TikTok UMG music takedowns have begun and will happen in 3 phasesTikTok began taking down or muting Universal Music-related artists and songs overnight after the two parties failed to agree on a new licensing agreement. The battle for words between the. Continue reading
The post TikTok UMG music takedowns have begun and will happen in 3 phases appeared first on Hypebot.

Artists predicted to make $5.2b from vinyl sales in 2024 Forecasts suggest a $5.2b windfall for artists from vinyl sales in 2024, the highest since 1990...

Emergence Audio launch Viola Textures library Viola Textures takes a different approach to traditional string libraries, aiming to create interesting, evolving pad sounds from the source samples.

College Radio Promotion for Independent MusiciansCollege radio is one of the few outlets open to independent and self-released music and a prime place to promote to many artists’ biggest listening demographic. Here’s how to get. Continue reading
The post College Radio Promotion for Independent Musicians appeared first on Hypebot.

YouTube Promotion Test Results: Be careful displaying to all countriesMichale Brandvold and Jay Gilbert look at YouTube Promotion and review new test results on a new Music Biz Weekly podcast. These tests didn’t restrict countries or languages and showed. Continue reading
The post YouTube Promotion Test Results: Be careful displaying to all countries appeared first on Hypebot.

Daft Punk session drummer says band have unreleased fifth album “in limbo”Daft Punk are sitting on an unreleased fifth album, according to former collaborator and session drummer Quinn.

READ MORE: Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flür and Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter have been making music together 

Quinn worked with the French electronic duo on their final album, 2013’s Random Access Memories, and discusses his experience working with the helmeted musicians in an interview with the student-run media organisation alt.news 26:46.
In the interview, he mentions that Daft Punk began working on what would have been their fifth album in 2018, and he was also supposed to be involved with it. However, the project remains “in limbo”.
“On RAM, I was pretty much the last person to come in on the record,” he says (per Consequence Of Sound). “The next record [Daft Punk] were working on, I was the very first person.”
Quinn also claims he had seen Daft Punk at the beginning stages of the songwriting and recording process. “Thomas [Bangalter] had this keyboard, and actually had a computer program, and he was just experimenting. He was just hitting things. We were literally just trying to get vibes across. He was on the beautiful mixing board in there. I’m out in the studio, I started on my weird drum set… Whatever he would give me, I would answer and try to come up with something.”
“That unnamed record, I think will be a lot of spontaneous things,” he continues. “I remember playing this one thing – my piano board, the insides of a piano – I put my kick pedal on the strings and played it like a kick drum. I remember those guys really loving that. I don’t know if it’ll make the record. It was the craziest, weird-sounding things.”

Quinn adds that he “keeps checking in” on the album in case it’ll ever see the light of day. “I’m told they’re working on it. It’s coming out of the locker. I asked Daft Punk permission to talk about it for another article, ’cause they’re very secretive as you know. And the greatest guys.”
The duo parted ways in 2021 and Thomas Bangalter has since admitted that he was “relieved” over the way that the band ended.
“The question I ask more myself is why we did end it rather than how it could last for so long,” he said. “It’s a lot like a story or mini saga – sometimes there’s a TV show that has a special place in people’s hearts and it keeps that place, and it runs for one, two, three, four, five, sometimes 10 seasons.
“There’s a moment where it ends and I think it’s actually interesting to have this opportunity to start, have the middle and to end it… [I was] relieved and happy to look back and say: ‘OK, we didn’t mess it up too much.’”

The post Daft Punk session drummer says band have unreleased fifth album “in limbo” appeared first on MusicTech.

The ERAE II is packed with 16,000 force sensors for an “ultra-responsive” playing experienceThree years after the launch of the ERAE Touch MIDI controller, Embodme – a music tech startup from France – has launched the ERAE II, offering “significant hardware enhancements, a revised design and improved user experience”.
While with the ERAE Touch, Embodme aimed to create the “perfect sensor instrument that would detect the subtlest touch and tiniest vibrato, while retaining the largest dynamic range”, the ERAE II improves that sensitivity even further.

READ MORE: These producers are using the Amen break as a granular synthesizer and it’s awesome

It features 16,000 force sensors with newly patented Force Multi-Touch technology, which offers “ultra-responsiveness”, even down to less than 20 grams of pressure.
In addition, spatial detection has also been improved, with sub-millimetre XY accuracy in both relative and absolute modes, and enhanced sensor linearity for more stable continuous finger sliding.
Credit: Embodme
Elsewhere, the ERAE II features a unique fabric skin, with improved light diffusion for a brighter, sharper look. The device also enables compatibility with black silicone skin material for percussive techniques. The surface can simply be swapped by unscrewing part of the ERAE II’s aluminium case.
The ERAE II also now sports a high-resolution LCD screen for menu settings and live mapping configurations, leaving the 18” surface entirely dedicated to playing.
Credit: Embodme
Other features include an all-new MIDI looper – which can record any X/Y/Z gesture in polyphonic mode and overdub MIDI loops in real time – and a revised arpeggiator, with new mapping options for enhanced playability and expression.
In terms of availability, the ERAE II campaign will launch on Kickstarter on 15 February, with estimated delivery in June 2024 for the first batch.
Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) will be €799, but the ERAE II will be offered on Kickstarter with an early bird price of €549, and later for €649, before rising to €799. There will also be a limited-edition white version – limited to 200 units only – for €699.
For more information on the ERAE II, and to register for launch notifications, head to Embodme.
The post The ERAE II is packed with 16,000 force sensors for an “ultra-responsive” playing experience appeared first on MusicTech.

Ableton and Teenage Engineering veterans launch new company and tease first productA new music company has been launched by two experienced music tech veterans, with a teaser of its first product hinting at drums, percussion and resynthesis.
The brand-new start-up, named Forever 89, has been created by Rikard Jönsson and Svante Stadler, who collectively bring more than 30 years of experience from their careers across companies such as Ableton, Teenage Engineering, Reason Studios, XLN Audio, Cycling ‘74, and Spotify.

READ MORE: NAMM 2024: Oeksound’s Bloom plugin is an “adaptive tone shaper” that “analyses the character” of a signal to offer better tonal balance

The company is described as a “pan-European collaboration” between Stockholm and Berlin, with Stadler providing technical expertise accrued from working on products such as Teenage Engineering’s OP-1, Auxy’s iOS app, the XO VST/AU from XLNAudio, and more.
Jönsson worked at Spotify back when it was still in its start-up phase. He later became Ableton’s sole Product Marketing Manager, bringing multiple Ableton Live campaigns to the market, and later joined its Cycling ‘74 subsidiary as a Product Manager for the RNBO.
Forever 89’s first product is still in its private beta phase and is being tested by musicians across the globe. The company name pays tribute to the era of innovation that characterised the late 1980s and early ‘90s. Little information is yet available on the product, but you can watch a short teaser below:

“We want to be a source for both playful exploration and a reliable tool for musical results,” says Jönsson.
“We both grew up in a time when technological advances made last year’s innovations look outdated. Our vision is to create opportunities for similar progress again,” adds Stadler. “We looked at our own needs as musicians and based our first product on that. We want to be a guiding star for modern musical instruments and also believe it’s important to contribute with innovation in our sector.”
Find out more over at Forever 89.
The post Ableton and Teenage Engineering veterans launch new company and tease first product appeared first on MusicTech.

Lewitt Audio expand Connect 6 interface feature set The latest Connect 6 firmware provides a handy set of new features such as additional software and loopback channels, flexible routing options and more. 

How Sonible smart:EQ 4 offers a glimpse into the future of AI mixing£109 (individual upgrade prices available from website), sonible.com
Austrian developer Sonible is a leading company in AI-assisted mixing plugins. We reviewed smart:EQ 3 in 2021, praising its unique Group system that lets you prioritise certain instruments over others while automatically balancing the spectrum of each track.

READ MORE: Solid State Logic’s 4K E is a near-perfect plugin emulation of a classic mixing console

After listening to user feedback, Sonible has refined the software with a slew of useful updates that make it smarter than ever. But does smart:EQ 4 have the brains to beat out the competition?
What is Sonible smart:EQ 4?
Smart:EQ 4 is a workhorse equalizer featuring 24 flexible bands, global or per-band mid/side processing, and switchable minimal and linear phase operation.
This version has dynamic modes for each band, with controls for threshold, ratio, attack, release and range. This is an excellent upgrade that helps to make it more versatile as it can be called upon for multiband compression or de-essing duties. It could even replace your regular EQ plugin — although arguably still trails slightly behind FabFilter’s Pro-Q3’s toolset, which includes an external sidechain input, a natural phase mode, and Spectrum Grab features.

Is Smart:EQ 4 easy to use?
Visually, the clean, intuitive user interface retains Sonible’s dark but pleasing look. Annoyingly, some of the grey text is illegible with the window at its default size but, thankfully, you can resize the window to make it easier on the eye.
Some useful features include eight recall states, undo and redo, and a superb spectrum analyser that can show and layer information from up to ten different sources, as long as each has an instance of smart:EQ loaded into its channel strip.
A strong addition to Smart:EQ 4 is Auto Gain compensation. To avoid volume bias and make the most effective mix decisions, you ideally want any EQ settings to be volume-matched with the unprocessed audio. Auto Gain will automatically rebalance the output as you make adjustments, which saves you having to do it manually. We find it extremely effective and a great time-saver, but you can easily turn it off if you prefer to do the balancing yourself.
Sonible smart:EQ 4 main GUI
What makes Smart:EQ 4 unique?
The smart:filter and Group functions are the standout features of smart:EQ 4.
To use the smart:filter, select a sound profile from the drop-down menu. Options include a Universal setting, 21 individual instrument and vocal settings, and 22 genre choices — a big increase to the 14 in the previous version.
There’s a little more going on under the hood as well, as the plugin can recognise different kinds of instruments and will draw upon slightly different profiles as required.

In smart:EQ 4, you can load in any reference track to generate an EQ profile, which massively opens up the flexibility of the plugin. This could have a range of uses, from matching the profile of one vocal mic to another to using a more specific sound of another recording as a reference point for a mix.
The plugin will listen to a section of the track and then generate a setting that will shape your audio to fit the selected profile. The central graph shows adjustments across the spectrum, and you can change the amount and the width across the frequency range.
A new option allows you to add smoothing to the EQ curve, resulting in a less detailed adjustment and a more subtle, broad-strokes approach. If you increase the value of the Adaptive control, the curve will change in real-time to bring your audio closer to the target. This is where smart:EQ really goes beyond what’s possible with more traditional match EQ techniques, as it can dynamically react to your audio as it changes.
As a nice bonus, you can now add a second smart:filter band, which means you can target different parts of the spectrum with varying amounts of processing.
Sonible smart:EQ 4 Dynamic EQ
What is Sonible smart:eq’s Group mode?
The smart:filter can be highly effective at cleaning your audio, but a good mix is about balancing more than a single track. Happily, the Group mode now lets you balance up to 10 tracks in a single window.
By creating a new group and dragging each instance to the Front, Middle, or Back ‘lanes’ in the interface, smart:EQ will duck the competing frequencies to help let the most important elements shine.
As smart:EQ 4 now has remote control functions, you can edit multiple instances of the plugin from a single window, which is a boon to your workflow. You also have the choice between three different modes for dealing with how the tracks are processed. Track mode means each plugin will make balancing adjustments independently, Group mode just makes the relevant moves to unmask the audio, and Track+Group will do both.
To put it to the test, we load up multiple instances of smart:EQ 4 onto an unmixed track, then fire up Group mode and place each one into the Front, Middle and Back slots, before selecting the appropriate profiles.

A simple click of the Learn All button whilst the track is playing, and 10 seconds later we’re presented with a cleaner sounding mix, with resonances tamed and low-mid build-ups reduced. Is it perfect? Not quite, but as a starting point, it’s very impressive, and ten minutes of fine-tuning later we have a decent and well-balanced mix that can be used as a springboard for further processing.
It’s more natural sounding than the results from iZotope’s Neutron 4, which tends to sound a little too bright and doesn’t (currently) let you prioritise a lead track to take the focus.
The big downside is that Group mode doesn’t work dynamically. The specific frequency dips in your musical tracks that create space for your lead vocal won’t follow its movement and duck dynamically when the vocal is playing.
We were hoping that smart:EQ 4 might be a useful replacement for tools such as Wavesfactory’s TrackSpacer or Mastering The Mix’s Fuser, however, with static ducking, the results aren’t as transparent as they could be.
It would also be useful when mixing in Group mode if you could mute or solo certain tracks, and perhaps even change the volume, as this would mean you could potentially work on the balance of a whole mix (or most of a mix, depending on how many channels you have) from a single window.
Sonible smart:EQ 4 Group Editing mode
Should you buy Sonible smart:EQ 4?
Ultimately, these are minor quibbles, and smart:EQ 4 is an awesome plugin. Even if the profiles might not cover every single instrument or genre, the fact that you now can generate your own makes this much more flexible. Combine this with the improved profiles, dynamic bands, Auto Gain, and the ability to remotely control other instances, and you’ve got a plugin at the forefront of the mixing assistant revolution.
The way smart:EQ 4 treats the mix as a whole is nothing short of revolutionary and should be seen as the way forward for these types of plugins. The smart spectral presets provide decent results off the bat, but the enticing workflow also invites you to make it your own.
Sonible smart:EQ 4 Spectrum Analyser
Key features

VST, VST3, AU and AAX plugin
Dynamically matches your track to a profile spectrum
24 flexible EQ bands
1 universal, 21 instrument, and 22 genre profiles
Reference track loading
Global or per band Mid/Side
Group mode lets you load and unmask up to 10 instances
Multi-track analyser
New dynamic EQ mode
New smoothing for spectral curve
New remote control lets you edit multiple instances from one plugin
New Auto Gain feature

The post How Sonible smart:EQ 4 offers a glimpse into the future of AI mixing appeared first on MusicTech.

How Booking Agents NegotiateListen on your favorite podcast platform: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Acast JJ Cassiere is the co-founder of 33 & West, an independent talent agency that specializes in the representation of established and emerging musicians, comedians, and film & television entertainment professionals. Utilizing his 20+ years of experience, Cassiere oversees the diverse Music Touring Department alongside his partners, and […]

Autonomous vehicle company Motional is about to lose a key backerAutonomous vehicle company Motional is losing capital support from one of its primary backers as it aims to commercialize a robotaxi service in 2024. Automotive supplier Aptiv — the other half of a $4 billion joint venture with Hyundai that created Motional — said Wednesday it will no longer allocate capital towards the endeavor. “While […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

We Are Moving The Needle’s First Annual Resonator Awards: Alanis Morissette, Corinne Bailey Rae, Caroline Polachek and morePowerhouse of the Year Award Award winner Catherine Marks, boygenius (Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus) 

We Are Moving The Needle, a non-profit organization that is radically reshaping the future of the recording industry by advancing gender equity for producers and engineers, held its inaugural Resonator Awards in Los Angeles last night, honoring six extraordinary women for their work in the recording studio as producers, engineers and mixers: Alanis Morissette, Corinne Bailey Rae, Caroline Polachek, Catherine Marks, Laura Sisk and Jennifer Decilveo. Resonator Impact Awards were also presented to music executives Michael Goldstone of Mom+Pop Music and Christine Thomas of Dolby Labs for their commitment to advancing gender equity across the music industry. Shirley Manson, boygenius, Jack Antonoff, Ariel Rechtshaid, FLETCHER, Autumn Rowe and We Are Moving the Needle founder/award-winning mastering engineer Emily Lazar were on hand to present the awards. 

Emily Lazar, Luminary of the Year Award winner Alanis Morissette and Shirley Manson- photo credit: Christopher Polk

Exceptional Ears Award winner Laura Sisk, Jack Antonoff - photo credit Christopher Polk

Harmonizer Award winner Corinne Bailey Rae and Emily Lazar - photo credit Rich Polk

The evening also featured stripped-down performances by Empress Of, Sasami, and a fiery cover of Morissette’s hit "Hand In My Pocket" by Remi Wolf. SiriusXM on-air personality and creator of the LSQ podcast Jenny Eliscu hosted the Resonator Awards, which were empowered by EqualizeHer. Artists, producers and music industry executives filled the audience at the Resonator Awards, including Thundercat, Bethany Cosentino, Christina Perri, Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, Lisa Loeb, Shailene Woodley, and more.

The 2024 Resonator Awards

Luminary of the Year Award - Alanis Morissette presented by Shirley Manson

Powerhouse of the Year Award - Catherine Marks presented by boygenius

Catherine’s credits include: Alanis Morissette, boygenius, The Killers, Wolf Alice. 

Exceptional Ears Award - Laura Sisk presented by Jack Antonoff

Laura’s credits include: Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Jack Antonoff. 

The Golden Trifecta Award - Caroline Polachek presented by Ariel Rechtshaid

Harmonizer Award - Corinne Bailey Rae presented by Autumn Rowe

The All-Star Award - Jennifer Decilveo presented by FLETCHER

Jennifer’s credits include: Miley Cyrus, Hozier, Andra Day, FLETCHER, Galantis. 

The Transformer Award — Michael Goldstone, Founder/Owner at Mom+Pop Music presented by Emily Lazar

The Equalizer Award — Christine Thomas and Dolby Laboratories - presented by Emily Lazar 

More on Loudness here

What is LRA (loudness range) in post production.