Build Yourself A Useful Resistor Decade BoxIf you’ve ever worked with guitar pedals or analog audio gear, you’ve probably realized the value of a resistor decade box. They substitute for a resistor in a circuit and let you quickly flick through a few different values at the twist of a knob. You can still buy them if you know where to look, but [M Caldeira] decided to build his own.
At its core, the decade box relies on a number of 11-position rotary switches. Seven are used in this case—covering each “decade” of resistances, from 1 ohm to 10 ohm and all the way up to 1 megaohm. The 11 positions on each switch allows the selection of a given resistance. For example, position 7 on the 100 ohm switch selects 700 ohms, and adds it to the total resistance of the box.
[M Caldeira] did a good job of building the basic circuit, as well as assembling it in an attractive, easy-to-use way. It should serve him well on his future audio projects and many others besides. It’s a simple thing, but sometimes there’s nothing more satisfying than building your own tools.
We’ve seen other neat designs like this in the past, including an SMD version and this neat digital decade box. Video after the break.

OLED Screen Mounting, Without The PainThere was a time when no self-respecting electronics engineer would build a big project without at least one panel meter. They may be a rare part here in 2024, but we find ourselves reminded of them by [24Eng]’s project. It’s a 3D printed housing for one of those common small OLED displays, designed to be mounted on a panel with just a single round hole. Having had exactly this problem in the past trying to create a rectangular hole, we can immediately see the value in this.
It solves the problem by encasing the display in a printed shell, and passing a coarsely threaded hollow cylinder behind it for attachment to the panel and routing wires. This is where we are reminded of panel meters, many of which would have a similar sized protrusion on their rear housing their mechanism.
The result is a neatly made OLED display mounting, with a hole that’s ease itself to create. Perhaps now you’ll not be afraid to make your own panels.

From Amazon Music’s audiobook bundle to WMG’s subscription streaming growth… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe biggest stories from the past week – all in one place…
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Venue Booking Contacts made easy with Booking-Agent.ioNew platform Booking-Agent.io solves two mjor problem for artists and managers trying to book a tour: what are the right places to play and how do I contact the person booking it.
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Kendrick Lamar has surprised released his sixth studio album, GNXKendrick Lamar has surprise released his sixth studio album, GNX.
The album – which clocks in at 44 minutes and 20 seconds in length – spans 12 songs in total, and features title track gnx, for which a music video is incoming.

READ MORE: “We’re living in a time where World War III can easily break out at any moment”: Why Questlove was “triggered” by Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud

GNX arrives hot on the heels of Kendrick’s smash hit diss track Not Like Us, which saw him take aim at Canadian rapper Drake. You can listen to the album in full below:

 
This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 
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Authentic Soundware offers the Space Age Sleigh Bells Kontakt instrument for FREE
Authentic Soundware’s Space Age Sleigh Bells delivers unmistakable Christmas charm, and it’s free until December 25, 2024 (requires Kontakt Full 6.7 or higher). I only see one downside to this freebie; it might be wasted on us. Let’s face it: If you don’t already own some space-age sleigh bells, what are you doing with yourself? [...]
View post: Authentic Soundware offers the Space Age Sleigh Bells Kontakt instrument for FREE

Live Music Society grants to small venues top $1M in 2024The Live Music Society, a non-profit that helps small U.S. music venues, has awarded 34 new Toolbox grants. This year’s Live Music Society grants are the largest in the organizations history.. Continue reading
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Johnny Marr talks artist development and the record industry’s future as he partners with Epidemic SoundJohnny Marr tells MBW about his new artist development partnership with Epidemic Sound
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Community Record Labels offer musicians an alternativeAs independent music stakes a larger and larger claim in the industry, smaller DIY record labels, known as "community labels," are providing the personal touch.
The post Community Record Labels offer musicians an alternative appeared first on Hypebot.

Audiocube 3D audio software update and huge Black Friday sale
The Audiocube 3D audio software has received a big update and is now available through a huge Black Friday sale. We covered the launch of Audiocube’s standalone 3D audio software for macOS and Windows in August 2024, an ambitious project that was several years in the making. Audiocube is back with its most significant update [...]
View post: Audiocube 3D audio software update and huge Black Friday sale

Bitwig Studio 5.3 beta announced Installers for Bitwig Studio 5.3 are now available to users with an active Upgrade Plan, offering them a chance to check out the latest features ahead of the full release. 

“Dark and cool – that’s what you want from Black Ops”: Jack Wall on soundtracking one of the biggest gaming franchises in historyIn the gaming world, a new Call of Duty release is a bonafide event. Since the franchise debuted in 2001, it’s sold a staggering 500 million copies — and it reached that milestone before the launch of its latest smash hit, Black Ops 6, which is reportedly already making 60 per cent more sales than its predecessor, 2023’s Modern Warfare 3.

READ MORE: Behind the sound of Star Wars Outlaws: a polarising game with a Grammy-nominated soundtrack

In the constellation of Call of Duty titles, Black Ops gets crazy – each entry in the series jumps across time periods, realistic and fantastical settings, and offers fans different play modes. One thing you can always depend on is composer Jack Wall; he’s scored five of the six Black Ops games and his music has become a glue that helps hold the series’ ambitions together. How does he do it? He starts by figuring out what universe he’s working in.
“When, where, who, what, and why,” fires off Wall when asked what ‘day one’ of scoring looks like. “Every single Black Ops is in a different time period, so we always look at that first.”
In the case of Black Ops 6, the ‘when’ is 1991 – a time of windbreakers, the MC Hammer dance, and the first Gulf War. Musically, the year presented both opportunities and challenges for Wall. “I looked at the charts to see what the most popular music of the day was,” he explains. “For quite a bit of 1991, it was Enter Sandman by Metallica, but, in terms of music history, it’s just on the cusp between the 80s synth era and the early grunge era.”
Jack Wall conducting the AIR Studios orchestra. Image: DMSMedia / Top Dollar PR
Wall’s score strides across those two decades; full of the lush and lyrical orchestrations that defined classic 90’s action flicks, coupled with growling synth lines, and some truly massive drum hits. “Dark and cool, that’s what you want from Black Ops,” states Wall. “But I like to add some humanity to it; when I write my scores I like to inject a melody, a theme, or a sound for you to remember. That’s the challenge.”
“There’s the era that the game is occurring in, but there’s also the story itself,” Wall continues. “That informs a lot of what the score should be. I write the main theme of the single-player campaign, trying to capture the feeling in one piece of music, and then I can sprinkle that theme throughout the score in different ways.”
A centrepiece for every Black Ops game is the multiplayer theme. Built for the chaotic shooting sprees of a battle royale, these are often some of the most pounding and rhythmic pieces on the soundtrack. Raining the Fire is certainly no exception, but Walls also wanted to bring a feeling of musical transition to the track. To anchor the rhythm, he sought something that could sit between a massive Phil Collins-style drum sound and the back-to-basics intensity of Dave Grohl’s work with Nirvana.

“One night I was scrolling Instagram and up pops this guy, Nicolas Bitove, from the band Romes,” recalls Wall. “He’s a brilliant drummer and technologist, he puts his drums through all these effects and I was really inspired by what he was doing. So, I asked him if he’d like to join the band, so to speak.”
Alongside Jimmy Hinson, better known as Big Giant Circles, the crew smashed together orchestral strings, rock guitars, distorted synths, pounding drums, and ethereal vocals to produce one of the most rousing Call of Duty themes in recent memory. “We were approaching it more as a collaboration this time,” Wall reflects. “More like a band putting music together.”
Wall is certainly no stranger to band dynamics. Prior to his career in game audio, he spent years as an engineer at Synchro Sound Studios in Boston, working with David Byrne, Patti Smith, and Nine Inch Nails, among others. Over the years, his duties expanded to producing and arranging, and he worked alongside The Velvet Underground’s John Cale on everything from feature films to ballet productions.
These days, Wall says he draws on all those different experiences to tackle scores like Black Ops 6: “My first career in engineering and producing music was hugely important to my career as a composer, because everything is about sound to me. It’s not just about composition and counterpoint, harmonic progression and orchestration. All that stuff is important, but it’s about the sound.”
When it comes to capturing sound, there’s one spot on earth that Wall prizes above all others – AIR Studios in London. In comparison to his last Black Ops game, 2020’s Cold War, which saw Wall trying to manage orchestral and choir recordings amidst COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing rules, this time everyone was back in person and enjoying the venue’s storied acoustics.

“We’ve recorded all five of these games with different orchestras,” Wall reflects. “But AIR Studios… I call it the perfect storm of music-making. To me, it’s the best room in the world that I’ve recorded in, and I’ve recorded in many. I love Abbey Road, I love Nashville, but there’s something about AIR Studios; it’s the combination of Jeff Foster, the engineer who just knows that room back and forth, the players themselves, and the atmosphere that the staff create, it’s so warm and inviting and creative. “
In a narrative universe as loosely connected as Black Ops, Walls music feels like a thread guiding players into each new time, place, and tale. Five iterations in and Wall seems to draw palpable energy and inspiration not only from the game itself but from the team of people that make it all possible.
“Tackling this was fun because we all approached it with a fresh perspective and wanted to do something as good as we could,” states Wall. “That was evident from the writers, from the game designers, from the audio department, the music editors, everybody. I think it was just a joy for everybody working on such a cool game.”
Read more music production interviews. 
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How to blend synths and a string orchestra with Ólafur Arnalds and Spitfire Audio’s CellsAd feature with Spitfire Audio
Working alongside its frequent collaborator — the Emmy- and Grammy-nominated Icelandic composer and producer, Ólafur Arnalds — Spitfire Audio has produced a library that expertly straddles synthesis and string orchestra to produce evocative hybrids.

The sounds are undeniably gorgeous, but it’s Cells’s ability to generate musical variation that will do wonders for your workflow. Instead of writing string parts line by line, you simply hold down a note or chord and let the engine produce a range of musical ‘cells’ that constantly shift and change. These micro expressions can encompass different intervals but will never stray from the harmonies you’re working with.
The inspiration for this library comes from Arnalds experience working with live musicians. Rather than simply dictating exactly what should be played, the composer often collaborates with the performers, asking them to produce random variations in pitch, timbre, and expression. Cells takes that concept and introduces a set of intuitive randomisation tools to keep your sound ever-changing within a chosen key.
The results are often fascinating, surprising, and, most importantly, never static – taking you one step closer to the organic expression of real-life orchestral players on a scoring stage.
Merging strings and synthesisers

Combining strings and synths can produce some fantastic, hard-to-put-your-finger-on sounds. Straight out of the box, Cells comes with superb presets that merge organic and electronic textures for instantly atmospheric tones.
If you want to get more hands-on control over the exact balance between synth and string, Cells has you covered. The plugin comes with Spitfire Audio’s well-established eDNA engine which is custom built for such a purpose. To open this alternative user interface, click on the Mode menu and select Synth.

The interface centres around two ‘Sound Bays’ where you can load in samples. To start blending timbres, simply load a string sample into Bay A and select a synthesiser sample for Bay B.
We’ve loaded ‘Long Medium (Unison)’ and ‘Mallet Swarm 04’. Move the crossfader to hear how the two sources combine together.
Oscillating between the two sounds is the quickest way to produce evolving textures. Turn on the Oscillate Mixer checkbox and adjust the multiplier setting to 16x to hear a slow shift from one timbre to another. You can also choose how much of each sound will be fed into the mix by adjusting the small vertical sliders on either side of the crossfader.

This, however, is just the start — opening up the effects tab offers huge potential for further crafting. The string and synths each run through their own effects bays labelled ‘Bay A FX’ and ‘Bay B FX’. Select the one you want to work with, then experiment with the various effects by turning on the toggle and clicking on the effect name. From there, adjust the levels as needed.
How to use Ólafur Arnalds Cells in your music
This library effortlessly delivers drama and emotion. The sounds bubble and morph in a way that captures your ear and keeps you hanging on for more.
You can use it to build a chord progression with immersive depth and weight, and this makes it ideal for lush swells, and highly emotive passages. However, it’s also ideal for break-out moments where the strings spill into the foreground.
If you know the scale you’re working in, then adjust the Key setting to suit. This feature allows you to lock in your harmonic centre and play without worrying that you might accidentally hit a wrong note.
You can also break out of a key and play freely. Cells will automatically analyse the notes you’re playing and generate variations in the texture that fit perfectly within the given key.
You can do this in the Standard mode window by switching the variation engine to ‘Played’.
To change the kind of variation Cells produces, you can choose from a series of preset cards which each feature different images of musical notation. Some cells give an obvious idea of the result like ‘Intensity’ or ‘Motion’, while others like ‘Cirrus’ or ‘Clouds’ need you to play and discover the results.

Shaping your sound
Sometimes you might want a middle ground between keeping in the key of your music and breaking out to play a few chromatic notes that don’t belong. To set this up, click the toggle next to ‘Out-Of-Scale’ to turn the setting on.
If you want to refine the detail of your sounds, or make them feel more present in the mix, try experimenting with the dry/wet balance on Cells’ reverb. There are two ways to access the effects linked to each preset – either press the grey button in the centre of the interface, select your effect, and then change the master dial, or, you can click on the ‘FX’ tab and see all the audio effects side by side.

Finally, if you don’t know what scale you are playing in, then you can manually input your notes one at a time. The circles on the right-hand side of Cells’ interface represent all the intervals in a single octave, so all you need to do is choose the notes that you’ve been playing and the engine will automatically recognise the key and scale for you.
Cells sale
With the unique ability to create evolving string textures, paired with an organic palette of atmospheric synths, this plugin is ideal for anyone who wants to beautifully underscore moments of drama and emotion.
Cells features an engine that can instantly recognise the key you are playing in, but for those who want deeper control, the eDna alternative interface offers even more in the way of effects bays you can experiment with, an oscillator for crossfading your sound in a unique way, and plenty more options for further crafting your sound.
If you’re after a quick and easy tool for producing that hard-to-define sound of strings in synths melded together, save 20% on Ólafur Arnalds Cells now with Spitfire’s introductory offer.
The post How to blend synths and a string orchestra with Ólafur Arnalds and Spitfire Audio’s Cells appeared first on MusicTech.

Slate Digital introduce Stellar Echo SD-201 plug-in Slate Digital’s new Stellar Echo SD-201 plug-in offers a meticulous recreation of the iconic tape echo that helped to define the sound of the dub, reggae and alt-rock records of the 70s. 

Token Economy for Musicians: Monetize a fanbase with $AMPSThere are dozens of startups creating new and better ways for artists to connect with a monetize fans Learn how $AMPS is creating a token economy for musicians to connect with and monetize fans while retaining control of the data.
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