KIT Plugins announce BB F66/67 The first compressors to join the KIT Plugins lineup offer two takes on one of Blackbird Studios' most prized outboard units.

The 2025 NAMM Show will span five days, with three days of exhibitsThe NAMM Show will return to the Anaheim Convention Center in January 2025, and for the first time ever, will run for five days straight, with three days of exhibits.
Since Covid, many have speculated on the future of the NAMM Show, which has seen a reduced number of exhibitors in recent years, with many of the big names including Fender, Gibson and PRS opting out.

READ MORE: Spotify gained 10 million more paying users in the first half of 2024

But next year’s show offers promise that NAMM may be returning to its former glory. Running between 21 and 25 January, the 2025 NAMM Show will see events beginning on the 21st, and exhibits beginning on the 23rd, with “nonstop energy” offered through the 25th
“The NAMM Show continues to evolve based on our members’ needs, and we have heard loud and clear that we need more opportunities to network and extend our robust education offerings, while also focusing on the core exhibit hours and buying power that are the cornerstone of the week” says John Mlynczak, president and CEO of NAMM.
“The 2025 NAMM Show will kick off five days and nights with a schedule that ensures each community and attendee can have the personalised experience they need to be successful in their business and profession.”
A number of brands have already confirmed they are attending the 2025 NAMM Show, though it’s unclear yet whether they’ll all be exhibiting. They include Avid, Allen & Heath, Native Instruments, Pioneer DJ, Solid State Logic, Sony, Waves and more.
We asked if the NAMM Show would thrive or barely survive following this year’s event. While there were some big announcements, there were also some notable absentees: Universal Audio didn’t return with an extravagant space-themed spectacle like in 2020; Moog didn’t have a huge presence, and neither did Focusrite, Sequential, Oberheim or Arturia.
But with five days of events across the 2025 NAMM Show, does that mean its set to thrive once more?
For more info, head to namm.org.
The post The 2025 NAMM Show will span five days, with three days of exhibits appeared first on MusicTech.

Kits.AI unveil Voice Designer Kits.AI's latest application is capable of creating unique-sounding voices with no need for pre-existing audio files or datasets.

Release details
Release title:
house with ghosts
Main artist name:
Verti
Release date:
15th Aug, 2024
https://publme.lnk.to/housewithghosts
#newmusic #Release #Music #indepedent #artist #pop #RnB

The NAMM Show Shares Preview of Global Attendees and ExhibitorsNAMM (The National Association of Music Merchants), the largest global not-for-profit music trade organization, has announced its initial lineup of events and exhibits for The 2025 NAMM Show, taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center January 21–25, with events beginning on Tuesday, January 21. Exhibits start January 23, creating nonstop energy through late Saturday evening, January 25, 2025.

“The NAMM Show continues to evolve based on our members’ needs, and we have heard loud and clear that we need more opportunities to network and extend our robust education offerings, while also focusing on the core exhibit hours and buying power that are the cornerstone of the week” said John Mlynczak, president and CEO of NAMM. “The 2025 NAMM Show will kick off five days and nights with a schedule that ensures each community and attendee can have the personalized experience they need to be successful in their business and profession.”

The expansion of event dates allows The NAMM Show to offer even more robust education programs for every NAMM member, including retail, brands, pro audio, entertainment technology, music education and music technology professionals, as well as tracks for artists and college music business students. Tuesday and Wednesday will include more long-form, workshop-style opportunities for attendees to dig deeper into relevant topics that will help grow our industry. 

To help ensure that networking leads to success in business, more global networking receptions will take place earlier in the week, allowing attendees to make vital connections right away that will lead to focused opportunities when the exhibits are open for business. A full list of 2025 NAMM Show exhibitors, companies and brands from around the globe can be found at https://www.namm.org/thenammshow/attend

NAMM will continue to announce, throughout the fall and winter, new additions to exhibits and events as well as must-see artists and performances that will make The 2025 NAMM Show the ultimate destination for the global music industry. The initial full schedule of detailed events will be posted on November 4.

NAMM Week 2025 Preliminary Schedule

Tuesday, January 21

NAMM Foundation Day of Service and Networking with the Pros

Education offerings for exhibiting brands, including a workshop on influencer-marketing strategy

Networking opportunities

International Networking Reception 

Wednesday, January 22

Global Media Day, featuring iconic brands and formal executive remarks that focus on new music industry product introductions from top music brands to startups

Education sessions and workshops on the latest in AI for business, content creation and the financial management of a music business, as well as hands-on Dante training for pro audio. 

International Coalition meetings and global receptions

Top 100 Dealer Awards ceremony 

Thursday, January 23

Industry Insights breakfast session with NAMM President and CEO John Mlynczak, along with music industry special guests 

A robust program of educational sessions for retail, manufacturer brands, pro audio, entertainment technology, event safety and music education professionals, as well as artists and college music business students

Exhibits open 10 am to 6 pm at the Anaheim Convention Center 

Yamaha Concert Series and Bands@NAMM

TEC Awards

Friday, January 24

NAMM U Breakfast Session Focusing on Business Marketing Trends for 2025 & Beyond

Education sessions continue for retail, manufacturer brand, pro audio, entertainment technology, event safety and music education professionals, as well as artists and college music business students

Exhibits open 10 am to 6 pm at the Anaheim Convention Center

Yamaha Concert Series and Bands@NAMM

Parnelli Awards

Saturday, January 25

Grand Rally for Music Education

Best in Show awards

Exhibits open 10 am to 5 pm at the Anaheim Convention Center

Bands@NAMM

SheRocks Awards
The post The NAMM Show Shares Preview of Global Attendees and Exhibitors first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Meta axed CrowdTangle, a tool for tracking disinformation. Critics claim its replacement has just ‘1% of the features’Journalists, researchers and politicians are mourning Meta’s shutdown of CrowdTangle, which they used to track the spread of disinformation on Facebook and Instagram. In CrowdTangle’s place, Meta is offering its Content Library — but is limiting usage to people from “qualified academic or nonprofit institutions who are pursuing scientific or public interest research.” Many researchers […]
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The Sunchronizer Keeps Your Solar Panel AlignedIn the past few years, the price-per-watt for solar panels has dropped dramatically. This has led to a number of downstream effects beyond simple cost savings. For example, many commercial solar farms have found that it’s now cheaper to install a larger number of panels in fixed positions, rather than accepting the extra cost, maintenance, and complexity of a smaller number panels that use solar tracking to make up the difference. But although this practice is fading for large-scale power production, there are still some niche uses for solar tracking. Like [Fabian], if you need to maximize power production with a certain area or a small number of panels you’ll wan to to build a solar tracker.
[Fabian]’s system is based on a linear actuator which can tilt one to four panels (depending on size) in one axis only. This system is an elevation tracker, which is the orientation generally with respect to latitude, with a larger elevation angle needed in the winter and a lower angle in the summer. [Fabian] also designs these to be used in places like balconies where this axis can be more easily adjusted. The actuator is controlled with an ESP32 which, when paired with a GPS receiver, can automatically determine the sun’s position for a given time of day and adjust the orientation of the panel to provide an ideal elevation angle on a second-by-second basis. The ESP32 also allows seamless integration with home automation systems like SmartHome as well.
Although this system only tracks the sun in one axis right now, [Fabian] is working on support for a second axis which mounts the entire array on a rotating table similar to an automatic Lazy Susan. This version also includes a solar tracking sensor which measures solar irradiance in the direction the panel faces to verify that the orientation of the panel is maximizing power output for a given amount of sunlight. Tracking the sun in two axes can be a complicated problem to solve, but some solutions we’ve seen don’t involve any GPS, programming, or even control electronics at all.

This Chinese tech giant, worth $4.8bn, just launched a fully AI music streaming serviceFirm has launched what it claims to be 'the world's first AI-powered music streaming platform'
Source

This Record Label Prioritizes Timeless Music Over StreamsThis week, Ari is joined by Louis Marks and Fabian Brown of Ropeadope Records, where they discuss how Ropeadope supports and uplifts artists in a time when streaming can’t pay the bills.

Edge-Lit, Thin LCD TVs Are Having Early Heat Death IssuesCanadian consumer goods testing site RTINGS has been subjecting 100 TVs to an accelerated TV longevity test, subjecting them so far to over 10,000 hours of on-time, equaling about six years of regular use in a US household. This test has shown a range of interesting issues and defects already, including for the OLED-based TVs. But the most recent issue which they covered is that of uniformity issues with edge-lit TVs. This translates to uneven backlighting including striping and very bright spots, which teardowns revealed to be due to warped reflector sheets, cracked light guides, and burned-out LEDs.
Excluding the 18 OLED TVs, which are now badly burnt in, over a quarter of the remaining TVs in the test suffer from uniformity issues. But things get interesting when contrasting between full-array local dimming (FALD), direct-lit (DL) and edge-lit (EL) LCD TVs. Of the EL types, 7 out of 11 (64%) have uniformity issues, with one having outright failed and others in the process of doing so. Among the FALD and DL types the issue rate here is 14 out of 71 (20%), which is still not ideal after a simulated 6 years of use but far less dramatic.
Cracks in the Samsung AU8000’s Light Guide Plate (Credit: RTINGS)
As part of the RTINGS longevity test, failures and issues are investigated and a teardown for analysis, and fixing, is performed when necessary. For these uniformity issues, the EL LCD teardowns revealed burned-out LEDs in the EL LED strips, with cracks in the light-guide plate (LGP) that distributes the light, as well as warped reflector sheets. The LGPs are offset slightly with plastic standoffs to not touch the very hot LEDs, but these standoffs can melt, followed by the LGP touching the hot LEDs. With the damaged LGP, obviously the LCD backlighting will be horribly uneven.
In the LG QNED80 (2022) TV, its edge lighting LEDs were measured with a thermocouple to be running at a searing 123 °C at the maximum brightness setting. As especially HDR (high-dynamic range) content requires high brightness levels, this would thus be a more common scenario in EL TVs than one might think. As for why EL LCDs still exist since they seem to require extreme heatsinking to keep the LEDs from melting straight through the LCD? RTINGS figures it’s because EL allows for LCD TVs to be thinner, allowing them to compete with OLEDs while selling at a premium compared to even FALD LCDs.

Billie Eilish signs with WME in wake of Wasserman tabloid scandalA report in the Daily Mail recently described Casey Wasserman as a "serial cheater"
Source

Music publishing forecasts: strong growth and more to comeFollowing hot on the heels of our future of songwriting report, MIDiA is pleased to announce the release of our latest music publishing forecasts report. Here are some highlights.

Thus far, the 2020s have been a good decade for the music publishing industry. Revenues have continued to grow, streaming royalty rates have improved and institutional investment has flowed into publishing catalogues, even after rising interest rates. Covid lockdowns were a speed bump, decimating the live and background components of performance royalties, but the effect was temporary, with live’s post-Covid rebound being particularly strong.

Throughout the earlier stages of the streaming era, publishing was something of a back seat passenger, with the agenda set by labels and DSPs. A state of affairs reflected in the comparably small share of revenues allocated to publishing royalties. But, as the market matured, publishing rights found their voice. Favourable rates board rulings in the US, active lobbying efforts, and increasingly effective licensing strategy from CMOs and publishers have had the combined effect of increasing publishing’s share of the streaming economy –– with further improvement likely. The dispute between publishers and Spotify over its interpretation of the bundling provisions in the US are an important and contentious issue. However, the response from the publishing industry reflects its newfound confidence.

Publishers have also proven able to carve out a favourable space in the new, emerging sections of the streaming economy. The ‘non-DSP’ deals with platforms like TikTok, Meta, and Snap provide for a higher share of royalties flowing tor publishers than for standard DSP deals. In the 2010s, publishers, rightly or wrongly, acquired a reputation for slowing innovation. Now they are spearheading it.

Global music publishing revenues grew strongly again in 2023, up 12.0% to reach $10.1 billion. This is compared to record label trade revenue growth of 9.1% in 2023. Music publishing continues to outgrow label revenues.  Warner Chappell had the strongest growing revenues in 2023, up 16.6% on 2022 to reach $1.1 billion, while Sony Music Publishing remained the largest publisher, though Universal Music Group made up ground, growing 10.5% to reach $2.1 billion. Independents meanwhile grew 12.7%.

The ability of music publishing to grow faster than recorded music is in part due to publishers having different levers to pull than the labels. For example, the surge in live revenues post-Covid and non-DSP streaming (where publishing typically enjoys a significantly larger share of royalties than DSP streaming. Meanwhile, the continued rise of subscription video on demand (SVOD) is providing much needed impetus to TV / video performance royalties. These factors will help fuel future market growth.

Not everything will grow unchecked. Public performance royalties will be hit by changing lifestyles (continued demise of the high street, more home-based working, etc.); live music revenues will peak due to market saturation and ticket price inflation; and traditional mechanical royalties will fall when the physical music boom ends.

But these factors will be more than offset by the growth sectors, most important of which will be streaming. The music publishing business is now a streaming-first industry, with streaming revenues having crossed the 50% mark in 2022, and they will close to double between 2023 and 2031. This strong streaming growth will help total music publishing revenues reach $16.8 billion by 2031, an increase of nearly two thirds on 2023 levels.

This is just a small preview of what is in the final report, which includes revenues split by streaming; other digital; total digital; performance; sync; other; as well as country level forecasts for 39 markets; regional splits for revenue categories and publisher market shares. MIDiA clients can access the full report and dataset here. To find out more about how to become a MIDiA client and to access this report, email businessdevelopment@midiaresearch.com

Warm Audio launch redesigned website Warm Audio's new website promises to deliver a completely new visitor experience, and includes some handy new features and tools. 

Bandcamp Alternative Subvert: New Era for Indie Artists and Labels?Bandcamp alternative Subvert is set to launch guided by the intriguing premise, “What if Independent Artists and Labels owned Bandcamp?” Bandcamp had become an essential tool for independent artists and. Continue reading
The post Bandcamp Alternative Subvert: New Era for Indie Artists and Labels? appeared first on Hypebot.

Spotify gained 10 million more paying users in the first half of 2024Back in April, Spotify’s gross profit exceeded €1 billion for the first time in its history. And, with approximately 10 million new subscribers joining in the first half of 2024, profits are set to soar.
According to Music Business Worldwide, Spotify drew in three million new subscribers in the first quarter of the year. Another seven million users went on to subscribe in quarter two.

READ MORE: “Football is played by millions of people – but there’s a very small number that can live off playing full time”: Daniel Ek addresses Spotify’s low royalty payments

The news of Spotify’s influx of subscribers also coincides with the streaming service’s price hike last month. The company announced all subscription tiers are set to raise by $1.
While the price shift is a seemingly minor, it will result in a huge wave of profit for the company. The 10 million new subscribers alone will see Spotify raking in an extra $10 million more every month. And that’s ontop of the extra dollar 230+ million pre-existing subscribers will be paying too.
Spotify’s growth is a marker of how music consumption has pivoted in recent years. Nowadays, streaming is the standard way to listen to music – it’s a shame artists don’t earn more from it. Ditto reports that an artist receives $0.003 – $0.005 per stream on average, with 30 per cent of those royalties going to Spotify.
Reports also showed that China’s Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) also gained over 10 million new paying users since December 2023. Of course, unlike Spotify, the number is spread across the company’s different services (QQ Music, Kugou, Kuwo and the WeSing karaoke app).
“With over 10 million net subscriber additions in the first half of 2024 and ARPPU expansion, we continue to break new grounds within China’s streaming landscape,” Cussion Pang, Executive Chairman of TME, commented on the growth [via MusicBusinessWorldwide].
“We remain optimistic about the music industry’s long-term potential and are committed to sustainably achieving our mid- to long-term goals, at a healthy pace and with the right balance,” he concludes.
As for Spotify, the green streaming giant is only set to keep growing. Spotify recently announced that they’re going to be introducing an even more expensive ‘Supremium’ tier, with high-fidelity audio.
The post Spotify gained 10 million more paying users in the first half of 2024 appeared first on MusicTech.