Alexis Lanternier appointed as the new CEO of DeezerHe will succeed interim CEO Stu Bergen at the France-headquartered music streaming service
Source

USB-C Powered Hotplate Is Not For FoodOnce upon a time, it was deemed mostly silly to try and schlep power from a computer’s ports. Then it was kind of amusing to do so with USB, and before you knew it, we were running whole laptops off what started out as a data connector. These days, it’s not unusual to run a soldering iron off USB-C, or, as [MarkTheQuasiEngineer] has done—a hotplate!
This hotplate is not for quesadillas, nor samosas. Instead, it’s a tiny hotplate for tiny reflow tasks. Given many PCBs are quite small, there’s no need for a huge hot plate to get your circuits assembled.
The device relies on metal ceramic heating elements to provide the warmth. An NTC thermistor is used for monitoring the temperature for accurate control, which is handled by the STM32 microcontroller that’s running the show. It also drives a small display indicating the mode of operation and current temperature. The STM32 controls the power going to the heating element from the USB-C feed with a stout power MOSFET.
Sadly, the project hasn’t been a complete success. With a PCB on the plate, [MarkTheQuasiEngineer] was only able to achieve peak temperatures of around 200 C. That’s not great for doing proper reflow, but it’s a start. He believes upgrading to a more powerful supply to feed the hotplate will help.
We’ve featured some other great reflow hotplates before too.

SideMinder Max from RJ Studios SideMinder Max offers some comprehensive stereo widening capabilities while avoiding mono compatibility issues.

AI firm Udio launches major update – while it battles lawsuit from RIAA and major labelsUdio has launched its Version 1.5, offering users new AI-powered song creation features.
The launch comes at a somewhat odd time, though, as the company is currently dealing with a lawsuit from major record labels and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) alleging “unimaginable scales” of copyright infringement.

READ MORE: Listen to some of the AI songs that RIAA allege copyright infringement by Suno and Udio

The new update includes improved audio quality – more clarity, instrument separation, musicality and more, according to Udio – a dedicated creation page for easier access to songs and generation features, and the ability to download stems.

There’s also key guidance, the ability to remix audio using Udio’s tech, and an expanded set of languages, including Mandarin, Korean and more. There’s also now shareable lyric videos, too, which Udio hopes will improve shareability.
Udio is an AI company that allows music creation via text prompts, enabling users to turn ideas into professional-quality tracks.
But like any generative AI, it has to be trained on existing content, which isn’t always cleared through all the necessary legal channels before it’s used. So while Udio, for example, might spit out a completely new song, the fact it’s used existing copyrighted work as inspiration gets the company into murky waters, legally speaking.
RIAA’s lawsuit against Udio – and Suno, another AI-powered music making platform – claims both are engaging in copyright infringement “at an almost unimaginable scale,” and says they are trained unlawfully on the music catalogues owned by the big three record labels: Universal, Warner and Sony.
The 34-page lawsuit has been well received across the music industry, by artists and business executives objecting to both the scraping of data without permission or remuneration, and the ability of AI to churn out derivatives of existing art at speed and scale.
Learn more about the new update at Udio.
The post AI firm Udio launches major update – while it battles lawsuit from RIAA and major labels appeared first on MusicTech.

Jack White and Strategies for Releasing a New Album in 2024Fred Jacobs offers essential tactics for labels and musicians releasing a new album in 2024. He delves into industry trends, marketing strategies, and practical tips to help artists maximize their. Continue reading
The post Jack White and Strategies for Releasing a New Album in 2024 appeared first on Hypebot.

PS5 beta update introduces immersive 3D audio profilingWatch out – it’s behind you! With brand new 3D audio profiling, the PS5’s latest update promises to immerse gamers like never before.
Beta participants can now take advantage of Sony’s new personalised 3D audio profiles. The innovative feature is spatially-aware like surround sound in your headphones. This means it can accurately track sounds to your environment – meaning a monster will always sound like it’s stood in the same place, even if you move around.

READ MORE: How Eminem used AI to recreate Slim Shady voice on new album, The Death of Slim Shady

The update is sure to revolutionise gaming – and even elevate some heart rates, if you’re into the odd horror game.
In order to create a personalised profile, the PS5 performs an optimisation test. The test asks users questions to tailor the experience to the individual. You can create an audio profile by going to the settings menu and selecting Sound > 3D Audio (Headphones), prompting the PS5 to conduct its short quiz.

This isn’t the first time Sony have been interested in 3D audio. The PS5 already offers 3D audio support for built-in TV speakers, as well as being compatible with Dolby Atmos-enabled audio devices.
Elsewhere, the update also welcomes in some Remote Play updates. Users can now adjust Remote Play settings per user, allowing more control over who can connect to your console. This means, even if you’ve let someone log into your PS5 in person, you can modify whether they can continue to access your PS5 console via Remote Play.
To adjust your Remote Play settings, go to Settings > System > Remote Play > Enable Remote Play. There, you can select any users you’d like to have access to your PS5 console.
There’s also adaptive charging updates for DualSense wireless controllers, DualSense Edge wireless controllers, PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers, and Access controllers. Users can adjust how much power is pumped into their controller, cutting it off after a certain period of time.
Users will also be able to invite friends to join their gaming sessions with handy new links. To do so, simply open the game session action card and select Share Link. Then, users can scan a QR code and be provided with a link they can share.
The updates are all currently only available to beta participants. Sony notes that it hopes to roll out the update globally in the coming months.
Learn more at blog.playstation.com.
The post PS5 beta update introduces immersive 3D audio profiling appeared first on MusicTech.

Stone Voices releases DReverb 2.0, a FREE algorithmic reverb plugin for macOS and Windows
From Stone Voices comes DReverb 2.0, a freshly updated free plugin for creating high-quality algorithmic reverbs. You might remember DReverb from last year, a very well-received reverb plugin from Stone Voices. The popular freeware plugin is back, now in version 2.0, with a few tweaks and a slight interface refresh. The man behind Stone Voices [...]
View post: Stone Voices releases DReverb 2.0, a FREE algorithmic reverb plugin for macOS and Windows

Grammy FYC Marketing: Essential Strategies and Mistakes to AvoidExplore practical tips for marketing your music for Grammy consideration. It covers essential strategies and mistakes to avoid in Grammy FYC marketing.
The post Grammy FYC Marketing: Essential Strategies and Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on Hypebot.

Exploring the Rise of Afrobeats in Latin AmericaAfrobeats has gone from Lagos to Lima! The genre and its artists have found an audience with Latin American listeners, boosted by prominent collaborations between Latin and African musicians.
The post Exploring the Rise of Afrobeats in Latin America appeared first on Hypebot.

This might be the most customisable delay plugin ever releasedAudio plugin innovator Sound Particles has launched InDelay, a “modern take on a traditional delay plugin” with never-before-seen features.
Featuring the brand’s 3D Particles interface and functionality – seen in spatial audio synth SkyDust 3D, which we gave a 9/10 last year – InDelay allows users to play with up to 100 different delays in a whole host of configurations.

READ MORE: BandLab mobile users can now experiment with beats for free before buying

Features include the ability to position up to 100 delays anywhere around you, plus the option to move them dynamically while a track plays.

InDelay allows users to “particle-ize” delays with a click, add Air simulation to create realism, or dive under the hood and customise independent channel sources for each of the 16 taps available.
“This new audio effects plugin is designed for musicians, mixers, sound designers and all sound professionals and enthusiasts who wish to expand their toolset with new cutting-edge software,” says Sound Particles.
“A delay is one of the most used plugins by sound professionals, so we had to create something that could fit this daily need, but keep pushing the boundaries of creative expressiveness,” says Nuno Fonseca, founder and CEO of Sound Particles.
“So we decided to create our modern take on a classic delay, with plenty of new features never done before inside a delay. We’re sure that it will captivate a lot of musicians and sound designers and that they’ll find tonnes of inspiration on InDelay.”
Check out what InDelay can do in the introductory video below:

InDelay is available now for a July-only price of £115.43. For more information, head to Sound Particles.
The post This might be the most customisable delay plugin ever released appeared first on MusicTech.

AIR Music Tech launch Creative FX Collection 2 AIR Music Tech say that their all-in-one Creative FX Collection 2 bundle has been designed to meet the rigorous demands of today’s music producers. 

Moog’s Labyrinth marks a bold new treaty between east and west coasts: “This feels like a new type of Moog”£599/$599, moogmusic.com
Our recent Moog Spectravox review opened with a recap on how difficult a year it’s seemingly been for the iconic synth company, with job cuts, store closures, a headquarter move and more. Thankfully we didn’t have much difficulty getting to grips with the Spectravox’s fabulous all-analogue filter bank and vocoder, and gave it a MusicTech Choice award. Perhaps, we thought, things aren’t all as bad in North Carolina as they might appear — at least on the part of the products.
In other areas though, Moog’s headaches just won’t go away. Spectravox was received a warm reception at this year’s Superbooth show in Berlin; but alongside this release, another, unannounced Moog synth called Labyrinth was being leaked, and was even made available for sale for a short time.

READ MORE: Moog’s Spectravox: A slice of classic Moog for its semi-modular line

Bemusement ensued, orders were placed, units were actually shipped and videos were soon uploaded. The listing was promptly removed. That’s not even the only Moog product to have leaked recently: Muse is slated by numerous outlets to become Moog’s new flagship polysynth, only you won’t find that information anywhere on official channels.
Despite what was clearly supposed to be a more unexpected and impactful announcement, Moog has now officially announced Labyrinth. It’s a ‘parallel generative’ synthesizer combining two very different approaches to synthesis synonymous with the so-called East Coast and West Coast schools. It sports two sequencers, two oscillators and two envelope generators, along with a wavefolder and a novel (for Moog at least) dual-mode filter. While not exactly reinventing the wheel with its discrete components, Labyrinth’s design ensures all work together in a unique way.
Labyrinth feeds its two fixed-wave oscillators, outputting sine and triangle waves respectively, into a mixer section offering the addition of noise and a ring modulator. The mixer output is then faced with a voltage-controlled wavefolder (VCW) on one hand and a filter on the other. These two circuits can be placed in parallel or in series, in either order, and between them provide enormous scope for sound sculpting.
Moog Labyrinth
In case it wasn’t clear, the VCW is the headline circuit here: 2022’s Moog Mavis represented the first time a wavefolder had ever appeared on a Moog instrument, and an expanded version of that same wavefolder appears in thre Labyrinth. It features a Bias knob to add either a positive or negative DC offset, as well as normalled routing for movement via Envelope Generator 1 or Sequencer 1.
The filter, on the other hand, has a Filter Mode knob for a lovely, smooth transition from low-pass to band-pass. Like Spectravox, this section leaves us wanting more. It has all the silkiness one could hope for from a Moog-designed filter, though its resonance never quite gets high enough to really throw out those whistling sweeps we all love. In this sense, it doesn’t quite feel like the full ‘Moog filter experience’, but fair to say that’s not quite its function in this context.
The two sequencers, in turn, almost come across as a design response to the fact that with two such different facets of Labyrinth at play, it makes for the most creative fun to try sequencing them separately. This, in many ways, is where the magic happens. Spiky, chiming wavefolder modulations intersect with gritty and wet-sounding filter sweeps and pings. Timbral polyrhythms emerge from quasi-melodic patterns. Aggression can morph into gentleness in an instant— and vice versa. You can, of course, patch either sequencer to a multitude of destinations but, by default, sequencer 1 is normalled to the primary oscillator (simply labelled ‘VCO’), as well as the wavefolder, while sequencer 2 is normalled to the secondary oscillator (the ‘Mod VCO’— so named because it can slow right down to low frequency oscillator territory), as well as the filter cutoff.
Moog Labyrinth
This means that in some ways, Labyrinth can default to feeling like it has two ‘channels’, which in turn can become confused with, for instance, the unrelated fact that it has two envelope generators. Things become exponentially more fun when signals are patched to converge and diverge around Labyrinth’s, well, Labyrinth of potential routing. Using the same envelope generator to sweep the frequency of an oscillator and inverse control wave folding, for example.
On the subject of those envelope generators, their one-stage (decay) design, like Spectravox, is effective and space-efficient, but we think a two-stage AD envelope would have opened up even more room to work with slower, evolving soundscapes as well as the more plucky and percussive sounds encouraged by Labyrinth’s design.
Our review of the Spectravox commended its revival of a classic Moog circuit, the filter bank. Labyrinth, by stark contrast, might just be Moog’s most original design for years.
And it appears, to show it off, Moog has thrown a Labyrinth at any YouTube ‘synthfluencer’ who can sit still long enough to catch it, but this is not without sound reason. Labyrinth is so flexible and varied that no two users, it seems, have so far made it sound the same. “You have to always be recording when you’re using it,” gushes Andrew Huang, “because you’re able to transform sounds and sequences so quickly, you can never fully predict where you’re going to end up with it.”
Moog Labyrinth
Huang is absolutely right. Labyrinth is a synth with an open mind. As the (highly in-depth) manual declares early on:
The chance operations at [Labyrinth’s] core mean that fully reproducing a sound or pattern from one Labyrinth to the next is not just difficult, but impossible […]. We encourage you to view this through a liberatory lens and to experience the sounds of Labyrinth as they emerge.
This feels like a new type of Moog. Don’t forget that this type of generative, spontaneous and unrepeatable patching is not typical of the company founded by Dr Robert Moog. He was keener to appeal to the dignified, creative minds of pre-existing musicians than he was to create a new kind of instrumentalist entirely — that was the lot of Don Buchla over in California.
There really isn’t much out there to compare Labyrinth to, which is impressive. If there is an equivalent to consider, it’s probably Make Noise’s 0-Coast, named for its comparable blend of coastal synthesis techniques, whose 2016 release date cast it more as an opposite number to Moog’s Mother 32. But one function where Labyrinth beats the 0-Coast is its sequencers.
Labyrinth’s dual eight-step sequencers are fascinating. They are not programmable like you might expect; instead they generate random pitch values that can be quantised to one of a number of scales, and can independently self-renew with varying levels of randomness according to the neighbouring Corrupt knob position.
Moog Labyrinth (side view)
Steps are named ‘bits’ and can be moved wholesale or ‘flipped’ on or off, each time snapping to a new random value within a given voltage and quantisation range. It’s a brilliant balance between complexity and simplicity, though there are a few button combos to get to grips with.
After all, if precise sequencing is needed, it’s a cinch to patch an external sequencer into Labyrinth via the patch bay. A well-designed EG Trig Mix knob to the right works ostensibly as a mixer between the velocities of the two sequences, which creates brilliant rhythmic expression, particularly when working with polyrhythms.
The cat may have gotten out of the bag early, but Moog Music should take the positives from that. Labyrinth has generated a huge amount of intrigue, and rightly so. It’s open and confident, embracing the element of chance with an effusiveness we haven’t seen from a Moog instrument in a long time — possibly ever. All we need now is a figurine of David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King to go with it.
Key features

2 oscillators
Diode-transistor hybrid wavefolder
Ring modulator
State-variable filter (low-pass or band-pass)
Dual onboard sequencers
2 single-stage decay envelopes
32-point patch bay

The post Moog’s Labyrinth marks a bold new treaty between east and west coasts: “This feels like a new type of Moog” appeared first on MusicTech.

A New Kind of Record LabelThis week, Ari is joined by Ankit Desai, CEO of SNAFU Records, and Mira Howard, head of SNAFU's Song Fund.

Here’s what happened in crypto todayNeed to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and crypto regulation.

Mistral’s Large 2 is its answer to Meta and OpenAI’s latest modelsFor frontier AI models, when it rains, it pours. Mistral released a fresh new flagship model on Wednesday, Large 2, which it claims to be on par with the latest cutting edge models from OpenAI and Meta in terms of code generation, mathematics, and reasoning. The release of Mistral Large 2 falls just one day […]
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