Spitfire Audio introduce LABS+ Following a three-month beta that saw 200,000 early adopters download over three million packs, Spitfire Audio have announced the official full launch of their new LABS+ subscription. 

Boox’s phone-size e-reader gets faster processing and a fingerprint readerIn 2023, Boox turned heads with the Palma. The device blurred the line between e-readers and smartphones, by combining e-paper with Android. The initial pitch was something along the lines of a phone-sized Kindle that’s small enough to slip into a pocket. The product would be enticing for many if that were the only thing […]
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Tesla reveals it didn’t sell any Bitcoin holdings in Q3According to Tesla's Q3 financial filings, the company's automotive sales declined slightly since Q2 2024, while leases increased slightly.

A 3D Printed, Open Source Lathe?[Chris Borge] has spent the last few years creating some interesting 3D printed tools and recently has updated their 3D printable lathe design to make a few improvements. The idea was to 3D print the outer casing of the lathe in two parts, adding structural parts where needed to bolt on motors and tool holders, and then fill the whole thing with concrete for strength and rigidity.
Only a few parts to print
The printed base is initially held together with two lengths of studding, and a pile of bolts are passed through from below, mating with t-nuts on the top. 2020 extrusion is used for the motor mount. The headstock is held on with four thread rods inserted into coupling nuts in the base. The headstock unit is assembled separately, but similarly; 3D printed outer shell and long lengths of studding and bolts to hold it together. Decent-sized tapered roller bearings make an appearance, as some areas of a machine tool really cannot be skrimped. [Chris] explains that the headstock is separate because this part is most likely to fail, so it is removable, allowing it to be replaced.

Yes, that’s right. We’re filling it with lovely runny concrete.
Not a bad job on aluminium for a DIY lathe!
Once together, the whole assembly is filled with runny concrete and set aside to cure. Before fully curing, the top surfaces are scraped flat to remove excess concrete so the top covers will fit. A belt-driven motor is fitted, with associated control electronics, and then it’s time to talk tooling. The first tool shown is a simple T-shaped rest, used with a hand tool known as a ‘graver.’  This is more likely to be used on a wood lathe, but we reckon you could about get away with it if you’re really careful with aluminium or perhaps brass. An adjustable rest was made using a few simple pieces (in steel!) and held in a short length of 2020 extrusion in a manner that makes it adjustable, albeit not shown in this video. Finally, a reasonable torture test is demonstrated, comprising a rough-cut aluminium disk screwed to a threaded carrier. This was tidied up to make it nice and round and clean up its surfaces. The lathe survived, only melting the 3D printed motor pulley, which, as they say, should not have been a 3D printed part when metal parts are so easy to acquire! If you want to build one for yourself, then everything you need is here, but like with projects of this type, more development is still needed to overcome a few shortcomings. Check out [Chris]’s channel for many more interesting ideas!
We’ve seen a few of [Chris]’s other 3D-printed tools, like this neat fractal vice for odd-shaped objects. We like tiny tool hacks; after all, when you’re making small things, you don’t need full-sized tools.

Thanks to [CJay] for the tip!

Why was Sony Music willing to pay megabucks for Queen and Pink Floyd’s catalogs?MBW glances over some of the key factors in Sony's willingness to spend over $2 billion on three recent catalog deals
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Bernie Taupin to Receive Outstanding Career Achievement Award from Hollywood Music in Media AwardsBernie Taupin, one of the most prolific and successful lyricists in history and storied collaborator with Sir Elton John, will receive the prestigious Outstanding Career Achievement Award during the 15th AnnualHollywood Music in Media Awards (HMMA) to be held on November 20, 2024 at The Avalon in Hollywood, California. The Hollywood Music in Media Awards honors composers, songwriters, and music supervisors around the world for their contributions over the previous year in music for film, TV, video games, and more.

Submissions for all HMMA categories are open through October 31, 2024.

During his illustrious career spanning more than five decades, Taupin co-wrote the vast majority of Elton John’s songs, including a multitude of global chart hits that became pop-rock masterpieces, such as “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Bennie & the Jets,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Your Song,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’,” and“Crocodile Rock,” to name a few. Beyond his voluminous work with Elton John, Taupin's has written for and with other artists including Heart (“These Dreams”) and Starship (“We Built This City”), among others. Most recently, Taupin cowrote (with Elton John, Brandi Carlile, and Andrew Watt) the original song “Never Too Late” for the new Disney+ documentary ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE. The song is performed by Elton John and Brandi Carlile.

Among his host of accolades, Taupin was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992. Earlier this year, Taupin and Elton John received the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Prize, as well as an Ivor Novellofor Outstanding Contribution to British Music. The duo was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Excellence Award category in 2023. In 2020, they received both an Oscar for Best Original Song and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song (Motion Picture) for co-writing "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" from Elton John's successful biopic ROCKETMAN. Additionally, Taupin's song “A Love That Will Never Grow Old” sung by Emmylou Harris for the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN soundtrack won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song (Motion Picture).

Past HMMA Career Achievement Award recipients include Marc Shaiman, Kenny Loggins, Smokey Robinson, Diane Warren, Earth Wind & Fire, Glen Campbell, Dave Mason, John Debney,and Christopher Young. Past HMMA winners who went on to win Oscars include Billie Eilish and FINNEAS for BARBIE and NO TIME TO DIE, Hans Zimmer for DUNE, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste for SOUL, Hildur Guðnadóttir for JOKER, Ludwig Göransson for BLACK PANTHER, Alexandre Desplat for SHAPE OF WATER, songs from JUDAS & THE BLACK MESSIAH, and Justin Hurwitz for LA LA LAND. The HMMA voting academy consists of select journalists and Oscar, GRAMMY, Golden Globe, and Emmy voters.

The Hollywood Music in Media Awards is the premier awards organization honoring original music (Song and Score) in all visual media from around the world including film, TV, video games, trailers, commercial advertisements, documentaries and special programs. As one of the most anticipated award events each year, it is considered the bellwether for upcoming nominations, and award winners from the Golden Globes, Academy Awards, GRAMMYs, and Emmys held months later. The annual HMMA ceremonies feature music performances, celebrity presenters, tributes to music industry icons, and awards presentations to composers, songwriters, and artists. For more information, visit hmmawards.comThe post Bernie Taupin to Receive Outstanding Career Achievement Award from Hollywood Music in Media Awards first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

PR is changing: Alternatives for Today’s Indie ArtistsThe following was developed in collaboration with Groover, a company Ari’s Take is proud to be partnering with. When you purchase from links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission. PR is changing: Alternatives for Today’s Indie Artists In music, good PR is extremely powerful. A strong relationship with your audience is enough […]

FLOSS Weekly Episode 806: Manyfold — The Dopamine of Open SourceThis week Jonathan Bennett and David Ruggles chat with James Smith about Manyfold, the self-hosted 3D print digital asset manager that’s on the Fediverse! Does it do live renders? Does it slice? Listen to find out!

https://floppy.org.uk/
https://manyfold.app
https://github.com/manyfold3d/manyfold

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show Right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.
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SESAC Music Group acquires rights management and UGC monetization company HAAWKHAAWK’s HQ will remain in Los Angeles under the leadership of founder and CEO Ryan Born
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Microsoft announce audio-focused Windows features As part of their keynote at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2024, Microsoft have made a number of announcements about upcoming Windows features geared towards musicians and audio professionals.

Don’t be hopeful for a Radiohead reunion – because Thom Yorke “doesn’t really give a f**k”Hopeful for a Radiohead reunion? We wouldn’t be: Thom Yorke says he doesn’t “really give a flying fuck”.
Speculation and hype began to swirl recently when Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood revealed the band had got together for some rehearsals in the summer, saying they “played the old songs, and it was really fun. I had a really good time”.

READ MORE: Matty Healy: “If you took a piece of ’90s Aphex Twin back 30 years, they would go, ‘This isn’t even music.’ If you took a piece of music now back 30 years, they’d be struck by how not different it is”

But now Thom Yorke has taken the wind out the sails of such hopeful fans by telling Australian publication Double J that he doesn’t care about a reunion right now, using some rather choice words.
“No offence to anyone and err, thanks for caring,” he says [via NME]. “But I think we’ve earned the right to do what makes sense to us without having to explain ourselves or be answerable to anyone else’s historical idea of what we should be doing.”
While some fans might be disappointed, they also might not be surprised; back in May, guitarist Jonny Greenwood spoke with The Guardian, where he said he and his Radiohead bandmates were busy working on their individual projects, and how he and Thom Yorke were busy touring with The Smile.
“We’re still talking all the time, we just need to make a plan and get some time together sorted out in advance,” he said at the time. “I’ve never been very good at that. Too busy dicking around in this studio.”
In other news, The Smile’s third studio album Cutouts arrives earlier this month. Listen to its opening track Foreign Spies below:

The post Don’t be hopeful for a Radiohead reunion – because Thom Yorke “doesn’t really give a f**k” appeared first on MusicTech.

“If the studio makes me want to sit down and work, then the barrier to entry is lower, and more music gets made” — BAYNK on the importance of creative spaces31-year-old Jock Nowell-Usticke, better known as BAYNK, already has a Grammy nomination under his belt. His debut album, ADOLESCENCE, was up for Best Engineering, Non-Classical in 2023, thanks to his meticulous attention to detail and experimental use of synths, overlaid with layers upon layers of vocal harmonies. The electronic artist blends the sounds of R&B, electronic and pop to create a unique sonic signature, which appears to be working pretty nicely.

READ MORE: “The more confusing I am as an artist, the better”: Or:la on music and mythology

His latest record, SENESCENCE, was recorded in LA — where he’s now based — and in other parts of the US, Europe, Africa, and the artist’s homeland of New Zealand. The new album, out on Virgin Music Group, is touted as a “daring, dynamic fusion of pop, deep house, contemporary club, funk, and ambient” — we delve into the mind of the producer to learn about the gear and techniques that have helped shape this ambitious album.
You’ve said that you use sound design to express yourself — how did that happen in this album?
As the stories being told tended towards the more nostalgic, I felt the need to include more real instruments and/or samples of real instruments. A little grittier, like a memory would be, not perfectly clear.
BAYNK in a Los Angeles studio
Tell us a bit about your studio.
I was travelling pretty constantly during the making of this album. It was made between London, Amsterdam, Paris, Sydney, New Zealand, and Los Angeles. I had a few mainstays in terms of gear, but the studios changed every couple of months. Personally, the most important factor to consider when finding a studio is the feeling I get from being in the room. If the room makes me want to sit down and work, then the barrier to entry is much lower, and more music gets made. Some natural light and a nice view of anything goes a long way.
What’s your latest gear or plugin purchase?
It’s a little boring perhaps, but I just purchased this mini patch bay called Minibay v2. I was tired of switching around my synths and guitar pedals, and this just streamlined everything and meant I could send whatever signal I want wherever, which is just so satisfying. I also use it live as a passive mixer to consolidate multiple inputs into a single output.
What’s the best free plugin you own?
I’ve used this EQ plugin called Luftikus a lot over the years. I mainly use it on the master to remove nasality from tracks that feel like they have a little too much around the 640 Hz zone. A lot of EQs can do this, but this one has stuck with me for whatever reason. It’s a recreation of the Mäag Audio EQ4 and just does really well with relatively simple controls. The air (High Boost) band is also really nice for tracks that need a little lift.
BAYNK
What’s been the biggest investment in your career?
For the studio, as a keys player, having the Crumar Seven next to me as I’m writing has been a massive boon. It just begs to be played; it feels incredible to touch and the sounds are gorgeous. In my career, buying my own LED wall and lights for touring has been the most sound investment. It’s made the shows infinitely better at minimal expense compared to renting the production every night.
Your last album was nominated for Best Engineered Album at the Grammys. How did that achievement push your production techniques on your newest record?
I don’t think it’s changed my process too much. I’ve always been a perfectionist (to a fault sometimes) in terms of sonics, and it’s remained that way.
Older and Mr. Jocko are built around sequences of chopped-up samples—can you tell us what they are and how you came up with the idea to use them? Were there any artists that influenced this?
The samples for Mr. Jocko were recorded whilst travelling through Africa with my family. We had stopped in Zambia at a friend’s place and they introduced me to a local children’s choir at a school that they founded. We sang some songs for each other and I asked to record them to which they obliged happily. They imbued a simple chant with beauty, excitement, and energy. A year later I found the samples whilst finishing this album and this collaboration emerged.
For Older, the sampling was of some keyboard patterns. I wrote this one with my good friend Max (Golden Vessel, 1tbsp) and he uses this technique a lot. I think I’ve also heard it and been inspired to attempt it myself by some important artists from my youth such as Gold Panda, Rustie, Flume, and Caribou, just to name a few.

How do you see your sound and studio evolving in the next two years?
I’ve bought a place with a big garage we don’t use, which I’m going to convert into a studio. It’s a daunting process, but I’m excited to have my own space for a long period of time. It’s something I’ve never really had before, always being a renter and jumping from country to country.
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
I would love a Yamaha U1 upright. I had one when I was a kid, and something about an acoustic piano that’s always ready to go is super inspiring and fun. That or an RCA-44 ribbon mic; I love the way those things sound, but they’re so expensive and super delicate, which is probably not a good match for me.
Who gave you the biggest lesson in your career?
I can’t remember who told me this, but someone likened the songwriting process to fishing in my early years, and that helped me accept the fact that I wouldn’t write a great song every time I sat down to write music. The more fishing you do, the better fisherman you’ll become, and the more fish you’ll catch. It seems obvious, but I needed the analogy to get over the humps of writing lots of garbage songs.
The post “If the studio makes me want to sit down and work, then the barrier to entry is lower, and more music gets made” — BAYNK on the importance of creative spaces appeared first on MusicTech.

State of A&R 2024: Algorithms, AI and A Human Touch [Steve Leeds]Former MTV, major label and SiriusXM senior executive Steve Leeds has decades of experience discovering, nurturing and marketing talent. Here he takes a look at the state of A&R in 2024.
The post State of A&R 2024: Algorithms, AI and A Human Touch [Steve Leeds] appeared first on Hypebot.

Advice For Musicians: 6 Top TipsHere are six crucial pieces of advice for musicians to help navigate the music industry effectively. Master these essentials to elevate your career and stand out from the competition.
The post Advice For Musicians: 6 Top Tips appeared first on Hypebot.

Baby Audio Transit 2 review: Haters beware, this plugin is actually awesome$129
Introductory price: $79
Upgrade: $29
babyaud.io
Baby Audio’s Transit multi-effects plugin was designed in collaboration with producer Andrew Huang and originally released in 2023. It aimed to help speed up the creation of transitions, sweeps, and drops, avoiding the need to spend ages programming automation.
But it turned out that Transit was also handy at creating all sorts of other tempo-based effects. The development team at Baby Audio has really leaned into this happy accident with the new and expanded Transit 2. Still, some producers online are unimpressed by its live capabilities, preset selection and even its affiliation with Andrew Huang. Some of these criticisms are fair but, truthfully, we think there’s a lot to love about Transit 2.

READ MORE: Baby Audio Transit breathes life into your transitions, courtesy of Andrew Huang

Version 2 retains a slick, modular design – there’s also a dark mode now – which lets you access controls quickly and efficiently. There are eight slots, the first of which lets you select from six different motion modes to animate your sound, be it a single track or an entire mix. The other seven slots can each contain an effect; to the original selection of 18, version 2 adds a further ten effects for a total of 28.
You can move slots around in the chain and parameters within each effect, left static or linked to the motion section. Slope controls within parameters let them have their own ramp curves, allowing for more syncopated movement. There’s also a halo-style Range setting to set a minimum and maximum range for most parameters, so they don’t simply modulate between 0 and 100 but between whatever range you like. Each effect slot can be swapped to use a different effect and each effect also has a number of presets. Settings can be saved per effect slot or by global patch.

At its simplest, Transit 2 is just great fun to play with, now with over 830 presets neatly grouped by category in its browser, incorporating all the existing presets from version 1. Although these are categorised mostly by artist name, you can tag them so you know which work best for you — you can name and save your own patches too, of course. However, you can’t use CC to switch between preset, which could hinder your live performances.
With so many presets at your disposal though, some of these end up being slightly too similar to each other. The Macro control gives you a big dial to change all linked effects at the same time, to immediately dial in tempo-synced multi-effects with a single control. It’s a blast to use it live like a multi-faceted DJ effect, or for more precise programming using automation in your DAW.
Effects are a mixture of tempo-based, dynamic, distorting, reverb and delays, as well as making liberal use of buffers for advanced real-time warping. Once more, this is DJ-like, as if spinning a track up or down. There’s cool new stuff including Warp, Loop, Reverser and speaker simulation as well as a new EQ, analogue chorus, Shifter, mod filter, a retro reverb and a new compressor.
Version 2 also adds four new motion modes; LFO, Follower, Sidechain and Gate which all feed different kinds of motion to your effects either independently or based on a live input depending on how you set them up.
Transit 2
Although they’re all useful, we turn to a few modes and effects particularly often. Follower mode makes the effects react to the volume or intensity of the source signal so they behave dynamically, while Gate mode lets you punch the effects in and out using a tempo-based grid. Then within the individual effects, Loop is an exciting way to stutter the signal with variable speed curves, Reverser will play back selected parts of a signal in reverse, and Warp is a pitch shifter and time stretcher capable of subtle or extreme changes in speed. All of these can operate at the same time, making for crazy and psychedelic results.
Baby Audio has also included some nifty, inspiration-focussed features. There’s a button to randomise all the modules in a patch and also the ability to lock any module or control that you want to exclude from that randomisation. MIDI learn is particularly valuable in a live performance situation, where you are likely to want to link certain things like the Macro knob to a hardware dial on your controller. And a global safety limiter prevents overloads even if you’re pushing the effects to their extremes.
Describing the tools on offer is all well and good, but this is an effect that’s meant to be played, or at least allowed to do its thing to energise and animate your mixes. The tempo syncing at the heart of the plugin is the key to making everything feel dynamic and involving whether it’s the speed, depth or range with which effects are being modulated. Plus the fact that they can all work at the same time.
Transit 2
Transit 2 is so versatile that it’s not as limited to electronic music as you might imagine, and lives comfortably in the genre-fluid world of today. While demo videos perhaps inevitably focus on the more extreme and striking things you can do by modifying a bunch of different effects all at the same time, it’s also capable of more subtle behaviour. For example, using widening, reverb and compression in moderation rather than going nuts.
This is a tantalising multi-effect that you will get a lot of life from. Over-use is a definite danger, but even when used more sparingly Transit 2 creates engaging transitions, variations, bridges and groovy, complex effects, all without messing about with multiple plugins and automation. Yes, you could achieve similar results with stock plugins and multiple Effects Racks in Ableton Live, for example, but the immediacy of Transit 2 is fun, interactive and inspiring.
For live use too, it’s destined to become a favourite. Hardware controls linked to the Macro dial and other parameters open up advanced DJ-style effects on live stems or whole mixes with ease.
Getting on board couldn’t be simpler. There’s a trial version, introductory pricing, and the upgrade from version 1 is $29. Some current Transit 1 owners are upset by the upgrade fee, which comes just a year after the original’s release. This is understandable but we’re convinced that it’s a reasonable trade for the new features — current owners of Transit 1 are also not being forced to upgrade.
Once you’ve tasted the kind of powerful, uplifting yet easy-to-use live processing of Transit 2, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
Transit 2
Key features

VST, VST3, AU and AAX plugin
6 rearrangeable effects slots
6 motion modes
28 freely configurable effects
830+ presets
Quick Macro control knob
MIDI learn
Range and curve controls per effect
Randomise and Lock functions

The post Baby Audio Transit 2 review: Haters beware, this plugin is actually awesome appeared first on MusicTech.