Fix The Tix plots July 9 Day of Action to push for US Ticketing ReformThe Fix The Tix coalition is planning a July 9th Day Of Action to push the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive ticketing reform that protects fans and artists and restores. Continue reading
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DC Snares: Plugin Boutique unveils the “ultimate snare construction kit”Plugin Boutique has unveiled DC Snares, a new virtual instrument designed by multi-award-winning producer and musician Davide Carbone.
The new kit is aimed at replicating Carbone’s design process and sounds, and promises to “simplify your workflow” while adding “serious impact to your productions”.

READ MORE: Tame Impala has founded a musical instrument company – but it’s super mysterious

With hundreds of custom-made onboard sounds, a purpose-built synth engine, and an in-built randomiser, the plugin allows you to create unique and powerful snares with ease.
At the heart of DC Snares is its four-slot sample layering system, which provides endless possibilities for sound creation. The plugin comes loaded with 684 internal samples curated by Carbone himself, covering not just snares but also kicks, cymbals, and various percussion sounds. This vast library is complemented by hundreds of main presets, that range from Simple and Electronic to Acoustic and Cinematic categories.
One of DC Snares’ standout features is the randomiser, which generates new combinations for all four sample slots at the touch of a button — perfect for overcoming those pesky creative blocks. It is also able to auto-generate names based on content.

Next, the plugin’s powerful envelope section allows for precise control over pitch and amplitude modulation for each layer. Users can copy and paste envelope settings across slots for a cohesive sound, and assign modulation envelopes to various parameters for extensive sound design possibilities. Real-time waveform updates, meanwhile, provide visual feedback when adjusting envelopes and internal effects.
The plugin also features a bespoke snare-oriented rearrangeable effect chain, including modules such as the ‘Sizzler’, ‘Transient Shaper’ and ‘Resonator’. The ‘Sizzler’ effect, in particular, is a “world first” that replicates how a room responds to a snare’s rattle.
In terms of sequencing, DC Snares features an internal sequencer engine designed to make playing and programming snare rolls intuitive and fun. Users can perform pitch-able triplet rolls, straight divisions, or play snares chromatically.
DC Snares is available in VST3, AAX, and Standalone formats for Windows and Mac. You can get it at an introductory price of $29/ £29 (U.P.$49/ £49) until 31 July 2024.

Learn more at Plugin Boutique.
The post DC Snares: Plugin Boutique unveils the “ultimate snare construction kit” appeared first on MusicTech.

Music Production Workshops with Alan Parsons The Art & Science Of Sound Recording's latest event sees the organisation take a new approach to their in-person workshops. 

10 Revenue Streams every Musician needs to know aboutEvery musician needs to know ten essential revenue streams to maximize their income. Learn the strategies to diversify your earnings and advance your music career. by Chris Robley of Reverbnation. Continue reading
The post 10 Revenue Streams every Musician needs to know about appeared first on Hypebot.

RIAA’s past statements undermine current AI lawsuit claims, says Mike MasnickMike Masnick of Tech Dirt says that the RIAA’s previous statements contradict their stance on AI, potentially unraveling their latest legal battles.  Op-ed Mike Masnick of Tech Dirt There have. Continue reading
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AudioScape’s new MAP D.AM-27 dual preamp AudioScape have announced a modern relaunch of Modular Audio Products, and the first release to sport the name is a dual-channel preamp based on Melcor’s AM-27. 

“If I could play bass like that, I would!”: Dua Lipa producer on Don’t Start Now basslineIan Kirkpatrick, the producer of Dua Lipa’s 2019 hit song Don’t Start Now, has dived into the making of the track’s iconic funky bassline.
“The bassline is a little Bee Gees and a little Daft Punk,” Kirkpatrick told Music Week [via Music Radar]. “It’s a little bit Alan Braxe and Fred Falke, if anyone knows those DJs – those old Eurohouse kind of classy basslines.”

READ MORE: Watch Fred Again..’s surprise ambient set at Glastonbury’s Strummerville stage

“It was the sum of me listening to awesome basslines for 10 years and trying to emulate that, so I’m glad people like it.”
Since its release, the song has spawned countless bass covers, with the most popular racking up an impressive 14 million views on YouTube. But did you know that no bass guitars were actually involved in the original track?
“It’s MIDI, don’t get mad at me!” Kirkpatrick said. “But it’s programmed responsibly, so people can actually play it. It’s meant to sound real and it might as well be. If I could play bass like that, I would!”

Elsewhere, the producer also spoke about how Don’t Start Now — written by Emily Warren, Caroline Ailin, Kirkpatrick, and Dua Lipa herself — was conceived during a songwriting session in Warren’s Wyoming cabin.
“The lyrical concept started in January and the vibe came from the night before,” Kirkpatrick recalled. “We’d gone out to this random bar in the middle of Jackson Hole and it was disco night, and Don’t Start Now came the next day.”
Kirkpatrick previously revealed during a Sound on Sound interview that he used the Scarbee MM-Bass plugin for the song’s main bass sound.
“I played the main part on the keyboard, and then edited it afterwards. There’s a sub bass underneath it, and it’s blended with slaps in the drop, which is from a [Spectrasonics] Trilian bass patch, plus there’s a thumb bass,” he said.

The post “If I could play bass like that, I would!”: Dua Lipa producer on Don’t Start Now bassline appeared first on MusicTech.

Tonnes of music tech gear is discounted at Thomann for the first 10 days of July – here are the best dealsThomann is celebrating a massive 70 years in business in 2024, and it’s doing so in style. During the first 10 days of every month of the year, the German music retail giant is offering discounts on tonnes of music tech gear, and we’ve sifted through July’s haul – which features over 100 discounted products – to bring you the very best deals.
First up is the Native Instruments Maschine +, now only €879 down from €1,199. This standalone groove box features 16 velocity-sensitive pads, machine effects and plugins, swing, pad link, note repeat and step sequencer functions and even vintage sampler emulation.

READ MORE: Best new mixing plugins, effects and VST instruments out this week

Or if you’re in the market for a new toy for your audio collection that won’t break the bank, the Flamma FS01 Looper/Drum Machine is discounted from €85 down to €69 for the first 10 days of July.
This pedal-based looper and drum machine features 20 minutes of recording capacity, 11 different groove styles with multiple time signature and tempo variations, three modes: Looper, Drum Machine and Mix, and a visible looper recording bar to support loop recording.
There’s also a killer deal to be had on the Native Instruments Traktor X1 MK3 modular USB DJ controller: now only €225 down from €299, there’s €74 to be saved here.
Built for seamless integration into Native Instruments’ Traktor software, the Traktor X1 MK3 features five OLED displays for remaining track time, track names, selected effects and effect parameters, 34 backlit buttons, a light-based system for visual feedback, four Endless rotary encoders, eight rotary potentiometers, as well as an integrated three-port USB hub.
There’s over 100 products discounted for the first 10 days of July, so head to Thomann now to browse them for yourself.
The post Tonnes of music tech gear is discounted at Thomann for the first 10 days of July – here are the best deals appeared first on MusicTech.

Will RIAA’s lawsuit against Udio and Suno really be the win we’re hoping for?AI and music had their first David and Goliath moment this week when RIAA issued a dramatic and scathing lawsuit against generative AI music platforms Suno and Udio.
In the lawsuit, the RIAA claims Suno and Udio are perpetuating copyright infringement “at an almost unimaginable scale”, alleging that both platforms are trained unlawfully on the catalogues of Universal, Warner and Sony. So blatant was this infringement, according to the RIAA, that the lawsuit outlines multiple cases when the notes, melodies and structure are almost identical to existing works, including music from the likes of Green Day, ABBA and Mariah Carey.
READ MORE: Splice CEO’s message for AI sceptics? “Trust the artists”
The 34-page lawsuit has been widely celebrated within the music industry and the broader field of creative arts. Why? Because wholesale ‘scraping’ of data by AI companies without permission or remuneration is a genuine threat — not just to the majors but to working independent artists, all of whom could be undermined if their catalogues are used to fuel models that churn out derivatives at speed and scale.
Uncontrolled and unregulated generative AI poses an existential threat to the music industry as we know it; that might sound hyperbolic but it’s not. These lawsuits could set the tone for how music and AI co-exist going forward and Suno and Udio — whose investors curiously include artists such as 3LAU, Common and will.i.am — will either be sued into oblivion or forced to clean up their act.
A familiar situation
But will the strong-arming become a grudging handshake? It’s not a stretch to assume that licensing deals — and a bit of equity thrown in — are a possible outcome of this lawsuit. Elsewhere in AI, The New York Times’s case against Sam Altman’s OpenAI is likely to conclude the same way – in fact, OpenAI has already signed similar deals with the FT and with News Corp. Few want to air their dirty laundry in court, including the plaintiff, and the stern language used in RIAA’s lawsuit feels more about obtaining leverage in negotiations than expecting Suno and Udio to fork up the roughly $1.5 trillion and $1.36 trillion it would cost them, respectively, to pay the damages due.
So how might they work? A blanket license for carte blanche access to train models on the back catalogues of some of the greatest artists of all time? Another micro-penny payment system if your artist’s name is mentioned in a prompt? A huge annual fee pocketed by the label and thrown on the pile, never to trickle down to the artists whose work makes up their vaults? These aren’t just whimsical hypotheticals — decisions made now could radically alter the upcoming decades of music industry economics.
Streaming has gutted the middle class of artists, shifting rewards to those who own catalogues at scale — micro-pennies mean little to those with three albums, but can mean a lot to labels with 30,000. AI, too, relies on scale: the more quality data you hoard, the more valuable your asset for licensees. Once again, this leaves independent artists sidelined with little voice or influence over the emerging tech that can define their future. And if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.
The long-term effect of decisions made at the dawn of streaming isn’t just affecting independent musicians, though; it’s coming back round to the majors themselves. As Billboard’s Elias Leight pointed out last year: “It’s common to hear grumbles about young acts who have hundreds of millions of plays of a single but can’t fill a small room for a live performance.” By opening the floodgates, streaming removed the bridge between artist and listener, and music’s value (as a commodity, at least) has plummeted to next to zero. Those decisions were made against the backdrop of piracy’s genuine threat — and here we are again.
Getting money upfront and a slice of the pie will likely be appealing, but the mistakes of the streaming era must be at the forefront if and when these licensing negotiations begin.
Move fast, break things, get paid
The tech industry has a long and tedious reputation as a disruptor, a badge it wears with honour. In an interview with MusicTech, Grammy-nominated producer, composer and developer BT said: “Our large label music partners told us a story about a CEO that came to see them [and] they [were] clearly in violation of training on IP-protected works just to speed-run a product to market. They asked how they trained and he said, ‘We would rather ask for forgiveness than permission’… This kind of thinking and irresponsibility could destroy music.”
The ‘move fast and break things’ narrative might feel irresponsible, yet it’s exactly the approach that led Suno to raise $125m to date. In fact, one investor audaciously claims that if deals with the labels were in place, they “probably wouldn’t have invested in it. I think that they needed to make this product without the constraints.” Viewing fundamental IP rights as constraints gives you a sneak peek into a worryingly common mindset in tech, but the music industry keeps falling for the Shiny New Thing.
If companies who steal, blitzscale and ask for forgiveness later are constantly rewarded, where’s the incentive to do things the right way from the start? ‘Ethical AI’ has become its own buzzword, with innovative companies rightly pushing for transparency in training data, traditional rights attribution and new technical solutions to allow AI and music to scale together fairly. But as Tatiana Cirisano wrote in MIDIA last month, if “one music-tech startup seeks permission, it risks losing the race to another startup that asks for forgiveness.”
UMG, Sony and Warner have all issued their AI guidelines and creeds, from the Human Artistry Campaign, to government lobbying, opt-out letters and AI for Music initiatives. If labels enter negotiations with AI companies who infringe on an “almost unimaginable scale”, they could risk undermining their own necessary, crucial guidelines as AI finds its feet, and trust, among creatives and artists.
Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe the major labels will seek to make an example of Suno and Udio, the case will make it to court and a novelty-sized cheque will be handed over to the RIAA. If not, and a settlement is reached with licensing terms attached, getting it wrong risks causing significant damage to an already faltering industry. The mistakes of the streaming era are still in the rearview mirror — let’s hope the majors look back before they look forward.
Read more about AI in music technology. 
The post Will RIAA’s lawsuit against Udio and Suno really be the win we’re hoping for? appeared first on MusicTech.

RELEASE DETAILS
Release title:
ULTRAAVX
Main artist name:
Plexine
Release date:
5th Jul, 2024
https://publme.lnk.to/ULTRAAVX
#newmusic #Release #Music #indepedent #artist #experimental #Psychedelic

Gradient Synth App from Soulyft Audio Gradient Synth takes a novel approach to sound creation and allows users to create soundscapes by interacting with a colour palette rather than more traditional sets of controls. 

Live Review of Draag in SeattleThe Neptune Theatre  Seattle, WA 

Contact: draag1985@gmail.com 

Web: draagband.com

Players: Adrian Acosta, guitar, vocals, synth, drum machine, samples; Jessica Huang, synth, vocals, samples; Ray Montes, guitar; Nick Kelley, bass, noise, modular analog percussion synthesizer; Eric Fabbro, drums

Material: Based in the shadows of Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Mountains, Draag is a doomwave band that injects bits of industrial rock and black metalized beats into luxuriant glo-fi soundscapes. Their melodies channel the subversive musings of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep” and Slowdive’s “Star Roving.” At the same time, their spacey instrumentals gravitate toward the soaring atmospherics found in Sigur Ros’ “Rembihnutur” and Boards of Canada’s “Dayvan Cowboy.” Throbbing Gristle-like snippets—including recordings of obscure voices, hums, buzzes, and other sonic abnormalities—appear throughout the band’s waved-out harmonies, while eerie lyrics recollect surviving childhood religious trauma, the darker sides of spirituality, and feelings of isolation. 

Musicianship: Draag steadies their swells of sound with solid musicianship. The intertwined voices of co-leads Acosta (a trained mariachi singer) and Huang effortlessly slip under swathes of echo-flanged guitars and stunning synths in songs like “the day has come,” but also soar above as separate entities in “Mitsuwa.” 

Performance: Opening for the indie country-gaze band Wednesday, Draag started their sweetly aggressive set with two songs that aptly showcased their dissonant musical stylings: the swirling sonics of “Midnight Paradise,” followed by the fast-paced avant-garde distortion of “Demonbird.” The L.A. Valley quintuplet soon transitioned into songs that emphasized their capacity to embrace more industrialized tones exemplified in “Recharge,” complete with blips and samples reminiscent of NIN’s remix intro to “Where is Everybody?”  

Summary: Draag is a captivatingly dark and dreamy band. The quintet crafts haunting lyrics that complement their fusion of dark-meets-coldwave soundscapes. The band shines best when they readily push their creativity by pursuing adjacent genres such as industrial goth and electrocore, and if streamlined, could forge a distinctive sound for all to admire. Make sure to check out Draag opening for Wednesday and their recent releases, 2023’s Dark Fire Heresy and 2024’s Actually, the quiet is nice.The post Live Review of Draag in Seattle first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

MIT’s soft robotic system is designed to pack groceriesRoboGrocery combines computer vision with a soft robotic gripper to bag a wide range of different items.
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Did Bitcoin Runes already peak?Tokens on the Runes Protocol are down from their peak, but don't count them out yet. The protocol is less than three months old — and it's just getting started.

An Open XBOX Modchip Enters The SceneIf you’ve ever bought a modchip that adds features to your game console, you might have noticed sanded-off IC markings, epoxy blobs, or just obscure chips with unknown source code. It’s ironic – these modchips are a shining example of hacking, and yet they don’t represent hacking culture one bit. Usually, they are more of a black box than the console they’re tapping into. This problem has plagued the original XBOX hacking community, having them rely on inconsistent suppliers of obscure boards that would regularly fall off the radar as each crucial part went to end of life. Now, a group of hackers have come up with a solution, and [Macho Nacho Productions] on YouTube tells us its story – it’s an open-source modchip with an open firmware, ModXO.
Like many modern modchips and adapters, ModXO is based on an RP2040, and it’s got a lot of potential – it already works for feeding a BIOS to your console, it’s quite easy to install, and it’s only going to get better. [Macho Nacho Productions] shows us the modchip install process in the video, tells us about the hackers involved, and gives us a sneak peek at the upcoming features, including, possibly, support for the Prometheos project that equips your Xbox with an entire service menu. Plus, with open-source firmware and hardware, you can add tons more flashy and useful stuff, like small LCD/OLED screens for status display and LED strips of all sorts!
If you’re looking to add a modchip to your OG XBOX, it looks like the proprietary options aren’t much worth considering anymore. XBOX hacking has a strong community behind it for historical reasons and has spawned entire projects like XBMC that outgrew the community. There’s even an amazing book about how its security got hacked. If you would like to read it, it’s free and worth your time. As for open-source modchips, they rule, and it’s not the first one we see [Macho Nacho Productions] tell us about – here’s an open GameCube modchip that shook the scene, also with a RP2040!