feedback path. The fat, signal-dependent squelch that transistor ladder designs simply cannot replicate. Slide, Accent and the Gimmick Circuit are also modeled at component level, including the capacitor-based accent sweep that accumulates across consecutive accented notes. Just like the hardware. Waveform Morph Every other 303 plugin forces you to choose: Saw or Square. The KA-303 doesn't. A dedicated MORPH knob blends seamlessly between both waveforms. At 30% with high resonance you get timbres that neither Saw nor Square can reach alone. Fully automatable via MIDI CC. Angel Fish Mod Inspired by Robin Whittle's legendary Devil Fish mod. Overdrive, Muffler, Filter FM, extended envelopes, adjustable portamento. One click and the 303 gets an entirely new dimension. From warm overdrive to aggressive filter FM to screaming leads with Hi Reso. 4 Distortion Models with Intelligent Crossover Logic DS-1, Tube, Rat, Fuzz. But the magic happens before the distortion: a Pre-Distortion Crossover splits sub-bass and mids. The bass stays clean, distortion only hits where it belongs. HP Resonance adds the characteristic nasal growl, ENV>HP couples velocity to the highpass frequency for dynamically responsive distortion. From light crunch to aggressive acid growl without the bass falling apart. Composing Engine. Built specifically for acid basslines. An intelligent note grid only allows notes within the selected scale. Wrong notes? Not possible. Slides and accents visible directly in the piano roll. 98 factory patterns from "Chicago Deep" to "Berlin Basement" to "Final Boss." Scramble, Mutate, Octave Jumps, Groove and Density as creative tools. MIDI Drag & Drop straight into your DAW. Dynamic Pattern Grid with lengths from 1 to 32 steps for polyrhythmic patterns. Page System for chaining multiple pages per pattern. MIDI Import. Groove Engine with five modes: Tight, Shuffle, Funk, Push, Laid Back. Grid resolution: 1/8, 1/16 or 1/32. Lasso selection for precise editing. Unison Engine Up to 7 full synthesizer voices, each with its own filter, envelopes and slide processor. Stepless detune and stereo spread. From subtle thickening to a massive wall of sound. Automatic gain compensation across all voice counts. Built-in Effects Tempo-synced stereo delay with crossfeed and darkening filter. Signalsmith reverb with room sizes from 0.3s to 5s. Brick-wall Master Limiter. Up to 8x oversampling. Full MIDI CC mapping via right-click and MIDI Learn. Dark and Light theme. Formats: VST3, AU, Standalone Systems: macOS 10.14+, Windows 10+, Linux Price: €89 (Introductory: €69) Free demo available (all features, no time limit). Read More

IK Multimedia introduce ToneNET Preset Sharing With the introduction of ToneNET Preset Sharing, users can now share and discover presets and quickly get up and running with performance-ready rigs inspired by their favourite music.

Renger Koning releases Felt & Fog cinematic piano for Kontakt (FREE version available)
Developer Renger Koning has released Felt & Fog cinematic piano for Kontakt, along with a free version. We’re almost spoiled for choice when it comes to free cinematic piano libraries; we have things like Dark Mode by SRM Sounds, Cozy Piano from SampleScience, and Venus Theory’s forms:piano. They all offer something a little different, so [...]
View post: Renger Koning releases Felt & Fog cinematic piano for Kontakt (FREE version available)

Cure Audio releases Scream, a FREE recreation of Massive’s iconic Scream filter
Cure Audio has released Scream, a free and open-source plugin that recreates the Scream filter from Native Instruments’ Massive synthesizer as a standalone effect you can use in any DAW. I’m used to seeing plugins that emulate hardware, but here’s a plugin that emulates software. The Scream filter was one of Massive’s iconic modules, known [...]
View post: Cure Audio releases Scream, a FREE recreation of Massive’s iconic Scream filter

Charlie Puth on why musicians shouldn’t write for the feed: “I don’t think anybody should be adjusting their music to the likes of social media”Musicians in the 21st century often feel pressured to chase streams, go viral, and tailor every song to the latest social media trends. But Charlie Puth says he’ll release a track whether fans love it or not.
With nearly 20 million followers on TikTok and Instagram, Puth often shares playful, behind-the-scenes snippets of his music-making – from recording unusual sounds to breaking down chord progressions – giving fans a window into his creative process.
In a recent chat with Rick Beato, the singer, songwriter, and producer explains why, for him, staying true to the music matters more than chasing the feed.

READ MORE: “AI, when done right, isn’t here to replace musicians”: Charlie Puth joins AI music platform Moises as Chief Music Officer

While he occasionally tests songs with fans online, Puth says their reactions – even negative ones – rarely determine whether a track sees the light of day.
“If a hundred people vote in, like, ‘I don’t like that drum snare,’ I played with that a little bit and be like, ‘should I release this?’ I knew damn well I was going to release it. I just wanted to gauge interest… or compare a song, like should this song come out first or should this song come out first?”
Despite how music promotion has evolved, Puth believes the essence of a good song hasn’t.
“The thing that is always going to stay true,” he says, “is that a good song is a good song. I don’t think anybody should be adjusting their music to the likes of social media.”
He also reflects on how record labels used to control every step of the process: “There was a point in time where I was given a list… You’re going to this radio station. You’re going to shake [this person’s hand], say hello to this person because they’re going to give you all the spins.”
Today, while radio remains relevant, its role in a release cycle has shifted.
“It exists, but it comes a little bit later in the cycle now,” says Puth. “Radio’s still a really important thing for every artist. [But] it can come in the beginning, it can come in the middle, it can come in the end, whereas [in the past] it needed to come in the beginning.”
Looking back on his early days sharing music on MySpace, SoundClick, Ustream, and blogs, Puth says the core of his approach hasn’t changed – he’s always documented the process of making music and shared it with fans: “It’s all the same stuff. But the thing that’s remained the same is, if the song is going to resonate with people, it’s going to resonate with people.”
Elsewhere in the chat, the musician also opens up about vocal production and the dangers of overprocessing.
“When you tune the hell out of your vocals, I think it also takes the emotion. I’ve definitely overtuned my vocals in the past on past works,” Puth admits. “If it’s too tuned, in all honesty, if I’m doing the vocal production, I just delete it and re-sing it.”
Watch the full interview below.

The post Charlie Puth on why musicians shouldn’t write for the feed: “I don’t think anybody should be adjusting their music to the likes of social media” appeared first on MusicTech.

Gary Numan thinks AI music hype is short-lived: “It will go full circle and people will want to go back to sharing a human experience rather than just brilliantly copied one”To license your music to AI or not? That’s quickly becoming one of the biggest questions facing artists today.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the debate around generative AI in music is impossible to ignore. Some see it as a powerful creative tool – jazz legend Pat Metheny, for instance, has described it as part of a “wonderful array of tools” available to modern musicians – while others fear it could erode the very human core of songwriting.
Just recently, Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart called AI an “unstoppable force”, arguing musicians should “bow to the inevitable” and license their music to generative AI platforms. Gary Numan, however, isn’t buying it.

READ MORE: “Play an instrument – now more than ever”: Flying Lotus says AI-generated music will make demand to see real musicians go up

Speaking on the I’m ADHD! No You’re Not podcast, Numan took a firm stance against licensing his catalogue to AI and laid out exactly why he thinks the current hype won’t last.
“The thing about AI from my point of view is, when you’re listening to a human, a song written by a human, you’re listening to that person’s experience, and that’s why it resonates with people,” the singer says. “It’s a shared experience, whatever it might be: a love song, one of my silly things about robots, whatever.”
“When you’re listening to AI, no matter how beautiful the music is – and if it isn’t already, it will be – it will be stunning. The artwork I’ve seen is the most stunning artwork I’ve ever seen… The music would be amazing. But what you’re listening to is a learned copy of a human experience. It’s not real.”
Numan reckons AI acts will grab everyone’s attention for a time – much like the ABBA Voyage shows – but that eventually, listeners will yearn for the authenticity of human artists.
“To begin with, the fascination for AI would dominate everything, and everybody will be willing to excuse the fact that it looks amazing and that I don’t care about the human content,” he explains. “[But] I think over time, if we’re around long enough, it will go full circle and people will want to go back to sharing a human experience rather than just brilliantly copied one.”
This philosophy underpins Numan’s approach to his creative process.
“I don’t use AI for anything. I don’t need it to help me write letters. I think I write perfectly well,” he says. “I certainly don’t want it to write lyrics because that’s the very essence of what a song is about. It might be easier. It might be good to do it like that, but fuck it – I’m willing to spend a day or two writing a lyric that means something to me. And it’s really important. Musically, although I struggle and I’m worried all the time whether it’s good enough, it has to be mine.”
Listen to the full interview below.

The post Gary Numan thinks AI music hype is short-lived: “It will go full circle and people will want to go back to sharing a human experience rather than just brilliantly copied one” appeared first on MusicTech.

FSK Audio update Bark24 Dyn California-based developer FSK Audio have released a significant update for their innovative multiband dynamics processor.

FSK Audio updates Bark24 | Dyn psychoacoustic dynamics processor (+ 2 FREE Copies)
FSK Audio has released Bark24 | Dyn v1.1, a major update to its 24-band psychoacoustic dynamics processor developed in collaboration with Mark Jeffery, the original designer and primary developer of Pro Tools. We’re checking out the update and also giving away two free copies of the plugin. First, the giveaway. To enter the giveaway, sign up [...]
View post: FSK Audio updates Bark24 | Dyn psychoacoustic dynamics processor (+ 2 FREE Copies)

Pepsi and Diageo withdraw sponsorship of UK’s Wireless Festival as Kanye West booking sparks backlash"We have informed the organizers of our concerns, and as it stands, Diageo will not sponsor the 2026 Wireless festival," said a company spokesperson.
Source

Suno now has: music gen, stems separation, DAW, custom models, voices (beta), your taste...what else? #Music #AI