Best Music Distribution Companies in 2024 – Full Comparison ChartThis is the most comprehensive digital music distribution review comparison between Amuse, AWAL, CD Baby, DistroKid, Ditto Music, LANDR, TuneCore, Songtradr, and more.

Bitcoin trades sideways while TON, RNDR, PEPE and AR flash bullish signsBitcoin price looks stuck in the near term, but TON, RNDR, PEPE and AR could surprise traders by making a strong upside move.

Autochrome For The 2020sFor all intents and purposes, photography here in 2024 is digital. Of course chemical photography still exists, and there are a bunch of us who love it for what it is, but even as we hang up our latest strip of negatives to dry we have to admit that it’s no longer mainstream. Among those enthusiasts who work with conventional black-and-white or dye-coupler colour film are a special breed whose chemistry takes them into more obscure pathways.
Wet-collodion plates for example, or in the case of [Jon Hilty], the Lumière autochrome process. This is a colour photography process from the early years of the twentieth century, employing a layer of red, green, and blue grains above a photosensitive emulsion. Its preparation is notoriously difficult, and he’s lightened the load somewhat with the clever use of CNC machinery to automate some of it.
Pressing the plates via CNC
His web site has the full details of how he prepares and exposes the plates, so perhaps it’s best here to recap how it works. Red, green, and blue dyed potato starch grains are laid uniformly on a glass plate, then dried and pressed to form a random array of tiny RGB filters. The photographic emulsion is laid on top of that, and once it is ready the exposure is made from the glass side do the light passes through the filters.
If the emulsion is then developed using a reversal process as for example a slide would be, the result is a black and white image bearing colour information in that random array, which when viewed has red, green, and blue light from those starch filters passing through it. To the viewer’s eye, this then appears as a colour image.
We can’t help being fascinated by the autochrome process, and while we know we’ll never do it ourselves it’s great to see someone else working with it and producing 21st century plates that look a hundred years old.
While this may be the first time we’ve featured such a deep dive into autochrome, it’s certainly not the first time we’ve looked at alternative photographic chemistries.

IRCB S73-7 Satellite Found After Going Untracked For 25 YearsWhen the United States launched the KH-9 Hexagon spy satellite into orbit atop a Titan IIID rocket in 1974, it brought a calibration target along for the ride: the Infra-Red Calibration Balloon (IRCB) S73-7. This 66 cm (26 inch) diameter inflatable satellite was ejected by the KH-9, but failed to inflate into its intended configuration and became yet another piece of space junk. Initially it was being tracked in the 1970s, but vanished until briefly reappearing in the 1990s. Now it’s popped up again, twenty-five years later.
As noted by [Jonathan McDowell] who tripped over S73-7 in recent debris tracking data, it’s quite possible that it had been tracked before, but hidden in the noise as it is not an easy target to track. Since it’s not a big metallic object with a large radar cross-section, it’s among the more difficult signals to reliably pick out of the noise. As can be seen in [Jonathan]’s debris tracking table, this is hardly a unique situation, with many lost (XO) entries. This always raises the exciting question of whether a piece of debris has had its orbit decayed to where it burned up, ended up colliding with other debris/working satellite or simply has gone dark.
For now we know where S73-7 is, and as long as its orbit remains stable we can predict where it’ll be, but it highlights the difficulty of keeping track of the around 20,000 objects in Earth orbit, with disastrous consequences if we get it wrong.

Women in AI: Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick wants to pass more AI legislationTo give AI-focused women academics and others their well-deserved — and overdue — time in the spotlight, TechCrunch has been publishing a series of interviews focused on remarkable women who’ve contributed to the AI revolution. We’re publishing these pieces throughout the year as the AI boom continues, highlighting key work that often goes unrecognized. Read more profiles here. […]
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Repetito 3: Multi-channel live loop software The latest version of Repetito introduces a new Varispeed mode, and comes packed with features aimed at loop-based live performances. 

SEC, Ripple case nears conclusion, Grayscale withdraws ETF filing, and more: Hodler’s Digest, May 5-11SEC files final response in its case against Ripple, Grayscale withdraws futures ETH ETF filing, and dormant BTC wallet wakes up after 10 years.

Why Apple’s ‘Crush’ ad is so misguidedWelcome to Week in Review: TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. This week Apple unveiled new iPad models at its Let Loose event, including a new 13-inch display for the iPad Air, as well as Tandem OLED and a new M4 chip for the iPad Pro. But its ad for the new iPad Pro […]
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Software Bug Results in Insulin Pump Injuries, Spurs RecallManaging Type 1 diabetes is a high-stakes balancing act — too much or too little insulin is a bad thing, resulting in blood glucose levels that deviate from a narrow range with potentially dire consequences on either side. Many diabetics choose to use an insulin pump to make managing all this easier, but as a recent recall of insulin pump software by the US Food and Drug Administration shows, technology isn’t foolproof.
Thankfully, the recall is very narrow in scope. It’s targeted at users of the Tandem t:slim X2 insulin pump, and specifically the companion application running on iOS devices. The mobile app is intended to run on the user’s phone to monitor and control the pump. The pump itself is a small, rechargeable device that users often keep on their belt or tucked into a pocket that delivers a slow, steady infusion of insulin during the day, plus larger bolus doses to compensate for meals.
The t:slim X2 insulin pump.
But version 2.7 of the t:connect mobile app can crash unexpectedly, and on iOS devices, that can lead to the OS continually relaunching it. Each time it does this, the app tries to reconnect with the pump via Bluetooth, which eventually runs down the battery in the pump. Once the battery is dead, no more insulin can be delivered, potentially leading to a condition called hyperglycemia (“hyper” meaning an excess, “gly” referring to sugar, and “emia” meaning presence in blood — excess sugar in the blood.)
Untreated hyperglycemia can progress to a much more serious state called diabetic ketoacidosis, which can lead to coma and death. Thankfully, nobody has suffered that fate from this bug, but the FDA has received over 200 reports of injuries, hence the recall. Tandem sent out a notice to all affected customers back in March to update their apps, but it’s still possible that some users didn’t get the message.
Apart from the human cost of this bug, there’s a lesson here about software design and unintended consequences. While it intuitively seems like a great idea to automatically relaunch a crashed app, especially one with a critical life-safety function, in hindsight, the better course might have been to just go into a safe mode and alert the user with an alarm. That’s a lesson we’ve learned by exploring space, and it seems to apply here as well.
Images: AdobeStock, Tandem Diabetes

The Impossible Repair: Ribbon CablesIt’s problem which faces many a piece of older equipment, that ribbon cables of the type used on membrane keyboards start to fail as they become older. These cables are extremely difficult to repair as they can’t be soldered to, and since they are usually custom to the device in question. All is not lost though, as [Spare Time Repair] shows us with the cable on a Honeywell heating controller broken by a user attempting to remove the battery with a screwdriver.
The whole process can be seen in the video below the break, and it involves the use of a vinyl cutter to cut the pattern of tracks in aluminium tape stuck on a sheet of acetate. This makes a new piece of ribbon cable, however it’s still a step short of being part of the circuit. His challenge is to make a clip tight enough to attach it to the intact part of the broken cable and maintain contact, then to hope that the new piece of cable bent back on itself can make enough contact for the device to work.
At the end of it all he has a working Honeywell controller, though as he points out it’s a device he has little interest in. Instead this opens a window on an extremely useful technique that should be of relevance far beyond the world of heating. There’s one machine close to home for us that could use this technique, for example.

Getting It Done – Last Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music: Albini, .music & MoreLast week, our tips and advice for independent, do-it-yourselfers covered the legacy of Steve Albini, .MUSIC deadlines, songwriting splits, Kanye marketing lessons, some of the best mental health resources for. Continue reading
The post Getting It Done – Last Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music: Albini, .music & More appeared first on Hypebot.

Reflex Acoustics Releases FREE Reflex Spectrum Analyzer Plugin
Reflex Acoustics released the Reflex Spectrum Analyzer, a freeware audio analysis plugin for Mac and PC.  Reflex Acoustics describes the release as an analyzer designed for low-end detail. The plugin is available in VST3 for PC and VST3 and AU for Mac. The developer says support for AAX is “coming soon.”  The Reflex Spectrum Analyzer [...]
View post: Reflex Acoustics Releases FREE Reflex Spectrum Analyzer Plugin

REWIND – New Music Industry’s Week In Review: State of Live Music, TikTok & MoreIt was a busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception with an update on the state of live music, TikTok fighting its ban, more music. Continue reading
The post REWIND – New Music Industry’s Week In Review: State of Live Music, TikTok & More appeared first on Hypebot.

IMSTA London 2024 IMSTA FESTA will be returning to SAE Institute London on 1 June 2024, offering music makers the chance to check out a range of panel talks, workshops, masterclasses, gear demonstrations and more. 

ClearBeats announces launch as derivative works clearance service from Music RightzAs the creator economy has exploded, so has the volume of derivative works; the covers, interpolations, remixes, mashups, DJ sets, samples, and alternate versions that have long captivated fans and bedeviled rights holders. Yet through all of the technological advances, the music industry continues to struggle with the millions of derivative versions pouring into music’s ecosystems weekly. Derivatives represent a massive asset category and untapped opportunity. Still, few labels and publishers implement a proactive catalog strategy that integrates the creation, clearance, and attribution of derivative works across their internal copyright, licensing, and collections organizations.

To address this, four music business leaders have come together to form ClearBeats, a licensing practice and tech company offering new approaches to today’s bespoke derivative rights clearance. The managing directors of ClearBeats, Nick Ditri and Bob Barbiere, have teamed up with Suzanne Coffman and Yolanda Ferraloro of Music Rightz, one of the industry’s oldest and largest (sync) licensing agencies. Together, they have the experience and approaches necessary to solve the challenges and turbulence associated with derivative music and smoothen the ride for both creators and rights owners. 

Tapping into Music Rightz’s size and volume, having cleared over 220,000 songs, ClearBeats is already taking cover, remix, interpolation, sample registration, and clearance to another level– collecting and sharing new and expanded information about the creator and their work while maintaining a strong commitment to transparency. The additional information ClearBeats provides to rights holders and administrators, particularly sync teams, is critical, as the velocity of creation and distribution of derivative works continues to outpace a label or publisher’s ability to ingest, track, and promote those assets for sync and placement deals. 

While labels and artists have some options to clear and license remixes, interpolations, and samples, they have been unable to do so at scale. They are frequently unable to track down rights owners and face inherent confusion in domestic and international compliance, even for traditional covers which can be digitally distributed under a compulsory mechanical license. This has led to dramatically different approaches to managing licenses across both labels and distributors.  

“As an artist and producer, I experience it firsthand daily, and it’s a common point of frustration in the industry,” says Ditri, best known for his work as part of the DJ duo Disco Fries and for more than 25 Billboard hits he’s been involved with. “Creators want to share information about their works. However, they fear that by doing so, their music will be taken down. When I spoke to Bob about this, he noted that labels and publishers are generally more interested in monetizing, in registering, tracking, and collecting royalties, than they are in taking music down. There’s definitely a disconnect between licensees and licensors, and we decided to innovate and bring the sides together.” 

This fresh approach to expanded communication, transparency and collaboration is working. Having just launched in 2024, the company is already having an immediate impact, filling holes in identifying copyright ownership while adding new categories of information and music links to the “traditional” cover, interpolation, and remix licensing process. “ClearBeats is already my go-to for sharing my favorite unreleased projects with the world. I’m thankful for their team’s ability to clear and monetize almost any record. In the past when I’ve created a sample or cover-based record, the rights owners had no idea. Now with ClearBeats, they’ve managed to register and clear the works helping leverage my new work for broader sync and other licensing opportunities,“ shares Domenico Randazzo, of Dom Did It and il Dottore Productions, songwriter and producer for artists including Chris Brown, Jason Derulo, and John Legend.

ClearBeats is tackling several pressing industry issues in parallel. In addition to the licensing team’s work, the company is developing catalog enrichment programs for labels and publishers and assisting creator platforms, such as Music.AI, in licensing catalogs for derivative creation and distribution. 

“We're excited Music.AI has the opportunity to offer its platform to Music Rightz to expand the licensing and revenue opportunities for its licensors,” says Matt Henninger, VP of Business Development and Sales at Music.AI. “Applying cutting-edge AI technology to the licensing frameworks of both Music Rightz and ClearBeats will allow content owners more control and greater revenue opportunities.”

In the ClearBeats lab, innovative tech and registry development is underway that will further close existing communication and value gaps, bringing creators into closer alignment with rights owners and administrators. And, along with tackling derivative registration and clearance shortcomings, ClearBeats has partnered with RoyaltyAmp to assist labels and publishers in finding the derivative works already on content platforms that have errors and omissions in their metadata, ensuring accurate attribution, tracking, and payments. 

“When I was building Dubset, I was told no one would solve the clearance challenges of derivative works at scale in our lifetime,” states Barbiere. “Yet once we built the music identification and attribution technology, we were able to clear the world’s catalog–over 55 million tracks across majors and indies, for use in DJ sets. We definitely opened eyes to what could be achieved with transparency and aligned incentives across creators and rights owners. Our mission with ClearBeats is to move derivative attribution to the point of inception, we want creators to create without fear and copyright owners to know when and how their catalog is being used before it is distributed. Our work is already having an immediate and sustainable impact on the industry and we are excited about what the future brings.”