Spitfire Audio Releases FREE LABS Obsolete Machines
Spitfire Audio releases Obsolete Machines as part of the free LABS collection. One of the things that I like most about LABS is the mixture of conventional and unconventional sounds on offer. Spitfire Audio typically tries to make even the more traditional sounds somewhat special by using a rare instrument model, unique location, etc. But, [...]
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Steinberg Nuendo Live 3 now available Nuendo Live 3’s new features include an updated audio engine, matching the latest generation used in Cubase and Nuendo DAWs, HiDPi support, full native support for Apple’s M1 and M2 processors and Project Template Assistant, which allows any NL3 project to be used as a template for the next recording...

Recent Classical Highlights for April 2023There are some interesting concertos among this month's new reviews. Conductor Marin Alsop is a champion of composer Kevin Puts, with a new recording featuring his latest concertos for marimba and for oboe, the latter featuring Katherine Needleman (pictured).

Q&A with SparksSOMETHING FOR THE BAND WITH EVERYTHING 

Photos by Munachi Osegbu

Just a few years ago, being a Sparks fan was like being in a cult.  Like Jonestown without the Kool-Aid and mass suicide, Sparks attracted different types of fans for different reasons. It depended on when (as in what period of their long and increasingly illustrious career) and where (as in the geographic location ranging from couldn’t get arrested to being all the rage) the listener discovered them, but once initiated, Sparks was everything to all of them. 

The Los Angeles born and raised, UCLA-schooled brothers Ron and Russell Mael were discovered by Todd Rundgren (with whom they still collaborate, just check his last album for “My Fandango”), who in 1972 signed them to the Bearsville label where they put out two records that didn’t exactly make them hometown heroes. Maybe their Cali flavors of post-Beach Boys meets Zappa-adjacent avant-garde meets their Anglophile love of post-British Invasion power pop/psychedelia was too quirky? So, they fled failure and anonymity, went across the Pond, and Being There’d their way into the U.K. glam/glitter scene of Marc Bolan/T-Rex, Sweet, Slade, Queen (and according to MOJO magazine, tried to poach Brian May) and experienced their own version of a Ziggy-meets-Bay City Rollers mania. This is why, back home in L.A., fanatics like Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s, and so many others, thought they were a British band when she established her own Sparks fan club. (A few years later she’d be singing “Cool Places” with them.) 

Sparks’ glitter period is also when future punk rockers like Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie Sioux of the Banshees fell in love with them. The brothers’ euro-disco/proto-trance/synth-pop records would, uh, spark Joy Division and Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran and a slew of other Second British Invasion bands. Next, their sojourn in France obviously captivated a young Daft Punk, Air, and they gave hit songs to national favorites, Les Rita Mitsouko. Actually, like Bowie, each of their incarnations yielded another groundswell of future groundbreakers and hitmakers to the point where their impact on rock and pop music is almost incalculable. It’s as if the number of bands Sparks’ve incited outnumbers the people who have even heard of them. 

And the inspiration has never stopped, they surpassed 50 years of their family business as each decade begat new disciples. There is something Rundgren-ish or Zappa-esque about them. On the one hand, an acquired taste, but also so catchy they’re too infectious to dismiss. Yes, they’ve been different things to different people, but more and more they are all things to an increasingly larger group of people who have become obsessed completists. And that probably has much to do with the wild success of Edgar Wright’s 2021 documentary, The Sparks Brothers, where the director was, almost miraculously, able to celebrate the Maels’ eccentricities while emphasizing their accessibility and ubiquity. 

Sparks are not nostalgic, they don’t look back at milestones and accolades. In fact, they are still outdoing themselves at a rate that can almost make them blush. They have wowed audiences at Cannes with their musical film, Annette, and are now back with their 25th album, a serving of art-pop perfection, The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, the video for the title track featuring Oscar winner and Sparks fan, Cate Blanchett. This month Sparks embark on a world tour which sees them playing prestigious venues like the Royal Albert Hall in the U.K. and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles where they will, undoubtedly, be greeted as the hometown heroes they always were. Who knows, maybe a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction isn’t too much to ask for next?

Music Connection: The Girl is Crying in Her Latte offers new palettes of sounds. Can you talk about how discovering new toys, new gear, new software, new plug-ins, etc. yields new works for Sparks?

Ron Mael: We don’t have to worry about the clock and the time in the studio, because it’s our own time, our own place. Also, we are able to accumulate new sounds through software. In some circumstances we still write the songs in a traditional way–you know, piano and singing–but we are also writing it from an inspiration, from a sound, or something with new software. Russell in particular is always seeking out new software, and it isn’t only to just color a thing after the fact; sometimes it’s something that will inspire you to actually create something new. 

Russell Mael: The most important thing is the song. We had a small studio set up in my place, but we were always dependent on an engineer to come in and use it. At a certain point I thought, I have this equipment sitting here, I should learn how to use it. Over time, I became more self-sufficient, and I became more interested in what’s out there sonically. There’s lots of companies now that have amazing software and sound libraries in all different styles. There are amazing orchestral and synthesizer libraries. 

We’re not purists, either, with synthesizers. We don’t think in terms like “Oh, I’m going analog.” If you can get a sound that is virtually indistinguishable from the hardware version of an instrument, then we don’t see that as cheating. Sonically, when you have to be so purist as to say that it has to be coming from a real Moog as opposed to a real Moog that has been sampled to be used for software, then it becomes a real strange argument as to what is really necessary or better. Also, it’s how you use any of that stuff, whether it’s hardware or software. Because I know some bands using great vintage gear, and in the end it’s “eh uh eh uh” and you go, “Okay, it’s vintage, but so what?”  

Ron: We’ve kept a lot of those old pieces of equipment just because they’re cool. We have the RMI [Electra-Piano] and the Echoplex that we used on the recordings of the first island albums, Kimono My House and Propaganda, and then we have the Roland Jupiter 8’s and the early drum machines, just because you hate to get rid of that stuff, it’s so beautiful and cool. But we like to work fast, and you know there’s tuning and reliability and space issues that makes us think, “Let’s just save those for the museum tour.” 

MC: You’re not hung up on nostalgia, sometimes performing an entire new album before offering the greatest hits. Many bands are afraid of losing the audience to the bathroom break, but it’s like you have the confidence to say, “This is what we’re doing now, come along or get left behind.” 

Russell: We agree totally. If you are shying away from your new material, then there must be some issue with it. There are obviously certain songs that we want to do from the past, that fans expect and enjoy, but we like to balance that with what we are doing now because we’re proud of our new material. I think people come away from Sparks shows, especially new or younger fans who don’t have a reference point of the past, as all of a piece. As opposed to, “Oh I want to hear songs from…” whatever golden era they may think is Sparks’ golden era. 

MC: It’s obvious that the success of Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers doc made the tent bigger for people with no previous reference/access point? 

Russell: He kind of emphasized that Sparks’ history is equally valid throughout our entire career. That there are even albums that went under the radar, but now when you go back to inspect those albums, there were circumstances as to why they were under the radar, as opposed to quality issues. And now we even enjoy doing some of the more obscure songs live, because now in the context of a whole show people have even more difficulty distinguishing what period something is from, because it all sounds like it’s of a piece. 

MC: In a very Bowie-like way you have many incarnations, which at first glance can seem drastic and incongruent, but there’s stuff on the new album that still evokes your first record, so can you talk about that throughline?

Ron: We are fortunate enough that through all things where we kind of soaked up influences, our sensibilities are strong enough, that it’s always going to be us. For better or worse, it’s always going to be the Sparks sensibility in whatever we do, so we’re not afraid of moving in a different direction where we ever lose our way, because we know that the way we think of music and lyrics is always going to be there, in a general sense, and those other things are just a shell around all of those things that we are. 

MC: Can you talk about the astounding feat of performing 21 albums in 21 nights that you did in England back in 2008? 

Russell: It was something that our manager Sue [Harris] had the audacity to come up with.  The concept that was “What could you do for the release of the next album?” Which was Exotic Creatures from the Deep, our 21st album. So, she thought of this idea, what if you do every one of your albums from start to finish—and in order—as kind of a statement. At first, we said, “Oh yeah, it sounds real cool,” but then we got down to the brass tacks about how we were actually going to do that. 

We ended up rehearsing for four months to do those shows, but it’s something we think was an amazing achievement that no other band will ever do—or that even has that many albums—because the amount of focus that you have to have to do that is pretty intense.  It was a really special event, and was also a great leveler, in a way: when you hear all those songs done live, taken away from their recorded versions, it does become like it’s all of a piece, and you see how some albums have slipped by at the time. We thought some of those albums were lesser, just because they didn’t have a massive hit off them, but we heard them again and thought, “There’s nothing wrong with this album at all!” And the people who came to all those shows kind of realized the same thing. There are songs on albums like Introducing Sparks that went under the radar at the time. 

MC: You are with a major label again, Island Records, but have been operating for years as something like The House of Sparks, a boutique production company putting out high-end, curated music, videos, films, collectables, apparel and other merch with a fierce DIY spirit. Can you enlighten us about taking control of your art and brand. 

Russell: In the end, it’s always the first choice to control and present what you’re doing 100 percent the way you want to present it. We, along with Sue our manager, have a pure vision of what Sparks is and should be, and that way you can have things in your own hands. The downside is that sometimes you might not have the infrastructure to get it out to the rest of the world in the way, let’s say, that Island or Universal can do, with their reach. But as far as the actual material that you have and the way you present it, from the packaging and even the videos that we ended up doing on our own, there’s something to be said for having your own autonomy. Then your fate is in your own hands, and it’s something that you can be proud of. Having to be dependent on huge budgets to be able to move is paralyzing, so if you can avoid that there are more ways to work in the music field. 

MC: Sparks also has an impressive social media presence, yes?

Ron: You have to be active in giving people things. Even if it’s not your music. Something. During the pandemic, for better or worse, once a week I did a reading of a song lyric. It wasn’t like we had 10 million people watching it, but it’s trying to maintain a connection with people in a non-traditional way. We are always aware of making albums in the same way that we made albums all through the time, but there has been a huge change in the way that people hear things, and you have to be aware of that and adapt to it. 

MC: Can you talk about signing with Island again after so many years?

Russell: It’s pretty amazing that we signed with Island, who signed Sparks for what became Kimono My House in 1974, the album that really put us on the international scene. They signed a band that was uncompromising in 1974, and now, getting close to a half-century later, they signed Sparks again. But it wasn’t based on nostalgia or “Weren’t they wonderful? Wouldn’t it be nice to have their name around our label?” They responded to what Sparks is doing now musically, and they really love the new album, and that, for us, makes the whole story of being back with Island the most satisfying. It’s that they see the same spirit and adventure that Sparks had in ‘74 now applied in a fresh and new way in 2023 on the new album, so I think it is an amazing story to be back with them. 

MC: Sparks will play the historic Hollywood Bowl in July. As born-and-raised Angelinos, how does it feel to play such a large, legendary venue? 

Russell: Touring has been going up and up for Sparks in the last several years because of this real awareness of the band, due in large part to Edgar Wright and the documentary. And the Annette film was well received around the world. We’ve been able to play to bigger and bigger audiences, so now to be able to play the Hollywood Bowl, especially being from Los Angeles. . . it’s the most iconic venue you can possibly play in L.A., so we’re really excited about that. 

MC: This may be more of an observation, but I’ve noticed about how in the beginning Sparks was a music group that dabbled in art, but by now you’ve become a complete art project that uses music as the vehicle. You are more than a band, you are art.

Ron: When we first started off, we were attempting to emulate bands like The Who and The Kinks, bands that were bands, but ones that had a theatricality that wasn’t present in the L.A. bands. The personalities of the people in the bands gave it a theatricality that’s only there in rock music. Through the years we’ve always felt that the visual side of things is something that is incredibly important. It doesn’t diminish what we were doing musically; to us it’s all part of a piece. 

We’ve always been aware that what we’re doing is not just a traditional rock band, and that we are kinda both in and out of the role of rock musicians. But we’re not doing music from a distance, I mean, we’re totally invested in the kind of music that we like, and we can’t really work in a way that isn’t in some way at least adjacent to rock and pop. We are also aware that we bring additional elements to what we’re doing. You don’t have to be one thing, and that sometimes it causes problems as far as some critics being unable to pigeonhole us with, “What is it?” or “I don’t get it.”  

MC: I’ve heard you talk about being dada, and I see you like musical dada. And with your obsession with cinema, I also see you as being musical cinema, does that make sense?

Ron: We kind of see the songs when we write them in a cinematic way. That doesn’t mean you’re using soundtrack sounds or anything, but they are cinematic in that they are somehow larger than life, and we always felt that that was an essential part of the bands we always started off really admiring early on, and hoping we could kind of continue in that tradition. 

MC: Russell?...

Russell: Ditto. Everything he said. 

Contact Ken Weinstein, Big Hassle Media

weinstein@bighassle.com

Visit allsparks.com; bighassle.com

Soundly Place It Is A FREE Plugin That Emulates Different Speakers And Rooms.
#Tools #plugin #free

Just Bitcoin or diversify? 5 cryptocurrencies to watch in the next few daysIf Bitcoin price breaks above $30,000, several altcoins such as SOL, ATOM, ICP and HBAR are well-positioned for a rally of their own.

Soundly Place It Is A FREE Plugin That Emulates Different Speakers And Rooms
Soundly releases Place it, a freeware convolution plugin that simulates the audio characteristics of different playback devices and rooms. Creative effects are plentiful in the plugin space. There are shockingly few which try to emulate the particular characteristics of certain devices, like television, and how we might perceive them. Thankfully, the good folks at Soundly [...]
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The cultivated meat industry’s known struggles will take time to sort out, and maybe that’s OKThe Wall Street Journal went under the hood of the lab-grown meat industry, also known as cultivated or cell-cultured meat, and the struggles within.
The Journal particularly homed in on what’s going on at UPSIDE Foods, which received a blessing from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration related to its process for making cultivated chicken, essentially saying it was safe to eat and making it the first company to receive this approval. Eat Just, which has been selling its product in Singapore, the first nation to approve the sale of cultivated meat, followed, getting its “thumbs-up” from the FDA in March.
WSJ’s story pays particular attention to UPSIDE Foods’ success at making small batches of its chicken product, as well as its lack of being able to produce large amounts of product at a low cost, or at even price parity with traditional meat — and to be fair, most cultivated meat companies struggle with this too.
“Initially our chicken will be sold at a price premium,” UPSIDE founder and CEO Uma Valeti told TechCrunch in November. “As we scale, we expect to eventually reach price parity with conventionally produced meat. Our goal is to ultimately be more affordable than conventionally produced meat.”

UPSIDE Foods bites into $400M round to serve cultivated meat later this year

Companies in this sector make meat from animal cells that are fed growth factors. The production and pricing challenges presented in the WSJ story, however, are not new. “Is cell-culture meat ready for prime time?” wasn’t just a clever TechCrunch+ headline, but a legitimate question posed in early 2022 that still really hasn’t been answered.
Most cultivated meat stories in our archives include at least a sentence about how hard it is for companies to produce mass quantities and to create foods by this method so that the finished product is under $10 a pound.The cultivated meat industry’s known struggles will take time to sort out, and maybe that’s OK by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

Last week in Music Industry Commentary: Chris Castle, Emmanuel Legrand & MoreCommentators in the thick of the industry last week shared their opinions and thoughts on surprising music publishing stats, Spotify’s Will Page, and more… Chris Castle on Will Page: ‘studied. Continue reading
The post Last week in Music Industry Commentary: Chris Castle, Emmanuel Legrand & More appeared first on Hypebot.

Mixing Tips For The Home Studio
If you’ve read our complete guide to mixing music, here’s a bonus set of quick and actionable mixing tips you can incorporate into your music production workflow. There is a learning curve that most home studio mix engineers follow. Essential Mixing Tips For Your Home Studio It starts with the idea of mixing a song – [...]
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Martyn Ware/BEF present Music For Total 3D Sonic Immersion Music For Total 3D Sonic Immersion has been currated by Martyn Ware, and will feature a range of performances using a unique three-dimensional sound array configured specifically for the concert.

Vicious Antelope 1981 Vol.1 - CS-80 V4 and Analog Lab V 1981 Vol.1 for Arturia CS-80 V4 and Analog Lab V synths is a 30 pads collection with eighties sonic character. Inspired by some of the most legendary pop, electronic and new age musicians... Read More

Spitfire Audio launch LABS Obsolete Machines The latest free LABS instrument contains a range of experimental sounds captured from Sam Battle's collection of hand-made electronic instruments. 

Elon exposes his burner, Tile embraces the cat life, and Elizabeth Holmes avoids prisonHey, TechCrunch people. If you’re looking for a recap of the week’s news in tech, you’ve come to the right place. It’s Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular recap column. Glad to have you.
Before we get on with the meat of it, a PSA that tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 are available now. Disrupt, of course, is TechCrunch’s flagship in-person event, focused on founders, investors and the future of tech year after year. In San Francisco on September 19–21, expect to hear from thought leaders in the fields of AI, fintech, hardware, sustainability, SaaS, security and more. It’ll be well worth the trip.
In the nearer term, tune into the next TechCrunch Live show, which will spotlight Cambrian BioPharma, a startup billing itself as a pharmaceutical outfit with a revolutionary approach to managing drug development. Founder James Peyer will be joined by Maryanna Saenko of Future Ventures, who invested in Cambrian’s Series A, B and C rounds.
Now, without further ado!
most read
Elon exposed: Elon Musk tweeted a photo on Monday night that showed him logged into his Twitter account, advertising to content creators how they can activate monetization features on Twitter. Unfortunately for Musk, people weren’t paying much attention to the fact that he has 24.7K paid subscribers — instead, some users realized that he appeared to be logged into another account, Amanda writes — possibly his burner. Oops.
SpaceX finds success in failure: SpaceX launched a fully integrated Starship launch vehicle for the first time last Thursday, a long-awaited and highly anticipated milestone in the vehicle development program. Despite its fiery fate, the test was a success, Aria reports: SpaceX got tons of valuable data that will inform future Starship and Super Heavy prototypes.
Tile, but for cats: Tile, the AirTag rival now owned by Life360, this week launched a new cat-tracking tag to help pet owners find their furry friends. The new device, “Tile for Cats,” is essentially a modified version of the Tile Sticker with a silicone collar attachment that costs $39.99. Ivan has more.
Epic loss: Apple has won its antitrust-focused appeals court battle with Fortnite maker Epic Games over its App Store policies, Sarah reports. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld the district court’s earlier ruling related to Epic Games’ antitrust claims in favor of Apple, but it also upheld the lower court’s judgment in favor of Epic under California’s Unfair Competition Law.
Holmes avoids prison: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will not be heading off to prison this week to begin serving an 11-year sentence, as first reported by the WSJ. Though earlier this month U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila denied her request to remain free while she appeals her conviction, this week she asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directly if she could stay out of prison while her case makes its way through the appeals process; the request automatically puts her reporting date on hold while the court considers her request, writes Connie.
Protestors sting back: A Missouri government tip site for submitting complaints and concerns about gender-affirming care is down after people flooded it with fanfiction, rambling anecdotes and the “Bee Movie” script. The Missouri Attorney General’s office launched the online form for “Transgender Center Concerns” in late March, inviting those who’ve witnessed “troubling practices” at clinics that provide gender-affirming care to submit tips, Morgan reports.
Twitter pushes advertisers to pay up: As Twitter’s legacy blue check mark system finally comes to an end, the social network’s new paid-for verification system is causing more than a little chaos, with CEO Elon Musk himself stepping in to pay for some celebrities’ verification when they refuse to do so. However, another little nugget to emerge from the carnage this week is that anyone looking to advertise on Twitter will now seemingly have to have a verified account, Paul reports.
WhatsApp across devices: WhatsApp is finally rolling out multidevice login support for more than one phone. Mark Zuckerberg announced the feature’s rollout on Facebook and Instagram, clarifying that users can log into the same WhatsApp account on up to four phones. Until now, you could only use one WhatsApp account on one phone and multiple companion desktop devices.
audio
TechCrunch is cross-medium, in case you weren’t aware. The crew maintains a fantastic (in this writer’s humble opinion) slate of podcasts for your edification and enjoyment — so consider giving them a listen if you haven’t already. This week on Equity, Ankur Nagpal, the entrepreneur behind Teachable, Ocho and Vibe Capital, spoke about the future of solo GPs; how Ankur built, sold, pivoted and launched in public; and the importance of brand and succession. And Found — live from TechCrunch’s Early Stage event in Boston — was joined by Russ Wilcox, who founded E Ink and is currently a partner at Pillar VC.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:
Slow revenue growth: Public tech firms are for the most part on a moderate pace of trailing growth in the most recent fiscal quarter. Alex breaks down what that means — as well as the broader implications.
Founders change their pitch: More and more founders are adapting their pitches and business strategies to be more downturn-friendly, Natasha M writes. Now that it’s been over a year since tech’s current period correction first began, founders are getting more innovative in how they approach breaking their pitch.
Capital efficiency is the new VC filter for startups: Igor Shaversky, a partner at Waveup, writes about which metrics startups should track to understand where they stand on the capital efficiency scale.
Elon exposes his burner, Tile embraces the cat life, and Elizabeth Holmes avoids prison by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Up Close: Motorbooksquarto.com/motorbooks

Leader in Illustrated Publishing: Launched in 1976, U.K.-based Quarto is a longtime leader in the world of illustrated non-fiction publishing. While diversifying and adding numerous imprints over the decades, its ongoing mission has remained the same—to make and sell books that entertain, educate and enrich the lives of readers around the world. One of the most exciting current manifestations of this comes from their Minneapolis-based Motorbooks imprint, which Quarto acquired in 2007. Since 1965, Motorbooks has been among the world’s leading transportation publishers, creating volumes about cars, motorcycles, aviation, racing, etc. 

Looking to expand beyond the transportation topic, publisher Zack Miller and executive editor Dennis Pernu launched a dedicated music program in 2021, drawing on Pernu’s prior experience in music book publishing under Quarto’s Voyageur Press imprint. Under their creative, visionary leadership, they have built on the success of their first book—the authoritatively written (by Dave Hunter) and lavishly illustrated Fender 75 Years, the officially licensed celebration of the legendary instrument company—to publish a series of dynamic works celebrating some of rock’s greatest artists and albums.

The Anniversary Aesthetic: According to Pernu, Motorbooks’ goal with the line of heavily illustrated upscale coffee-table music books is to merge unique text with archival artist and memorabilia images from agencies, individual photographers, and collections. He works closely with the company’s talented art department to bring the books to life. “We want to approach these artists and historic recordings from different angles than those published previously,” he says. “The @50 and @75 concepts offer a fresh way of telling the stories and allow our authors some leeway in curating the high and low points of a career. We created a list of artists, bands and albums that have anniversaries and birthdays approaching. Our criteria included which are still touring, their popularity overseas, cross-generational appeal and album sales over the course of their careers. We’re also starting to branch away from the anniversary concept, but that’s been a strong starting point for this program.”

Celebrating Iconic Artists: In September 2022, Motorbooks kicked off their current slate of titles with Elton John @ 75 (by Gillian G. Gaar) and Bowie @ 75 (by Martin Popoff). Their early 2023 titles include Alice Cooper @ 75 (by Gary Graff), Pink Floyd and The Dark Side of the Moon (by Martin Popoff), and AC/DC @ 50 (by Martin Popoff). Coming this fall are Ozzy @ 75 (by Daniel Bukszpan), KISS @ 50 (by Martin Popoff) and The Who and Quadrophenia (by Martin Popoff). Also in 2023, Motorbooks will be marking the 75th anniversary of the LP with a broad, illustrated history.

Contact Motorbooks, 612-344-8186