Brian Eno: “I am probably one of the most prominent turd polishers in the business”According to Brian Eno, you should never delete even your most horrendous musical creations as you never know when they may come in handy.
Eno himself never deletes anything, with his logic behind keeping and working on his most tragic drafts is that they can’t really get any worse. Because of this, he’s sometimes able to work them into something completely different or even use just a part of a piece for another project.

READ MORE: Brian Eno: “‘Why do we like music?’ is as interesting as ‘How did the universe start?’”

MusicTech attended a series of workshops from Eno ran by the School of Song earlier this year, where he advised participants to work on their crappy demos: Try to polish a turd,” he said. “I am probably one of the most prominent turd polishers in the business.”
Eno also confessed that he’s got thousands of song ideas that he’s collected over the years, and though you may need some strong organisational skills to keep hold of all your off-cuts, it’s a method that he believes can be really useful. He further explained, “I don’t ever let anything go out of play, the point about the archive is to keep all the saucepans on the stove… Sometimes I will give it a title like, ‘Possibly the shittest piece of music I’ve ever done.’”

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Eno is known for his unconventional and freeing approaches to making music – the ambient legend has previously shared that he loves to use gear in ways it wasn’t designed for: “Most equipment is invented to do an existing job faster, or cheaper, more cleanly, or more easily,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Financial Times. “What I like to do is to discover what you can do with it that isn’t historical – something that it wasn’t designed for, something new (I’m sure the inventors of early microphones didn’t anticipate that their tools would lead to totally new ways of singing, just as the inventors of multitrack recording probably didn’t imagine Bohemian Rhapsody).”
The post Brian Eno: “I am probably one of the most prominent turd polishers in the business” appeared first on MusicTech.

Music mashup creation tool MashApp launches in the US with licensing deals from all three major labelsMashApp, a new music mashup tool, is now available in the US via the Apple App Store, with licensing deals from all three major labels.
The app allows users to easily mash popular hits together without the need for extensive music production knowledge. It hosts a catalogue of tracks from labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group (including Warner Chappell Music and Warner Recorded Music), as well as Kobalt Music and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG). Featured artists include the likes of Peggy Gou, Doja Cat, Dom Dolla, and a whole lot more.

READ MORE: Looking to give your studio space a makeover? Nanoleaf has permanently slashed the prices of some of its LED light packages by 30%

Artists, songwriters and rightsholders are provided with content attribution for all user creations made within the app. Users can weave together tracks available through the platform into a single, personalised playback, and can experiment with simple, intuitive settings for duration, start and end points, plus the use of vocals, instruments, and tools for tempo adjustments.
Fans can also share web links to allow MashApp’s userbase to experience their audio combinations as well as follow other creators on the app. Members of the MashApp community can use parts of select tracks and listen to ‘mashups’ for free, or subscribe to MashApp’s Premium tier for unlimited, ad-free mashup listening and to unlock the app’s “full creative potential.”
Check out the video below to see how it works:

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“MashApp’s mission is to bring the joy of playing with music creation to non-musicians, to let people play with their favourite music, as they have long done through DJing, mix tapes, mashups, and karaoke,” comments MashApp CEO and founder, Ian Henderson (a former Spotify executive). “We want this new creative play to be a great experience for fans, but also for artists. This requires close partnerships with record labels and music publishers, and we’re excited that our partners have embraced our vision.”
Find out more about MashApp or download it now from the US Apple App Store.
The post Music mashup creation tool MashApp launches in the US with licensing deals from all three major labels appeared first on MusicTech.

Facebook is deleting all live streams: Act Now!Facebook is deleting all live streams and live video recordings that are 30 days old or older starting on February 19th.
The post Facebook is deleting all live streams: Act Now! appeared first on Hypebot.

Study shows major growth in Patreon Creator incomeThere have been a major growth in Patreon creator income, according to the new State of Create report based on internal data from its creator community.
The post Study shows major growth in Patreon Creator income appeared first on Hypebot.

Analog Obsession Just Released FREE Attractor Dynamics Plugin for Mac and Windows
Developer Analog Obsession is back with its latest release – Attractor, a dynamic processor with transient manipulation for Mac and Windows (VST3/AU/AAX). Analog Obsession has released a swathe of free plugins in the last couple of years, gaining a solid reputation among both professionals and hobbyists in the audio community. The developer is perhaps best known [...]
View post: Analog Obsession Just Released FREE Attractor Dynamics Plugin for Mac and Windows

Can any other synth match Arturia Pigments 6’s astonishing sonic diversity?€199 for new licences 
Free update for existing users
Arturia Pigments has been my number one synth plugin since 2021. It’s my go-to instrument for serious projects or when I’m just looking for some sound-design fun, yet I still discover new sounds and techniques almost every time I fire it up. Those pleasant sonic surprises, and moments of inspiration sparked by a new sound, come thick and fast while exploring Pigments 6.
Crucial to Pigments’ versatility is a semi-modular design that allows a wide choice of tone generation, filter and effect models to be loaded into various slots that host them. Unsurprisingly, the recently launched sixth generation of the synth features new models in all of these areas.

READ MORE: Softube’s Model 77 might be the most impressive Yamaha CS emulation out there

What is Pigments’ new Modal synth model?
Pigments 6’s tone generation stage has a pair of slots for loading synth engine models, plus a Utility Engine that provides noise sources, a single analogue-style oscillator, and an optional audio input path. We have the Analog, Wavetable, Harmonic and Sample engines from Pigments 5; the latter’s granular mode now has a Scan parameter that shifts the grain playback position while a note is held, creating extra variation and evolution in the resulting sound.
New here is Modal, a physical modelling synth engine built on Karplus-Strong String Synthesis foundations. This engine is particularly effective for emulating plucked and struck instruments because it closely models their acoustic properties.

At the start of Modal’s synthesis chain is a choice of different impulse sounds, plus the option to use an audio input to seed the resonator. I have marvellous fun plumbing in drum hits and other percussive noises, and the results are enticing, especially when Modal’s other tools get involved.
The resonator section offers a choice between String and Beam models; these are essentially comb filters with incredibly narrow bands that tune the impulse to a more rarefied and controlled series of partials. String produces brighter tones with many partials, while Beam produces hollower, purer tones containing fewer partials.
Arturia has also added an Exciter stage on top of these Karplus-Strong foundations. This feeds additional impulses into the resonator while a note is held and sustained – think of a bow scraping across a violin string, or a hammer bouncing on a hammered dulcimer’s strings. Like the Impulse stage, the Exciter offers a choice of sounds and noises and, again, there’s the option to feed an external audio input to the Exciter. Modal’s potential as an effect processor gets better and better!
The actual sound produced is determined by various factors: the shape of the filters, the number and decay rate of partials, whether the partials are harmonic or enharmonic, and so on. But Arturia has done a first-rate job of distilling this complexity into a straightforward and understandable set of parameters. You still have to explore how to coax interesting tones from the engine, but Pigments’ integrated help system provides tutorials to keep you on the right track.
Modal adds a completely new and distinct voice to Pigments, and its acoustic realism (and, if you like, surrealism) both complements and contrasts with the analogue and digital synth tones the instrument was already so adept at creating.

What’s new in Pigments’ Filter section?
The MultiMode filter found in previous Pigments incarnations has been overhauled and renamed the Classic filter. All variants now include input overdrive for injecting additional harmonics into a sound, and can now switch between Digital and Analog modes. Resonance behaviour changes so that, in Analog mode, there is less loss of overall loudness when resonance is increased, which in turn gives smoother, warmer-sounding filtering.
New to Pigments 6 are the Cluster and LoFi filters. The first of these creates up to five filter bands centred around the chosen cutoff frequency, and control over the frequency spread of those bands (a nice target for an LFO, perhaps…). Cluster works particularly well on pads, giving movement and variation, and can create immediately striking results when its output is mangled through the synth’s Bitcrusher.
LoFi is a downsampler wrapped in filter’s clothing. This filter creates consistent degradation, no matter how complex or loud the incoming signal, while steep low-pass filters at the downsampler’s input and output allow welcome fine-tuning of the effect. The downsampling frequency can be jittered to give variation and, more fascinatingly, can be modulated by the synth’s modulators or the output of either tone generation engine. This results in exceptionally ear-catching tones and effects.

Does Pigments 6 have new modulators or effects?
Despite already possessing one of the best modulation systems of any synth, Pigments 6 brings even more polish to this vital part of the instrument.
Hovering over a modulated parameter pops open a panel that shows tiny pie charts that visualise (and allow adjustment of) the strength of all assigned modulators. This is incredibly handy but is made all the more useful by the newfound ability to create modulator side chains by dragging a source to one of these pies.
The modulators have received some attention too. Combinator modulators have gained an Envelope Follower mode that can be triggered from any tone generator or filter output, or from an external audio input. This is perfect for creating modulations that are synced to something other than tempo.
The Random mode of the Random modulator group has been made even more… err… random, with the addition of a Jitter setting. Conversely, it is now more tameable too, thanks to Distance and Smooth parameters that limit the magnitude and rate of change (respectively) of the modulator’s output.
Envelope Follower. Image: Press
Random modulators have a new Voice Modulator mode. This allows a sequence of up to eight values to be defined that Pigments can step through in various ways each time it needs to produce a new voice. I particularly enjoy using this to emulate the imperfections of vintage synth circuitry, recreating the subtle differences in tuning and waveform that an aged synth may produce.
The last modulator improvement is a revamped Function Generator. These are drawable modulation curves that either loop repeatedly to give LFO-like results, or can be fired once per note like an envelope. In either case, the shape of the LFO/envelope is entirely customisable, and so can be used for anything from creating ultra-slow risers to intricate rhythmic patterns.
Function Generators now have a Free Running option in which the curve continues to loop irrespective of incoming notes or other retrigger events. Meanwhile, the remaining retrigger options have been relabelled to make their action clearer. Creating custom curves is less fiddly now, thanks to a drawing grid and snap-to-grid option, while a tracer now runs over the curve so you can better understand what it is doing and when.
Finally, Pigments’ effects section has a new Vocoder processor. This can produce up to 40 filter bands with three different filter modes (vintage, modern and dirty), while the cross-modulation signal can be sourced from any synth, utility or filter engine output, as well as external audio input. It’s remarkably flexible!
There remains a slight gripe in the effects section — some parameters of some effect models can’t be used as modulation destinations. These are never vital parameters, but frustrating on those odd occasions when you want to, say, control an EQ boost/cut with an envelope generator.

Is there any reason not to get Pigments 6?
Pigments is resource-hungry, much like other powerful soft synths. If your machine matches the minimum specs you’ll have no problem running at least one instance – probably more – and in the studio, it’s not a big deal thanks to track bouncing and freezing. But an option to disable all of Pigments’ (admittedly beautiful) animated graphics may help free up resources for additional Pigments instances, or for other instruments and plugins to use.
Its taste for CPU cycles aside, there’s everything to love about Pigments 6. The additional sound design pathways opened up by Modal just beg to be explored, and the expansion in the ways external audio inputs can be used means Pigments is heading to being an awesome effects processor as well as a truly awesome synth.
The €199 asking price isn’t a bank-breaker, but it’s no impulse buy either. However, due to its semi-modular design and wide choice of synth, filter and effects models, Pigments is a veritable chameleon of an instrument – an ‘every synth’, if you will. It’s an analogue monster, a digital dream, a sampling powerhouse, and now a physical modelling marvel (or indeed any combination thereof). Add to this an exquisitely rich and detailed sound quality, and the asking price starts to look reasonable. That all of this is free to existing users is astonishing, given the updates alone are worth the full asking price.
Vocoder. Image: Press
Key features

Standalone and plugin instrument for Windows 10+ and macOS 11+
Large library of presets included; additional libraries available
2 synth engines with choice of Analog, Wavetable, Sampler, Harmonic and Modal
Utility engine with noise, simple analogue oscillator and optional external audio input
2 filter engines with choice of Classic, Cluster, Phaser, Formant, Surgeon, LoFi, Comb, Mini, MS-20, Matrix 12, Jupiter 8, SEM and
Lowpass Gate
2 insert effect chains and send/return effect chain
3 effects per chain with choice of spatial, dynamics, filters/EQs, distortions and modulations
Pattern sequencer/arpeggiator
24 modulation sources with easy mapping and side-chaining

The post Can any other synth match Arturia Pigments 6’s astonishing sonic diversity? appeared first on MusicTech.

UT Twin 48 from United Studio Technologies The UT Twin 48 is built around a NOS EF86 pentode valve, and offers two modes of operation that mimic the behaviour of both the U47 and U48.

“Your subscription goes to the artist you listen to”: Deezer boss explains what it does differently to other streaming platformsAlexis Lanternier, Deezer’s CEO, has shared how the platform acts differently to other streaming competitors to tackle low royalty rates.
Lanternier was appointed CEO of the platform back in July 2024, with a mission to make its royalty system “user-centric”.
Currently, Deezer is a smaller contender in the global market and has nearly 10 million subscribers, with larger competitors like Spotify coming in at 263 million. However, it recorded an 11 per cent growth in its last quarter, and was also the only music streaming brand to add its name to the global statement on AI training back in 2024.

READ MORE: It looks like Spotify lossless audio is coming later this year

In an interview with The Guardian, Lanternier says that Deezer is finding better ways to share royalties by fighting back against streaming farms. It does so by identifying “weird behaviour and patterns which don’t make sense” in a track using machine learning.
Lanternier previously spoke on this use of AI detection software back in January, when he released a statement revealing that it had already discovered around 10,000 fully AI-generated songs were being uploaded every day to its platform, amounting to 10 per cent of Deezer’s daily uploads. However, it does not remove the content, but simply labels it.
When questioned if not removing this content makes it harder for actual budding artists to break through, he says, “It’s harder for new artists in general. We now have almost a million songs a week coming, it used to be 150,000 three years ago… It’s harder given the higher competition there is, inherently, in the market.”
Though he declines to give a figure on what Deezer pays out per stream during the interview, he does say that with Deezer, users dictate what is shown to them, and that through its AI technology, it has been able to eradicate a number of white-noise tracks with no instruments in them, and replace them with its own.
By doing this, it provides the background noise some users want, without sharing in the royalty pool. Artists above 1,000 streams a month and more than 500 unique listeners on Deezer are said to receive more, and there are further payments for those actively sought out via search, according to the interview.
“The overwhelming feeling for a lot of people is that their life is more and more dictated by algorithm, and there is this ask that we see from our user base, and especially the young generation, to kind of take back control, understand how the algorithms work and be able to influence it,” he explains. “Your subscription goes to the artist you listen to – nobody can fraud that because you cannot influence the rest of the pool… It’s a long journey, but it’s a journey we’re well into.”
To find out more, head to the Deezer Newsroom.
The post “Your subscription goes to the artist you listen to”: Deezer boss explains what it does differently to other streaming platforms appeared first on MusicTech.

Looking to give your studio space a makeover? Nanoleaf has permanently slashed the prices of some of its LED light packages by 30%Planning to give your home studio a makeover? As of this week, LED light purveyor Nanoleaf has permanently lowered prices across over 40 of its best selling products.
The Smartlife Pricing Initiative aims to bring “higher cost products to a more accessible price point.” The cuts vary, but most price drops sit around the 30% mark. Plenty of Smarter Kits are also included in the drops, meaning the Blocks Combo XL Smarter Kit, Skylight Smarter Kit and Elements Hexagons Smarter Kit have all dropped from $249.99 to $199.99.

READ MORE: “I want to push the boundaries of what a DJ set can be”: James Hype’s Hï Ibiza residency is a “real-time” multi-sensory performance

Nanoleaf’s smart lighting innovation is solid fit for any studio. Some products in the Smarlife Pricing Initiative boast Rhythm Music Visualizer capabilities, meaning the lights react to the sound in your studio.
Another great saving comes in the form of Shapes Triangles & Mini Triangles’ 17-panel Smarter Kit. The kit has dropped by $90, now sitting at $159, and boasts rhythm-responsive features, as well as screen mirroring, touch response, and design customisation for scheduled patterns. Elsewhere, the 18-panel Limited Edition Ultra Black Triangles Smarter Kit has also been sliced by $90, now costing $339.96 as opposed to its previous price of $429.96.
“For the past two years, Nanoleaf has been working closely with [its] manufacturing and supply chain teams to completely reexamine, rework and reoptimise processes, materials, and structures to reduce costs,” Nanoleaf explains [via The Verge.]
“The economic climate has made affordability a key concern for many consumers. At Nanoleaf, we believe that lighting should be an extraordinary everyday experience, not just a luxury,” Nanoleaf’s CEO and co-founder, Gimmy Chu, says.
“We’ve had to completely reoptimise our company structures as a whole the past two years,” he continues. “But, with our team’s dedication and commitment to achieving this goal, we’re proud to introduce SmarterLife Pricing – making Nanoleaf products more accessible for everyone in our community.”
Head to Nanoleaf to find out more about the Smartlife Pricing Initiative.
The post Looking to give your studio space a makeover? Nanoleaf has permanently slashed the prices of some of its LED light packages by 30% appeared first on MusicTech.

Norrland samples offers FREE Solo Trumpet instrument for Kontakt
Norrland Samples now offers their entire Solo Trumpet instrument and Kontakt sample library for free. There are a lot of cheesy-sounding brass synths floating around. If you’ve felt your current arsenal in the orchestral domain fall short, we has some good news for you. This enormous package includes almost 6,000 samples recorded with five types [...]
View post: Norrland samples offers FREE Solo Trumpet instrument for Kontakt

Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fixI recently wrote about the unflattening of music, how creativity, craft and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side of the equation but in doing so I missed the other big flattening challenge music faces, not from music but from artists themselves, or rather what artists are having to become. Music, or at least popular music, has always been more than just about the music, it has been the artist too.  But if there was previously some kind of equilibrium, the balance between craft and character has tilted firmly to the latter. It has done so because the social ecosystems in which the music business operates, reward personality more than they do craft. The music business needs to find a way to extract itself from this culture meatgrinder.

A recent Rick Beato video critiqued a major label exec for his focus on the social prowess of artists. Social has done more than anything else to push the balance towards character. With its focus on the personal, social has inherently shifted the marketing burden onto the shoulders of the artist. They are the ones that most often build brand, audience and streams from their social activity. Social now accounts for 17% of all entertainment time, more than streaming music (13%) but its soft power is bigger than its share-of-time hard power. This is because social is often our discovery entry point for everything else. For example, TikTok is the number one place Gen Z discover new music. 

But music is just one sub-strand of social, which means that artists are competing with all other creators for attention. Which is complicated further by the fact that algorithms nichify everything, making cutting through harder still.

Building fan relationships may be the ideal, but ultimately the algorithm rewards ‘buzzy’ behaviours and artists find themselves not only having to continually say something, but having to say something that cuts through. So, it is not even artists’ character that is being pushed, but an exaggerated, caricature. Artists end up, intentionally or otherwise, building a persona, a character. It is because of this double meaning (i.e. personality AND persona) that I use the word ‘character’ – that, and because it alliterates nicely with ‘craft’ 

When labels (obviously not all of them, but many of them) look for artists that have strong social followings, they see that as a reflection of the artist’s popularity and potential. It is, but more so, it is a reflection of the artist’s character and the suitability of that character to the social algorithm.

All of this might be a price worth paying, were it not for the side effects:

Social is not actually that effective: Despite all the effort put into social, its conversion rate isn’t great. Only a minority of people stream music they discover on social. The music business thinks of social as a funnel but really it is more like panning for gold, with water streaming out of the bottom (pun intended) but what’s important being left behind – the gold nuggets of fandom, identity and community.

We can’t see the ‘whys’: Music marketers can measure the effects of virality (the ‘whats’) but not the causes (the ‘whys’). They can’t tell whether it was the song or the creator that created the viral moment. They can observe correlation but not causality.

Passive fandom: Viral moments are the result of passive fandom, but artist success depends on deeper, active fandom.

Character can be an obstacle: Artist character is important but it is only part of why we like the music we do. We all like some music by artists we don’t particularly like as people. But the more we rely on the artist’s character as our route into their music, the more likely we are to not engage with music at all if we don’t like the artist. And with streaming flattening music, there is progressively less chance of us serendipitously discovering a ‘real’ artist’s music on streaming, sans character.

Craft gets relegated: With the focus on doing and saying stuff that fires up the social algorithm, the craft of music loses ground. Either because artists find themselves with less time to make music, or because labels and management sign the artists who emphasise character over craft, content over composition.

In many respect, artists and labels can’t be criticized for playing to the system. If they don’t, they risk failure. They are caught up in a system that rewards character over craft. So, what is the solution? It is much easier said than done, but the music industry needs social places where either music alone lives, or at least it has a starring role. Apple tried and failed years ago with iTunes Ping! but it was the wrong execution and at the wrong time. It was basically TikTok 10 years before TikTok, but not done very well.

To succeed, this new place (or places) will have to avoid making the same mistakes as today’s social apps. It will need to emphasise music over personality. It will need to be a place without trolling. Which will likely mean gated fan communities, where bad behaviour is not tolerated, perhaps leveraging the Twitch model of community-led moderation. Ideally, it will also be a slow internet, a place where virality, likes and follower counts take second place to community, culture and real conversation. 

Sounds ridiculously idealistic right? Perhaps it is, but these are the underlying values of human society. Technology has shifted us away from them and AI threatens to push us even further away. People are forced into behaviours that make sense to the machine more than they do to humans. Anyone who has seen the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown will have seen an artist that wanted it to be all about his music, who didn’t want to have to be a star. Things will never be like that again, and indeed there are many ways in which today’s world is immeasurably better. But over the intervening decades the pendulum has swung entirely in the opposite direction. Now the time is right for it to settle somewhere in the middle.

How Independent Music Publishing Works (Or Doesn’t)This week, Ari is joined by Marc Caruso, CEO and co-founder of Angry Mob Music, to discuss the evolving landscape of music publishing.

Sonora Cinematic introduce Emma Legato Emma Legato is said to be a powerful and user-friendly tool and has been designed to create rich vocal textures and realistic melody lines for cinematic and ambient compositions.

AllMusic Feature - Birthdays On This DayA fun item that many users may not know about is our "Birthdays On This Day" feature on the homepage of AllMusic. Each day we highlight 15 prominent musicians who were born on this date, from rock, to jazz, to hip-hop, to classical and every genre in between. Scroll down to see today's list.

Soundiron Hopkin Instrumentarium: Icicles & Pop IceIcicles & Pop Ice are a pair of distinct string instruments that deliver a bright, crystalline tone, thanks to their short, highly tensioned strings and a rigid stainless-steel sheet soundboard.... Read More