Sting's Trio (Not That One)Rock icon Sting's current tour has been named 3.0, in reference to the fact that he's performing as a trio. Of course, Sting fronted one of the most famous trios in rock 'n' roll's rich history so he's no stranger to the format. Still, this trio is completed by guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas. These names might not be as instantly recognizable as those of the Police men, but they are supreme musicians.At the Wiltern in Los Angeles on Tuesday, November 12--the first of five gigs at that venue--the band performed a 23-track set, stripping down Sting's greatest hits to their stunning core, while absolutely doing Police gems justice.The set kicked off with "Message in a Bottle," a bonafide classic of the punk/new-wave era and the perfect way to start this show. That initial refrain, the hypnotic vocals, the slow-build -- wonderful.The early part of the set brings us two songs from the brilliant Ten Summoner's Tales album--"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" and "Fields of Gold." That latter really benefits from the trio approach. "Englishman in New York" from 1987's Nothing Like the Sun comes quickly, and a glorious version of the Police's "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" swiftly follows.

It's noticeable that Sting himself seems to be having an absolute blast. A charming host, he appears to be reveling in this stripped back environment, performing in smaller venues than he's been used to for some time. It really is a joy to behold.Other Police tunes that get an airing include "Wrapped Around Your Finger," a buoyant "Can't Stand Losing You," "Walking On the Moon," the ironic joy of "So Lonely," "Every Breath You Take" and of course "Roxanne."

Maybe some hardcore fans would have liked more deep cuts, but this was the perfect Sting set performed wonderfully well. What more could you want?The post Sting's Trio (Not That One) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington’s Thrive AI Health assistant has a bare-bones demoIn a splashy op-ed in Time published this summer, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Thrive AI Health, a venture with the goal of building an AI-powered assistant to promote healthier lifestyles. Backed by Huffington’s mental wellness firm Thrive Global and the OpenAI Startup Fund, Thrive AI Health would seek to […]
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Bluetooth Dongle Gives Up Its Secrets with Quick Snooping HackThere’s a lot going on in our wireless world, and the number of packets whizzing back and forth between our devices is staggering. All this information can be a rich vein to mine for IoT hackers, but how do you zero in on the information that matters? That depends, of course, but if your application involves Bluetooth, you might be able to snoop in on the conversation relatively easily.
By way of explanation, we turn to [Mark Hughes] and his Boondock Echo, a device we’ve featured in these pages before. [Mark] needed to know how long the Echo would operate when powered by a battery bank, as well as specifics about the power draw over time. He had one of those Fnirsi USB power meter dongles, the kind that talks to a smartphone app over Bluetooth. To tap into the conversation, he enabled Host Control Interface logging on his phone and let the dongle and the app talk for a bit. The captured log file was then filtered through WireShark, leaving behind a list of all the Bluetooth packets to and from the dongle’s address.
That’s when the fun began. Using a little wetware pattern recognition, [Mark] was able to figure out the basic structure of each frame. Knowing the voltage range of USB power delivery helped him find the bytes representing voltage and current, which allowed him to throw together a Python program to talk to the dongle in real-time and get the critical numbers.
It’s not likely that all BLE-connected devices will be as amenable to reverse engineering as this dongle was, but this is still a great technique to keep in mind. We’ve got a couple of applications for this in mind already, in fact.

US DOE Sets New Nuclear Energy TargetsTo tackle the growing electrification of devices, we’ll need to deploy more generation to the grid. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has unveiled a new target to triple nuclear generating capacity by 2050.
Using a combination of existing Generation III+ reactor designs, upcoming small modular and micro reactors, and “legislation like the ADVANCE Act that streamlines regulatory processes,” DOE plans to add 35 gigawatt (GW) of generating capacity by 2035 and an additional 15 GW installed per year by 2040 to hit a total capacity of 200 GW of clean, green atom power by 2050.
According to the DOE, 100 GW of nuclear power was deployed in the 1970s and 1980s, so this isn’t an entirely unprecedented scale up of nuclear, although it won’t happen overnight. One of the advantages of renewables over nuclear is the lower cost and better public perception — but a combination of technologies will create a more robust grid than an “all of your eggs in one basket” approach. Vehicle to grid storage, geothermal, solar, wind, and yes, nuclear will all have their place at the clean energy table.
If you want to know more about siting nuclear on old coal plants, we covered DOE’s report on the matter as well as some efforts to build a fusion reactor on a decommissioned coal site as well.

Spotify launches ‘Partner Program’ with new monetization options for video creatorsSpotify says expanded video offerings will be good for music rightsholders, as it will bring more listeners to the platform
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Teenage Engineering unveil the OP-XY Teenage Engineering have announced the release of the OP‑XY, a sequencer, synthesizer and sampler designed for modern music creators and live performers.

Boomplay MD Phil Choi exits, joins Warner Music Group as Head of Business Development for APAC regionExec to report to New York-based Allen Coye, who heads up business development for Recorded Music at WMG
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New Bandsintown Ticket Presales: Empowering Artists with Fan DataNew Bandsintown ticket presales empower any artist to launch presales for shows and tours while retaining control of the fan data regardless of the ticketing platform.
The post New Bandsintown Ticket Presales: Empowering Artists with Fan Data appeared first on Hypebot.

How Tech can Prioritize the needs of CreatorsAs the digital landscape evolves, it's crucial for tech solutions to prioritize the needs of creators for sustainable growth. Explore how innovative platforms are shifting focus to empower creators and reshape the industry.
The post How Tech can Prioritize the needs of Creators appeared first on Hypebot.

Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain have released an acoustic rendition of Get Low – and it might be the best thing you’ll hear all yearMark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and Meta, has released an acoustic cover of a hip-hop song as a tribute to his wife, Priscilla Chan.
Made with help from rapper T-Pain, the duo have created a slowed down, gentle version of the 2003 track Get Low, originally by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz – yes, it is the song the with the lyrics of ‘to the window, to the wall, ‘til the sweat drop down my balls’, and yes, he has kept that line in there.

READ MORE: ‘The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet’ has been identified thanks to Reddit

Though you may be wondering why Zuckerberg didn’t cover something a little more tender for his wife, whom he married in 2012, the track was apparently playing as the two met during a party in the same year of the song’s original release.

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

Sharing the news in a post on Instagram including an old photo of himself and Chan plus shots from his time in the studio with T-Pain, Zuckerberg writes, “Get Low was playing when I first met Priscilla at a college party, so every year we listen to it on our dating anniversary. This year I worked with T-Pain on our own version of this lyrical masterpiece. Sound on for the track and also available on Spotify. Love you P.”
Chan replies in the comments, “Can’t get quite as low anymore but more in love and grateful for that love than ever. Love you MZ.” Other commenters have joked that Zuckerberg is “unserious”, with one adding, “Who said romance was dead?!” The popular entertainment news account Pubity even adds, “We got Zuck on a track before GTA 6.”
Check out the cover below:

If you’re a fan of Zuckerberg’s masterful work on Get Low, you can stream it as much as you’d like via Spotify.
The post Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain have released an acoustic rendition of Get Low – and it might be the best thing you’ll hear all year appeared first on MusicTech.

Behind the sound of Star Wars Outlaws: a polarising game with a Grammy-nominated soundtrackUbisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws didn’t get the best reception when it launched in August this year. Mixed reviews of the open-world video game are still abound — some players bemoan the stealth, gun-focussed combat and intermittent bugs, while others celebrate the game for its likeable protagonists (Kay Vess and her alien companion, Nix), superb storyline and explorable environment, which makes them “feel like a tourist” in the Star Wars universe.
Myriad players and reviewers appear in agreement with one thing, though: The soundtrack and sound design is absolutely exquisite. It’s now been nominated for a 2025 Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games. Blending distorted synths and deep 808-style kicks with intense string sections and esoteric woodwind, the score makes for a distinctly modern Star Wars experience that retains the essence of the original franchise. What’s not to love?
“Man, the use of that terminology, ‘like a tourist in Star Wars’, that warms my heart; that’s exactly what we wanted to do,” says Wilbert Roget II, composer for the game’s score. “I like to see people’s reactions to the music, just to know what I’m doing wrong, what I’m doing right, and to make sure that my tastes are aligned with what fellow gamers actually want,” he adds of seeing the reviews of Outlaws.
Image: Press
“I’m thrilled to be a part of this. I’m very proud of my work and of the amount of work [that went into Outlaws],” adds Cody Matthew Johnson, composer for the Sounds of the Underworld Music from Star Wars Outlaws. “A lot goes into navigating a Star Wars game and making sure you live up to the legacy and honour it…I used to really let [reviews] get to my head, but as long as you can be objective with your performance on something, and be honest with yourself…I keep saying it: I’m just happy to be here and I’m stoked to be working on music in games, especially for Star Wars.”
Roget, Johnson and their colleagues in the audio department have earned their praise. From loading the main menu to exploring cantinas and getting into speeder chases, through to the in-game arcade games such as Jaunda’s Hope, the Outlaws soundtrack is outstanding. It never feels out of place in the game, it doesn’t lazily recycle any of John Williams’ original Star Wars music, and there’s an impressive diversity of otherworldly styles and sounds as you traverse the game.
Though Roget, Johnson and their team are talented technically in music and production, they also deserve credit for their conceptual approaches to Outlaws.
Wilbert Roget, II. Image: Press
“I wanted it to feel like music is simply emanating from the world, not like I’m this composer just imposing music,” explains Roget, who has produced soundtracks for games including Helldivers 2, Call Of Duty: WWII and Star Wars: The Old Republic. “So I’ll look at the art direction, the graphics and even the composition of the shots in films to see and like the colour palettes and see how can I connect that with musical elements.”
The team also pulled inspiration from original movies. Roget cites Outlaws’ iteration of Tatooine — Anakin and Luke Skywalker’s home planet in Star Wars — as an example. An eight-bar piece of music in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones plays in a ⅝ time signature when Anakin first lands on Tatooine. Though this snippet is incredibly short, Roget used it as a reference, expanding on its use of plucked and orchestral instruments for the tracks, Tattooine, The Desert Frontier, and Mos Eisley.

“[The Desert Frontier] has these wide chords and double bass melody that’s almost melancholic — like a cross between danger and wonder,” explains Roget. “Then you get into Mos Eisley, and it just becomes a chaotic, busy market like everything is upside down. I recorded electric bass, but I played it with a double bass bow, so it sounds like a bowstring instrument that’s gone wrong. I had my friend Kristen Magus play some different types of world flutes for that as well, to represent the chaotic busyness of the market that you see all throughout the city.”
Johnson’s research into planets of the Outer Rim was extensive, too. The LA-based composer is a longtime Star Wars devotee; “I’ve seen, watched and played almost every single piece of Star Wars that is out there,” he says. However, his adventures in a galaxy far, far away haven’t always been as immersive as he’d hoped. He notes that, historically, the music that accompanies planets in Star Wars games isn’t often as deeply explored as it could be. With Sounds of the Underworld, he sought to change that.
Cody Matthew Johnson. Image: Press
“I can’t think of an expression of Mos Eisley that feels as grounded and accurate as in Star Wars Outlaws,” says Johnson, who has written music for Resident Evil 2 and the Marvel vs Capcom series. “You can really explore these worlds on a very large scale [in Outlaws]. And with planets like Toshara and Akiva, there wasn’t any history, so we could really explore new ideas. It [offered] a great opportunity to use diegetic music to paint more specifically about these worlds and the culture.”
Johnson’s Sounds of the Underworld score taps into the weirder, wilder side of Star Wars, soundtracking the cantinas, markets and arcades you navigate in Outlaws. As a rare treat, you can truly hear what a fictional band in the Star Wars universe might sound like — and not just Max Rebo’s band in Jabba’s Palace. “Max Rebo is my mortal enemy,” jokes Johnson.

Sourcing the sounds for these vast worlds wasn’t straightforward. Both Roget and Johnson had to get creative with their choices of instruments — and it sounds like they had a blast. (“You have to have a blast,” says Roget. “The way to determine if a score is good is if you can hear, as a listener, that the composer had fun writing it.”)
For the main Outlaws score, Roget looked to his stalwart Korg synths, the MS-20 and Minilogue, but also recorded unconventional acoustic instruments, such as a Pipa and a Biwa, alongside a traditional orchestra. “I like to think of synthesizers and world instruments as just another instrument in the palette,” he says. “Maybe I could do this part on a clarinet, or maybe I can dial up the Minilogue and do the same part there… Maybe [the sound] is in the same frequency band but, because I use this different [instrument] instead of the orchestra, it has a different character, and I can have a different subtext as a result.”
Image: Press
Roget adds that he and his team quickly realised that analogue synthesizers were a better fit for Star Wars, as opposed to digital. “There are some digital sounds in there but, generally speaking, the digital vibe doesn’t necessarily work alongside the orchestra. [Digital synths] make themselves known right at the front of the mix, whereas we needed something to sit back and be more polite.”
He also has a cupboard of so-called “foley instruments” — wine bottles, tin cans, cardboard — to use as percussion instruments.
Johnson, meanwhile, had other hair-brained ideas. His instrument choices, too, were intriguing, but his wackiest scheme was recording through an array of microphones inspired by the recording technology of the first half of the 1900s. The setup includes the Placid Audio Copperphone and Carbonphone, Trash Talk Audio’s Rotary Phone mic, Scope Lab’s The Periscope, and a Blue Bottle tube mic. He recorded everything through these five microphones in parallel.
Cody Matthew Johnson’s mic array for Star Wars Outlaws. Image: Press
“It’s not lo-fi, but it’s no hi-fi”, Johnson explains. “It’s like this fidelity that is unique to what I was trying to design: an expression of music technology leading up to 0 BBY [the fictional year that Star Wars: A New Hope takes place in], or the 1980s — when this fictional world meets ours.”
Beyond the score, Star Wars Outlaws also employs an impressive bespoke sound engine. With an open-world game, any number of things can happen to the player, whether it’s being attacked by an NPC or coming across a place where you’re character isn’t welcome. To enable the audio to react to your situation, the game engine has different states of combat, based on your proximity to an enemy, how difficult an enemy is, how many enemies there are, and other variable factors.
“If you’re not really close to enemies, then [the music] just has pitched elements. But as soon as you get close to enemies, we bring in some percussive elements to the mix to say, ‘Hey, you’re kind of in danger! Be careful,’” explains Roget. “And then we have a state that we call ‘Hiding’, which basically means that enemies have previously engaged you, but you’ve successfully broken their line of sight and they don’t exactly know where you are, so they’re actively searching for you. So this is more synth-based layers.”
Image: Press
“Any one of these states can crossfade into any other one, so we needed to make sure that we’ve recorded the orchestra in such a way that it was able to make these crossfades in a seamless manner,” Roget continues. To achieve this, the score was recorded in stems. As the player’s situation becomes more intense, more layers are introduced — brass, dramatic strings, and faster performances, for example.
“It was a very difficult and iterative process figuring out how to just compose music that still sounded like Star Wars, but had all of these modern game tech elements to it,” concludes Roget.
“It’s not that Outlaws is overwhelming, but it gives you a way to explore this galaxy, and with an agency that Star Wars hasn’t allowed you to do before,” adds Johnson. “It makes it feel like there’s real consequence or reward to how you play it, too.”
Image: Press
Star Wars Outlaws may not have immediately won over the entire Skywalker fanbase with some aspects of the gameplay. But as Ubisoft climbs uphill with the imminent Wild Card expansion and more downloadable content to come, the composers on Outlaws can feel assured that their work has paid off. Those players and fans who take the time to explore the in-game galaxy will hear the fun that Johnson and Roget had in building the soundtrack and the considerations they took to make Outlaws as authentic as possible. They may even win that Grammy.
Learn more about Star Wars Outlaws at Ubisoft.
The post Behind the sound of Star Wars Outlaws: a polarising game with a Grammy-nominated soundtrack appeared first on MusicTech.

Apple release Logic Pro 11.1 for Mac & Logic Pro 2.1 for iPad Apple’s developers have added many features in response to frequent requests from existing users.

Unlock the power of esteemed composer Ólafur Arnalds with Spitfire Audio’s new responsive sample librarySpitfire Audio’s brand new sample library, Ólafur Arnalds Cells, lets users harness the power of a string orchestra, and replicate the feeling of players responding as if you were in the same room.
The new launch is inspired by Arnalds’ own music, who is a BAFTA-winning Icelandic multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and triple Grammy nominee. He has composed music for the likes of ITV’s Broadchurch series (for which he won his BAFTA), and Apple TV’s Defending Jacob.

READ MORE: This $22 MIDI gadget turns your smartphone into a flute

Overall, there are 115 articulations and 10 signal paths available within the new launch, making it ideal for the creation of film scores, TV soundtracks, or electronic and ambient music. At the core of Ólafur Arnalds Cells is an innovative Scale Mode, providing harmonic movement that follows the user’s tonality and ensuring everything they play remains within their chosen key.
To further explain Scale Mode, Spitfire Audio says that when playing a key, the feedback received is not a direct replica of the note played, but instead it always fits within the chosen harmonic structure. For instance, if a C note is played, the software will not only play it back but will also introduce another note from within the C major scale that the user did not explicitly ask for.
The brand stresses that this release is more than just a sample library, but rather “a collaborative experience with players”. Compositions are also complemented by an associated toolkit of vintage analogue synthesisers with a variety of signal paths created and performed by Arnalds himself.
“After brainstorming this idea in a London pub back in 2018, we created a prototype, which not only got used on most of my recordings since then but also inspired my sound,” says Arnalds. “The music I make today wouldn’t be the same without that little prototype, and I’m so happy to finally see it in its final form – …Cells constantly surprises me with little melodies that get created with the random intervals, often inspiring new melodies that I then take over to other instruments.”
He continues, “With …CELLS, I wanted to push the boundaries of how sound can inspire music; by adding random intervals that stay within the musical context of what I am playing, I constantly get surprised and inspired by the beautiful string orchestra while still having the control I need.”
You can check it out in the video below:

Ólafur Arnalds Cells is available for a time-limited introductory price of £159.00/$199.00/€199.00 until 3 December 2024. It will then rise to its full price of £199.00/$249.00/€249.00 from then. Find out more via Spitfire Audio.
The post Unlock the power of esteemed composer Ólafur Arnalds with Spitfire Audio’s new responsive sample library appeared first on MusicTech.

Witch Pig releases FREE Angel Dust pitch-shifting delay plugin
Angel Dust is the latest release from Witch Pig, the developer behind plugins like Black Mirror Reverb and Bangkok Ping Pong. When it comes to Witch Pig plugins, there are a few things we’ve become accustomed to. One of which is a visually engaging interface, and Angel Dust is no exception. Like Bangkok Ping Pong, [...]
View post: Witch Pig releases FREE Angel Dust pitch-shifting delay plugin

“Our goal was to develop a device that merges complexity with true playability”: Polyend launches multi-engine polyphonic synthesizer, the SynthPolyend’s new offering might be the most simplistically named synth ever, but its comprehensive set of features is anything but.
Introducing the Synth, a multi-engine polyphonic synthesizer aimed at sound designers, performers, composers and those simply looking to experiment.

READ MORE: Apple Music is selling a coffee table book charting its top 100 albums of all time – for $450

Featuring eight unique synth engines – and able to play three simultaneously – the Polyend Synth is built around an intuitive grid-based interface designed to make playing “natural and easy”.
These eight synth engines consist of both modern synthesis methods and recreations of “iconic instruments and classic tones”, Polyend explains.

Highlights include the PHZ engine – which draws inspiration from the classic Casio CZ-101, while introducing “new algorithms of phase distortion, resulting in unique sounds that cannot be found elsewhere. The ACD engine, meanwhile, is based on the Roland SH-101, offering “acid-laced tones that are simple to dial in yet expansive in range”. Also featured is the VAP engine, which channels the Sequential Prophet-6, “encapsulating its spirit in a digital format”.
Other engines include PMD, which provides “organic textures”, GRAIN, which “takes granular synthesis to new heights”, WAVS, which features a two-oscillator system allowing users to load custom wavetables, and WTFM, which “adds wavetables to an FM architecture”.
Credit: Polyend
As Polyend explains, while multi-timbral synths often require a sequencer to trigger multiple sounds, the Synth’s Smart Grid feature enables real-time playability. It includes three independent sequencers or arpeggiators that respond to your playing. 
Additionally, users can assign a synth patch to one of three chord modes, enabling single synth pads to trigger chords. In Chord Mode, two synth engines can be set as followers, which adjust their notes according to the current chord guided by a scale lock, which keeps everything within a set scale to retain musicality.
“Our goal was to develop a device that merges complexity with true playability,” says Polyend founder, Piotr Raczyński. “Synth is designed for musicians who want an accessible but sonically rich experience.”
The Synth is available now for $/€499. For more information, head to Polyend.
The post “Our goal was to develop a device that merges complexity with true playability”: Polyend launches multi-engine polyphonic synthesizer, the Synth appeared first on MusicTech.