4 essential vocal layering techniques
Let’s take a look at a few popular vocal layering techniques that can add depth and dimension to your songs.

Snap says total watch time on its TikTok competitor increased more than 125%As part of its Q1 2024 earning release, Snap revealed that total watch time on its TikTok competitor, Spotlight, increased more than 125% year-over-year. Snapchat launched the TikTok-like feed in late 2020 as a way to compete with the rising popularity of TikTok. The company is touting the success of its short-from video feed a […]
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Songwriter Profile: Mama BLegacy Work

With over 20 years as an artist and music executive, Jacq Becker—under her moniker Mama B—is releasing a second children’s album, following the success of 2021’s collaboration, Zoology (which amassed 50+ million digital and 14+ million YouTube streams). Having performed as a pop artist at Los Angeles’ Hotel Café, The Mint, Harvelle’s, Room 5, etc., and shows in Sweden, Nashville, and the Caribbean, Becker has placements in major TV and film (including Top 5, Pretty Little Liars and Seven Days in Utopia), and leads prominent songwriter and publishing teams, helping artists develop their creative vision and monetize their work. 

First studying classical music before switching to jazz, then pop, Becker holds a deep love of lyrics and melody, emphasizing her affinity for ‘’timeless songs and energy,” and was drawn to Norah Jones and the idea of audiences sitting quietly and truly listening. First writing as a teen, her focus expanded to business in her 20’s, and she is passionate about helping women improve their music business and publishing education, and exploring options. Says Becker, “I get the pleasure of helping expand their business and shining light on songwriters and producers. I feel very lucky to be doing it.” To have a sustainable career in music, Becker advises a focus on learning about publishing, rights management, monetization, and exploring the organizations that manage it all.

Leading with melody, then tone of voice and production, Becker says that what resonates most in music for her is the collaboration, emphasizing the dramatic difference between the sound that comes out of a collaborative project versus the energy felt from constant ‘session-churning.’ “You can hear that trust in each other,” she says. “I listen for musicianship of the whole song (not just melody and lyrics) [and] how it came together.” In repeat collaborations, she says, “I trust their instincts. It’s [about] bringing the right people together with different skill sets that meld together.” See differences as an enhancement, not a threat, and when entering first-time collaborations, Becker says to be as prepared as possible by bringing a few concepts or lyrical ideas.

Struggling to find children’s music she could listen to when she became a mom, Becker felt she could add something and, inspired by the musings of her children and their friends, worked to make music from their perspective while adding contemporary production. Says Becker, “We’re trying to take everything we know about song composition and structure and not do anything different because it’s for kids and families. Why would the formula change?”

Starting organically with guitar and piano melodies, using live instruments and no corner-cutting, Becker wanted to deliver purpose and meaning. Taking two years to complete, some sessions had starting points (“Princess In A Castle” was a request of her son’s classmate), or incorporated elements she heard her children jamming out to (Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” inspired “Puffer Fish”). Finding a lightness and joy that was missing in the pursuit of pop affirmation, children’s music reignited her songwriting passion. “There were no restrictions on creativity. The fact that we took so much time with it speaks to the integrity of the project,” says Becker. “Everything about it was pure, honest, and no pressure, which is a good place to be when you're releasing music.” 

Imaginology feels like Reading Rainbow-meets-The Spice Girls: fun, catchy, and equal parts soothing and enjoyable for all ages. Set for release on Mother’s Day.

Contact Jon Bleicher, Prospect PR - jon@prospectpr.com; 

Experience Mama B at instagram.com/mamabsongs

Stripe bringing back crypto payments, this time with a stablecoinStripe customers will be able to pay with USDC beginning this summer, president Jack Collison said, after the company canned BTC payments in 2018.

4 essential vocal layering techniques
Let’s take a look at a few popular vocal layering techniques that can add depth and dimension to your songs.

A Smart Power Distribution Unit for Home AutomationPower distribution units, as the name implies, are indispensable tools to have available in a server rack. They can handle a huge amount of power for demands of intensive computing and do it in a way that the wiring is managed fairly well. Plenty of off-the-shelf solutions have remote control or automation capabilities as well, but finding none that fit [fmarzocca]’s needs or price range, he ended up building his own essentially from scratch that powers his home automation system.
Because it is the power supply for a home automation system, each of the twelve outlets in this unit needed to be individually controllable. For that, three four-channel relay boards were used, each driven by an output on an ESP32. The ESP32 is running the Tasmota firmware to keep from having to reinvent the wheel, while MQTT was chosen as a protocol for controlling these outlets to allow for easy integration with the existing Node-RED-based home automation system. Not only is control built in to each channel, but the system can monitor the power consumption of each outlet individually as well. The entire system is housed in a custom-built sheet metal enclosure and painted to blend in well with any server rack.
Adding a system like this to a home automation system can simplify a lot of the design, and the scalable nature means that a system like this could easily be made much smaller or much larger without much additional effort. If you’d prefer to keep your hands away from mains voltage, though, we’ve seen similar builds based on USB power instead, with this one able to push around 2 kW.

Opaque Sound Essentials Bundle Is FREE For A Limited Time
Opaque Sound, a new company from L.A.-based producer and engineer mattvalentine, is offering the Essentials Bundle for free for a limited time. It’s a package of essential one-shot samples and loops for all music makers, containing over 360 samples and MIDI files. The bundle contains everything from 808s and drum loops to basslines, hooks, and [...]
View post: Opaque Sound Essentials Bundle Is FREE For A Limited Time

ByteDance would rather shut TikTok in the US than sell if legal challenge against ban law fails (report)Citing sources, Reuters reports that TikTok's parent 'would prefer' to shut the app down in the US if court challenge is unsuccessful
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The Myth of Propellantless Space Propulsion Refuses to DieIn a Universe ruled by the harsh and unyielding laws of Physics, it’s often tempting to dream of mechanisms which defy these rigid restrictions. Although over the past hundred years we have made astounding progress in uncovering ways to work within these restrictions — including splitting and fusing atoms to liberate immense amounts of energy — there are those who dream of making reality a bit more magical. The concept of asymmetrical electrostatic propulsion is a major player here, with the EmDrive the infamous example. More recently [Dr. Charles Buhler] proposed trying it again, as part of his company Exodus Propulsion Technologies.
This slide from Dr. Buhler’s APEC presentation shows the custom-made vacuum chamber built to test their propellantless Propulsion drive in a simulated space environment. Image Credit: Exodus Propulsion Technologies, Buhler, et al.
The problem with such propellantless space propulsion proposals is that they violate the core what we know about the physical rules, such as the conclusion by Newton that for any action there has to be an opposite reaction. If you induce an electrostatic field or whatever in some kind of device, you’d expect any kind of force (‘thrust’) this creates to act in all directions equally, ergo for thrust to exist, it has to push on something in the other direction. Rocket and ion engines (thrusters) solve this by using propellant that create the reaction mass.
The EmDrive was firmly disproven 2021 by [M. Tajmar] and colleagues in their paper titled High-accuracy thrust measurements of the EMDrive and elimination of false-positive effects as published in CEAS Space Journal, which had the researchers isolate the EmDrive from all possible outside influences. Since the reported thrust was on the level of a merest fraction of a Newton, even the impact from lighting in a room and body heat from the researchers can throw off the results, not to mention the heat developed from a microwave emitter as used in the EmDrive.
Meanwhile True Believers flock to the ‘Alt Propulsion Engineering Conference’ (APEC), as no self-respecting conference or scientific paper will accept such wishful claims. In the case of [Buhler], he claims that their new-and-improved EmDrive shows a force of 10 mN in a ‘stacked system’, yet no credible paper on the experiments can be found other than APEC presentations. Until their prototype is tested the way the EmDrive was tested by [M. Tajmar] et al., it seems fair to assume that the rules of physics as we know them today remain firmly intact.

Billie Eilish and Green Day among 250+ artists backing US Senate bill to reform ticketing industryThe bill would require disclosure of a ticket's final sales price before purchase, and strengthen enforcement of laws against ticket-buying bots
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Threads has 150M monthly users, 50% of Instagram time spent is on ReelsMeta shared some stats on the 3.24 billion people using its family of apps daily, a total that is up 7% year over year.....
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Digitakt II is here: Featuring stereo samples, RAM and storage boosts, and tons more goodiesElektron has lifted the veil on the highly-anticipated Digitakt II. As the follow-up to one of the most popular drum computers and samplers in the market, the Digitakt II faces some pretty high expectations.
Though certainly it looks poised to meet them, with a host of significant upgrades including support for stereo samples, increased ram and storage, an expanded sequencer, new filter machines and a ton more. Let’s dive into them below.

READ MORE: “The most advanced creative synthesizer ever”: Roland launches new FANTOM EX synth series

For starters, Digitakt II might feature a highly similar layout and user interface to the original Digitakt, but it offers a whole lot more power under its hood. Users now get 400 MB of sample memory – “enough memory for a lifetime of samples”, says Elektron – and a whopping 20 GB of internal memory as opposed to the original’s 1 GB.
Secondly, Digitakt II now supports 16 audio tracks as opposed to the eight audio and eight MIDI tracks on the original. Support for stereo samples has also arrived (finally!), and Elektron has doubled the maximum number of steps per pattern to an impressive 128.
In addition its beefy spec upgrades, the Digitakt II features five SRC “machines” – a concept introduced in last year’s OS 1.5 update for the original Digitakt – for you to choose from (Oneshot, Werp, Stretch, Repitch, and the new Grid which lets you slice samples into precise fragments). There are also five FLTR machines in the filter section: Multi-Mode, Low pass 4, Comb, Equalizer and Legacy LP/HP.
Users also get a filter envelope and a separate amp envelope of ADSR — for more definition and control, and AHD — ideal for those short barks of percussion. And with three LFOs per track, here’s the chance for you to go wild in modulation land.
For those who are all about workflow improvements, Digitakt II now allows you to gather your favourite sounds into Kits for quick access. ‘Perform Kit’ mode, inspired by a dash of Machinedrum magic, gives you the freedom to experiment with your kit without overwriting its saved state.
At $999 (versus the original’s $849), the Digitakt II does not come cheap, though the sampling community’s response to the release so far does look to be overwhelmingly positive.
“The original Digitakt is already one of the best and most flexible samplers and sample players out there and the Digitakt II improves on it in almost every way possible,” says synth reviewer and content creator Loopop of the new machine.
The new Digitakt also scores a point with YouTuber Captain Pikant, who says the upgrade is worth it for users who, like him, “really like working with single machine setups”.

Learn more at Elektron.
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Justice on their “beautiful rejection letter” to remixing Tame Impala song: “We couldn’t do anything to it”French electronic duo Justice are about to release their first project in nearly eight years, Hyperdrama. The album is set to host a flurry of guest appearances, most notably from Tame Impala.
The record features two tracks featuring the indie psychedelia wizard, but it’s not the first time Tame Impala – Kevin Parker – has tried to work with Justice. Parker actually wanted Justice to remix his 2012 track Elephant – but Justice refused to touch it.

READ MORE: “Every penny we make with Justice, we invest into stuff that’s not necessarily commercially viable”: Justice say every record they make renders them “bankrupt”

In a recent interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Justice admit that they thought the track was already perfect. “Before [the album] Lonerism came out, we received a remix request for Elephant,” Xavier de Rosnay recalls. “But we couldn’t do anything to it!”
Gaspard Augé chimes in, recalling the duo’s shock upon first hearing the track. “I remember [first hearing] Elephant… We weren’t jealous but we are like, ‘Wow!’,” he explains. De Rosnay jumps back in, adding “it’s very rare that everybody agrees about something [but] everybody was like ‘Okay this is so good.’”

As Lowe notes, the rejection was a “wonderful compliment” in disguise. Justice’s refusal to touch the track showed Tame Impala’s potential. Parker was only just releasing his sophomore record and he’d already been given the ultimate stamp of approval by electro legends.
Lowe also adds his own Parker praise. “I did a Future Music Tour and Tame Impala played the same stage as me and Mark Ronson,” he recalls. “Tame Impala was on very early [and drew in a] packed crowd… Me and Mark were like ‘Wow, thank you, because these people are going to stick around! You’ve given us all a great day!’”
In terms of Tame Impala’s work on Hyperdrama, the Justice duo say Kevin Parker had a lot of input on the production. “We wanted him to be a vocalist, but at the same time, everything was done hand in hand,” De Rosnay says. “From the moment he had an idea, we’d reconstruct everything around that. It was really an exchange.”
Justice’s Hyperdrama is out tomorrow. Tame Impala features on tracks Neverender and One Night/All Night.

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How to Sell Out More Shows at Independent VenuesBooking the gig is only half the journey... next you have to get people to the gig. Here are some tips that will help fill venues big and small.....
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How to promote a playlist: A Case StudyThis real-life case study showcases how a product – in this case, an indie playlist – moves through the marketing funnel, effectively engaging and converting consumers at each stage. from. Continue reading
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