10 lessons everyone in music can learn from Quincy JonesQuincy Jones, one of the great musical geniuses of the 20th century has passed away at the age of 91. A polymath, hitmaker, entrepreneur, industry mogul, and philanthropist, he leaves a legacy that extends far beyond the music industry. As we reflect on his incalculable cultural contributions, here are some lessons we can all take from Jones’ remarkable life.

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1. Creative collaboration is a powerful force
Jones was undeniably a singular talent, but he always pointed out that his biggest achievements were team efforts. Part of his genius was trusting his collaborators and giving them room to shine. Interviewed in 2007, he said, “To me, the most powerful records come from a collective creativity. You get good records when you let all the people who work on it put their personality in their particular area.”
Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson at the 1994 Grammy Awards. Image: Chris Walter/WireImage via Getty Images
…but don’t compromise when you know you’re right.
Jones also wasn’t afraid to put his foot down when the music needed it. In an interview with The Detail, Jones recounts a memorable moment when Michael Jackson asked him to remove the iconic violin runs that kick off Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough. Jones’ answer? “No way.”

2. There are many ways to make a living in the music business, so try all of them
Throughout his life, Jones moved seamlessly from performer to arranger, to composer, to record producer – and that’s just in the music business.
He also had a hand in founding TV production companies, music magazines, and producing major motion pictures. No matter the situation, Jones had a knack for identifying opportunities and making the most of them.
3. Being critical is not a bad thing
Jones was never one to pull any punches when it came to music (he infamously described The Beatles as “the worst musicians in the world”). However, it would be a mistake to view this as simple negativity.
For Jones, being honest about what you like and do not like was essential to creating music with lasting impact. “One thing you don’t want around you is a lot of yes-men that tell you everything is great,” Jones once said. “That’s bullshit. I want everyone to always feel free to say what they think.”
Quincy Jones in a recording studio in 1963. Image: Gai Terrell/Redferns via Getty Images
4. A good producer needs a good process
To reach a discography as gigantic as Jones’, you need to develop a good workflow.
A classic technique was to take what he called musical ‘polaroids.’ When working on a demo, he’d start by recording the rhythm section and then try a few vocal takes on top. Based on that, he’d assess the song’s potential, adding additional instrument parts if it was worthy. During his three-album stint working with Michael Jackson, Jones recalls putting together between 600 and 700 ‘polaroids’ before whittling them down to the twenty tracks they would release together.
5. Get educated
Jones’ genius didn’t come out of nowhere. He worked tirelessly to master not only the nuts and bolts of music theory, scoring, and arranging, but also developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of music across countless genres.
Jones once declared that “music is emotion and science”, challenging budding musicians to do their homework, develop their technique, and listen widely.
Quincy Jones at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1972. Image: David Redfern/Redferns via Getty Images
6. Don’t be afraid to mix genres
Jones’ expansive love of all genres – he stated that “the only music I don’t like is bad music” – allowed him to bring a versatility into the studio that few producers could match.
When Michael Jackson wanted to break away from the saccharine sweetness of the Jackson 5, Jones pulled together soul, jazz, funk, disco, R&B, and rock to remake pop music for a new generation.
7. Keep the music moving
Jones’ best tracks are utterly addictive – once you press play they pull you along until the closing note. This is no accident: Jones’ producing style prioritised details and developments to always keep the listener hooked.
“You have to keep the ear candy going because the mind turns off when the music doesn’t change,” Jones said in 2018. “You’ve got to keep the ear busy.”
Quincy Jones and Ray Charles during the recording of ‘Duke Ellington… We Love You Madly’ tribute show in 1973. Image: David Redfern/Redferns via Getty Images
8. Everyone needs a bit of luck
Jones worked tirelessly to build his storied career, but luck also played a pivotal role. A chance encounter with Ray Charles would result in Jones’ first musical partnership while he was still in his early teens, and a casual conversation with Michael Jackson, where the pop star asked Jones if he knew any producer that could work on his first solo album, would eventually lead to the best-selling album of all time.
In perhaps the most stunning example of this, Jones narrowly missed getting caught up in the infamous Manson murders – not turning up at Sharon Tate’s house that ill-fated night for the simple reason that he’d forgotten about the invite.
9. Burnout can happen to the best of us
In the mid-80s, Jones had been working at full-tilt for years. A breaking point came after his work on The Colour Purple, the Academy Award-winning film that he not only produced but scored the soundtrack for. The pressure was so intense that Jones would suffer a mental breakdown upon the completion of the project.
“I put too much on my plate and it took its toll,” Jones recalled of the experience. “You learn from your mistakes and I learned I couldn’t do that again.”
Quincy Jones at the Steiger Award ceremony in 2014. Image: Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images
10. Don’t give up
Jones’ childhood was brutal. Throughout his formative years, he had to grapple with a fractured family, gang violence, poverty, and racism. Even once his career was well underway, he still suffered no shortage of setbacks. In his 20s, he toured a production of the jazz musical, Free and Easy, which went so badly that it almost ruined his career and left him nearly $150,000 in debt.
Through it all, Jones never lost sight of his goals and never surrendered his passion for music – instead, he picked himself back up and made history.
The post 10 lessons everyone in music can learn from Quincy Jones appeared first on MusicTech.

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Power-Over-Skin Makes Powering Wearables EasierThe ever-shrinking size of electronics and sensors has allowed wearables to help us quantify more and more about ourselves in smaller and smaller packages, but one major constraint is the size of the battery you can fit inside. What if you could remotely power a wearable device instead?
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were able to develop a power transmitter that lets power flow over human skin to remote devices over distances as far a head-to-toe. The human body can efficiently transmit 40 MHz RF energy along the skin and keeps this energy confined around the body and through clothing, as the effect is capacitive.
The researchers were able to develop several proof-of-concept devices including “a Bluetooth
ring with a joystick, a stick-and-forget medical patch which logs data, and a sun-exposure patch with a screen — demonstrating user input, displays, sensing, and wireless communication.” As the researchers state in the paper, this could open up some really interesting new wearable applications that weren’t possible previously because of power constraints.
If you’re ready to dive into the world of wearables, how about this hackable smart ring or a wearable that rides rails?

Charli XCX on the Troye Sivan Sweat TourClubgoers, ravers, renegade ragers, and all who “J’adore Hardcore” Melbourne trance and the ‘cutting shapes’ style of London dance, poured out from Seattle Center’s suspended monorail station onto the Climate Pledge Arena’s International Lawn. The expansive field, adjacent to the venue with its lit LED fountain, was a perfect pre-show meeting point for rave baes flaunting their DIY brat meets couture trash fashion aesthetic before Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s sold-out PNW show, the last stop on their joint North American SWEAT tour.

As the crowd grew, old-school beats and new-school bangers pulsated through the venue’s open-air speakers. These party anthems provided a pounding rhythm for the perversely pouting, ever-giddy fans to channel their inner Miss Essex while power-stomping-runway-walking toward the ‘Climate Club’ - all in hopes of finding the shortest queue to experience the summerlong-awaited bash inside. 

The pre-rave scene, albeit in Seattle – a city better known for Nirvana’s squiggly, X-eyed smiley than for EDM’s straightforward acid house smiley —had enough U.K. sensory similarities to evoke the sensation of exiting an East London Tube station and walking the streets to discover ‘the rager’ under the railway arches. While the vastness of the Climate Pledge Arena initially called to mind Ministry of Sound -the legendary London nightclub that tilts more toward touristy types than club kids - the preconceived visual interpolation was soon squelched as the venue’s lampy hit the switch. Suddenly biting brash sound blips and bright white strobes ignited, showcasing the SWEAT stage. The scene, Charli and Troye’s club, a warehouse-like space featuring giant multi-tiered scaffolding and a tunnel leading to the dancefloor below. The setup, a perfect area for devoted fans to show their trenchant brat attitudes with an “I don’t care’ exhibitionist flair.

The strobes continued to blast in time as Troye and his set of strapped dancers hit the stage with “Got Me Started” from 2023’s Something to Give Each Other. The track’s infectious groove, combined with his troupe’s hyper-synchronous, evocative dance moves, put the entire venue in a celebratory mood. His slinky micro-set – a collection of three songs - ended with the dreamy “My My My” from 2018’s Bloom, which made an excellent segue just as another round of ear-splattering electro-lux sounds drew all eyes toward the tunnel top stage. There, Charli’s signature acid-green brat banner magically appeared.  Seconds later, it fell to the ground revealing the no-holds-barred singer/songwriter who dares to defy today’s norm of what it means to be a bona fide female pop star.

Charli raging in full stiletto boots,  didn’t hold back. Singing the superfast “365” party girl remix from this year’s brat and its completely different but also still brat, the club chanteuse ensnared the sold-out crowd with club-inducing vivaciousness, making the entire venue jump in time with Day-Glo gloved hands in the air and vibrate from the ground up. Shygirl, the brilliant opening act, was brought out on stage to accompany Charli for the last chorus. The pairing amplified the contagious song’s dance until the dawn party anthem. 

XCX’s three-song subset, including “360” and “Von Dutch,” both from this spring’s brat pushed out hyper full-based beats signaling the evening would not be slowing down. Charli commanded the stage alone throughout the entirety of the show. Her raw vitality was captured by a lone cameraman following her through the throes of the night’s makeshift underground warehouse studio. The effect allowed fans, no matter how far away from the stage, to feel as if they were Charli’s rave bae as she moved through the club. 

The vacillating micro-sets between Troye and Charli –including a wide range of wardrobe changes -  created a fun guessing game for the audience making them wonder what ‘drip girl’ outfit would appear next. In addition, the rhythmic switched-up subsets produced a virtual experience for concertgoers, allowing them to visualize Troye and Charli’s club time flow, two friends navigating different night-to-dawn adventures and periodically meeting up to compare notes. The result made for a wonderfully well-paced and entertaining show.

Moreover, each mini-set highlighted a plethora of hits made complete with several knockout moments. Charli’s stellar performances of “Sympathy Is a Knife” and “Girl, so confusing,” both anthemic tracks from brat, exploring the inner dagger-like-dark complexities of females navigating their way in an ever more cannibalistic social media-driven world, were two standouts. Hyper-electro club beats, however, rode to the top for most of the show and provided maximalist, spitfire-like fun. The sparky “I Love It” and the hyperpop “Vroom, Vroom” were two of many fan favorites.  The latter had everyone screaming its irresistible “beep, beep so let’s ride” chorus. The entirety of Troye’s sets included provocative lyrics meshed with spectacular singing and dancing, but the Ibiza, house-beat-infused “Rush,” complete with a coordinated keg stand, had a few concertgoers mimicking the sextet of dancers moves.

Similar to all-night raves, the fans could have danced until dawn, making the arrival of the encore seem almost unthinkable. Charli and Troye resolved this with their flirty and fun, glitchy beat brat duet, “Talk talk,” serving as the last drop of the night. Their embrace as the house lights turned up showcased the admiration the two performers have for one another and embodied the PLUR rave principle: peace, love, unity, and respect. While the ‘Climate Club’ rave  was over, the mantra was readily felt following fans as they headed to various ‘afters’- but of course infused with a smidge of Charli’s strong sense of self-worth and can’t be bothered attitude.

SETLIST

Act I - Troye Sivan

Got Me Started-

What's the Time Where You Are?

My My My!

Act I - Charli XCX

365

360

Von Dutch

Act II - Troye Sivan

In My Room

Dance to This

Rager teenager!

Act II - Charli XCX

Club classics

Unlock It

Sympathy Is a Knife

Guess

Act III - Troye Sivan

Bloom

Act III - Charli XCX

Spring breakers

Girl, so confusing

Act IV - Troye Sivan

The Call

One of Your Girls

Act IV - Charli XCX

Everything is romantic

Speed Drive

Apple

Act V - Troye Sivan

Silly

You

STUD

Act V - Charli XCX

365

Vroom Vroom

Act V - Charli XCX & Troye Sivan

1999

Encore - Charli XCX

Track 10

I Love It

Encore - Troye Sivan

Honey

Rush

Encore - Charli XCX & Troye Sivan

Talk talkThe post Charli XCX on the Troye Sivan Sweat Tour first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

“It always starts with the sample”: Laurence Guy is connecting listeners to loops in more meaningful ways than ever“It’s been hectic but fulfilling – which is kind of what this whole year’s felt like,” admits Laurence Guy from an NYC hotel room, beaming from his ongoing tour of North America. One of the UK’s finest house music exports, Guy is currently eight cities into a twelve-date sprint across the continent. Yet from Canada to Texas, California to NYC, it seems that no matter where he goes, Guy is always amongst friends.
“I played at a fan’s house in San Diego,” he recalls with a smile. “And sometimes I’ll go play at a dive bar alongside the main set. You get to meet people that are really interested in the music and make a direct connection.”
The power of those connections is something that seems to surprise even Guy; from the very first night of the tour, he says, there have been many small gestures from fans letting him know that even his earliest releases still resonate. “Someone passed me a note saying one track had helped get them through a certain time in their life. It’s just amazing to be on the other side of the world and have someone who is so connected to music that was released back in 2017 – which almost feels like another lifetime to me.”
Laurence Guy. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
2017 was Guy’s breakout year. With the release of his highly acclaimed debut album, Saw You for the First Time, he staked out his own chilled-out, sample-heavy spot in the UK house scene. Since then, rather than digging in, he’s sprawled outward; tweaking the musical recipe, exploring new sounds, and says he brings “a hundred different influences” with him into the studio.
“I’ve always wanted to get to the point where the influences could be worn on my sleeve without me thinking about it,” he says of his expansive production style. “All of the things that happen in my life, and all the stuff I’m listening to just naturally bleed out into the music. It’s not intentional.”
By the time he got to his second full-length album, 2023’s vocal-driven Living Like There’s No Tomorrow, But Killing Yourself in The Process, Guy was pulling in everything from trap and spoken word to sit alongside drum ‘n’ bass, solo piano works, and some straight-up house beats. With track titles like Don’t Live in Oblivion, It’s Cold Down There and Pissing in The Personal Growth Room, the album was a sharply introspective look at the need to find balance in an industry – and a society – that all too frequently pushes people to burnout.
Laurence Guy in the Future Classic studio, Los Angeles. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
“I’ve been writing music since I was like 13 years old; it’s very much like an extension of myself,” Guy reflects. “So, if I’m not feeling fun for a year then the music inevitably isn’t that fun, and, if I’m feeling good, then I want to make good feeling music. The last album I released was probably my favourite thing that I’ve done, but it was more serious and conceptual.”
In need of a palette cleanse, Guy swung his attention back to the dance floor. This year has seen him drop a series of off-the-cuff bangers, starting with a late-night writing session that would become one of this year’s club favourites, Hey Baby. “Just after the America tour last year I was staying at my mum’s and seeing off the jet lag for a couple of days,” Guy remembers. “I couldn’t sleep, and in the middle of the night I was like, ‘I need to make a beat.’”

Powered by rousing horns and a disco pulse, the tune — which just last week received a remix from Austrian DJ, salute — is a 180-degree pivot from the delicate, detailed production of his last album. Guy says he initially felt unsure about the track. “It was so much more tongue-in-cheek than anything I’d made in the previous year, but I sent it to my manager and he loved it. So, then I was like ‘Okay, let’s just make some fun stuff for a while.’”
Laurence Guy in the Future Classic studio, Los Angeles. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
While Guy’s musical influences may always be shifting, his production process has a tried and true methodology. “It always starts with the sample,” he says. “I’ll chop that up, and then I’ll chop up another one, and then just start layering. That part is always the same, but what gets funnelled through is different. So, I could put an indie track or a jazz track through that same process and they will sound different.”
Guy takes a singular delight in finding which tracks to chop. A lifelong crate digger, Guy says that, while he’ll occasionally turn to online catalogues like Tracklib, vinyl is his preferred source material whenever starting a new track. “It’s definitely still my favourite way,” he emphasises. “If [record stores] have listening stations then I can just spend the whole day going through stuff. But oftentimes, I’ll look in different sections, find a record – maybe something with cool artwork – and see who played on it and what instruments are listed.
“You might find a record by someone you don’t know,” Guy continues. “But then you look on the back and it’s got Patrice Rushen on keys and Stanley Cowell on piano – so that’s going to be sick. You get to know different labels, different players. And then sometimes you just get a feeling of like, ‘This is going to be good’. It’s just instinctual.”
Laurence Guy. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
He’s quick to acknowledge that clearing a sample can be tough work. Some material serves only as a “springboard for the tune” and will eventually have to be dropped from the track entirely. Nevertheless, for Guy, the act of finding, buying, and spinning vinyl is not only a huge part of his creative process – it’s key to how he forms an emotional bond with his own work.
“The reason for sampling records is because it ties the music I make to moments in my life,” Guy says thoughtfully. “If I’m listening to my album from last year, I can remember where I bought the sample for each tune. I can remember what I was doing that day and who I was with. Just on a personal level that really feels great to me.”
A thread that runs through Guy’s work is a distinctive focus on emotion, and emotional communication, through music. It’s a key part of why he chooses his sometimes cryptic, sometimes confessional track titles. “Historically, I’ve not been very good at articulating what I felt or how I was doing,” confesses Guy. “When I started making music, that was basically my only way of communicating those things, it was almost like a coping mechanism, and the track titles are a big part of that.”
What’s remarkable about this approach is that it works so well – where songwriters can rely on lyrics to paint a picture or tell a story, Guy’s largely instrumental discography manages to evoke a strong sense of place and feeling using only beats, melodies, and a scant few words. “They’re my little message to the world which I wouldn’t say to anyone in person,” he says thoughtfully. “It’s not necessarily a healthy way to live your life, but it’s good for the music; it makes it universal for other people.”
Laurence Guy. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
To connect his music to fans, Guy takes a solidly DIY approach. Though he recently signed to independent Australian label, Future Classic, he has, since 2019, maintained Accidental Pieces, a platform where he can release music directly whenever he wants.
“Originally it was just so we could do things in an immediate way,” says Guy. “It was there for when there was a gap and I wanted to release something. Now, with Future Classic, I can make something tomorrow and arrange to release it in a month, so that’s really good. But just to have Accidental Pieces as a place where I have full autonomy and can maybe release other people’s music there in the future, that’s the ethos. Basically, the more direct connection you can have, the better.”
Living Like There’s No Tomorrow, But Killing Yourself In The Process by Laurence Guy
That same approach can be seen in Guy’s embrace of the UK’s burgeoning pub rave scene. As the hospitality sector struggled to bounce back after COVID, Guy and fellow DJs such as Disclosure, Nia Archives and Fred Again.. spread out to local UK pubs to put on a series of free gigs. Far from a one-off, Guy’s local favourite, The White Hart in Stoke Newington, has become a regular spot for casual, low-pressure sets — including a recent appearance in June to celebrate the release of Most Perfect People (Are Mostly Not Perfect).
“Those days are always amazing,” he enthuses. “You meet loads of people, you can play new music, and it’s just fun to DJ in a pub, you know? I mean, this is what I love to do. I want to be playing as many nights of the week as possible to as many people, or as few, as want to listen.”
Laurence Guy. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
Asked whether we can expect more sets at The White Hart in 2025, his answer is a resounding yes. “100 per cent,” he says. “And hopefully we’ll extend it out to different cities, and even different countries. For instance, I’m doing a small pop-up party in New York tonight for Halloween.”
Guy is swift to point out the ongoing struggles of the live music sector – and the role that individual musicians can play in helping it. “We’re not in a boom time,” he concedes. “A lot of small venues are still closing. Really, [DJs] just need to play smaller venues for lower fees, and play big festivals for big fees, and yes, for free every now and again.
“In my opinion,” he continues. “It’s quite easy for DJs to do that. You can go and play a small club the day after playing a big club. Little things like that keep stuff going, and I think if more people were doing it then we could bounce back quicker.”
Laurence Guy. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
As 2024 draws to a close, the next challenge on Guy’s horizon is to eventually bring together his two biggest musical evolutions from the past few years. “The idea is to marry the collaborations with vocalists and the deeper stuff, with the fun ‘not thinking too much about where it’s going to be or who’s going to listen to it’ stuff. Amalgamating those two different processes into a mega album, and then touring it with a live band – that’s the plan.”
Guy’s desire to play with a live group can be traced back to the sessions he undertook when making Living Like There’s No Tomorrow, But Killing Yourself in The Process – some of which were conducted in person, and some remotely due to COVID restrictions. “The online collaborations worked really well, but being in the room is always going to be in my opinion,” Guy says. “It’s going to give it more life. Something mediocre can suddenly become something amazing.
“So, the goal is to DJ and play live with a group,” he continues. “We have me playing keys, we have a drummer, and we have a trumpet player. That’s something I want to build because it’s more exciting to watch and more exciting to be involved in. There’s just more connection.”
Laurence Guy. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
Exactly when we’ll hear this new album, Guy can’t say. “I’m always kinda half-making one,” he admits ruefully. “I went to Mallorca for a couple of weeks to write, and that material ended up being more album-oriented. I’m in LA for the next month doing sessions every day — it could just be for singles or it could be for an album.”
One thing Guy is sure of is just how much fun he’s having along the way. “I’ve got my older brother out here with me as well — he’s a bass player — and we’re just hanging out in the sun, writing tunes every day — it’s amazing. I’m in a good phase of making music right now, so I’m going to keep running with that until it stops.”
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The post “It always starts with the sample”: Laurence Guy is connecting listeners to loops in more meaningful ways than ever appeared first on MusicTech.

Supercon 2024: Badge Add-On WinnersThis year we challenged the Hackaday community to develop Shitty Simple Supercon Add-Ons (SAO) that did more than just blink a few LEDs. The SAO standard includes I2C data and a pair of GPIO pins, but historically, they’ve very rarely been used. We knew the talented folks in this community would be able to raise the bar, but as they have a tendency to do, they’ve exceeded all of our expectations.
As we announced live during the closing ceremony at the 2024 Hackaday Supercon, the following four SAOs will be put into production and distributed to all the attendees at Hackaday Europe in Spring of 2025.

Best Overall: SAO Multimeter
For the “Best Overall” category, we only intended to compare it with the other entries in the contest. But in the end, we think there’s a strong case to be made that [Thomas Flummer] has created the greatest SAO of all time. So far, anyway.
This add-on is a fully functional digital multimeter, with functions for measuring voltage, resistance, and continuity. The design is a pure work of art, with its structure combining stacked PCBs and 3D printed parts. There’s even tiny banana plugs to connect up properly scaled probes. Incredible.
In the documentation [Thomas] mentions there are additional functions he didn’t have time to include in the firmware, such as modes to analyze the I2C and GPIO signals being received. Now that it’s been selected for production, we’re hoping he’ll have the time to get the code finished up before its European debut.
Fun: Etch sAo Sketch
This SAO recreates the iconic art toy in a (hopefully) non-trademarked way, with a 1.5″ inch 128 x 128 grayscale OLED display and a pair of trimpots capped with 3D printed knobs. Drawing is fun enough, but the nostalgia really kicks in when you give it a good shake — the onboard LIS3DH 3-axis accelerometer picks up the motion and wipes the display just like the real thing.

Created by [Andy Geppert], this SAO isn’t just a pretty face. Flipping it over shows an exceptionally clever technique for connecting the display board to the main PCB. Tiny metal balls (or “alignment spheres” if you want to get fancy) mate up with the mounting holes on the OLED board and center it, and a touch of solder locks it all in place.
Fine Art: Bendy SAO

While this wacky, waving, inflatable, arm-flailing SAO might look like the sort of thing that would be outside of a used car dealership, but creator [debraansell] managed to shrink it down so the point that it’s reasonable to plug into your badge. More or less.
There are several fascinating tricks at work here, from lighting the PCB from the back using side-firing LEDs to the integrated slip rings. If this one didn’t look so good, it would have been a strong contender for the “Least Manufacturable” Honorable Mention.
Functional: Vectrex SAO
Creating a replica of the Vectrex at SAO scale would have been an impressive enough accomplishment, but [Brett Walach] took this one all the way and made it playable.
The display is a 7 x 10 Charlieplexed LED matrix, while the “joystick” is implemented with a 1-button capacitive touch sensor. A PIC16F886 microcontroller runs the simplified version of Scramble, and there’s even a speaker for era-appropriate audio.
But that’s not all! This SAO was also designed to be hacked — so not only is all the hardware and software open source, but there’re various jumpers to fiddle with various settings and an I2C control protocol that lets you command the action from the badge.
Honorable Mentions
As usual, this contest had several Honorable Mentions categories — while we would have loved to put all of these SAOs into production, there’s only so much we can do before now and Spring.
Best Communication:
Using I2C to get SAOs to talk to the badge (or each other) was a big part of this contest, but we were also on the lookout for entries which helped facilitate badge-to-badge communications.
The Badge Tag NFC SAO from [Thomas Flummer] is a perfect example of both — it uses the NXP NTAG I2C Plus to provide 2K of read-write storage that can be accessed either internally through the I2C bus by the badge, or externally by an NFC device such as a smartphone. Modeled after a traditional conference name tag, this SAO was designed to make it easier for sharing your contact info with others during a busy con.
Infrared Communication SAO by [Alec Probst] brings infrared communications to the party, while looking like a classic TV remote. Though the original idea was to get this working in conjunction with the badge to act as a sort of TV-B-Gone, it ended up being used as part of a laser tag game during Supercon.

The GAT Nametag SC8 from [true] tackles communication on a more human level by providing a digital name tag for your badge. This compact board’s secret trick is the ability to make sure your name is legible no matter what its orientation thanks to a LIS2DW12 accelerometer that can detect the SAO’s orientation relative to the ground. RGB LEDs catch the viewer’s eye, but it’s the incredible firmware with seemingly endless options for text styling and tweaks that really set this build apart.
Light Show:
There’s little question that Featuring You! from [Nanik Adnani] is a perfect entry for this category. Nominally, it’s a little arrow you can write your name on and use a name tag. But power it up and you can dazzle anyone standing too close with its array of marching white LEDs. In a particularly nice touch, the circuit is implemented with only discreet components — no microcontroller.
The reDOT_RGB from [Alex] is a tiny 5×7 RGB LED matrix with a minuscule ATtiny816 MCU around the back to control the show. At just 8 x 11 mm, it’s hard to overstate just how tiny this SAO is.
While on the subject of tiny boards, the
Persistence of Vision POV Display is another entry not much larger than the SAO connector itself. Using a row of five tiny white LEDs and a ADXL345 accelerometer, [Michael Yim] is able to write text in mid-air thanks to the gullibility of the human eye.
Least Manufacturable:
Simple Add-Ons are essentially an art form, so it’s not surprising to find that they don’t often lend themselves to mass production. Several of the entries this yeah would be a real challenge to make in large numbers, but the one that really keeps us up at night is the ultra tiny smart SAO from [Alex].

This board is designed to fit inside the space between four header pins. Thanks, but no thanks.
Raising the Bar
Our hope this year was to elevate the Simple Add-On from a decorative piece of flair to something functional, and potentially, even useful. The results were incredible, and while we can only pick four winners this time around, every entry helped push the state-of-the-art forward in its own way. It’s hard to imagine how the SAO envelope can be pushed any further, but we can’t wait to find out.

How TikTok calculates payments shifts as Indie takedown fears fizzleHow TikTok payments are calculated is changing as most indie labels and distributors appear to have avoided forecast takedowns.
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Independent music market share hits 46.7% based on ownership [MIDIA’s Mark Mulligan]Independent music market share is growing and now nears 50% when measured on an ownership basis, according to an extensive new MIDiA study.
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TikTok Album Pre-Saves are coming in boost to music release marketingTikTok album pre-saves are coming soon. The in-app feature will boost music promotion on the platform. Here's what we know...
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Full Bucket Music releases FREE Broken Mini synthesizer plugin
Full Bucket Music has released Broken Mini, a free Minimoog emulation (of sorts) for macOS and Windows. If you read the title and wondered what the name is all about, there’s no mystery; it is quite literally broken. Let’s clear that up straight away; it’s missing knobs, it’s missing keys, and it behaves in all [...]
View post: Full Bucket Music releases FREE Broken Mini synthesizer plugin

Black Lion Audio to launch PBR 8-500 rack Black Lion Audio's PBR 8-500 updates the company's patchbay-equipped 500-series chassis with a new PSU design that boasts improved audio performance.

Madlib sues former manager for alleged “pervasive mismanagement”Producer and artist Madlib has initiated legal action against his former manager, Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, for alleged “self-dealing” and “concealing information” while engaging in “persistent and pervasive mismanagement” of Madlib’s businesses.
The complaint document, seen by MusicTech, states that as Madlib left Stones Throw Records in 2010, Egon was fired. At this point, Madlib (who still trusted Egon), asked him to continue managing his business affairs.

READ MORE: Universal Music is working with an AI company to build an “ethical” music generator

The complaint was filed on 31 October, which holds significance as ‘DOOMSDAY’ in memory of MF DOOM, who passed away four years ago on the same date. The DOOM Estate is also currently involved in litigation with Alapatt, seeking the return of 33 notebooks that allegedly contain DOOM’s personal catalogue of unreleased tracks, writing, and creative ideas. According to Billboard, Egon’s lawyer alleges he “rescued” the notebooks and had “Doom’s blessing” to donate them to a museum.
In Madlib’s lawsuit, it is explained that he told Egon after leaving the Stones Throw label that he wanted to own and control his music. The proposition offered by Egon and accepted by Madlib was for Egon to create a business entity owned by Madlib, to be managed by Egon, and to be used as a vehicle for Madlib’s career and the production, recording, and distribution of his recorded music. Profits would be shared between them. As a result, Egon formed Madicine Show.
A few years after Madicine Show was formed, Madlib, Egon, and Jeffrey “Jeff Jank” Carlson also formed Rapp Cats. This was also to be managed by Egon and used as a vehicle for Madlib’s music merchandising activities, with profits to be shared among the three. Jank is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Madlib’s complaint alleges that Egon did not perform the duties he was supposed to, and claims he was allegedly “engaged in rank self-dealing, concealing information from and repeatedly breaching his duties to Madlib, and otherwise engaging in persistent and pervasive mismanagement, as well as abuse of his role in Madicine Show, Rapp Cats and Madlib’s professional and business affairs.”
Among the list of complaints are claims that Madlib discovered “several accounting irregularities” involving Madicine Show and Rappcats, and that he was unable to find “any backup documentation for, among other things, payments to Egon, Jank and others as ‘consulting,’ ‘commissions,’ ‘fees’ or ‘reimbursements’ (totalling in the several hundred thousands of dollars).”
Madlib also claims that Egon “improperly inserted” his own record label (former Stones Throw subsidiary, Now-Again Records) into business affairs, and alleges that Egon “locked [him] out of several key music business platforms”, such as Apple Music, Bandcamp, and YouTube, as well as Madlib’s own Facebook account and the Instagram account for his Quasimoto project.
In his lawsuit, Madlib “requests that the Court decree the dissolution and supervise the wind up of both Madicine Show and Rapp Cats”. He also seeks “an award of punitive and exemplary damages” and a declaration from the court that none of the defendants “own or has any continuing right or interest” in his recorded music, professional career, trademarks, name, and likeness. He and his team have also requested a jury trial.
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