Rise+ helps musicians find community, resources and educationLooking for help taking your music career to the next level? Learn how Rise+ helps musicians find community, tools and support.
The post Rise+ helps musicians find community, resources and education appeared first on Hypebot.

Broken Mini: This Minimoog emulation is free and totally bugged out – by designFull Bucket Music has unveiled an intriguing new plugin called Broken Mini, a free emulation of the iconic Minimoog synthesizer – if that Minimoog in question is broken and has missing knobs and quirks that make it feel like a repair is in order.
Confused? You might be. Just imagine a Minimoog that doesn’t quite work like one and you’ll grasp the essence of the Broken Mini.

READ MORE: Soundtoys’ PhaseMistress analogue phaser plugin is available totally free until 15 November

As mentioned, the Broken Mini is not just another Minimoog clone; it is designed to simulate a “malfunctioning” synthesizer experience. In fact, Björn Arlt, the developer behind Full Bucket Music, describes it as a nod to an “unknown and obscure synthesizer from the past,” with no mention of the original Minimoog at all.
Despite its playful premise, Broken Mini retains some core functionalities of the original. It features three multi-wave oscillators, a noise generator, the classic ladder filter, and two envelope generators, all arranged in a familiar layout. But this is where the similarities end.
The plugin’s interface includes intentional omissions that enhance its “broken” aesthetic — certain graphical elements are missing, such as the C3 key on the keyboard and the sustain button on the ADSR envelope generator.
The peculiarities extend beyond visuals. For instance, the noise generator sometimes emits radio signals instead of standard noise, as if a radio wave receiver were interfering. The oversampling feature, meanwhile, allows users to turn down the sample rate to 0.25 times only, resulting in a deliberately “dirty” sound quality.

Broken Mini is now available as a free download in VST, VST3, CLAP, AAX, and AU formats for both Windows and macOS.
More information is available at Full Bucket.
The post Broken Mini: This Minimoog emulation is free and totally bugged out – by design appeared first on MusicTech.

How to become a successful Classical Musician: Paola Prestini Composer Paola Prestini has been named a Top 35 Female Composer in Classical Music by the Washington Post, a Top 100 Composer in the World by NPR and a Top 30 Professionals of the Year by Musical America. One can learn a lot about how to become a successful Classical Musician from Paolo Prestini.
The post How to become a successful Classical Musician: Paola Prestini  appeared first on Hypebot.

Pete Townshend says “somebody needs to occasionally slap Rick Rubin”: “One minute he’s telling us to do whatever we like and the next he’s telling us we mustn’t do this”Pete Townshend has taken a swipe at legendary producer Rick Rubin for the latter’s supposedly mixed messages on creativity.
Speaking on the Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt podcast, the Who guitarist and principal songwriter shares his thoughts on the creative process and how creativity doesn’t just belong to those who make a living with it.

READ MORE: “He didn’t need to do it” the real reason why Eddie Van Halen modded his guitars revealed

“You see a lot of stuff on YouTube and Instagram, people nagging you about the way that you have to be creative,” Townshend begins [via Ultimate Guitar]. “Somebody needs to occasionally slap Rick Rubin, because, one minute he’s telling us that we need to do whatever we like, and then, on the other hand, he’s telling us that we mustn’t do this, and we mustn’t do that.”
“The book of rules for me is… I’ve dabbled with all of those methods. I’ve carried complete big, recording studios on the road with me sometimes, and then sometimes I’ve used little cassette machines. I’ve recorded in all kinds of different ways. And if I fancy going into a studio with a huge orchestra, I’ve done that too. But what’s most interesting is the paper. The paper, the photograph, the writing.”
Townshend adds that creativity is “not just about rock stars, pop stars, singers, musicians, artists, or whatever. It’s about everybody.”
“This is why I think so many people who are successful in the arts and music tell people [that] everybody is creative. I think everybody might well be creative. It’s just that they don’t necessarily feel creative,” he explains. “And a lot of them, I think, feel lucky that they don’t go through the kind of trials and tribulations that they see big stars go through.”
That said, if there’s one thing Rubin and the other “pundits of creativity” have gotten right, it is that whatever you do has to spark joy.
“As Rick Rubin so rightly says, and many other pundits about creativity, it has to be fun,” Townshend says. “It has to be enjoyable. It has to be something that you love to do, and it also has to be something that you like what you do. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that anybody else will like it.”

The post Pete Townshend says “somebody needs to occasionally slap Rick Rubin”: “One minute he’s telling us to do whatever we like and the next he’s telling us we mustn’t do this” appeared first on MusicTech.

‘The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet’ has been identified thanks to RedditAttention: The internet just solved a 17-year-old mystery that’s been puzzling audiophiles and Reddit sleuths alike.
For nearly two decades, music enthusiasts and internet detectives have been captivated by a mysterious tune known as “The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet”. This enigmatic track, which first emerged in 2007 after being digitised from a cassette recording made in the 1980s, has sparked a global hunt for its origins, leaving countless theories and dead ends in its wake.
But thanks to the relentless efforts of a dedicated, resourceful and global group of online detectives aka the Internet, the mystery has finally been unravelled: the song is titled Subways of the Mind, performed by the little-known German band FEX.

READ MORE: Reddit users discover Teenage Engineering’s potential new product – the OP-XY

Back in 2004, a teenager named Darius S. who recorded the song from a radio broadcast in Germany posted it on a website along with other unknown songs in hopes of identifying them. The search for the song’s origins gained significant momentum in 2019, when Reddit got involved and a Brazilian teen uploaded the track to YouTube.
The breakthrough came earlier this week when user Marijn1412 from The Mysterious Song subreddit discovered the band FEX while sifting through the archives of a Hamburg local music festival.
He reached out to one of the band members, who confirmed his involvement with FEX and shared several recordings, including a version of Subways of the Mind. With the mystery solved, this elusive piece of music is now set to reclaim its place in the spotlight — much to the surprise of its original creators, who were completely unaware of their song’s enduring legacy.
68-year-old Michael Haedrich, who played keyboard and guitar for FEX, tells Der Spiegel magazine that the members were “completely overwhelmed” by the news. He adds that the band are keen to reissue Subways of Your Mind and are trying to track down the original recording of the song.
“I thought it was amazing that someone was interested in music by a band that was only successful regionally, if at all, and that was over 40 years ago,” Haedrich says.

The post ‘The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet’ has been identified thanks to Reddit appeared first on MusicTech.

Waves is giving away a new plugin this Black Friday – here’s how you can sign upWaves Audio is set to spice up your Black Friday with a brand new plugin coming your way! That’s right – the audio software company is back with its annual Black Friday giveaway, and this year, as with the last, it is keeping the details of the new plugin a mystery.

READ MORE: Soundtoys’ PhaseMistress analogue phaser plugin is available totally free until 15 November

As part of its Cyber Weekend celebration, 10,000 copies of the plugin will be given away for free on 29 November 2024. And while we don’t know exactly what it does yet, Waves has teased that it’s going to be “very exciting.”
For those who recall, past years’ Cyber Weekends have seen the company drop a bunch of freebies ranging from lo-fi reverbs and delay plugins to vocal processors. So act fast, and head over to the Waves website and sign up with your email to be notified when the plugin is available for download.
But that’s not all! Waves has already kicked off its Black Friday season with a selection of plugins starting from just $19.99. So while you wait for the big day, you can snag some incredible deals on their existing lineup.
Earlier this year, Waves announced a new trio of plugins, the Curves Spectral Series, which it claims can do your EQ for you. The first plugin in the trilogy, the Curves Equator, focuses on resonance suppression and is now available for purchase. The next two plugins will arrive next year and are set to focus on traditional audio equalisation and EQ matching respectively.
“If you think about EQ technology, it hasn’t really advanced in the last 30 years,” says Product Manager Shai Fishman in a launch video. “We thought there had to be a better way to get rid of Q’s and frequencies and nodes and all that stuff that’s really tedious and technical about EQ. Why not have the technology do the work for you? Go where you want to go, without worrying about the technical aspects?”
Visit Waves Audio to learn more.
The post Waves is giving away a new plugin this Black Friday – here’s how you can sign up appeared first on MusicTech.

IK Multimedia unveil T-Racks Triad Chorus The latest addition to IK Multimedia’s ever-growing plug-in collection delivers some modulation effects inspired by a popular 80s rackmount unit.

AI-powered parenting is here and a16z is ready to back it AI wants to help us drive better, write better and diagnose diseases faster. Now imagine AI helping you be a better parent. 
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Asian crypto traders profit from Trump’s win, China’s 2025 CBDC deadline: Asia ExpressAsian investors trade overnight to catch the Trump-fueled Bitcoin surge, China accelerates digital yuan push: Asia Express

Disposable Vape Batteries Power eBikeThere are a lot of things that get landfilled that have some marginal value, but generally if there’s not a huge amount of money to be made recycling things they won’t get recycled. It might not be surprising to most that this is true of almost all plastic, a substantial portion of glass, and even a lot of paper and metals, but what might come as a shock is that plenty of rechargeable lithium batteries are included in this list as well. It’s cheaper to build lithium batteries into one-time-use items like disposable vape pens and just throw them out after one (or less than one) charge cycle, but if you have some spare time these batteries are plenty useful.
[Chris Doel] found over a hundred disposable vape pens after a local music festival and collected them all to build into a battery powerful enough for an ebike. Granted, this involves a lot of work disassembling each vape which is full of some fairly toxic compounds and which also generally tend to have some sensitive electronics, but once each pen was disassembled the real work of building a battery gets going. He starts with testing each cell and charging them to the same voltage, grouping cells with similar internal resistances. From there he assembles them into a 48V pack with a battery management system and custom 3D printed cell holders to accommodate the wide range of cell sizes. A 3D printed enclosure with charge/discharge ports, a power switch, and a status display round out the build.
With the battery bank completed he straps it to his existing ebike and hits the trails, easily traveling 20 miles with barely any pedal input. These cells are only rated for 300 charge-discharge cycles which is on par for plenty of similar 18650 cells, making this an impressive build for essentially free materials minus the costs of filament, a few parts, and the sweat equity that went into sourcing the cells. If you want to take an ebike to the next level of low-cost, we’d recommend pairing this battery with the drivetrain from the Spin Cycle.\
Thanks to [Anton] for the tip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcVp9T8f_W4

Sarah Kinsley featured on final episode of BMI & More or Less (With Jess) series 'Struck a Chord' BMI and More or Less (With Jess) share the final episode of their newly launched series Struck a Chord today. In this episode, More or Less (With Jess) sat down with breakout artist Sarah Kinsley ahead of her hometown show at Webster Hall, the final stop on the North American leg of her Escaper tour. Sarah’s journey from crafting intimate EPs in her NYC apartment to achieving viral success has captivated audiences worldwide. Her authentic storytelling and emotional depth create a space where fans can explore complex feelings and connect on a profound level. With the recent release of her debut album Escaper, Sarah’s music has grown from its introspective roots to filling sold-out venues across the globe. Watch episode 3 now here.At Webster Hall, More or Less (With Jess) interviewed fans who shared their own stories how Sarah’s music has helped them navigate mental health challenges, confront cultural stigmas, and celebrate the beauty of platonic love.BMI and More or Less (With Jess) recently partnered to produce a new series, Struck a Chord, to highlight the importance of mental health and the power of music and lyrics in the healing process for both creators and fans. The three-part series features interviews with BMI singer/songwriters Ashe, Lauv and Sarah Kinsley, and their fans on location at concerts, giving an insider’s look into how an artist’s mental health can impact their songwriting and how those lyrics resonate with fans who personalize and internalize them as a source of comfort and connection. The first installment launched October 10th in honor of World Mental Health Day, and featured Ashe at her sold-out Brooklyn Bowl concert in Nashville. The "One Night Only" event saw fans from all across the country welcoming her back to the stage after a 22-month-long mental health hiatus. Watch episode 1, featuring Ashe here and episode 2, featuring Lauv here. The post Sarah Kinsley featured on final episode of BMI & More or Less (With Jess) series 'Struck a Chord' first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

TikTok deepens integration with Spotify and Apple Music via new feature that lets streamers ‘Share to TikTok’‘Share to TikTok’ allows users to share music they found on streaming platforms to TikTok
Source

2023 Hackaday Supercon: One Year of Progress for Project Boondock EchoDo you remember the fourth-place winner in the 2022 Hackaday Prize? If it’s slipped your mind, that’s okay—it was Boondock Echo. It was a radio project that aimed to make it easy to record and playback conversations from two-way radio communications. The project was entered via Hackaday.io, the judges dug it, and it was one of the top projects of that year’s competition.
The project was the brainchild of Mark Hughes and Kaushlesh Chandel. At the 2023 Hackaday Supercon, Mark and Kaushlesh (KC) came back to tell us all about the project, and how far it had come one year after its success in the 2022 Hackaday Prize.

Breaker, Breaker

The talk begins with a simple video explainer of the Boondock Echo project. Basically, it points out the simple problem with two-way radio communications. If you’re not sitting in front of the receiver at the right time, you’re going to miss the message someone’s trying to send you. Unlike cellular communications, Skype calls, or email, there’s no log of missed calls or messages waiting for you. If you weren’t listening, you’re out of luck.
The device works with conventional amateur radios and can capture messages, store them in the cloud, and even react to them.
Mark was inspired to create a device to solve these problems by his father’s experience as an emergency responder with FEMA. Often, his father would tell stories about problems with radios and missed transmissions, and Mark had always wondered if something could be done.
Boondock Echo is the device that hopes to change all that. It’s a device designed for recording and playback of two-way radio communications. The hardware is based around the ESP32, which is able to capture analog audio from a radio, digitize it, and submit it to the Boondock Echo online service. This also enables more advanced features—the system can transcribe audio to text, and even do keyword monitoring on the results and email you any important relevant messages.
The Boondock Echo service can be set up to react to keywords and provide notifications in turn.
Rather amazingly, Hackaday actually helped spawn this project. Mark had an idea of what Boondock Echo should do, but he didn’t feel like he had the full set of technical skills to implement it. Then, Mark met KC via a Hackaday Hackchat, and the two started a partnership to develop the project further. Eventually, they won fourth place in the 2022 Hackaday Prize, which netted them a tasty $10,000 which they could use to develop the project further. They then brought in Mark’s friend Jesse on the hardware side, and things really got rolling.
The hope was to start producing and delivering Boondock Echo devices. Of course, nobody is immune to production hell, and it was no different for this team. KC dives into the story of how the device relied on the ESP32-A1S module. When they went to make more, this turned out to be problematic. They found some of the purchased modules worked and some didn’t. Stripping the RF shields off the pre-baked modules, they found that while they all included audio codec chips marked “8388,” some modules had a different layout and functioned differently. And these were parts with FCC IDs, identical part numbers, and everything! This turned into a huge mess that derailed the project for some time. The project had to be retooled to work with the ESP32-based AI Thinker Audio Kit, to which they added a custom “sidekick” board to handle interfacing with the desired radio hardware.
Dodgy parts caused a great deal of trouble for the team.
Mark notes that there were some organizational lessons learned through this difficult journey. He talks about the value of planning and budgets when it comes to any attempt to escape the “Valley of Death” as a nascent startup. Mark also explains how Boondock Echo came to seek investors to grow further when he realized they didn’t have the resources to make it on their own.
“You don’t go out asking for $10,000 from family and friends, you go out and you ask for a heck of a lot more than that from professional investors,” explains Mark. “It’s a lot easier to come up with $100,000 than $10,000, because the venture capitalists don’t play in the $10,000 price range.” Of course, he notes that this comes with a tradeoff—investors want a stake in the company in exchange for cold, hard cash. Moving to this mode of operation involved creating a company and then dividing up shares for all the relevant stakeholders—a unique challenge of its own. Mark and KC explain how they handled the growing pains and grew their team from there.
The successful live demo was a moment of some joy. It used a modified Supercon badge to display transcription of an audio message captured by a Boondock Echo device.
The rest of the talk covers the product itself, and we get a demo of what it can do. KC and Mark show us how the Boondock Echo units capture audio, record it, and submit it to the cloud. From there, we get to see how things like AI transcription, keyword triggers, and notifications work, and there’s even a fun live demo. Beyond that, Mark explains how you can order the hardware via CrowdSupply, and sign up with the Boondock Echo cloud service.
It’s not just neat to see a cool project, it’s neat to see something like this grow from an idea into a fully-fledged business. Even better, it grew out of the Hackaday community itself, and has flourished from there. It’s a wonderful testament to what hackers can achieve with a good idea and the will to pursue it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Shy Audio introduce Shy 90s Channel plug-in Shy Audio's debut plug-in has been inspired by the sound of the budget gear that shaped the raw and unapologetic sound of 90s techno, hip hop and other electronic music. 

Waves announce a new plugin for Black Friday with 10,000 FREE copies
Developer Waves has announced a new plugin for Black Friday with 10,000 FREE copies available. Those of you who were suitably unimpressed by the recent Air Music Tech Black Friday plugin news are going to love this one! Before I continue, anyone who likes free plugin offers with information like, you know, what it does, [...]
View post: Waves announce a new plugin for Black Friday with 10,000 FREE copies