Spotify Editors discuss what makes a Classic Album in the streaming eraWhat makes a classic album in the streaming era from 2015 to the present? Industry insiders join Spotify editors to discuss how albums were chosen for Spotify's new CLASSICS’s classic hip-hop and R&B Albums of the Streaming Era list.,,
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Tiffany Red shines light on unfair songwriter and publishing splitsMany artists, including big names like Beyonce, have been accused of stealing undeserved and unearned publishing splits. Tiffany Red is calling them out......
The post Tiffany Red shines light on unfair songwriter and publishing splits appeared first on Hypebot.

Why all musicians need an Artist IDEver wonder how streaming platforms sort artists and songs with the same name? That's where artist IDs come in. Let's dive in to how you artists can navigate and utilize their own ID...
The post Why all musicians need an Artist ID appeared first on Hypebot.

Music creators – take our survey!MIDiA is fielding its annual music creator survey and if you are a music creator we would like you to take part. Whether you are a songwriter, artist, producer, engineer, vocalist, DJ, instrumentalist, soundtrack composer, or whatever you may be, we want to hear from you. This is an opportunity for you to have your voice heard on some of the most important issues facing music creators in today’s industry. 

On top of that, all participants will receive full access to the results of the survey so you can benchmark yourself against your peers. You will be able to compare against the industry average for things like workflows, tools used, income mix, challenges faced, platforms used, etcetera. It is a great opportunity to get a sense of how you are doing and learning about how other creators are carving out their careers, too.

If you need any further persuasion, all respondents will be entered into a prize draw of five $100 prizes.

All responses will be treated as strictly confidential. We will never present or even analyse your individual responses. Instead, they will be aggregated into the survey totals along with hundreds of other respondents.

Just follow this link to complete the survey.

REZZ breaks down new track ‘Can You See Me’ and gives studio tourFuture bass producer REZZ has given fans a glimpse into her red-lit creative lair in Toronto, where she makes her music.

READ MORE: “There’s 800 ways to skin the DJ cat”: Deadmau5 on the why DJing is more than just a live performance

From the depths of her converted shed studio, with Medusa’s decapitated head overseeing the process, the Canadian DJ unravels how she created her new track Can You See Me? in a new clip posted to YouTube.
In terms of equipment, REZZ’s mixing station is stripped-back, with eight-and-a-half-inch JBL studio monitors, a Focusrite Scarlet Solo sound card, and Sol Republic headphones. She’s also working on Ableton Live. It’s a setup she calls “minimal,” but it is clearly effective.
She starts the track breakdown with the drums: “The drums in my opinion have a very industrial feel, which is sort of the vibe that I’m going for this project,” she explains. “For the clap and the snare… there’s two layers. It gives it that punch, and then the layer underneath has this sort of reverb. [It makes an] atmospheric sounding snare clap.”

FabFilter’s Saturn saturation plugin also helped REZZ fine-tune the track’s drums. “I use a preset on it called Basic Saturator,” she explains. “It makes the kick sound fatter, and there’s a slight distortion to it.” As she plays the drum track, you can hear the ‘fat’ quality – it feels impossibly atmospheric, like an ominous wasteland.
As REZZ explains, the key ingredient when constructing Can You See Me?’s haunting sound was layering. Much like the drumming tracks, the vocal tracks are also layered to heighten the unsettling, twisted sensation of the track.
After playing a set of whispered vocals in isolation, REZZ explains “I felt like I needed some atmosphere, some reverb, so I created a different version to layer it.” The multiple vocal layers vary from light, ghostly whispers, to frazzled, scratchy howls of “Can you hear me?”.  The contrasting whispers and more frantic vocals add an unnerving quality to the track, an undercurrent of panic.

“I’m not really notorious for using any of my own vocals on my tracks,” REZZ goes on to explain. “This is what I consider to be the first debut of my vocals on a track. and I’m actually super stoked about how it sounded!”
Pitching down and twisting previous sounds used on the track served as the finishing touch. With industrial samples, and rehashing previous drum samples, amping up the BPM to 156 for the climax, the track is a whirl of disorienting mental horror. At times throughout the creation process, REZZ admits she was thinking “am I literally all right or should I be in the psych ward?”
While REZZ is incredibly DIY-minded, she’s a lover of presets. In her eyes, they help artists create their own sounds, giving them a foundation to build upon. “This is a Serum preset – there’s nothing wrong with using presets, I like to use a preset and then I like to edit it afterwards, sort of make it my own,” she says.
REZZ is always ensuring tracks are wholeheartedly ‘her own’, taking a hands-on approach to her mixing. “I always mix as I go,” she asserts. “The only time I ever get someone else to mix or master my tracks is if it’s a collaboration with someone and I trust their judgement, like deadmau5… He’s such a genius with mixing and mastering. I just, like, let him do it.”
The track comes as the second taste of REZZ’s 14th March release, Can You See Me?. Considering REZZ has said the record is set to be her “heaviest yet”, we’re sure the record will have many other treats in store.
Subscribe to REZZ on YouTube.
The post REZZ breaks down new track ‘Can You See Me’ and gives studio tour appeared first on MusicTech.

Lumina Delay by Mountainroad DSP Rather than relying on knobs and buttons, Lumina Delay allows users to plot delay taps and control their parameters using an intuitive visual interface.

Hit’n’Mix’s AI DAW, RipX: Forget everything you thought you knew about unmixing musicRipX DAW £99
RipX DAW Pro £198
hitnmix.com
Once in a while, a product arrives that changes the scope of what is possible when working with audio. And though these tools often seem to appear from nowhere, they are, in reality, almost always the result of years of development. So it is with Hit’n’Mix’s RipX DAW, which has hit its stride in parallel with the current frenzy of interest in AI, even though in many cases machine learning is just as important a part of the technology behind how these things operate.

READ MORE: Is DJ Studio the perfect DAW for DJs?

What is RipX DAW?
It’s a DAW but doesn’t look or feel like what you might conventionally call one – such as Logic Pro, Cubase or Live.
With RipX, there’s no attempt to emulate a mixing console or a suite of outboard effects; the focus instead is on manipulating sound in completely new ways. You’d need to break the bank to get the same results with other software. And truthfully, there is stuff here that just wasn’t possible before, at all. You’ll find an exhaustive list of features on the website but instead of listing them in this review, we’re getting under the skin of what this software is and what it can do for you.
RipX DAW harmonic edit
How to use RipX DAW
You can load any audio file into the DAW and it will be converted into the proprietary Rip format, with the option to extract different types of sound like vocals, drums, bass and so on. Or, you can simply separate out the stems and quickly move them to a folder — ideal for remixers.
The speed of file analysis depends on your machine. On a 16-inch 2019 Intel MacBook Pro, 8-core 2.3GHz i9 with 16GB RAM, it’s about twice the duration of the track but Hit’n’Mix tells us the neural engines on M-powered Apple computers greatly speed things up, as will more powerful graphics cards on Windows machines.
RipX DAW also makes heavy demands of these components in general use, so a powerful machine will help immensely.
Audio is ripped into its constituent parts, a sort of mixture of a MIDI or Melodyne-like display, only across multiple layers and representing the whole duration of the track. On first use, it’s a little disorienting because it is a genuinely new way to look at and work with sound, though it quickly becomes familiar. The science behind what’s happening is very complex and, honestly, it’s not necessary to really understand how it works, rather that it just does.
RipX DAW ripping
The layers are named based on their contents and it’s possible to rename them, duplicate, delete or add new ones — everything is very fluid once it’s in the Rip format.
RipX’s audio separation is incredibly accurate. As a producer, your first instinct might be to feed it some classic tracks — this is exactly what we did. We mixed stereo tracks by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Underworld. The results are seriously impressive, with the software isolating each element with uncanny precision. Occasionally, minor ghosting can be heard but only when a source is soloed, and this isn’t audible when played with other sounds. But it’s incredible to be able to hear just the rhythm tracks of some absolute classic, to punch the bass and vocals in and out.
As Hit’n’Mix notes, beyond just being a thrill this has serious practical uses. You can create backing tracks where no original stems exist. You can learn to play a part in isolation, replace or remove tracks from mixed stereo files, or see a keyboard-based representation of chords and notes for any element of a track.
It’s possible to export stems as audio or as MIDI, strip a loop down to its constituent parts to sample a beat where no soloed section exists or take sounds to use as the basis for building virtual instruments. You can record directly into new layers using new sounds, or from a MIDI device.
RipX DAW export
And we’re not even into the granular editing capabilities yet.
Select any note or group of notes on any layer and you have complete control over their pitch, timing, effects, mix and more. RipX’s tools let you perform all sorts of actions, like creating harmonies or quantising pitch.
The Pro version of the software has more sound design and repair tools like the ability to isolate voices from noisy backgrounds, edit background sounds independently, clone audio attributes between notes, clean and repair tracks quickly and so on.
The developers also told us about the increasing use of AI-generated music and RipX DAW’s capabilities for editing and enhancing it. There’s a link from the main screen to some online music generators should you wish to explore this more. Essentially, it’s similar to what you would do with a more conventional music track in terms of deconstructing it, though presumably without any of the possible attendant copyright issues.
RipX DAW stems
Should you get RipX DAW?
RipX DAW is a remarkable piece of software. With a 21-day free trial and a purchase price of just £98, it’s ludicrously accessible — especially considering this stuff has been the holy grail for remixers and sound designers for years. Although we have seen others make moves recently in the area of stem separation, notably FL Studio and Serato, the tools on offer here are on a different level.
Granted, it’s a whole new paradigm and does require a little learning instead of being directly integrated into your familiar existing DAW, but then it’s also much more powerful. It will be useful for all sorts of people — for pulling a song apart to hear how parts were played, to remix and enhance music you finished years ago and have no source stems for. For mashups and remixes, or to repair sources that are beyond help by more conventional methods. Need to remix a stereo track in surround or quickly grab an acapella? No problem either.
It’s possible that you won’t delve into its considerable depths unless you’re doing some really forensic stuff but they are there nonetheless. The sheer magic of rendering mixed audio this flexibly opens up entirely new worlds of possibility and truthfully, despite its somewhat clinical feel, the software is fun to use.
Whether you work entirely inside it or import and export material between here and a more familiar DAW and suite of plugins, RipX DAW is an invaluable addition to any music or post-production setup.
RipX DAW layers
Key features

macOS or PC standalone application
AI and machine learning-powered audio analysis and separation
Rip format provides per-note access
Audio cleanup and repair tools in Pro version
Edit pitch, tempo and more
Create harmonies
Layer-based system
Import and export in multiple formats
Extract audio parts to MIDI
Harmonic Editor

The post Hit’n’Mix’s AI DAW, RipX: Forget everything you thought you knew about unmixing music appeared first on MusicTech.

Hit’n’Mix announce RipX DAW for Apple Vision Pro Hit’n’Mix have revealed plans for a version of RipX DAW that will be compatible with Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

New U-He Zebralette 3 Public Beta #plugin #PluginsNews #VST at #KVRAudio
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=607153

I really like Zebra synth.

The world’s first spatial and 3D AI DAW is coming to Apple Vision ProImmersive audio DAW developer Hit’n’Mix has announced the forthcoming release of an Apple Vision Pro-dedicated version of its RipX spatial audio DAW and, to be frank, it looks bloody awesome.

READ MORE: Moog’s Apple Vision Pro Animoog Galaxy softsynth is a “multidimensional sonic, visual and spatial experience”

The innovative Vision Pro app, created especially for the recently launched augmented reality headset, gives you a 3D DAW that you can operate with hand gestures, removing the need for a mouse or keyboard.
In RipX DAW, distance plays a crucial role in creating an immersive music-making experience. Instruments are presented in a fully editable note format – no waveforms –, distinguished by their spatial placement, allowing users to interact with different elements based on their distance. According to Hit’n’Mix, you can walk around and interact with the melody while it plays through you, just like it’s really there.

Martin DAW, Hit’n’Mix CEO and the creator of RipX DAW, says in a press release: “One of our aims in recent years has been to not only create an AI DAW that simplifies and de-clutters the music-making experience but to also innovate within the fledgling virtual music-making space.
“So, whilst we are delighted that RipX DAW is gaining recognition as the best and only AI DAW of its kind, we are excited to announce that soon, with Apple Vision Pro, RipX DAW will also offer a completely new, interactive, compositional experience, giving users much more freedom to view and create music in their chosen surroundings – all utilising our unique, note-based Rip audio format.”
Credit: Hit’n’Mix
The DAW will also offer integrated MIDI and audio functionality, advanced stem/instrument separation capabilities, direct customisation from AI Music Generators, and intuitive note-based editing with color-coded visuals.
You can also import background images to enhance the creative environment of the DAW, making it a more immersive, exciting music-making experience.
RipX DAW for Vision Pro has no confirmed launch date yet. Find out more at Hit’n’Mix.
The post The world’s first spatial and 3D AI DAW is coming to Apple Vision Pro appeared first on MusicTech.

Play it again, SpirioSeated at the grand piano in MIT’s Killian Hall last fall, first-year student Jacqueline Wang played through the lively opening of Mozart’s “Sonata in B-flat major, K.333.” When she’d finished, Mi-Eun Kim, pianist and lecturer in MIT’s Music and Theater Arts Section (MTA), asked her to move to the rear of the hall. Kim tapped at an iPad. Suddenly, the sonata she'd just played poured forth again from the piano — its keys dipping and rising just as they had with Wang’s fingers on them, the resonance of its strings filling the room. Wang stood among a row of empty seats with a slightly bemused expression, taking in a repeat of her own performance.

“That was a little strange,” Wang admitted when the playback concluded, then added thoughtfully: “It sounds different from what I imagine I’m playing.”

This unusual lesson took place during a nearly three-week residency at MIT of the Steinway Spirio | r, a piano embedded with technology for live performance capture and playback. “The residency offered students, faculty, staff, and campus visitors the opportunity to engage with this new technology through a series of workshops that focused on such topics as the historical analysis of piano design, an examination of the hardware and software used by the Spirio | r, and step-by-step guidance of how to use the features,” explains Keeril Makan, head of MIT Music and Theater Arts and associate dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
Wang was one of several residency participants to have the out-of-body experience of hearing herself play from a different vantage point, while watching the data of her performance scroll across a screen: color-coded rectangles indicating the velocity and duration of each note, an undulating line charting her use of the damper pedal. Wang was even able to edit her own performance, as she discovered when Kim suggested her rhythmic use of the pedal might be superfluous. Using the iPad interface to erase the pedaling entirely, they listened to the playback again, the notes gaining new clarity.

“See? We don’t need it,” Kim confirmed with a smile.

“When MIT’s new music building (W18) opens in spring 2025, we hope it will include this type of advanced technology. It would add value not just to Wang’s cohort of 19 piano students in the Emerson/Harris Program, which provides a total of 71 scholars and fellows with support for conservatory-level instruction in classical, jazz, and world music. But could also offer educational opportunities to a much wider swath of the MIT community,” says Makan. “Music is the fifth-most popular minor at MIT; 1,700 students enroll in music and theater arts classes each semester, and the Institute is brimming with vocalists, composers, instrumentalists, and music history students.”

According to Kim, the Spirio enables insights beyond what musicians could learn from a conventional recording; hearing playback directly from the instrument reveals sonic dimensions an MP3 can’t capture. “Speaker systems sort of crunch everything down — the highs and the lows, they all kind of sound the same. But piano solo music is very dynamic. It’s supposed to be experienced in a room,” she says.

During the Spirio | r residency, students found they could review their playing at half speed, adjust the volume of certain notes to emphasize a melody, transpose a piece to another key, or layer their performance — prerecording one hand, for example, then accompanying it live with the other.

“It helps the student be part of the learning and the teaching process,” Kim says. “If there’s a gap between what they imagined and what they hear and then they come to me and say, ‘How do I fix this?’ they’re definitely more engaged. It’s an honest representation of their playing, and the students who are humbled by it will become better pianists.”

For Wang, reflecting on her lesson with Kim, the session introduced an element she’d never experienced since beginning her piano studies at age 5. “The visual display of how long each key was played and with what velocity gave me a more precise demonstration of the ideas of voicing and evenness,” Wang says. “Playing the piano is usually dependent solely on the ears, but this combines with the auditory experience a visual experience and statistics, which helped me get a more holistic view of my playing.”

As a first-year undergraduate considering a Course 6 major (electrical engineering and computer science, or EECS), Wang was also fascinated to watch Patrick Elisha, a representative from Steinway dealer M. Steinert & Sons, disassemble the piano action to point out the optical sensors that measure the velocity of each hammer strike at 1,020 levels of sensitivity, sampled 800 times per second.

“I was amazed by the precision of the laser sensors and inductors,” says Wang. “I have just begun to take introductory-level courses in EECS and am just coming across these concepts, and this certainly made me more excited to learn more about these electrical devices and their applications. I was also intrigued that the electrical system was added onto the piano without interfering with the mechanical structure, so that when we play the Spirio, our experience with the touch and finger control was just like that of playing a usual Steinway.”

Another Emerson/Harris scholar, Víctor Quintas-Martínez, a PhD candidate in economics who resumed his lapsed piano studies during the Covid-19 pandemic, visited Killian Hall during the residency to rehearse a Fauré piano quartet with a cellist, violist, and violinist. “We did a run of certain passages and recorded the piano part. Then I listened to the strings play with the recording from the back of the hall. That gave me an idea of what I needed to adjust in terms of volume, texture, pedal, etc., to achieve a better balance. Normally, when you’re playing, because you’re sitting behind the strings and close to the piano, your perception of balance may be somewhat distorted,” he notes.

Kim cites another campus demographic ripe for exploring these types of instruments like the Spirio | r and its software: future participants in MIT’s relatively new Music Technology Master's Program, along with others across the Institute whose work intersects with the wealth of data the instrument captures. Among them is Praneeth Namburi, a research scientist at the MIT.nano Immersion Lab. Typically, Namburi focuses his neuroscience expertise on the biomechanics of dancing and expert movement. For two days during the MTA/Spirio residency, he used the sensors at the Immersion Lab, along with those of the Spirio, to analyze how pianists use their bodies.

“We used motion capture that can help us contrast the motion paths of experts such as Mi-Eun from those of students, potentially aiding in music education,” Namburi recounts, “force plates that can give scientific insights into how movement timing is organized, and ultrasound to visualize the forearm tissues during playing, which can potentially help us understand musicianship-related injuries.”

“The encounter between MTA and MIT.nano was something unique to MIT,” Kim believes. “Not only is this super useful for the music world, but it’s also very exciting for movement researchers, because playing piano is one of the most complex activities that humans do with our hands.”

In Kim’s view, that quintessentially human complexity is complemented by these kinds of technical possibilities. “Some people might think oh, it's going to replace the pianist,” she says. “But in the end it is a tool. It doesn’t replace all of the things that go into learning music. I think it's going to be an invaluable third partner: the student, the teacher, and the Spirio — or the musician, the researcher, and the Spirio. It's going to play an integral role in a lot of musical endeavors.”

Genre Just Ain't What It Used to BeSometimes an artist can't be neatly boxed into one genre, and this phenomenon is continually more frequent as time passes. While there have always been artists who blend influences from various parts of the music world, the meaning and influence of genre is rapidly changing.

House punts on AI with directionless new task forceThe House of Representatives has founded a Task Force on artificial intelligence that will “ensure America Keeps leading in this strategic area,” as Speaker Mike Johnson put it. But the announcement feels more like a punt after years of indecision that show no sign of ending. In a way this task force — chaired by […]
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Silo Music Hosts Women In Sync Mixer To Celebrate Placements In Film/TVSilo Music recently held a “Women In Sync Winter Mixer” to bring women of the sync community together and kick off 2024, celebrating their success in film, television, advertising and video game music placement.

(left to right): Liddy Clark (Silo) and Hannah Oldfield (Position Music)

The evening was hosted by Liddy Clark of SILO Music and Hannah Oldfield of Position Music and attended by industry notables from Netflix, NBC Universal, Paramount, Format, Sony, Warner Chappell, Captitol, Motown and Decca Music Group (amongst others). 

In speaking about the evening, Liddy Clark comments: "We created this event to provide a collaborative environment for other ladies in the music sync industry. It started with 10 people in my apartment living room last year, and as more people heard about it, we've grown to over 60 people attending the SILO Music office! It's a fantastic way to get to know other women in the space and foster new connections and friendships." 

(left to right) Danica Bates (Paramount), Kristina Iwankiw (The Elements Music), Tori Gonzales (NBC)

Believe praises TikTok, says platform offers ‘valuable monetization for our artists and labels’Denis Ladegaillerie, founder and CEO of Believe, makes statement in reaction to UMG and ByteDance's public falling-out
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