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How do musicians make money on TikTok?UMG tracks accounted for 35% of the TikTok Top 50 last week, so pulling all their music off the platform has presented a unique opportunity for independent musicians to fill the void...
The post How do musicians make money on TikTok? appeared first on Hypebot.Kaskade “beyond excited” to become first in-game DJ at the Super BowlKaskade has been announced as the first ever in-game DJ for the Super Bowl, which is due to take place this Sunday (11 February). He will be taking the slot as Tiësto, who was originally set to play at the event, pulled out due to a family emergency.
Kaskade will perform both prior to kickoff and during featured breaks within the game, making him the first artist to perform throughout the famous sport event.READ MORE: Legowelt, Mr Scruff, Nightmare On Wax & more will play at Houghton Festival 2024
Sharing his excitement and gratitude, Kaskade took to social media: “As a kid who grew up in Chicago watching the NFL Super Bowl every year with my family this chance to actually be part of it is absolutely mind blowing.
“Las Vegas has been my second home for the past decade, as an architect of creating a landscape that includes House and Dance Music residencies as part of its destination,” he adds. “To be able to be the first Electronic Musician to be part of the full game experience of the Super Bowl held in Las Vegas seems like coming home, and I’m beyond excited to represent my community.”As a kid who grew up in Chicago watching the @NFL Super Bowl every year with my family this chance to actually be part of it is absolutely mind blowing. Las Vegas has been my second home for the past decade, as an architect of creating a landscape that includes House and Dance… pic.twitter.com/UQ9w6cUNyr
— Kaskade (@kaskade) February 9, 2024Tiësto announced his withdrawal from the Super Bowl just yesterday (8 February), revealing that an important family matter means he must return home this weekend.
He wrote online, “Me and my team have been preparing something truly special for months, but a personal family emergency is forcing me to return home Sunday morning. It was a tough decision to miss the game, but family always comes first. Thank you to the NFL for the collaboration and looking forward to working with them to deliver something incredible together in the future !”Me and my team have been preparing something truly special for months, but a personal family emergency is forcing me to return home Sunday morning. It was a tough decision to miss the game, but family always comes first. Thank you to the @NFL for the collaboration and looking…
— Tiësto (@tiesto) February 8, 2024Super Bowl LVIII kicks off on 11 February at Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium at 6:30pm EST (11:30pm GMT). The game will see the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers go head-to-head. Kaskade’s performance will air on the CBS Super Bowl LVIII broadcast and will be streamed live on his social media channels.
Find out more at the NFL.
The post Kaskade “beyond excited” to become first in-game DJ at the Super Bowl appeared first on MusicTech.Baby Audio’s new physical modelling synth plugin, Atoms, “constantly shifts and regenerates like a natural organism”Baby Audio has released a new physical modelling synth plugin, Atoms, which can be used to produce both “otherworldly” and “organic” sounds.
Modelled on the behaviour of real-life instruments, Atoms consists of six main parameters – Chaos, Force, Drive, Order, Overtones and Filter – that can be automated with a series of motion options, in order to create soundscapes that are “constantly shifting and regenerating, like a natural organism”. There are also options to randomise the parameters and the choice to lock parameters from changing.READ MORE: These gold speaker systems are a level of bougie we’d probably never be able to afford
The bottom panel of the synth, which controls things such as attack, release, modulation, space and more can be used to further sculpt the sounds.
“Nothing in the natural world is ever truly static,” Baby Audio says. “Physical modelling mimics this by generating sounds with the same organic fluctuations as acoustic instruments.”
The brand goes on to explain that the plugin uses features that are “deep enough to explore the outer bounds of sound design, yet so simple that you can easily mangle, shape and create”.
“At its heart, Atoms is like a bowed string instrument created in a science lab, living and breathing with a mind of its own,” Baby Audio says. “It’s capable of everything from sci-fi ambience to naturalistic string sounds. Since Atoms is based on a virtual acoustic structure, you can think of it like an evolution of a traditional musical instrument.”
You can watch the synth in action below:Atoms is available now for $59. For more information, head to Baby Audio.
The post Baby Audio’s new physical modelling synth plugin, Atoms, “constantly shifts and regenerates like a natural organism” appeared first on MusicTech.UKG legend Scott Diaz: “The top artists are not saturating the market with average tracks on a weekly or fortnightly basis. They wait until they have something strong”Scott Diaz has shared some thoughts on how to make an impact as an artist in a new social media post, stressing quality over quantity.
READ MORE: Jack Antonoff awarded Producer Of The Year for the third year in a row at the 2024 Grammys
The UK garage and house legend begins, “If you’re releasing tracks pretty much every week and they’re not making any impact, maybe you should start thinking about why that is, and strongly consider slowing down your output and focusing on getting it right if it means you can make higher quality music.”
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A post shared by Scott Diaz (@scott_diaz)
He says that this will be “more effective for your career, your confidence and your potential future opportunities”, explaining that the most successful artists aren’t saturating the market with “average tracks” on a regular basis. Rather, they wait until they have a strong track.
He finishes, “Release as much music as you want – but if it’s not strong, then you’re doing more harm than good in the long run. Said with love.”
Diaz has been busy in the studio, too, with his new EP Sometimes The Rain Writes The Music out on 1 March on Grand Plans, while he’s been working with frequent collaborator LOA.
But as well as working on new music, he’s also been looking back on his discography to date. Sharing a similar sentiment to that expressed in his above post, he said in a Facebook post last week, “There seems to be such a constant focus on pushing out new music and making the next thing that it’s really easy to forget what you did in the past, and what impact it had.“Going to start sharing back catalogue gems that I’m most proud of for whatever reasons. Seems like it’ll serve as a nice reminder and hopefully the music will be new to some of you.”
Alongside the message, he shared the track Philadelphia from his 2016 release Lovesick Part II.There seems to be such a constant focus on pushing out new music and making the next thing that it's really easy to…
Posted by Scott Diaz on Tuesday, January 30, 2024Stay up to date with Scott Diaz via his official website.
The post UKG legend Scott Diaz: “The top artists are not saturating the market with average tracks on a weekly or fortnightly basis. They wait until they have something strong” appeared first on MusicTech.
Is DJ Studio the perfect DAW for DJs?Lite: £199/$199 or £8/$8 per month, Pro: £499/$499 or £29/$29 per month, dj.studio
Recording a DJ mix is often as simple as performing and recording the master output in real-time, all in one take. It’s certainly a strong indicator of your DJing ability — but you’re limited if you want to get ultra-precise with your mix after it’s recorded, or pre-prepare something with voiceover for radio. You have very few streamlined choices.READ MORE: Why are so many producers praising Imaginando BAM?
There have been solutions over the years — Native Instruments’ Traktor DJ software initially launched as Traktor Studio, with the ability to record movements as automation, allowing you to fix any wonky mixes in post-production. Then there’s Ableton Live, which, although not specifically for DJ mixes, can be used to edit tracks, warp tempos and launch tracks live. But, historically, there was no standard DJ mix software. In fact, one of the most celebrated DJ mixes of all time, the Too Many DJs series by Soulwax, was actually “mixed” using a turntable, recording parts then editing together in Pro Tools — Pro Tools!
The forgotten hero was my particular favourite, MixMeister’s Fusion software. MixMeister allowed for ultra-simple, drag-and-drop, semi-automated, offline mix creation. But it was left stranded without many updates after its acquisition by InMusic in 2007 and struggled to keep apace with OS updates, especially on macOS.
These OS struggles with MixMeister studio, led me to search for an alternative. “There must be loads of different solutions by now, surely?” I thought… Well, surprisingly there wasn’t. It was this same scenario that led DJ Studio founder, Siebrand Dijkstra to create his app.
DJ Studio playlist in carousel view. Image: MusicTech
Branded as the first full DAW for DJs, DJ Studio has been created specifically to solve the hassle of creating DJ mixes, radio shows and the like. It’s designed to appeal to both the pro market and playlist addicts looking to explore curating mixes.
Thankfully, DJ Studio sports a familiar layout to other major DAWs. Available in the browser or as an app (although the browser features are limited), the AI-powered automixing will import your playlists from Rekordbox and other major music library apps. This includes the import of grid data, BPM and cue points into DJ studio, and you can toggle the settings on which of your music libraries and views you want to use.
Undeniably a killer, genuinely innovative feature is the ability to communicate with YouTube and create legal, full mixes using YouTube video search, then output these with video mix, using a visualization. This is a mind-blowing feature for both mixtape curators and users who may not have actually become DJs in the traditional sense yet. Plus, for DJs, it’s a useful tool to test out mixes, create YouTube content and send demos without having to invest in downloaded, offline files.
The app is constantly being updated. Feedback from the community seems to be implemented rapidly and new features and bug fixes are swift. When using Automix, the results are, as you might expect, hit and miss — but it’s really the ability to easily dig in and edit the Automix suggestions that makes DJ Studio so powerful. The matching for key or energy is particularly cool.
DJ Studio YouTube integration. Image: MusicTech
Our biggest gripe with DJ Studio is some of the interface quirks, especially with the recent addition of sample lanes, where the resizing and collapsing of tracks is clunky. Zooming out the entire interface from the view menu is a huge help here. There’s also a question over the pricing — it’s expensive as a one-off option and costly for somebody just doing the odd mix to be paying a monthly subscription. It’s worth watching out for sales and offers here.
Another issue lies in manually creating complex automation. There needs to be a dropdown menu or a way to more easily focus on the automation you want to adjust, as lots of automation lanes overlap and it’s easy to accidentally move the filter, for example, when you are trying to adjust the volume. A simple dropdown on the left Deck menu by the EQs, or a selection tool to bring automation into focus could solve this. It would be better if the rotary controls for EQ and filter were animated to match the automation lines as the volume fader does. Hopefully, this is in a future update.
Possibly the most noticeable difficulty with the app is the challenge with mixing genres other than dance music. DJ Studio admits it launched as an EDM-focused product and is now updating beat detection and algorithms to make improvements to other genres. Tracks without robust tempo grids can be more complicated. Automatic beat detection and mixing options are more challenging with disco, funk, hip-hop and similar non-four-to-the-floor electronic styles. But, even in recent updates, this is always improving, and when you dig in manually to mix transitions, there’s no limit to what you can do. Plus, if your grids and info are accurately set in Rekordbox, for example, it makes the process much smoother.
If you’re creative, it’s possible to adjust grids, create loops and samples and make mixes work in any way you want. This is helped further by a recently added feature of two Sample Lanes. This is basically two extra track lanes in the DAW that lets you resample parts from other tracks, or add loops and more audio. This works particularly well with cutting loops out of a track and using these to create new extended layers. This also expands DJ studio’s remit as a pure DJ mix tool and allows the possibility of creating quick edits and mashups too.
DJ Studio. Image: MusicTech
Taking creativity even further, DJ Studio has one more amazing trick up its sleeve. It allows for the export of the mix you are working on as an editable Ableton Live project, complete with tempo automation, any filtering, EQ and even volume fades! This means even if you hit the creative limits of the DJ Studio app, you can easily continue in Ableton to add more tracks, record voice-overs, add extra effects or create more complicated edits.
This is still a young product that is constantly evolving and driven by passionate, skilful people. I’m confident that this will evolve into an industry-standard tool for DJs and radio show hosts and will become an entry point for music obsessives wanting to explore making their own mixes.
There’s long been a gap in the market for a product like DJ Studio and it’s by far the best software for creating DJ mixes that I’ve ever used.
Key FeaturesIntegration with existing popular music libraries, grids, cues and more.
Ability to create mixes using YouTube
Export as an Ableton project
Integration with Beatport
Integration with Mixed In KeyThe post Is DJ Studio the perfect DAW for DJs? appeared first on MusicTech.
SKnote announce Etna-Q multi-channel dynamic EQ SKnote’s new Etna-Q hardware unit packs in eight stereo channels of dynamic EQ, and comes equipped with motorised pots and full recall ability.
66th Annual GRAMMY Awards Audio Team Collaborates for Live BroadcastPhotograph courtesy of The Recording Academy®/Getty Images. © 2024 Photograph by Kevin Winter.
Only minutes before the start of the 66th Annual GRAMMY Awards®, members of the 2024 audio team gathered for a photo at the foot of the stage at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Held on Sun, Feb. 4, 2024, the 66th Annual GRAMMY Awards showcased an amazing collection of musical performances and tributes and utilized the latest in technology to provide television viewers worldwide with a cutting-edge, high-definition immersive sound.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 04: on February 04, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
The GRAMMY Awards® technical staff consists of audio pioneers who continually strive to employ the latest in technology to enhance the show. Prominent members of the Recording Academy® Producers & Engineers Wing® were part of the audio team, including GRAMMY® Co-Broadcast Music Mixer Eric Schilling, GRAMMY Broadcast Production Mix Audio Advisor Mike Clink, GRAMMY Broadcast Music Mix Audio Advisor Glenn Lorbecki, GRAMMY Broadcast House Mix Audio Advisor Leslie Ann Jones, and several others.
RecordingAcademy.com
Car-sharing company Getaround cuts one-third of US workforceGetaround, a company that helps vehicle owners rent out their cars, trucks and SUVs to other peers, is cutting 30% of its North American workforce as part of a restructuring. The company said in a statement it will restructure its workforce and operations to reduce costs in hopes of extending its cash runway and accelerating […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.Killer Mike – and a host of top execs – joined ‘Award Season’ Grammy Week party, hosted by Milk & Honey and ReservoirMBW co-sponsored event alongside Splice, SoundCloud, Mark Music + Media Law, BMI, UBS, and Endurance Artist Management.
SourceKiller Mike – and a host of top execs – joined ‘Award Season’ Grammy Week party, hosted by Milk & Honey and ReservoirMBW co-sponsored event alongside Splice, SoundCloud, Mark Music + Media Law, BMI, UBS, and Endurance Artist Management.
SourceReservoir generated $35.5m in calendar Q4 2023, up 19% YoYThe company has raised its outlook for full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA, in the wake of "strong revenue growth"
SourceSpotify paid the music industry $9 billion in 2023Apparently, passing 602 million monthly active users was not the only big stat Spotify wanted to share this week. Two days after a solid report to investors that sent its stock up 8%, Spotify announced it had paid more than $9 billion to musicians and the music industry last year, its highest payout ever...
The post Spotify paid the music industry $9 billion in 2023 appeared first on Hypebot.What Was AI Made For? AI’s Place in the Music IndustryJoseph Perla, the Founder & CEO of Hangout FM by Turntable Labs, cuts through the clutter to offer a music tech insider's look at the good and the bad of music AI...
The post What Was AI Made For? AI’s Place in the Music Industry appeared first on Hypebot.13 Social Media Tips for Musicians [Bobby Borg]If your social media efforts have yet to be the fruit you'd hoped for, these 13 tips from Bobby Borg are the perfect place to start...
The post 13 Social Media Tips for Musicians [Bobby Borg] appeared first on Hypebot.Music subscriber market shares 2023: New momentumWith UMG leading the charge to reshape the music industry into a more label-friendly form, 2023 may, with hindsight, go down as the year before everything changed. Whatever lies ahead though, new models will take time to deliver benefits. Music subscriptions are therefore going to remain the bedrock of music rightsholder revenues for the foreseeable future. So, it is a good thing that music subscriptions had such a good year in 2023.
As of Q3 2023, there were 713.4 million music subscribers globally, which was 90 million up on the 623.4 million one year earlier in Q3 2022. This matters for two reasons:
We are already nearly three quarters of the way to having one billion music subscribers globally. That is no small achievement. For context, as recently as five years ago, we had only just passed the quarter of a billion subscriber mark
The 90 million subscribers added in the 12 months to Q3 2023 was more, yes more(!), than the 83.5 million added one year earlier. In fact, the number added was nearly as many as those added in 2020. Not bad for a maturing category with key markets hitting near-saturation
However, there is a bit of a problem with looking at the global market: it is increasingly no longer a global market, but instead, one of two halves: the West and the Global South, with each region throwing off dramatically different metrics and growth narratives.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the market share rankings:
Spotify dominated the global music subscriber base in Q3 2023 with 31.7% market share. More than that, it actually increased its share from 0.4 points from Q3 2022. So, for all the flak Spotify has thrown at it, it outgrew the market in 2023. Newer, emerging market territories were central to this growth, but it was Spotify’s traditional heartland (North America and Europe) that drove the majority (59%) of its subscriber growth. Compare and contrast this with the all-DSP picture, where North America and Europe drove just 29% of subscriber growth, with Asia Pacific accounting for nearly two thirds of all non-Western subscriber growth
China, a market in which only Apple of the Western DSP operates, underpins this non-Western growth, and the clearest manifestation of this is Tencent Music Entertainment (TME). With 102.7 million subscribers in Q3 2023, TME represents 14.4% of all global subscribers, despite this being an effectively China-only number. NetEase Cloud Music (6.1% share and China-only) and Yandex (3.4% share and Russia-only), further represent the dynamic growth from regions where Western DSPs largely do not operate. This is the new, bifurcated nature of the global music subscriber market
Apple Music (12.6%), Amazon Music (11.1%) and YouTube Music (9.7%) represent the remainder of the leading Western DSP pack. Along with Spotify, these three DSPs represent 65% of the global market, but only 59% of 2023 growth. Western DSPs are still the core of the market, but they are collectively losing share. But, even within these four, there is a diverging picture, with YouTube Music and Spotify gaining share in 2023 while Amazon and Apple lost share. Between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023, Spotify added more subscribers than all three other leading Western DSPs combined
2023 was a strong year for music subscriptions, delivering more growth than perhaps had been expected in such challenging macro-economic and geo-political circumstances. Even North America and Europe grew slightly faster in 2023 than in 2022. But, as commendable as squeezing more growth out of otherwise mature markets is, the inescapable paradigm shift is the emergence of the Global South as the growth driver of tomorrow’s music subscriber base.
Want even more detail? Check out the full music subscriber market shares report and data set, with data for more than 20 DSPs across more than 40 territories, with data for every quarter from Q4 2015 to Q3 2023.
For more info email stephen@midiaresearch.com
