Lyte is offline: Is the innovative ticketing platform out of business?Lyte is offline without explanation and has been since last week without. The home page reads only "undergoing scheduled maintenance."
The post Lyte is offline: Is the innovative ticketing platform out of business? appeared first on Hypebot.

Klevgrand launch Revolv reverb plug-in Created using a&nbs;collection of meticulously recorded impulse responses, Revolv captures everything from Medieval ruins to a&nbs;serene Swedish forest. 

Google can now turn your notes into a fake podcast including “banter” between two hostsGoogle has launched a new feature within its AI-powered NotebookLM research assistant that turns your notes into a fake podcast.
To do so, users just need to click ‘Load’ under the new Audio Overview tool found within the Notebook guide. From here, NotebookLM will generate your notes into the form of a short audio podcast. We have tried it out for ourselves, and it’s freakishly realistic.

READ MORE: North Carolina musician charged over “brazen” AI music streaming fraud scheme that allegedly faked billions of plays

As explained on Google’s The Keyword blog, Audio Overview is “a new way to turn your documents into engaging audio discussions”. It further adds, “With one click, two AI hosts start up a lively ‘deep dive’ discussion based on your sources. They summarise your material, make connections between topics, and banter back and forth. You can even download the conversation and take it on the go.”
Currently, there are a range of Notebook examples you can use to try the feature yourself. We used one on the topic of a ‘mushroom boom’ in the town of Westward, California. The generated podcast featured both a male and female host, and their conversation was even filled with human-like discourse markers and filler words such as “right?”, “so get this” and “like”.
Though it covered the basics of the topic, it did feature a bit of rambling and felt very conversational upon first use. It’s not yet clear though how this feature will handle more sensitive topics, and whether or not the hosts’ attitudes would pivot in response to something more distressing.
Google does currently state that “it’s important to remember that these generated discussions are not a comprehensive or objective view of a topic, but simply a reflection of the sources that you’ve uploaded”.
Try it out now over at NotebookLM, or find out more via The Keyword.
The post Google can now turn your notes into a fake podcast including “banter” between two hosts appeared first on MusicTech.

“Why do so many DJs and festivals fail to tag music they play? It’s disrespectful”: Richie Hawtin backs campaign to credit electronic artists on social mediaA newly launched campaign is urging DJs, promoters, and brands to credit the artists behind the music they are sharing online.
#RespectTheCreators is backed by the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM) alongside a number of venues and artists, namely Richie Hawtin.

READ MORE: “It’s very easy to lose yourself in a large show and end up creating something more for the eyes than for the ears”: Richie Hawtin warns against the spectacle of modern DJing

It asks that when DJs post a video from their gig, or a mix where the music isn’t theirs, that they tag the artists behind the tracks, and list the full track names in the most visible part of the post. Online platforms and promoters are also urged to credit any music featured in any shared sets or promotional materials for events.
“I thought supporting the community and the musicians who make the musical structure that our scene (and DJs) stand on was simply common decency (and sense),” Hawtin comments (via Billboard).
“So why do we see so many social media posts from DJs, promoters and festivals that completely fail to tag the music being played in the clips? It’s disrespectful and only takes further advantage of the musicians who are already struggling for recognition and a fair share of the economic pie of our ‘beautiful’ culture.”

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The campaign was partly inspired by research cited by Dutch DJ and producer Frank Nitzinsky at the International Music Summit (IMS) in Ibiza earlier this year. On average, only three percent of a DJ’s set is music that they have produced themselves, yet up to 90 percent of DJ performance content shared on Instagram does not provide any credit for the artists behind such music.
AFEM COO Finlay Johnson says in a statement that while the campaign “may seem like a straightforward initiative, encouraging people to share and credit new music addresses significant challenges in the discoverability of emerging artists”.
Johnson further adds, “It also serves as a reminder for individuals to consider their metadata, which can directly enhance income through royalty collection. While white label and dubplate culture should be celebrated, the use of generic ‘original audio’ tags on social media does little to support artists. We encourage everyone to acknowledge and promote the team behind a record’s production and release.”
The post “Why do so many DJs and festivals fail to tag music they play? It’s disrespectful”: Richie Hawtin backs campaign to credit electronic artists on social media appeared first on MusicTech.

DPA introduce 2061 Omnidirectional Miniature Microphone DPA’s latest miniature mic promises to combine best-in-class speech intelligibility with a sweat-repellent and water-resistant construction. 

NERO talks production, plugins and modern dubstep: “There’s always a Depeche Mode influence in what we do”.When MusicTech catches up with GRAMMY-winning, Ivor Novello-nominated electronic trio NERO, the group is buzzing about their recent album launch party at Corsica Studios. Their packed London return after an almost six-year hiatus saw DJ decks set up in the middle of the room, Boiler Room style. “It felt unusual (as we are normally up on a stage) but very cool to be amongst it, in a 360-degree crowd,” says producer Dan Stephens.
Despite Stephens, his partner and vocalist Alana Watson, and producer Joe Ray being away for a considerable time writing their third record, the audience boasted a “surprising” number of younger fans. “When our first album came out, they were probably seven years old,” Stephens laughs. NERO’s genre-fusing dance anthems, including dubstep-rock behemoths Me & You and Crush, first hit in the early 2010s; in 2015, the band headlined Coachella’s Outdoor Stage and premiered their second studio album Between II Worlds.

READ MORE: DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ: Meet the enigmatic producer that’s just having fun making dance music

Almost a decade later, the group is back to conclude their album trilogy with Into The Unknown – not that a hiatus was ever planned. “Dan and I went our separate ways for a while,” recalls producer Ray. “Dan started a family with Alana, I was in America, and we both had solo projects”; in 2018, Stephens and Watson also started their own duo called The Night.
Nero. Image: Press
It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that Stephens and Ray started sending ideas back and forth, via Zoom sessions. “You can share the screen and really good quality audio, which we hadn’t done before,” Ray reflects. “Nothing can quite make up for being in the room together,” Stephens adds, “but it is a very good alternative”.
With the bones of many tracks formed, regrouping in the studio in London, post-lockdown, enabled them to flesh out ideas together. “Having instant feedback and knowing you’re hearing the same thing out of the same speakers or out of headphones, that felt important,” Stephens says.
When it came to crafting the album, there wasn’t one particular genre in mind. Instead, they went with whatever tempo and sound was feeling interesting and fun. “When we started [NERO], we were definitely writing for a genre for DJs to play at a certain tempo,” Ray reflects. This time around, and since becoming more of an artist act, he says it’s been “liberating to not really think about that”.
Image: Nero
This particularly helped Stephens, who admits he’s “not very good at listening to current stuff”, especially electronic music. He and Ray — who had been enjoying ambient techno — do however share an interest in the late 80s: “We’re both big fans of synthesizers, the New Romantic and New Wave scene, and I feel there’s always a Depeche Mode influence in the stuff we do”.
Though the genre wasn’t present on NERO’s second album Between II Worlds, a more current influence on album three was drum’n’bass – particularly its eponymous opening track. “Writing that big orchestral intro then layering in some more sci-fi, glitchy sounds, the idea was to give it the feel of being broadcast via satellite,” Ray explains. “We wanted this long stretched out sound and then to suddenly switch it.”
Making d’n’b also brought back fond memories of his and Stephens’ teen raving days. “We used to love those d’n’b sets that start melodramatically, so it was fun to go back to that.” Owing to the d’n’b resurgence, Stephens credits it as “the most hardy genre of dance music – it never goes away, but it also never gets too big. It doesn’t do a garage or dubstep thing of blowing up too fast and almost becoming a parody of itself”. The pair also feel that d’n’b artists are tapping into social media in a way they weren’t previously.
Naturally, the conversation turns towards being online and NERO’s avoidance of the internet. “We’ve never been particularly present on social media, but partly because I don’t think it suits the vibe of NERO,” Stephens suggests. “When you set a whole story in a world, you don’t want to break the fourth wall too much. We’re not being arrogant, it just doesn’t seem natural, and we’re also quite private people. We don’t like oversharing.”
Image: Nero
Nonetheless, they are under no illusion that socials are catapulting many new artists. “Your social media game has become almost as important as your music, but you don’t want it to seem like you’re posting because you have to.”
While he admits “we’re very much not in a TikTok realm yet, Instagram works well for us. You can say something with a photo rather than having to write anything”. It’s easy to see why: the apocalyptic ethos of NERO’s world-building music and visual output has always felt decidedly cinematic. “There’s always a mix of melancholy and energy with what we do,” Stephens says, adding that “lockdown felt very dystopian and NERO-esque”.
Ray continues, describing Into The Unknown as a bridge that perfectly connects the other two albums. For Stephens, the release carries more weight: “it feels like planting our flag in the sand again, because we’ve been away for so long. We have to think of it as a comeback.” They feel similarly about their upcoming live shows — “there’s so much gear and possibility of what you can do with a live show now, because of the advancement of technology” — but are still deciding how best to bring the record to life. “The tempo of the new album changes so frequently, which makes things tricky, but fun, because you can do interesting transitions,” Ray explains.
Another major difference is that Watson won’t be joining them on this year’s US dates as she has opted to stay at home and care for her and Stephens’ newborn. However, the announcement that she won’t be singing on this tour was met with skepticism online.
“Some people were like ‘oh, great, it’s just you two pressing buttons then’. But I guess that’s probably how people feel about all electronic music, unless you are there very obviously…. It’s always difficult calling an electronic act a live show, because how live is it really?” Stephens ponders. “Unless you’ve got instrumentalists on stage really playing a part, it feels more like a hyped-up DJ set”.
Image: Nero
He trails off, citing Fred Again..’s headline performance at Reading Festival as an exception. “That’s how you’ve got to do it if you’re going to bill something as really live. It’s about thinking if you want it to sound tight like the recorded version, or do you mind if there are a few missed beats? If people hear a slight mistake, it doesn’t matter because they know you’re there doing it.”
While NERO rarely collaborate these days, Stephens suggests the key is to “every now and then get in a room with someone else to see what they’re using”. Sharing knowledge is helpful, too, “because there are so many plugins and software that come out and you can get lost in the ether”.
Working with Skrillex in the early days helped them realise this, especially how they could speed up their creative process. “He was in that first wave of kids using Ableton, whereas we were still using Cubase,” Ray recalls of their time working together.
“The process of writing tracks was sluggish, then we saw how he did things in Ableton, all in one session. Watching him moving things around and playing with arrangement and automation so quickly made us use that from them on.”
Image: Nero
Having also produced Muse’s 2012 track Follow Me, they are keen to work with more “classic acts”, says Stephens, who recalls working with Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates) on Reaching Out from NERO’s debut album. “We’ve always liked the idea of doing stuff with Phil Collins. It’s probably not what management or industry would recommend but…” he digresses, before highlighting one newer artist they are both excited by. “Hamdi has got a very UK, original dubstep sound and reminds me of the 2009/2010 era,” he says, adding that the Counting producer dropped one of NERO’s first tracks (2007’s This Way) in his DJ set. “It was fun to see these kids hearing it for the first time.”
Talking of dubstep and its recent revival, Ray says “it always felt like it was going to come round at some point”, pinpointing Skream & Benga’s fabric set as the catalyst. Recalling making the aforementioned track, Ray remembers Watson singing the vocal on a “terrible” karaoke mic. “Things are so different now compared to when we started out,” Stephens adds – “there were no YouTube videos of how to look up a sound or a track and learn how it was put together, so it’s a useful tool for aspiring producers.” In fact, he sometimes still refers to tutorials: “there’s always going to be someone out there who has worked out how to do that one crazy little thing.” Help for aspiring artists is “very accessible”, he considers.
Nonetheless, Stephens is keen to stress the importance of music knowledge. “You can learn technical things, but it’s also important to know some music theory,” he says. Ray, meanwhile, would like to see artists become more original when it comes to sampling. “Building a track around one, and then doing something new with it… that’s something I feel kids aren’t doing as much now,” he suggests. “It seems like it’s either the whole thing or nothing.”
Stephens expands to suggest the art of sampling has been lost. “It often used to be about finding a really rare, unusual sample on vinyl, crate-digging, or going through blogs, but now it’s mostly really recognisable, famous songs from the 80s that everyone knows. It’s a different take on it… but it’s quite at odds with the old school style of sampling”, he concludes.
Now their third album is out, Stephens and Ray are keen to work with newer producers on the scene. “We don’t want to go away for ages this time; we want to kind of keep our finger on the pulse a bit more and stay visible,” says Stephens. Whatever happens, the wait for Into The Unknown has certainly been worth it. Here’s hoping they don’t keep us in anticipation for so long next time.
Nero’s Into The Unknown is out now. 
The post NERO talks production, plugins and modern dubstep: “There’s always a Depeche Mode influence in what we do”. appeared first on MusicTech.

Blanketfort Audio releases Free Breakshaper Drum Processing Plugin
Blanketfort Audio is here to help us get phat drums with its new Breakshaper drum processing plugin.  The free macOS and Windows release is available in AU and VST3 formats.  Breakshaper is a tone shaping, dynamics, and distortion plugin that originated as the effects section of Blanketfort Audio’s Kontakt instrument SR Drums. The plugin is [...]
View post: Blanketfort Audio releases Free Breakshaper Drum Processing Plugin

How to produce dark, atmospheric vocals in the style of BurialBurial is a master of atmosphere. Full of sound effects like rain and street noise, his tracks powerfully conjure a feeling of urban dread and alienation. One of his signature production tricks is how he uses vocals — more precisely, found vocal samples. By taking random vocal parts out of context and dropping them into new environments, he elicits moving emotions while adhering to the song’s harmonic and rhythmic structure.
In this tutorial, we show you how to turn random voice samples into Burial-style ghostly vocals, like this:

Sourcing samples
What vocal samples are appropriate? Aim for something that expresses longing or heartbreak. When taken out of context these can be exceptionally emotional. The samples can be sourced from 90s and 2000s R&B songs, like Burial has done, from random YouTube videos or even ready-made sample packs, as in the example below.
To get isolated vocals, either look for acapellas or use a stem separation application. The artefacts and noise from low-quality YouTube rips and stem separation algorithms may add to the vibe. Be sure to follow legal practices of sample clearance when planning to release copyrighted material.
Here’s our starting sample, ‘115_Am_CanYouStayALil’Longer_01_TL’, from the Touch Loops sample pack, Soul Voices. It has the emotional content we’re looking for.

Warp the sample to fit the tempo and vibe
Once you have chosen your sample, import it into the project as an audio file. Now you’ll want to use your DAW’s built-in warping functions to get the found vocal sample inline with not only the tempo of your track but the rhythm and flow.
In this example, the source sample is 115 BPM while the track itself is 132 BPM. You could just let the DAW automatically apply warp markers and leave it at that, but remember that you’re trying to create something with an uncanny atmosphere. Manually add warp markers at promising points in the sample, such as the beginnings of words, and push and pull it around the beat until you have a phrasing that both works rhythmically and accentuates the strangeness of it.

Create a new vocal melody
Now that the vocal sample has a phrasing that matches the rhythm of the track, let’s alter the melodic content as well with pitch correction software. We’re using Melodyne Essential but any pitch correction that can change notes on an individual basis will work.
Drop an instance of the software onto the vocal track and let the plugin analyze the audio. You should see a graphic representation of the notes and pitch appear as the sample plays.
Drag individual notes up and down the musical scale and create new melodies as you see fit. Future garage like the kind that Burial makes particularly favors very high and low notes as these sound artificial and strange so try raising or lowering the notes an octave or more.
The notes in the example below have been changed from the original sample’s A minor to the target G minor of the track. However, inharmonic notes can create tension so experiment with different types of melodies.

Unusual vocal effect processing
The vocal is starting to take on a creepy life of its own but there’s more you can do to make it even more unsettling, such as using a voice effect processor like Mutator from Antares.
Mutator lets you alter parameters like Throat Length and Throat Width, which can give a vocal sample a suitably strange quality. The Mutator section roughens up the signal with ring modulation.
Note that there are any number of ways to affect a vocal sample in this way. Try experimenting with stock DAW effects like pitch, ring and frequency modulation for a similar vibe. If the effect is too strong, move the plugin chain to a send channel and adjust the send amount to taste.

Dial in the reverb — a LOT of reverb
Burial absolutely soaks his sounds in reverb. This creates a massive sense of space, which in turn makes the listener feel as if they’re alone in an open environment. Beautiful and alienating at the same time.
For a huge reverb, place a plugin with a very long tail such as Valhalla’s Vintage Verb on a send channel. Set the Mix to 100% and then use the send amount on the DAW’s mixer to control how much of the sample piped to the plugin.
Next, dial in a very long reverb. The actual length will depend on the content of your track but in this example we’ve gone for close to 15 seconds, which is very long indeed. Be sure and use the EQ on the reverb plugin to remove any bass frequencies that may be muddying up the mix. With such a long reverb tail, this is imperative. Properly EQing the sample itself will also have an affect on this. Finally, open up the highs as you see fit. Modern productions favour bright reverbs but there’s something spooky about an old-school dark reverb as well.

Ducking the reverb for clarity
With such a long reverb tail, you’re going to want to duck the reverb out of the way when the sample is playing, otherwise it’ll get swamped. If the plugin has a ducking control, use that. If not, as with Vintage Verb, you’ll need to employ a sidechain compressor instead.
Set up a compressor after the reverb and set the sidechain input to the vocal sample. Lower the threshold until you hear the reverb move out of the way when the sample plays. Use the attack and release dials to change the rhythm of the sidechain action.

The post How to produce dark, atmospheric vocals in the style of Burial appeared first on MusicTech.

Bitcoin rally to $60K raises traders’ interest in FET, SUI, AAVE and INJBitcoin’s rally above $60,000 could trigger buying in FET, SUI, AAVE, INJ and other altcoins.

Archiving Data On Paper Using 2D ImagesIt seems like only yesterday we covered a project using QR codes to archive data on paper (OK, it was last Thursday), so here’s another way to do it, this time with a dedicated codec using the full page. Optar or OPTical ARchiver is a project capable of squeezing a whopping 200 Kb of data onto a single A4 sheet of paper, with writing and reading achieved with a standard laser printer and a scanner. It’s a bit harder than you might think to get that much data on the page, given that even a 600 DPI printer can’t reliably place every dot each time. Additionally, paper is rarely uniform at the microscopic scale, so Optar utilizes a forward error-correcting coding scheme to cater for a little irregularity in both printing and scanning.
The error-correcting scheme selected was an Extended Golay code (24, 12, 8),  which, interestingly, was also used for image transmission by the NASA Voyager 1 and 2 missions. In information theory terms, this scheme has a minimum Hamming Distance of 8, giving detection of up to seven bit errors. This Golay code implementation is capable of correcting three-bit errors in each 24-bit block, with 12 bits available for payload. That’s what the numbers in those brackets mean.
More after the break…

Another interesting problem is paper stretch during printing. A laser printer works by feeding the paper around rollers, some of which are heated. As a printer wears or gets dirty, the friction coefficient along the rollers can vary, leading to twisting and stretching of the paper during the printing process. Water absorbed by the paper can also lead to distortion. To compensate for these effects, Optar regularly inserts calibration targets throughout the bit image, which are used to locally resynchronize the decoding process as the image is processed. This is roughly similar to how the alignment patterns work within larger QR codes. Finally, similar to the position detection targets (those square bits) in QR codes, Optar uses a two-pixel-wide border around the bit image. The border is used to align to the corners well enough to locate the rows of bits to be decoded.
In the distant past of last week, we covered a similar project that uses QR codes. This got us thinking about how QR codes work, and even if encoding capacity can be increased using more colors than just black and white?
Thanks to [Petr] for the tip!

Port of Seattle shares ransomware attack detailsThe Port of Seattle released a statement Friday confirming that it was targeted by a ransomware attack. The attack occurred on August 24, with the Port (which also operates the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport) saying it had “experienced certain system outages indicating a possible cyberattack.” The Port is now describing this as “a ‘ransomware’ attack by […]
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How to create a music website: An in-depth guide
In this in-depth guide, we break down how to create a music website and highlight eight sections that are particularly key.

An 80386 Upgrade Deal and Intel 486 Competitor: the Cyrix Cx486DLCThe x86 CPU landscape of the 1980s and 1990s was competitive in a way that probably seems rather alien to anyone used to the duopoly that exists today between AMD and Intel. At one point in time, Cyrix was a major player, who mostly sought to provide a good deal that would undercut Intel. One such attempt was the Cx486DLC and the related Tx486DLC by Texas Instruments. These are interesting because they fit in a standard 386DX mainboard, are faster than a 386 CPU and add i486 instructions. Check your mainboard though, as these parts require a mainboard that supports them.
This is something that [Bits und Bolts] over at YouTube discovered as well when poking at a TX486DLC (TI486DLC) CPU. The Ti version of the Cyrix Cx486DLC CPU increases the 1 kB L1 cache to 8 kB but is otherwise essentially the same. He found the CPU and the mainboard in the trash and decided to adopt it. After removing the very dead battery from the Jamicon KMC-40A Baby AT mainboard, the mainboard was found to be in good working order. The system fired right up with the Ti CPU, some RAM, and a video card installed.

That’s when the excitement began, as although the mainboard is ‘Cyrix-aware’, its BIOS support is somewhat buggy. Although it technically will beat the living tar out of a 386, the Speedsys benchmark utility was crashing because the internal L1 cache wasn’t being enabled properly. Fixing the problem required an external Cyrix utility application. These issues were why so few people were interested in bolt-on solutions. The sentiment extended to Intel with their ill-fated Pentium OverDrive products.
For enthusiasts looking for a good deal, they were an exciting option, but Intel took offense to Cyrix barging into the x86 CPU market without a negotiated license. Cyrix instead utilized reverse engineering to make their own x86-compatible designs. This included their later 5×86 and 6×86 CPUs. After a series of lawsuits Cyrix was merged into National Semiconductor and later sold to AMD, who sold Cyrix’s latest designs under the Geode name before discontinuing it in 2019.

Roland’s new P-6 Creative Sampler The latest addition to Roland’s AIRA Compact range packs the company’s renowned sampling technology into a pocket-size device aimed at creators on the go.

TuneFM is using crypto to pay artists up to 100X more than SpotifyWhat is Tune.fm? The Web3 music streaming and collectibles platform has secured $50 million in funding that could result in much higher payments to artists.
The post TuneFM is using crypto to pay artists up to 100X more than Spotify appeared first on Hypebot.