TechCrunch Space: Star(side)linerHello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. For those who haven’t heard, the first crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule has been pushed back yet again to no earlier than May 25. From NASA: “The additional time allows teams to further assess a small helium leak in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft’s service module traced to […]
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Sony Music Publishing inks admin deal to represent Otis Redding song catalog in the US“As one of the most significant songwriters of our lifetime, Otis Redding remains an American treasure,” commented Sony Music Publishing Chairman/CEO Jon Platt
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Ex-Florida congressman joins Coinbase Global Advisory CouncilStephanie Murphy, Tim Ryan, and Pat Toomey — all former U.S. lawmakers — are on the council advising Coinbase on regulatory matters.

The MLC's Tech Innovations Win Impact Award at Music Business Assoc. Bizzy Awards!The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) has been awarded Music Business Association’s Impact Award for Technological Excellence at the third annual Bizzy Awards on Wednesday, May 15 as part of the Music Biz 2024 conference in Nashville, TN.

The Impact Award for Technological Excellence recognizes a company or individual that is at the forefront of innovation in the music business, by providing solutions to meet the needs of the modern industry or pioneering the ways it will operate in the future. This year, The MLC’s total royalties distributed exceeded $2 billion in U.S. streaming royalties since the first royalty distribution in April 2021. Since then, The MLC has continued to distribute monthly royalty distributions, all of which have been on time or early, and grown its membership to over 40,000 Members. 

The MLC’s Head of Third-Party Partnerships, Dae Bogan, was also awarded the Maestro of Metadata Award, which is presented to a company or executive who has made a significant impact in the area of data processing, credit clarification, streamlining or otherwise promoting clean data and best practices.

Bogan played a pivotal role in launching The MLC’s Distributor Unmatched Recordings Portal (DURP), a data portal developed in collaboration with seven prominent independent music distributors, which has helped identify and distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties to music creators globally. The DURP, which now includes over 70 distributors, aggregators and other eligible sound recording distributors, allows distributors to see the publicly available data The MLC has compiled for unmatched royalties that relate to streams of sound recordings they have distributed. This transparency enables them to work with their customers to register their songs with The MLC and claim any unmatched royalties for their songs that The MLC has accrued.

The MLC has also effectively illuminated the “black box” for digital audio mechanicals by giving members the ability to search all the unmatched data and propose matches for their works using The MLC’s Matching Tool. To date, The MLC has received and approved more than 1 million proposed matches submitted by members through the Matching Tool. Additionally, The MLC has nearly 36 million works in its public database, which allows anyone to search The MLC’s song ownership database free of charge. 

For more information about The MLC, visit www.themlc.com. 

Trying to Build A Communications Device With a 1-Pound Laser And a 7805You can get a red laser diode pretty cheap these days—as cheap as £1 in fact. [Beamer] had purchased one himself, but quickly grew bored with just pointing it at the walls. He decided to figure out if he could use it for some kind of communication, and whipped up a circuit to test it out.
To do the job, he designed a modulator circuit that could drive the laser without damaging it. The build is based around the common 7805 regulator and the venerable 555 timer IC. The 555 is set to pulse at a given rate with the usual array of capacitors and resistors. Its output directly drives the input of a 7805 regulator. It’s set up as a constant current source in order to deliver the correct amount of current to run the laser. The receiver is based around a photodiode, which should prove fairly straightforward.
[Beamer]’s still working on the full setup, but plans to use the laser’s pulses to drive a varying analog meter or something similar. Not every communications method has to send digital data, and it’s good to remember that! Video after the break.

Could Spotify lose the crucial ‘bundling’ lawsuit filed by the MLC? It all comes down to these legal arguments…Spotify could easily lose the lawsuit failed against it... but still win in the long run
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Etch-A-Sketch Camera is Open SourceThe Etch-a-Sketch was a great toy if you were somehow born with the talent to use it. For the rest of us, it was a frustrating red brick filled with weird grey sand. [Every Flavor of Robot] has taken the irritating knob-encrusted oblong and turned it into something we can all enjoy, however, by building an Etch-a-Sketch camera!
The build is simple. It uses an ESP32 microcontroller to run the show, equipped with a camera. The camera is used to take a photo of the subject, and the image is then sent to a desktop computer. The desktop runs the image through an AI pipeline that generates a simplified version of the image, and the necessary G-Code to draw it on the Etch-A-Sketch. The toy’s knobs are operated by a pair of brushless motors which have been geared down to provide more torque.
It’s a neat project, and more details are available on GitHub. We’ve seen some other great mechanized Etch-a-Sketch builds before, too.

SUPERBOOTH24: Arturia PolyBrute 12 Arturia have just launched the PolyBrute 12 which doubles the voice count of the original PolyBrute and boasts a new FullTouch keyboard that opens up a whole host of expressive performance possibilities.

Tom Oberheim on synth emulations: “Anything that brings new sounds is exciting — I don’t care what the brand is”Legendary synthesizer designer Tom Oberheim has spoken about the various emulations of hardware synths on the market, saying that he finds them exciting no matter who releases them.
Right now, there are plenty of different ways to get your hands on an Oberheim-style sound if you can’t shell out $5,000 for an OB-X8, for example. Arturia has its OP-Xa V synth plugin, while GForce has a handful of Oberheim-endorsed plugins. If you want a hardware emulation, Behringer’s UB-Xa, which is a top-seller at Thomann at the time of writing. Whether they sound like the real deal is another question, but there certainly seems to be a market for such products.
Tom Oberheim isn’t fazed by them. Instead, he says in a new interview with MusicTech that “Anything that brings new sounds to, let’s say, young musicians just starting out, is exciting to me. And I don’t care what the brand is.”
“There have been a few different simulations of Oberheim over the years and, I have to say, GForce did a great job,” he continues. GForce has emulated the OB-X, the Oberheim 8-Voice, the DMX and the SEM. You can even get them all in a single bundle.
“I don’t have the ear training to get into the fine details [of the sound of the emulations],” Oberheim says.
“I’ve been relying on musicians to tell me what sounds good since the ‘70s. But the reaction to the GForce stuff was very positive, and I certainly think it sounds really good…I mean, the fact that you can spend $1,000 and get a great system in your bedroom is exciting, no matter what’s being simulated. Imagine if you were able to do this in 1970.”
Oberheim appears keen to bring more synthesizers into the studios and homes of synth enthusiasts. His latest synth, the TEO-5 is the most affordable Oberheim synth ever. Meanwhile, Behringer claims that it got consent from Tom Oberheim to create the UB-Xa — “He designed a fantastic product. [The UB-Xa] is no copy but took inspiration from the original synth and brought it to a complete new level…We discussed the UB-Xa with Tom Oberheim and got his consent…”
And Oberheim still thinks there’s plenty more to do.
“Some people think the industry’s reached a pinnacle. I don’t see that…I think we’ll continue to see a lot of creativity in this business because you can take a certain bag of parts and do a lot of different things with it.”
Read more music tech news
The post Tom Oberheim on synth emulations: “Anything that brings new sounds is exciting — I don’t care what the brand is” appeared first on MusicTech.

“He was like, ‘I only work with people who use Pro Tools’”: Sarz says using Fruity Loops once cost him a job with one of Nigeria’s top artistsGenerally speaking, the best DAW for any producer is the one they feel most comfortable using and are most familiar with.
That said, Pro Tools is (or was, at least) regarded as the industry-standard digital audio workstation – although many find it to be a little too convoluted for their requirements – and for some audio professionals, using anything else is tantamount to blasphemy.

READ MORE: Apple unveils Logic Pro 11 and Logic Pro For iPad 2 – with AI front and centre

Award-winning Nigerian producer and artist Sarz found this out the hard way when he told a client he used Fruity Loops, now FL Studio. The client then refused to work with him, claiming he only worked with producers who used Pro Tools.
Sarz tells the story in a new episode of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast, in which we invite producers to chat all things music and hypothetically kit out their perfect recording studio.
“Early in my career, there was this artist from Nigeria – one of the biggest artists at that time – he wanted me to make some beats for him, and I was so excited, you know, like this would be big for me. And I played some beats, he loved them. And he asked me what I make music with. I said, ‘Fruity Loops,’ and he was like, ‘I only work with people who use Pro Tools.
While Sarz doesn’t explicitly name the artist whose demands cost him a job, he says that he is “not relevant anymore”.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Sarz – who has collaborated with the likes of Skepta, WizKid, Skrillex and Gunna to date – discusses why producer tags on tracks are more important than ever, which Amapiano sound he thinks is “genius, and how a software mishap early in his career made him the producer he is today.

To listen to all the latest episodes of the My Forever Studio podcast, head to MusicTech.
The post “He was like, ‘I only work with people who use Pro Tools’”: Sarz says using Fruity Loops once cost him a job with one of Nigeria’s top artists appeared first on MusicTech.

Navigating the Music Streaming Landscape: New Challenges for ArtistsIn this oversaturated music market, artists face endless challenges in getting their music heard on platforms like Spotify. To overcome these hurdles, you first need to identify and understand them....
The post Navigating the Music Streaming Landscape: New Challenges for Artists appeared first on Hypebot.

6 Things Every Musician’s Portfolio NeedsInclude all six of these things in your music portfolio/toolkit and increase your chances of getting booked, selling more music, and more.....
The post 6 Things Every Musician’s Portfolio Needs appeared first on Hypebot.

Songwriters & Spotify clash over lyrics, videos, altered songs and moreMusic publishers are up in arms as Spotify's latest lyrics and video features push the boundaries of copyright laws and their deals with music publishers, potentially costing creators millions in royalties.....
The post Songwriters & Spotify clash over lyrics, videos, altered songs and more appeared first on Hypebot.

SUPERBOOTH24: AudioScape Engineering EuroBuss A remarkably faithful sonically period-correct recreation of the legendary British-Console’s centre-section quad compressor, reimagined in 18 hp!

“We got Tom Oberheim’s consent”: Behringer’s UB-Xa becomes the best-selling synth at ThomannBehringer’s UB-Xa, which took six years of development, has become Thomann’s best-selling synthesiser.
The UB-Xa was first launched in November 2023, and takes inspiration from the classic Oberheim synth used on records from the likes of Depeche Mode, Tangerine Dream, Prince, and more. At its release, Behringer revealed it cost an eye-watering $3.5 million to develop.

READ MORE: Behringer’s Vintage plugin is now out and available to download for free – for real this time

Writing on its official Facebook page, Behringer says: “UB-Xa is now officially [Thomann’s] best-selling synthesiser. It is the world’s first and only analogue synthesiser with 16 voices, polyphonic aftertouch, and eight atrophy modes, all for a revolutionary price.
“Our product development team has spent six years working on delivering this legendary and revolutionary analogue synth. Thank you for all your patience and we hope it was worth the wait.”

UB-Xa is now officially the best selling synthesizer. It is the world's first and only analog synthesizer with 16…
Posted by Behringer on Friday, May 17, 2024

The UB-Xa includes all of the original factory patches, and its VCOs and VCFs are heavily based on the original 3340 and 3320 chip designs. It hosts the ability to split its keyboard so you can layer two different sounds, and it also has a Vintage Mode loaded with eight presets.
If you need a refresher, you can find out more in the video below:

Interestingly, Behringer also says it got consent from Tom Oberheim himself to create the UB-Xa. Responding to comments on Facebook, the brand says “he designed a fantastic product” and that the UB- Xa “is no copy but took inspiration from the original synth and brought it to a complete new level”.
Responding to a comment which appears to have been deleted, Behringer also adds, “We discussed the UB-Xa with Tom Oberheim and got his consent… How many other products such as VSTs take inspiration from legacy products? Why is it okay for others but not for us?”
MusicTech recently spoke to Tom Oberheim for a new cover feature on the launch of the TEO-5. We asked the legendary effects engineer and Oberheim founder what he thought about his synths being subject to emulation: “Anything that brings new sounds to, let’s say, young musicians just starting out, is exciting to me. And I don’t care what the brand is,” he said.
“There’s been a few different simulations of Oberheim over the years and, I have to say, GForce did a great job. I don’t have the ear training to get into the fine details – I’ve been relying on musicians to tell me what sounds good since the 70s. But the reaction to the GForce stuff was very positive, and I certainly think it sounds really good.”
Shop Behringer’s UB-Xa now via Thomann, or view the latest from Oberheim.
The post “We got Tom Oberheim’s consent”: Behringer’s UB-Xa becomes the best-selling synth at Thomann appeared first on MusicTech.