Someone just created a MIDI keyboard the size of your credit cardIs your MIDI keyboard small enough to fit into the palm of your hand and the pocket of your pants? Well, this one is.
Meet MIDICard, the ingenious credit card-sized creation of creative technologist and software engineer Alana Balagot, designed for on-the-go music creation whenever and wherever inspiration strikes.

READ MORE: Arturia launches KeyLab Essential 88 mk3, putting a “full piano range at the fingertips” of producers

Measuring at just 3.5 by 2 inches and less than ¼ inches thick, MIDIcard is said to be the “world’s smallest MIDI controller”. Such extreme thinness is achieved by manufacturing directly on a case-less PCB board, which lends the controller its sleek, futuristic look.
Image: MakerProducts
MIDIcard is a bus-powered, class compliant MIDI keyboard with an 18 key keyboard (octave and a half range), sustain, velocity selection for dynamics, and octave selection buttons. Full polyphonic capability allows you to get wild with chords — that is, if your fingers can fit. The controller also comes with class compliant USB-C connectivity for you to plug into pretty much everything from your laptop to your iPhone and Android devices.
Each MIDICard also comes bundled with a short USB-C cable, and per instruction from its creator, moderate caution should be taken to avoid static electricity and water.
The first batch of MIDICards has completely sold out, though a new batch is scheduled to arrive next week (26 February). Secure your pre-order now for £50 (£60 for the Lightning cable version) through the MakerProducts Etsy page.
Check out the MIDICard in action below.

The post Someone just created a MIDI keyboard the size of your credit card appeared first on MusicTech.

“This is the best synth in the world”: “Synth god” Mike Dean’s setup is nutsWidely respected record producer, audio engineer, and “synth god” Mike Dean has revealed his studio setup in a new interview.
The interview, conducted by Reverb, sees the Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Kanye West, Madonna and Jay-Z producer show off a wealth of drool-worthy analogue gear. He also offers viewers a brief glimpse into how he builds a track by layering synths with guitar.

READ MORE: Andrew Huang teases new Moog synth used during Usher’s Super Bowl Halftime Show

One of the most exciting sections of the interview is when Dean plays his Oberheim OB-X Four Voice, producing rich, gritty sonics. This 1979-launched synth, he says proudly, is “the best synth in the world”. “It’s all prog rock there, y’know?” Dean smiles as he jams away on the 1979-launched synth, which sits above a Rhodes Chroma, and below another Oberheim OB-X.
In this outtake below, you can see him smacking the OB-X to make it work:

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In the video, he also talks us through how he uses two semi-modular analogue Moog synths, the 49-key Matriarch and the 32-key Grandmother. This combination is the bedrock for his live setup, he says, with him having repurposed two of the knobs on the Matriarch for “delay throws”.
The Moog action doesn’t stop there. Dean turns to his iconic re-issued Moog Minimoog Model D, saying “if you don’t want to spend fourteen, fifteen grand on an old one, this is great.” We also get to see his Moog Subsequent 37, Moog Voyager and the Memorymoog, which he regards as one of his “top five – the synth I always wanted when I was a kid”.
He goes on to show us his Yamaha CS-80, “probably one of the top two most sought-after polysynths in the world”, he reminds us. This is mainly used for arpeggios, we’re informed. His other CS-80, he tells Reverb, was “supposed to to be the one they played on Thriller”.
Watch the full video below:

For more synth news, head to MusicTech.
The post “This is the best synth in the world”: “Synth god” Mike Dean’s setup is nuts appeared first on MusicTech.

Live Nation reports soaring concert attendance as small shows struggleLive Nation reported record growth last year and predicted continued growth in live music for the next decade. But Live Nation and Ticketmaster's soaring numbers come even as many small to mid-level music venues struggle...
The post Live Nation reports soaring concert attendance as small shows struggle appeared first on Hypebot.

Spitfire Symphony Orchestra enhanced and re-released The relaunched SSO combines all of the original content with new percussion, harp and piano sections, offering an all-in-one orchestral scoring bundle.

From Universal’s stake in Chord Music to Live Nation’s biggest year ever… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days…
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Does Album Art still matter?Once upon a time, creative album art could help sell a release. But does it still matter when most music is streamed, and artwork has been reduced to a square inch or two? ..
The post Does Album Art still matter? appeared first on Hypebot.

What’s it like to be a Music Director?Are you ready for the long hours and maximal effort of being a Music Director?...
The post What’s it like to be a Music Director? appeared first on Hypebot.

Over 145m fans attended 50,000+ Live Nation events in 2023, with company’s FY revenues up 36% YoY to $22.7bn in its ‘biggest year ever’Concert giant publishes its Q4 and FY 2023 financial results
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You can now get Apple Music’s Replay feature monthly instead of annuallyApple Music is offering its users the ability to upgrade its Replay feature to a monthly version rather than its current annual year-in-review summary.
To access the monthly version of Replay, users must stream enough music to “qualify” for both versions. Though it seems no details on exactly how much streaming is required for this.

READ MORE: The world’s first spatial and 3D AI DAW is coming to Apple Vision Pro

Replay’s annual review launched three years after Spotify’s Wrapped feature, and it of course offers an overview of your listening habits including your top songs, artists, and albums just the same. Apple has confirmed to Music Business Worldwide that the monthly version provides listeners with a “more detailed and personalised look” into their habits.
“The Replay mix that users already know and love also becomes available today for the 2024 calendar year. Users must listen to enough music to qualify for both the monthly insights and the yearly playlist,” says the brand.
Apple Music isn’t the only streaming platform to make its end of year summary more regularly available. YouTube Music also launched seasonal recaps back in 2022.
Earlier this year, Apple Music also announced that it would pay artists a royalty rate of up to 10 percent higher for tracks that are available in Spatial Audio format. It said, “This change is not only meant to reward higher quality content, but also to ensure that artists are being compensated for the time and investment they put into mixing in Spatial.”
Spatial audio became available on Apple Music back in 2021 at no extra cost for subscribers. The format is supported by technology from Dolby Atmos, and intends to replicate the immersive in-person music experiences.
To access the monthly version of Replay, users can head to Apple Music Replay and sign in with their Apple ID.
Find out more via Apple Support.
In other news, Apple is facing a €500m fine from the European Commission over App Store practices limiting competition in the streaming marketplace. The fine – if issued – will be the first Apple has received from the EU.
The post You can now get Apple Music’s Replay feature monthly instead of annually appeared first on MusicTech.

NAMM 2024 Round-up videos now live We've just released a set of four videos that take a look at the key releases from this year's NAMM Show in Anaheim, California.

How Ghost Funk Orchestra weave NASA’s Apollo missions into their musicIn 2024, the cosmos might feel closer than ever before, no thanks to billionaires building hotels in space. But to Seth Applebaum, the producer and lead guitarist of the modern jazz project Ghost Funk Orchestra, space remains fascinating and uncertain.
“Space is such a mystery. Just the idea that when we’re looking at the stars in the sky, through the time that it takes from that light to get to Earth, what we’re seeing is ancient history,” Applebaum says.
READ MORE: Chromeo: “We’re still as enthralled by funk and analogue synths as we were before”
When Applebaum was writing A Trip To The Moon, the new album from Ghost Funk Orchestra, he spent a lot of time revisiting history. Specifically, listening to music from the late 1960s for inspiration—the period when the space race was unfolding in real time.
Seth Applebaum’s studio, where A Trip To The Moon was made.
“Harkening back to the music that was made when space was first an accessible venture goes a long way,” Applebaum says. One record that inspired Applebaum was Walking in Space by Quincy Jones (1969). Similar to Ghost Funk Orchestra, Jones employs vocalists and traditional jazz instrumentation, but experimentation is notable and evident in its composition.
“That music has all these interesting bells and whistles and a tone to it of the future,” Applebaum says.
A Trip To The Moon by Ghost Funk Orchestra
The sonics aren’t futuristic or technological, like the mechanical menagerie of space travel. Instead, Jones creates a futuristic feel by exploring limitless musical concepts such as dynamics and tempo. The album’s title track is a 12-minute suite that evolves and decays into various beats and moods. There are moments of near silence accompanied by arrhythmic drum patterns that come before massive jazz-orchestra swells and virtuosic bebop solos.
These elements are replete within A Trip To The Moon as well. To The Moon! begins with the full power of the Ghost Funk horn section before descending into a nondescript layering of sounds as the track fades out.

The final track on the album, Infinite Dark, depicts the mundane feeling of hurtling through the endless black abyss via a sense of restraint, keeping the improvisation to the minimum over a stable beat.
“It’s like exotica in that it’s sort of approximating what this scenario might sound like,” Applebaum says.
However, thanks to NASA, Applebaum didn’t have to approximate what space sounds like. All of the transmission recordings from the Apollo Moon missions are in the public domain, and he integrated communications from Apollo 1, 7, 8, 11, and 12 into the album.
Many of these recordings were hours long, so Applebaum imported them into Logic Pro and searched for transients in the waveforms to detect dialogue. NASA’s communication system also had a peculiar-sounding noise floor that he manipulated and layered as a transition between songs.
“I didn’t initially set out to make a record about space. I just started making songs, and then when I found that library, it became the glue. It helped me figure out what the unwritten parts of the record could sound like,” Applebaum says.
Ghost Funk Orchestra’s Seth Applebaum
The unwritten parts of the album are indicative of the emotions within the recordings. Applebaum expected the voices on the recordings to be steely and professional, like soldiers on a top-secret mission. Instead, he found the communications between the astronauts and the control center guiding them from Earth reflected the wondrous and breathtaking experience of space travel.
Some of the recordings were elated. On Achluo, the horn section combines for a warm and glowing harmony while the astronauts crack jokes about losing the key to the shuttle before going outside for a quick float.

Other recordings are nervous, even fearful.
“There’s a sensation to the stomach that is hard to describe when you see the Earth slowly recede from you,” says one of the astronauts in the track Helios, in which the lyrics acknowledge that feeling of separation: “There’s nothing but nothing; just the seeds of time. There’s nothing but nothing/just the stars and I.”
“I found that line so fascinating because it peels back the curtain,” Applebaum says of the astronaut watching Earth recede. “There is still a fear of the unknown, even though these people were bold enough to take the leap.”
Applebaum may be yet to take that leap himself, but he manages to traverse all the fascination and uncertainty of the final frontier through A Trip To The Moon.
Listen to the album and learn more at Ghost Funk Orchestra. 
This interview has been edited for clarity. 
The post How Ghost Funk Orchestra weave NASA’s Apollo missions into their music appeared first on MusicTech.

Spotify introduces music advisory agency for brands wanting to work with emerging artistsSpotify has launched a brand new, in-house “music advisory agency” to assist brands in building connections with emerging talent and run campaigns that will be beneficial for both parties.
The agency, called AUX, has already landed Coca-Cola as its first client for a Coke Studio campaign. As part of this move, the beverage brand has teamed up with Peggy Gou for “a long-term partnership” that will include live events, social media content, a branded playlist and on-platform promotional support.

READ MORE: Bandsintown integrates directly into Spotify to “boost concert and festival discovery worldwide”

In a post shared via the Spotify newsroom, it says that with AUX, it will use its “deep expertise to counsel brands about how best to use music to enrich their campaigns” and will connect them with emerging artists to help them reach new audiences.
Spotify isn’t the first platform to be launching an agency of this kind. As TechCrunch notes, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and other social networking companies offer similar programmes to connect creators with brands.
“Spotify is always looking for ways to leverage our music ecosystem to deepen the connections between artists, brands, and fans,” says Jeremy Erlich, VP, Head of Music Content at Spotify. “AUX is a natural step for us to help brands strengthen their music strategy and better connect with new audiences through our expert insights and observations from our music team, tailored to meet brands’ needs.”
Joshua Burke, Global Head of Music & Culture Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company adds: “We are proud to be an early partner to AUX, which integrates Spotify’s expertise to enable authentic connections with music fans worldwide.
“This is a natural progression of our long-standing partnership with Spotify and marks a key milestone for our commitment to artists and the music community. We are excited to launch Coke Studio at Spotify LA, which will provide recording support for emerging artists and a platform to promote their music.”
Jean-François Pathy, a marketing veteran who has been instrumental in AUX’s formation, serves as its Global Head. In this role, Pathy and AUX will also work with artists to help them bring their music to life in “new and compelling ways”.
Find out more over at the Spotify Newsroom.
The post Spotify introduces music advisory agency for brands wanting to work with emerging artists appeared first on MusicTech.

Spice up your use of samples with MonkeyC’s Rando sample randomiser pluginMonkeyC’s new Rando plugin helps dig you out of a creative rut by randomly picking sounds to work with from your sample library.
Users can point Rando to any or all of their sample folders, and watch as it pulls a random selection of sounds to populate their keyboard or piano roll. And as a nice little treat, it’s only $49 until 2 April.

READ MORE: IK Multimedia’s ARC Studio Hardware room correction system upgrades your studio monitoring game

If you find yourself cycling between the same sample choices, MonkeyC hopes Rando can help you out. According to the MonkeyC website, the brand’s mission is “to prompt creativity, inspiration and a faster workflow in the studio – in sometimes leftfield ways”.
The brand was founded in the Netherlands by Dennis de Laat, a dance music producer and software engineer. Rando is its second plugin release, following on from Rewind – an ‘always-on’ retrospective recorder for your computer.
Using Rando, you can narrow your sample search by text, type and category. Tonal samples are automatically tuned, and rhythmic samples are automatically time stretched to tempo. Its sampler playback functions include start/end times, direction, trigger/gate/loop, ADSR, tuning and more.
There’s also a Life control, which brings analogue-style drift to samples, and a Chromatic mode that lets you play samples across the keyboard. There’s also six global effects – Filter, Chorus, Distortion, Crush, Delay and Reverb, plus a full sequencer section with a randomising function to generate patterns.
Check it out below:

If you’re on the lookout for some new sample packs to make use of, we might just be able to help you. You can check out our guide for the best packs of February 2024 for some inspiration.
Rando is available now for PC and Mac in VST3, Audio Units and AAX formats. Its price will rise to $69 after the introductory period.
Find out more over at MonkeyC.
The post Spice up your use of samples with MonkeyC’s Rando sample randomiser plugin appeared first on MusicTech.

5 versatile sound design tips from Michael Bruner
Michael Bruner sat down with us to share five versatile tips around his favorite techniques in sound design.

Apple reveals new details about Spotify’s business as possible EU fine nearsWith the European Commission set to rule on Spotify’s complaint focused on competition in the streaming music market, there are hints that the ruling will not be in Apple’s favor. This week, the Financial Times reported the EC will issue its first-ever fine against the tech giant for allegedly breaking EU law over competition in […]
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