ZAK Sound Releases FREE Atmospheres Reverb Plugin
Zak Sound released Atmospheres, a free reverb plugin for Windows and Mac. Creating atmospheric effects is deceptively tricky. The usual suspects, like delay and reverb, can do quite a bit of the lifting. However, you might find yourself reaching for something a bit unusual. On the surface, Atmospheres is a single-knob reverb, but don’t let [...]
View post: ZAK Sound Releases FREE Atmospheres Reverb Plugin

TiaCorine and Friends at the EchoplexIt's a solid fact that all of the best hip-hop shows this writer has been to over the past year have featured all-female bills. "Female rap" isn't a genre, and we're not going to patronize anyone. But this is indeed a golden period, and the women are killing it.

From Doja Cat and Baby Tate to Flo Milli and Bia, with openers including Doechii, Maya the Don and Lakeyah -- every single show has felt like an event, and on Saturday night TiaCorinne, A.R. The Mermaid and BbyAfricka continued the trend with another gig that was gold from start to finish.

The pride of Inglewood, BbyAfricka, opened the show and didn't stop moving throughout. "He loves me 'cos I'm model-skinny and I'm bad and rude," she purrs on the freaking magnificent "Baton Rouge," while proving all of those things to be true. BbyAfricka takes no shit.

Memphis' A.R. The Mermaid is next -- a blur of fine rhymes delivered with her trademark drawl. A.R. is a phenomenon and one of the hottest rappers on the scene right now. She is as close to a magical figure as we have in real-life hip-hop. She’s entering the scene on a wave of positivity, joy and color. She might stick out her tongue and flip the bird, but she’s doing it with a wink and a smile, and it’s easy to get on board with that air of gleeful anarchy. At the Echoplex, we got all that and "Watt We Doingg" was a standout.

North Carolina's TiaCorine headlined, as she celebrates the release of her latest EP Almost There, her first major release since her full length I Can't Wait in 2022. In between guest appearances by a few friends including influencer Aliyah's Interlude, TiaCorinne thrilled the Echoplex crowd with a set of razor sharp tunes including "Pancakes" and a handful from the new extended play.

The crowd was well up for it, the DJs popping, and the Echoplex essentially exploded in a tornado of hip-hop joy. Three strong, talented, female rappers, one awesome evening.

A Dial Phone SIPs AsteriskAn endless source of amusement for those of advancing years can come from handing a rotary phone to a teenager and asking them to dial a number with it. It’s rare for them to be stumped by a piece of technology, after all. [Mnutt]’s 4-year-old son had no such problems when he saw rotary phones at an art exhibition, so what was a parent to do but wire the phone to an Asterisk PBX with shortcut numbers for calls to family and such essential services as a joke line, MTA status, or even a K-pop song.
It’s possible to hook up a pulse dial phone with a SLIC module and a microcontroller, but in this case, a Grandstream SIP box did the trick. These are all-in-one devices that implement a SIP client with a physical connection, and older ones will talk to pulse dialers as well as the more usual tone dialing phones. The phone in question is a vintage American model. Writing this from Europe we were surprised to find a little simpler inside than its transatlantic counterparts of the same era.
An Asterisk install on a Raspberry Pi completed the project, and thus it became a matter of software configuration. It’s a useful run-through for Asterisk dilettantes, even if you haven’t got a 4-year-old. Perhaps you have an old payphone or two!

An ASIC For A Secret FileSome time over a decade ago, the arrival of inexpensive PCB fabrication revolutionised the creation of custom electronics on a budget. It’s now normal for even the smallest projects we feature here to have a professional PCB, which for those of us who started by etching their own with ferric chloride is nothing short of a miracle. When it comes to the ultimate step in custom electronics of doing the same for integrated circuits though, it’s fair to say that this particular art is in its infancy. The TinyTapeout project is a collaborative effort in which multiple designers have the chance to make their own ASIC as a single tile on a chip along others, and [Bitluni] had the chance to participate. His ASIC? A secret file which could be read through his ESP32 to VGA board.
The video below the break then is both the tale of the secret file project, and that of TinyTapeout itself, which is a clever design involving an on-board microcontroller that selects the tile and manages the bus. This revision is Tiny Tapeout 3, which includes 249 tiles of contributor-generated circuitry holding a diverse array of projects.
The secret file itself is a motion GIF, compressed down until the point at which it will just fit on a tile. We’ll preserve the fun by not reveling what it us, but you probably won’t be surprised when you see it in the video.
We’ve featured TinyTapeout more then once, not least when [Matt Venn] gave a talk about it for Supercon 2022.

TechCrunch Mobility: The wheels are starting to come off the Fisker EV busTechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Before we jump into the startup and […]
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Apple sued, Microsoft’s AI ambitions and Nvidia’s surprisesIn this edition of Week in Review, we have big news on the latest Apple antitrust lawsuit. Microsoft’s AI ambitions dominated the news as well, so let’s dive right in.… Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here to receive the Week in Review newsletter in your inboxes. The U.S. joined international regulators in accusing […]
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Tiny Signal Generator RevealedThere was a time when test equipment was big and heavy. Those days are gone, and [Kiss Analog] shows us the inside of a Uni-T UTG962E arbitrary waveform generator. The device is truly tiny. You might think this is due to the dense packing of the circuit board. However, one board is packed but the other board seems to have a high degree of integration on one IC. You can check out the video below.
The main processor is some sort of ARM — we think an STM32F-series part. The markings were hard to make out under the microscope.

Even for a piece of modern gear, relays are hard to beat for electrically switching things accurately and with low noise. The boards have some fancy traces to control impedance or propagation delay. There wasn’t much analysis of the internals, but it was still interesting to see inside. If you want to see more of the box in action, he’s got a few earlier videos that feature the device.
An arbitrary waveform generator is not hard to make, but it is difficult to build one with good performance over a wide range of circumstances. We’ve done a cheap version. We aren’t the only ones.

French regulators step in to remove roadblock for possible Warner Music Group bid for BelieveBelieve's board turned to the AMF to adjudicate whether a particular move by a consortium led by Believe founder/CEO, Denis Ladegaillerie, was lawful
Source

New Pens For Old PlottersFinding consumables is an ever-present problem facing anyone working with old computer hardware. Many of these devices ceased manufacture decades ago and what old stock remains is invariably degraded by time. [Retrohax] has encountered it with the pens for an Atari plotter, a machine that uses an ALPS mechanism that appears in more than one 1980s machine. The original pens had dried out beyond the ability to refill, so he takes us through the process of finding replacements.
Sadly there are no equivalent modern pens ripe for modification, so whatever replacement he used would have to involve a little lateral thinking. He thought salvation was at hand in the form of multicolor ballpoint refills of the type where the ink is in an easily cuttable plastic tube. [Retrohax] and was able to make a 3D-printed holder for a cut-down ballpoint refill. Sadly the pressure required for a good line from a ballpoint was much higher than the original pens, so he was back to square one. Then he happened upon gel pens and tried the same trick with a gel pen refill. This gave instant success and should provide a valid technique for more than just this ALPS mechanism.
If you haven’t got a classic plotter to hand, never fear. You can have a go at making your own.

Getting It Done – The Week in D.I.Y & Indie MusicThis week, our tips and advice for all the independent, do-it-yourselfers covered how to cure imposter syndrome, a quick Spotify profile refresh, how songwriters get paid, and much more......
The post Getting It Done – The Week in D.I.Y & Indie Music appeared first on Hypebot.

REWIND – New Music Industry’s Week In Review: TikTok ban, bot farms, Pandora royalties, Music Cities & more!t was another busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception, with more talk on the TikTok ban, the capabilities of bot farms, and more.....
The post REWIND – New Music Industry’s Week In Review: TikTok ban, bot farms, Pandora royalties, Music Cities & more! appeared first on Hypebot.

Nelson at the Canyon, MontclairHaving never attended a show at the Canyon, Montclair before, this writer wasn't quite prepared for how surreal an experience it would be. First of all, it's located inside of a mall. Not a strip mall, but a full-on mall with a Macy's, Victoria's Secret, etc. At least that means there's plenty of parking, but it still feels weird when you take an escalator by Macy's and make a turn into a music venue.

Once in the venue, you're faced with a choice between being seated at a table and ordering a compulsory, expensive meal or taking your chances with general access. It's all a bit "dinner theater," and isn't particularly conducive for rock & roll.

That said, Nelson's crowd isn't particularly rowdy. The twin sibling rockers, the children of Ricky Nelson and Kristin Nelson, put on a great show that weighed heavily on their 1990 smash debut After the Rain.

The entire band was in fine form as they blasted through gems like "Fill You Up," and "After the Rain." Guitarist Neil Zaza soloed himself into a frenzy and, despite the seated crowd offering little in the way of energy, Matthew and Gunnar Nelson overcame the odd surroundings and allowed us to recall the days when their flowing blonde locks were all over MTV.

They have a sense of humor about their image; they were selling t-shirts that parody a classic Nirvana shirt -- the iconic smiley face blessed with Nelson's hair. Between songs, they talk about their early days, performing new wave at Madam Wong's club and attracting the attention of punk bands such as the Germs.

But ultimately, we wanted to hear the classics and Nelson delivered. "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" sounded immense, even on this stage. Nelson, it seems, can overcome just about anything.

Hit’n’Mix RipX DAW updated The latest version of RipX DAW introduces a range of new features along with some improvements and bug fixes.

Atomos Space’s first mission on orbit is a trial by fireThe company has faced two main issues related to communications and the spacecraft rotation rate — and it’s largely solved both those problems.
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Album Review: "Young Love & Saturday Nights" by Chris Young (9/10)A generous 18 track, straight-to-the-point Contemporary Country album with just the right amount of Pop and nostalgia to invoke personal memories. A “play-all-the-way-through” experience, as long as you can resist repeating party track 7 “Double Down.”

From movie-ready “All Dogs go to Heaven” to “Gettin Older”, a coming of age trip through familiar yet creative songwriting. Despite the heavy use of auto-tune and strict quantization, Chris Young is a singer/songwriter's singer with contagious hooks and rhythmic lyrics.

A solid 9 out of 10 for Young Love & Saturday Nights