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.

IsoAcoustics expand Product Selector Wizard The latest update to IsoAcoustics' Product Selector Wizard makes both the browser-based and mobile app versions of the tool available in a total of seven languages.

Google’s Gemini comes to more apps, Cruise slashes its workforce and Tesla issues a recallHey, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter covering the major happenings in the tech-o-sphere — or most of them, anyway. As the world’s largest AI conference, NeurIPS, got underway in sunny New Orleans, Google shared more on Gemini, its flagship AI model family — and lots happened elsewhere. In this edition […]
© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Completely agree with Bobby Owsinski 2024 prediction. The future should be a mixture of technologies, talent and discovery.
#MusicIndustry #Music #future #Musicians #Producers

Spitfire Audio launch MG Soft Acoustic Guitar Spitfire's new guitar library promises to deliver a remarkably authentic sound whilst helping to demystify the workings of the instrument for non-guitarists.

Two Feet Launches Indie Label 477 RecordsGold-certified rock artist Two Feet has announced the opening of the independent record label, 477 Records. 

477 Records was created with the goal of discovering, signing and nourishing independent recording artists by harnessing the unique authenticity that appeals to audiences longing for connection and creativity under the guidance only a fellow artist can provide.

477 Records offices and studio are located in Tribeca, New York City. 

As one of the few artists of today who still writes, plays, sings and produces all his music in his own studio, Two Feet paired his label announcement with the release of new single, “Kill Anyone” ft Ari Abdul produced by Two Feet via 477 Records. 

In addition to releasing Two Feet’s upcoming music, which fuses rock, blues, and jazz-tinged licks to create an original, atmospheric sound, 477 Records will release music from its powerhouse roster of up and coming talent including Toby Mai, Elvis Drew, and Bec Lauder.

“It’s important to nurture artist’s creativity” shares Two Feet. “I started 477 Records with the goal of helping independent artists hone in on their unique voices to create something true they can share with the world. Here at 477, we can help them make their voices heard all over the world by offering the reach and services they would find at a major label.”  

477records.com

Boston Underground Film FestivalJan. 5 is the extended deadline to submit your work to the Boston Underground Film Festival, which includes the categories of “dark comedy, genre, bleak sci-fi, cerebral and/or psychedelic horror, strange documentary, fantastic music video, mature animation, and/or films that defy description (preferably with a WTF) from all over the world.” More information can be found at bostonunderground.org/submit/.

Apple agrees to pay out $25M to settle lawsuit over Family SharingApple has agreed to pay out $25 million to settle a class action lawsuit over its Family Sharing feature, which lets users and up to five of their family members share access to apps, music, movies, TV shows and books that they purchase. The lawsuit, which was first filed in 2019, alleged that “Apple misrepresented […]
© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Union Audio’s Elara.4 is a small window into Andy Rigby-Jones’ legendary career in DJ mixer designAndy Rigby Jones has been silently helping shape the modern DJ booth for almost 30 years. He’s not a household name for the casual DJ, nor likely known by many superstar DJs. But the artists who are deeply dedicated to their craft will be familiar with his vast catalogue of influential DJ mixers.
His expertise and passion led to a collaboration with techno titan Richie Hawtin on the PLAYDifferently Model 1 mixer in 2016, and to his key contributions to MasterSounds, a UK-based luxury rotary mixer brand. He’s also one of the people you can thank for conceptualising those filters on your favourite DJ mixers.
READ MORE: Union Audio’s Elara.4 is an analogue DJ mixer that’s “tiny but mighty” with “exemplary” build quality
But, much like fellow Cornishman Aphex Twin, Rigby-Jones tends to keep his head down and focus on creating what he loves. His latest wonder is the £1,800 Elara.4, released by his Union Audio brand. It’s a compact and understated DJ mixer with an emphasis on high-grade audio, supreme durability and straight-up fun. “I’ve based all of the Union Audio products on what someone else isn’t doing, rather than copying a trend,” he says from his Cornwall workshop. “We’ve always looked to innovate something; to find a niche that we can excel in.”
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
As soon as we unbox the Elara.4, we realise we’re holding something special. It might not be perfect to all (some MusicTech readers bemoan the RCA record outputs instead of quarter-inch TRS outputs) but it is beautifully made. The faders are smooth but firm; the pots and dials are strong and responsive; the design is elegant and not overdone; just how Rigby-Jones wants it.
He wants users to “have the enjoyment of nice aesthetic, good sound quality, and have it fit within their lifestyle… it’s designed as more of a lifestyle product than it is a club installation product.” He teases that a club-grade mixer from Union Audio “might come later,” but we immediately understand why the Elara will work better in plush listening bars or treasured home setups. You’re not exactly going to want an IPA spilt over this during a set.
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
As classy and coveted as the Elara.4 might be, we’re curious to learn how Rigby-Jones arrived at the design. With over 40 years of DJing under his belt and three decades in the mixer-making game, he clearly knows what to strive for in a new product. And it must be nice to be able to make equipment that’s almost custom-built to his needs – “It is a bit cheeky,” he laughs. But it turns out he’s been doing that since day one.
Rigby-Jones happened across DJing in 1970s Cornwall, around the same time the rest of the world became accustomed to headphone-wearing tastemakers commanding the music in clubs.
“I was a teenager in the 70s, when the disco explosion happened,” he explains. “We used to go to the local disco and everything else; I loved the music. DJing was suddenly starting to become a bit of a thing. For some reason, I decided I wanted to be a DJ. But equipment was so expensive back then – it was certainly out of the reach of a teenager. So I ended up building a lot of my own kit – amps, a mixer, speakers and stuff. That’s how I got both into DJing and really into electronics.
Andy Rigby-Jones. Image: Union Audio
“And it wasn’t really until… I mean I started DJing on a regular basis in the late 70s – I got a club residency in 1979 – and I DJ’d at least once a week, most weeks, until the year 2000,” he says with a bashful chuckle. “It was a 20-year career of DJing local gigs. So music has been an integral part of my life, as has electronics.”
Alongside his local DJing gig, Rigby-Jones found himself a job in mechanics, having trained as an engineer following his spurt of DIY mixer making. But he soon found himself in need of a new venture.
“I was suddenly out of work at the beginning of the 90s. And just by coincidence, Allen & Heath were advertising for staff. So I got a job with them and, at the time, I thought it was only going to be a temporary career. I hadn’t particularly thought about it. But the rest is history; I stayed there for an awfully long time – 20-odd years, anyway.”
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Allen & Heath, at the time, was renowned for its live mixers, thanks to musical advocates such as Pink Floyd, The Who and Genesis. Rigby-Jones joined the brand as an assembler on the shop floor, but soon moved into the test department and rose into a junior R&D position in the mid-90s, continuing to work on the live sound equipment while keeping his DJ gig on the side.
“There’s the rub. I wanted a good DJ mixer because there wasn’t anything I liked,” he says. “So I persuaded the powers that be: ‘let me do a prototype DJ mixer!’ It wasn’t that I thought there was a huge commercial value in it, I just wanted to build a DJ mixer that I wanted to play with. And that’s how the original Xone:62 came about. That would’ve been the late-90s.
“We took that to the Frankfurt Musikmesse [a now-extinct music gear trade show], showed it on the stand, and got a lot of interest. And, yeah, then we developed that into a product and launched it in 2000, I think.”

By this point, Rigby-Jones found himself fascinated by frequency filters. He says he “wasn’t really supposed to be” playing with filter circuits, but was “blown away” by the sound.
“Of course, filtering was starting to come into music production at that time,” he continues. “A lot of house tracks had filters on. And I thought ‘wow, a DJ mixer with filters would be super cool.’ So that was the sort of hook with [Allen & Heath’s] Xone range at that time: it had filters.”
Filters were just the first step. Before he knew it, Rigby-Jones was helping design mixers to accompany laptops for digital DJs and was part of a revolution in DJing. “There was a lot of resistance to CDJs,” he says. “Slowly it became more acceptable. But then suddenly, computer laptop DJing came and everyone was like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s cool,’ and there wasn’t that resistance.
“We did the Xone:92, the whole Xone range and the accessories. We were the first company to get into professional DJ controllers – the brand was associated with analogue mixers, but Xone produced one of the first multichannel DJ controllers, the Xone: 3D, which was sort of ahead of the game.”
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Developing such forward-thinking products was seldom intentional. Naturally, Rigby-Jones still enjoys the odd DJ mix or two – so would you if you’d been doing it since the 70s and found yourself surrounded by mixers all the time. While mixing, he finds moments where he’ll conceive a new feature or design quirk, and get a feel for what might work.
“With the PLAYDifferently Model 1, it’s got a fairly unique EQ system, which is nearly all filters – high-pass, low-pass, and then a swept-mid. And [that concept] came from just playing around.”
Union Audio’s Elara.4 is no different. He says that the compact mixer “came about from me playing around at home, mixing. And at the time, I was using a MasterSounds Two Valve, which is a lovely little mix. But it’s only two channels. But I had a tiny little place to DJ in and could barely get two decks and the Two Valve. And I thought, ‘Well, it’d be really nice to have four channels – 2CDJs and my two vinyl decks. But I haven’t got any room – I can’t be alone in having limited booth space.’
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
“That’s how Elara came about. It’s a niche product, you know. A lot of people might say, ‘Not exactly for me.’ But some people will go, ‘Wow, that’s what I’ve been waiting for: a compact four-channel mixer that isn’t gonna take up my booth.’”
The mixer maestro doesn’t allude to why he left Allen & Heath, other than speaking of a stressful time around his departure. But, evidently, he’s found tremendous joy in the freedom of Union Audio, working with Hawtin on the PLAYDifferently series, and with MasterSounds head honcho Luke Shaw on rotary mixers. Shaw said as much in our MasterSounds cover feature earlier in 2023: “Andy is now an integral part of MasterSounds and I’m an integral part of what Andy does. We chat daily and it’s not just a partnership, it’s a friendship.”
But this is only Union Audio’s second product. Its inaugural mixer, the Orbit.6 rotary mixer, was released in 2022 and comes at an eye-watering price of £5,490 – definitely more for the purists and die-hard DJs.
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Thankfully, such purists have sent tons of positive feedback to Union Audio, and MasterSounds’ reputation speaks for itself. With the Elara.4, Rigby-Jones says that the feedback has all been “fantastic”. On the note of RCA connectors for the record out, he notes that “most recorders are gonna use mini-jacks or RCA, so we went with the most common one. But everything else is XLR and quarter-inch jacks.”
For him, his favourite part of the Elara.4 is the aesthetics. “With all the products that we’ve built, we give them a slightly hi-fi look, with the machined aluminium panel front panels. So I love the aesthetics of it. It’s got a really nice EQ. The filter is nice and smooth, and the isolator is interesting. It’s a little bit different to most isolators – it’s got a narrower Q – but you can do some really cool things with it, especially texturing the bass.”
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Rigby-Jones and his team at Union Audio are working on a plethora of new products, including a multi-effects unit, a bespoke headphone preamp, a new iteration of the Orbit.6, and more. We can’t help but wonder what his vision of a future DJ booth might be like.
“It’s been the question everyone’s been asking for the last 20 or 30 years. ‘What’s next?’ And it’s so hard to predict,” he laughs. “[Pioneer DJ’s] CDJs are so cool. Not just the CDJ, but the media player. I mean, hardly anyone ever uses CDs anymore – we just call them CDJs. But they are such a clever piece of kit, that you can see why everyone wants to use them. And, to be honest, do you really want to take a laptop around with you anymore? Unless you are Richie Hawtin and you’re doing live production work, with 20 channels in the mix. For most people, two or three for two DJs, and you’ve got an awesome set.”
We wonder whether more hefty mixers, such as the Pioneer V10, could allude to a bigger DJ cockpit.
“For most people, that’s probably overkill,” Rigby-Jones retorts. “I mean, when you think of where all the mixers in the world go, they aren’t all going into clubs. And it’s something that I find quite funny, really: lots of our customers, they’re not youngsters. They’re mature, professional people, who have had a successful career, but they still love dance music.
Union Audio Elara.4. Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
“And when you think that house music came in nearly 40 years ago, people who were teenagers, or early 20s, they’re now mature people. But that music still is with them. “It’s almost come full circle… I can remember when house music came out and people were saying ‘It’ll be gone in a year.’ But it’s still here and hasn’t changed that much. Thank goodness.”
Many people’s lust for music equipment is the same – it hasn’t changed that much. Although we’ve got access to iPads, laptops, and other modern music gear, there’s just something all too attractive about a vintage-looking bit of gear. Whether it’s a rugged Fender Stratocaster, a reissue of the classic Minimoog, a fondness for a big vinyl collection, or a retro-style mixer like a MasterSounds Valve or Union Audio Elara.4.
Artists and DJs who have spent years honing their craft will often be curious about what lurks beyond the chunky, battered mixers in the venues they regularly play in. It might just be the Elara.4. Just, c’mon, keep that IPA away from the decks.
Check out the Elara.4 and more about Union Audio’s story. 
The post Union Audio’s Elara.4 is a small window into Andy Rigby-Jones’ legendary career in DJ mixer design appeared first on MusicTech.

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
Source

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.
The post Denise Audio revamps its cult bass plugin into supersized Bass XXL appeared first on MusicTech.

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.
The post Andrew Huang shows off his (music) junk in new video appeared first on MusicTech.

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.
The post Fred Again.. has produced a track on Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s VULTURES album appeared first on MusicTech.