“I almost didn’t want to finish it because I was having so much fun”: Jamie xx will release second album soon “if all things go to plan”Jamie xx has confirmed a new album is in the pipeline, and shared its first single, Baddy On The Floor. He’s also shared footage of him making the new single in his deliciously scenic London studio

READ MORE: “We’ve started making some music and I’m really excited about it”: Romy confirms The xx are back in the studio

Baddy On The Floor, made in collaboration with Chicago-born producer Honey Dijon, is a summer-ready funky house jam filled with jutting filtered vocals, a bulging bassline and loads of explosive disco samples. Listen to the track below:

The release of Baddy On The Floor, out now on Young – a sub-label of XL Recordings – coincides with a number of public appearances from the xx band leader, including a three-hour DJ set at week one of Coachella and a new interview on BBC Radio 1.
Presenter Jack Saunders interviewed Jamie xx on BBC Radio 1 on Monday 15 April, during which he hit play on the track for the first time in public and confirmed to Saunders that a much-anticipated second solo album is due to be released soon.
“I’ve been playing a lot of [this music] out at festivals over the past couple of years and this is the first thing,” says Jamie.
“First thing around… a record?” asks Saunders. “Yeah,” responds Jamie.
“So, we’re going to get our first Jamie xx album since In Colour in 2015?”
“Yes, if all things go to plan.”
Jamie admits that he does “feel pressure all the time” to release new music, but says that the Covid-19 lockdown offered him a chance to pause and “enjoy the process of making music”.
“One of the reasons this album took so long was because I almost didn’t want to finish it because I was having so much fun,” he tells Radio 1.
Alongside the revealing of the track, Jamie posted a video on Instagram of him creating it in his London studio. In it, Jamie tinkers with drool-worthy studio gear in a studio overlooking the city skyline. There are too many items to mention really, but it’s a vintage collector’s dream. Watch the clip below:

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A post shared by Jamie xx (@jamie___xx)

We’ll continue to feed you updates on Jamie xx’s second album, but in the meantime you can follow him on Bandcamp.
The post “I almost didn’t want to finish it because I was having so much fun”: Jamie xx will release second album soon “if all things go to plan” appeared first on MusicTech.

SOS Case Study: Focusrite Scarlett The latest addition to our recently introduced web article series is now available in the Case Study section of the SOS website.

Artist Manager on Release Strategy, Record Deals and the TikTok BanThis week, Ari is joined by Michele Harrison, founder of MPH Collective and artist manager

Nine Country Artists of Color to Check Out in the Wake of "Cowboy Carter"In light of the message sent by Beyoncé's recent smash "Cowboy Carter", here is a list of musicians of color who are asserting their rightful share in country music's heritage.

Waymo begins robotaxi testing in AtlantaWaymo, the self-driving company under Alphabet, began testing its robotaxis in Atlanta on Tuesday, adding another city to its ever-expanding testing and deployment domain. Over the next few months, Waymo will deploy a handful of cars driven manually by humans to gather mapping data and get familiar with Atlanta’s environment, Sandy Karp, a Waymo spokesperson, […]
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Recycling Wires for BreadboardingIt is easy to take things for granted, but if you work with students, you realize that even something as simple as a breadboard needs explanation. [0033mer] recently shared a tip about how he wires both solderless breadboards and prototype boards on the cheap. Instead of buying special wires, he salvages riser cables often found in scrap from demolished buildings. These often have 200 or so thin solid wires inside. You take them apart, and, as he put it, if you have 15 feet of the stuff, that will last you the rest of your life. We hope you live longer than that, but still.
One advantage to doing this is you don’t feel bad about cutting the wires exactly to length which makes for neat boards. He has a tiny stripper that make it easy to remove the insulation during installation.

Of course, you’ve probably been salvaging wires from many sources for years. Still, this is a good reminder that you really don’t need to buy that pack of breadboard jumpers from Amazon. Not only will it cost more, the ones with the little tips are not amenable to being cut to size.
We’ve done something similar for years, but we prefer thermal strippers. If you want your entire breadboard from scratch, search through some old magazines.

Warner Music Group job ad reveals initial details of its ‘superfan app’Warner Music Group is looking for a Senior Product Designer to work specifically on its superfan technology
Source

HYBE-owned Supertone’s new AI ‘voice changer’ lets artists change their vocals… in real-timeSupertone has launched the beta version of a new tool called  'Supertone Shift'
Source

The Next Evolution Of The Raspberry Pi Recovery KitAt Hackaday, the projects we cover are generally a one-off sort of thing. Somebody makes something, they post it online, we share it with our audience — rinse and repeat. If a project really captures people’s imaginations, it might even inspire a copy or two, which is gratifying for everyone involved. But on the rarest of occasions, we run across a project like [Jay Doscher]’s Recovery Kit.
To say that the Recovery Kit was an inspiration to others would be putting it mildly. Revolutionary would be more like it, as it resulted in more “Pi-in-a-Pelican” builds than we could possibly count. So it’s only natural that [Jay] would return to the well and produce a second version of his heavy-duty cyberdeck.

Now, technically, there have been a few other variants of the original Recovery Kit since its release in 2019, such as the easier-to-build Quick Kit. If you want to get really technical, even the Recovery Kit is actually a do-over of sorts from his original Raspberry Pi Field Unit from 2015. But [Jay] says none of the minor refreshes or revisions he’s worked on were never substantial enough to get the official “Version 2” stamp before this one.

So, what’s changed in this new version? For one thing, it’s been optimized for reproduction by others. All the pain points that folks reported while building their own Recovery Kits have been addressed, from the time it takes to print the parts to the availability of key off-the-shelf components. Not only are the parts easier to get your hands on, but they’re also easier to assemble, with the soldered links of the original now replaced with push-on connectors.
Designed around the Raspberry Pi 5, the new Recovery Kit has also received a considerable performance boost over the previous versions. This is further extended by using a bootable NVME drive rather than the dinky SD cards most Pi builds are stuck with. Despite the computational kick in the pants, [Jay] says he’s realized that the relatively low resolutions available for the type of displays that can be crammed into a build like this are pretty poor for most graphical environments and recommends the user stick to the terminal.
In addition to the lengthy write-up about the design process behind the Recovery Kit Version Two, [Jay] has provided a comprehensive parts list with links to where you can pick up your own hardware. Having been burned by hard-to-source components in the past, this time, most of the hardware is from either Amazon or McMaster-Carr.

All in all, it’s a solid refinement of an already very well-engineered design. The only thing left now is to see if this new revision of the Recovery Kit can have the same impact on the community as its predecessor. No pressure.
 

Revolutionary Career Platform for Live Event Industry GIGGS Announces Official Public LaunchGIGGS is the premier career platform for the live event industry. In the world of live event production, the right connections determine one’s career. Whether you’re seeking your next gig or hiring top-tier talent, GIGGS is revolutionizing the industry landscape and is becoming the ultimate gateway for industry opportunities and career progression.

Just five months post-beta launch, GIGGS has amassed 10,000 users and over 150 job posts and hires. Backed by significant capital investment and support from leading names in the touring industry, GIGGS has honed a solution for the live event industry’s employment needs, creating an efficient, streamlined process for hiring industry professionals.

Industry vet and Nashville Briefing 30 Under 30 awardee NIKKI SANZ founded GIGGS after witnessing first-hand the industry’s challenges and inefficiencies, most notably working on the road with artists including Eric Church and George Strait, on top of working various other live gigs and staffing tours. GIGGS reimagines the traditional, fragmented gigging landscape into a centralized platform for vetted touring professionals and companies to find jobs, hire, and connect.

"I've experienced the inefficiencies plaguing the hiring processes of the live event industry,” says SANZ. “GIGGS helps save executive time spent on inefficient word-of-mouth hiring methods. Employers can directly connect with a vetted, skilled workforce to find the exact talent they need, when they need it. It's not just about filling positions; it's about optimizing time and resources to focus on what truly matters – load in and out on time, and a flawless show!”

Gone are the days when someone’s next career move depended on who they knew. GIGGS is tearing down these barriers. Qualified live event professionals now have access to a world of opportunities that were once out of reach.

“GIGGS streamlines hiring for production companies, tour management, venues, artist managers, and live event organizers by offering vetted, top-tier professionals,” adds SANZ. “We aim to ensure that only qualified candidates apply to jobs. It's about efficiency, quality, and connecting the right people to bring creative visions to life."

Benn Jordan “needs to hear” Sexual Eruption by Snoop Dogg during soundchecksWhat’s your go-to soundcheck song when checking and tuning a PA? Something you know well, right? Something that’s going to test the sound system, perhaps? Well, Benn Jordan has revealed his soundcheck song of choice… Sexual Eruption by Snoop Dogg.

READ MORE: “It doesn’t come for free”: Twitch CEO says DJs will soon have to share revenue from streams with labels

The peculiar soundcheck song of choice, which also has a censored version called Sensual Seduction, was revealed during the latest episode of My Forever Studio, a MusicTech podcast in which producers, musicians and artists discuss their dream studio setup.
In the episode, Jordan, a music journalist and musician as part of the band The Flashbulb, tells hosts Chris Barker and Will Betts about his process for achieving the right acoustics in the studio.
He and Barker agree that playing a familiar, uniquely mixed track through low-budget monitors, while turning up the subwoofer, is often the best way to identify any frequency issues, emphasising the importance of getting subliminally tuned into how music sounds on the monitors, regardless of their quality.
“Snoop Dogg’s Sexual Eruption is my go-to song when I tour,” adds Jordan.
“That song is mixed kind of weird. Like, there’s a bass and a sub-bass beneath that. And if you have any sort of crossover from your monitors to that subwoofer, it always shows up in that song to me.

“So that song’s always my go-to when tuning an audio system,” he says. “Even on tour, which is really funny, because every sound check, I would play Sexual Eruption for my soundcheck, and they’d be like, ‘don’t you want to, like, play?’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, I got my mixer up here. As long as the monitors work, I’m fine. But I need to hear Sexual Eruption out there to make sure that we don’t have muddy bass.’”
“You’ve got promoters going, ‘Are you sure we booked the right guy?’” Laughs Barker.
What makes a song suitable for sound-checking?
For musicians, a good soundcheck song is like a sonic blueprint, ensuring every instrument and voice is finely tuned for the performance ahead. It’s about dynamic range, covering deep bass to crisp highs, while representing the full spectrum of instruments and vocal types.
Consistency is key; no sudden volume jumps or instrumentation changes. The song should be just the right length – long enough for thorough adjustments but not overly time-consuming. Familiarity helps performers assess sound quality effectively. Flexibility is also pretty crucial; the song should span various musical styles and dynamics to fine-tune settings for different performance sections.
My Forever Studio is a weekly MusicTech podcast, created in partnership with Audient, on which guests in the form of artists, producers and musicians are asked to reveal their dream music studio. There’s no going back with the space, location choice and contents they include, and each guest’s only allowed to include six items. It may sound like an easy decision, but it’s really not.
Listen to the full episode with Benn Jordan below:

Find all episodes of My Forever Studio on MusicTech.
The post Benn Jordan “needs to hear” Sexual Eruption by Snoop Dogg during soundchecks appeared first on MusicTech.

Fuse Audio Labs introduce VCE-118 The latest processor to join Fuse Audio Labs’ software collection aims to offer something a little different that stands out from the crowd.

Get Excite Audio’s VISION 4X Lite or Audified’s U78 Saturator totally free with any purchase at Plugin BoutiqueDo you like free plugins? Well, have we got some information that’s about to make your day.
Over at Plugin Boutique for a limited time only, you can pick up either Excite Audio’s VISION 4X Lite visual audio analyser or Audified’s U78 Saturator totally free with any qualified purchase. And in this case, “qualified” literally means any paid product on the whole Plugin Boutique store.

READ MORE: Oeksound Bloom is one of the best plugins in its category – despite being more expensive

So if you’ve had your eye on a new plugin or two to add to your sonic arsenal, why not add VISION 4X Lite or Audified U78 – normally priced at $59 and $39, respectively – completely free?
To whet your appetite a little, VISION 4X Lite is a powerful visual audio analysis plugin developed in partnership with Dutch electronic music trio Noisia. It features 10 colour maps for “maximum information density”, customisable frequency and dB ranges for spectral analysis, Freeze Display and Zoom-In functionality for deeper visualisation and loads more.

Meanwhile, Audified’s U78 is a simple but effective saturation tool, with a modelled tube circuit for analogue character and sound, and a simple control set with pots for gain, hi- and low-pass filters, tone and wet-to-dry mix ratio. Saturation is an excellent way to add character and sonic interest to tracks, so every producer should have a reliable saturation tool in their arsenal. Here’s your chance.

Like we say, to bag either VISION 4X Lite or the Audified U78, you simply need to buy something else from the Plugin Boutique store. That could mean you buy the lowest price item you can find just to get the free plugin, but you didn’t hear that from us.
This deal runs until the end of the month (30 April) so act fast to reap the rewards. 
For more info, head to Plugin Boutique.
The post Get Excite Audio’s VISION 4X Lite or Audified’s U78 Saturator totally free with any purchase at Plugin Boutique appeared first on MusicTech.

Live Nation faces DoJ antitrust suit as indie festivals, venues struggleA U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation ( (LYV.N) and its Ticketmaster subsidy is just weeks away, sources tell the Wall Street Journal.....
The post Live Nation faces DoJ antitrust suit as indie festivals, venues struggle appeared first on Hypebot.

A test Spotify Showcase nets astoundingly disappointing results [Brian Hazard]Music promotion pro and musician Brain Hazard tested Spotify’s Showcase and Marquee marketing features so you don’t have to. by Brian Hazard of Passive Promotion Last month I wrote about how Spotify. Continue reading
The post A test Spotify Showcase nets astoundingly disappointing results [Brian Hazard] appeared first on Hypebot.