Roland JUNO-60 The Roland JUNO-60 helped define the sound of the '80s and is highly prized for its vintage vibe and unmistakable character. Simply put, it's the sound you hear in your head when you think... Read More

Synchro Arts announce RePitch Elements The latest offering from Synchro Arts offers the same natural-sounding vocal tuning capabilities found in RePitch Standard, but with a reduced set of tools and a lower price point.

Event: IMSTA FESTA London IMSTA FESTA is a free one-day event aimed at musicians, songwriters, producers, audio engineers, music students and educators.

Wreak havoc on your favorite streamer’s game with Crowd ControlYou’re streaming the Sims to your loyal Twitch followers, when suddenly, a fire ignites in the middle of your virtual home. As you scramble to put out the fire before the Sim firefighters arrive, another flame appears out of nowhere. In the Twitch chat, your fans are giggling — they have caused quite the ruckus in your Sim neighborhood, but as a creator, you get the last laugh. You just got paid.
With support for more than 100 popular games, Crowd Control changes the way that streamers engage their fans, while also unlocking fun new ways to make money. Through reverse engineering these games, Crowd Control has created user-friendly apps and plug-ins that let fans pay to trigger an event on a creator’s livestream. So, as a fan, you can summon enemies in Minecraft, spawn a rare, shiny Pokémon in Pokémon Emerald, or make the creator’s avatar tiny in Resident Evil 4. You could use your micropayment to make a creator’s gameplay more difficult, or if you’re nice, you can give them a boost to help them out of a sticky situation.
Over 70,000 creators have already used Crowd Control, which started out as a Twitch-only app. Now, with the release of its 2.0 beta, the app is now available on YouTube, TikTok, Discord and Facebook Gaming.
“It’s been a long road of technical hurdles and experiments,” CEO Matthew “Jaku” Jakubowski told TechCrunch. “We have a really cool solution that just will work on just about any platform.”

Jaku founded Warp World, the parent to Crowd Control, after leaving his job as director of cybersecurity at Uptake. Warp World has developed other wide-reaching video game projects like Turnip.Exchange, which was all the rage when Animal Crossing: New Horizons was at its peak popularity, but Crowd Control is by far its largest technical undertaking. So far, Warp World has raised a round of seed funding.

An obvious risk for any startup that iterates on other platforms is getting rendered obsolete by those platforms themselves. Linktree, for example, was valued at $1.3 billion last year, but now, the company might be sweating: Instagram rolled out support for up to five links-in-bio. Even though Crowd Control doesn’t have any of its technology patented, Jaku doesn’t think other companies could catch up.
“For someone to build a similar sort of service at the speed that we have, and the library that we have… It will take some time,” he said. “I think we’re in a good spot where we’ve established ourselves in the field for over four years.”
If a game is not part of Crowd Control’s library, developers can now implement fan-controlled interactions in their games with Crowd Control’s developer plug-in, which is compatible with any game built on Unity, Unreal Engine, Game Maker Studio and other engines.
“With the developers building out this sort of stuff, it means reaching thousands of creators pretty much instantly,” Jaku said. “Increasing replayability is always huge for gamers or developers — they want that screen time.” He said that a typical Unity developer could probably make their game compatible with Crowd Control within a few weeks, but he’s also seen developers pull it off in a weekend.
As of now, Crowd Control keeps 20% of fans’ payments to creators, which is the standard split for Twitch plug-ins. But now, as a multi-platform app, Crowd Control seems to be getting around Twitch’s cut through a coin system. Other creator platforms like Fanhouse have taken similar steps to circumvent App Store fees and maximize creators’ profits.
“So, $100 is $100 of coins,” Jaku explained. “Instead of those coins only being available on one channel, that viewer will now have $100 worth of coins that they could spend on any channel.”
Crowd Control only has a team of ten, but most of them have been creators themselves at some point. Jaku himself started streaming Super Mario Maker on Twitch in 2015 and climbed the ranks to become a Twitch Partner. Then, he built the software that inspired Crowd Control to spice up his Borderlands 2 streams in 2018.
“We’re a passionate team,” Jaku said. “Everything we do is for the creators.”
Wreak havoc on your favorite streamer’s game with Crowd Control by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

Industry heavyweights respond to UK’s crypto asset regulatory framework proposalHM Treasury was directed to spot problems that may need refinement, but the basic principles of its approach were heartily welcomed.

Fender Promotes Perry to Master BuilderFender Custom Shop is pleased to announce Levi Perry will be joining the Master Builders team.

Levi Perry began his journey with Fender in 2012, straight out of high school. He joined as a part of the US production final assembly department, showcasing his skills as a luthier and technician. His success in this department earned him a promotion to the Custom Shop within three years, where he served as a Relic artisan and tune tester, and, in 2018, he was promoted to assistant Master Builder. During this apprenticeship, he worked on many prestigious builds, including the Game of Thrones series, the Limited-Edition Phil Lynott Precision Bass, the Limited-Edition George Harrison Rocky Strat and the Limited Edition El Mocambo Heavy Relic Stratocaster and Telecaster models.

When asked how he feels about joining the esteemed rank of Master Builder, Levi Perry said, “For me, what’s important is always to be learning and growing and to remain a student of the craft. Fender has such a deep and rich history to glean from, and when you allow that history to teach and guide you while continuing to be creative and push the boundaries, you’ll be amazed at what you can create.”

Since 1987, the Fender Custom Shop and its esteemed builders have astounded players and collectors worldwide with creativity, ingenuity and artistry. From its humble Southern California beginnings, the Fender Custom Shop has grown to become the world’s preeminent maker of highly collectable, custom instruments operating in Corona, Calif. Known as the “Dream Factory,” the Fender Custom Shop is also home to an honoured group known as the Master Builders – some of the most skilled luthiers in the world – who craft Fender’s legendary instruments and push the boundaries of possibility.

The Taylor Swift ticket sale crash was a bit like a Prada store break-in… and 4 other things we learned from Michael Rapino’s new podcast interviewRapino was interviewed on the latest Bob Lefsetz podcast last week
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‘The industry has controlled what the consumer listens to for way too long.’Emma Banks of Frtyfve and Instrumental is interviewed in MBW's Inspiring Women series
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A new AI created ‘Beatles’ song is making fans cryA new AI-created song that “reunites” Paul McCartney and John Lennon to sing a rendition of McCartney’s post-Beatles song “New” is making fans cry. The deep fake track is clearly. Continue reading
The post A new AI created ‘Beatles’ song is making fans cry appeared first on Hypebot.

AI, Streaming, and Why Fake Drake is not a Napster Moment [Bill Werde]Bill Werde offers some much-needed context to the recent music industry hysteria over AI-generated music. A version of this essay first appeared in Bill Werde’s free, weekly Full Rate No. Continue reading
The post AI, Streaming, and Why Fake Drake is not a Napster Moment [Bill Werde] appeared first on Hypebot.

APL (Applied Psychoacoustics Lab) APL VIRTUOSO Introducing VIRTUOSO A cutting-edge binaural technology powered by ASPEN, for virtualising stereo or immersive audio setups and listening rooms for headphone monitoring, with excellent... Read More

5 tips to get more engagement on social media for musiciansThe music might be great, but you need people to listen to it! Here are some sage tips on how you can get the word out (successfully) with social media.. Continue reading
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Zynaptiq Orange Vocoder IV ORANGE VOCODER IV: Vocoding, zynaptified. Combining the most comprehensive and best-sounding set of vocoding algorithms available today with laser-like pitch control effects, a powerful... Read More

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...