“A little bit of clipping is where people hear drums and go, ‘Wow, this really hits’”: Kenny Beats on why clipping can be useful when producingProducer and DJ Kenny Beats has opened up about his go-to studio gear and the importance of “a little bit of clipping” in creating his signature drum sounds.
Appearing on a recent episode of the Tape Notes Podcast along with IDLES’ Mark Bowen, Beats dives into his creative process and the secret to getting snares that are “bright” yet have “so much weight”.

READ MORE: Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album released as $1 NFTs – here’s how you can buy one

“I’m always fighting against people in hip hop who are clipping their drums, whether they know it or not sometimes,” the producer says. “Now, obviously, people are doing it on purpose. But the way FL [Studio] sounded for years, it has a certain ceiling to it. So drums in FL have this kind of clipped thing to it.”
“It became a really big sound in hip hop because of Metro Boomin and other huge producers. And for me, even when I go to a kit recorded with 10 mics or whatever, a bit of clipping or a bit of stock Ableton saturation and things like that, give it a different… snappiness and the punch that you feel like you don’t get sometimes from when you listen to a close mic on a drum kit and you’re like, this sounds nothing like a sick trap snare or whatever.”
He continues: “A little bit of clipping for me really is the thing where I think people hear drums that I do that are live instruments or live recorded drums, and they go ‘wow this really hits’ like on a rap song – it’s clipping.”
Beats adds that he really likes Venn Audio’s V-Clip plugin and that “I’m an Ableton guy so I really like the Ableton stock saturator and just engage soft clip.”
“Put that on your drums right now and tell me it doesn’t make a difference — it’s unreal.”
Elsewhere, the producer also shares his love for using vintage Altec EQs in his music, saying: “My drums are punching way better in this one song than anywhere else and it was this EQ”.

The post “A little bit of clipping is where people hear drums and go, ‘Wow, this really hits’”: Kenny Beats on why clipping can be useful when producing appeared first on MusicTech.

Win a Neve 1073SPX-D channel strip! This month we're giving away Neve's latest all-in-one channel strip and USB audio interface.

Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album released as $1 NFTs – here’s how you can buy oneWant to own a piece of rap history for just $1? Digital art collective PleasrDAO have announced they are selling Wu-Tang Clan‘s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album as $1 NFTs.

READ MORE: Deadmau5 says he “doesn’t enjoy” dance music, but loves “the process of making it”

The album, which has been “digitised and encrypted” can be purchased at www.thealbum.com, and features new artwork designed by artist Hassan Rahim.
Buyers who purchase the NFT will gain access to a five-minute album sampler created by the record’s co-producer, Cilvaringz. Each sale will also bump up the album’s original 2103 release date by 88 seconds — from its original decryption date of 8 October 2103.
Users will not need cryptocurrency to purchase the NFTs. According to PleasrDAO, proceeds from the sale “will go in part to the original Wu-Tang Clan, the album producer, and performing artists.”

The world's most expensive album is available for $1.
Enter the chamber and secure a copy – 2103 will come faster than you think.https://t.co/QRmGdIrwOy pic.twitter.com/rTCkuH0It3
— Pleasr (@PleasrDAO) June 13, 2024

Once Upon a Time in Shaolin producers RZA and Cilvaringz said of the project [via Pitchfork]. “Mass replication has fundamentally changed the way we view a piece of recorded music, while digital universality and vanishing physicality have broken our emotional bond with a piece of music as an artwork and a deeply personal treasure.”
“This album sale is more than just about the music,” PleasrDAO representative Matt Matkov added. “It’s about redefining how we think about ownership of music and fan collaboration in the digital age.”

pic.twitter.com/N9SAggIA8Q
— Pleasr (@PleasrDAO) June 12, 2024

Once Upon a Time In Shaolin was recorded in secret over six years before it was completed in 2015. Only one copy of the album was made, and it was sold at auction for $2 million to pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli. After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2018, the US government seized the album as part of a £5.3 million forfeiture order.
In 2021, PleasrDAO bought the album for $4 million and has been working to find ways to share it with the public. To complicate matters, the company recently filed a lawsuit against Shkreli for allegedly copying and distributing the album online without the group’s permission. Pleasr argued that Shkreli had live streamed parts of Once Upon a Time In Shaolin multiple times in violation of the initial sale contract, which stipulated that the album could not be commercially exploited until 2103.
Responding to the news on X, Shkreli blasted: “PleasrFed releasing the album tomorrow supposedly, but I think they’re going to make you pay? Even though I paid them once, they paid them twice, and the album sucks.”
He also urged the public to “wait for the pirated version”, claiming that he’s played Once Upon a Time In Shaolin “500 times publicly” since he got it prior to Pleasr’s purchase.

PleasrFed releasing the album tomorrow supposedly, but I think they’re going to make you pay? Even though I paid them once, they paid them twice, and album sucks. I’ve played it 500 times publicly since I got it (before they bought it) & sent a million copies to friends (again…
— Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@MartinShkreli) June 13, 2024

The post Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album released as $1 NFTs – here’s how you can buy one appeared first on MusicTech.

Massenburg Design Works unveil immersive MDWDRC3 MDWDRC3 brings Massenburg Design Works' unique dynamics processor to those working with multi-channel immersive audio formats.  

Tesla shareholders vote yes again to approve Elon Musk’s $56B pay plan Tesla CEO Elon Musk has secured enough shareholder votes to have his 2018 stock option compensation package approved. Shareholders also approved the company’s decision to re-incorporate of Tesla in Texas, moving it away from the state where Musk’s pay package was struck down: Delaware.  Shareholders present at the company’s annual meeting Thursday, held at Tesla’s […]
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MiCA regulation takes shape under EBA’s newest guidelinesThe European Banking Authority has introduced a series of technical standards and guidelines for token issuers as MiCA implementation moves forward.

Robert Kyncl turns up heat on PRO metadata matching, and other things we learned from his NMPA keynote in New YorkWarner boss was grilled by NMPA chief, David Israelite, at New York event this week
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Marimbatron: A Digital Marimba Prototyping ProjectThe Marimbatron is [Leo Kuipers] ‘s final project as part of the MIT “Fabacademy program” supervised by [Prof. Neil Gershenfeld] of the Center for Bits and Atoms. The course aims to learn how to leverage all the fab lab skills to create unique prototypes using the materials at hand.
The final polyurethane/PET/Flex PCB stack-up for the sensor pad
Fortunately, one of the main topics covered in the course is documentation, and [Leo] has provided ample material for review. The marimba consists of a horizontal series of wooden bars, each mounted over a metal resonator tube. It is played similarly to the xylophone, with a piano-type note arrangement, covering about five octaves but with a lower range than the xylophone. [Leo] converted this piano-type layout into a more logical grid arrangement. The individual pads are 3D printed in PETG and attached to a DIY piezoresistive pressure sensor made from a graphite-sprayed PET sheet laid upon a DIY flexible PCB. A central addressable LED was also included for indication purposes. The base layer is made of cast polyurethane, formed inside a 3D-printed rigid mould. This absorbs impact and prevents crosstalk to nearby sensors. The sensor PCB was initially prototyped by adhering a layer of copper tape to a layer of Kapton tape and cutting it out using a desktop vinyl cutter. While this method worked for the proof of concept, [Leo] ultimately outsourced the final version to a PCB manufacturer. The description of prototyping the sensor and dealing with over-moulding was particularly fascinating.

For the electronics, a modular approach was needed. Each row of ten sensors was daisy-chained to connect the LEDs, with an individual sense line passed down for each sensor to a common sensor PCB. This uses a SAMD21-series microcontroller with enough ADC channels to handle the task. This was initially prototyped using a micro-milled PCB and a laser-cut PET solder stencil. Once that was proven to work well, the sensible thing was done, and the final PCBs were ordered from a proper fab. Additionally, a user interface PCB was created to host a few pushbuttons and a Waveshare round LCD display. Finally, a main control PCB routes I2C to the sensor boards and interfaces to the SPI LCD. It also handles sending MIDI data over USB for playback on an external MIDI device.
Documentation and design data can both be found on the project fabcloud page. To dig into the Fab Academy courses, wander over to the course archive and get cracking.
This is the first marimba we’ve covered, so here’s a mechanical xylophone instead. Whilst we’re on the subject of mechanical music, here’s a fun one to go back over.

US music publishing revenue jumped 10.7% to $6.2bn in 2023… outstripping recorded music’s growth in percentage termsThe NMPA is focusing its energy on a battle against Spotify over royalty payments
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A 1940s Car Radio Receives Some LoveThe entertainment systems in modern vehicles is akin to a small in-dash computer, and handles all manner of digital content. It probably also incorporates a radio, but increasingly that’s treated as something of an afterthought. There was a time though when any radio in a car was a big deal, and if you own a car from that era it’s possible that you’ve had to coax an aged radio into life. [The Radio Mechanic] is working on a radio from a 1946 Packard, which provides a feast for anyone with a penchant for 1940s electronics.
The unit, manufactured by Philco, is an all-in-one, with a bulky speaker in the chassis alongside the tubes and other components. It would have sat behind the dash in the original car, so some external cosmetic damage is not critical. Less easy to pass off is the cone rubbing on the magnet, probably due to water damage over the last eight decades. Particularly interesting are the controls, as we’re rather enamored with the multicolored filter attached to the tone control. A laser cutter makes short work of recreating the original felt gasket here.
The video below is the first of a series on this radio, so we don’t see it working. Ahead will be a lot more cleaning up and testing of components, and we’d expect a lot of those paper capacitors to need replacement. We can almost smell that warm phenolic smell.
If tube radio work is your thing, we’ve been there before.

It's Here! NUGEN Audio Releases NUtility ToolkitNUGEN Audio unveils its new NUtility Toolkit, which comprises its SigMod, AB Assist, Jotter and Aligner plug-ins. Ideal for entry-level and professional audio professionals alike, NUtility Toolkit fills gaps in DAW functionality and speeds up tedious admin tasks in order for audio engineers to focus on the more creative aspects of their job. 

“Introducing these utility plug-ins to your workflow will be a gamechanger,” says Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe, Product Specialist, NUGEN Audio. “It’s like finally buying a food processor when you’ve been using a pestle and mortar for the past decade. Do you have any idea how much more often I make pesto these days?”    

SigMod enables the user to create custom signal architecture to enhance the functionality of both the DAW and third-party plug-ins. The plug-in also offers easy access to functionality that is often either missing or difficult to access in certain DAWs, including but not limited to, a phase flip and a mid/side encoder and decoder. 

AB Assist 2 receives and compares up to four audio sources — different takes, plug-in options, mix revisions or versions of a master, with support for all surround channel counts. The blind test function randomly labels the streams as W, X, Y and Z for a completely unbiased assessment of the audio options. Additionally, an auto-level match function allows the user to match short-term loudness (LUFS) of sources, while a mono-check feature compares mono fold-downs and the smooth tool creates fades between sources.

Aligner is an automatic phase and polarity alignment tool designed for convenience and speed. With the automatic linking functionality, users can connect multiple instances of the plug-in to phase-correct all channels via one single user interface. The plug-in also includes manual phase adjustment for fine-tuning especially challenging audio.

Jotter provides easy sharing of timestamped notes and comments between the plug-in and the free standalone Jotter app. The latter allows clients and collaborators who may not own the plug-in (or do not use a DAW) to share their important feedback, and for audio engineers to view this feedback locked to the correct position on the project timeline. 

NUGEN’s NUtility Toolkit is available in AAX, VST3, AU and AudioSuite formats in 64-bit for both Mac and Windows OS. The bundle will be available for $99, which is a savings of $107 versus purchasing each of the individual tools. Each plug-in can still be purchased individually, and current users of any of these tools can upgrade to the bundle at a reduced rate.The post It's Here! NUGEN Audio Releases NUtility Toolkit first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Group music listening improves with Stationhead upgrade, Rythm relaunchNumerous startups and several of the streaming services are working on improving the group music listening experience. This week, a pioneer in group listening relaunched on Dischord, and an innovator unveiled a major new feature that identifies and rewards superfans.....
The post Group music listening improves with Stationhead upgrade, Rythm relaunch appeared first on Hypebot.

Take a look inside Peggy Gou’s secret gig in London200 lucky fans were able to spend an evening with Peggy Gou in celebration of her debut album last week, as she hosted a secret gig in East London.
At Café 1001, Gou celebrated the release of I Hear You and gave fans the chance to experience her live show in an intimate setting ahead of her biggest UK headline set on 17th August at Gunnersbury Park.

READ MORE: Justice, Nia Archives, Peggy Gou, James Blake and more are playing Glastonbury 2024

Gou also surprised fans earlier in the day at a special pop-up store closeby to the gig venue. The album landed on 7 June and includes singles such as her huge hit (It Goes Like) Nanana, and I Believe in Love Again, featuring Lenny Kravitz.
At her secret show, Gou can be seen beaming as fans are gathered around the decks under cosy red lighting. Take a peek inside her secret gig below:
Image: Sienna Gray

@dailymailshowbiz
Peggy Gou suprises fans at a secret gig in London Launching her new album, Peggy will be playing Gunnersbury Park in London on Saturday 17th August #peggygou #surprise #gig #london #shoreditch #fans #fyp
♬ original sound – Daily Mail Celeb

In November last year, Gou spoke of her collaboration with Kravitz came to be. She told Zane Lowe, “In the whole album, I have 11 tracks. That music, the inspiration came from ‘90s music, some rave, house music, but this song is more like R&B ‘90s because I also listen to a lot of songs from that period. I guess from my idea ‘90s music is timeless for me. I also love hip hop and every song from that period.”
She later added, “I listen to Lenny’s songs a lot and my favourite album from him is 5. I’m sure a lot of people agree. His songs are to me very timeless and it was such an honour to get a chance to work with him.”
At her Gunnersbury Park gig, attendees can also catch performances from Mochakk, LSDXOXO, Sally C, and Hiver. Find out more via the Gunnersbury Park website.
The post Take a look inside Peggy Gou’s secret gig in London appeared first on MusicTech.

Music Publishers FTC complaint escalates battle, Spotify respondsThe National Music Publishers Association has ramped up its battle against Spotify on several fronts, including a complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission alleging the streamer converted Premium users into a bundled subscription that includes audiobooks without providing an option to remain on a music-only tier....
The post Music Publishers FTC complaint escalates battle, Spotify responds appeared first on Hypebot.

Secretly scores at Libera Awards and on Billboard Indie Power Players listIt was a big week for Indie music juggernaut Secretly, which scored big at A2IM's Libera Awards and on the Billboard 2024 Indie Power Players list....
The post Secretly scores at Libera Awards and on Billboard Indie Power Players list appeared first on Hypebot.