Cake sought deals with Harley-Davidson, automakers before bankruptcyElectric motorcycle company Cake held talks with Harley-Davidson and other automakers in 2023 as it fought to stay alive, founder and CEO Stefan Ytterborn told TechCrunch in an interview Tuesday. The talks, which have not been previously reported, ultimately did not pan out for the Swedish startup, which slid into bankruptcy last week. Still, Ytterborn […]
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The Lion King at Segerstrom Center for the ArtsFor more than 20 years, the North American touring productions of The Lion King have beenseen by over 21 million theatergoers. Having already played more than 9,000 performances inover 90 cities across North America, The Lion King now returns to Costa Mesa, CA at theSegerstrom Center for the Arts.

The production features Peter Hargrave as “Scar,” Gerald Ramsey as “Mufasa,” Mukelisiwe Goba as “Rafiki,” Nick Cordileone as “Timon,” Nick LaMedica as “Zazu,” John E. Brady as “Pumbaa,” Darian Sanders as “Simba,” Khalifa White as “Nala,” Forest VanDyke as “Banzai,” Martina Sykes as “Shenzi” and Robbie Swift as “Ed,” with “Young Simba” alternating between Mason Lawson and Julian Villela and the role of “Young Nala” alternates between Jaxyn Damasco and Aniya Simone.

Photo-by-Matthew-Murphy

Now spanning three decades since the original 1994 animated film, the legacy of The Lion King--story, music, performances, adaptations--transcends generations. What is so unique to experiencing the Lion King musical live and in-person, is that the audience is transported to the Sahara and Pride Rock through the scale of its sets, beauty and artisanship in the costumes, and especially the authenticity of the African inspiration with additions of traditional songs chanted in Swahili.

From Rafiki's opening call to usher in "The Circle of Life," the theater welcomes the animals: puppeteered gazelles, antelopes, flying birds, stilt-driven giraffes and the multi-manned (though the cast is largely balanced and diverse) elephants, all entering from every aisle to see the presentation of protagonist Simba. If lucky enough, try to select a seat near an aisle to fully appreciate the details of the animal characters who will sing and interact as they make their way to and from the stage. The humanity under the masks is what keeps The Lion King compelling and timeless.

Photo-by-Deen-van-Meer

Photo-by-Joan-Marcus

In Costa Mesa, The Lion King will play Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 PM, Saturdays at2:00 PM and 7:30 PM, and Sundays at 1:00 PM and 6:30 PM.

Tickets are available at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts Box Office, by calling (714) 556-2787 Monday-Friday 10 AM to 5 PM, or at SCFTA.org.

Photo-by-Matthew-Murphy

MOTU UltraLite-mk5 gains Wi-Fi access & control room features MOTU have announced the release of a firmware update and new ‘Gen 5’ driver that equips their popular UltraLite-mk5 audio interface with significant new features.

Spotify’s spat with Apple, its new deal with Joe Rogan and further cost-cutting: 3 things we learned on the company’s latest earnings callSpotify would be experimenting with a variety of payment models, were it not for the Apple Store’s so-called “app tax,” Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek said on the company’s latest earnings call. Asked whether Spotify was looking to move beyond its “all-you-can-eat” pricing model – i.e., a monthly flat fee for access to the … Continued
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Four big music takeaways from Spotify’s Q4 earnings callWhile Spotify’s Q4 earnings call focused more on podcasts, audiobooks, and bottom-line numbers than music, there were still some critical music-related takeaways. MORE: Spotify passes 602 Million Monthly Active Users. Continue reading
The post Four big music takeaways from Spotify’s Q4 earnings call appeared first on Hypebot.

The music sync industry is headed for an iceberg. It needs an upgrade.Sync veteran Tom Stingemore on why his industry is operating inefficiently and needs to change
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Spotify passes 602 Million Monthly Active UsersSpotify added 28 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs), including 10 million paid users, in the last three months, the second-largest-ever Q4 gain. Spotify stock was up as much as 7%. Continue reading
The post Spotify passes 602 Million Monthly Active Users appeared first on Hypebot.

Luminate acquires Artist ID database QuansicMusic and entertainment data provider Luminate, whose clients include Billboard and its popular Charts, has acquired Quansic, a global music artist identification service. France-based Quansic says it has the world’s. Continue reading
The post Luminate acquires Artist ID database Quansic appeared first on Hypebot.

Spitfire Audio launch Crystal Bowls by Aska Matsumiya Crystal Bowls by Aska Matsumiya combines recordings of the high-purity quartz bowls played with traditional and modern techniques.

Wait for the drop: An organ playing a 639-year-long piece of music has changed chordAn organ playing the longest and slowest piece of music in the world has changed chord for the first time in two years.
Legendary avant-garde musician John Cage composed the piece, titled As Slow as Possible, and it plays on a specially-built organ at the Burchardi Church in the town of Halberstadt in Germany in 2001. It won’t finish playing until 2640, 616 years away – to give an idea of how far away that is, 1408 was 616 years ago and Henry IV ruled England.

READ MORE: Hammond B-3 organ creators launch ultra-portable M-Solo

Since 2001, the piece has had just 16 chord changes. It began with 18 months of silence, and the first notes were only made in 2003. Before yesterday (5 February) the last time the chord changed was exactly two years before, on 5 February 2022. It’s been reported that people booked tickets years in advance to hear the chord change in person. To make the change, volunteers inserted another pipe into the mechanical organ.
The organ was designed using an electronic wind machine to push air into the pipes, with sand bags pressing down the keys to create a drone-like sound.
According to the website of the project, the next chord change is expected to be on 5 August 2026.
The piece’s score comprises eight pages of music, and it’s designed to be played on either the piano or the organ. While it’s meant to be played as slowly as possible, Cage never specified an exact tempo. While this current performance will still be going on centuries after anyone involved is around, the piece lasted just under half an hour when it premiered in 1987.
However, performances that followed would last longer – one 2009 performance from organist Diane Luchese lasted 14 hours and 56 minutes. Long, certainly, but still not quite the six centuries it’s taking to play it at the moment. It was born from a meeting of musicians and philosophers after Cage’s death in 1992.
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The audio industry is “overrun with antiquated and costly processes”, and AudioStack – an AI-powered startup that’s just secured £2.5m in funding – wants to change thatAudioStack – a London-based GenAI-powered startup specialising in innovative audio tools for enterprises – has raised £2,500,000 in a pre-Series A funding round to shake up the audio production market.
The company offers an end-to-end platform for enterprises, with the capability to scale audio production without losing any quality. Users can create audio assets quickly, giving them better quality audio that’s based on voice, language, and call-to-action, and cutting the turnaround time for audio production down to hours or potentially minutes.

READ MORE: Researchers claim to have invented a better version of Auto-Tune that uses AI

As stated in a press release, AudioStack is “disrupting an industry overrun with manual, antiquated, and costly processes, but is now experiencing significant change as AI permeates audio production”.
Co-founder Dr. Timo Kunz has said that the funding round allows it to “accelerate our global expansion and intensify focus on successful business cases.”
He continued, “This funding round will enable us to continue our global growth and double down on the business cases that are working so well: We have been helping our customers realise enormous savings throughout their creative processes while enabling them to massively scale the output of their production to levels they never dreamed of, allowing us to supercharge creativity.”
The company, which was founded in 2019 by Kunz, Peadar Coyle and Björn Ühss, is working with huge ad agencies including Monicom and Publicis, publishers such as Acast and iHeart, and massive brands like McDonald’s, Mountain Dew, and Porsche.
This round of pre-Series A investment, led by London-based capital market company Quadri Ventures, was backed by the likes of angel investor Fred Destin and media investor Alexis van de Wyer.
Van de Wyer said, “There is huge market potential for AudioStack and this pre-Series A round will build on the impressive momentum the team have already achieved. I know from experience that large brands and agencies are crying out for a solution to the problems that hold back audio production.”
According to Andrew Drylie, Principal at Quadri Ventures, Bloomberg predicts that digital ads driven by GenAI will grow to a huge $192 billion by 2032, which shows the potential of AudioStack.
The post The audio industry is “overrun with antiquated and costly processes”, and AudioStack – an AI-powered startup that’s just secured £2.5m in funding – wants to change that appeared first on MusicTech.

Researchers claim to have invented a better version of Auto-Tune that uses AIResearchers at John Hopkins University claim they’ve created a new method of pitch correction that’s “more than just Auto-Tune on steroids”, which uses AI to “enhance the naturalness and quality of pitch correction, surpassing previous tools.”

READ MORE: Music.AI launches third-party AI modules Masterchannel and Cyanite on its platform

The new tool is called DiffPitcher and analyses the spectrogram of vocals that need to be corrected. It then identifies target notes, predicts the necessary adjustments and transforms that corrected spectrogram into audio. By contrast, traditional pitch correction software is trained on pairs of corrected and original vocals.
“Diff-Pitcher is a generative deep neural network that takes pitch correction technology to a new level. Its precision and control can not only help musical artists and producers but also open new possibilities in areas such as voice rehabilitation and assistive technologies,” says team member Jiarui Hai, a PhD student in the Whiting School of Engineering’s electrical and computer engineering department.
“[The results sound] really natural,” says Hai, “and unlike in older ways of fixing pitch, we can still regulate how high or low the voice goes.”

The new technology was presented at the 2023 IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics last year. Researchers have also said could been used for applications other than music.
“The technology could revolutionise treatment for a spectrum of speech-related disorders, offering valuable support for post-laryngectomy patients and contributing to the voice rehabilitation of stroke victims,” says Hai.
In other AI-related news, a new AI-powered app Maverick SoundZ has been released. It bills itself as a new “all-in-one” virtual music manager, designed to help artists from all backgrounds get their music out there.
The app is priced at £7.99 per month and, according to the company, does all the jobs of a music management team. This includes a customised “battleplan” to guide artists through their careers, and even a database of radio stations, DJs, and journalists to aid promotion. Artists can also send their own press releases directly from the app.
Additionally, it also offers mental health check-ins, a calendar with a reminders feature, an AI-powered artist bio generator, press release generator, a caption generator for social media content, plus email templates.
The post Researchers claim to have invented a better version of Auto-Tune that uses AI appeared first on MusicTech.

Organic Instruments introduce Atmospheres Atmosphere has been built around a set of field recordings that capture natural sounds including birdsong, forest ambience, rainfall and thunderstorms

BPB Giveaway: Win Abletunes Retrotape, RVRB, FX Mate!
Abletunes is giving away Retrotape, RVRB, and FX Mate plugins to three lucky BPB readers (one plugin per winner). If you’re an Ableton user, you might already be familiar with Abletunes, a brand specializing in creating Ableton Live templates. Abletunes has over 250 templates in its collection, intending to help producers of all levels better [...]
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The PreSonus Eris Studio 5 monitor is an affordable fit for home studios£159 / $199 each, presonus.com
At £159, you might wonder how effective the PreSonus Eris Studio 5 monitors really are.

READ MORE: Softube Console 1 Channel MK III promises console-like mixing in your DAW

Stepping up from the PreSonus Eris E line, the new Eris Studios have a premium look that’s reminiscent of revered Neumann monitors, with stylish lines, a handy LED to indicate status plus a welcome standby function. Price wise, though, these monitors compete with the likes of Adam Audio’s TV5 and the Yamaha HS5, among others. And you might get more than you bargained for.
A pair of PreSonus Eris Studio 5 monitors
What drivers and EQ controls do the Eris Studio 5 monitor have?
As the name suggests, the Studio 5 has a 5.25-inch fibreglass composite woofer for bass and mids, with a one-inch silk dome tweeter for the highs. Amplification power of 80 Watts is shared between the drivers and the published frequency response reaches down to 45 Hz (of course, with considerable attenuation expected that low down).
Helpfully, you can plug in using a choice of balanced XLR or TRS jacks, or unbalanced RCA. There’s also a variable gain pot to establish a healthy input level, although you need to take care when matching-up right and left, since the dial doesn’t have detents.
Eris Studio 5’s EQ tools include a high shelf fixed at 10 kHz and a mid band centred around 1kHz. There’s no function to boost the bass, but there are a couple of ways to cut bass: firstly, a two-position low-cut filter can be used when pairing the Studio 5s with a subwoofer (PreSonus is also selling an Eris sub); and secondly, an Acoustic Space switch (-2dB and -4dB options) which applies a shelving cut at 800 Hz to counteract bass build-up when the speakers are situated in room corners or close to walls.
All the controls are immediate and easy to get to grips with but unfortunately there’s no desk filter to cut low-mid humps that often occur when sitting monitors on a desk. This is a bit of a drag, given that these are supposedly designed for home studios, where monitors are likely going to be placed on a desk.
PreSonus Eris Studio 5 monitors on a desk in a home studio
How do the Eris Studio 5 monitors sound?
The Studio 5s have more bass articulation and depth than you’d expect at the price, sounding more punchy in this department than the 4-inch KRK monitors we tested previously (admittedly these have a smaller case and footprint). Plus, the Studio’s front-firing ports help reduce the effect of proximity to walls, giving clearly defined bass and kick lines.
Like many two-way designs, mid frequencies on the Studio 5 seem slightly scooped, and we boost these a notch around the back (the band affected could do with being a touch broader). High frequencies seem a little brash out at the default 12 o’clock position, so we’re thankful for the facility to roll these off ever so slightly.
In use, we really do miss having a desktop filter, and we experience overly-bulky low mids that need to be tamed with a software solution. Since potential users of this entry-level line might not have the budget or inclination to go down the room equalisation route — or equivalent — it’s an unfortunate omission by PreSonus.
There’s also a bit of unwanted noise to contend with, as is often the case with active monitors. With the Studio 5, the hiss is not usually sufficient to distract you from your work when not using the monitors, but more annoying — in our studio at least — is a lower-frequency hum/vibration. If you’re working at close range and you’re one of those people that notices every tiny noise, then it might cause annoyance.
A PreSonus Eris Studio 5 monitor on a desk in a home studio
Listening in with the Eris Studio 5
We test the Studio 5s on a wide and eclectic range of listening material, but ultimately call upon two favourite references to sum up our impressions.
Jacques Loussier’s jazz-funk rendition of Bach’s Little Fugue demonstrates the Studio 5’s capable articulation at both ends of the spectrum, with just the right amount of crispness in snare lines plus really punchy double bass riffs and clear transients and sustain from the kick.
Meanwhile, in Naughty Boy’s ear-worm La La La, there’s a clear presentation of high-mid snare crack that’s not overly harsh, with the vocals sitting nicely on top. There’s some welcome bass punch, but the lowest octave of the sub-bass elements is largely missing in action — not a surprise for drivers of this size, of course.
Back of a PreSonus Eris Studio 5 monitor
Should I buy PreSonus Eris Studio 5 monitors?
If the lack of desktop filter and self noise aren’t a deal-breaker, then these are a solid purchase for folks with a limited budget. They’re not too big to use on a desk at home, their front ports mean that they’re more happy being placed near to walls and corners than other designs and they look and sound really good for their asking price.
There are limitations at this size. A five-inch monitor won’t give you earth-shattering bass and will likely sound a bit boxy compared to bigger models, but they make up for this with tight bass articulation that proves helpful when making mixing decisions.
Key features

Active studio monitors
5.25-inch woofer; 1-inch tweeter
Front ported
45 Hz – 20 kHz frequency response
EQ customisation: High and Mid dials (-/+ 6 dB at 10 kHz and 1 kHz); Low Cut filter (80 Hz / 100 Hz); Acoustic Space switch (-2 dB / -4 dB)
Inputs: XLR, TRS jack and unbalanced RCA
Variable input gain
80 W amplifier (45 W woofer/35 W tweeter)
Standby mode

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