Best TikTok Alternatives for Musicians as indie takedowns loomOctober 31st was the expiration date for hundreds of licensing deals for independent distributors and labels including DistroKid, CD Baby, Secretly and Beggars. So what are the best TikTok alternatives?
The post Best TikTok Alternatives for Musicians as indie takedowns loom appeared first on Hypebot.

Socials & AI lowers barriers, raises competition: Strategies to AdaptSocial media and AI lowers barriers making it easier to get started but harder to thrive. Uncover the emerging obstacles, how they’ll impact the next generation of creators and strategies to adapt.
The post Socials & AI lowers barriers, raises competition: Strategies to Adapt appeared first on Hypebot.

Just 20% of Artists get 1000 Monthly Streams on SpotifyOnly 20% of artists get 1000 or more monthly streams on Spotify according analysis by Luminate. Learn why most artists fall short.
The post Just 20% of Artists get 1000 Monthly Streams on Spotify appeared first on Hypebot.

“I promise you there’s no way to get AI to make a U2 track”: The Edge on his experiments with AI compositionsU2 guitarist The Edge recently revealed that he’s been experimenting with AI compositions — though getting an actual, usable U2 track out of it is probably unlikely anytime soon, so he says.
In the latest issue of Record Collector magazine, the musician speaks about the limitations of artificial intelligence in capturing the essence of the band’s music and the way the members “don’t have a genre we can rely on”.

READ MORE: “It’s our job to question the algorithms”: Jaden Smith on experimenting with release methods

“There’s no such thing as the U2 genre,” says The Edge.
Asked what it might be if there were one, he replies: “Well, I can tell you this. Recently I’ve been experimenting with AI composition, and I promise you there is no way to get AI to make a U2 track. It doesn’t exist!”
AI has undeniably made remarkable strides in music composition over the past few years. Platforms like Suno and Udio allow musicians to generate original compositions by analysing vast datasets of existing music. Much like ChatGPT for music, these tools enable users to create songs with just a simple text prompt — often yielding surprising and, at times, uncanny results, despite the legal minefield they potentially navigate.
That said, The Edge’s scepticism about AI’s ability to produce a U2 track highlights a critical point: While AI can generate music, commenters remark that it lacks the emotional depth and artistry that human musicians bring to their craft.
In other news, U2 have announced the release of How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of their 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
Arriving on 29 November, the new album will feature ten unreleased tracks that were recorded during the original sessions for Dismantle.
“What you’re getting on this shadow album is that raw energy of discovery, the visceral impact of the music, a sonic narrative, a moment in time, the exploration and interaction of four musicians playing together in a room,” says The Edge. “This is the pure U2 drop.”
Read more music technology news. 
The post “I promise you there’s no way to get AI to make a U2 track”: The Edge on his experiments with AI compositions appeared first on MusicTech.

Nintendo’s new music app lets you stream soundtracks from Super Mario Bros, Animal Crossing and a whole lot moreNintendo has launched its take on Spotify with the new Nintendo Music app, offering fans a chance to stream and download decades worth of soundtracks from classic games like Super Mario Bros, Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda.

READ MORE: “There’s no reason that digital audio can’t sound as good as analogue”: Bill Putnam Jr. on reviving Universal Audio 

Available now on iOS and Android for subscribers of Switch Online, the app not only features music from beloved titles but also includes soundtracks from new releases, with more content to be added over time.
Using Nintendo Music, you can stream your favourite Nintendo songs directly from the app or download them for offline listening. The app allows you to search for tracks by title, browse music from specific game series, or discover tunes themed around your favourite Nintendo characters. You can also build your own playlists and share them with friends. Alternatively, choose from playlists created by Nintendo designed to help you relax, give you a boost and more.
Image: Nintendo Music
The app also offers personalised recommendations based on your Nintendo Switch play activity. For instance, if you start playing a new game that has a soundtrack available in the library, Nintendo Music will notify you, so you’ll never miss out on the latest musical additions to your gaming experience.
Impressively, the app also features the ability to filter out specific tracks so users can avoid spoilers for in-game moments. And if all that isn’t enough to convince you, the fact that you can now loop or extend tracks — like Animal Crossing’s opening theme (we definitely aren’t judging) — for up to 60 minutes of “uninterrupted listening” just might.
Check out the launch video for Nintendo Music below.

Learn more at Nintendo.
The post Nintendo’s new music app lets you stream soundtracks from Super Mario Bros, Animal Crossing and a whole lot more appeared first on MusicTech.

Free PhaseMistress plug-in from Soundtoys Soundtoys have announced that they will be offering their PhaseMistress plug-in as a free download for a limited time.

‘Hong Kong’s FTX’ victims win lawsuit, bankers bash stablecoins: Asia ExpressVictims of ‘Hong Kong’s FTX’ take aim at $29M seized by police, central bankers bash stablecoins, crypto scammers busted over luxury condo.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy hints at an ‘agentic’ AlexaAmazon CEO Andy Jassy today hinted at an improved, “agentic” version of the company’s Alexa assistant — one that could take actions on a user’s behalf. “I think that the next generation of these assistants and generative AI applications will be better at not just answering questions and summarizing, indexing, and aggregating data, but also […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Graham Lyle to Be Honored as a BMI Icon at the 2024 BMI London AwardsBMI announced that Graham Lyle will be presented with the BMI Icon Award at the 2024 BMI London Awards to be held 9 December at The Savoy. The legendary songwriter, guitarist and producer will be honored in celebration of his illustrious career spanning over 50 years and his enduring catalog of hit songs, which have left a lasting impression on generations of music lovers worldwide. The private event will be hosted by BMI President & CEO Mike O’Neill.

“We’re very honoured to salute the incomparable songwriter Graham Lyle with the BMI Icon Award in celebration of a lifetime of timeless hit songs that deeply resonate with global audiences,” said O’Neill. “We’re also excited to pay tribute to all our outstanding 2024 BMI London Award winners and recognise their incredible accomplishments. It’s going to be a fantastic evening.”

The ceremony also pays tribute to the British and European songwriters and publishers of the previous year’s most-performed songs on US streaming, radio and television from BMI’s repertoire of over 22.4 million musical works. The BMI London Song of the Year, Million-Air Awards, and awards for Pop, Film, Television and Cable Television Music will also be presented throughout the evening.

As one of the most successful British songwriters of his generation, Lyle has written countless hit songs, including Tina Turner’s classic, “What’s Love Got To Do With It” with Terry Britten.  The global smash reached No.1 in the US, Canada and Australia, won Song of the Year at the 1984 GRAMMY Awards, and eventually became Turner’s best-selling single. It also earned Lyle multiple BMI Million-Air Awards, ultimately reaching eight million broadcast performances on U.S. radio. As a testament to its enduring legacy, many artists have performed and covered the massive hit over the years, including Mickey Guyton at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction in 2021, rapper Warren G released a hip-hop version in 1996, and Norwegian DJ/producer Kygo released a remix with Turner in 2020.

Over his career, Lyle has received multiple BMI Awards, as well as BMI Million-Air Awards for many of his other iconic hits, including “What’s Luv?” by Fat Joe ft. Ashanti, which sampled “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” “I Don’t Wanna Lose You,” “Jewel of the Nile,” and “Typical Male,” each with two million performances. “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” also performed by Turner, “Joe Knows How to Live,” “Stay Young,” and “Women Like Men” have accumulated one million performances.  He also received an Ivor Novello in 1986 and a Tartan Clef Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010, and in 2012, he co-wrote “One Woman: A Song for UN Women,” released on International Women’s Day, to support the empowerment and gender equality of women around the globe.

More info here: BMI

Follow BMI on Facebook, IG and on X, and use #BMILondonAwards to join the conversation.
The post Graham Lyle to Be Honored as a BMI Icon at the 2024 BMI London Awards first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Small Volumetric Lamp Spins at 6000 RPMVolumetric displays are simply cool. Throw some LEDs together, take advantage of persistence of vision, and you’ve really got something. [Nick Electronics] shows us how its done with his neat little volumetric lamp build.
The concept is simple. [Nick] built a little device to spin a little rectangular array of LEDs. A small motor in the base provides the requisite rotational motion at a speed of roughly 6000 rpm. To get power to the LEDs while they’re spinning, the build relies on wire coils for power transmission, instead of the more traditional technique of using slip rings.
The build doesn’t do anything particularly fancy—it just turns on the whole LED array and spins it. That’s why it’s a lamp, rather than any sort of special volumetric display. Still, the visual effect is nice. We’ve seen some other highly capable volumetric displays before, though. Video after the break.

Boyd Muir promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Universal Music GroupCompany is 'immediately initiating an executive search process' to hire a new CFO.
Source

Whether it’s Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, the music business has something to fear from the US election.They're AI-ting the dogs...
Source

3D Printing With a Hot Glue GunFace it, we’ve all at some time or other looked at our hot glue guns, and thought “I wonder if I could use that for 3D printing!”. [Proper Printing] didn’t just think it, he’s made a working hot glue 3D printer. As you’d expect, it’s the extruder which forms the hack here.
A Dremel hot glue gun supplies the hot end, whose mains heater cartridge is replaced with a low voltage one with he help of a piece of brass tube. He already has his own design for an extruder for larger diameters, so he mates this with the hot end. Finally the nozzle is tapped with a thread to fit an airbrush nozzle for printing, and he’s ready tp print. With a much lower temperature and an unheated bed it extrudes, but it takes multiple attempts and several redesigns of the mechanical parts of the extruder before he finally ended up with the plastic shell of the glue gun as part of the assembly.
The last touch is a glue stick magazine that drops new sticks into a funnel on top of the extruder, and it’s printing a Benchy. At this point you might be asking why go to all this effort, but when you consider that there are other interesting materials which are only available in stick form it’s clear that this goes beyond the glue. If you’re up for more hot glue gun oddities meanwhile, in the past we’ve shown you the opposite process to this one.

After 25 years, Dublab is still the champion of independent online radio — here’s whyOn a quiet street in University Park, Los Angeles, sits an unassuming distribution station, once owned by the city’s Department of Water and Power and constructed in 1925. Surrounded by American Craftsman houses and California bungalows, there’s no indication this building is home to Dublab, the Emmy-winning non-profit online radio station, which has itself been home to independent artists including Flying Lotus, Julia Holter, and Cut Chemist for 25 years.
It’s not loud inside the station; a wooden-panelled, multi-room studio within the centre of a singular, spacious room is where DJs and artists host shows and spin tunes. It’s equipped with Pioneer DJ’s high-end gear — CDJ3000s, a V-10 mixer — Technics turntables, Barefoot speaker monitors and Shure SM7Bs, among other broadcasting kit. Bespoke soundproofing ensures the banging beats are subdued while Dublab’s team work at the desks around the concrete-floored room.
Dublab studio. Image: Press
“There’s like a five- or six-second echo here. It’s a boomy place,” says Alejandro Cohen, Dublab’s executive director, who at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday is sipping coffee with us in the building’s lounge area — directly next to the studio. “When we moved here two and a half years ago, DJs would play on a table in the open. It was great but hard to have any meetings,” he chuckles. “It was very deliberate to create a place that felt welcoming — a public space.”
While we talk, a group of DJs record a show, and some of the Dublab team tap away at computers, plotting the celebrations for the radio station’s 25th birthday. The party, which took place at tastemaking LA. venue Zebulon, Los Angeles, saw over 30 Dublab artists and residents perform, including Cohen, Teebs, Avery Tucker and DJ Lady C. The party was hosted the day before Cohen announced his departure from Dublab — a “deeply emotional” farewell to a quarter century at the station.
“I’ve been involved with Dublab from 1999,” Cohen tells us of the year that producer and DJ Mark “Frosty“ McNeil and businessman Jonathan Buck founded the platform. “Dublab was a pioneer in defining online radio — at the time, we had to explain to most people what online radio was. In 2007, we felt we had enough going that we could set up a nonprofit structure, which is what we felt best reflected our mission. That means you are a public organization; you find public support through listeners, foundations, grants, and government agencies, but you’re not owned by anyone.” Dublab officially earned its nonprofit status in January 2008.
A DJ spinning on the decks in the Dublab studio. Image: Press
The freedom inherent in this designation allows Dublab to operate on instinct and taste, rather than having to appeal to the masses in pursuit of remuneration for shareholders or investors. This structure is echoed not just in Dublab’s eclectic programming, but also in its support for grassroots projects and events. Earlier this year, for example, the station collaborated with Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to host a music and arts installation in the Tom Bradley International terminal for the next three to five years. Other projects include a free ‘LA Atmos’ sample pack made for Spitfire Audio’s LABS platform and a collaboration with the Beirut Synthesizer Center. One initiative, a soundbank of 280 eight-second loops made with Creative Commons, provided the main sample for Yung Lean’s breakout track, Ginseng Strip 2002.
“When you become a non-profit, you have to take that status very seriously; meaning that you have to be aware that ultimately, you’re serving the public,” Cohen says. “But these [projects] are very rewarding. And it’s wonderful to get behind artists we believe in.”
Cohen reels off a list of more underground heroes that got early support from Dublab — Animal Collective, Ras G, Thundercat, Knxwledge, The Postal Service, Shlohmo. The latter was interning at Dublab, painting the studio walls when he connected with a member of the Friends Of Friends label, who later signed his 2011 debut album, Bad Vibes. The Dublab archives date all the way back to 1999, so one can trawl through and hear the earliest shows of these revered artists and sounds. “You can go real deep — just be careful,” warns Cohen, jokingly. “You can really lose yourself.”
Dublab merchandise. Image: Press
But how does an artist or DJ get a spot on Dublab’s program?
“It’s a very organic process,” says Cohen. “We don’t have a proper audition or application process — we get almost daily requests for shows on Dublab. Many times, it’s just a matter of people reaching out and getting involved…We want to make sure that people who come here give back to the community. It’s not just about what we can do, but also what they can do for our community.”
Dublab’s immediate community is based in Los Angeles, where they showcase local talent and emerging subcultures. Meanwhile, sister stations in Japan, Spain, Germany, and Brazil give the platform a global outlook. Cohen reminds us, however, that Los Angeles is “one of those cities,” like London, New York and Berlin, which many music fans tend to have a keen eye on. The Dublab audience thus reaches listeners far beyond California. Being an online station helps, too, obviously.
Dublab studio. Image: Press
“Radio is a very resilient medium,” Cohen continues. “It’s been around for over 100 years — there’s nothing new about it — yet people still think of radio very romantically. There’s a magic of radio; we’re social animals and, because of that, there will always be a space for radio because, ultimately, it’s another tool to foster community.”
New technology adjacent to radio is, naturally, on Dublab’s radar. The station has produced 13 podcast shows, but Cohen caveats that there’s still a big difference between the two mediums. “If radio is you going to have dinner at a restaurant, podcast is like takeout. That’s not to put down podcasts; it’s just different experiences and ways we connect with content.”
Dublab studio. Image: Press
Following Cohen’s departure, the role of Dublab’s next executive director is now open for applicants. The platform is certain that the next quarter of a century will continue to prove that it’s the “heart of a vibrant, creative community.”
Dublab’s success clearly stems from not chasing what’s cool; knowing its audience and trusting its tastes.. In 25 years, it’s become an institution of the LA music scene. For the next 25 years, Dublab will continue to foster upcoming, undiscovered artists
“A radio station is way more than what it does when you press play on the website and tune in,” says Cohen. “While the entire world is looking at AI and algorithms and data, we are the opposite. We are as human as it comes.”
Listen to Dublab and learn more. 
The post After 25 years, Dublab is still the champion of independent online radio — here’s why appeared first on MusicTech.

beyerdynamic update DT 1770 & 1990 PRO MKII Two of beyerdynamic's popular headphone models have been treated to a driver upgrade that offers lower distortion and an improved frequency response.