From Connie Chan to Ethan Kurzweil venture capitalists continue to play musical chairsWhen Keith Rabois announced he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures in January, it came as a shock to many in the venture capital ecosystem — and not just because Rabois is a big name in the industry. It was surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists don’t traditionally move […]
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States’ backlash against Binance.US continues with 6th license pulledOregon joins five other states that have delicensed Binance.US after former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to felony charges.

Tiny Prisms Let You See What Lies Beneath a BGA ChipCompared to through-hole construction, inspecting SMD construction is a whole other game. Things you thought were small before are almost invisible now, and making sure solder got where it’s supposed to go can be a real chore. Add some ball grid array (BGA) chips into the mix, where the solder joints are not visible by design, and inspection is more a leap of faith than objective proof of results.
How it works.
Unless, of course, you put the power of optics to work, as [Petteri Aimonen] does with this clever BGA inspection tool. It relies on a pair of tiny prisms to bounce light under one side of a BGA chip and back up the other. The prisms are made from thin sheets of acrylic; [Petteri] didn’t have any 1-mm acrylic sheet on hand, so he harvested material from a razor blade package. The edge of each piece was ground to a 45-degree angle and polished with successively finer grits until the surfaces were highly reflective. One prism was affixed to a small scrap of PCB with eleven SMD LEDs in a row, forming a light pipe that turns the light through 90 degrees. The light source is held along one edge of a BGA, shining light underneath to the other prism, bouncing light through the forest of solder balls and back toward the observer.
The results aren’t exactly crystal clear, which is understandable given the expedient nature of the materials and construction employed. But it’s certainly more than enough to see any gross problems lying below a BGA, like shorts or insufficiently melted solder. [Petteri] reports that flux can be a problem, too, as excess of the stuff can crystalize between pads under the BGA and obstruct the light. A little extra cleaning should help in such cases.
Haven’t tackled a BGA job yet? You might want to get up to speed on that.

Artists have earned $123m via Bandcamp Fridays since 2020 and fans have paid artists and their labels $1.3bn via the platform to dateThe direct to fan platform celebrates its 40th Bandcamp Friday on May 3
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5 hip hop sampling techniques that lasted for decades
Here are five timeless hip hop sampling techniques from the '90s and early '00s that you can use in your own productions.

The NMPA’s TikTok deal has officially ended. What does that mean for independent publishers in the US?“Music is essential to TikTok. As we have said, we are not engaging in an extension of our deal," said NMPA President & CEO David Israelite
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Manta: An Open On-FPGA Debug InterfaceWe always can use more tools for FPGA debugging, and the Manta project by [Fischer Moseley] delivers without a shadow of a doubt. Manta lets you add a debug and data transfer channel between your computer and your FPGA, that you can easily access with helpfully included Python libraries.
With just a short configuration file as input, it gives you cores you add into your FPGA design, tapping the signals of interest as an FPGA-embedded logic analyzer, interacting with registers, and even letting you quickly transfer tons of data if you so desire.
Manta is easy to install, is developer-friendly, has been designed in Amaranth, and is fully open source as you would expect. At the moment, Manta supports both UART and Ethernet interfaces for data transfer. As for embedding the Manta cores into your project, they can be exported to both Amaranth and Verilog. You should check out the documentation website — it contains everything you might want to know to get started quick.
The Manta project has started out as our hacker’s MIT thesis, and we’re happy that we can cover it for you all. FPGA-embedded logic analyzers are a fascinating and much-needed tool, and we’ve had our own [Al Williams] tell you about his on-FPGA logic analysis journey!

Sonic Temple to Return to Columbus Later This Month   

After a three year pause due to COVID, Sonic Temple Festival (formerly Rock on the Range) made a triumphant return to Columbus last spring. Not only did the festival pack MAPFRE stadium all weekend, but they did it for a ground-breaking 4 days, vs the standard 3, which is how the festival had run for years prior.

Once again, festival-goers are gearing up for an incredible weekend, highlighted by a combination of some of the biggest acts in rock and metal, as well as some of the most exciting up-and-coming bands. My personal highlights this year include The Original Misfits, Pantera, Evanescence and Limp Bizkit (none of whom I’ve personally seen at this festival, and I’ve been attending since 2014.

There are dozens of other really exciting bands to check out this year as well. Judas Priest are touring a juggernaut of a new album (‘Invincible Shield’). Sum 41 just released ‘Heaven :X: Hell,’ slated to be their last. Kerry King is back with an all-star band and the new tunes sound amazing so far! This year also sees Machine Head return to the festival circuit for the first time in ages.

As if this wasn’t enough, Sonic Temple has added a fourth stage this year! How’s that all going to flow? I’ll let you know in my review afterwards, but I’m confident the DWP team will continue to run the best festivals in the country, once again.

For anyone who attended last year, you were sure to notice the major changes in the layout of the festival. Rather than supporting the stadium with a stage on either side, one of the stages is now “in front of” the stadium, meaning that the festival grounds have now pushed into the parking lot. This looked a bit odd on the map, but once inside, it proved to be an excellent layout and a nice improvement over what was in place for years prior.

In prior years, I’ve always supplied the annual “survival guide,” which I’ve linked to HERE.

The most important take-a-ways from it are really the following:

Sunscreen and fluids are a must

Explore the grounds. Don’t just run up to the rail and camp all day.  You’ll burn and burn out, not to mention miss everything.

Pace yourself. Four days is a lot and I’m ten years older than I was when I started this. Sit down every once in a while. It does wonders for your feet in the morning. 

Enjoy the city of Columbus while you’re in town. There is so much to do in the city, but be sure to get in to the festival early every day. Those afternoon bands are future headliners and you’ll want to be able to say “I saw them when.”

It’s hard to imagine this festival (or any for that matter) getting much bigger than 4 days and 4 stages, but here we are. This is an adventure I look forward to every single year and this one looks like it just might be the best yet!
If you've had your tickets for months, then you've likely been counting down the days for some time. If you're still waiting though, head over HERE and grab your tickest today! 

ALGO from RYK Modular Described by RYK Modular as “all knobs and no menus”, ALGO is a stereo Eurorack module that offers a wealth of FM sounds and requires no menu navigation. 

G-Sonique Releases FREE BFX24 Analog Filter Plugin For Windows
G-Sonique released a new version of the Bi-Polar Analog Multifilter BFX24 Plugin, and the Windows-exclusive release is available for free download. However, it is only available for download via the Telegram app.  In an unusual move, the freebie is only available via accessing the G-Sonique Telegram channel, which requires downloading the Telegram app.  G-Sonique promises [...]
View post: G-Sonique Releases FREE BFX24 Analog Filter Plugin For Windows

American Music Tourism Act aims to help struggling venues and musiciansIf you get past the top 5%, dominated by Live Nation and AEG, live music tours and venues in the US are treading water and, in many cases, struggling to survive. The bi-partisan American Music Tourism Act hopes to harness music tourism to change that.....
The post American Music Tourism Act aims to help struggling venues and musicians appeared first on Hypebot.

Musicians: Don’t Panic, TikTok will NOT be banned tomorrow!Bruce Houghton of Hypebot and Bandsintown joins Michael Brandvold and Jay Gilbert on the Music Biz Weekly podcast to discuss some current events impacting musicians.....
The post Musicians: Don’t Panic, TikTok will NOT be banned tomorrow! appeared first on Hypebot.

10 Quick (and powerful) Emails you can send to Fans right now!These ten email ideas will only take you minutes, but can do NUMBERS for your fan engagement. Let's get into it.....
The post 10 Quick (and powerful) Emails you can send to Fans right now! appeared first on Hypebot.

SSL uncover X-DynEQ SSL's latest software release builds on the concept of their X-EQ 2 plug-in in an effort to provide users with the definitive tool for all their recording, mixing and mastering needs. 

Blackstone strikes $1.6 billion deal with Hipgnosis after tense bidding warThe bidding war for Hipgnosis Songs Fund shows no sign of slowing down, with Blackstone striking a $1.6 billion (£1.28b) deal to take over the company.

READ MORE: Spotify reports record profits amid layoffs and financial changes

As part of the deal, Blackstone values the investor at $1.30 (£1.04) per share, and beats a previous offer from Concord, which valued Hipgnosis at $1.25 (£1) per share. It made the offer on 29 April, just days after Concord outbid Blackstone’s earlier offer by 10 cents.
While Concord’s bid originally won Hipgnosis’ board’s support, it withdrew its recommendation for the offer and went for the offer from Blackstone instead.
Blackstone has acquired the rights to songs by Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber, but this deal will see another 65,000 tracks added to its catalogue, including hits from Shakira, Ed Sheeran, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Neil Young.
Meanwhile, per Reuters, Blackstone has also invested in US-based performance rights organisation SESAC, which boasts affiliates including Bob Dylan and Adele.
Hipgnosis chairman Robert Naylor said in a statement, “We are delighted that, following competitive interests in acquiring Hipgnosis, our investors now have a chance to immediately realise their holding at an increased premium.”
Blackstone is a majority shareholder in Hipgnosis’s investment adviser, HSM, which manages artists and songwriters for the fund, and holds a call option to make a higher offer for Hipgnosis’s portfolio if the advisory agreement ends up being terminated.
Hipgnosis has been struggling financially since last year, with concerns around valuations, legal battles, and conflict with shareholders over a catalogue sale deal. In December, the fund, set up by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Merck Mercuriadis, who used to manage the likes of Elton John and Beyoncé, delayed the publication of its half-year results, after concerns that music catalogues and songs weren’t being valued highly enough.
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