Select creators can now “restyle” songs using YouTube’s experimental AI toolLast year, YouTube rolled out Dream Track, an AI tool powered by Google DeepMind’s “most advanced music generation model to date”, Lyria. The feature allowed users to create songs using AI voice emulations of famous artists, with John Legend, Charlie Puth, Sia, T-Pain, and Charli XCX among those who’ve agreed to ‘lend their voices’.
Now, the platform is adding a new feature that allows creators to remix tracks into the style they want. All you have to do is select an eligible song, enter the prompt for how you would like to restyle it, and generate a 30-second soundtrack — which can then be used in your Short.

READ MORE: Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain have released an acoustic rendition of Get Low – and it might be the best thing you’ll hear all year

“For example, if you want to give a song a different genre or mood, you simply enter your vision into the ‘Restyle a track’ prompt and you’ll soon have a customised soundtrack that reimagines the music while maintaining the essence of the original song’s vocals and lyrics,” YouTube states.
Given that the feature is still in its “experimental” stage, creators in the test group are limited to a selection of official songs “made available by select music partners”.
The company also notes that all restyled soundtracks will have “clear attribution to the original song” through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page, and will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled using AI.
Earlier this year, it was reported that YouTube was offering “lump sums of cash” to the “big three” major labels in hopes of rolling out AI music licensing deals with them.
According to sources who have been in contact with The Financial Times, the tech giant — which is owned by Google — has been in talks with Sony, Warner and Universal to try to convince more artists to allow their music to be used in training AI software.
But those proposals are reportedly being met with scepticism: “The industry is wrestling with this. Technically the companies have the copyrights, but we have to think through how to play it,” an executive ‘at a large music company’ told FT. “We don’t want to be seen as a Luddite.”
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From Purple Rain to Dirty Mind: Prince’s Oberheim OB-8 synth and Amek mixing board are up for auctionPrince fans take note, for two iconic pieces of recording history associated with the late legend are set to go under the hammer.
An Oberheim OB-8 synthesizer, famously used during recording sessions for Purple Rain, and an Amek mixing board that played a prominent role in crafting the sound of Dirty Mind are both poised to find new homes.

READ MORE: “Our goal was to develop a device that merges complexity with true playability”: Polyend launches multi-engine polyphonic synthesizer, the Synth

According to auction house Propstore, the OB-8 in question was used by Prince and legendary keyboardist Matt ‘Dr.’ Fink to record tracks on several albums including Around the World in a Day, Parade and Sign o’ the Times. The instrument was also used occasionally as a backup synth on tour.
Image: Propstore
The last model in the original OB series to be produced, this OB-8 (serial number C25024) features a 61-note keyboard, 8-voice polyphony, and a range of sliders, knobs and controls for various functionalities, including modulation, oscillators, filter, and envelopes. It comes from the personal collection of Fink himself and is expected to fetch between £50,000 – £100,000.
Also up for grabs is an Amex mixing board used by Prince in 1980 and 1981 in his home studio on the North Arm of Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, to record his third studio album, Dirty Mind.
Image: Propstore
“Prince used this mixing board to record and track raw recordings and create rough mixes for songs on Dirty Mind,” the listing states. “These rough recordings would then be mixed into a final version, usually on a board in Hollywood Sound Recorders studio in Los Angeles.”
Like the OB-8, the Amex console comes from Fink’s personal collection: “Often, Prince would retire gear and his band members would ask permission to take it; this is how Fink acquired this mixing board.”
Built circa 1979, the mixing board was created by AMEK and comprises an extensive number of different coloured controls and switches, housed within a dark-stained wooden frame. It has 16 channels including some aux channels added to allow for FX returns. Propstore estimates that the Amek board could sell for between £30,000 – £60,000.
The Propstore Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction is set to take place in London from 14 to 17 November, with all music-related items, including Prince’s Oberheim OB-8 and the Amek mixing board, scheduled for sale on 15 November.

The post From Purple Rain to Dirty Mind: Prince’s Oberheim OB-8 synth and Amek mixing board are up for auction appeared first on MusicTech.

Director of Pharrell Williams biopic calls musician’s Blurred Lines case “one of the worst judicial decisions about creativity in history”Morgan Neville, the director of Pharrell Williams’ upcoming Piece By Piece LEGO biopic, has explained why the film does not feature Blurred Lines and the infamous plagiarism trial surrounding the track.

READ MORE: Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain have released an acoustic rendition of Get Low – and it might be the best thing you’ll hear all year

Released in 2013, Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines – which Williams co-wrote and produced – was embroiled in a long-running copyright case that left both musicians owing millions to the Marvin Gaye estate.
Gaye’s family accused the pair, along with rapper T.I. of ripping off Gaye’s 1977 hit single Got To Give It Up. The court eventually ruled that Thicke and Williams were liable for copyright infringement, awarding Gaye’s estate over $7 million in damages, an amount that was later reduced to $5.3 million.
Speaking to the BBC, director Morgan Neville says he decided to leave the Grammy-award-winning track (and its controversies) out of the film’s final cut because the sequence had derailed the story he was trying to tell.
“I definitely thought about it. I even interviewed Robin Thicke,” he says. “And as a documentary filmmaker, I’m obsessed with copyright law. But every time I looked at trying to work it in, a scene about copyright law, it felt like it belonged in a different movie.”
“My take on the Blurred Lines case is that it’s one of the worst judicial decisions about creativity in history,” Neville adds. “I think Pharrell was in the right on it, and I think most creatives agree with him.”
“It’s not like Pharrell learned a big lesson from the case. I don’t know if it actually changed him in any way, which is what I’m looking for, when I’m looking at a story.”

The post Director of Pharrell Williams biopic calls musician’s Blurred Lines case “one of the worst judicial decisions about creativity in history” appeared first on MusicTech.

Qu-Bit Electronix release Stardust Qu-Bit's Stardust captures up to 10 minutes of high-quality audio (or 5 minutes in stereo) and allows users to loop and transform it through intuitive controls.

Crypto spy jailed for life in China, YouTuber accused of $230M fraud: Asia ExpressChinese public servant jailed for for selling state secrets for crypto, and Korean YouTuber accused of fleecing $230M from 15,304 followers.

Sting's Trio (Not That One)Rock icon Sting's current tour has been named 3.0, in reference to the fact that he's performing as a trio. Of course, Sting fronted one of the most famous trios in rock 'n' roll's rich history so he's no stranger to the format. Still, this trio is completed by guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas. These names might not be as instantly recognizable as those of the Police men, but they are supreme musicians.At the Wiltern in Los Angeles on Tuesday, November 12--the first of five gigs at that venue--the band performed a 23-track set, stripping down Sting's greatest hits to their stunning core, while absolutely doing Police gems justice.The set kicked off with "Message in a Bottle," a bonafide classic of the punk/new-wave era and the perfect way to start this show. That initial refrain, the hypnotic vocals, the slow-build -- wonderful.The early part of the set brings us two songs from the brilliant Ten Summoner's Tales album--"If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" and "Fields of Gold." That latter really benefits from the trio approach. "Englishman in New York" from 1987's Nothing Like the Sun comes quickly, and a glorious version of the Police's "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" swiftly follows.

It's noticeable that Sting himself seems to be having an absolute blast. A charming host, he appears to be reveling in this stripped back environment, performing in smaller venues than he's been used to for some time. It really is a joy to behold.Other Police tunes that get an airing include "Wrapped Around Your Finger," a buoyant "Can't Stand Losing You," "Walking On the Moon," the ironic joy of "So Lonely," "Every Breath You Take" and of course "Roxanne."

Maybe some hardcore fans would have liked more deep cuts, but this was the perfect Sting set performed wonderfully well. What more could you want?The post Sting's Trio (Not That One) first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington’s Thrive AI Health assistant has a bare-bones demoIn a splashy op-ed in Time published this summer, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Thrive AI Health, a venture with the goal of building an AI-powered assistant to promote healthier lifestyles. Backed by Huffington’s mental wellness firm Thrive Global and the OpenAI Startup Fund, Thrive AI Health would seek to […]
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Bluetooth Dongle Gives Up Its Secrets with Quick Snooping HackThere’s a lot going on in our wireless world, and the number of packets whizzing back and forth between our devices is staggering. All this information can be a rich vein to mine for IoT hackers, but how do you zero in on the information that matters? That depends, of course, but if your application involves Bluetooth, you might be able to snoop in on the conversation relatively easily.
By way of explanation, we turn to [Mark Hughes] and his Boondock Echo, a device we’ve featured in these pages before. [Mark] needed to know how long the Echo would operate when powered by a battery bank, as well as specifics about the power draw over time. He had one of those Fnirsi USB power meter dongles, the kind that talks to a smartphone app over Bluetooth. To tap into the conversation, he enabled Host Control Interface logging on his phone and let the dongle and the app talk for a bit. The captured log file was then filtered through WireShark, leaving behind a list of all the Bluetooth packets to and from the dongle’s address.
That’s when the fun began. Using a little wetware pattern recognition, [Mark] was able to figure out the basic structure of each frame. Knowing the voltage range of USB power delivery helped him find the bytes representing voltage and current, which allowed him to throw together a Python program to talk to the dongle in real-time and get the critical numbers.
It’s not likely that all BLE-connected devices will be as amenable to reverse engineering as this dongle was, but this is still a great technique to keep in mind. We’ve got a couple of applications for this in mind already, in fact.

US DOE Sets New Nuclear Energy TargetsTo tackle the growing electrification of devices, we’ll need to deploy more generation to the grid. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has unveiled a new target to triple nuclear generating capacity by 2050.
Using a combination of existing Generation III+ reactor designs, upcoming small modular and micro reactors, and “legislation like the ADVANCE Act that streamlines regulatory processes,” DOE plans to add 35 gigawatt (GW) of generating capacity by 2035 and an additional 15 GW installed per year by 2040 to hit a total capacity of 200 GW of clean, green atom power by 2050.
According to the DOE, 100 GW of nuclear power was deployed in the 1970s and 1980s, so this isn’t an entirely unprecedented scale up of nuclear, although it won’t happen overnight. One of the advantages of renewables over nuclear is the lower cost and better public perception — but a combination of technologies will create a more robust grid than an “all of your eggs in one basket” approach. Vehicle to grid storage, geothermal, solar, wind, and yes, nuclear will all have their place at the clean energy table.
If you want to know more about siting nuclear on old coal plants, we covered DOE’s report on the matter as well as some efforts to build a fusion reactor on a decommissioned coal site as well.

Spotify launches ‘Partner Program’ with new monetization options for video creatorsSpotify says expanded video offerings will be good for music rightsholders, as it will bring more listeners to the platform
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Teenage Engineering unveil the OP-XY Teenage Engineering have announced the release of the OP‑XY, a sequencer, synthesizer and sampler designed for modern music creators and live performers.

Boomplay MD Phil Choi exits, joins Warner Music Group as Head of Business Development for APAC regionExec to report to New York-based Allen Coye, who heads up business development for Recorded Music at WMG
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New Bandsintown Ticket Presales: Empowering Artists with Fan DataNew Bandsintown ticket presales empower any artist to launch presales for shows and tours while retaining control of the fan data regardless of the ticketing platform.
The post New Bandsintown Ticket Presales: Empowering Artists with Fan Data appeared first on Hypebot.

How Tech can Prioritize the needs of CreatorsAs the digital landscape evolves, it's crucial for tech solutions to prioritize the needs of creators for sustainable growth. Explore how innovative platforms are shifting focus to empower creators and reshape the industry.
The post How Tech can Prioritize the needs of Creators appeared first on Hypebot.

Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain have released an acoustic rendition of Get Low – and it might be the best thing you’ll hear all yearMark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and Meta, has released an acoustic cover of a hip-hop song as a tribute to his wife, Priscilla Chan.
Made with help from rapper T-Pain, the duo have created a slowed down, gentle version of the 2003 track Get Low, originally by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz – yes, it is the song the with the lyrics of ‘to the window, to the wall, ‘til the sweat drop down my balls’, and yes, he has kept that line in there.

READ MORE: ‘The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet’ has been identified thanks to Reddit

Though you may be wondering why Zuckerberg didn’t cover something a little more tender for his wife, whom he married in 2012, the track was apparently playing as the two met during a party in the same year of the song’s original release.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

Sharing the news in a post on Instagram including an old photo of himself and Chan plus shots from his time in the studio with T-Pain, Zuckerberg writes, “Get Low was playing when I first met Priscilla at a college party, so every year we listen to it on our dating anniversary. This year I worked with T-Pain on our own version of this lyrical masterpiece. Sound on for the track and also available on Spotify. Love you P.”
Chan replies in the comments, “Can’t get quite as low anymore but more in love and grateful for that love than ever. Love you MZ.” Other commenters have joked that Zuckerberg is “unserious”, with one adding, “Who said romance was dead?!” The popular entertainment news account Pubity even adds, “We got Zuck on a track before GTA 6.”
Check out the cover below:

If you’re a fan of Zuckerberg’s masterful work on Get Low, you can stream it as much as you’d like via Spotify.
The post Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain have released an acoustic rendition of Get Low – and it might be the best thing you’ll hear all year appeared first on MusicTech.