How to get your music on Spotify playlists in 2024
Ditto Music share a few top tips for landing a coveted place on some of the most popular Spotify playlists in 2024.

Tiny Arduino Drone Even Has an FPV CameraIn the turmoil of today’s world, drones are getting bigger, badder, and angrier. [Max Imagination] has gone the other way with his work, though, building a teeny Arduino drone that can fit in the palm of your hand. Even if you have a small hand!
The drone is based around an Arduino Pro Mini, and uses an MPU6050 IMU for motion sensing and flight control. Communication with the drone is via an NRF24L01. Four small coreless motors are used for propulsion, driven by tiny MOSFETs, and the whole assembly is run via a teeny 220 mAh lithium-polymer battery. Oh, and there’s an FPV camera so you can put on some goggles and see where it’s going!
Control is via MultiWii software, written specifically for building multirotor craft. [Max] flies the craft using a controller of his own creation, again using an NRF24L01 for communication.
It’s a neat build, and a titchy one too! Tiny drones have a character all their own, even if they can’t really stand up to windier outdoor environments. Video after the break.

A CH552G Devboard In Case You Missed ItWe might just never get tired of covering cool small cheap MCUs, and CH552G sure fits this description. Just so you know, here’s a Hackaday.io project you should check out – a CH552G devboard that’s as simple as it sufficient, in case you needed a tangible reminder that this chip exists, has a lively community, and is very much an option for your projects.
The devboard design by [Dylan Turner] is so straightforward, it’s almost inspiring – a square of PCB with the chip in the center and plenty of empty space for your mods. Everything is open-source with KiCad sources stored on GitHub. The most lovely aspect of this board, no doubt, is having the pin mapping written on the bottom, with all the alternate pin functions – you won’t have to constantly glance at the datasheet while wiring this one up. Plus, of course, there’s the microUSB port for programming, and the programming mode button that a few CH552 projects tend to lack.
It’s simple, it’s self-documenting, it’s breadboardable, and it’s definitely worth putting into the shopping cart at your PCB fab of choice. Oh, and there are bringup instructions on GitHub, in case you need them. Whether you want to prototype the cheapest macropad or keyboard ever, or perhaps a reflow hotplate, the CH552 delivers. If these CH552 projects aren’t enough to light your fire, here are a dozen more.

One Shot Sampler from Song Athletics Following on from their string of sample pack releases, Song Athletics have announced the launch of their first plug-in instrument.

The Sword By Audiority Is A New FREE EQ Boost Pedal For Windows And macOS
The Sword by Audiority is a FREE EQ boost pedal plugin for macOS and Windows. The Sword is the product of a collaboration between Audiority and The Amp Sim Universe and promises to deliver the ultimate clean boost.  Audiority has based The Sword on the EQ/boost section of its Solidus VS8100 analog modeled solid state [...]
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How Top Artists are marketing music in 2024This guide teaches how to nurture and build a loyal fanbase using the same techniques and tools as rising stars Donald Glover, Sara Evans, and Conan Gray.....
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Music Biz Roadshow targets artists and their teamsMusic Biz Roadshow will launch this year’s Music Biz 2024 industry conference in Nashville on May 13 with a full-day program for artists and their teams.....
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“They have flashy interfaces that make you think they’re doing more than they’re actually doing”: St. Vincent isn’t a fan of plugins in the studioSt. Vincent has explained why she has moved away from a computer-based setup in the studio and discussed what she believes are the pitfalls of using plugins.

READ MORE: These Universal Audio UAD plugins are available at their “lowest prices ever”

The artist, whose real name is Annie Clark, has just released her new album All Born Screaming. The album is the first that she has self-produced entirely.
In a new interview with MusicRadar, Clark mentions that she has a “very tactile” studio set up which was it was very much her intention to create and in doing so, she moved away from a computer-based set-up.
She goes on to explain why she isn’t such a fan of using plugins in the studio. “Plugins get tricky because you start to hear with your eyes,” she says. “Some of them have flashy interfaces and they make you think they’re doing more than they’re actually doing.”

Instead, on All Born Screaming, she employed analogue synths, which she found much more satisfying. “Working with actual electricity and circuitry, you have chaos,” Clark says. “You get a sound and try to get the same sound again, but it’s never going to be exactly what it was. Right? It’s chaos! In a great way. Modular synthesis is a sickness.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Clark discusses what she gains from helming the production on All Born Screaming completely on her own for the first time.
“I think [taking on the producer role] was how I learned how to hear myself,” she says. “It was something that I’d done on all of my records but I hadn’t been the main filter in the room and I know that emotionally there were places you could only find on your own.”
Clark continues: “Being an artist, that’s the main thing you want. If you’re a singer you want people to know it’s you just from one note. I wanted to have that same kind of recognisable voice as a producer. So I went all-in.”
All Born Screaming is out now via Total Pleasure Records.
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“I wanted to like Aphex Twin because I loved his records. But when he gave interviews, he criticised me”: Moby reflects on his feud with Aphex TwinMoby, Aphex Twin and Orbital‘s joint headline tour in 1993 promised great things, with dance music’s most exciting stars at the time teaming up for a trek. However, it ended up sparking a long feud between Moby and Aphex Twin.
The clash initially kicked off over transportation. Reportedly, Moby was keen to travel to each tour date by plane, while Aphex Twin and Orbital travelled by bus.

READ MORE: Moby breaks down how he made his classic track Extreme Ways

Environmental implications aside, the different modes of transport left Aphex Twin viewing Moby as an elitist. “He called me an elitist in the press, when actually I just had crippling tour-bus-inspired insomnia,” Moby wrote in his 2016 memoir, Porcelain.
In the same memoir, Moby also wrote about how difficult it was to enjoy Aphex Twin’s music after learning he held him in such contempt. “I wanted to like Aphex Twin, because I loved his records,” he admitted. “But when he gave interviews, he criticised me for playing guitar on stage.”
In an interview that same year, Moby also told the Rave Curious podcast that Aphex Twin had said he “couldn’t understand” why him and Moby had ever been booked on the same tour. Aphex Twin reportedly considered Moby to be “just a buffoon”.
31 years on, Moby has re-addressed the feud. Speaking to Stereogum, the electro star admits that “there was a sadness” to the feud. “I really liked his records,” he asserts. “I especially liked [Selected Ambient Works 85-92]. I went into that [1993] tour feeling like, ‘Hey, we’re all in this together.’ I realised pretty quickly they didn’t feel that way.”
Moby believes that Aphex Twin didn’t embrace the same joyful, heart-on-sleeve approach to music as he did. “What I loved about house music and rave culture was the celebration and joy of freeing yourself from all the repression and inhibition,” he explains. “[But] I felt like there was that period in the early ’90s where the intelligentsia were trying to kill off that joyful expression of emotion that made rave culture so transcendent.”
Moby isn’t necessarily burying the hatchet, but he professes he holds no grudge against Aphex Twin. “I don’t have any ill will towards anyone,” he claims.
He continues: “It did feel like, on the part of the intelligentsia, there was a collective embarrassment about the emotional expression of rave culture. It rubbed me the wrong way, because I love underground electronic music. I always have, even going back even to the ’70s and the ’80s.”
While Moby and Aphex Twin’s 1993 clash will continue to haunt Moby, it’s certainly not interrupting his tour schedule. The American dance star is set to play a European tour this September to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Play, the biggest-selling electronic album of all time. It will be his first tour in 10 years.
Most significantly, however, is that Moby wont be making a dime off of the tour. “What makes the tour most exciting for me is that I won’t be paid anything,” Moby writes on his website. “100% of my tour profits will go to European animal rights organisations.”
So, if you enjoy a good boogie and also support animal rights, the tour is a win-win. The Play tour kicks off at London’s O2 on September 19. Moby will also be heading to Antwerp, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Paris.
For tickets, head to Moby’s official website.

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TikTok’s clock is ticking…TikTok's countdown to sell has been set, leaving everyone wondering... what now? Chris Castle has thoughts.....
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IGS Audio announce 825EQ mastering equaliser The latest addition to IGS Audio’s product range offers their take on the EAR 825Q, a valve-based five-band stereo equaliser aimed primarily at mastering duties.

Bicep’s Coachella 2024 AVDJ set had a lot to live up toBicep’s live set at Coachella 2017 was one of legend. The Yuma tent is mostly a space for DJ sets, but they brought the human element into the space with their live, hardware-forward performance.
READ MORE: Coachella 2024’s best immersive performances, from the subtle to the stunning
It was a unique and epic experience, so when they announced a closing set at Coachella 2024 it came with high expectations. This time around, the British duo weren’t playing a live set; they put on a new kind of performance with an exclusive Chroma AVDJ set. So exclusive, in fact, that photographers and videographers weren’t allowed to capture any content from the performance.
Live sets are traditionally renditions of the artist’s original music, and for the last several years Bicep has helmed live sets all over the world. From international tours that took them through the US, to festivals like Glastonbury and their last appearance at Coachella in 2017, they used a vast array of hardware like the Akai MPC 2000XL, Roland SH-101, and Mode Machines ADX-1 to rework tracks like Rola, Glue, and Eliza into elevated and enhanced versions of their former selves.

But like many artists before them, Bicep likes to switch it up from time to time. Except, instead of reverting to a standard DJ set, they injected a fresh dose of originality through a series of specially designed visuals. The stuttering graphics resembled a forward-moving journey through Matrix-style code, layered over the multicoloured static of a TV that appeared desperate to produce a moving picture for its eager viewers.
When they played their live set at Coachella in 2017, they were in the Yuma tent, Coachella’s enclosed dance music stage. It’s basically a nightclub. In that environment, they used their array of tech to create transitions that emphasised suspense and emotion. They opened space and implemented dynamics like a conductor leading an orchestra. Every knob and button in front of them was its own instrument, waiting until the perfect time to strike and contribute to a musical experience greater than the individual whole.
This time, Bicep selected tracks that allowed them to interpret these musical ideas, delivering a variety of drumbeats that are more complex to mix than metronomic kicks. They played breaks, electro, techno, and dubstep, and linked these disparate sounds with elements no one expected, such as vocals that exist outside standard versions of their tracks.
Overarchingly, they used their visuals to accentuate their creative flow. During transitions, the lights remained a single colour and a solitary image of their triple-armed flex logo floated on the screen behind them.
As they switched from the deep and grimy hits of Swing King by Cesco & Hamdi, Clara La San’s voice faded in right before the jittering synth slices of Opal. The two melodic ideas floated next to each other, slowly connecting into a singular form, and when the union materialised, the Chroma visuals erupted out of the screens.
It was the last set of the last night so the crowd was dancing with some restraint, but when the flashing pictures came up, everyone stopped moving for at least a second to take it all in.
No one could tell if Bicep were playing a DJ set or a live set. But everyone adored what they were seeing and hearing.
Read more music technology features. 
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Charlotte De Witte at Coachella 2024: Building techno’s new templeBefore Charlotte De Witte’s set this year, techno didn’t have an obvious home at Coachella.
For decades, the Sahara tent was one established space for techno, with artists like Kevin Saunderson and Richie Hawtin playing there as far back as 1999. In the 2010s, Martin Garrix and Dillon Francis took over Sahara with their giant forms of dance music. Consequently, artists in the house and techno realm started playing the Yuma tent, Coachella’s onsite nightclub.
Since then, Yuma has hosted myriad major players in techno — from Drumcode boss Adam Beyer to uptempo queen Amelie Lens and the underground mysticism of Nicole Moudaber. But now, techno is out of the underground, and artists dealing techno beats can be found on almost every stage.
Charlotte De Witte, Coachella 2024. Image: Getty
Last year, when Calvin Harris closed the main stage Saturday night with his Returning to the Desert set, he played UMEK’s stomping techno track, Collision Wall. Also in 2023, house mavens Fisher and Chris Lake drew an enormous crowd to the Outdoor stage where they peppered a house set with ample dashes of techno.
Plenty of non-techno DJs, such as John Summit, Dom Dolla, and Grimes, played a few techno tracks during their turns at Sahara this year.
You can hear techno everywhere at Coachella. But where is the best place for it? Charlotte De Witte answered that question with her Overdrive set during Weekend 2: the Mojave tent.
What makes Mojave special for Charlotte’s thundering beats is its outdoor setting. Ravers can still enjoy the festival feel, but its curved metallic megastructure creates a massive industrial aesthetic. And because it’s a standard stage that hosts all different types of artists, the production is completely customisable. The artist has free rein over how they will present their set which they (likely) curated especially for Coachella.

Charlotte curated her set especially for Coachella, pushing every element of Mojave to its limit — in the best way.
There were five rotating rectangular towers behind her as she DJ’d. They could switch from pure LED screens on one side to the other side where constructions of lights and lasers shifted and swerved like motorcycles going around a high-speed race track (which is the imagery she intended to evoke with her Overdrive EP).
The feel remained consistently heavy with Overdrive energy, but with 75 minutes (one of the longer sets at Coachella) she also took the crowd through a series of different moods. Some required icy white lasers that were extra visible under the structure of the Mojave. Others were pure acid and the squelching 303 lines overlapped with equally distraught red flashes.
Whatever Charlotte decided to do, standing in the Mojave, she was in the exact right place for an authentic techno experience.
Read more music technology features. 
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Coachella 2024’s best immersive performances, from the subtle to the stunningCoachella has been home to artist performances that will live throughout history.
Daft Punk’s Pyramid in 2006; Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s performance with a Tupac hologram in 2012; Beyoncé’s marching band of students from Historic Black Colleges and Universities in 2018.
These sets stand out among the California festival’s countless legendary performances as immersive audiovisual experiences.
Coachella is among the most revered music festivals on the planet. And it’s outshined other events because the artists who perform at Coachella are accustomed to matching their musical mastery with a visual spectacle.
For over two decades, artists have brought their A-game, musically and visually, to Coachella. 2024 didn’t have a Daft Punk, Beyoncé or Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg moment, but a few acts still stood out amongst the lineup. Here are the best sets we saw from the ground.
Khruangbin

When one listens to the lofi, heavily instrumental sounds of Khruangbin — the band comprising bassist/vocalist Laura Lee, guitarist/vocalist Mark Speer, and drummer DJ Johnson — it may seem unlikely for their minimalist sound to fill a large stage.
Khruangbin is a band that supports studying and sleeping as much as dancing. But when they took the Outdoor stage at Coachella (the second largest at the event), their relaxed approach provided a comprehensive sensory experience.
Speer’s guitar was precise and rhythmic, but not overpowering. Lee did not play a single bass solo, but rather she extended her basslines to match the movement of the music. Johnson’s drums were dry and tight. He laid down beats in between the other instruments, holding everything together as if the other two members were floating in water and he was a life jacket.
To match this musical grace, their stage setup took cues from their 2024 album artwork, A LA SALA. The artwork presents a window — onstage, there were three windows, each one representing a band member. It’s like we got a glimpse into who they are as human beings as well as musicians. Khruangbin is about playing the music, not flexing their talent.
Instead of taking centre stage under the spotlight, Lee and Speer slowly slunk around. Step by step. Their movements aligned like their playing. Not identical, but perfectly in time. They played together through the basic parts and the complex parts. Johnson was, of course, stationary as he tapped the beats, but he was angled evenly between the audience and the rest of the band. Keeping an eye on both.
It was an exercise in humility. There were no lasers or flashing lights. Instead, Khruangbin invited everyone to chill with them.
Kenya Grace

So often when an electronic artist is performing, the audience asks “What are they doing up there?” They see the artist in question standing behind a table, presumably with a cockpit of machinery.
Kenya Grace, the South African-born, British-raised, singer, producer, and groovebox expert, dispelled this illusion. She showed the audience exactly what she did on stage.
If she wasn’t singing live and interacting with the crowd, she was tapping her Native Instruments Maschine, creating the beats in the moment while also inserting impressive improvisation. Her tactile skill became a core part of the performance.
Young Fathers
Young Fathers, Coachella 2024. Image: Getty
Young Fathers had very little traditional production, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t put on a hell of a show.
The Scottish alternative hip-hop group gathered six musicians who were all intensely engaged with one another.
Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole, and ‘G’ Hastings are the longstanding members of the group. They didn’t have a series of pre-determined graphics behind them. Instead, they leaned on each other, literally. Howling their vocals in an intimate embrace, they were hugging, kissing, dancing, and demonstrating the connection music can create between human beings.
Eric Prydz X Anyma
One of the most exciting additions to Coachella this year was the new stage, Quasar.
For the first, time Coachella had a dedicated home for DJs playing extended sets of up to five hours. The visuals matched these epic journeys, no more so than for the progressive, melodic masters Eric Prydz and Anyma.

To complement the long sets, the stage, which was largely constructed of LED walls, created a skyscape that matched that of real life. If the sun was still high (as it was when Prydz and Anyma started their set at 5PM), the screen reflected a clear blue sky. If the sun was setting, the screen matched the pink and orange hues against the surrounding Santa Rosa mountains.
Eric Prydz and Anyma are known for bringing their bespoke visual identity to their performances. Anyma features his unmistakable automaton and Prydz morphs his visage depending on which project he’s visiting (either the progressive sounds of Pryda, Cirez D techno, or a dance music amalgam of his own name).
During their turn at Quasar, each artist had their visual turn on the massive LED screens. Sometimes Prydz sent cubic matter flying against the sky. Then Anyma summoned cryogenic chambers where a series of automatons laid dormant.
It was a beautiful gesture of compromise. Neither of the main-stage-worthy acts needed to dominate the display. They shared their aesthetic, just like they shared tracks for five hours.
Clown Core

When the anonymous clown-masked duo known as Clown Core took the stage at Sonora tent (with a massive line waiting to get inside), they projected a tongue-in-cheek video series of people reviewing their music.
Some reviewers said they were disgusted by their forceful mix of jazz and metal. Some were completely oblivious to how they mixed these two seemingly opposite genres together. Some wished they would make a grand return.
Well, anyone who wished for a grand return was completely satisfied by their Coachella set. One second they’d be playing lounge beats. The next they’d shift to raucous, distorted, free jazz where the sense of rhythm was only apparent to them.
To match the unpredictability of the music, the visuals went from reworkings of the clowns themselves, to flashes of medical debauchery, to direct instructions to the crowd. The final words to hit the screen were: “THANK YOU FOR YOUR MONEY. PLEASE LEAVE.”
No one wanted to. But we did.
Read more music technology features. 
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NoirSonance Releases EQ6 Pro (50 FREE Copies Inside + Discounts)
NoirSonance releases EQ6 Pro (€19.99), a versatile EQ and dynamic processor for macOS and Windows. The developer kindly offers 50 free licenses to 50 lucky BPB readers and exclusive coupon codes. EQ6 Pro from NoirSonance is the professional-grade big brother of the EQ6B and EQ6W plugins, both of which are free to download. The new EQ6 [...]
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