Drum Stereo FX & DJ VCF from Erica Synths Erica Synths' latest modules add some reverb and delay effects to the Drum Series and provide an interesting DJ mixer-style filter design. 

I guess I’m a projector person now?I’ve been one of the those “I don’t own a TV” people for a long time. Really my entire adult life, excepting those times when I shared my living space with someone who brought their own to the party. My exact motivation is a bit hazy all these years later, but at a certain point, […]
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Universal Music UK’s Selina Webb and songwriter Carla Marie Williams awarded MBEs in New Year Honours list; Don Black, Paul Burger and more also recognizedWebb awarded MBE for services to the music industry, neurodiversity, and charity
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The best free music production plugins for 2024
As we step into 2024, let's explore a selection of indispensable free music production plugins that can elevate your tracks without denting your budget.

Announcing The Passing Of Bram Inscore, Producer & Songwriter"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our beloved Bram Inscore, who ended his life after a hard fought battle with depression. Bram was a “musician’s musician,” a producer, composer and multi- instrumentalist, who lent his talents to artists such as Beck, Troye Sivan and BTS.  Selfless as a human and generous as a collaborator, he ingeniously served the music but never his own ego.  Deep compassion and dry wit were embedded into everything he did, though he never sought praise or approval.  He was truly a unique spirit and though his soul has left his body, it will live forever in his music."

From his family, wife and friends.

Bram Inscore’s producer and songwriter credits include songs for the likes of Troye Sivan, Claud, BTS, Rina Sawayama, Big Freedia, Andy Grammer, Allie X, Moses Sumney, Mayer Hawthorne, Duncan Laurence, SuperM, RMR, Sophie Meiers, Cola Boyy, John Carroll Kirby, Ben Platt, The Veronicas, Chloe x Halle, Greyson Chance, Morgan Saint, and more. He also scored the film Sierra Burgess Is A Loser, and toured/performed with the likes of Beck, Thurston Moore, Charlotte Gainsburg, Twin Shadow, and more. Inscore’s full credits and discography available upon request. 

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org 

Startups Yearly: The biggest startup stories from 2023Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Thank you for subscribing to Startups Weekly. This week, I’m taking my parents to Yosemite to explore the snowy peaks and to see if my car can handle snow. In lieu of a regular Startups Weekly, I figured I’d dive […]
© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Get 75% OFF Flame Sound Firestarter SFX Trailer Sound Effects!
Flame Sound launched a 75% OFF discount on Firestarter SFX until January 2nd, 2024. As most of you know, Flame Sound is my sound design project. It’s the follow-up to 99Sounds (which is still active, by the way), offering high-quality cinematic sound effects at affordable prices. To end 2024 with a bang, I launched a [...]
View post: Get 75% OFF Flame Sound Firestarter SFX Trailer Sound Effects!

Lotus Sound Releases FREE Aerial EQ Tube Equalizer Plugin
Lotus Sound has just released Aerial EQ, a free semi-parametric tube EQ for Windows and macOS. The company states that its innovative feature is its ‘Air’ function, which should bring brilliance and spaciousness to your audio. As I tested the plugin and delved into the manual, I realized that the Air knob acts as a [...]
View post: Lotus Sound Releases FREE Aerial EQ Tube Equalizer Plugin

Back to school with Dillon Francis: Why a maturing music career still needs class clown anticsBananaPants88. That’s the name that appears in front of a black frame when our interviewee arrives in the video chat.
It sounds like a username that someone with zero talent for innuendo chose for an anonymous dating app. Or maybe it’s the first part of an email address made by a 10-year-old. Alas, the account belongs to a grown man: the famed producer and DJ, Dillon Francis.

READ MORE: Sonos’ Move 2 might just be 2023’s best portable speaker

Francis is beloved for his raucous and eclectic productions, including the certified-platinum party track Get Low, he co-produced with the French EDM and trap maven, DJ Snake, in 2010. But Francis is also known as the guy who brings uproarious comedy into the world of electronic music. He’s been making people laugh for as long as he can remember.
Dillon Francis. Image: Clare Gillen
“I’ve always been the jokey kid. In high school, I used to get kicked out of class all the time because I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” Francis says from behind his BananaPants88 veil.
Now as a professional artist, his penchant for comedy has moved out of the classroom and onto social media. Francis got his start in the early 2010s, around the time when social media networks such as Vine and Instagram were taking off. These rising platforms made it easy for him to share his jokey personality without restraint — showing his true self to his growing fanbase.
“As we’ve gotten further and further into what the internet is now, it’s easier to see if someone’s being truthful or not,” Francis says. When it comes to humour, he remains truthful to this day.
For the promo of his new album, This Mixtape Is Fire TOO, released on 1 December, he shared a clip of his friend trying to light his flatulence on fire. In another video, he accosts live-action role players because he got stuck on his balcony after going outside to pretend to smoke weed.

 
The MADtv comedian and established podcaster Bobby Lee also made an appearance to demonstrate aggressive fellatio techniques, which were then converted to TikTok NPC form on the music video for the pop-house track, Rainy.
“That’s what’s helped me have longevity. Joking around and not taking myself too seriously,” Francis says.
To be specific, the longevity of Francis’s career extends back 13 years with the new album serving as a follow-up to his 2015 mixtape, THIS MIXTAPE IS FIRE. He didn’t think his career would last eight years — let alone 13 – and much has changed for him after over a decade in the scene.
“Most of the time, your career is maybe going to last five or seven years,” Francis says. “I turned 36 and this was a very interesting age for me. Once you pass 35, you gotta start thinking about bone density. I gotta make sure I’m working out every day. Gotta make sure that I’m able to wake up at these horrible hours that I have to for DJing and feel good. I don’t drink anymore. I’m two years sober now on my own. I’ve started going into that later part of my career.”
“Diplo and I are the main dudes that really just go out and make everything and somehow still have a career. I don’t know how.”
At this stage in his career, Francis has released three studio albums on top of dozens of singles, EPs, and remixes. He’s also started a side project dedicated to the deepest house music in the universe under the name DJ Hanzel. However, if you were to ask Dillon Francis (or DJ Hanzel), neither would consider the other a ‘side project.’
Apparently, DJ Hanzel hates Francis’s new album.
“It’s not deep for him. The only song he likes is On A Trip with Martin Hørger, but it’s only the first three seconds of the drop, and then he said the rest of the song sucks because it doesn’t do that for six minutes straight,” Francis says of the caricatured house music snob who never takes off his sunglasses. “He’s very disappointed in me and that’s OK. I think if he’s disappointed in me I’ve done a good job.”

Before Francis was making music that’s not deep enough for DJ Hanzel, he was a dominant force in the explosion of EDM in North America.
His first track to garner major attention, the downtempo heater I.D.G.A.F.O.S., came out in 2011. It arrived at exactly the right time – when EDM was beginning to barge its way into the mainstream.
The culture attached to EDM amassed an entirely new population of neon-clad superfans. These bright-eyed ravers flocked to the burgeoning phenomena of ostentatious bottle service night clubs and festivals that flaunted attendance caps in the hundreds of thousands.
Francis was (and still is) the guy playing those nightclubs and festivals, dealing out the enormous, in-your-face beats that were popular in those venues.
With such exponential, mainstream growth, the EDM era is often scoffed at. But having made his name in that era, Francis considers the EDM era a “breath of fresh air.” The accessibility opened the door for a lot more original voices in the genre, including Francis, giving him space to produce a plethora of styles in the electronic spectrum.
“As a music producer you get to this level and then you’re expected to be amazing all the time and I feel like I’m not.”
“Diplo and I are the main dudes that really just go out and make everything and somehow still have a career. I don’t know how,” Francis says.
Francis certainly kept it diverse on This Mixtape Is Fire TOO: Free with Alesso and Clementine Douglas is throbbing deep tech; Francis worked on a trap banger with IDK and Eptic called Okay Okay; and he closes the record with Don’t Let Me Go, a titanic future bass collaboration with Illenium and EVAN GIIA.
“This album is definitely a massive exploration into everything that I love about dance music and every facet that exists in dance music,” Francis says.
But his expedition took much longer than he anticipated. He had been wanting to follow up THIS MIXTAPE IS FIRE for quite a while. He didn’t expect it would take eight years.
“There are a lot of songs on there that took me way too long to finish,” Francis says. Part of the reason for the delay was a lack of inspiration in Ableton Live.
Like many longtime producers, Francis has developed production habits in his chosen DAW. That’s how he maintains the connective tissue between all the genres he makes. Many Dillon Francis tracks sound completely different, but they were made using similar techniques on the back end.
Dillon Francis. Image: Clare Gillen
In his case, stock applications in Ableton Live, such as Frequency Shifter and Beat Repeat, have become staples of his sound. Frequency Shifter is a go-to tool for buildups and he loves using Beat Repeat on synths.
Except, as he relied on the same quirky things, his inspiration faltered within the routine. Around January 2023, he found himself in a major creative rut; opening Ableton felt like “opening a newspaper”. It was a chore rather than a joy.
“As a music producer, you get to this level and then you’re expected to be amazing all the time and I feel like I’m not,” he says of the uninspiring period.
To reinvigorate his passion, Francis decided to massively shake up his routine. He went much further than searching for new production techniques on YouTube and immersed himself in a creative environment — he went back to school. Specifically, he went to a production school in Burbank, California, called ICON Collective College of Music (the same school he briefly attended many years ago before dropping out).
Dillon Francis. Image: Clare Gillen
Mike Diasio — who produces under the name Gigantor and is one-third of the drum ‘n’ bass outfit Evol Intent — is one of the ICON instructors who mentored Francis.
According to Diasio, this time Francis wasn’t at school to crack jokes and get kicked out of class. Despite being a world-touring, festival-headlining artist, he put his ego aside and truly engaged with the material.
“I didn’t know what to expect going into it,” says Diasio, “But they were really fun sessions. It felt less like a teacher-student relationship. He has such great taste for sound design. I demonstrated a few techniques and he could just take it and run with it. It was really fun to watch.”
Dillon Francis. Image: Clare Gillen
They did six sessions together in total, loosely following the curriculum of the advanced sound design class of ICON’s advanced music production program.
One key aspect they focused on was experimenting with the virtual processing applications in Universal Audio’s ecosystem. They also spent a lot of time on synthesis, exploring the intricacies of Kilohearts Phase Plant and Xfer’s Serum.
“There’s a lot of stuff in Serum I didn’t know you could do. I didn’t know you could put in a PNG and make WAV file out of it. You gotta go read the manual for that. Who has time for that? But no I should be reading the manual,” Francis laughs. “It was awesome to go [to ICON] and reinspire myself.
“I even talked to Porter [Robinson] about this when I was going through a little crisis in my mind. He’s like ‘You gotta go out to shows. You gotta see people live and keep reinspiring yourself.’ So that was a big thing I started doing at that time when I was going back to school. I was trying to check out new artists and search for people that were inspiring me and that was a big part of [This Mixtape Is Fire TOO].”
Some of Francis’ inspirations ended up as collaborators on the album. Unlike THIS MIXTAPE IS FIRE, where he was the one courting major stars with artists such as Skrillex, Calvin Harris, Kygo, and the rest of the co-producers (whom Francis considers an “all-star team”) the collaborators on This Mixtape Is Fire TOO were thrilled to work with him.
Dillon Francis. Image: Clare Gillen
Knock2 – the US trap prodigy who contributed to the upbeat house tune called buttons! on This Mixtape Is Fire TOO – told Francis when they were on a taco run that it was surreal to be on his album.
“It’s so bizarre. In my head, I still think that I’m in my twenties. Musically. Not mentally. I’m definitely a grown man who washes his clothes,” Francis says with a laugh.
When Francis was a young man (who apparently didn’t wash his clothes), his productions were less diverse. Today his releases are a wildcard of whatever he feels like making, but in his twenties (when the EDM era was still peaking), he was championing the heavy yet downtempo genre known as moombahton.
THIS MIXTAPE IS FIRE consists of seven hot ‘n’ heavy tracks in this style. Eight years later, This Mixtape Is Fire TOO only has one moombahton track: a collaboration with Miami electronic duo Good Times Ahead called LA On Acid.
Dillon Francis. Image: Clare Gillen
Funnily enough, despite his fortuitous relationship with social media, the internet has been the primary reason Francis avoided the genre on this new record.
“Every time I try to make a new moombahton song, the same thing happens: Kids tell me to make new moombahton. I make new moombahton. They hate it,” Francis says. “I just feel like I’m shooting myself in the foot and it’s not fun to be in that repetition of people telling me I suck.”
Regardless of the online hate gets, Francis remains loyal to moombahton. As part of the celebrations of the new album, he hosted a strictly moombahton event at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, and he has a full moombahton release entitled PERO LIKE coming in January. It’s a joint release with Good Times Ahead and it might be long enough to be a full LP.
“Some of the downtempo records are some of my favourite records ever,” Francis says of PERO LIKE. “I’m trying to satiate everyone’s appetite for all different types of music. So go peep it. Hopefully, you enjoy it and if you don’t, you know where to find me. Just go and tell me I’m a piece of shit on Twitter or X or whatever the hell that stupid app is called now.”
Those who do tell Francis he’s a piece of shit on X will find on his profile the same hilarious content he always shares. Except, after 13 years as a professional artist, the jokes exist alongside an increasingly genre-fluid production discography fueled by an unwavering desire to learn and engage with his craft.
The laughs will always be there. At 36 years old, his Zoom username is BananaPants88 but the man behind the black screen is serious about making his career last long into the future.
The post Back to school with Dillon Francis: Why a maturing music career still needs class clown antics appeared first on MusicTech.

Mercuriall Ampbox Now Offers FREE Guitar Effect Pedals
Mercuriall Audio updated the Ampbox guitar suite, offering everyone FREE access to the included guitar pedals. Firstly, I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday; maybe you got some extra goodies this year under the tree! That aside, today’s little tidbit of news is highlighting one of my favorite amp sims. I’ll just go [...]
View post: Mercuriall Ampbox Now Offers FREE Guitar Effect Pedals

The 2023 AllMusic Readers' PollThe readers have voted, and we're proud to present the top 10 albums of the year as determined by you, the AllMusic community.

Improve Your Space With Acoustic MeasurementsGet your room sounding perfect in no time! Room EQ Wizard (REW) is the ultimate tool to pinpoint acoustic issues and the first step in crafting a tailored treatment solution.

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Floating record shop Rubber Ducky Records reopens after sinking with new stockA floating record store based on a canal boat, Rubber Ducky Records, has reopened after it sank earlier this year (2023). The revived shop is currently docked in Manchester, UK, with future plans to tour across the nation.
Now taking bookings for visits, Rubber Ducky Records hosts over “3000 new tunes” to browse through, including genres such as house, techno, electro, acid, trance, DnB, disco, and much more.

READ MORE: UK vinyl sales increase for 16th consecutive year reaching highest level since 1990

The store originally opened in October 2022 but sadly sank in April of 2023. It was originally based in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire. Following the sinking, Rubber Ducky Records’ founder, Myles Greenwood, launched a Go Fund Me page which raised £10,000. The money collected went towards restoring the boat and its stock.
Greenwood has now shared the good news in a post on social media that the store is back up and running: “I am so unbelievably thankful for all the support and generosity since the sinking, whether it was a message, a Go Fund Me donation or a hug. Thank you so so much, humanity really is incredible.
“I can finally say the sentence Rubber Ducky Records is open again! What a crazy journey! The fire will be hot, the Baileys is on ice, so get booked in if you want a cosy dig in Manchester through the 3000 new tunes!” He writes.
There is a limit of two people per listening station, so larger groups wanting to visit are advised by Greenwood to book both decks. “Take as long as you wish just be mindful of others,” he says.
Read the full post below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rubber Ducky Records (@rubberduckyrecords)

Bookings are open now. Find out more via the Rubber Ducky Records website. According to a map shown on the official page, the boat is docked just off Redhill Street in Manchester.
The post Floating record shop Rubber Ducky Records reopens after sinking with new stock appeared first on MusicTech.

UK vinyl sales increase for 16th consecutive year reaching highest level since 1990Sales of vinyl records in the UK continued to soar throughout 2023, having reached the highest sales figures since 1990.
Vinyl LP sales have been consecutively rising for 16 years now. Following a 2.9 percent improvement in unit sales last year, the vinyl market in 2023 has increased more than four times as fast with an 11.7 percent rise in 2023 to 5.9 million units.

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The impressive figures have been shared by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in an end of year report, which analyses Official Charts data. The organisation states that the increase has been led by new releases from artists including Ed Sheeran, Lana Del Rey, Lewis Capaldi, The Rolling Stones, and Taylor Swift.
Over a quarter of a million vinyl albums were sold during the course of last week alone in the lead up to Christmas, making it the highest sales week for the format this century.
The CD market has also sustained its smallest annual decline in nearly a decade this year as it moves closer to plateauing, according to the report. Nearly 11 million CDs were sold across the year, while sales of cassettes topped 100,000 units in a calendar year for the fourth consecutive year.
The top 10 best-selling vinyl records (as of chart week 51 2023) are:

Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version)
The Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds
Lana Del Rey –  Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
Taylor Swift – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
Blur – The Ballad Of Darren
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon
Taylor Swift – Midnights
Olivia Rodrigo – Guts
Lewis Capaldi – Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent

BPI Chief Executive, Dr Jo Twist OBE, says of the findings: “Led by vinyl, the resurgence of physical product underlines the resilience of the UK music market at a time when streaming consumption continues to hit record levels.
“Whilst LP sales have now been on an upward path for the past 16 years, it is encouraging to see a stabilisation in demand for CD, as well as new generations of music fans falling in love with the cassette. It is giving people more choice than ever in how they enjoy their favourite music.”
Read the full report over at the BPI. Final figures for vinyl LP, CD and cassette sales in 2023 will be unveiled by the BPI on 3 January as part of its Official 2023 UK Recorded Music Market Update, which will also report the total volume of audio streams for the year and the final year-end Official Charts.
The post UK vinyl sales increase for 16th consecutive year reaching highest level since 1990 appeared first on MusicTech.

Daft Punk’s Get Lucky reaches over one billion streams on SpotifyDaft Punk’s 2013 hit Get Lucky has entered the Spotify billion-stream club, joining over 500 tracks – from artists such as Ed Sheeran and The Weeknd – to have surpassed over one billion streams on the platform.
Released 10 years ago as part of the duo’s fourth studio album, Random Access Memories, the track marks their first song to reach the milestone as primary artists. The pair have already surpassed the milestone as part of their collaboration with The Weeknd on songs Starboy and I Feel It Coming.

READ MORE: “We went into the darkness looking for something”: Pharrell recalls studio sessions with Daft Punk

Pharrell Williams, who provided vocals on Get Lucky, has also previously already surpassed the milestone with his Despicable Me 2 soundtrack hit, Happy and his work on Calvin Harris’ Feels. For Nile Rodgers, however, Get Lucky marks his debut in the billion stream club.
Listen to the track below:

More than 500 songs have surpassed one billion Spotify streams as of December 2023. Just four tracks in the club have climbed over three billion, which are Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, Shape of You by Ed Sheeran, Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi, and Sunflower by Post Malone and Swae Lee.
Daft Punk have marked the 10th anniversary of Random Access Memories in a YouTube series named The Memory Tapes. The videos feature a range of guests who worked on the influential record.
In an episode featuring Rodgers, he spoke about the impact of the album:  “They said something to me that blew me away, they said that they wanted to do an album as if the internet never existed. I thought, oh, old school! Go in and play like the way we used to do it, which is what I love doing.”
He later added, “After Daft Punk I started playing with much younger artists. No one is my age, I’m 70. Charli XCX, Burna Boy, I just recorded my first K-pop record and now I’ve got like five under my belt and they’re like, huge. Life was one way before Random Access Memories and completely different after.”

The post Daft Punk’s Get Lucky reaches over one billion streams on Spotify appeared first on MusicTech.