Tour the new Hyundai Ioniq 9Emme Hall takes a closer look at the new Hyundai Ioniq 9, an all-electric three-row SUV.
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Daft Punk’s best, worst, and most overrated music, according to RedditA community of Daft Punk fans have collectively voted on the duo’s music, deciding on the best and worst albums, most overrated and underrated works, best and worst songs, worst remixes and more. Some of the results are probably obvious, but others are a tad surprising.
Users on the r/DaftPunk subreddit participated in the voting game over the past two weeks, following a grid template that would get a daily update based on fans’ most upvoted answers. Naturally, there was some passionate debate about each category — especially on the Worst Album, Worst Song, and Most Overrated Album categories — but the fans seem to be in full agreement on at least some of the results.
Taking the crown of Best Album is 2001’s Discovery, which was a pretty unanimous decision; the closest contender was 2013’s Random Access Memories. The former has gone down as one of the top albums of all time, most recently placing 23rd in Apple Music’s Top 100 Albums, but the latter picked up four Grammy Awards in 2014. Perhaps that’s one reason Reddit voters placed it in the Most Overrated Album square. Contrastly, the Most Underrated Album spot was won by Human After All, which received mixed reviews upon its 2005 release, but also picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album.
Meanwhile, the Worst Album by Daft Punk according to Reddit is Tron: Legacy Reconfigured. This remix album was released in 2011 to accompany the duo’s official soundtrack for Disney’s Tron: Legacy. Although technically a Daft Punk album, Daft Punk’s manager Busy P (also the boss at French label Ed Banger Records) said of its release: “I am 100 per cent sure the Daft [Punk] boys were not involved in this side (sad) project.”
This is the finished board! Well done everyone byu/Hairy_Promotion_2782 inDaftPunk

Meanwhile, the title of Worst Song was given to the 2004 track Take Me Out (Daft Punk Remix) by Franz Ferdinand, and the Best Song was awarded to Digital Love, a track from Discovery. Other picks from Discovery include Face To Face as Most Genius Song — likely thanks to the meticulous sampling work by Daft Punk and Todd Edwards — and One More Time, the dance anthem which fans claimed as the Best Chorus Song. The Best Lyrics Song was given to the slow, romantic cut, Something About Us. Todd Edwards, who also appeared on the Random Access Memories track, Fragments Of Time, was voted as Daft Punk’s Best Collaborator.
Two tracks from Random Access Memories picked up some opposing awards in Most Underrated Song and Most Overrated Song. Motherboard was voted as the Most Underrated, while Get Lucky was voted as Most Overrated. The latter is probably unsurprising, given the billions of collective streams it’s accrued across digital streaming platforms.
In other Daft Punk news, fans have criticised the new AI upscale of the duo’s feature-length film, Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, which is soundtracked by Discovery. 
One commenter wrote of the re-release: “Even watching this trailer on a small phone, you can immediately tell AI was used…The crowd scenes in particular are a dead giveaway. It looks so bad, there’s no way I’d spend money to see this in a theatre where the imperfections are going to be giant.”
Another added: “I don’t see why this was needed. It seems like a lazy cash grab.”
Read more music producer news. 
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CFTC report endorses tokenizing trading collateral Distributed ledger technology can help solve longstanding challenges in US financial markets, the report says.

Build Yourself A Useful Resistor Decade BoxIf you’ve ever worked with guitar pedals or analog audio gear, you’ve probably realized the value of a resistor decade box. They substitute for a resistor in a circuit and let you quickly flick through a few different values at the twist of a knob. You can still buy them if you know where to look, but [M Caldeira] decided to build his own.
At its core, the decade box relies on a number of 11-position rotary switches. Seven are used in this case—covering each “decade” of resistances, from 1 ohm to 10 ohm and all the way up to 1 megaohm. The 11 positions on each switch allows the selection of a given resistance. For example, position 7 on the 100 ohm switch selects 700 ohms, and adds it to the total resistance of the box.
[M Caldeira] did a good job of building the basic circuit, as well as assembling it in an attractive, easy-to-use way. It should serve him well on his future audio projects and many others besides. It’s a simple thing, but sometimes there’s nothing more satisfying than building your own tools.
We’ve seen other neat designs like this in the past, including an SMD version and this neat digital decade box. Video after the break.

OLED Screen Mounting, Without The PainThere was a time when no self-respecting electronics engineer would build a big project without at least one panel meter. They may be a rare part here in 2024, but we find ourselves reminded of them by [24Eng]’s project. It’s a 3D printed housing for one of those common small OLED displays, designed to be mounted on a panel with just a single round hole. Having had exactly this problem in the past trying to create a rectangular hole, we can immediately see the value in this.
It solves the problem by encasing the display in a printed shell, and passing a coarsely threaded hollow cylinder behind it for attachment to the panel and routing wires. This is where we are reminded of panel meters, many of which would have a similar sized protrusion on their rear housing their mechanism.
The result is a neatly made OLED display mounting, with a hole that’s ease itself to create. Perhaps now you’ll not be afraid to make your own panels.

From Amazon Music’s audiobook bundle to WMG’s subscription streaming growth… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe biggest stories from the past week – all in one place…
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Venue Booking Contacts made easy with Booking-Agent.ioNew platform Booking-Agent.io solves two mjor problem for artists and managers trying to book a tour: what are the right places to play and how do I contact the person booking it.
The post Venue Booking Contacts made easy with Booking-Agent.io appeared first on Hypebot.

Kendrick Lamar has surprised released his sixth studio album, GNXKendrick Lamar has surprise released his sixth studio album, GNX.
The album – which clocks in at 44 minutes and 20 seconds in length – spans 12 songs in total, and features title track gnx, for which a music video is incoming.

READ MORE: “We’re living in a time where World War III can easily break out at any moment”: Why Questlove was “triggered” by Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud

GNX arrives hot on the heels of Kendrick’s smash hit diss track Not Like Us, which saw him take aim at Canadian rapper Drake. You can listen to the album in full below:

 
This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 
The post Kendrick Lamar has surprised released his sixth studio album, GNX appeared first on MusicTech.

Authentic Soundware offers the Space Age Sleigh Bells Kontakt instrument for FREE
Authentic Soundware’s Space Age Sleigh Bells delivers unmistakable Christmas charm, and it’s free until December 25, 2024 (requires Kontakt Full 6.7 or higher). I only see one downside to this freebie; it might be wasted on us. Let’s face it: If you don’t already own some space-age sleigh bells, what are you doing with yourself? [...]
View post: Authentic Soundware offers the Space Age Sleigh Bells Kontakt instrument for FREE

Live Music Society grants to small venues top $1M in 2024The Live Music Society, a non-profit that helps small U.S. music venues, has awarded 34 new Toolbox grants. This year’s Live Music Society grants are the largest in the organizations history.. Continue reading
The post Live Music Society grants to small venues top $1M in 2024 appeared first on Hypebot.

Johnny Marr talks artist development and the record industry’s future as he partners with Epidemic SoundJohnny Marr tells MBW about his new artist development partnership with Epidemic Sound
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Community Record Labels offer musicians an alternativeAs independent music stakes a larger and larger claim in the industry, smaller DIY record labels, known as "community labels," are providing the personal touch.
The post Community Record Labels offer musicians an alternative appeared first on Hypebot.

Audiocube 3D audio software update and huge Black Friday sale
The Audiocube 3D audio software has received a big update and is now available through a huge Black Friday sale. We covered the launch of Audiocube’s standalone 3D audio software for macOS and Windows in August 2024, an ambitious project that was several years in the making. Audiocube is back with its most significant update [...]
View post: Audiocube 3D audio software update and huge Black Friday sale

Bitwig Studio 5.3 beta announced Installers for Bitwig Studio 5.3 are now available to users with an active Upgrade Plan, offering them a chance to check out the latest features ahead of the full release. 

“Dark and cool – that’s what you want from Black Ops”: Jack Wall on soundtracking one of the biggest gaming franchises in historyIn the gaming world, a new Call of Duty release is a bonafide event. Since the franchise debuted in 2001, it’s sold a staggering 500 million copies — and it reached that milestone before the launch of its latest smash hit, Black Ops 6, which is reportedly already making 60 per cent more sales than its predecessor, 2023’s Modern Warfare 3.

READ MORE: Behind the sound of Star Wars Outlaws: a polarising game with a Grammy-nominated soundtrack

In the constellation of Call of Duty titles, Black Ops gets crazy – each entry in the series jumps across time periods, realistic and fantastical settings, and offers fans different play modes. One thing you can always depend on is composer Jack Wall; he’s scored five of the six Black Ops games and his music has become a glue that helps hold the series’ ambitions together. How does he do it? He starts by figuring out what universe he’s working in.
“When, where, who, what, and why,” fires off Wall when asked what ‘day one’ of scoring looks like. “Every single Black Ops is in a different time period, so we always look at that first.”
In the case of Black Ops 6, the ‘when’ is 1991 – a time of windbreakers, the MC Hammer dance, and the first Gulf War. Musically, the year presented both opportunities and challenges for Wall. “I looked at the charts to see what the most popular music of the day was,” he explains. “For quite a bit of 1991, it was Enter Sandman by Metallica, but, in terms of music history, it’s just on the cusp between the 80s synth era and the early grunge era.”
Jack Wall conducting the AIR Studios orchestra. Image: DMSMedia / Top Dollar PR
Wall’s score strides across those two decades; full of the lush and lyrical orchestrations that defined classic 90’s action flicks, coupled with growling synth lines, and some truly massive drum hits. “Dark and cool, that’s what you want from Black Ops,” states Wall. “But I like to add some humanity to it; when I write my scores I like to inject a melody, a theme, or a sound for you to remember. That’s the challenge.”
“There’s the era that the game is occurring in, but there’s also the story itself,” Wall continues. “That informs a lot of what the score should be. I write the main theme of the single-player campaign, trying to capture the feeling in one piece of music, and then I can sprinkle that theme throughout the score in different ways.”
A centrepiece for every Black Ops game is the multiplayer theme. Built for the chaotic shooting sprees of a battle royale, these are often some of the most pounding and rhythmic pieces on the soundtrack. Raining the Fire is certainly no exception, but Walls also wanted to bring a feeling of musical transition to the track. To anchor the rhythm, he sought something that could sit between a massive Phil Collins-style drum sound and the back-to-basics intensity of Dave Grohl’s work with Nirvana.

“One night I was scrolling Instagram and up pops this guy, Nicolas Bitove, from the band Romes,” recalls Wall. “He’s a brilliant drummer and technologist, he puts his drums through all these effects and I was really inspired by what he was doing. So, I asked him if he’d like to join the band, so to speak.”
Alongside Jimmy Hinson, better known as Big Giant Circles, the crew smashed together orchestral strings, rock guitars, distorted synths, pounding drums, and ethereal vocals to produce one of the most rousing Call of Duty themes in recent memory. “We were approaching it more as a collaboration this time,” Wall reflects. “More like a band putting music together.”
Wall is certainly no stranger to band dynamics. Prior to his career in game audio, he spent years as an engineer at Synchro Sound Studios in Boston, working with David Byrne, Patti Smith, and Nine Inch Nails, among others. Over the years, his duties expanded to producing and arranging, and he worked alongside The Velvet Underground’s John Cale on everything from feature films to ballet productions.
These days, Wall says he draws on all those different experiences to tackle scores like Black Ops 6: “My first career in engineering and producing music was hugely important to my career as a composer, because everything is about sound to me. It’s not just about composition and counterpoint, harmonic progression and orchestration. All that stuff is important, but it’s about the sound.”
When it comes to capturing sound, there’s one spot on earth that Wall prizes above all others – AIR Studios in London. In comparison to his last Black Ops game, 2020’s Cold War, which saw Wall trying to manage orchestral and choir recordings amidst COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing rules, this time everyone was back in person and enjoying the venue’s storied acoustics.

“We’ve recorded all five of these games with different orchestras,” Wall reflects. “But AIR Studios… I call it the perfect storm of music-making. To me, it’s the best room in the world that I’ve recorded in, and I’ve recorded in many. I love Abbey Road, I love Nashville, but there’s something about AIR Studios; it’s the combination of Jeff Foster, the engineer who just knows that room back and forth, the players themselves, and the atmosphere that the staff create, it’s so warm and inviting and creative. “
In a narrative universe as loosely connected as Black Ops, Walls music feels like a thread guiding players into each new time, place, and tale. Five iterations in and Wall seems to draw palpable energy and inspiration not only from the game itself but from the team of people that make it all possible.
“Tackling this was fun because we all approached it with a fresh perspective and wanted to do something as good as we could,” states Wall. “That was evident from the writers, from the game designers, from the audio department, the music editors, everybody. I think it was just a joy for everybody working on such a cool game.”
Read more music production interviews. 
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