This Home Made Mac Has a Real CRTCathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions may no longer be in production, but its last bastion came in the form of extremely cheap little Chinese portable sets with a black-and-white tube. They’re now useless for broadcast TV, so can often be had for next-to-nothing. [Action Retro] has a video showing a Mac Classic clone using one, and with a built-in Raspberry Pi and a copy of RiscOS it almost makes a usable computer.
The video below the break is a little heavy on the 3D printer sponsor and the Mac case comes from a Thingiverse project, but it’s well executed and we’re grateful for being introduced to that original project. We’d have gone for a period-correct beige filament rather than the glow-in-the-dark green one used here.
We’re guessing that more than one reader will have a few of those TVs around the place, such is their ubiquity. Is it worth making this as a novelty item? It depends upon your viewpoint, but we can’t help liking the result even if perhaps it’s not for us. If RiscOS isn’t quite the thing,  there’s an option a little closer to the real thing.

As Spotify readies $18 per month ‘deluxe’ tier, do consumers care about high quality audio?Luminate study sheds light on what consumers really want from streaming
Source

Vox Samples Drops FREE Drift Pitch Vibrato Effect Plugin
Vox Samples released the free Drift Pitch vibrato effect plugin for Mac and Windows.  Drift Pitch is a 64-bit exclusive release for VST3 on Windows or VST3 and AU for macOS.  Vox Samples describes the plugin as “easily customizable and super powerful,” stating that it can “add a vibrato effect to any sound without degrading [...]
View post: Vox Samples Drops FREE Drift Pitch Vibrato Effect Plugin

Music Votes: Major Industry Partners Join CoalitionMusic Votes, the groundbreaking coalition of music voting and activism nonprofits, has announced a wave of major industry partners ranging from ASM Global to Wasserman and Bandsintown to the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) pledging to support its three steps to solve obstacles to voting: voter registration, ensuring the correct voter ID, and voter turnout.
The post Music Votes: Major Industry Partners Join Coalition appeared first on Hypebot.

Streaming Data for Musicians: Unlocking Success in the Digital AgeExplore the most important streaming data for musicians and what they need to understand for success in the digital age. This guide highlights key metrics and provides insights on leveraging. Continue reading
The post Streaming Data for Musicians: Unlocking Success in the Digital Age appeared first on Hypebot.

Excite Audio unveil Bloom Vocal Edit The latest addition to Excite Audio’s range promises to transform the way users incorporate vocals into their productions, and make quick work of crafting professional sounding chops.

Entries now open for first-of-its-kind AI songwriting competition, where one lucky winner performs with KaskadeSoundful and SoundCloud have partnered with Kaskade for a first-of-its-kind AI songwriting competition, which will see one winner get to perform alongside the esteemed DJ, and even release their own track via his label, Arkade.
Soundful is described as “the recognised leader in AI-powered, ethically-trained music generation”. The platform’s artificial intelligence-powered algorithms are human-trained and guided by music theory, not copywritten material.

READ MORE: deadmau5 and Kaskade on Kx5, the perils of signing for a major label and why we should “unleash the beast” of AI-written pop songs

Entries are open now, and hopeful participants can head to the Soundful website to create a track from Kaskade’s Collab style. Soundful Collabs capture an artists’ core musical aesthetic, or “Sonic DNA,” enabling users to create one-of-a-kind tracks that sound like their favourite artists. However, participants are encouraged to modify the track to reflect their own unique style.
All submissions must be made via SoundCloud by 12 August. The first-place winner will have their track completed and released by Kaskade as a featured artist, and perform live with him at one of his upcoming shows.
But that’s not all, as they will also receive a two-year Soundful Pro plan, one year of SoundCloud Next Pro, a $1,000 cash prize from Soundful, and even up to $1,000 towards travel expenses for the meet and greet.
And if you don’t quite make it to the winner’s spot, the closest runner up will also win a prize that isn’t too shabby – Second place gets you a one-year Soundful Pro plan, a release on Arkade, and a $500 cash prize.
In other SoundCloud news, the platform has newly entered a strategic partnership with Resident Advisor (RA) aimed at revolutionising how artists and fans connect both online and in person. The alliance seeks to improve the way users of both platforms discover and experience music and events.
To view the full submission guidelines and rules for the AI songwriting competition, head to SoundCloud.
The post Entries now open for first-of-its-kind AI songwriting competition, where one lucky winner performs with Kaskade appeared first on MusicTech.

Frequency Factor: Rethinking Your Engagement StrategyUnfortunately, even daily fan engagement might not be enough to connect with your audience effectively. Here's how to better understand how often to reach out to improve audience relationships.
The post Frequency Factor: Rethinking Your Engagement Strategy appeared first on Hypebot.

Serato launches DJ Pro and DJ Lite update with “significantly upgraded” suite of FXSerato has launched a brand new update – Serato DJ Pro 3.2.0 and Serato DJ Lite 3.2.0 – offering native Apple Silicon support and a plethora of new FX.
The update also provides DJs with expanded parameters, enhanced control and seamless integration, plus the new suite of custom-built FX, featuring Infinity Tone, Spiral Echo, Stretch, Vast Reverb, and Infinity Flanger.

READ MORE: AlphaTheta’s proposed acquisition of Serato blocked: “We disagree with and are disappointed by the ruling of the New Zealand Commerce Commission”

News of the update was first shared by Serato back in June, with the launch of a free public beta. Now the update is officially here, let’s recap on what it entails:

Full suite of new FX: These have been designed by Serato’s product and development teams.
Native Apple Silicon support: Enjoy seamless integration and optimised performance with native Apple Silicon support for Apple M1, M2 and M3 computers.
Create your own signature sound with Custom FX: For the first time in Serato DJ Pro, users can take full control over their FX with the ability to create, save, and manage an unlimited amount of their own presets, tailored exactly to their style (Suite / Expansion and existing FX licence owners only).
Channel FX: For controllers and mixers without built-in hardware FX, DJs can access new Channel FX that can be assigned to the filter knob. This is also available for usage with Serato Play.
Favorite FX Banks: You can now save up to four Favourite FX Banks, customised to your liking.
Easily navigate with an Enhanced Look and New View Modes: Experience a redesigned FX panel across new view modes, designed to enhance your control and flexibility.

The 3.2.0 update also revives the Roll Out – A long-time favourite effect from Scratch Live – now with an enhanced quality sound build and design. The Roll Out is available if you have Suite or the Expansions bundle.
Check out the videos below for more information:

Find out more over at Serato, or view its full list of FX.
The post Serato launches DJ Pro and DJ Lite update with “significantly upgraded” suite of FX appeared first on MusicTech.

Watch Fred again.. play several unreleased tracks during intimate London rooftop setFred again.. is one of the biggest electronic music stars in the world right now, and is easily able to sell out arenas in minutes when he announces shows. He even played his first-ever stadium concert at the LA Memorial Coliseum in June.
But the size of his audience appears to be of no concern to the Balham, London-born mega producer. Last month he surprised Glastonbury-goers with a surprise ambient set at the smaller Strummerville stage, and now, he’s soundtracked the evening drinks of a handful of revellers on a small rooftop in London.

READ MORE: Skrillex and Fred again’s huge surprise Civic Center rave looked insane – take a look the highlights here

And fortunately for you, Fred’s the entire nearly-two-hour performance to his YouTube channel so you can appreciate it in all its glory.
The set kicks off with Ten (ft. Jozzy), before jumping into the likes of Cautious (Tuesday Idea), an edit of Libianca’s afrobeats megahit People, and then into adore u (with Obongjayar), before playing a host of unidentified fresh IDs.
One of them he revealed was a track named Glow, which was created with Duskus, Skrillex and Four Tet.

“Some of the songs on this are on the record that I’ve just finished/am finishing,” Fred reveals in the video’s description.
He goes on: “In the last couple years I’ve had less and less time to spend with my absolute main people, and I’ve also been making a new record. So I wanted to get all these people together and have an evening in London and play them some of the tunes and just have a nice time really.”
Learn more about Fred again.. via his official website.
The post Watch Fred again.. play several unreleased tracks during intimate London rooftop set appeared first on MusicTech.

Real-time voice morphing with Dreamtonics Vocoflex Dreamtonics have announced the release of a new AI-powered plug-in that’s capable of transforming the sound of a vocalist in real time.

How will young people learn music and production in a post-AI music industry?“I’m excited for AI that can cut out the annoying tasks that get in the way of the creative process, and I also can see a world where it becomes a sort of writing partner. But, in regards to game development, I think it may cut out many opportunities for newer composers.”
I’m talking to Michael James Collier, a composer at Grinding Gear Games – the studio behind the popular action-RPG game, Path of Exile.

READ MORE: Will RIAA’s lawsuit against Udio and Suno really be the win we’re hoping for?

The sentiment he’s expressing is common. I’ve heard versions of it from many people across the music industry: AI has amazing potential to streamline and automate away the boring drudgery, but may simultaneously wipe out anyone without sufficient skill to justify their pay check.
At the same time, there also seems to be a broad consensus that, no matter how convincing AI becomes, it will never replace the true masters. Even if AI achieves intellectual superiority, we will still want Hans Zimmer to score the new blockbuster, Rick Rubin to produce the hit of the summer and Bob Ludwig to master it. Premium projects will always require a human touch.
But the Steve Albini’s of the world do not arrive fully formed. Skills have to be learned, talents need to be honed, and, historically, this has been done through on-the-job training. Composers work their way up from scoring student films, to trailer music, to commercials, and, finally, to well-paid projects in film, TV, and gaming. Mix engineers might spend their days editing and cleaning up drum tracks while interning at a studio, or training their ear mixing and mastering the DIY recordings of local garage bands.
A photo from 2005 of Steve Albini in his Electrical Audio studio. Image: Paul Natkin/Getty Images
They do. Or, at least, they were.
These ‘lower-tier’ tasks are first in the firing line for AI automation. So, we need to stop and ask ourselves: if the bottom ten rungs of the ladder are broken, then exactly how will the next generation of music profession
These initial projects don’t offer much money or prestige, but they are foundational to how music professionals build a portfolio, establish industry connections, and, crucially, get good at what als achieve the kind of audio mastery that none of us want to see go extinct?
One scenario is that we simply redefine what counts as low-level. Using the latest AI tools, rookies may be able to take up tasks that would have once required a seasoned pro. In turn, skilled professionals will be freed up to produce radically new kinds of material, defining next-gen workflows as they do so.
For historical parallels, look to the Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th century. Reacting to the explosion of mass produced goods, some manufacturers opted to integrate the tools of industrialisation with traditional craftsmanship. That practice not only produced wholly new styles of design and art, it also kept those craftspeople relevant in the new economy; empowering them to retain a measure of control over their work.
It’s not impossible to see a similarly positive outcome happening in the world of audio as young people increasingly explore AI for its creative possibilities. Futuristic DAW’s like RipX genuinely break new ground when it comes to what we can do with existing audio, audio restoration plugins remove laborious tasks that no one enjoys, and a dizzying array of new production tools are reshaping how we write, record, and refine music. These innovations have clear potential to supercharge human creativity rather than supplant it.
At the same time, we cannot ignore the potential AI clearly has to eviscerate whole sections of the creative industries, and, if we once again cast an eye back to the history of industrialisation, then a far darker scenario emerges.
The Luddites – much maligned as technophobes who wanted to resist any innovation – were actually skilled workers who, over a relatively short period of time, saw their lives fundamentally reshaped from that of skilled artisans, to easily replaceable menials who performed repetitive tasks for drastically lower pay.
Which brings us to AI song generators.
Image: DisobeyArt via Getty Images
Leaving aside the ethical can of worms that powers text-to-audio song generators, it’s worth noting that they exist in wholly different categories to things like AI stem separation. Why? Because, despite what their fundraising announcements might say, their intended users are not musicians.
Companies like Suno and Udio may highlight their many individual users, but as the initial novelty wears off, it’s very hard to see them sticking to their current subscription model. Hell, Spotify boasts almost half a billion loyal subscribers and still runs at a loss year after year. If they are not sued out of existence, or if they manage to cut a licensing deal with the majors, then, sooner or later, they will turn to where the real money is: enterprise customers who need large amounts of music but don’t want to pay humans to write or record it.
You can’t retrain for an industry that is actively working to uncouple you from the creative chain. More to the point, for music professionals to retrain as prompt engineers would be the exact opposite of up-skilling, it would be de-skilling.
Within a few years, it may be possible to produce much of the background music that we hear in everyday life – in commercials, supermarkets, or company training videos – through de-skilled prompt engineering. But that world would leave frighteningly few opportunities for people to gain the nuts and bolts experiences needed to become the next John Williams.
If society is to keep pace with the AI industry’s ‘move fast and break things’ mantra, then thorny questions around training data, copyright, labour projections, and the value of human artistry will all need to be addressed sooner rather than later.
One thing is clear: you cannot remove the grass-roots level without destabilising the entire ecosystem. If AI shatters our established methods of learning and career building, then there is no blueprint for how we put those pieces back together.
The post How will young people learn music and production in a post-AI music industry? appeared first on MusicTech.

How to make an atmospheric DnB beat in 10 minutes with free pluginsAtmospheric drum ‘n’ bass is known for its rich textures and sophisticated beat programming, but thankfully, you don’t need to be rich or sophisticated to make this kind of music! With the array of free samples, synths and plugins available to electronic music producers, you can start creating smooth DnB grooves gratis, right now.
Here’s what you’ll be making today:

READ MORE: How to use mix correction plugins for creative sound design

We’re going to use Ableton Live for this guide, but you can follow along with any DAW, though other DAWs will handle audio their own way and have slightly different stock effects. If you’re still looking for a DAW, you can check out our favourites.
Programming a break
Load up your DAW and set the project tempo to a brisk 165 BPM. We’re going to use a breakbeat sample from BandLab Sounds as the basis of our track, specifically from the ’90s Jungle pack.
Our sample is recorded at 155 BPM, so we’re going to speed it up slightly to fit with our project tempo.
[Editor’s note: BandLab and MusicTech are part of Caldecott Music Group]
In Live, do this by dropping the sample onto an audio track, turn off any warping that may be applied to the audio clip, and pitch the beat up to +1 semitone 21 cents. This puts the beat in time with project tempo — we can see this because the kicks and snares line up with the grid. As we’re repitching the audio without warping and timestretching, this helps keep the break’s transients snappy.
Now that the break is at the project tempo, you can chop duplicate sections of the audio as you see fit. We suggest keeping a kick on the first beat of the bar and a snare on the second beat of the bar, and restrict chops to being placed on 8th notes.

Once you’ve got a four-bar groove going, you can add some tonal parts.
Adding a pad
Pad chords are ubiquitous in atmospheric DnB, and they’ll give your beat a musical foundation to add other elements on top of.
First, grab the free Spitfire LABS plugin and ensure the Electric Piano and Synth Pads packs are downloaded. Again, you can use any synth or sampler you like, but we found the LABS plugin perfect for this track.
Now load up the plugin on a MIDI track, select the Synth Pads pack, and load up Pad #0006. This is a rich, mellow pad that when played with a jazzy chord will instantly give us that ambient jungle vibe.
Sequence a G minor 7 chord with an extra G note on the octave below (so that’s G1, G2, A#2, D3, F3), using velocity values of 100. This chord will give you the basis for a deep DnB vibe that sets things off nicely.

Creating an arpeggiator-style lead
Now let’s add a rhythmic lead to add some energy to our beat. On a new MIDI track, load up another instance of Spitfire LABS, and this time load up the Electric Piano – Chorus preset.
We’re going to sequence 8th notes with this sound, with a pattern that plays G2, D3, A3, A#2, and F3. Now duplicate this pattern for the rest of the four bars.

Because this pattern has five notes, it gives us a cool polymeter that plays off the break nicely.
Time to tweak your electric piano so that it sounds better in context. First, turn the Spitfire LABS Dynamics fader up to around 90 per cent, then add a subtle phaser and synced 3/16 delay effect. This gives it a little more movement and space.

Making a deep 808-style bass line
Now let’s make ourselves a big, booming 808 bass with the free version of Vital. Starting with the default patch, set the first oscillator’s wavetable to Basic Shapes to give us a smooth sine wave.
Next, turn down ENV 1’s Sustain to zero, and set its Decay to around 2.5 seconds. This makes the bass note fade out smoothly.
Now select ENV 2, and drag its modulation handle over to to Pitch Transpose parameter. This means we’re now controlling the pitch of the oscillator with ENV 2. We’re going to use this to make the patch drop in pitch whenever it’s played, giving our bass note a more percussive quality. Set ENV 2’s Sustain to zero, and its Decay to about 0.5 seconds.
You want the transposition amount to be quite small, so right-click the Oscillator 1 Transpose parameter, select Enter Value, and enter a value of 1.
You only want to be able to play one note at a time, so set the Voices parameter to 1.

Now program in a bass line. In our example we’re using the root note, the third, fifth and octave. Check out how the bass line sits smoothly with the beat, playing on some of the kicks and snares to give the beat a solid, rolling feeling.

Now you’ve got your beat, start adding and arranging elements to transform this into a fully-fledged original track.
Tim Cant is a music technology writer and educator. He produces and releases music as Tim Cant, and has upcoming releases on Okbron and Curvature.
Learn more production techniques at musictech.com/learn/.
The post How to make an atmospheric DnB beat in 10 minutes with free plugins appeared first on MusicTech.

Live Review of Aigel in Los AngelesThe Echoplex  Los Angeles, CA

Web: instagram.com/aigelband

Contact: susan@susanvonseggern.com

The Players: Aygel Gaysina, vocals, mixer; Llya Baramiya, mixer

Material: Aigel is a DJ duo that creates rave music, with mostly dark, trance-type beats that mesmerize and captivate the listener into submission. That said, submission was not needed on this warm, summer evening as the audience, willfully and willingly, accepted the thundering bass loops that filled the Echoplex. Gaysina sang and pranced around the stage with gleeful abandon and Baramiya did his magic finger-work on his mixer. Sometimes happy tunes, and sometimes not-so-happy dark tunes, the music had the audience jumping and dancing to every beat.

Musicianship: Gaysina has an impressive voice with an equally impressive vocal range, and can work the mixer like the expert that she is. Baramiya had a separate mixer going as he improvised many musical notes and tones. Setting off the looper along with so many other bells, sounds and whistles, he was the impetus that kept the train rolling. He worked so well within the tunes that he gave them that extra push that made everyone want to dance, bump and grind. Together they made the whole night gel in impressive style.

Performance: They hail from Russia, but music is the great unifier, a universal language.  Therefore, the fact that the lyrics are in Russian is no great obstacle for the listener. Claiming that her English was not too good, Gaysina kept the whole audience entranced for the whole night. We might not be able to understand every single word that she sings but, ultimately, the audience liked what she was doing. The Echoplex crew were also on point with smoke and exceptional lighting. 

Summary: Gaysina and Baramiya are consummate music lovers and it shows with the enthusiasm and effort they put out on stage. All over Europe in early June, their recent tour took them to Helsinki, Berlin, Warsaw, Belgrade, and Istanbul, just to mention a few. And just so we wouldn’t feel left out, they managed to grace the States with their presence, hitting New York and Chicago, and then ending the tour with mid-June dates in San Franciso and finally Los Angeles. See you next year.The post Live Review of Aigel in Los Angeles first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

The question haunting Fisker’s bankruptcyAs failed EV startup Fisker winds its way through bankruptcy, a persistent and tricky question has become a flashpoint of the proceedings: does its lone secured lender Heights Capital Management deserve to be at the front of the line to reap the proceeds of a liquidation?  Heights has maintained an unequivocal “yes.” But new information […]
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