Virgin Music Group partners with Japan’s Frontier Works for anime music projectsThe global anime market has seen explosive growth in recent years.
Source

PRS celebrates 110th anniversary with commemorative publication in partnership with MBUKCollection society reflects on over a century of working on behalf of songwriters around the world
Source

Mastering Music PR: A Guide for Emerging MusiciansThis beginner's guide offers emerging music essential strategies for successful music PR. By following these practical PR tips, musicians can enhance their reach, build a strong brand, and accelerate their careers.
The post Mastering Music PR: A Guide for Emerging Musicians appeared first on Hypebot.

“It’s very easy to lose yourself in all the possibilities of a large show and end up creating something more for the eyes than for the ears” Richie Hawtin warns against the spectacle of modern DJingGone are the days when DJing was mostly an auditory experience; now, it’s a full-blown assault on the senses, with lasers, pyrotechnics, and LED screens vying for attention alongside the music.
“It’s very easy to lose yourself in all the possibilities of a large show and end up creating something more for the eyes than for the ears,” warns techno pioneer Richie Hawtin, taking aim at the sensory overload that’s become the norm in modern DJ performances.

READ MORE: Resident Advisor and SoundCloud team up to “improve music and event discovery”

A veteran of the electronic music scene for over three decades, Hawtin is no stranger to pushing boundaries. However, his recent performances have taken a decidedly minimalist approach, with a focus on sonic exploration over visual spectacle.
“It’s important to remember that we’re performers and people want to be entertained,” Hawtin acknowledges in a recent chat with MusicTech. But he’s quick to emphasise that entertainment doesn’t necessarily mean sensory bombardment. His latest concert series DEX EFX XOX, strips away the excess, leaving behind what is, for him, at the heart of DJing – the music itself.
“This show looks back in order to look forward,” says Hawtin. “It’s about remembering where this culture came from. Lighting was always part of the DJ experience, but it wasn’t something that you directly looked at – it was something you were inside of even when you closed your eyes. I’m trying to do something on a main stage that brings us back into that hypnotic state.”
“I’m always trying to create and control new audiovisual experiences,” he continues. “Every club setup is like an art installation. Now that DJing has taken an incredible step up, it should be comfortable on a main stage, but it’s very easy to lose yourself in all the possibilities of a large show and end up creating something more for the eyes than for the ears.”
As Hawtin puts it, “I think there’s a trend these days to over-entertain and try to get as much attention as possible.”
“Right now, I just want to continue delving even deeper into the art of DJing; to focus on the sound and give people an evolving, heartening version of what DJing is.”
The post “It’s very easy to lose yourself in all the possibilities of 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 appeared first on MusicTech.

Slate Digital release Submerge Using a compressor’s side-chain input to produce creative ducking and pumping effects is a popular...

The Acolyte’s Michael Abels: “To be creative, you ignore intimidation and do what’s right for the story”The sound of Star Wars has come a long way since John Williams first put those iconic themes into the world in 1977. Since then, Williams has continued to make the franchise one of the most sonically recognisable and has been joined by the likes of Natalie Holt, Nicholas Britell and double Oscar winner Ludwig Göransson for the small-screen iterations of the franchise.

READ MORE: Richie Hawtin is proving why DJs must embrace technology: “It’s about going beyond just putting two records together”

The latest composer tasked with following in William’s footsteps is Michael Abels, an American composer whose work on the 2022 opera Omar landed him a Pulitzer Prize. He’s also written scores for Jordan Peele’s movies, Get Out and Nope.
The Acolyte takes Star Wars in a new direction, set roughly 100 years before Episode I: The Phantom Menace, marking the earliest era we’ve seen the franchise in live-action.
However, the series has drawn notably more audience criticism than other Star Wars projects. Fans have strongly bemoaned The Acolyte’s storylines, performances and episode lengths, with many lambasting Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and claiming that it conflicts with other Star Wars plot lines.
Mixed reviews aside, The Acolyte tells the story of a group of Jedi coming to terms with rising darkness in an era of peace. And, thankfully, Michael Abels’ work on the score is among the stronger parts of the series. But it didn’t come without its own challenges.
“It was important that, with these new things, there is also some familiarity,” says Michael Abels. “Because it’s Star Wars and everyone has unique things they love about the franchise. Certainly, for me, one of those things is the music.”
Michael Abels. Image: Disney
MusicTech: How did you approach The Acolyte’s earlier setting and this new era of the Star Wars universe through the music?
Michael Abels: “We chose to have music where the emotions and the actions feel like traditional Star Wars. So, there’s one part of the music that’s very consciously the huge space opera — in the traditional style of John Williams — then there’s another part of it that, as the characters confront unique experiences and situations, the music portrays the new planets, species and characters in the universe. There’s a conscious balance between the traditional and the untraditional in the score.”
The series was accompanied by Victoria Monét’s Power Of Two, a vocal-led pop single. This is unusual for the franchise — where did this idea come from?
“A vocal-led single is a first for Star Wars, and I was excited to be a part of that. The first piece of music I wrote for the series was the music of the Ascension scene in episode three. I wrote that piece and, in its first version, it was entirely vocal. Even though in the episode, you hear it with drums and other instruments, my original take on that was it was all female vocals.
“Near the end [of the series], we revisited that idea and one of the producers, Rain Roberts, played some music by Victoria Monét and D’Mile I was instantly so excited about the possibility of being able to work with them.
“I went to D’Mile and played him several tracks that I thought were worthy of being sampled and that had musical material he could draw from. I was delighted when he chose the Ascension scene music because that was where the whole project started. Then Victoria, over the track that D’Mile made from the Ascension score, wrote this lyric and this melody that just makes it sound like it’s coming exactly from the voice of Osha, the lead character.”
A still from ‘The Acolyte’. Image: Disney
Did you have any favourite worlds or characters to score?
“There are a lot of musical themes — that’s just part of what makes the music of Star Wars. Osha has a theme, though you don’t necessarily hear it until later. Her theme comes in when she’s feeling vulnerable; it’s from very internal moments we hear this theme. Mae [Osha’s twin sister] has music, but it’s very martial arts-oriented, very percussive. There are a lot of Japanese taiko drums and every other kind of percussion instrument that goes in Mae’s vibe.
“There’s a theme that gets played a lot for Sol. I guess it’s his theme, but it’s a theme of the aspiring justice of the Jedi when Osha first sees the Jedi ship. That theme plays not because Sol’s in the picture, but because it represents her aspirations. And there’s another theme for the character who we’re about to meet — it very much rises from the deep. It starts on the very lowest C and rises up in the strings because that character is evil rising. So, you can tell, I think, the amount of fun I had finding the themes of the characters and the story.”
Was there a sense of expectation to live up to the legacy that John Williams and Skywalker Sound have left?
“I think anyone working on anything involved with Lucasfilm [is aware of] the huge legacy and expectation to live up to. And that’s intimidating but, to be creative, you have to just set all that aside and do what feels right for the story.
“I wasn’t physically at Skywalker Sound — the majority of the score was recorded in Vienna, with the musicians of Synchron Stage who were amazing. Skywalker Sound and Lucasfilm’s post-production team were intimately involved in making all of that happen.”
A still from ‘The Acolyte’. Image: Disney
Speaking of recordings, how did you find the balance between live and virtual instruments?
“I love writing for live instruments but it’s not a requirement of my art. Given the kind of score we were trying to create, live instruments were required, as far as I was concerned. At the same time, when there’s a new sound that works in the story and in the world, but it’s outside of live instruments, I don’t have a problem using virtual instruments. I wouldn’t record something live if it was already sounding great virtually.
“We recorded all the strings and brass live and a lot of the woodwinds. There’s a duduk sound which is virtual — it was right in the mock-ups and didn’t need to be changed. Then the percussion, we have these great live taiko drums, and there’s nothing that sounds like that. But a lot of the additional percussion is half live and half virtual. I took it on a case-by-case basis of which parts felt right for the scene. I wasn’t trying to prejudge that until I just watched it and heard it together.”
How does your approach differ from working on, say, a Jordan Peele project to The Acolyte?
“There are some key differences. The composer always has a very personal relationship with the director of a film or the showrunner of a series; how you approach [the score] is dependent on the nature of that working relationship.
“There’s often a large volume of music in a series — even the largest film can’t compare to a huge series with wall-to-wall music. The Acolyte isn’t entirely wall-to-wall music, but there’s certainly a lot. So one of the differences is that you work on a series for a long time and, as you get closer to the end, there’s a [better] understanding of how things need to go; you work in a team for such a period that you just develop a system, which streamlines the process.
“In a film, there’s a little more time to dwell on each detail. Jordan is a person who has a mastery of every aspect of filmmaking in every genre. There’s time to go back and look, tell the story a different way and see how that plays. I find Jordan highly responsive to test screenings. Often, if he gets great feedback at a test screening, he’ll want to lean into the things that the audience is responding to.
“It’s great to be able to create in these different ways and try things out. I’ve certainly learned so much about storytelling by doing both films and TV series.”
Michael Abels and ‘The Acolyte’ showrunner Leslye Headland. Image: Disney
Were there any unique instruments or sounds that you used on The Acolyte that we might not have heard in other Star Wars projects?
“I don’t know what would have been used that hasn’t been heard in some way or at some point in the Star Wars world. There are some fairly intense, horrific moments in The Acolyte — or, at least, the approach to the music is very much in that vein.
“Some cues are very dissonant and atonal and designed to terrify. So, there, I’ve used sound design aspects and extended orchestral playing techniques which is unusual for Star Wars.”
What else should viewers know about The Acolyte?
“By the time you reach the end of the series, the themes come together in a way that feels very organic and it’s a terrific musical conclusion, as well as a conclusion to a story. I hope that people who appreciate music’s ability to tell a story, hear that in the music and appreciate that for what it is.”
‘The Acolyte’ is available to stream now on Disney+.
This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
The post The Acolyte’s Michael Abels: “To be creative, you ignore intimidation and do what’s right for the story” appeared first on MusicTech.

Resident Advisor and SoundCloud team up to “improve music and event discovery”Resident Advisor (RA) and SoundCloud have announced a strategic partnership aimed at revolutionising how artists and fans connect both online and in person.
Launching this month, the alliance seeks to improve the way users of both platforms discover and experience music and events.

READ MORE: FL Studio 2024 welcomes new plugins, AI tools and expands FL Cloud library

A key feature of the partnership is event integration: SoundCloud artists with a Resident Advisor profile will now automatically have their next three events displayed on their SoundCloud profile webpage. This allows creators to increase visibility for upcoming performances and showcase their latest events, while fans can easily discover and purchase tickets to their favourite shows directly on SoundCloud.
In addition, all Resident Advisor event pages will now feature an embeddable SoundCloud widget, which means users can listen to mixes and tracks by DJs on the lineup before and after buying a ticket.
As part of this partnership, Resident Advisor will be curating a playlist on SoundCloud that spans the entire spectrum of electronic music and its many genres and subgenres. There’ll also be co-branded editorial features to spotlight emerging artists in the electronic music space. Users can look forward to further feature releases and integrations throughout the year.
Simon Kempner, RA’s Chief Operating Officer, said of the collaboration, “The integration of Resident Advisor’s events API with SoundCloud’s platform opens up exciting possibilities for the electronic music community. By seamlessly connecting event information across platforms, we’re empowering promoters, club owners, artists, DJs, labels, and fans through increased visibility and engagement.”
Devi Mahadevia, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Growth at SoundCloud added: “This marks an exciting moment for SoundCloud as we open up the electronic music event space to our users. Club culture is the lifeblood of electronic music and by integrating Resident Advisor’s events onto our platform, we’re further enriching the music discovery journey for our listening community.”
To make the most out of this partnership, artists are encouraged to add media and events to their Resident Advisor artist page and link their RA account to their SoundCloud artist page. Visit RA’s FAQ page for more information on how to do so.
The post Resident Advisor and SoundCloud team up to “improve music and event discovery” appeared first on MusicTech.

Music Sustainability Alliance Announces 2025 Summit and Other ProgramsThe Music Sustainability Alliance, the hub for the industry to learn, innovate, and collaborate to advance sustainability in the music business, has announced its 2025 Summit dates as it ramps up its program offerings.

The 2025 Music Sustainability Summit, held each year on the day after the Grammy Awards, will take place on Monday, February 3, 2025, in Los Angeles.

The event, which convenes leaders from across the industry, covers a wide range of topics related to reducing the negative environmental impacts of the music industry while advancing and accelerating positive impacts.

left to right Kurt Langer, VP & Board Member, Joel Makower, Strategy Director & Industry Council Chair , Amy Morrison, CEO, Co-Founder & Board Member, Eleanor Anderson, Project Advisor & Board Member, Michael Martin, Co-Founder & Board Member

Among the topics covered at the 2024 summit were: 

the role of promoters and venues in advancing sustainability solutions

increasing the use of plant-based foods at concerts and festivals

creating zero-waste events by fostering reuse

advancing alternatives to diesel-powered electricity at events

streamlining industry freight and logistics

reducing the impacts of fan travel to music events

supporting the role of the artist as activist

“The Summit represents a meeting of the minds working on music industry sustainability, both leaders and learners,” said MSA CEO and co-founder Amy Morrison. “The industry has nearly unlimited potential to model the future we all want to see by supporting and propagating leadership practices and technologies that can address the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the waste crisis and other societal challenges. The summit represents an annual opportunity to collaboratively learn and to showcase and accelerate the industry’s progress.”

In addition to planning the summit, the MSA team has recently launched three other initiatives:

— Music Votes, spearheaded by MSA and launched in June, is a collaboration among 20 music and cultural organizations to increase voter participation in the 2024 U.S. elections. It offers a turnkey solution for artists, managers, music companies, venues and other music outlets to have a tangible impact on this year’s election. 

— Three MSA Working Groups have been launched, in which industry representatives are collaborating to identify best practices and develop evidence-based recommendations and propose standards for sustainable practices. The three working groups focus on:

Renewable Energy and Power Solutions

Waste Management and Circular Economy

Reporting, Metrics, and Standardization

— The Green Room, an MSA webinar series, kicks off on September 3, with a session on “Turning Fans Into Activists,” including how musicians and bands are encouraging fans to become politically active, and do so without alienating parts of their fan base. Speakers include singer and activist Dawn Richard and leading sustainability communications analyst Suzanne Shelton. 

Register hereThe post Music Sustainability Alliance Announces 2025 Summit and Other Programs first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Bitcoin traders ‘under pressure’ after deepest correction since 2022 erases profits83% of short-term Bitcoin traders saw losses after BTC price recorded its deepest drawdown since 2022.

More ex-military officials are becoming VCs as defense tech investment reached $35BAs venture capitalists continue to pour money into defense tech startups, they’re turning to a new hiring pool: ex-military officials.  
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

How to make future house music in 15 minutes
Learn how to make future house music via this tutorial where we explore the key tools, music theory, and production techniques of the genre.

If You Want An Expensive Chair Just Print Your OwnThe Magis Spun chair is a weird piece. It’s basically a kind of seat with a round conical base that stops it from sitting still in one place. Instead, it rolls and pivots around when you sit on it, which is apparently quite fun. They’re expensive though, which gave [Morley Kert] a neat idea. Why not 3D print one instead?
Obviously 3D printing a sofa wouldn’t be straightforward, but the Magis Spun is pretty much just a hunk of plastic anyway. The real thing is made with rotational molding. [Morley] suspected he could make one for less than the retail price with 3D printing.
With no leads on a big printer, he decided to go with a segmented design. He whipped up his basic 3D model through screenshots from the manufacturer’s website and measurements of a display model in a store. After print farming the production, the assembly task was the next big challenge. If you’re interested in doing big prints with small printers, this video is a great way to explore the perils of this idea.
Ultimately, if you want to print one of these yourself, it’s a big undertaking. It took 30-50 print days, or around 5 days spread across 15 printers at Slant 3D’s print farm. It used around $300-400 of material at retail prices, plus some extra for the epoxy and foam used to assemble it.
The finished product was killer, though, even if it looks a little rough around the edges. It rolls and pivots just like the real thing.
We don’t feature a lot of chair hacks on Hackaday, but we do feature some! Video after the break.

Warner Music Japan Chief Operating Officer Kazuhiro Shimada exitsShimada joined Warner Music Japan in November 2022
Source

FLOSS Weekly Episode 791: It’s All About Me!This week David Ruggles chats with Jonathan Bennett about his origin story! What early core memory does Jonathan pin his lifelong computer hobby on? And how was a tense meeting instrumental to Jonathan’s life outlook? And how did Jonathan manage to score a squashable brain toy from an equipment manufacturer? Watch the whole show to find out!

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.
If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.
Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:

Spotify

RSS

AmplifyWorld launch Artist Fund scheme AmplifyWorld have announced the launch of a $500,000 Artist Fund programme that aims to support forward-thinking musicians worldwide.