ALM/Busy Circuits announce Motto Akemie Modular synth experts ALM/Busy Circuits have taken a leap into the world of software with Motto Akemie, a six-voice FM drum synth and step sequencer plug-in.

Coinbase cites stablecoins, Base as key 2024 priorities after crushing Q4 estimatesAfter disclosing better-than-expected financial results in its fourth quarter earnings report, U.S.-based Coinbase has big plans. The second largest crypto exchange told its investors that intends to lean heavily on its work with the popular USDC stablecoin this year, lever its recently launched layer-2 blockchain Base as a way to experiment with and improve blockchain […]
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Anthropic trained its AI to rip off copyrighted lyrics, music publishers allege in escalating court battleUMG, Concord and ABKCO allege that Anthropic's AI chatbot is still spitting out copyrighted lyrics, despite Anthropic's claim to the contrary
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Electronic music generated £2.5 billion for the UK economy in 2023Electronic music made £2.5 billion for the UK economy last year, according to a new report about the measurable impact of electronic music.
The report was commissioned by the Night Times Industries Association as part of the Electronic Beats, Economic Treats 2024 study, which looks at recorded music, music publishing as well as the live scene encompassing club nights, concerts and festivals.

READ MORE: Cherry Audio launches plugin emulation of the Roland CR-78 drum machine – famously used on Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight

The NTIA revealed that while electronic music generated £2.5 billion for the UK economy, it is down by 6% compared to the previous year, driven by the number of nightclubs shutting around the country, from 882 in 2022 to 875 in 2023.
Regardless, the biggest contribution to this overall figure was nightclubs, providing a staggering £1.4 billion. Despite this, there does seem an overall decline in those attending nightclubs, with 9% lower footfall, and a total spending decrease of 14%.
This is followed by festivals, which provided £567 million to the UK economy, up by 9% from the previous year.
“[This report] sheds light on the challenges faced by the industry, providing insights for future growth,” said Maria May, Head of Electronic Music at Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
“In order to continue to grow we need to support each other and the culture of dance music. Together, let us propel electronic music to new heights in the UK and beyond.”
The report has also revealed that 80% of people experience emotional and mental health benefits at electronic music events.
Read the full report from NTIA.
The post Electronic music generated £2.5 billion for the UK economy in 2023 appeared first on MusicTech.

Knice Gives NYC Hip-Hop a Fresh Voice with Lauten Audio MicrophonesAudio engineer and scene curator Devonne ‘Knice’ Knight has been one of the key sonic and community architects of the modern New York hip-hop scene. As senior engineer of Platinum Sound Recording Studios, Knice’s production work on breakout tracks by artists such as French Montana, Rich the Kid, and Desiigner have given a fresh sonic signature to hip hop’s hometown. In addition to his work in the studio, Knice has also been a passionate advocate for up-and-coming talent, generating a welcoming atmosphere in his studios and hosting vibrant, community-focused events such as Pass the Aux to encourage young artists to get involved. As part of his mission to give this new generation a fresh voice, Knice has made the Lauten AudioEden, Atlantis, and Clarion a key part of his recording workflow.

The sound of beliefFor more than 18 years, Knice’s workflow has been built around delivering high-quality tracks to his clients at an often astonishing level of speed and quality. A major component in his recipe for success has been his focus on building the confidence of his artists and collaborators from the ground up and encouraging them to deliver their best in a very competitive space. “You don’t want to have to convince people to wait until the mixing stage for them to start believing in the potential of a track,” he explained. “You need something close to the end product as quickly as possible to get people to believe in the record and if you aren’t an engineer, you aren’t used to listening to ‘rough’ versions of music. For me, I’ve always focused on delivering the best that I can from the get-go.”

“Our job as engineers is to inspire artists with sounds to get a quality performance,” he continued. “We have a lot of influence in that way, and if an artist is inspired on a sonic level in the headphones, that feeds back into the performance you get.”

Inspiring belief in his collaborators also extends to giving them confidence in their own voice by curating a sound that is both cutting and powerful on a track. Having exhausted the standard microphone choices, Knice found himself looking for something fresh that could provide a new sound for his artists. “By the time I was working with Brandy and J. Critch I knew we needed a new sound in the studio,” he said. “I was so tired of the same microphone collection and I needed something that could cut through a track without too much processing.”

“That was when I tried my first Lauten Audio Mic, the Eden, and we immediately fell in love with it.”

A new sonic signatureIn his search for the right vocal microphones, Knice favors those that fit into his high-speed workflow without needing additional processing to get the sounds required. In Eden, Atlantis, and Clarion, he found a trio of useful variations on a specific sonic flavor that serve that exact purpose. “It’s that warm tube sound right away, but it has a cut that you don’t find in other mics,” he explained. “The clarity and the diction you get on them immediately cuts through and that matters more than anything when making music like this. Clients want to hear themselves sound good and you get that right away with Lauten.”

“You get addicted to the feeling of pressing play and hearing the finished thing and you don’t have to saturate them or use EQ to get it.”

Although he’s found himself using less processing since he began using Lauten, part of the signature sound has been his strategic use of Lauten’s Multi-Voicing modes on Eden and Atlantis specifically. Not only has this given him the signature ‘cut’ that his tracks have, it’s also allowed him to give performers a different variation of the same, inspiring sound to suit different ways of performing. “The tone (Multi-voicing) switches give you the ability to get an artist comfortable with a mic while also helping them to better understand their own voice,” he said. “‘Forward’ sounds amazing on rapping and gives you all that cut and clarity, but if they want to sing, you just switch it to ‘Neutral’ and it’s that smooth, warm sound you want.”

“Having it right there in the artist's hands to help make that choice brings them into the process even more, and you’re able to learn together while creating something.”

Creating something together remains at the core of Knice’s enterprise. Between cutting tracks, training artists and engineers, and hosting events in New York City that champion new artists, fresh sounds, and a sense of vibrant togetherness, he remains a passionate advocate for the community that is at the core of New York’s hip-hop culture. “There’s a huge ecosystem in New York City specifically for music and when I say we want to curate the sound of a particular area, I mean that we want to do something with cultural significance where we’re all making art with each other and everyone can play a part in it,” he said. “I feel very empowered with Lauten products – building community, sonic imprints, education, and just being able to excite people outside of the audio community about all of this stuff. That’s what it’s all about for me.”

About Lauten Audio Lauten Audio is a family-owned maker of original, inspiring microphones. Currently available products include the flagship “Eden” tube microphone, the award-winning “Atlantis” FET condenser microphone, the groundbreaking “Synergy Series” of noise-rejecting condenser microphones, and the new Series Black family of condenser microphones. Lauten Audio and its diverse family of users can be found in studios, on stages, and in homes worldwide.  

 For more information, visit http://www.lautenaudio.com or call 1-877-721-7018. 

Supreme’s 2024 collection features a Roland JU-06A and TR-08 in whiteRoland has teamed up with streetwear brand Supreme on new white versions of its legendary JU-06A synthesizer and TR-08 drum machine.

READ MORE: Donna Summer’s estate accuses Kanye West of I Feel Love “copyright infringement”

Unveiled as part of Supreme’s highly anticipated Spring/Summer 2024 collection, both devices are decked out in the iconic red-white colours of the American fashion brand. The JU-06A, for one, features a giant Supreme logo printed across its control panel — quite the bold design choice, if we’re being honest — while the TR-08 sports a relatively modest logo on its top-right corner.
Inspired by the Juno-106 and Juno-60, the JU-06A packs a 16-step sequencer and 17 dedicated sliders. Additional features include a built-in K25M keyboard unit and a mini speaker.
Like the JU-06A, the TR-08 is a faithful tribute to one of Roland’s most historic instruments. Users get the sound, character, and user interface of the original TR-808, coupled with modern touches such as a 16-step sequencer with 16 sub-steps, and a track-selectable trigger out for working with other instruments like the TB-03, SH-01A, or modular gear.
Credit: Supreme
Supreme’s SS24 collection is due for release on 15 February in the US, and 17 February in Japan. Prices for the special editions of JU-06A and TR-08 have yet to be announced, though you can probably expect a hefty markup given the collectible nature of the release.
Speaking of Supreme crossovers, last year, the brand collaborated with Japanese audio brand Technics on an equally chic-looking limited edition SL-1200MK7 turntable. 2023’s collection also featured Supreme/Maxwell cassette tapes, Bluetooth speakers in partnership with Harman Kardon and Supreme/Koss PortaPro headphones.
Learn more at Supreme.
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Cherry Audio launches plugin emulation of the Roland CR-78 drum machine – famously used on Phil Collins’ In the Air TonightCherry Audio is launching into the drum machine game, its first release a plugin emulating the Roland CR-78, made famous by Blondie and Phil Collins.
According to Cherry Audio, the CR drum machine aims to recreate the sound and look of the original, but also adds 16 or 24-step X0X-style programming for a smoother workflow.

READ MORE: Four Tet announces New York festival and confirms new album, Three

In addition to this is a song mode for pattern chaining and looping, swing and velocity features, and a preset library offering more than 250 additional sounds in multiple styles and genres.
The brand has also employed “modelled synthesis” which gives users the option to access extensive parameter tweaking options that go further than what is offered on the Roland CR-78.
There’s also plenty of effects and mixing options such as level and mute controls, and the option to adjust the overdrive, flanger, delay and gated reverb. As well as this is effect send buttons for each voice, along with a master compressor and a six-band graphic EQ.
The Roland CompuRhythm CR-78 was released in 1978, and was famed for its use in Blondie’s Heart of Glass, Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight and Hall & Oats’ I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do).

The original device was hailed as being the first of it’s kind, as the first programmable, microprocessor-controlled analogue beatbox.
To showcase the release Cherry Audio and musician Tim Shoebridge have teamed up to create an extensive video that introduces users to the classic CR-78 sounds and the features on the new CR-78 drum machine.
“I’ve had absolutely tons and tons of fun with this particular plugin. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it as much as I have,” says Shoebridge. “I’m not making it up. This is the most fun I’ve had with any plugin I’ve ever played.”
You can watch the video below:

For more information on the CR-78 drum machine, you can head to Cherry Audio.
The post Cherry Audio launches plugin emulation of the Roland CR-78 drum machine – famously used on Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight appeared first on MusicTech.

87.6% of all musicians releasing music are ‘Undiscovered’A new Chartmetric report puts grim stats to just how difficult it is to make it in music, with the vast majority classified as "Undiscovered" - which it defines as artists that have yet to establish a brand or following...
The post 87.6% of all musicians releasing music are ‘Undiscovered’ appeared first on Hypebot.

Book Smart vs. Street Smarts: Why you need both in the music businessIt is very important to get an education, but it is equally important to learn from experience. You can learn a lot from books and courses, but an evening spent at a band's merch table can be as instructive as a full semester of learning...
The post Book Smart vs. Street Smarts: Why you need both in the music business appeared first on Hypebot.

A musician’s guide: What are UPC and ISRC codes and why you need to know about them?Did you know that whenever you release new music, you need a UPC for every album or single and an ISRC for each individual track? by Chris Robley from the. Continue reading
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Rod Stewart sells catalog to Iconic Artists Group for around $100m; company raises $1bn to buy more music rightsIrving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group has secured a strategic investment from HPS Investment Partners (HPS)
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CR-78: First virtual drum machine from Cherry Audio CR-78 becomes the first drum machine to join the Cherry Audio line-up, offering a modern take on Roland’s CR-78.

Four Tet announces New York festival and confirms new album, ThreeFour Tet fans rejoice: he’s just confirmed a new album is coming, released a new single, AND announced his own festival, Four Tet & Friends, in New York later this year.
Teasing everything on Instagram, the electronic musician – real name Kieran Hebden – first revealed his festival, Four Tet & Friends, which is taking place at Under The K Bridge park in Brooklyn, New York.

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

This will see extended sets from the man himself, as well as sets from Ben UFO, Daphni, Floating Points, and loads more.
Four Tet & Friends is taking place on 4 and 5 May 2024. There’s no information yet as of pricing, however considering that his 2023 Four Tet All-Dayer festival in Finsbury Park cost around £65, we’d expect it to be priced around that mark, accounting for currency conversion to USD, of course.

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Following on from this, the London-born musician then went on to launch a new single, Daydream Repeat, before confirming that his hotly awaited album is arriving in the next 30 days.
“New track Daydream Repeat is out today,” he says on Instagram. “Taken from my next album which is called Three and is going to be released on 15 March 2024. Shops are doing preorders for the vinyl and CD.”

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A post shared by Four Tet (@fourtetkieran)

In more Four Tet news, fellow producer Logic1000 recently shared that Hebden still has a humble sense of “innocence” and is “shocked at his life”.
“We were sitting in Pret before a show and he mentioned how shocked he was at his life, and what his career had enabled him to do and experience,” she told NME. “This is someone who has been in the industry for so long and still had this innocence of someone who couldn’t believe what position he was in. He had this bright-eyed, not jaded disposition and that really stuck with me even if I didn’t realise it at the time.”
Three will be released on 15 March 2024 on all streaming platforms, vinyl and CD.
You can preorder it now via his website.
The post Four Tet announces New York festival and confirms new album, Three appeared first on MusicTech.

D16 Group’s Nepheton 2 breathes exciting new life into a drum machine legend€119, d16.pl
Following a refresh of its 909 and 303 plugins, it’s no surprise to see D16 Group divert its attention to updating Nepheton; an emulation of the iconic 808 drum machine.

READ MORE: Arturia Pigments 5 – still one of the best soft synths for sound design

You only have to search the Internet for 808 sample packs and software instruments to see that the sound of Roland’s classic is a well-trodden path. But Nepheton 2 manages to cover new ground, largely thanks to a superb new effects section. Other new features include separate channel strips for each sound and a greatly improved step sequencer. Is this finally the one 808 to rule them all?

How does the Nepheton 2 sound?
The main sound sources include the familiar 16 synthesised percussion sounds, plus an extra zappy kick drum called Lazer Gun.
The Synth tab shows simple controls for each, including a mix of Tone, Decay, Tune and Snappy dials, plus a few extras relevant to each individual sound. It goes beyond what’s offered on the original Roland TR-808, and also what’s often found on most virtual 808 instruments, so off the bat you have more control for refining your sound.
D16 should be praised for offering up this extra editing power, but it missed a trick by not letting you freely tune the kick drum or some of the other sounds. Yes, it’s more authentic to the original, but if you could pitch the kick (in particular) up and down more, then it would be easier to get it to sit in the mix and fit the key of your track.
To refine things further, a Strips tab presents channel strips for each sound. This gives you resonant low cut and high cut filters, two bands of EQ, a compressor with lookahead, and Pan, Spread, and Level controls. It’s worth noting that although the Spread effect sounds nice, it’s merely a simple Haas delay that could cause issues when collapsed to mono.
Nepheton 2 Strips tab
What effects does the Nepheton 2 have?
This brings us on to the routing and effects, which are what really helps to set Nepheton apart from its competition.
There are two effects buses with five slots in each, and options for distortion, bitcrush, chorus, delay, reverb, filter, and two modules for EQs and dynamics.
D16 is known for its excellent sounding effects, and these processors don’t disappoint. The distortion in particular is wonderful and can go from subtle, warming harmonics through to out-and-out destruction. It also has a frequency split feature, so you can leave the low-end alone and only saturate the highs.
Other notable features include side chains in the Dynamics and Filter modules that can take their input from any internal sound, extended parameters such as dither and jitter for flexible editing of the bitcrusher, and modulation on reverb tails. The only disappointment here is that the layouts are quite simple, with little visual feedback — you can’t see if or how the Dynamics modules are compressing, for example.
Nepheton 2 effects
Bus routes
Routing to effects is incredibly flexible. You can choose to route the outputs directly to bus 1 or 2, or you can direct a portion of the sound as a send. Not only that, but you can choose where in the chain you want your signal to go, so you could have a booming kick going through a distortion in slot 1 while you have a softer clave sound go through a reverb in slot 5. As the chain runs in serial, this would mean the clave avoids the distortion.
To further add to the brain melt, you can even select a position in chain 1 from which to send the signal over to Bus 2. Understandably, this level of complexity takes a bit of getting used to, but having the flexibility to process each sound in slightly different ways helps to create much more interesting kits.
Of course, since Nepheton can send 16 stereo outs to your DAW, you could alternatively choose to route each channel externally and process it using your own effects. Or you can bypass the effect buses and go straight to the master bus, which has its own editing tab. This includes a three-band compressor and a glorious limiter that can go a long way to crunching up your beats and giving them a production-ready sound. Switch on the soft clipping, set the attack and release and then pull down the threshold to get some instant extra punch and character.
Nepheton 2 main GUI
Mapping Nepheton 2
The final tab on the top half of the user interface lets you change the drum mapping to match your controller, DAW, or an external instrument (Nepheton can send MIDI out), and also create audible trigger pulses akin to a feature on the original 808 units.
Other notable additions include separate real-time and offline quality settings (a welcome feature on any plugin), and MIDI learn, which can be setup when you right click on any control. Similarly, this is how you set up parameters for automation in your host. When you want to automate a parameter you right click on it and this makes it visible in the DAW. As Nepheton has hundreds of potential parameters, you have to choose which ones you want your DAW to see. It takes a little extra thought, but it’s a reasonable workaround that’s better than scrolling through an enormous list.
Nepheton 2’s Sequencer
With the sound generation section taken care of, we should move on to the sequencer, which takes up the bottom portion of the screen.
This has seen a dramatic improvement over the previous version, as you can now see sequencer lanes for all 17 sounds in a single grid, greatly speeding up programming. You have various options for copying, pasting and moving patterns of up to 64 steps. There are also options to add accents, swing, and flams or fast rolls, so it’s easy to program those signature trap hi-hat edits. If you want to, you can choose to tap in patterns live, and there’s even a fairly comprehensive randomise function that lets you choose which lanes to change and how complicated the generated patterns should be.
Nepheton 2 sequencer
To the right of the sequencer there’s a Song section that lets you save four banks of 12 patterns, which can be performed live or triggered by MIDI. If you’d prefer to refine the edit in the piano roll then you can simply drag and drop the MIDI pattern to your DAW and switch off the sequencer, which also shrinks the interface down to keep things streamlined. Alternatively, you can drag and drop patterns between instances of Nepheton. Overall it’s a solid sequencer that makes programming a relatively quick affair.
Lighting up
It’s worth mentioning that some of the effects, functions and mute/solo buttons are activated by clicking on small LED-like buttons. This is a touch fiddly, depending on how large you set the resizable window, but it’s something that you get used to fairly quickly. One nice touch, though, is the way that there are several places throughout the layout that you can either select a certain sound, or switch on mute/solo. If you’re working in the step sequencer, for instance, then it has its own mute and solo buttons next to each lane so you don’t have to move your cursor around as much. It’s a small thing, but it goes to show how much care and attention have gone into refining the workflow.
There’s a large collection of well-programmed presets that can be accessed from a browser with a search function, favourites and tagging. You can actually save and load separate presets for the Scene (which covers the whole plugin), the Drum Kit (the sounds only), the master effects settings, and the patterns. However, it seems like a missed opportunity not to provide presets for the excellent effects buses.
Nepheton 2 presets
A king is born?
The CPU usage can get a touch high when running in full quality with all the effects, but Nepheton has the benefit of a much smaller high-def footprint than some sample-based alternatives. Our previous go-to was Wave Alchemy’s excellent Revolution Kontakt instrument, but the added flexibility afforded by the synth engines here means it might have been superseded.
The complexity of the effects and routing is not for the faint of heart, but it’s worth investing some time into as it’s at the core of what makes Nepheton stand out from the crowd. It helps to give the familiar 808 sound much needed versatility along with a modern freshness. Sure, you can craft standard 808 sounds and beats, but if you’re looking for something a little more edgy, then Nepheton can also get creative, and it sounds incredible when doing so.
Key features

Virtual 808 drum machine
32-/64-bit Windows, 64-bit Mac (VST3, VST3, AU, AAX)
17 Synthesised percussion instruments
Dedicated channel strip for every sound
2 flexible effects buses (distortion, bitcrush, chorus, delay, reverb, filter, 2 x EQ & 2 x dynamics)
Master effects with 3-band compressor, and limiter with soft clipping
Over 1200 presets for Scene, Drum Kit, Pattern and master effects
16 stereo outputs for multi-output routing in DAW
64-step sequencer with randomisation
Per-step flam and substep note fills
Store and trigger up to 48 patterns
MIDI drum map editor and audible trigger out sounds
Resizable user interface

The post D16 Group’s Nepheton 2 breathes exciting new life into a drum machine legend appeared first on MusicTech.

Accentize update dxRevive The latest version of dxRevive kits out Accentize's acclaimed audio restoration plug-in with a host of new features.