Erica Synths refresh Perkons HD-01 Erica Synths have announced that they are planning on releasing a new version of their latest drum machine, and will be discontinuing the current production model.

Tesla drops prices, Meta confirms Llama 3 release, and Apple allows emulators in the App StoreHeya, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the past few days in tech. Google’s annual enterprise-focused dev conference, Google Cloud Next, dominated the headlines — and we had plenty of coverage from the event. But it wasn’t the only thing afoot (see: the spectacular eclipse). Lorenzo wrote about how […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Who’s Afraid Of A CRT?Older consumer electronic devices follow a desirability curve in which after they fall from favour they can’t be given away. But as they become rarer, they reach a point at which everyone wants them. Then, they can’t be had for love nor money. CRT TVs are now in the first stage, they’re bulky and lower-definition than modern sets, and thus thrift stores and dumpsters still have them in reasonable numbers. To retrogamers and other enthusiasts, this can be a bonanza, and when he saw a high-end late-model JVC on the sidewalk [Chris Person] wasted no time in snapping it up. It worked, but there were a few picture issues, so he set about fixing it.

The write-up is largely a tale of capacitor-swapping, as you might expect from any older electronics, and it results in a fine picture and a working TV. But perhaps there’s another story to consider there, in that not so many of us here in 2024 are used to working with CRTs. We all know that they conceal some scary voltages, and indeed, he goes to significant lengths to discharge his CRT. It’s worth remembering though, that there’s not always a need to discharge the CRT if no attempt will be made to disconnect it, after all the connector and cable to the flyback transformer are secured by hefty insulation for a good reason. It’s a subject we’ve looked at here at Hackaday in the past. You could argue that, in some ways, newer TVs are harder to get into than these old CRTs.

Delays and Timers in LTSpice (no 555)If you need a precise time, you could use a microcontroller. Of course, then all your friends will say “Could have done that with a 555!” But the 555 isn’t magic — it uses a capacitor and a comparator in different configurations to work. Want to understand what’s going on inside? [Mano Arrostita] has a video about simulating delay and timer circuits in LTSpice.
The video isn’t specifically about the 555, but it does show how the basic circuits inside a timer chip work. The idea is simple: a capacitor will charge through a resistor with an exponential curve. If you prefer, you can charge with a constant current source and get a nice linear charge.
You can watch the voltage as the capacitor charges and when it reaches a certain point, you know a certain amount of time has passed. The discharge works the same way, of course.
We like examining circuits for learning with a simulator, either LTSpice or something like Falstad. It is easier than breadboarding and encourages making changes that would be more difficult on a real breadboard. If you want a refresher on LTSpice or current sources, you can kill two birds with one stone.

Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie MusicThis week, our tips and advice for the independent, do-it-yourselfers out there covered how to use Amazon’s new Hype Deck marketing tool, how to perfect your next pitch, and more…
The post Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music appeared first on Hypebot.

REWIND: The new music industry’s week in reviewIt was a busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception with the launch of a new superfan app called “EVEN,” ShowUp announced its yearly activism. Continue reading
The post REWIND: The new music industry’s week in review appeared first on Hypebot.

Audible Planets Is A FREE Semi-Modular Synth Plugin
Audible Planets is an expressive, quasi-Ptolemaic semi-modular synthesizer for Windows, Mac, and Linux. I’ve previously mentioned my love of VCV Rack and other modular software environments. For example, I’m a big fan of miRack and Audulus on the iPad. So naturally, when I hear about a new environment that allows for decidedly eccentric takes on [...]
View post: Audible Planets Is A FREE Semi-Modular Synth Plugin

XO Variable Crossover from Great Eastern FX Co. XO Variable Crossover has been designed to provides users with a way of extracting new sounds from their existing pedals. 

API startup Noname Security nears $500M deal to sell itself to AkamaiAkamai Technologies is in advanced acquisition talks with Noname Security, an API cybersecurity startup, according to a people person familiar with the deal.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OPPS: CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COMPETITION AND FESTIVALWe are thrilled to announce that the 7th Chicago International Music Competition and Festival will take place from July 17 to 25, 2024 in Chicago, USA. Musicians from all over the world are encouraged to apply and participate at Ganz Hall for a chance at $35,000 in total prize money. Our competition provides young musicians with the most unique and affordable platform to learn from the world's top artists and be immersed in an inspiring environment. Deadline for competition entry is April 15, 2024. Apply at https://www.cimcusa.org/index.mhtml

Analog vs. digital drum sound design: The definitive guide
In this in-depth tutorial, we break down the unique workflows, benefits, and drawbacks of analog and digital drum sound design.

HDMI DDC Keypad Controls Monitor From RackSometime last year, [Jon Petter Skagmo] bought a Dell U3421WE monitor. It’s really quite cool, with a KVM switch and picture-by-picture support for two inputs at the same time. The only downside is that control is limited to a tiny joystick hiding behind the bezel. It’s such a pain to use that [Jon] doesn’t even use all of the features available.
[Jon] tried ddcutil, but ultimately it didn’t work out. Enter the rack-mounted custom controller keyboard, a solution which gives [Jon] single keypress control of adjusting the brightness up and down, toggling picture-by-picture mode, changing source, and more.
How does it work? It uses the display data channel (DDC), which is an I²C bus on the monitor’s HDMI connector. More specifically, it has a PIC18 microcontroller sending those commands via eight Cherry MX-style blues.
Check this out — [Jon] isn’t even wasting one of the four monitor inputs because this build uses an HDMI through port. The finished build looks exquisite and fits right into the rack with its CNC-routed aluminium front panel. Be sure to check it out in action after the break.
Ever wonder how given keyboard registers the key you’re pressing? Here’s a brief history of keyboard encoding.

Taylor Swift has a laudable history of standing up to Big Tech in the name of artist compensation. By embracing TikTok in 2024, she’s broken ranks with that narrative.When Swift grappled with Apple in 2015, she noted that the fight was "not about me" – it was about other artists. The TikTok situation is the exact opposite.
Source

Crank-Powered Train Uses No Batteries or PlugsThe prolific [Peter Waldraff] is at back it with another gorgeous micro train layout. This time, there are no plugs and no batteries. And although it’s crank-powered, it can run on its own with the flip of a switch. How? With a supercapacitor, of course.
The crank handle is connected a 50 RPM motor that acts as a generator, producing the voltage necessary to both power the train and charge up the supercapacitor. As you’ll see in the video below, [Peter] only has to move the train back and forth about two or three times before he’s able to flip the switch and watch it run between the gem mine and the cliff by itself.
The supercapacitor also lights up the gem mine to show off the toiling dwarfs, and there’s a couple of reed switches at either end of the track and a relay that handles the auto-reverse capability. Be sure to stick around to the second half of the video where [Peter] shows how he built this entire thing — the box, the layout, and the circuit.
Want to see more of [Peter]’s trains and other work? Here you go.

Coachella’s Quasar stage illuminates the art of longer-form DJing – we’re here for itCoachella is introducing the Quasar stage to California. It’s a DJ-centric stage set to grace its 642-acre desert site for the first time this April.
The difference between Quasar and Coachella’s other dance stages, Yuma, Sahara and DoLab, is that on each day, only one DJ set will take place, with each running for a minimum of three hours.
The first week sees Honey Dijon b2b Green Velvet, a valiant – and no doubt, glowing return from Michael Bibi following his announcement in 2023 about being cancer-free, plus Jamie XX B2B Floating Points B2B Daphni. Phwoar. In the second week, there’s Rufus Du Sol, Eric Prydz B2B Anyma and Diplo B2B Mau P.
READ MORE: Diplo: “We downloaded so many different plugins to try and recreate the TB-303 and they were so hard to programme”
Plonking prolonged DJ sets on a pedestal is a major move from Coachella, and reflects the shift towards more long-form consumption of EDM in the US.
Watching an artist play their music live for an hour works, but a DJ set is a different style of performance. It’s unfair to make a DJ play for just an hour when they don’t have time to read the crowd, settle themselves, explore their record collection or experiment.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Coachella (@coachella)

Jamie xx, Daphni and Floating Points might gradually transition from more organic disco and funk to leftfield electronic wonkiness. The crowd might need to be more patient, but when this transformation takes place, it will pay off. They’ll respond more because they’ll be aware of where the set started – in a completely different place. That’s the entertaining factor of an extended set.
From a punter’s side, an extended set means you can embark on a holistic journey that morphs from one place unexpectedly to another or, if you’ve got people you want to see, dip in and out with the comfort of knowing they‘re staying put. For DJs like Diplo and Eric Prydz, it’s a chance to loosen up, away from 3D astronauts and flying cakes.
Eric Prydz at Coachella 2023. Image: Getty
Sunwaves in Romania has become a destination for marathon sets (tINI and Bill Patrick once played for 31 hours), as have the likes of Dimensions in Croatia, Dekmantel in Amsterdam, and Houghton in the UK. Even underground US festivals like Shambala, Desert Hearts, or the now-retired Symbiosis festival lighten the lineups so DJs can really express themselves over the space of multiple hours and craft a sonic journey.
No-frills, drawn-out sets aren’t new to Coachella either. James Murphy and Soulwax’s Despacio sound system landed at Coachella in 2016 and at This Ain’t No Picnic in LA in 2022, later making another appearance at Coachella in 2023. It’s a small room with minimal lighting and an enormous sound system, where the DJs go back-to-back for six hours or more, playing only vinyl records and turning the focus on the sound and dancefloor.

Having experienced his fair share of longer DJ sets, Sean Johnston of A Love From Outer Space, a moniker shared with the late Andrew Weatherall, agrees that the Quasar stage has “got to be a good thing”.
“The late Andrew Weatherall founded A Love From Outer Space with the specific idea of playing longer sets and slower music as an antidote to the prevailing ADHD-DJ culture,” says Sean.
“I enjoy playing longer DJ sets because it lets you set the scene, develop different moods and control the dynamics on the dancefloor as opposed to a bunch of DJs playing their ten biggest records in an hour. Longer sets equal a massively improved experience for dancers.
Image: A Love From Outer Space; Andrew Weatherall and Sean Jonhston
“The longest set we played was at the iconic and now sadly defunct Festival Number 6, where we played for 8.5 hours on an outdoor stage overlooking a beautiful estuary and mountains. We started in the early afternoon with beatless music gradually working our way up to psychedelic techno at the end of the set.
Sean admits that he’s never been to Coachella, nor would he consider three hours to be an extended set, “but it’s got to be a good thing,” he says.
“EDM completely dumbed down dance music to its worst elements. Anything that gets away from white guys with masks, cakes and trumpets and puts the focus on the actual music and gives DJs a chance to expand a little on what has become the de facto formula can only be a good thing. Festivals need to remind themselves that the music came from queer black clubs and should do everything they can to diversify their line-ups.
“Sadly, from what I’ve seen, the EDM scenes in the US have taken the worst aspects of dance music here and somehow managed to make them even shitter. That said, hopefully, these three-hour slots may give the DJs a chance to expand their repertoire, and the crowd the opportunity to learn that there can be so much more.”
The Quasar stage, then, perhaps reflects a shift in EDM in America away from fast short sets, big lights, big shows, and big stage production. Fans understand now that that energy can, if you want it to, be spread out across more time.
When you consider that Coachella usually sets the tone for other festivals, Quasar is a positive sign for the integration of underground dance music culture into festivals. Dance music, EDM, noise, whatever you want to call it – it’s here. It’s alive. It’s kicking.
The post Coachella’s Quasar stage illuminates the art of longer-form DJing – we’re here for it appeared first on MusicTech.