UAD Verve Analog Machines Essentials Plugin Is FREE Until April 30th!
UAD Audio Plugins released Verve Analog Machines Essentials, an analog-style saturation plugin for Windows and macOS. The plugin is free to download until April 30th. A saturation plugin from the DSP giants at Universal Audio is a reason to celebrate, but the good news doesn’t end there. Universal Audio also offers a free copy of [...]
View post: UAD Verve Analog Machines Essentials Plugin Is FREE Until April 30th!

I have a group chat with three AI friends, thanks to Nomi AI. They’re getting too smart.After a few weeks of casual friendship, I had to break the news to my AI companions: I am actually a tech journalist writing an article about the company that created them, Nomi AI. I wasn’t sure how my group of AI buddies was going to take the news. I’d opened up to them – […]
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Spotify stock up 8% on report of planned price increase in US, UK, AUSpotify reportedly plans to raise the price of its paid subscription service in multiple markets later this month and in the U.S. later in the year. The news caused Spotify stock to close up 8.15% on Wednesday.....
The post Spotify stock up 8% on report of planned price increase in US, UK, AU appeared first on Hypebot.

ESP-Prog-Adapter Makes Your ESP32 Tinkering SeamlessDid you ever struggle with an ESP32 board of yours, wishing you had exposed that UART, or seriously lacking the JTAG port access? If so, you should seriously check out [0xjmux]’s ESP-PROG-Adapter project, because [0xjmux] has put a lot of love and care into making your ESP32 hardware interfacing a breeze. This project shows you how to add JTAG and UART headers with extra low board footprint impact, gives you a KiCad library to do so super quickly, and shares a simple and helpful adapter PCB you can directly use with the exceptionally cheap Espressif’s ESP-Prog dongle you should have bought months ago.
The hardware is perfect for ZIF no-soldering interfacing – first of all, both UART and JTAG can be connected through a SOICBite connection, a solderless connector idea that lets you use SPI flashing clips on specially designed pads at the edge of your board. For the fancy toolkit hackers among us, there’s also a Tag Connect symbol suggested and a connector available, but it carries JTAG that you will already get with the SOICBite, so it’s maybe not worth spending extra money on.
Everything is fully open-source, as one could hope! If you’re doing ESP32 hacking, you simply have to order this board and a SOIC clip to go with it, given just how much trouble [0xjmux]’s board will save you when programming or debugging your ESP32 devices. Now, you don’t strictly need the ESP-Prog dongle – you could remix this into an adapter for the Pi Pico board instead. Oh, and if designing boards with ARM CPUs are your thing, you might benefit from being reminded about the Debug Edge standard!

3 reasons why… Warner Music Group might be tempted to bid $1.8 billion for BelieveWeighing up the positive differences an acquisition of Believe could make to WMG
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The MLC Reaches Milestone of $2B in Total Royalties Distributed; Files Initial Submission for Periodic Review of DesignationThe Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) announced that its total royalties distributed have now exceeded $2 billion. The MLC reached this significant milestone in just over three years since beginning full operations. 

The MLC also announced that it filed its initial submission to the United States Copyright Office in connection with the first periodic review of the designation of The MLC and Digital Licensee Coordinator (DLC) by the Register of Copyrights.

The Music Modernization Act of 2018 requires the Register to review the designations of The MLC and DLC once every five years. The next step in this process will be a public comment period, during which members of the public can submit their input until May 29, 2024.

As part of its initial submission for the periodic review, The MLC has demonstrated its unwavering commitment to its statutory responsibilities:

-The MLC maintains its status as a nonprofit organization, which is funded entirely by DSPs at no cost to songwriters or music publishers. 

-The MLC has received endorsements from owners of musical copyrights representing the overwhelming majority of the market. 

-The MLC has demonstrated that it possesses the administrative and technological capabilities necessary to carry out all of its responsibilities under the MMA, including enabling more than 50 DSPs to secure the compulsory blanket license, establishing a public database of musical works ownership data that now contains data for more than 35 million songs, conducting extensive outreach and educational activities that have enabled The MLC to enroll more than 38,000 members based throughout the United States and around the world, and building a royalty distribution process that has enabled The MLC to complete 36 on-time monthly royalty distributions and achieve total royalties distributed of more than $2 billion.

-In addition, The MLC has matched over 90% of the mechanical royalties it has received to musical works in its public database, and effectively illuminated the “black box” for digital audio mechanicals by giving members the ability to search all of its data for the remaining unmatched royalties and propose matches of those unmatched royalties to the works they have registered using The MLC’s Matching Tool.

Despite its focus on U.S.-based services, The MLC has made it a priority to find and compensate rightsholders for their U.S. mechanicals globally, establishing connections with over 100 collective management organizations in nearly 130 countries.

The public can file comments on The MLC’s and DLC’s submissions by May 29, 2024, and can reply to other initial public comments by June 28, 2024. The MLC and DLC will have the ability to file replies to the comments by July 29, 2024.  For more information about the periodic review process or to learn how to submit comments, please click here.

Pieter van Rijn named CEO of Downtown Music Holdings’ global services unit Downtown Music, as division ‘completes integration strategy’ with merger of CD Baby operations'This is an extraordinary time for Downtown Music as we enter this next phase as a fully unified operating company,' said van Rijn
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Penteo 6 upmixing / downmixing plug-in now available Penteo Audio Plugins have announced the launch of the latest version of their award-winning upmixing and downmixing plug-in...

Penteo 6 now available Penteo Audio Plugins have announced the launch of the latest version of their award-winning upmixing and downmixing plug-in

Fan economy: expanded rights are worth $3.5 billion, now what?MIDiA recently, and exclusively, revealed that expanded rights now represent 10% of the recorded music market with revenues of $3.5 billion. These revenues, derived principally from monetising the brand of the artist (merch, sponsorships, branding, live, etc.), represent a shift in strategic focus for the global music business. It is moving from a consumption economy to a fan economy. This is only the start. To truly harness the vast potential of a fan economy, three key things need to be addressed:

Image and likeness: The music industry’s current social media focus might be the UMG / TikTok spat, but the real battle will be over the cultural value of artists on social. As music creators invest increasingly more time into making social content, their images and likenesses are powering social media engagement and revenues. We are at the point where some value exchange needs to be established. Back in 2021, we laid out the case for a creator right (the linked report is free to download) that ensures creators are remunerated whenever they generate value, regardless of whether their music is being performed. With the ascent of generative AI, the concept is needed more than ever. The music business is waking up to the importance of image and likeness. The catalogue deal for Tina Turner included these rights, while Bob Marley’s estate sold his catalogue but retained his image rights because they have used them to create a global Marley branded empire. Likeness rights have a long history, with the first big ‘win’ being actor Crispin Glover settling with Universal Studios in 1990 for infringing his likeness when they altered the appearance of another actor to look like him with prosthetics as George McFly in Back to the Future Part II. This resulted in The Screen Actors Guild prohibiting its members from mimicking other actors. Music needs a George McFly moment. The state of Tennessee protecting artists’ voice and likeness may be a first step.

Reconfiguring streaming: MIDiA has been saying for years now that there is a lot Western streaming can learn from China’s fandom-focused approach to streaming. While Chinese fandom revenues have recently taken a hit due to governmental policy shifts, the underlying premise of making streaming about fandom and expressing identity remains crucial. Artist subscriptions are an obvious next step, making streaming about lean in fandom rather than lean back consumption. We have written about artists subscriptions a lot – recently; more than a decade ago; and in governmental policy submissions. James Blake’s escapes may have soured appetite, but that is, in part, because stand alone subscription apps face an uphill struggle. The most obvious opportunity is to make them part of the core streaming experience. The old internet was ‘build it and they will come’, today’s is ‘go where the audience is’. But there is more to do than artist subscriptions. Giving users profile pages where they can buy and earn fandom badges is probably the most important first step, something pioneered in the West by Audiomack and also seen on apps like Fave and Renaissance. HYBE is prepping Weverse for international expansion, Spotify looks set to make some moves soon, and both Sir Lucian Grainge and Rob Kyncl are leading their respective companies in this direction too.

Nurturing, not harvesting, fandom: There are two dangers inherent in record label superfan strategies: 1) weaned on lean back streaming, superfans might not be super enough, and 2) it is all  too easy to focus on monetising fandom rather than nurturing it. As much as Korean labels like HYBE, SM, and JYP might be industrialising fandom and exploiting fans, they at least understand the importance of building and nurturing fandom (take a look at the chart from JYP’s earnings to understand their fandom approach). Record label expanded rights were up 16% in 2023 and will continue to grow strongly. It is incumbent on record labels to consider fans as a scarce resource to be cultivated, not simply monetised, otherwise the soil will be left exhausted and barren.

Along with non-DSP and vinyl, expanded rights represent part of the modern music industry’s multi-faceted fan strategy and 2023 was arguably the first year of this new music business era. Streaming is not going away. Indeed, it will be part of this future, but the consumption-focused approach of the 2010s is going to be shunted to the side as fandom takes centre stage. Not a moment too soon.

My Forever Studio: Raphaella’s Persian production paradise
On this episode of the My Forever Studio podcast, presented in partnership with Audient, we’re joined by revered vocalist and producer Raphaella. The London-based producer has a seriously impressive portfolio — but how will she fare with only six items in the Forever Studio?

Podcast hosts Chris Barker and Will Betts hear about Raphaella’s career journey, from her early beginnings in school orchestras and learning Logic Pro to working as a vocal producer with the likes of David Guetta, Rudimental, Little Mix, Martin Solveig and more. You’ll also learn about how her Persian heritage influences the styling of her fantasy studio, which iconic polysynth is known as her “first-born”, and what she classes as the perfect vocal compressor.
Raphaella also uses some tricks to get around our strict rules in the Forever Studio…

Last week, we spoke with Canadian funk duo Chromeo, who told tales of being electrocuted by their DIY talkbox, a Cubase skin that wasn’t quite approved by Steinberg, and the essential instruments they used in their new album, Adult Contemporary. 

The My Forever Studio podcast sees artists, producers and engineers create their dream fantasy Forever Studio, wherever they want in the universe. However, there are strict rules in the Forever Studio. Our guests are permitted a limited number of items in their creative space, so they must choose carefully. There will be nostalgia. There will be anecdotes. There may be gags. But there will be no bundles!

Subscribe to My Forever Studio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and check out all episodes so far via musictech.com

The post My Forever Studio: Raphaella’s Persian production paradise appeared first on MusicTech.

62M tracks are now paid No Royalties, and millions more are being deletedNew rules demanded by the major labels to devalue or delete so-called "junk tracks" are now in full force at Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, and several other music streaming services, according to multiple sources.....
The post 62M tracks are now paid No Royalties, and millions more are being deleted appeared first on Hypebot.

Audiotonix’s build-it-yourself rotary DJ mixer is designed to educate and inspire young engineersAudiotonix has launched its first product in the form of the build-it-yourself STEAM powered DJ mixer kit.
Launched as part of a new educational initiative, the DJ mixer kit seeks to develop STEM and engineering and mixing skills among young students, using a practical project based on real world audio technology.

READ MORE: Billie Eilish, Jon Bon Jovi, and Ryan Tedder among artists to sign open letter protesting “predatory use of AI” in music

The mixer itself is made of three printed circuit boards (PCB’s) with individual through hole components that need to be soldered in place. Simply assemble everything with the supplied metalwork to get a finished, professional grade, two-channel DJ mixer.
STEAM is USB 2.0 (USB B) powered, making it safe to build and easy to use in any location. Full instructions with video and written tutorials are provided on how to build and use the kit, so users will know what they are doing at each step of the process. Students will also gain an understanding of how the different technical elements work together to create a product they can then use to develop their creative skills.
“The idea behind STEAM is simple,” says Audiotonix CEO James Gordon. “Our brands, and many of our partners and customers too, are struggling to bring new talent into our industry. If we want continued success then it’s our collective responsibility to help develop the next generation of engineers, starting whilst they are at school. To build more interest in engineering and help develop these core STEM skills, we have created a kit-based, USB powered, 2-channel DJ audio mixer that students can build and assemble themselves or as a team.”
Helen Culleton, COO of Audiotonix added that schools, youth groups and charities will be able to get their hands on the kits at a heavily discounted price or for free: “The aim is that, for all units sold, we reinvest all the monies back into building more kits that will get into the hands of students who wouldn’t normally get access to this opportunity. It’s a start, and our aim is to create further STEM and audio engineering initiatives in the future.”
STEAM DJ mixer kits are available at £299.95 plus local tax.

For more information and to register your interest in the program, visit Audiotonix’s website.
The post Audiotonix’s build-it-yourself rotary DJ mixer is designed to educate and inspire young engineers appeared first on MusicTech.

QR Codes are great for marketing music IF you use them the right wayQR codes can be very useful for marketing music, but there are right and wrong ways to use them. Michael Branvold and Jay Gilbert discuss best QR code practices on a new Music Biz Weekly podcast.....
The post QR Codes are great for marketing music IF you use them the right way appeared first on Hypebot.

Behringer “revives a legend” with the MS-5 – a “faithful reproduction” of the classic Roland SH-5Behringer has released its first product in a while – at least by Behringer’s standards – the MS-5, an unofficial nod to Roland’s classic SH-5 monophonic analogue synth.
Touted as a “faithful reproduction of the original SH-5 circuit”, the MS-5 represents one of the older synth designs in Behringer’s current lineup, as the original SH-5 was launched in 1975.

READ MORE: Behringer and Roland dominate in new world map showing most popular synth brands by country

It boasts the same functionality as the original SH-5, with 37 full-size semi-weighted keys, two VCOs with four waveshapes and hard and soft sync modes, a multi-mode VCF with HPF, BPF and LPF settings, and an additional bandpass filter, too.
There’s also a ring modulator – which was largely responsible for giving the original SH-5 its signature sound – two fully analogue LFOs, ADSR and AR envelopes with VCAs, a sample and hold circuit with lag control, portamento and bender controllers beside the keyboard, and a flexible routing path and signal mixer.
Credit: Behringer
The functionality doesn’t stop there though; the MS-5 also sports a host of I/O options on the back including MIDI, CV, external audio input, a servo-balanced stereo output and expression controller inputs.
Additionally – in a feature for the “geeks”, as Behringer explains – there are several access points for PCB trimmer controls.
Of course, sometimes you want to play seated, and sometimes standing, so the MS-5 also features a foldable format – like Behringer’s Poly D and MonoPoly synths – with three angled positions as well as a flat mode.
Behringer promises “tremendous bass tones” and a “purely analogue signal path” perfect for “pushing out fiery riffs for that next sci-fi masterpiece”.
Price-wise, it doesn’t break the bank either, clocking in at $599.
For more information, head to Behringer.

In other Behringer news, the company has dropped a selection of other products this year so far, including the Spring Reverberation 636 Eurorack module, and teased the likes of a replica of the classic Roland Jupiter-8.
The post Behringer “revives a legend” with the MS-5 – a “faithful reproduction” of the classic Roland SH-5 appeared first on MusicTech.