From SoundCloud’s profitability to Universal’s $50bn+ public valuation… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpFive of the biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days
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Cradle Releases FREE State Machine BitFlip Virtual Instrument
Cradle’s new State Machine BitFlip plugin is a FREE retro-gaming-inspired instrument for macOS and Windows. If you miss the days of the 8-bit Sega Master System, the original Nintendo (NES), Atari 7800, or any other classic games console, Cradle has the perfect walk down memory lane for you. State Machine BitFlip is a free instrument [...]
View post: Cradle Releases FREE State Machine BitFlip Virtual Instrument

Taped Vibes: free HALion instrument from Steinberg Steinberg's latest HALion instrument offers a classic electric piano captured with a DI, vintage preamp and thorugh a Space Echo.

Denise Audio revamps its cult bass plugin into supersized Bass XXLDenise Audio has unveiled a supersized version of its cult Bass XL plugin, fittingly called Bass XXL.
The plugin is the first Denise Audio product to have been released since Baby Audio completed its acquisition of the company in September. The company claims that the plugin is the “be-all-end-all” bass enhancement tool and now offers a more effective way to get a thick and consistent low end.
Per a press release, Bass XXL uses a proprietary algorithm that generates additional harmonics which are actually
above the bass frequencies. This concept takes advantage of a psychoacoustic phenomenon where the brain interprets sub bass audio largely based on its harmonics more so than the lowest sounds being produced.
Consequently, even without there being any sub bass frequencies, our brains fill in the blanks and still perceive the low end as long as the proper harmonics are present. Furthermore, the plugin also does not introduce any of the phasing issues that can sometimes occur with these effects and promises to enhance bass in a way that modern earbuds and speakers are unable to do.
Denise claims Bass XXL is especially suited to “adding presence to anemic drum recordings, dynamically control inconsistent bass performances, or to elevate and refine the low end of an entire mix with surgical precision” via an “intuitive and clutter free interface”.

Users are able to dial in their target frequency manually by root note, or via MIDI control. The plugin also makes it possible to gain clinical insight into your track’s bass frequencies with a spectrogram zoomed in on just the low end frequencies.
Bass XXL also has a pre-delay feature to preserve the transient of the dry signal and a mono knob to give the flexibility of preserving a track’s stereo image. There are two other knobs too – a slope knob to shape the harmonic signal by setting the curve at which Bass XXL’s frequencies roll off, and a range knob to set how many octaves Bass XXL’s harmonics will be generated over.
Denise Audio have stressed that Bass XXL is not a sub-synth, the main difference being it derives the harmonics from the original track. It gives a more natural bass enhancement that the company says feels more like “adding extra magic” than adding another instrument.
Bass XXL is available at an introductory price of $39 and will rise to $69 when the introductory sale is over.
For more information, head to Denise Audio.
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Andrew Huang shows off his (music) junk in new videoAndrew Huang took EarthQuaker Devices inside his studio in Toronto in the latest instalment of their acclaimed YouTube series Show Us Your Junk!
The musician and content creator showed off a huge, eclectic range of gear during the video including numerous EarthQuaker devices such as Avalanche Run, Hoof Reaper, Data Corrupter, Pyramids, Astral Destiny and Acapulco Gold.

READ MORE: Baby Audio Transit breathes life into your transitions, courtesy of Andrew Huang

Huang also discusses his journey from being a musician to a popular YouTuber, which reached a point where YouTube “became bigger than a lot of what I was doing musically”.
“I was always interested in different types of music. I was working on a lot of different stuff, and wanted to break this idea that you need to have this defined sound and brand,” he explains in the video.
“I found, when I wrapped up my whole sense of exploring in the YouTube vlog format, people could latch onto that; they could see me, get to know me, even if they weren’t into everything I was creating, they’d be into my philosophy or the techniques I was sharing. So in a way the YouTube channel is the brand part of it, and whatever I happen to be doing on it, if it’s funny, artistic, noisy, pretty, it can all fit in that world.”
Check out the video below:

The popularity of Huang’s channel has meant that he has been able to work extensively with various brands to launch different gear. For example, earlier this year, he teamed up with Baby Audio to create Transit, a multi-effects plugin that claimed to give users’ mix “transitions super powers”.
He was also involved in launching the new Ableton Push 3, posting a video showcasing the power of the pad’s MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) capabilities, live recording workflows via the built-in interface, and he also demonstrates how to integrate external synths.
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Fred Again.. has produced a track on Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s VULTURES albumFred Again.. has been confirmed to have a producer credit on a track from Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s hotly anticipated collaborative album VULTURES. 
The album’s page on Genius credits the Grammy-nominated producer on the track Slide. Fred Again.. had been playing the track during a run of shows in Los Angeles last month, though sometimes he played a shortened version. He had confirmed that he had worked with Ty Dolla $ign on the song a few months prior.

READ MORE: How to recreate Fred again..’s “Jungle” bass sound

The project is apparently meant to be released today (December 15), with The Independent reporting that West was overheard saying in a club at the weekend what the album was called and that it would be out “this coming Friday”.
Last week, Ty confirmed the album’s tracklisting with a handwritten note posted on Instagram. It will supposedly come out under the name ¥$, and acts including Freddie Gibbs, Playboi Carti, Future, James Blake, Nicki Minaj and several others will be making guest appearances, as well as West’s own daughter North.

Fred Again played a longer version of this ¥$ snippet last night
He confirmed that he worked on this song few month ago with Ty Dolla Sign pic.twitter.com/CXJBOdvKPm
— Donda Times (@dondatimes) November 4, 2023

However, there is a potential obstacle that may impede the album from hitting streaming services today. Minaj has denied her verse on unreleased song New Body, despite West pleading with her to clear it.
Responding on Instagram Live, Minaj said: “Child, that train has left the station, OK? No disrespect in any way, I just put out a brand new album. Why would I put out a song that has been out for three years? Come on, guys.” New Body was originally set to be released on West’s unreleased album Yandhi, which was scrapped in 2018.
The album is West’s first release since 2021’s DONDA and his first since accusations of anti-Semitism were levelled against him in October 2022 after he posted on social media: “Going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE … You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
He later said: “Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler … [Nazis] did good things too.” He also posted an image of a swastika blended with a Star of David. VULTURES’ title track both addresses and stokes these accusations, with West rapping: “How I’m anti-Semitic? I just fucked a Jewish bitch.”
A listening party for the album was held in Miami earlier this week and West courted controversy once again by wearing a black Ku Klux Klan-style hood to the event.
VULTURES’ artwork, meanwhile, features a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, the Romantic-era German landscape painter who was later championed by the Nazis.
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Bitwig and Orchestral Tools launch free sound package with “high-quality brass samples”Bitwig and Orchestral Tools have released a free sound package packed with “high-quality brass samples”.
With its diverse, dynamic palette of rich brass tones, timbres and articulation, the package is set to change the game in terms of digital brass digital sampling.

READ MORE: “There’s nothing I can do in Dolby Atmos to make the song ‘better’”: Music engineers weigh in on the Atmos boom

The broad range will include a wide range of solitary samples to dense ensemble sonics, as well as allowing users to freely combine the diverse selection of sounds; musicians will have the ability to toy with distinctive trumpet and horn sections, layer up trombone and tuba combos, or go all-out with the full force of the entire brass section.
Brass, Trumpet and Horn, and Trombone Ensemble and Tuba recordings will all offer sustained, staccato and marcato samples, with Brass also allowing for sustained soft, muted-sustained and muted-staccato options. The package comes with 18 presents, and eight remix presents for easy manipulation.
Every effort was made to replicate the true colour of each instrument, capturing each instrumental nuance, with natural volume balancing across all instruments to allow ultimate flexibility.
The Orchestral Brass package comes as the third release in the Orchestral Tools Collection specifically optimised for the Bitwig’s Sampler tool, following on from the Orchestral Strings and Orchestral Woodwinds packages respectively.
Orchestral Brass is available to download via the Packages tab within the DAW’s Dashboard, and is free for anyone with an active Bitwig Studio Upgrade plan. It requires 3.7GB of disk space.
For more information, head to Bitwig.
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“There’s nothing I can do in Dolby Atmos to make the song ‘better’”: Music engineers weigh in on the Atmos boomAudio engineers have opened up about how the push for Dolby Atmos-mixed music is altering the music landscape and in turn, their jobs.

READ MORE: This man releases a new album on Spotify every single day – here’s how much money he makes

As Dolby Laboratories Inc. revealed in their latest earnings report, “over 85% of the global Billboard top 100 artists of 2023 have one or more tracks available in Dolby Atmos.”
The growing ubiquity of the format, combined with the push from tech giants like Apple — who recently unveiled plans to offer additional financial incentives for record labels and artists to mix their music using the format — signals one thing: that the technology is here to stay.
Music engineers like James Auwarter, who took their chances with Atmos early on, also tell Bloomberg that their bet is paying off.
“Every other surround format for music has failed,” says Auwarter, who admits he was “sceptical” about Atmos initially. “But partially because Apple Music has pushed it so much and because it’s so accessible nowadays, I think it’s here to stay.”
For engineer Joseph Chudyk, whose collaborators include Crowder, Miranda Lambert and Kane Brown, “It’s a whole new job that has never existed before — Apple created a whole new job title.”
Nathaniel Reichman, who specialises in classical music and Atmos, also says he observed a surge in interest for the format when Tidal first started supporting it, with demand exploding following Apple Music’s endorsement.
Last year, the engineer mixed around 40 albums in Atmos, with the number increasing to 55 this year. Music mixing now accounts for the majority of his business, the most of which includes Atmos. Similarly, Al Lawson, who’s worked with Fred Again.., Tiesto and Swedish House Mafia, says 75 percent of his projects this year involved Atmos mixes.
That said, the technology still has some ways to go before it becomes a household staple. For one, Atmos only works if listeners own the right hardware — which already deters new users from trying it. And even so, not everyone will enjoy the way it makes their music sound, since “sounds are placed around or behind the listener rather than in front of them”.
As Lawson puts it, if a listener prefers sound in front of them, they likely won’t ever opt for Atmos.
He adds that “There’s nothing I can do in Atmos to make the song ‘better’.” Or perhaps more accurately, “There is no ‘better.’ I can only make it different.”
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Let 1,000 AI Startups Bloom: Why the Time to Disrupt the Music Industry Is Now [Kyle Bylin]Former Hypebot editor Kyle Bylin argues that artificial intelligence will soon revolutionize the music industry even more than past innovations like MP3s and streaming. AI tools will enable anyone to. Continue reading
The post Let 1,000 AI Startups Bloom: Why the Time to Disrupt the Music Industry Is Now [Kyle Bylin] appeared first on Hypebot.

2024 Music Industry Predictions from Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0We’re sharing 2024 Music Industry Predictions from our favorite thinkers and doers, and today, Bobby Owsinski takes the stage. Regular Hypebot readers know Bobby as a contributor via his Music. Continue reading
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There is more than one way to make a living as a musicianToday’s Hypebot Flashback Friday resurfaces one of our most popular posts of the year: “8 different ways to make money with music.” These strategies can help whether trying to earn. Continue reading
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NetEase Cloud Music wants to be ‘the bridge’ between artists in the West and audiences in China. Here’s how.In this feature, we speak to Vivian Wei, Vice President of Copyrights at China-headquartered music streaming platform NetEase Cloud Music
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The Very Loud Indeed Co. reveal DOMUS The Very Loud Indeed Co.'s latest sample library contains a mixture of loops and single hits that are said to be particularly well-suited to action and crime drama scores.

Myd’s 10-hour Christmas Dinner soundtrack features mixes from Busy P, Laurent Garnier, Sarah Story and moreDJ and producer Myd has revealed his Christmas gift to us all – 10 hours of chilled-out tunage to compliment your festive meal.
Curated and hosted by the French producer, the mammoth mix is the combined effort of Myd’s friends, fellow DJs and producers. From former Daft Punk manager Busy P, to French producer Laurent Garnier, to Radio 1’s Sarah Story, to French DJ Marina Trench feature, the 10-hour playlist has 13 unique mixes to offer.

READ MORE: This man releases a new album on Spotify every single day – here’s how much money he makes

‘The Perfect Soundtrack for your Christmas Dinner’ mix is a gorgeous patchwork of smooth jazz, gentle glam rock, flittering piano, rich R&B and staple Christmas nostalgia. The vast selection of mixes, including one by Myd, allows the mix to feel fresh for its 10 hour runtime, while still feeling effortlessly smooth.
The mix also has a few treats nestled in – with the odd sprinkling of lo-fi hip-hop, soft nu-disco and Mainline Magic Orchestra’s mix even knocking out the Clay K Slider’s Animal Crossing cover of All I Want For Christmas Is You, you’re sure to be kept on your toes.
While Myd has been involved in a few remixes and production efforts over the last few years, this serves as his biggest project since his critically acclaimed 2021 debut album, Born A Loser – and is hopefully a sign of more to come in the new year.
So, if you’re looking for just the right mix to pop on as you stuff as much food as humanly possible into your Baileys addled body, Myd’s mix has you covered. The mix is already available to stream on Spotify and Deezer – but if you’re really wanting to capture the warm, festive vibe, the YouTube stream has got a lovely fire crackling away on screen. Toasty!

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Nile Rodgers thinks David Bowie would have failed in today’s industryNile Rodgers reckons that David Bowie would have been dropped before he’d ever released a global hit if he’d been starting out in music today.

READ MORE: This man releases a new album on Spotify every single day – here’s how much money he makes

Rodgers produced Bowie’s 1983 record Let’s Dance, which afforded the late artist his mainstream breakthrough. Rodgers argued that in today’s hyper-competitive music industry, which he perceives prioritises profit over nurturing genuine talent, no modern label would have given Bowie time to produce a hit record after his run of albums in the 1970s that didn’t make a splash beyond the UK.
“They gave him all that time to try and make a hit, he called me up and we made [Let’s Dance],” he said. “[The labels] took on this financial responsibility and they would carry the artists they believed in that at some point in time would finally break, those days are truly over.”

Rodgers’ comments came during a speech made in front of a House of Commons select committee investigating the streaming economy and artist remuneration. It follows a landmark series of recommendations in 2021 that called for a “reset” across the industry to make streaming fairer for artists and songwriters.
Rodgers demonstrated the extent of the problem faced by modern songwriters and artists by comparing today’s streaming remuneration with what he received in the 1970s. He told the committee he made $100,000 in 1977 after his first Chic album sold a million copies, while in comparison, Snoop Dogg revealed last week he got $45,000 for a billion streams.
In response to Snoop Dogg’s claims, Spotify said it made money for music mainly from two sources – Spotify Premium subscribers and advertisers on Spotify’s Free tier. “Nearly 70% of this money is paid out to music rights holders to what we call the ‘royalty pool’,” a spokesperson said.
Rodgers dismissed labels’ claims that their majority share of streaming revenues is fair because they invest millions into A&R, which involves taking a financial risk on artists who might not succeed as they would hope.
“I really hate the fact that they keep using that argument that is completely archaic,” said Rodgers. “I hate to use words like ‘lie’ – but it’s a lie.”
Indeed, a new report has found that independent musicians need to generate five million streams annually to make the US federal minimum wage.
The report by music financing platform Duetti also found that earnings per stream are down by two percent in 2023, despite price increases by the streaming platforms. Independent artists are said to make $2.95 per 1,000 streams.
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