What is an ISWC? Hint: The key to music rights and royaltiesIf you’re a new artist, you may not fully understand all the important terms the industry throws at you yet. If an “ISWC” is one of those terms, don’t worry! We'll give you everything you need to know about it below…..
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What does Suno AI mean for music producers and the music industry?Sharooz is an electronic music producer, studio owner and entrepreneur. He’s also known as Principleasure and is the founder of Wavetick.
Whether a producer or songwriter, it’s impossible not to feel some emotion around the hyped generative music startup Suno. Especially in light of its recent $125 million funding — the biggest music tech equity investment in over three years.
How we create music and the potential to earn revenue from our skills may be about to change forever.
If you haven’t already played with it, Suno is fun and powerful. Like a ChatGPT for music, it creates unique songs based on a simple text prompt – and does so with impressive, albeit generic, accuracy. Vocals sound realistic, even guitar solos and string sections are spliced together with a nuance rarely seen before in generative AI music. In just a few years, AI has advanced from dodgy, artifact-riddled soundalikes to a personalised jukebox capable of spitting out songs that could probably sit unnoticed in the Billboard Top 100.
READ MORE: Learn how to create custom voice and instrument audio stems with AI
The potential to damage virtually every aspect of the music industry is obvious. While virtuosic composers and experimental curators of their craft may have little to worry about, Suno could conceivably chisel away at the stock music industry, sound designers, foley creators, lyricists and the work of songwriters in virtually every genre. This could be particularly true for those who practice more traditional arrangements and chord structures, like those commonly seen in charting pop songs.
I’d like to think that organic human emotion and the poetry of heartfelt lyricism will transcend anything a machine can offer. But it’s not inconceivable that, in the space of a few years, AI output may be indistinguishable from human endeavour, especially to the untrained ear. After all, Suno is a mere glimpse at what may be possible in the near future.

Suno’s public message offers utopian promises of “moving the bar” of music creation. It’s clear the Massachusetts-based company has plans to disrupt, with the online discourse opining that the wider mission is to fully remove the barrier between music creation and casual listening — imagine personalised playlists made up of fully unique AI-generated songs, fuelled by user prompts.
If these services are creating a future where the music creator and listener become one, this gives real potential to disrupt DSPs, labels, aggregators and everything in between. At the time of writing, Suno recently announced it plans to pay the platform’s most popular “creators” $1 million in “prize money” during June 2024.
To grasp Suno’s impact, one needs to understand how their output has become so much more polished than anything else that’s come before. AI is traditionally fed on real recorded music — human-created intellectual property (IP) with complex copyright restrictions. In theory, the more ‘data’ the network can train on, the more realistic the resulting output can sound.
Nobody is quite sure of the data Suno is trained on, but keen listeners have already identified scrambled elements of distinguishable works in their creations.
Public details on training data are scant, with many suggesting there could be lawsuits from major publishers and labels in the offing. Sony Music recently sent 700 letters to leading generative AI firms warning them not to infringe their copyrights. But if the current landscape of the music industry has taught us anything, it’s that there’s no guarantee disruptive technologies will favour human creator rights or livelihoods.
The dominance of digital streaming platforms (DSPs) has only diluted existing songwriter and performer revenue further. There’s an ongoing conversation on the unfair economics of streaming, with commercial law slow to catch up on AI’s impact on existing copyrights and publishing rights.
It’s not inconceivable labels may soon license our recordings and songs into Suno by the truckload. When those deals are done, they may net you less than any DSP currently does: fractions of cents. Will the majority of subscription revenue Suno generates line the pockets of its investors and the major labels that could one day own a share in it, if or when it goes public? After all, the investors in it will be keenly expecting a return, such is the nature of venture capitalism.
To create this technology is an awesome feat. Suno sounds remarkable. It’s fun, powerful and easy to use. To embark on this journey by going a step further, disclosing training sources and collecting metrics, directly compensating dataset contributors would be a welcome play…But I don’t suppose that pays investors well.
We all want to make technology more accessible, but we won’t get there by powering our product on the work of writers who have yet to even be acknowledged, let alone compensated. Creators may be in real danger of being squeezed out of operating altogether.
Brand trust begins with responsible practice. High-profile artists will likely boycott and vilify Suno — we saw something similar with the SAG/AFTRA strikes in 2023. Suno’s millions could aid its legal challenges but could set an uneasy precedent — steal now, seek permission later [producer BT told MusicTech a similar anecdote].
Will future legislation render AI music services a gimmick unfit for public broadcast or distribution?
User terms for most generative AI services are also unacceptably vague. We see “Use at your own risk” through to “your creation is uniquely your copyright”, with little comfort for pro/broadcast use or publishing to a DSP. Licensing a bona fide, human-created sample or track may be far more beneficial than hours spent prompting an AI-generated output that’s legally unfit for purpose.
Is there an exaggeration of AI’s impact on the music industry? If Suno are to be believed, we may evolve into an entirely new class of creators, further democratising music making. After all, why settle for spoon-fed major label playlists when you can just roll your own bespoke experience? But the real threat to professional creator livelihoods seems a long way off.
The winners in this space will likely be the well-researched, steady adopters who subtly integrate AI-assisted features to aid their existing creative processes. They’ll meaningfully democratise access for tomorrow’s creators without stealing from humans, whose work has been an endeavour of learned skill, political upheaval, emotional intelligence and the very meaning of what it is to be human. They’ll translate their authentic experiences through music.
Read more music technology features. 
The post What does Suno AI mean for music producers and the music industry? appeared first on MusicTech.

Erica Synths announce Bullfrog Drums Erica Synths have announced another collaboration with Richie Hawtin, this time designing a drum machine that aims to help users learn the basics of drum programming. 

Serato promises “versatility and creativity” with new upgrades for DJ Pro 3.2.0DJ and production software company Serato has unveiled its latest upgrades for Serato DJ Pro 3.2.0 and Serato DJ Lite 3.2.0.
Boasting ample new effects, expanded parameters and enhanced control, Serato’s new suite is designed with versatility in mind. The development promises to transform the DJing experience, encouraging creative freedom with its expanded selection of sounds and customisable presents.

READ MORE: Best DJ Gear 2024: 11 best DJ software for mixing and playlisting in 2024

The main appeal of Serato’s upgrade is its new selection of high-quality effects. Among the improved effects, users can take advantage of Infinity Tone, Spiral Echo, Stretch, Vast Reverb, and Infinity Flanger. There’s also the grand return of Rollout, the much beloved effect from Serato’s classic Scratch Live software.
Alongside a full suite of new effects, Serato has also redesigned its effects panel. The fresh look is set to enhance user control, allowing users more flexibility when shaping their tracks.
Serato has also added a new Channel FX option that can be assigned to the filter knob for users without built-in hardware effects. Users can also have an unlimited amount of custom presets, as well as having the option to save up to four favourite effects banks for easy access.
The upgrade will also see Serato DJ Pro 3.2.0 and Serato DJ Lite 3.2.0 gaining native Apple Silicon support. This optimisation will result in the smoothest software performance to date.
Serato DJ Pro 3.2.0 will officially release in July, but for now users can access a free public beta.
The post Serato promises “versatility and creativity” with new upgrades for DJ Pro 3.2.0 appeared first on MusicTech.

Learn how to create custom voice and instrument audio stems with AIThe rise of song-generating AI platforms like Suno and Udio can be unnerving, but it doesn’t mean it’ll be apocalyptic. Every major advancement in music technology has been met with scorn and fear, from synthesizers to drum machines and, now, AI.
Many music professionals and technologists claim that successful producers in this new era will be those who adapt to AI tech and integrate it into their workflow. For example, with a little know-how, you can Suno and Udio to generate samples for your songs and experiment with production techniques for free. You might even make the next BBL Drizzy.

READ MORE: Opinion: AI won’t replace music producers anytime soon — but many need to adapt

We used AI to help create a house track like this, which features AI-generated vocals and piano. Here’s how you can do it, too.

What are AI song-generating sites?
Suno and Udio are sites that allow users to generate custom songs using AI. By entering prompts and selecting genres, you can create brand new pieces of music, complete with realistic vocals. While this is pretty exciting stuff for those looking for finished music, it’s generally less compelling for music producers. The fun for us is in the craft of the song, not just the finished product.
However, by using the sites in a controlled way, you can generate custom samples and audio that you can incorporate into your music.
Note that for Suno, commercial use only applies to subscribers and not those using the free service. Udio indicates that it does not claim ownership over any music generated on the site. However, as stated in the FAQ, “the law regarding copyright protection over AI-generated works is complex and constantly changing”. Use prudence when working with AI samples just as you would when sampling any other copyright-protected music.
How to use AI song-generating sites
Generating a song on both Suno and Udio is easy: enter a few text prompts and hit the create button. Udio offers more choices in terms of pre-selected tags compared to Suno, however. It also allows you to enter your own lyrics, which could be useful when compiling custom acapella stems, for example. Both include a way to select instrumental only. Both sites automatically generate multiple songs at a time.

The generated song will be short at first. You can then choose to extend it and, in the case of Udio, remix it. When you like what you have, you can download an MP3 of the song.

Both Suno and Udio restrict the number of song generations a day. For more daily songs, you will need to upgrade to a paid subscription.
Prompt tips
The key to generating useful stems is in the prompts. This is especially true for Suno, which doesn’t provide genre tags like Udio.
You can experiment with random descriptions and see what comes out but your best bet is to create audio close to the song that you’re making, or at least what you would want to sample. Classic house and rave songs often featured samples of diva vocals taken from old disco records so, for example, you could try generating a disco song if working in these genres.
Unfortunately, prompts for specific musical keys or BPM information don’t seem to have any effect, so you’ll want to make sure that your genre information is on point.
Suno
Keep in mind that Udio and Suno are geared towards creating full songs and not just acapellas or vocal stems, so include prompt information that encourages passages with just the target instrument.
Examples of acapella vocal prompts could include words like “acapella,” “female voice,” “female vocals,” and “disco.”
For an isolated piano, try “piano house,” “solo piano,” “just piano,” or “fun chords.”
Experimentation will be key. As the AI in the sites continues to learn, it will become more powerful and sophisticated. Until then, you may want to consider subscribing as you’ll hit your free daily quote pretty quickly. The good news is both sites save all of your creations, so you can always go back and download them again and again, if necessary.

Edit the generated audio file
Once you’ve generated a song that you like, download it as an MP3.
Load the audio file into an audio editor like Audacity or your DAW. Find the section that you want to keep, copy the part that you like, and then save it to a new file.

Drop the audio into your DAW
Now drop that into your DAW’s timeline as a new audio track. From here, you can use your DAW’s audio-editing functions to warp and stretch the sample to fit your production’s tempo. You may also want to change the pitch of the file if it doesn’t match the rest of your track.

Treat it as a sample
For a more authentic feel, drag and drop the audio snippet into a software sampler. Now you can play the audio into the timeline as you like. You can also use the waveform display to make any edits, such as setting start and end points.

Improve AI stems with processing
One of the downsides of working with AI-generated music is the sound quality. The finished product can sound a little garbled, almost like a lossy MP3. Think of it like sampling from any other imperfect medium where the artifacts and imperfections become part of the character, like pops in records or hisses in old cassette tapes.
Consequently, you’ll want to do a little processing of the AI audio. EQ is your friend here, as boosting in the highs can really open it up. Compression helps too. Reverb and delay provide the finishing touch.

Another option is to lean into the lossy and exaggerate the effect with lo-fi processing. Saturation, bit reduction and other effects work well and can lend it a kind of other-worldly feel.

Learn more music production techniques here.
The post Learn how to create custom voice and instrument audio stems with AI appeared first on MusicTech.

Live Review of Kanii in Los AngelesHollywood Palladium Los Angeles, CA

Contact: dionte.williams@warnerrecords.com

Web: instagram.com/kanii_oPlayers: Kanii, vocals; Peter Sullivan, DJ

Material: Washington D.C. artist Kanii is having a moment. Towards the end of 2023, the 18-year-old’s single “I Know” was certified gold—no small feat in this current, unforgiving music industry climate. And now, he’s opening for English pop ’n’ soul star PinkPantheress on her current high-profile tour, including at the impressive Hollywood Palladium in L.A.

It’s no fluke; Kanii has developed a sound that masterfully blends contemporary electronic pop with classic R&B to create something that sounds absolutely fresh but also somehow reassuringly familiar. There are mild hyperpop elements to his vocal production, especially on record. But don’t mistake that for a compromise to the music’s authenticity in any way. Songs such as the aforementioned “I Know,” and “Marry Me” betray the old crooner soul in this young man.

Musicianship: It was just Kanii and his DJ up there, but that’s all that’s necessary. Musically, the set was flawless; Kanii arrived in a flurry to a crescendo of screams, his DJ, Sullivan, on stage-right dropped the needle (at least metaphorically, depending on the gear that he’s using), and the next 30 minutes or so passed by in a wave of sweet vocals and immaculate beats.

Performance: This is where Kanii really excelled. From the moment he hit the Palladium stage, Kanii never stopped moving. He moved side-to-side more times than a Newton’s cradle, occasionally pausing to really connect with some of the besotted fans at the front. Those moments were vital though—Kanii has already mastered the ability to make everyone in the crowd feel like he’s singing directly to them, which is half the battle. When the fans connect, when it feels personal, that’s when real art is born. When Kanii throws bouquets of flowers out to a few lucky recipients, you can only applaud the canny fellow.

Summary: When you look at how popular R&B is right now, when you really take a beat to feel what’s going on, then one has to conclude that Kanii has a real chance of expanding on his current success. He has the voice, the songs, the team behind him and the charisma (or “rizz,” kids) to sell a lot of records and, who knows, headline venues similar to this one in the future. For now, he just needs to focus on the music—keep those songs coming. Because as of right now, the signs are super-positive.

The post Live Review of Kanii in Los Angeles first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

'Stand with Crypto' PAC hits 1 million advocatesThe Stand With Crypto political action committee claims that nearly nine in 10 Americans believe the financial system needs an overhaul.

Mistral launches new services, SDK to let customers fine-tune its modelsFrench AI startup Mistral is introducing new AI model customization options, including paid plans, to let developers — and enterprises — fine-tune its generative models for particular use cases. The first is self-service. Mistral has released a software development kit (SDK), Mistral-Finetune, for fine-tuning its models on workstations, servers and small datacenter nodes. In the […]
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Old Knobs with a Cast of ThousandsYou have an old radio — in the case of [The Radio Mechanic], a Stromberg Carlson — and it needs new knobs. What do you do? You can’t very well pop down to the local store and find any knobs anymore. Even if you are lucky enough to be around an electronics store, they aren’t going to have knobs to do justice to an antique radio. You could 3D print them, of course, but there are a number of issues with transferring the old knob to a CAD file for printing. So [The Radio Mechanic] decided to cast them instead.
He printed some fixtures to help with the molding using two-part molding silicone. He mounted the knob on a shaft in a jig, filled the jig with silicone, and lowered the knob into the mix. The next day, he had a good-looking mold.
The next step, of course, is to cast with resin. Admittedly 3D printing would have been faster, but would not have as nice a surface finish. The epoxy resin is clear, but he was hopeful that some caramel pigment would match the original knob color. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. The resulting knob looked translucent, like a root beer barrel candy, rather than the brown sugar color of the original knob.
The knob needed a spring insert to hold the shaft, so he repurposed some from a different kind of radio. Overall, this is the kind of thing we always think we are going to do when we need something and then we rarely follow through. Then again, we rarely have the patience to wait as long as these two knobs took to make.
Of course, a casting guerrilla doesn’t have to make just knobs. You can even add metal powders to do cold metal casting.

Emergence Audio introduce Infinite Upright virtual instrument Described as "a piano in orbit", Emergence Audio's latest instrument loads a collection of piano samples into their innovative Infinite Motion Engine.

Gamma Ray Spectroscopy the Pomelo WayDepending on the circumstances you find yourself in, a Geiger counter can be a tremendously useful tool. With just a click or a chirp, it can tell you if any invisible threats lurk. But a Geiger counter is a “yes or no” instrument; it can only tell you if an ionizing event occurred, revealing nothing about the energy of the radiation. For that, you need something like this gamma-ray spectroscope.
Dubbed the Pomelo by [mihai.cuciuc], the detector is a homebrew solid-state scintillation counter made from a thallium-doped cesium iodide crystal and a silicon photomultiplier. The scintillator is potted in silicone in a 3D printed enclosure, to protect the hygroscopic crystal from both humidity and light. There’s also a temperature sensor on the detector board for thermal compensation. The Pomelo Core board interfaces with the physics package and takes care of pulse shaping and peak detection, while a separate Pomelo Zest board has an ESP32-C6, a small LCD and buttons for UI, SD card and USB interfaces, and an 18650 power supply. Plus a piezo speaker, because a spectroscope needs clicks, too.
The ability to determine the energy of incident photons is the real kicker here, though. Pomelo can detect energies from 50 keV all the way up to 3 MeV, and display them as graphs using linear or log scales. The short video below shows the Pomelo in use on samples of radioactive americium and thorium, showing different spectra for each.
[mihai.cuciuc] took inspiration for the Pomelo from this DIY spectrometer as well as the CosmicPi.

Merlin launches ‘Merlin Connect’ to provide tech platforms with licensed indie musicMerlin developed the new tool in response to growing concerns about artificial intelligence and its impact on artistic creation
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James Blake on why he’s stayed anonymous on other artist’s music: “They take it and make it 10 times worse”Collaboration can be a challenge. Whether it be clashing personalities or different creative visions, compromise is key when two artists work together for the first time.
This was certainly not the case for James Blake and Lil Yachty, who are set to release their joint record Bad Cameo later this year. However, Blake hasn’t always been so lucky.

READ MORE: “Streaming has changed what artists feel like they should release”: James Blake further justifies his new streaming platform, Vault

Speaking to Complex alongside Lil Yachty, Blake has opened up about his past musical regrets. While he insists he “genuinely [doesn’t] regret any song,” there are a few collaborations he made a point of distancing himself from.
“I don’t feel like there’s a song I regret actually putting out, but there’s different levels of feeling completed or like I did a good job,” Blake says. “There were some songs where I got features or did something where I just thought it would be the right thing to do and it just sort of didn’t really feel that great.”
While he avoids naming anyone directly, Blake explains that he has asked to remain uncredited on collaborative tracks he has felt disappointed by. “There were times when… I shouldn’t have been part of a piece of music,” he explains. “There’s no reason.”
“There’s actually been quite a few songs that I have actually taken my name off because I did a session and they just didn’t loop me in,“ he continues. “Six months go by, and suddenly it’s on an album and I’m like, ‘well, I didn’t have any say in how this sounds at all.’”

Without an active line of communication, artists have ran with Blake’s ideas and ruined them, in his opinion. “They take it and made it 10 times worse,” he says. “And then I’ve just been like, ‘actually, I’m good!’”
Blake has had lacklustre collaborative experiences in the past, but his collaboration with Lil Yachty is set to stun. As Complex reveal, the duo ended up working together due to their mutual respect of one another. Lil Yachty reportedly reached out on social media to tell Blake that his Assume Form record was “fucking flawless.” Despite not seeing the message, the pair would cross paths later on.
Blake had equal amounts of praise for Yachty. “I’ve been a fan of Yachty for years,” Blake reveals. “And when I heard his last record [Let’s Start Here], I was like, this is really a turn. Not many artists are brave enough to do something that’s kind of opposite of the last thing they did.”
The duo’s joint record, Bad Cameo is set to be ambient, trippy and deep. “We got a really vulnerable side of Yachty in some of those sessions,” Blake says.
While no release date is confirmed, Bad Cameo is set to drop later this year.
The post James Blake on why he’s stayed anonymous on other artist’s music: “They take it and make it 10 times worse” appeared first on MusicTech.

Brainworx release bx_XL V3 The latest release from Brainworx takes the Mid-Side technology featured in bx_digital EQ, and places it in a mastering-focused limiter plug-in.

Music streaming services come out swinging against Canada’s new ‘discriminatory tax’ that requires them to hand over 5% of their Canadian revenuesCanada’s Online Streaming Act requires streamers to contribute 5% of their annual revenue to a number of programs designed to aid Canadian content creators
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