Astra lays off 25% of workforce, reallocates engineers, in an effort to fight dwindling cash reservesAstra has laid off 25% of its workforce since the beginning of the quarter and is reallocating at least 50 engineers and manufacturing staff away from its launch business to focus on spacecraft production, the company said Friday.
The reallocation and layoffs are expected to delay testing of the under-development Rocket 4 and Launch System 2.0, Astra said. The affected employees worked in the company’s launch, sales and administration and “shared services” departments. Workforce reductions are expected to save the company over $4 million per quarter beginning in the fourth quarter of this year.
Astra, which is facing dwindling cash reserves, is no doubt looking for a way to further reduce operating expenses while also bolstering its spacecraft engine business, the only business unit that currently has a near-term chance of generating revenue. The spacecraft engine technology is sourced from Astra’s acquisition of propulsion developer Apollo Fusion, which closed the day Astra went public in July 2021.
Indeed, Astra said that it had closed 278 committed orders of the Astra Spacecraft Engine product through the end of March, which totals around $77 million in contracts once the engines are delivered. A “substantial majority” of these orders will be delivered through the end of 2024, the company said.
“We are intensely focused on delivering on our commitments to our customers, which includes ensuring we have sufficient resources and an adequate financial runway to execute on our near-term opportunities,” Chris Kemp, CEO and founder, said in a statement.
Astra also said that it had engaged investment bank PJT Partners as a financial advisor as it looks for more capital to continue operations. That includes “potential strategic investments in the Astra Spacecraft Engine business to strengthen Astra’s balance sheet,” the company said. Separately, Astra said it had raised $10.8 million in a debt sale to investment group High Trail Capital.
According to preliminary second quarter financial results, Astra is expected to have revenues between $0.5-$1 million, while having just $26-$26.5 million in cash on hand.
This is not the first time major layoffs have hit the space company. Last November, Astra announced it had let go of 16% of its employees, also to focus on launch and spacecraft engines.

The absurd AI mania is coming to an endAI large language models raised over $25 billion in the first half of 2023. The industry is starting to look like a bubble that’s about to burst.

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Discussion of AI for producers.
#AI #Music #Musicians #Producers #musicproduction #Creators

Best free plugins and freeware of the month: August 2023It’s always nice when you uncover some useful or creative tools online – and it’s even nicer when they turn out to be free.

READ MORE: Best sample packs of the month

We’ve rounded up a handful of this month’s free releases for you to check out, including a chord-based ROMpler, a transparent limiter, a fully-featured spatial 3D instrument, an epic, endless reverb, and a fun sample chopping sequencer.
Monster DAW – MONSTER OctaChord v1
MONSTER OctaChord v1. Image: Monster DAW

macOS and Windows
64-bit VST/VST3/AU
Download OctaChord

If you’re looking for some inspiration to get you started, then Monster DAW’s chord plugin with built in sounds could be just the ticket. There are 18 presets for different styles including lo-fi, techno, cinematic, R‘n’B, pop and more.
Each preset includes a full set of 12 scales, plus an Ornament set of fill-ins, melodic lines and sound effects that match the chords. Additional features include master volume, pan, reverb and delay controls, plus separate volume controls for the chord and ornament sections. It’s easy to build up progressions, but with so many different sounds and chord samples, note that the full plugin library size is over 6GB.
Press Play – Wave Breaker
Wave Breaker. Image: Press Play

macOS and Windows
64-bit VST/VST3/AU
Download Wave Breaker

Press Play is best known for its excellent free oscilloscope plugin, Wave Observer. Its new release uses the same waveform display engine, but this time puts it to use as instant visual feedback within a true-peak stereo limiter plugin.
Wave Breaker offers a transparent sound with precise true-peak detection, look-ahead audio analysis and 4x oversampling. You can use the Drive control to push volume into the limiter at a desired threshold and choose from manual output compensation, or target peak-level normalisation. You can also add a touch of saturation, choose from a range of colour schemes and resize the GUI.
SpatStrument SM24
SpatStrument SM24. Image: Acousmodules

macOS and Windows
64-bit VST3
Download SpatStrument SM24

SpatStrument SM24 is a beast. It’s an effect, a synth, a sampler, a 3D panner and a controller all in one. It’s designed to offer a fun and playful approach to audio-spatial sculpting, especially if you have an MPE controller.
Its whopping feature set includes up to 24 output channels with free arrangement in 2D or 3D space, Periphonic and Volumetric Spatial modes, Spatial Shaper and Animator, live input processing, an eight-voice sampler, a three-oscillator synth with FM, cross modulation and ring modulation between the sampler and synth, eight-channel delay/resonator and hall reverb, lockTrigger and VeloPad for granular effects and more.
Airwindows – Galactic 2
Galactic 2. Image: Airwindows

macOS, Windows, Linux, Pi
32/64-bit VST/AU/VCV Rack
Download Galactic 2

Airwindows has built up a massive library of excellent free plugins over the years, with an emphasis on sound rather than snazzy GUIs. Its latest release is a massive-sounding reverb that gives a different twist on Airwindows’ first Galactic reverb plugin.
You get simple controls for drive, sustain, Darken and wet, which can all be manipulated to craft epic-sounding, infinite drones and pads. With sustain on full, it will even start to feedback on itself. You can also put in mono signals and get a wider-sounding stereo reverb out.
HY-Plugins – HY-Slicer2 free
HY Slicer2. Image: HY-Plugins
This cut-down version of HY-Slicer2 can be used as a fun and creative way to re-invigorate your loop library. You get 3 slicer units where you can load three different samples that get chopped into smaller pieces. These can then be sequenced in the Sampler Track where you can rearrange up to 16 slices.
Things get a little more interesting when you start using the additional lanes that let you sequence things like chance, reverse, tune, pan, filter, effect sends and more. You also get built-in effects and master effects to refine your new loops, and a Pattern chainer to help develop longer ideas.

macOS, Windows, Linux
64-bit VST/VST3/AU
Download HY-Slicer2 free

The post Best free plugins and freeware of the month: August 2023 appeared first on MusicTech.

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What drives the 1.9B music discoveries that happen on Spotify every day?Listeners “discover” a track for the first time 1.9 billion times every day on Spotify, and usually, that song has been identified as one they might like. Who is doing. Continue reading
The post What drives the 1.9B music discoveries that happen on Spotify every day? appeared first on Hypebot.

4 music marketing lessons musicians learned during COVID worth revisitingMany musicians used COVID lockdown to connect with their fans in new ways and record and market new music. This week’s Hypebot Flashback Friday post looks at some of the. Continue reading
The post 4 music marketing lessons musicians learned during COVID worth revisiting appeared first on Hypebot.

10 Ways to use a Music Degree in the real worldI recently had the pleasure of answering questions on Zoom from students interested in taking my Touring 101 course and others offered by Berklee Online and was asked about the. Continue reading
The post 10 Ways to use a Music Degree in the real world appeared first on Hypebot.

Acustica Cherry mastering EQ plug-in Cherry is a new EQ plug-in aimed at mastering applications, and has been created based on samples taken from a pair of popular hardware devices.

“I saw you spreading lies on your Facebook group”: Loopop on Behringer not sending ‘free gear’ to reviewersMusic technology specialist and content creator Loopop has called out Behringer for suggesting he won’t review the brand’s gear because it claims it refuses to send free units out to reviewers.
The creator shared a screenshot of a comment Behringer had sent to a Facebook user questioning the reception of the Toro synth. The comment wrote: “Interesting comment. [The Toro] is the fifth best-selling product, not sure this is called a flop.
“I’m sure Starsky [Carr] will be reviewing it as, while Loopop is not reviewing products as we don’t send out free units. [sic]”
Behringer has since edited the comment to omit the last sentence.
Loopop claims Behringer blocked and deleted his response, which he then reshared. “Hey Behringer this is Ziv – Loopop, please stop spreading the lie that I stopped reviewing your units because you wouldn’t send me any for free.
“I first reviewed your synths without any contact with you (Model D, Neutron). At that point you offered to send me a few others, which I accepted and disclosed.
“When you made the offensive video about Peter Kirn and started copying affordable products from existing manufacturers with zero innovation (swing), I became disgusted with your corporate culture, which I see now includes spreading lies like you did now.”
The video Loopop refers to dates back to 2020, where the company attracted widespread criticism for releasing a bizarre clip attacking Kirn that appeared to use anti-Semitic tropes. Behringer later apologised.

Hey @Behringer – since you blocked my response, I'll share it here. I saw you spreading lies on your Facebook group, that I won't review your gear because you don't send it for free, when actually you offered and I refused. Should I share your email offering? pic.twitter.com/cRT1Y8ouzM
— Loopop Music (@loopopmusic) August 3, 2023

“A couple of years ago you disclosed to me your entire roadmap and offered anything I’d like, and I refused because of what I mentioned above, as I explained to Dan. I am happy to share this correspondence if you insist on lying about why I stopped reviewing your gear.
“If you apologise and at some point change your ways I would be happy to explore interesting affordable innovative products, whether you send them to me or not – they’re not that expensive compared to the time and costs of making my videos.”
Several other content creators backed him up, with Bo Beats saying on Twitter that “Behringer lying doesn’t surprise me at all”, while Benn Jordan tweeted a GIF with a man wearing sunglasses to hide his tears with the caption, “Behringer passive aggressively pretending they’re not pp hurt”.

Behringer lying doesn’t surprise me at all https://t.co/moatOdVbrX
— Bo (@BoBeatsMusic) August 3, 2023

Behringer passive aggressively pretending they're not pp hurt https://t.co/KBg1EFvETq pic.twitter.com/jbtGer271v
— Benn Jordan (@bennjordan) August 3, 2023

Kirn added: “I don’t know about @loopopmusic but I like to get my reviews from heavily moderated comment threads where any negative commenters are blocked! It just keeps everything sunnier and more real.”
Meanwhile, the publication Sonic State also spoke out in support of Loopop, revealing that it stopped reviewing Behringer’s products for the same reason and has “nothing to do with how good or bad the gear is”.

Good for you! I was tempted to wade in on that thread – our reason for not reviewing their gear has nothing to do with how good or bad it is , it is because of those exact reasons.
— sonicstate (@sonicstate) August 3, 2023

I don't know about @loopopmusic but I like to get my reviews from heavily moderated comment threads where any negative commenters are blocked! It just keeps everything sunnier and more real.
— peterkirn (@peterkirn) August 3, 2023

The post “I saw you spreading lies on your Facebook group”: Loopop on Behringer not sending ‘free gear’ to reviewers appeared first on MusicTech.