Clock of Clocks Expands, Goes DigitalSome people just want to have their cake and eat it too, but very few of us ever get to pull it off. [Erich Styger] has, though with V5 of his “MetaMetaClock”— a clock made of clocks, that uses the orientation of the hands to create digits.
We’ve seen previous versions of this clock. As before, the build is exquisitely detailed and all relevant files are on GitHub. This version keeps the acrylic light-pipe hands of version 4, but adds more of them: 60 clocks vs 24. Larger PCBs are used, grouping the dual-shaft steppers into groups of four, instead of the individual PCBs used before. Each PCB has an NXP LPC845 (a Cortex M0 microcontroller) that communicates on an RS-485 bus. Placing four steppers per microcontroller reduces parts count somewhat compared to previous versions (which had each ‘clock’ on its own modular PCB) albeit at the cost of some flexibility.
While the last version used veneers on its face, this version is cut by CNC by from a large slab of oak. It’s certainly the most attractive version yet, and while bigger isn’t always better, more clock faces means more potential effects. Date? Time? Block letters? Arbitrary text? Kaleidoscopic colours from the RGB LEDs? It’s all there, and since it’s open source, anyone who builds one can add more options. A BLE interface makes it quick and easy to wirelessly switch between them or set the time.
It’s nice sometimes to watch projects like this improve incrementally over time. [Erich] mentions that he plans to add Wifi and a web-based user interface for the next version. We look forward to it, and are grateful to  [jicasi] for the tip. Just as it is always clock time at Hackaday, so you can always toss a tip of your own into the box.

Eventually [Erich] will have enough clocks for Bad Apple, but this version can do short text strings among many other effects. Check his blog for more demo videos.
 

From Live Nation’s record Q2 concerts revenue to Kobalt’s new AI deal… it’s MBW’s weekly round-upThe biggest headlines from the past seven days... all in one place
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“What if we just flipped the process?”: Matteo Pagamici and Michael Künstle on playing an orchestra like a synthesizerOrchestras have been using the same instruments to play the same pieces for centuries, which has naturally caused composers to write for orchestras in the same way as their predecessors. And yet, when award-winning film composers and experimental musicians Matteo Pagamici and Michael Künstle wrote their new album DIMENSIONS for a 92-piece orchestra, they had a far-out idea: go in the completely opposite direction.

READ MORE: “I’m completely nothing without the world that artists create” Blake Slatkin is pop music’s humble hitmaker

They sought to make the historic ensemble to sound like a synthesizer by employing effects like delay and distortion with only the natural instrument construction. It sounds simple, but in truth, they were disregarding hundreds of years of passed-down technique.
“By asking the players to put more pressure on the strings with the bow, you get the same effect that you would if you put a distortion plugin on it. It starts to sound squeaky and harsh, and almost unpleasant,” says Pagamici. It’s a simple shift, but one that goes against hundreds of years of instruction.

“The orchestra in general has such a huge history in music that sometimes it’s really hard to think of something new,” Künstle says. He and Pagamici discovered this new approach by operating in a world that conjoins orchestras with experimental techniques: film/TV composition.
Image: Press
When they were writing Neumatt, the first Swiss series ever sold to Netflix, they created a synth part on a Roland Jupiter-8. Then, they asked their violinist to perform the same part and received results they did not expect:
“There was a ‘wow’ moment, because it worked so well, but it wasn’t something that we had ever heard on the violin,” Pagamici says. “I don’t think we could have composed this for the violin without previously trying it on the synthesizer.” After this successful experiment, the rest of the dominoes fell.
“We thought, ‘What if we just flipped the process?’” says Künstle.
“Usually when you play a synthesizer and you describe the sounds, you say, ‘This patch sounds like a violin or a flute.’ We tried to do the opposite,” Pagamici adds, referencing methods of achieving this reversal through techniques such as alternate tunings for stringed instruments. For example, with three violin sections, they had one play the notes in tune, the second play the same note minus 50 cents, and the third play it plus 50 cents. They linked this approach to using a synthesizer with three oscillators.
“It’s crazy how well this works because what you get is just another timbre of sound,” Künstle says.
Image: Press
“It’s strange that this isn’t being done more often. It feels so intuitive to reverse the process and explore so many things that you can do with an orchestra if they play or think a bit differently,” Pagamici continues. Yet, by diving deeper into this technique, they realised previous composers were thinking similarly.
“You could orchestrate a note, thinking of an attack, sustain, and release,” Künstle says. “If you study [the Austrian composer] Erich Wolfgang Korngold, you realise that he did exactly that. I think that’s also part of the reason why this orchestration sounds so good.”
Künstle and Pagamici’s creative exploration aligns with the adventurous theme of DIMENSIONS, which they describe as a “musical travel diary.” The idea stems from Künstle’s youth when he would listen to a single record throughout a family trip, associating those memories with that music in perpetuity.
On the album, each of the 10 songs was influenced by a different place Künstle and Pagamici visited throughout their lives. This personal connection imbued their technical approach with emotional sustenance.
“Whenever we went to record in London, our mentality shifted a lot. We had different ideas and different inputs. We started thinking about how this affects our process,” Pagamici says. “I’ve been to Greenland a few times, which is a very unique location. Whenever I came back, my musical ideas were so fresh and different. I had so many inputs and new thoughts.”
Image: Press
When they were initially planning DIMENSIONS, Künstle and Pagamici were aligned on the unconventional technical approach. They hosted early sessions to define the musical language with soloists playing stringed instruments and bass flute.
From there, they each wrote separately, which is their general process for their compositional works and, this time, they had no notes for each other after their solo creative sessions.
“Once we are on the same page, we can almost write whatever we want individually, and it sounds like it’s from the same world,” Künstle says.
Pagamici composed the stirring string piece, Lighthouse, with a real-life delay. He wrote overlapping repeated lines, asking each player who followed the introduction of an idea to play with a different tonal colour or at a different volume.
“I’m a huge fan of delay effects. I used to put them on everything when I composed,” Pagamici says. “I thought, ‘What if I just compose a delay effect?’, which is so easy. When we first heard it being played live, it sounded like a plugin.”
Image: Press
Abstract 2.0 is one of Künstle’s pieces, in which he notated random marks for the string sections to create atonal tension to mimic a white noise effect. This acted as a buildup to an intentional “drop” moment.
“It was completely random and looked very funny. Scribbling lines on the notation — that doesn’t make any sense musically. But we just told them, ‘Play this, and let’s see what happens,’” Künstle says. “It’s amazing because the musician wants to make sense of it. So they come up with something that you wouldn’t be able to notate in another way. When more than one string player plays this, it runs over the whole range of the instrument. All the frequencies played at the same time, almost at every moment.”
Given this emphasis on the analogue approach to sonic colours that are usually applied in post, Künstle and Pagamici applied a very minimal recording process. They didn’t use any overdubs, and almost all the pieces are complete takes of the full ensemble.
“Usually in our composition process, when we record these elements in an isolated way, we would be very meticulous about which take we’re going to place where,” Pagamici says. “Here, it was almost a process of accepting whatever we get from the musicians in this particular take. With these electronic techniques, you never really know what you’re going to get.”
Audiences at orchestral concerts have known what to expect for a long time now. But thanks to Matteo Pagamici and Michael Künstle, the oldest performance format in the world has a fresh dose of excitement and uncertainty.
The post “What if we just flipped the process?”: Matteo Pagamici and Michael Künstle on playing an orchestra like a synthesizer appeared first on MusicTech.

LANDR Distribution: Everything an Artist NeedsWhen it comes to music distribution, LANDR stands out as a service designed to deliver music to streaming platforms and fully streamline the modern independent artist’s workflow.

“No one is listening thinking, ‘He didn’t use the right kick mic for that’”: Blake Slatkin on what really matters in music productionWhile a relatively young producer at 27, LA-born Blake Slatkin has worked with the likes of Lil Nas X and The Kid LAROI, so he knows a thing or two about making a hit.
And in a new interview with MusicTech, he shares a similar opinion held by many producers and musicians nowadays: that crafting a good song should always come above the technicalities of the production that follows.

READ MORE: 808 Day: Get Roland’s official TR-808 plugin emulation at a massive discount for a limited time

“Now things are getting so accessible, the only thing that separates good music from bad music is just good ideas,” he explains.
“I’ve been a part of songs where we spend so much money – we’re at fancy studios, and we have the best gear and the best engineers, and we make something that doesn’t do well. And then there’s a kid in Wisconsin who’s in their closet, making a song that goes massive.”
But this is “exactly how it should be”, he explains. “I’m not mad at that at all. There are no rules. No one is listening, thinking, ‘Ah, he didn’t use the right kick mic for that. This song isn’t good.’ It’s really just like, ‘make something good.’ And I think we’re in one of the most inspiring times ever for music. It’s very punk rock.”

He says production is “nothing without a good song”, adding: “Anything I do when I make music is just in service of the song itself.”
“At the end of the day, song is king. We’ll get the good drum sounds later. When I’m making music, I only want to be thinking about the song.”
Elsewhere in the interview, he speaks of his dislike of Pro Tools, often seen as the industry-standard DAW.
“I use Pro Tools and it just sucks ass,” he laughs. “It’s harder to do stuff in Pro Tools; it makes you think a little bit more about what you want to do. It takes that extra five seconds to change the tempo. So it makes me think, ‘Do I really want to change the tempo?’”
Read the full interview with Blake Slatkin at MusicTech.
The post “No one is listening thinking, ‘He didn’t use the right kick mic for that’”: Blake Slatkin on what really matters in music production appeared first on MusicTech.

e-instruments Cremona Quartet Solo 2.0 update e-instruments and Native Instruments have announced the launch of an update that brings some powerful new features to the four members of the Cremona Quartet Solo series.

ZAK Sound BARecorded across the city of Buenos Aires, BA draws its source material from the everyday pulse of the city. From airports and plazas to streets, highways, and shopping centers, we captured the unique atmosphere of each place and shaped it into expressive, playable pads: 67 cityscapes. 20 wavetables. 104 handcrafted presets. 85MB installed size. Read More

Study claims ticket resale saved fans $414M last year. Did it?A study by "data-analytics firm" Automatiq for self-proclaimed "consumer advocacy group" Protest Ticket Rights claims that fans saved $414 million last year. They saved this amount by buying tickets on resale marketplaces.
The post Study claims ticket resale saved fans $414M last year. Did it? appeared first on Hypebot.

What is a Smart Music Release Strategy in 2025?Releasing music without a plan in 2025 is a fast track to getting buried in the noise. Learn how to build a smart, step-by-step music release strategy that gets music heard and keeps momentum going long after release day.
The post What is a Smart Music Release Strategy in 2025? appeared first on Hypebot.

Get 90% Off Softube Producer Collection at Plugin Boutique Until August 31st
Softube’s Producer Collection is currently available at Plugin Boutique for an incredible 90% off, dropping the price from $1,647 to just $180 until August 31st. The exclusive Softube Producer Collection bundle is a powerhouse suite of mixing, mastering, and sound design tools. You get plugins for analog warmth, classic tone, and modern mixing features. It’s [...]
View post: Get 90% Off Softube Producer Collection at Plugin Boutique Until August 31st

808 Day: Get Roland’s official TR-808 plugin emulation at a massive discount for a limited time808 Day is here, and with it comes a celebration of one of music’s most iconic instruments. Every 8 August, beatmakers pay tribute to the mighty Roland TR-808 – a drum machine that’s been shaping genres and shaking subwoofers since the early ‘80s.

READ MORE: Get over 60% off the “secret weapon for top mix engineers” right now at Plugin Boutique

To mark the occasion, Roland is serving some solid deals on its plugins – with the spotlight on its TR-808 software, available now till 31 August as a perpetual license for just $49, or a third of its usual price of $149.
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The TR-808 plugin is an authentic recreation of the legendary TR-808 hardware synth with full Analog Circuit Behavior modelling. It offers all the sounds on the original plus modern enhancements, including independent step sequencer lanes, per-step articulations, and a resizable UI. If you’ve been waiting to add this essential piece of beat-making history to your DAW, this is the time.
But the 808 isn’t the only one getting love this 808 Day. All Roland plugins at Plugin Boutique are currently 30% off. That includes the TR-909 plugin, now down to $104 from its usual $149.
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In addition to faithfully modelling the TR-909’s analogue circuitry, the software version uses the original sample ROM and models the early digital technology present in the vintage hardware. This results in a spot-on replica that’s still beloved by electronic and dance producers to this day. The plugin version also comes packed with new features to suit modern workflows.
If you want the full vintage arsenal, Roland’s Drum Machine Collection – which includes the TR-808, TR-606, TR-909, TR-707, and TR-727 – is now discounted to $349.
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For those looking for a Roland alternative, D16 Group’s Nepheton 2 is also on sale for $49 – that’s 58% off the original price of $119 – from now till 18 August. It’s a deeper, feature-rich emulation of the TR-808 with expanded controls and an FX section to sculpt your sound “effortlessly”.
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Visit Plugin Boutique for the full list of deals this 808 Day.
The post 808 Day: Get Roland’s official TR-808 plugin emulation at a massive discount for a limited time appeared first on MusicTech.

Your neighbours will hate this: ASCENDO’s new 100-Inch infrasonic subwoofer is a wall-rattling, eardrum-destroying home theatre beastIf you’ve ever watched Back to the Future and thought, ‘I wish my home theater could physically launch me into a bookshelf like Marty McFly’ – well, dreams do come true.
ASCENDO just announced two jaw-dropping additions to its subwoofer lineup: THE64 SUB PRO PASSIVE INFRASONIC SEALED and the absolutely absurd THE100 SUB PRO PASSIVE INFRASONIC SEALED. As the names suggest, these are 64-inch and 100-inch passive sealed subs, designed to generate bass so low you’ll feel it in your DNA.
The German audio specialists aren’t new to big bass. They previously offered 50- and 80-inch infrasonic models, but clearly decided those were simply… too modest. The new 64- and 100-inch subs build on the legacy of those models and have been completely re-engineered for deeper extension, tighter control, and “unparalleled sonic precision at infrasonic frequencies”.

READ MORE: Best speakers to buy in 2025: 11 best small studio monitors for any budget

“These two new subwoofers are the largest in the world for home cinema,” says Geoffrey Heinzel, Co-Managing Partner of ASCENDO. “[They] are incredibly powerful, efficient, and fast.”
So what exactly has been upgraded?
First, the suspension system has been overhauled with repositioned quad spiders, allowing greater excursion across the entire frequency range – both linear and nonlinear. To handle that movement silently and smoothly, ASCENDO uses carefully selected spider fabrics and resins that ensure high compliance without introducing noise, even during extreme playback conditions. Ultra-low frequency reproduction has also been improved considerably, beyond what any previous woofer design has achieved.
The speaker cabinets themselves have also seen significant refinement. They now feature a single-piece, custom-shaped surround that better supports the increased demands of the massive drivers. Optional application-specific enclosures for both THE64 and THE100 are also available and now feature improved internal bracing, which enhances rigidity and helps the cabinets handle all that energy without unwanted vibration. Meanwhile, ASCENDO’s multi-density damping materials have been fine-tuned to reduce resonance and group delay, resulting in a clean, punchy impulse response.
In short, these new subs are faster, deeper, more precise – and still terrifyingly large.
Thankfully, ASCENDO has also made them easier to service. A new field-replaceable re-cone kit means that if something does blow (or, let’s face it, if your curious friend pokes the cone), it can be quickly repaired without shipping the entire Death Star-sized unit back to Germany.
THE64 now replaces ASCENDO’s former 50-inch model, while THE100 steps in for the outgoing 80-inch version. That said, if you’re still wondering why someone would need a 100-inch subwoofer, you’re probably not the target market. But if your idea of a relaxing evening is watching your popcorn vibrate out of the bowl during the opening credits, head over to AIA Cinema to learn more.
The post Your neighbours will hate this: ASCENDO’s new 100-Inch infrasonic subwoofer is a wall-rattling, eardrum-destroying home theatre beast appeared first on MusicTech.

Get Bloom KSHMR Lite ($35) FREE in KSHMR’s Wild Ride Remix Challenge
Excite Audio and KSHMR are giving away Bloom KSHMR Lite (usually $35) for free as part of the Wild Ride Remix Challenge. The contest invites you to remix KSHMR’s latest track, called Wild Ride. It’s a genre-blending song that also has that signature KSHR cinematic synth flair. It’s a catchy song and I’m a sucker [...]
View post: Get Bloom KSHMR Lite ($35) FREE in KSHMR’s Wild Ride Remix Challenge

Audiomovers update LISTENTO Audiomovers have just announced the release of a significant update that brings a whole host of new features to their audio-streaming application and plug-in suite. 

Winklevoss twins deepen ties to Trump family with Bitcoin mining investment: ReportThe brothers invested an undisclosed amount in American Bitcoin, the mining company co-founded by two of Trump's sons and others.