The absurd AI mania is coming to an endAI large language models raised over $25 billion in the first half of 2023. The industry is starting to look like a bubble that’s about to burst.

Nova Sound Free Project - Nova Sound Nova Sound returns with another Project Legacy Event and a sound kit exclusively for subscribers. Features: 20 Exclusive Sounds. Stereo .wav. 48K 24-bit. Price: Free... Read More

From Believe’s €415m half-year revenues to a new Dua Lipa lawsuit… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-upFive of the music industry's biggest stories from the past five days
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Brandon Chapa SÉANCE VSTi Introducing "Seance VSTi" - Unleash Dark and Brooding Sounds! Attention music producers in search of high-quality, dark, and atmospheric instruments. Look no further! We present... Read More

Make the most of Bridge: The workflow level-up for every Splice user
Learn about how to get started with Splice Bridge, our plugin that connects Splice Sounds with your DAW in a more powerful way than ever before.

What drives the 1.9B music discoveries that happen on Spotify every day?Listeners “discover” a track for the first time 1.9 billion times every day on Spotify, and usually, that song has been identified as one they might like. Who is doing. Continue reading
The post What drives the 1.9B music discoveries that happen on Spotify every day? appeared first on Hypebot.

4 music marketing lessons musicians learned during COVID worth revisitingMany musicians used COVID lockdown to connect with their fans in new ways and record and market new music. This week’s Hypebot Flashback Friday post looks at some of the. Continue reading
The post 4 music marketing lessons musicians learned during COVID worth revisiting appeared first on Hypebot.

10 Ways to use a Music Degree in the real worldI recently had the pleasure of answering questions on Zoom from students interested in taking my Touring 101 course and others offered by Berklee Online and was asked about the. Continue reading
The post 10 Ways to use a Music Degree in the real world appeared first on Hypebot.

Acustica Cherry mastering EQ plug-in Cherry is a new EQ plug-in aimed at mastering applications, and has been created based on samples taken from a pair of popular hardware devices.

“I saw you spreading lies on your Facebook group”: Loopop on Behringer not sending ‘free gear’ to reviewersMusic technology specialist and content creator Loopop has called out Behringer for suggesting he won’t review the brand’s gear because it claims it refuses to send free units out to reviewers.
The creator shared a screenshot of a comment Behringer had sent to a Facebook user questioning the reception of the Toro synth. The comment wrote: “Interesting comment. [The Toro] is the fifth best-selling product, not sure this is called a flop.
“I’m sure Starsky [Carr] will be reviewing it as, while Loopop is not reviewing products as we don’t send out free units. [sic]”
Behringer has since edited the comment to omit the last sentence.
Loopop claims Behringer blocked and deleted his response, which he then reshared. “Hey Behringer this is Ziv – Loopop, please stop spreading the lie that I stopped reviewing your units because you wouldn’t send me any for free.
“I first reviewed your synths without any contact with you (Model D, Neutron). At that point you offered to send me a few others, which I accepted and disclosed.
“When you made the offensive video about Peter Kirn and started copying affordable products from existing manufacturers with zero innovation (swing), I became disgusted with your corporate culture, which I see now includes spreading lies like you did now.”
The video Loopop refers to dates back to 2020, where the company attracted widespread criticism for releasing a bizarre clip attacking Kirn that appeared to use anti-Semitic tropes. Behringer later apologised.

Hey @Behringer – since you blocked my response, I'll share it here. I saw you spreading lies on your Facebook group, that I won't review your gear because you don't send it for free, when actually you offered and I refused. Should I share your email offering? pic.twitter.com/cRT1Y8ouzM
— Loopop Music (@loopopmusic) August 3, 2023

“A couple of years ago you disclosed to me your entire roadmap and offered anything I’d like, and I refused because of what I mentioned above, as I explained to Dan. I am happy to share this correspondence if you insist on lying about why I stopped reviewing your gear.
“If you apologise and at some point change your ways I would be happy to explore interesting affordable innovative products, whether you send them to me or not – they’re not that expensive compared to the time and costs of making my videos.”
Several other content creators backed him up, with Bo Beats saying on Twitter that “Behringer lying doesn’t surprise me at all”, while Benn Jordan tweeted a GIF with a man wearing sunglasses to hide his tears with the caption, “Behringer passive aggressively pretending they’re not pp hurt”.

Behringer lying doesn’t surprise me at all https://t.co/moatOdVbrX
— Bo (@BoBeatsMusic) August 3, 2023

Behringer passive aggressively pretending they're not pp hurt https://t.co/KBg1EFvETq pic.twitter.com/jbtGer271v
— Benn Jordan (@bennjordan) August 3, 2023

Kirn added: “I don’t know about @loopopmusic but I like to get my reviews from heavily moderated comment threads where any negative commenters are blocked! It just keeps everything sunnier and more real.”
Meanwhile, the publication Sonic State also spoke out in support of Loopop, revealing that it stopped reviewing Behringer’s products for the same reason and has “nothing to do with how good or bad the gear is”.

Good for you! I was tempted to wade in on that thread – our reason for not reviewing their gear has nothing to do with how good or bad it is , it is because of those exact reasons.
— sonicstate (@sonicstate) August 3, 2023

I don't know about @loopopmusic but I like to get my reviews from heavily moderated comment threads where any negative commenters are blocked! It just keeps everything sunnier and more real.
— peterkirn (@peterkirn) August 3, 2023

The post “I saw you spreading lies on your Facebook group”: Loopop on Behringer not sending ‘free gear’ to reviewers appeared first on MusicTech.

iZotope Nectar Elements Plugin Is FREE At Plugin Boutique
Plugin Boutique offers the Nectar Elements ($129 list price) vocal processing plugin by iZotope as a free download for a limited time. Nectar Elements is a streamlined tool for correcting your vocal’s pitch, dynamics, frequency response, and general quality. Its workflow is mostly automated, taking advantage of iZotope’s unique Vocal Assistant feature. I always found [...]
View post: iZotope Nectar Elements Plugin Is FREE At Plugin Boutique

Church featured on The Chemical Brothers’ album artwork to receive Grade II* statusThe UK government is upgrading the church The Chemical Brothers famously featured on the album art for their 1998 compilation album Brothers Gonna Work It Out from a Grade II listed site to a Grade II* site.
The church – Our Lady of Fatima in Harlow, Essex – features its iconic needle spire, which was designed by British architect Gerald Goalen. The upgrade came after a recommendation from Historic England to the UK government in a bid to protect its historical and architectural significance.
Ed Simons, one half of the big beat pioneers, celebrated the news on Twitter, saying: “Harlow church on Chemical Brothers album cover granted protected status.”

Harlow church on Chemical Brothers album cover granted protected status https://t.co/tt3q3oJVlq
— ed simons (@eddychemical) August 3, 2023

Builders completed the church, with its “jewel-like” interior, in 1960. It had 500 seats circling a freestanding altar – an innovative design at the time.
Clare Price, of the C20 Society said, “The effect of walking into the church is uplifting, the feeling of entering a shifting kaleidoscope of colour … must surely have made many a new town worshipper gasp in astonishment”. The group campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards.
The Chemical Brothers are releasing their 10th studio album, For That Beautiful Feeling, on 8 September. It’ll be their first album since 2019’s No Geography.
Not only that, but they’ve also announced a “career-spanning retrospective book”, Paused in Cosmic Reflection. It will arrive on 26 October via White Rabbit Books.
Want to pre-order the book from Waterstones for £30? You’ll be in with a chance to win a Chemical Brothers bundle, which includes tickets to their upcoming tour, a vinyl bundle, a signed framed print, and the only signed deluxe edition of the book.
The post Church featured on The Chemical Brothers’ album artwork to receive Grade II* status appeared first on MusicTech.

Robbie Williams wants to collaborate with Trent Reznor on It’s Raining Men coverRobbie Williams has said that he wants to bring Trent Reznor – and Radiohead – on board for a rock cover of The Weather Girls’ 1982 hit It’s Raining Men. 
Williams said he hoped that Radiohead would provide him with a rocky backing track for his cover, but as of yet, one is yet to materialise.

READ MORE: “I’m relieved to look back and say ‘Okay, we didn’t mess up too much’”: Thomas Bangalter on the end of Daft Punk

“I want to do a cover of It’s Raining Men but I want Radiohead to do a backing track for me,” he told The Sun’s Bizarre column. “But they have not got back to me. I keep asking but nothing back. I dunno. I might ask Trent Reznor.”
Indeed, Williams once admitted he once envisioned making music that was more in the vein of Radiohead or Oasis rather than the mainstream pop he made as part of Take That.
“I went through a pompous moment when I didn’t want to have anything to do with the mainstream stuff I used to enjoy. I thought it was babyish. I wanted to be Oasis and Radiohead,” he told The Daily Star. 
“Then I was fortunate enough to relinquish those chains and go, ‘Who am I? What do I like? What do I want to be?’ And, actually, who I am is Morecambe and Wise, the Two Ronnies, Bruce Forsyth, Terry Wogan – that sort of British, professional entertainer who brought so much joy to someone like me, and now I hope to bring it to others.”
Williams will be playing two shows on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk later this month as part of the Heritage Live concert series, where he will be supported by his former Take That bandmate Mark Owen.
Meanwhile, Reznor unveiled the soundtrack to the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem film, which he worked on with Atticus Ross.
The post Robbie Williams wants to collaborate with Trent Reznor on It’s Raining Men cover appeared first on MusicTech.

“I’m relieved to look back and say ‘Okay, we didn’t mess up too much’”: Thomas Bangalter on the end of Daft PunkThomas Bangalter has discussed the end of Daft Punk in a new interview with BBC Radio 6.
The musician and producer, who formed the iconic duo in 1993 with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, says that it “felt good” to end the project in 2021, revealing that he asks himself why they ended it more often than he asks himself how it lasted for so long.
“It’s a lot like a story or mini saga,” he explained. “Sometimes there’s a TV show that has a special place in people’s heart and it keeps that place, and it runs for one, two, three, four, five, sometimes 10 seasons.”
“There’s a moment where it ends and I think it’s actually interesting to have this opportunity to start, have the middle and to end it.”
He explains that they started the project when he was 18, and it carried through until he was 46 – he described it as a “significant part” of his life.
“I’m relieved and happy to look back on it and say ‘Okay, we didn’t mess it up too much’,” he adds. “It’s a lot of discipline and effort – same thing with the characters, with everything, so it definitely felt good.”
As for the duo’s famous helmets, Bangalter – who has recently entered the world of classical music – explains that “You have an idea like that when you’re like 25, you don’t say ‘You know what, we’re just going to build robot masks and dress up like robots until the day we die.’”
He also looked back on their first live show, during which they were “terrified”, with Guy-Man spending almost half of the show hiding under the table: “It was just me with him, but him adjusting the buttons and the machines from below like that.”

Guy-Manuel may still be active in music, too. He’s been credited as a producer and writer in Travis Scott’s new album, Utopia, although fans have noted that his input could be an old, unreleased beat from the duo’s work on Kanye West’s 2013 album, Yeezus.
There’s plenty of Daft Punk sounds to explore, though. Just last month, longtime collaborator Todd Edwards revealed the samples used on the 2001 track Face To Face, which featured on the robots’ seminal 2001 album Discovery. Edwards shared the samples following a fan-made video that reconstructed the track using the original samples – which fans have been tracking down for over 20 years.
The post “I’m relieved to look back and say ‘Okay, we didn’t mess up too much’”: Thomas Bangalter on the end of Daft Punk appeared first on MusicTech.

Super fans may not be super enoughThere has been a lot of talk recently of music superfans and how they may be the shining light of the industry’s future. Little surprise, given how record labels are trying to establish superfans as the next growth driver for an investor community that is growing increasingly concerned about slowing streaming growth and looming threats, such as AI. There is no doubt that superfans are crucial – they always have been. The problem is that they may not be as valuable in the future as they once were. And the reasons for that lie in the very same streaming economy that the industry is trying to build beyond.

A brief history of superfans

In the early days of the modern music business, music fans were the superfans. The means of demonstrating that fandom was buying the records and, if you were really lucky, seeing the band. A small portion were also members of (usually fan-run) fan clubs. Throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the music business further professionalised and productised. The live business emerged as a revenue generator in its own right (rather than the loss-leader for selling albums that it had largely been). Merchandise became widely deployed. Fanclubs became more serious. 

Yet, music sales were still the main fandom game in town. The CD era catalysed music buying at scale and the heyday of the album era. Superfans would buy multiple albums every month (leading to the rise of the ‘50 quid bloke’). Superfans were album fans. Superfans were album buyers. And there was no ceiling on how much they could spend.

Then along came Napster, turning the world upside down. Music sales started to plummet and the album began its long, steady demise, as consumers dissected albums, first on Napster, then iTunes, and then YouTube and Spotify. 

When everyone is super….

When Spotify came to market, the recorded music industry was in crisis, with revenues in freefall. People just were not buying albums anymore. 50 quid bloke had become an endangered species. Recorded music’s loss was live’s gain. As music sales fell, live revenues grew, almost in mirror opposite curves. Live became the place superfans began to shift their spend, with merch sales growing in live’s wake. 

So, when Spotify came along with the promise of getting people back into the habit of spending on recorded music again, it was eagerly welcomed. Perhaps not immediately, as much of the label community needed convincing, but that speed bump was cleared when labels started to see consumers commit, at scale, to monthly spend. With more people spending more frequently, revenue growth returned. The problem was that those people who used to buy multiple albums every month, now only spent the cost of less than one album to get all the music they could ever want. 

Streaming placed a cap on superfan spend. As the years passed, newer, younger music fans came into the market who had never spent large chunks of their disposable income on buying albums. The average, semi-casual fan was now spending the same as superfans. And to quote Syndrome from the Incredibles “When everyone’s super, no one’s super”.

Nurture fandom, don’t just harvest it

Over recent years, the industry has started to nudge people towards becoming superfans again, or at least spending like them. Whether that be indie fans on Bandcamp, or Swifties being convinced to ‘help Taylor’ by buying yet another re-recorded album. The problem is that this behaviour is at the fringes of consumer behaviour. We have had 15 years (i.e., almost a generation’s worth of time) of educating consumers that music does not need to cost more than $9.99….ok….$10.99. Superfans have been un-supered. 

None of this is to say that there is not a massive superfan opportunity to be had, but it will take work. Much of the latent superfan spend has dissipated due to fading habits and the wallet share shift to live. Consumers will need re-educating, re-familiarising. But there is more to it than that. When consumers spend money on a live concert, they get a unique, in the moment experience. When they used to buy five albums a month, they got hours of new music that they would not have had otherwise. Buying a special edition of an album is simply another version of something that fans already have on streaming. 

So, to Make Fans Super Again, there has to be a genuine value exchange. Fans need new things to persuade them to spend, new things that actually build and deepen their fandom rather than simply a new opportunity to fleece them for another dollar.