Alicia’s Electric Keys by Native Instruments Native Instruments have announced a second collaboration with 16-time Grammy-winning artist Alicia Keys, this time capturing the sound of her personal Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano.

Italian DJ Anyma set to bring his one-of-a-kind visuals to the Las Vegas Sphere with six-night residencyItalian producer and DJ Anyma is set to make history as the first electronic artist to perform at the Las Vegas Sphere, with all six nights of his residency dates now sold out.
Matteo Milleri, better known by his stage name Anyma, will bring his audio-visual spectacle “The End of Genesys” to the cutting-edge MSG venue from 27 December 2024 to 1 January 2025. After announcing a landmark New Year’s Eve headlining show, organisers added five more nights due to “incredible ongoing demand”.

READ MORE: Four Tet on his production process: “I pretty much only use presets”

The Sphere, which opened in September 2023 at a cost of $2.3 billion, has primarily hosted rock acts (U2, Phish, Dead & Company and The Eagles) since its launch. Anyma’s performance marks a watershed moment, introducing electronic dance music to the venue’s repertoire for the first time and potentially opening doors for more diverse programming in the future.
Known for his melodic techno sound and immersive productions, the DJ will showcase his two Genesys albums during the performance. The show promises to be a sensory extravaganza, leveraging the Sphere’s state-of-the-art visual capabilities (the world’s largest LED screen anyone?) and Anyma’s love for mind-bending visual elements.
A teaser video featuring a colossal robot bursting from the venue’s LED display hints at the visual spectacle to come.

“Three years ago when I started Anyma I would have never believed we’d come this far – all I can say is thank you,” Anyma wrote on Instagram. “To all 100,000 of you attending I promise to give you the best show of my life, with special surprises and guests lined up.”
The event, produced by Anyma’s record label Afterlife, will feature surprise guest appearances as well.
Learn more at After.Life.
The post Italian DJ Anyma set to bring his one-of-a-kind visuals to the Las Vegas Sphere with six-night residency appeared first on MusicTech.

Native Instruments samples Alicia Keys’ own Yamaha CP-70 electric piano for new virtual instrument, Alicia’s Electric KeysNative Instruments has partnered with singer-songwriter and pianist Alicia Keys on a new virtual instrument: Alicia’s Electric Keys.
Following Alicia’s Keys, a virtual piano released in collaboration by the pair which, incidentally, received mixed reviews upon its release, Alicia’s Electric Keys arrives to transform the singer’s iconic Yamaha CP-70 Electric Grand Piano into a “cutting-edge virtual instrument”.

READ MORE: Yes, Alicia Keys’ Super Bowl performance was fixed afterwards – but why do we care?

Promising to “revolutionise the way musicians create and express themselves”, the samples for Alicia’s Electric Keys were “meticulously recorded” and “processed with Alicia’s own custom effects chains”, and the instrument offers users the chance to merge “lush acoustic tones with boundless electric capabilities”.

The plugin also comes loaded with Keys’ signature presets – including the sound of her 2021 smash hit Girl on Fire – as well as an interactive user interface with on-screen illumination as you play.

“I’m so excited for everyone to experience Alicia’s Electric Keys,” says Alicia Keys. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s going to add a layer that you’ve been missing.

Adds Native Instruments: “Alicia’s Electric Keys is designed to inspire musicians of all levels, from aspiring artists to seasoned professionals. Whether you’re composing, performing, or producing, this instrument provides a versatile and intuitive platform to elevate your sound.”
Alicia’s Electric Keys is available now for $149/£129. For more information, head to Native Instruments.
Credit: Native Instruments
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Four Tet on his production process: “I pretty much only use presets”When it comes to making music, less is oftentimes more. Such is the case for Four Tet, who admits that he “pretty much only uses presets” for his tracks.
The electronic artist – real name Kieran Hebden – appears on the latest episode of the Tape Notes podcast where he dives deep into his creative process and the reason he prefers to keep things minimal during production.

READ MORE: Jacob Collier: “Another thing I recommend to people is to try and make the worst song in the world”

Sharing his love for preset sounds, Four Tet says: “I pretty much only use presets on things.”
“I’ll get a sound, I’ll get the melody, notes I want, and then I’ll get it up and running on Omnisphere. I’ll be like, ‘All right, what are the bass sounds?’ And I’ll just cycle through loads and loads of them, one after another, until I find one that’s quite nice.”
“I’ll just choose a preset and that will be it,” he says. “I’m not doing any sound design type of stuff particularly on any of my things. I’m definitely not one of those people that’s like, ‘I’m going to start with a sine wave, and then I’m going to do this, and then do this’ – I don’t really mess with any fundamental stuff like that, usually because I’m in a rush.”
“I get asked these questions, like ‘what’s your plugin chain on this and that?’ Like I showed you on the sessions, on most of the stuff, there’s nothing, there’s no plugins on there,” says Four Tet.
He continues: “Ideally, you’re doing as little as possible. I pretty much never want to put a compressor on anything. If I have to put a compressor on something, it’s to deal with a problem, usually… Mainly, I want everything to be as dynamic and open and natural as possible.”
Rather than obsess over the technicalities, musicians should instead be “thinking about the song as a whole” and “what narratives [are] being achieved throughout the piece of music” during production, says Four Tet.
Listen to the full podcast below.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Four Tet dives deeper on his production philosophies, explaining how he works with texture and subtlety to create a connection between the listener and the music.
The post Four Tet on his production process: “I pretty much only use presets” appeared first on MusicTech.

Why ROLI’s Seaboard Block M is an ideal companion for making music on-the-goAd feature with ROLI
One of the best things about today’s technology is that it lets you create and produce music on the move in ways that would have seemed like an impossible dream not so long ago. While we all like to get hands-on with controlling our music software and hardware, most systems are pretty conventional; a keyboard, some knobs and sliders. Plus they generally need to be plugged into your laptop. But what if you want to go beyond those limits – way beyond, in fact?

READ MORE: ROLI on the Seaboard BLOCK M: “MPE has become accepted in many producer’s workflows — MIDI 2.0 will be another big step forward”

ROLI pioneered a new and revolutionary form of MIDI control with its Seaboard, Seaboard RISE and Blocks instruments in the 2010s, and now the company has unveiled the Seaboard Block M, combining powerful aspects of those instruments with brand new capabilities of its own. As well as being a powerful five-dimentional MIDI controller in its own right, it integrates seamlessly with ROLI’s software family — such as Equator 2, Studio Drums and Studio Player, as well as a host of soundpacks that take advantage of Seaboard Block M’s advanced abilities.
The controller is designed for ultimate portability, weighing just 650g and, despite featuring 24 keys (known as keywaves here), it remains compact and thin enough to easily carry in a rucksack or laptop bag. Nothing is truly portable while it’s reliant on cables so, as well as operating over USB, it has a wireless option too and is powered by an internal battery with 10 hours of battery life. Any time you connect it via USB, it will charge the battery, while the Bluetooth MIDI connection means you can play and create from anywhere in the room. And for the gear heads, a 2.5mm TRS MIDI output port is available for connecting MIDI-triggered hardware like modular synthesizers. So whether you use it wired, wirelessly or without a computer, it’s an awesome solution.
The 24 keywaves that make up the top surface are a very advanced system for performing, a little like regular keys but soft to the touch with flexible and tactile feedback. The octave buttons on the playing surface let you quickly move between seven full octaves, while you can also use the DNA connectors on either end to connect more Seaboard Block M units or the smaller Blocks units, should you own one, to build an even bigger tactile performance surface.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Ths instrument uses MPE MIDI which is a recent and more powerful specification allowing digital instruments to be played and controlled in a more natural way compared to standard MIDI — that’s available here too. Specifically, using an instrument like the Seaboard Block M, you can modulate parameters like pitch, timbre, pitch bend and amplitude all at the same time while playing notes. Many DAWs are compatible with the MPE format including Logic Pro, Bitwig and Cubase, while a lot of software instruments from developers including Arturia, Moog and UVI are as well.
Then there’s ROLI’s own instruments and apps, which have been designed specifically to harness the power of the Seaboard Block M. ROLI Studio is a standalone app and also a plugin that can run inside your DAW of choice and contains an essential selection of sounds from the company’s Cypher 2, Equator 2 and Strobe 2 instruments. As well as providing tools to tweak the sound and its effects at the source, it provides a Smart Chord feature for performing complex chords with a single press, a configurable multi-layer arpeggiator and a handy keywave display that mirrors your performance on screen. The full versions of those synths as well as a host of add-on sound packs are also available, all specially designed to work with MPE MIDI.
The ROLI Dashboard software that runs on your Mac or PC provides a way to customise the behaviour of your Seaboard Block M and make it respond in just the way you like. For example, while in fully expressive mode, your finger movements have complete control of bending between notes in addition to all the other gestures you can do. But activate Piano Mode and it behaves more like a conventional keyboard with notes retriggering as you glide between them. The first mode is hyper creative, while the second provides a more conventional though still very expressive way to play.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Central to all this is ROLI’s innovative 5D Touch system which maps the instrument’s many sensors onto five dimensions of MPE MIDI control and through to multiple parameters in your software instruments. The first of these is Strike, which plays a note at different velocities depending on how hard your initial strike is. Next is Press, which modulates and deepens a sound as you press harder into the tactile Keywave surface.
The third dimension is Slide, where sliding a held finger up and down can add brightness, texture or depth, and then there’s Glide, where gliding a finger from side to side can bend pitch and create a vibrato effect – gliding up and down the upper and lower edges of the top surface also has different creative results depending on the mode you’re in. Lastly, Lift will affect a sound’s resonance differently depending how quickly or slowly you lift your fingers.
All of these touch dimensions mean that performing with the Seaboard Block M is much more expressive and powerful than using a regular MIDI controller. Suddenly the kind of expression that has always been associated only with acoustic instruments is available to you in a MIDI instrument that can connect in wired mode or wirelessly, powers itself and is compact enough to take anywhere.
Paired with the awesome power of modern laptops and the advanced capabilities of ROLI’s software as well as MPE-compatible DAWs and instruments, the Seaboard Block M allows unparalleled levels of musical control and expression, helping you not only take your compositions to new heights but also in directions you might not have even dreamed of. It’s a unique piece of studio hardware and also a truly new way to make music on the move.
Find out more about the ROLI Seaboard Block M at roli.com
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Riot subsidiary Whinstone US sues former JV partner over revenue flowThe partners at the Texas facility had troubled relations almost from their start in 2020.

Elon Musk sets new October 10 date for ‘robotaxi’ reveal and ‘other things’Elon Musk says he will show off Tesla’s purpose-built “robotaxi” prototype during an event October 10, after scrapping a previously-planned reveal on August 8 earlier this month. Musk said Tesla will also show off “a couple of other things,” but didn’t explain what that meant. The comments, made on Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call Tuesday, largely […]
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Automatic Garbage Can Keeps Cooking CleanerOver the last decade or so, we’ve been inundated with appliances with wireless or “smart” technology that is often of dubious utility. No one really needs a tablet in their refrigerator or Wi-Fi on their coffee maker. A less glamorous kitchen appliance that actually might benefit from some automation and connectivity is the garbage can, or “bin” for those speaking the Queen’s English, and [Mellow_Labs] is here to show off just how to get that done with this automatic garbage can lid.
As he explains, the real impetus behind this build is to not have to touch a dirty lid while cooking to avoid having to take time to wash one’s hands again afterwards. There are a few other design criteria as well; it has to be roommate-approved so nothing permanently attached to the lid, overly complicated, or with an unnecessary amount of wires or other fixtures. A servo with an extension sits on the lid itself, and when activated forces the lid open. A distance sensor provides basic gesture recognition and a microcontroller with wireless connectivity controls both and provides home automation integration as well. With a 3D printed case that includes a quick disconnect function for easy cleaning of the lid, the build was ready to be put into service.
The first iteration used an infrared distance sensor, but placing it by an open window caused it to continuously open and close since sunlight has the same wavelengths of light the sensor is tuned for. A quick swap with an ultrasonic sensor solved the problem, and the garbage can is working flawlessly in the kitchen now. Another appliance that is generally not targeted by off-the-shelf automation solutions is the range fume hood, but another build tackled that problem a while back.

Daniel Ek talks new Spotify ‘deluxe’ tier, the company’s relationship with the music business and more on Q2 earnings callSpotify's Daniel Ek says his business aims to improve the wellbeing of the entire music industry
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2024 Tiny Games Challenge: Improving Reaction TimeWhat lies at the heart of many games? In a sense, it’s your response time, which is a function of hand-eye coordination. Although the 2024 Business Card Challenge has come to a close, [gokux] tends to go small anyway, and has taken their miniature approach to the Tiny Games Challenge with this awesome little reaction time game.
It’s basically whack-a-mole, but instead of striking down fuzzy puppets, you get fast and furious on big buttons that light up. Press any button to start, and there is a 3-2-1 countdown to get you geared up for action. Once the screen says ‘GO’, you’re off to the races. Each of the four buttons will light up in random order, and your overall response time is taken as the average of these four.
While there are many microcontrollers that would work here, [gokux] chose the Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32-C3. If you want to make one of these for yourself, there are excellent build instructions waiting for you. Be sure to check it out in action after the break. Oh, and be sure to let [gokux] know if you can beat 220 ms.

US court orders Utopia Music to pay $1.9M to former owners of Lyric FinancialThe financially troubled music company had failed to make the final payment on its acquisition of Lyric Financial
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Win $1,000 and a one-of-a-kind opportunity to collaborate with Oliver
Create your own sample pack and produce a track with it and Oliver's sounds for the chance to win $1,000 and a one-of-a-kind collaborative opportunity.

Recording Academy's GRAMMY GO Launches Music Production Specialization on CourseraGRAMMY GO, a new online initiative from the Recording Academy®, has partnered with Coursera, a leading online learning platform, to offer classes tailored for music creators and industry professionals. Continuing the Academy's ongoing mission to serve all music people, this partnership empowers the next generation of the music community with practical, up-to-the moment digital content that provides wisdom for both emerging and established members of the industry. With a variety of specializations tailored to creative and professional growth, GRAMMY GO on Coursera includes courses taught by Recording Academy members, featuring GRAMMY® winners and nominees and offering real-life lessons learners can put to work right away.

"Whether it be through a GRAMMY Museum® program, GRAMMY Camp® or GRAMMY U®, the GRAMMY organization is committed to helping music creators flourish, and the Recording Academy is proud to introduce our newest learning platform GRAMMY GO in partnership with Coursera," said Panos A. Panay, President of the Recording Academy. "A creator's growth path is ongoing, and these courses have been crafted to provide learners with the essential tools to grow in their professional and creative journeys."

From earlier in the year, enrollment is open for GRAMMY GO's first Coursera specialization, "Building Your Audience for Music Professionals," taught by Joey Harris, international music/marketing executive and CEO of Joey Harris Inc., and featuring Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and five-time GRAMMY winner Jimmy Jam, 10-time GRAMMY nominee Janelle Monáe and three-time GRAMMY winner Victoria Monét. This specialization will help participants gain the skills, knowledge and confidence to build a strong brand presence and cultivate a devoted audience within the ever-changing music industry.

The partnership's second course has now launched, aiming to strengthen the technological and audio skills of a music producer. "Music Production: Crafting An Award-Worthy Song" is taught by Carolyn Malachi, Howard University professor and GRAMMY nominee, and will include appearances by GRAMMY winner CIRKUT, three-time GRAMMY winner Hit-Boy, artist and celebrity vocal coach Stevie Mackey, five-time GRAMMY nominee and Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr., and 15-time GRAMMY winner Judith Sherman. Enrollment for "Music Production: Crafting An Award-Worthy Song" is open.

"We are honored to welcome GRAMMY GO, our first entertainment partner, to the Coursera community," said Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer at Coursera. "With these self-paced online Specializations, aspiring music professionals all over the world have an incredible opportunity to learn directly from iconic artists and industry experts. Together with GRAMMY GO, we can empower tomorrow's pioneers of the music industry to explore their passion today."

GRAMMY GO also serves as the music community's newest digital hub for career pathways and editorial content that provides industry insights for members of the industry; visit go.grammy.com for more. For information and enrollment, please visit the landing pages for "Building Your Audience for Music Professionals" and "Music Production: Crafting An Award-Worthy Song."

The post Recording Academy's GRAMMY GO Launches Music Production Specialization on Coursera first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Production Music Awards 2024 The Production Music Awards are inviting composers to submit their music for this year’s awards ahead of the upcoming submission deadline.

Sonuscore introduce The Orchestra Elements Sonuscore's latest release provides users with a free selection of orchestral samples derived from their renowned all-in-one scoring tool.