Save The Date: MBW presents the Music Business UK Awards in London, November 5The event will once again celebrate the best examples of A&R and talent development in the UK market, while recognising standout artist/songwriter management
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Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCsCopilot, Microsoft's brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.
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Justin Timberlake at the Kia ForumAs soon as I entered the Kia Forum on Friday, the energy felt different. Maybe it was the DJ hyping up the crowd with 90s tunes or the giddy rumbling of people. Chatting about Justin Timberlake and reminiscing about those NSYNC days. Whatever the case is, it was obvious we were in store for a good time.

As is now the norm for more established acts, no opener for Timberlake's The Forgot Tomorrow World Tour. A giant video introduction of the performer appeared on stage teasing his appearance around 9 pm. The crowd of course screamed with anticipation. From the stage, Timberlake appeared to the sounds of "No Angels," the second single from his recent sixth studio album, Everything I Thought It Was. 

Accompanying him was his backing band, The Tennessee Kids -- composed of three background vocalists, a horns section, his band and dancers. The big symphonic production brightened the room. The chemistry between him and his team was undeniable. It was like we were watching lifelong friends having fun onstage, everyone in sync with the beat of the music. Especially during the performances of "Imagination" and "Technicolor," the venue came alive with harmonic R&B melodies and theatrical elements.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA - APRIL 29: Justin Timberlake performs onstage during his "The Forget Tomorrow" world tour at Rogers Arena on April 29, 2024 in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)

Even with the stage full of performers, all eyes were on Timberlake. As he stole the show with his quick dance moves, soulful singing and charismatic humor. Timberlake has been in the business since he was 11 and has developed into quite a versatile performer. He knows his strengths and weaknesses when it comes to his vocal capabilities.

The two-hour-plus performance featured tracks from his entire discography including "Señorita" from his debut Justified to mega-hits like "SexyBack" from FutureSex/LoveSounds. 

Keeping things interesting, towards the end of the show he made his way dancing and singing through the audience to a smaller stage at the end of the venue floor where he performed eight songs including acoustic versions of “Selfish,” and “What Goes Around … Comes Around.” 

For the grand finale, he kept everyone at the edge of their seats as he appeared harnessed on atop a floating platform for the last song of the night “Mirrors.” The crowd cheered in amazement as he cruised across the Kia Forum one last time.

Photo Credit: Kevin Mazur

For more on Justin Timberlake, vist justintimberlake.comThe post Justin Timberlake at the Kia Forum first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Home Automation Terminal Has Great Post-Apocalyptic LookIf you use home automation these days, you’re probably used to using smart speakers, your smartphone, or those tabletop touchscreen devices. If you wanted something cooler and more personal, you could try building something like [Rick] did.
A Raspberry Pi 400 is the basis for the machine, and it still uses the original keyboard. It’s paired with a 3D-printed shell with a 7″ Waveshare HDMI touch display in it. The LCD is placed behind a Fresnel lens which provides some magnification. It displays a glowing blue command line which accepts text commands. It’s hooked up to the OpenAI API, so it’s a little smarter than just any old regular terminal. It’s hooked up to [Rick’s] home automation system, so he can use natural language queries to control lighting, music, and all the rest. Think Alexa or Siri, but in text form.
The design of the case, with its rounded edges, vents, and thick bezels gives it a strong retro-futuristic look, reminiscent of something out of Fallout. [Rick’s] neat application of weathering techniques helped a lot, too.
It reminds us of some of the cooler Pip Boy builds we’ve seen. Meanwhile, if you’ve got your own creative terminal build in the works, don’t hesitate to drop us a line!

AI music generator Suno raises $125m, valuing company at $500m (report)"It’s very early days, but 10 million people have already made music using Suno," said Suno Co-Founder and CEO Mikey Shulman
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Producers: You can now sample Billie Eilish’s vocal stems — and win exclusive prizes for itBillie Eilish has released an isolated vocals version of her new album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, for producers to sample and remix. Better yet, a remix competition with BandLab and Interscope means you can flip her vocals and win exclusive prizes.
READ MORE: Fabiana Palladino is balancing perfectionism and knowing when to let go
You can download the isolated vocals version of the album by purchasing the Exclusive Digital Album for $7.50 via Eilish’s website — the vocal stems are bundled in with the sale.  The download is reportedly a  205mb ZIP folder that contains each song’s vocal stems as an MP3 file.
Once you’ve got the vocals and remixed them to your taste, you can head to this BandLab post and enter the competition. According to BandLab and Interscope, you can submit your song by leaving a comment on the post and linking to whichever online hosting platform you’ve uploaded it to.
So — what’s up for grabs? According to the post, BandLab and Interscope will be “picking one lucky winner to take home an exclusive merch pack with a “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT” vinyl autographed by Billie, and a pair of tickets to her upcoming tour.”
The competition ends on June 28 2024, so you’ve got some time to upload your track. To access the vocals, you’ll need to be logging in from a US or Australian residence. Also, it’s important to remember that, even after uploading the track for the remix competition, you should clear any samples through Eilish’s label if you wish to distribute your remix.

Billie Eilish has released an isolated vocals version 'HIT ME HARD AND SOFT'.
Containing no instrumentation, only vocals. pic.twitter.com/cxIcgOe1y5
— chart data (@chartdata) May 19, 2024

The pop superstar’s third studio album arrived on 17 May and is already dominating the charts. Her brother and production partner, FINNEAS, says that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is his “favourite thing I’ve ever been a part of making.
“There were so many times during the making of it that I thought we’d never finish it or had no idea what we were doing I lost count- just goes to show- when you’re in it, you might just have to try to keep swimming- you can only really see the ocean once you’re on the shore.
“I’m going offline now because what you all think of this album is your business, not mine but I really do hope you like it- we make everything with you in mind and we owe it all to you- thanks for the sick job/life. We’re so lucky”
Find out more at Billie Eilish’s website.
[Editor’s note: MusicTech and BandLab are part of Caldecott Music Group.]
The post Producers: You can now sample Billie Eilish’s vocal stems — and win exclusive prizes for it appeared first on MusicTech.

Tabletop Handybot is Handy, And Powered By AIDecently useful AI has been around for a little while now, and robotic arms have been around much longer. Yet somehow, we don’t have little robot helpers on our desks yet! Thankfully, [Yifei] is working towards that reality with Tabletop Handybot.
What [Yifei] has developed is a robotic arm that accepts voice commands. The robot relies on a Realsense D435 RGB-D camera, which provides color vision with depth information as well. Grounding DINO is used for object detection on the RGB images. Segment Anything and Open3D are used for further processing of the visual and depth data to help the robot understand what it’s looking at. Meanwhile, voice commands are interpreted via OpenAI Whisper, which can feed prompts to ChatGPT for further processing.
[Yifei] demonstrates his robot picking up markers on command, which is a pretty cool demo. With so many modern AI tools available, we’re getting closer to the ideal of robots that can understand and execute on general spoken instructions. This is a great example. We may not be all the way there yet, but perhaps soon. Video after the break.

How loud should you master your music?
Learn about the most important factors that go into answering the age-old question of how loud you should master your music.

ADK Microphones redesign Z2-Mod series ADK Microphones have announced a design overhaul of their flagship microphone series. 

SUPERBOOTH24: SOMA Laboratory FLUX FLUX is a performance instrument that uses handheld magnets to offer Theremin-style control over pitch and volume, while leaving a hand free for modulation.

“There are very few companies respecting intellectual property rights in this space”: Producer BT blasts “abhorrent” misuse of AI technology in musicAI in music continues to be a hotly contested topic, with some optimistic of its potential to streamline the creative process, and others critical of its lack of regulation and the exploitative nature of some artificial intelligence companies.
In a wide-ranging new conversation with MusicTech, US producer Brian Wayne Transeau – better known as BT – speaks at length about his opinions on AI in music, offering a measured viewpoint that takes into account both sides of the argument.

READ MORE: BT goes deep on his plugins: “There isn’t a producer on the planet that won’t want this” 

First, he takes aim at the “abhorrent misuse” of AI by companies which don’t obtain consent or respect the intellectual property rights of artists.
“I’m a strong believer that the future of music is human,” he says. “I also strongly believe in consensual, ethically trained AI, and there are very few companies respecting intellectual property rights in this space. Some are flagrantly flaunting their first-to-market status from trading text-to-music models by scraping Spotify and YouTube.
“I find this an abhorrent misuse of this technology, one which I believe that, when used responsibly, will unlock infinite creative potential in the next generation of music creators.”
He goes on: “Our large label music partners told us a story about a CEO that came to see them (probably a service you have heard of) where they are clearly in violation of training on IP-protected works just to speed-run a product to market. They asked them how they had trained and he said, ‘We would rather ask for forgiveness than permission.’
“This kind of thinking and irresponsibility could destroy music. Full stop. We must rally against this kind of unbelievable irresponsibility in the development community.”
Image: Lucy Transeau
BT is, however, optimistic about the way AI could enhance music production and creation in the future, but stresses that litigation to combat exploitation is crucial if artists are to benefit as best they can.
“For artists that have a large corpus of work, through a lot of new laws, litigation and the music industry sticking together, they will have a completely new ancillary revenue stream unlocked,” he says. 
“This will be through allowing consensual training on their work and fractionalised revenue share model for different types of tasks, engineering, patch making, and things that are real friction points in the music creation process that take us out of ‘flow’ while we create.
“I’m thrilled about tools that will fairly reward artists they are trained on that unlock brand-new possibilities for young and seasoned artists alike… There are unimaginable future technologies that all artists, singers, producers and engineers will love to use because they do groundbreaking things they currently don’t have access to.”
“So my measured TL;DR answer is: The future is bright and we must as a community (musicians) proactively control and be involved in the narrative of what is acceptable, what is ethical and all couched in a reverence and respect for the large bodies of work created that are needed to train on for effective new tools. There is a lot to look forward to.”
The post “There are very few companies respecting intellectual property rights in this space”: Producer BT blasts “abhorrent” misuse of AI technology in music appeared first on MusicTech.

SUPERBOOTH24: Rodec Audio MX Modular Legendary Belgian mixer manufacturers Rodec Audio are back with the MX Modular performance console, here giving us a quick demo of all the features on the third day of Superbooth 2024.

Arturia announces software version of its MiniBrute synthesizerArturia has unveiled the MiniBrute V, a software recreation of its popular MiniBrute analogue synth.
With an expanded polyphony, a built-in FX rack and classic features like the Steiner-Parker filter preserved, the MiniBrute V is said to deliver the “unruly and aggressive character” of the original while enhancing its usability.

READ MORE: Sony Music sends letter to over 700 firms over concerns they “may already have made unauthorised uses” of its music to train AI

Unlike its hardware predecessor, the MiniBrute V is an 8-voice polysynth, with the option to switch to mono mode for classic monophonic sounds.
There are 4 FX slots available, with 17 FX types to further shape and enhance your sound. Users can mix up to 4 different wave shapes and a sub-oscillator for added punch, and with an expertly curated library of over 150 presets (ranging from classic analogue tones to experimental sounds) to choose from, the results are practically limitless.
The software version also boasts a highly intuitive interface that’s inspired by the original MiniBrute “but with a modern twist”, featuring a sleek 3D hardware design in line with Arturia’s ‘Noir’ aesthetic. The envelope speeds switch has been removed, allowing the envelopes to go from their fastest setting (1ms) to their slowest one (25s). There’s also an added dedicated Velocity modulation to both the Amp Envelope and Filter Envelope.
According to Arturia, the differences of response of the original MiniBrute have been modelled inside the dispersion panel under the ‘wave’ parameter. So make sure to play around with the parameter when trying to match your own hardware unit.
In related news, Arturia has released the PolyBrute 12, a polyphonic analogue hardware synth boasting an expanded 12-voice architecture and the inclusion of a FullTouch MPE keyboard.
Learn more at Arturia.
The post Arturia announces software version of its MiniBrute synthesizer appeared first on MusicTech.

Billie Eilish used TikTok Fan Spotlight, and now all musicians canBillie Eilish was the first to use TikTok’s new free ‘Fan Spotlight’ feature, and now every musician can. Fan Spotlight enables musicians to pin up to five fan-created videos to. Continue reading
The post Billie Eilish used TikTok Fan Spotlight, and now all musicians can appeared first on Hypebot.

Questions musicians need to answer when meeting with a marketing teamMusic Biz Weekly co-host Jay Gilbert recently hosted a panel at the Music Biz conference. One of the questions he asked the panelists was: "When you first sit down with the artist and/or manager, what questions do you typically ask?".....
The post Questions musicians need to answer when meeting with a marketing team appeared first on Hypebot.