Tracktion’s “huge” Waveform Pro 13 update introduces a brand new Clip LauncherTracktion has launched Waveform Pro 13, a new update introducing an “inspiring” clip launcher workflow, a Wavetable synth, a refined UI and exclusive audio content from Mode Audio.
Accompanying the update is the release of the Clip Launcher Feature Expansion, which adds to the DJ Mix Tools, Pro Video, Recording Engineer, MIDI Producer and Synth Pack offerings, essentially allowing for Waveform Free users to build their own DAW. This way, users can keep workflows streamlined and costs down.

READ MORE: Plugin Boutique is offering its “lowest prices ever” on a range of Universal Audio UAD plugins

Within the new Clip Launcher, sequence actions can be used to build complicated arrangements with speed. The probability of each can be adjusted for “human-like variation”, or even quirky and unpredictable sequences.
Waveform 13 ships with a range of new content from Mode Audio so you can get easily started with the Clip Launcher, including exclusive content, from drums and basses, to synths and more, in a range of contemporary styles.
You can also capture your work with Performance Recording, which prints the performance to the arranger window so you can edit, mix and further adjust your creations later on. It’s also worth noting that a range of launchpad-style controllers are supported in Waveform, with zero configuration required.

Elsewhere in the update, the new Wavetable synth features two wavetable oscillators, plus a sub and noise oscillator. There are 150 wavetables included, and you can create your own by dragging and dropping a .wav file onto an oscillator. Serum format wavetables are also supported.
Additionally, the look and feel of Waveform 13 has been given a glow up, with a selection of new colour schemes to choose from. You’ll also have the option of creating and saving your own schemes, and colour-matched lanes can now aid with managing automation and more.
Waveform Pro 13 retails for $199. Feature Expansions for Waveform Free users start at $30.
Find out more or access a 30-day free trial over at Tracktion.
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Bifurcation theory | How today’s music business will become twoOne of things we pride ourselves on at MIDiA is helping the marketplace peer over the horizon with disruptive, forward-looking ideas and vision. We have a long track record of doing this (you can find a list of report links at the bottom of this post). While many of these ideas were difficult to swallow, or a little ‘out there’ at the time of writing, they became (or are still becoming) a good reflection of where markets ended up heading. Well, it is now time for another of those big market shaping ideas: bifurcation theory.

Today, MIDiA publishes its major new report: ‘Bifurcation theory | How today’s music business will become two’. The full report is available to MIDiA clients here and a free synopsis of the report for non-clients is on our bifurcation theory page here. So, check those out to find more, but in the meantime, here is an overview of just what bifurcation theory is, and why it is going to affect everyone in the music business, whatever role you play in it. 

The old maxim that change is the only constant feels tailor-made for the 21st century music business. Piracy, downloads, streaming, and social all triggered music industry paradigm shifts. Now, all the indicators on the disruption dashboard are flashing red once more. AI is, of course, standing centre stage, but it is not the cause of the coming change. It is simply a change enabler.The causal factors this time round are all direct byproducts of today’s music business, unintended consequences of a streaming market that has cantered along its natural path of least resistance. Everyone across the music industry’s value chain has played their role, often unwittingly. Whether that be shortening

songs, increasing social efforts, changing royalty systems or following viral trends, each of these micro actions has contributed to a macro effect.

The fracture points of today’s music business are simultaneously the catalysts for tomorrow’s. For example, the commodification of consumption is resulting in a raft of apps and industry initiatives that try to serve superfans; the rise of the creator economy’s long tail is resulting in both traditional rightsholders raising the streaming drawbridge (long tail royalty thresholds) and a fast-growing body of creators opting to invest less time in streaming.

Streaming was once the future but now it is the establishment, the cornerstone of the traditional music business. It has rocketed from a lean forward, niche proposition for superfans into a lean back, mass market product for the mainstream. Music consumers have always fallen into two buckets:

1.    Fans

2.    Consumers

The former used to buy music, the latter used to listen to radio. Streaming put them both into the same place, pulling up the average spend but pulling down fandom into consumption. Streaming is the modern day music business’ radio, just much better monetised than the analogue predecessor. Now though, everyone across the music industry’s complex mesh of interconnected value chains is realising there needs to be something more, built alongside, not instead of, streaming. This is the dynamic behind bifurcation theory. This report explores how today’s music business challenges are becoming the causal factors of a new business defined by two parallel consumer worlds.

The music business is bifurcating – splitting into two – with streaming emerging as the place for mainstream music and lean back consumption, and social as the spiritual home of fandom and the creator economy. We identify these two segments as:

1.    LISTEN (user-led): streaming services, monetising consumption at scale

2.    PLAY (creator-led): highly social destinations where fans lean in to create, connect and express identity

Of course, this process has already started, but social is still largely seen as a driver for streaming. Many artists who try to get their fans to participate on social do so primarily in the hope of driving streams rather than for the inherent value of fans participating in their creativity. However, many next-generation creators are realising they will simply never reach the scale needed to earn meaningful income from streaming.They are therefore shifting focus to building fan relationships on social media and monetising them elsewhere, be it via merchandise or brand sponsorships. Meanwhile, a new generation of fans are creating as a form of consumption, whether that means using songs in their TikTok videos or modifying the audio of their favourite song. While copyright legislation and remuneration have lagged behind these developments, they will be an important part of the future of PLAY. Over time, PLAY will evolve as a self-contained set of ecosystems, built around the artist-fan relationship. It will not be an easy transition. Mainstream streaming will become even more lean back, and social and new apps will exert what will increasingly look like a stranglehold on fandom and the creator economy.

Social apps are plagued with challenges (royalty payments not the least of them) but they will emerge as a parallel alternative to streaming, rather than simply a feeder for it. To this end, the full bifurcation theory report not only describes the lay of the future land, but also presents bold visions of how we think both sides of the music business equation should evolve. We present detailed frameworks for what PLAY services will look like and how LISTEN services can evolve, focusing on core competences to continue to appeal to the mainstream but also deepen appeal to – and better monetise – superfans.

AI will play a key role in the future of both sides of the bifurcated music business, but rather than being tomorrow’s business, it will act as an accelerant for the underlying dynamics of bifurcation theory.

Bifurcation is such a big concept with so many layers and nuances, we have only been able to skim through some of the highest level trends here. We encourage you to check out the full report and report synopsis to learn more.

We’ve spent a long time gestating this concept, so we’d love to hear your thoughts. We’re not expecting bifurcation theory to be to everyone’s taste, but if nothing else, hopefully it will spark some creative thinking and debate.

Don’t forget to check out our bifurcation page for a video discussion of bifurcation theory and a free pdf report synopsis.

As mentioned above, here are some of MIDiA’s most impactful future vision reports, in (roughly) chronological order:

Agile Music (Free report)

Music Format Bill of Rights (Free report)

Rising Power of UGC (Free report)

Independent Artists (Free report)

Music Rights Disruption

Insurgents and Incumbents

Creator Culture

Rebalancing the Song Economy (Free report)

New Top of Funnel

Slicing the Funnel

Music’s Instagram Moment

Scenes – a New Lens for Music Marketing

Attention Recession

Creator Rights (Free report)

Creator Hubs

Music Product Strategy

Fan Powered Royalties (Free report)

Addressable Creator Markets

Misaligned Incentives

Artist Subscriptions

Field of All Levels

Kill the Campaign

Rise of a Counterculture Industry

Band invent bionic robot arm that lets plants play musical instrumentsManchester-based musicians Bionic and the Wires have invented a machine that lets a living plant “play” a musical instrument.
The group — led by Andy Kidd on keyboard and synthesizer, and “Jon Ross on plants” — will deliver their first performance featuring the “bionic robot arm” and a plant-mate at the city’s Castlehead Viaduct venue this Saturday (20 April).

READ MORE: Akai launches dub siren-inspired Ring The Alarm software synth

According to their website, the UK music collective specialises in creating electronic music with plants; their compositions combine botanical rhythms with atmospheric textures and soundscapes created by synthesisers.
The group’s music is said to explore the “interplay between plants and music” and encourage “new ways of thinking about the natural world”.
As for their latest invention, the machine works by capturing the electrical bio-signals plants create during natural processes like photosynthesis. Sensors are attached to the plant leaves to capture these pulses, which are then transformed by music making equipment into electricity to power the robotic plant ‘arms’.
The device builds on inventions such as the Plantwave device released by Data Garden a few years ago, though this bionic robot arm marks the first time a plant is allowed to directly ‘play a live instrument’ such as the steel handpan drum and the violin.
Of the new invention, Bionic and the Wires’ Jon Ross says: We’ve spent many months researching and developing the new bionic robot arms. It’s exciting to think that with this invention we may have opened up the opportunity for a whole new genre of music. Maybe it’s called bionica!?”

Speaking of plant-music, avant-garde designer and synth-maker Love Hultén has turned a cactus garden into an instrument for his project, Desert Songs.
The project uses the aforementioned Plantwave, which turns biodata from organic objects into MIDI. This means that instead of composing the music, it’s simply sending “biofeedback creating true organic randomness,” says Hultén.
The device features a range of different specimens of cacti, selected for their sparse and sporadic activity. Each cactus is hooked up to a probe, and users can change output between individual plants as they go using patch points upfront.
Learn more at Bionic and the Wires.
The post Band invent bionic robot arm that lets plants play musical instruments appeared first on MusicTech.

Kevin Saunderson: “I changed the game” with 1988 Heat It Up remixDetroit house and techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson has discussed creating an early acid house remix in the late ’80s, boldly claiming that the way he created it “changed the game”.

READ MORE: “There’s no other machine that has a sound so remarkable” — Artists give their take on the TB-303

The remix is his version of UK duo Wee Papa Girl Rappers’ 1988 hit Heat It Up. It’s an acid house take on the hip-house track that ups the tempo, chops and loops the vocal and introduces, of course, a Roland TB-303 bassline. According to Saunderson, “nobody” at the time “did what he did” regarding this innovative remixing process on the track.
While up until this point, edits and remixes were a thing, according to Saunderson, this was the first example of a remix where all of the components were completely removed, leaving just the vocals on top of a similar, but entirely new instrumental. At the time, this was a completely new way of remixing a song as opposed to just extending the music or making it more DJ-friendly. Compare the two below:

Saunderson, a pioneer of techno as part of the Belleville Three and member of Inner City, recalls making this style of remix in a recent interview with MusicTech, going on to highlight its impact on genres outside of electronic music, too.
“Remixes were done back in the day [by] Shep Pettibone, Jellybean Benitez, Larry [Levan]. Re-edits to make it more DJ-friendly,” he says. “Nobody did what I did when I did the first remix for Wee Papa Girl Rappers [Heat It Up]. I completely changed the game. There’s a reason why they call me The Elevator. That fits right in there.”
“People should always know: that remix didn’t just change the game for electronic music – hip-hop DJs started doing it. Everyone started doing it. It’s just part of my legacy,” he adds.
A 2018 interview by Red Bull Academy sees Saunderson delve a little deeper into how he remixed the track in this new way. According to Saunderson, his approach was to “lose everything and to make a track, and make sure it was in the same key, and take a bit of the vocals, and use it over my track”.
Also in MusicTech‘s recent interview, Saunderson talks about the lasting impact the city of Detroit has on music, and how it’s important to provide a platform for budding electronic music producers from the city.
“A lot of music has come out of Detroit that’s been impactful in the world,” he says. “There’s something that could come out of this place again. But it takes someone to give somebody an opportunity. We made our own path. As you get older, you try and open up doors for other generations.”
Read the full interview on MusicTech.
The post Kevin Saunderson: “I changed the game” with 1988 Heat It Up remix appeared first on MusicTech.

Fight musique: claire rousay is making — and recording — the most of every momentClaire Rousay likes to get into fights. “If there’s a fight at a bar,” she says, “and you remove yourself from the bar while it’s happening, you’ll probably remember less about that night. But if you sit there and watch it, or get in the fight, you’ll definitely remember it.”

READ MORE: Grimes issues apology following Coachella DJ set – what went wrong?

Rousay’s work is far from fight music. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t violent. Through fiercely emotional field recordings, drone flecked with found sounds and musique concrète spiked with blips and glitches, she elevates small moments to ruinous status.
“That’s the way I work: get really involved and put an emphasis on everything. Get the most I can in the moment.”
Her output is all about these moments. On the 2020 album it was always worth it, Rousay smoothes the rollercoaster textures of life into text-to-speech vocals assembled from messages exchanged over the course of a recently terminated relationship. On 2021’s 17 roles (all mapped out), clanging railway bells and barking dogs give way to a diary entry on self-doubt, loneliness and the afterlife. It’s almost too quiet to hear and too real to bear.
Speaking from her home studio in Los Angeles, Rousay is louder and quicker to laugh but every bit as candid. “You don’t want to get your hopes up for anything,” she says of her new album, sentiment. “But I’ve put the most work into this record of anything I’ve ever made.”
Rousay’s experimental recordings, released through Bandcamp with almost reckless abandon, have attracted high-profile subscribers. When Thrill Jockey founder Bettina Richards reached out to see if she wanted support from a label, the stage was set for her biggest album yet. “[Thrill Jockey] were open to anything,” says Rousay. What they got was her “‘song’ record”.
Image: Zoe Donahoe
Fans of the musician’s more oblique works needn’t worry. sentiment has songs — real songs — but it’s no conventional pop coming-out. Its opener, 4pm, for example, is a spoken-word “letter to the universe, begging for the aching to let up”. It’s written by Rousay but voiced by someone else (Theodore Cale Schafer, one of multiple featured players from the Rousayverse), the first clue to the album’s depth and intertextuality.
From there, mournful strings and synths settle over sentiment like a heavy blanket; spare acoustic guitars rise like flowers erupting through concrete. And Rousay claws at the heartstrings with lines that are by turns soft, sensual and devastating. It’s all seasoned with street sounds, birdsong and snatches of conversation.
Rousay, who grew up an evangelical Christian and played in worship bands before abandoning religion, doesn’t make maudlin music. That would be old-fashioned. Instead, her work, which has been labelled “emo ambient” by fans and critics, feels sad in a thoroughly modern way. It acknowledges the promise and the lie of social media: connections made and connections missed. Her close-mic’d confessionals and themes of guilt, sex and anxiety are complemented by the sounds of iPhone message tones and keyboard clacks, rustling leaves and long showers, all of which contribute to a unique sense of millennial American malaise.
sentiment by claire rousay
Within the melancholy, though, there are always moments of joy, of beauty, of uninhibited expression, of fucking around and finding out.
In 2022, Rousay and Mari Maurice, also known as More Eaze, released their fourth collaborative album, Never Stop Texting Me. Across its 10 electric power ballads, ambient minimalism and hyper-pop maximalism meet midwest emo, trap beats and auto-tune. It works.
“Mari and I made it and we were like, ‘This is the greatest record ever made!’ Then it came out and we looked back on it like, ‘That… that was a bold choice’.” Some critics agreed, calling the album a pastiche, as if its pop proclivities were a put-on (they weren’t) and its humour a defence mechanism to protect against criticism (it wasn’t).
“The way it was critiqued was not what we were expecting,” says Rousay. “We thought the influences would come out in the music, which didn’t happen. There’s a level of humour to it, for sure. Especially lyrically. But I think it’s pretty sincere. And pretty transparent. Talking about just wanting to be as famous as Kali Malone [we’re on that Kali Malone shit], that’s all anybody could want. That’s pretty sincere to me!”
image: Zoe Donahoe
The same sincerity and self-deprecation permeate sentiment. The album was already taking shape during the Never Stop Texting Me sessions. Some of its songs were even recorded then, while others are older still.
“It’s been a really, really long process,” says Rousay. “There’s nine or 10 versions of each of these songs. There’ll be songs that sound like Elliott Smith with panned acoustic guitars and double-tracked vocals or something, and then I’ll have the same song but there’ll be a fuzzed-out drum machine with a huge pad over the whole thing, and vocals that are panned all over the place.”
Break down these sessions, though, and you’ll see that many of them are made up of stock Ableton Live sounds. Rousay is fastidious when it comes to composition but less so when it comes to equipment.
“I’m just as happy running a $90 guitar direct into a Focusrite as I am playing a high-end Telecaster through a Vox and recording it with multiple mics.”
The electric guitar parts on sentiment were recorded using a Fender American Performer Telecaster. “I mostly just use that on everything. I use that recorded right into my interface and plated back through my ADAM A5X monitors and then recorded back with a Shure SM57. And that’s the guitar.”
Rousay’s refreshingly unfussy approach to gear is a reminder that emotional clarity is often best achieved through the simplest techniques. “I’ve always been down to play with whatever’s in front of me,” she says. “I’m just as happy running a $90 guitar direct into a Focusrite as I am playing a high-end Telecaster through a Vox and recording it with multiple mics.”
Still, like any musician, Rousay loves getting new toys. Whether through friend recommendations or brand hook-ups, new gear gracing her desk (or desktop) helps her break habits and shake up her routine. To put that bluntly: Claire loves free shit.
​​Her Tele came courtesy of Fender. She made 40 minutes of music within days of Hologram sending her its Microcosm loop pedal. And after Goodhertz furnished her with new plugins following a rec from friend and collaborator Meg Duffy (AKA Hand Habits), Rousay made them her core compositional tools. “All the Goodhertz plugins are really sick. So now I use them for everything.” That is, until the next new sound comes along.
Image: Mike Boyd
Rousay is a sucker for VST string sounds and a big fan of Felt Instruments’ Blisko cello. She also recommends Spitfire Audio’s free LABS software instruments, especially its LA Atmos field recordings and textures. Can’t afford Native Instruments’ Una Corda? Just use the LABS Soft Piano, she says.
If there’s any sound that’s become synonymous with Rousay’s genre-fluid “emo ambient”, it’s auto-tune. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever paid for or researched,” she says.
The vocals on sentiment are smeared in Waves’ Tune Real-Time. In all its artificial warbling, Rousay’s voice is legion. Its many frequencies echo the desperation and mania of an Instagram comment section: thousands of voices fighting to be heard. But the effect is also a mask — artifice as armour. For a musician so willing to be vulnerable with her listeners, the cloaked voice is the last thing that separates claire rousay the artist from Claire Rousay the person.
The new album draws as much from Jimmy Eat World, Elliott Smith and Broken Social Scene as it does from Brian Eno. But beyond the emo, pop-punk and ambient touchstones, Rousay’s clearest influences are still, well, listen and you’ll hear it: everything else.
Rousay’s field recordings ramped up around lockdown. With the world in stasis, they were a way to recognise that life goes on even while we’re not looking – or listening. “Everything became a bit more interesting,” she says. “When you’re in the same space for a long time, you’re zooming in rather than looking outwards. I kind of zoomed in on my life. There is so much sound happening that I’m not making. The world is still moving even though it feels like it isn’t.”
Image: Zoe Donahoe
Rousay leaves her Zoom H5 recorder running for hours at a time, chronicling everything and nothing. In her kitchen. In Ubers. In hotel rooms around the world. On afternoon walks in the park with her dog, Luna. At restaurants with her friends. Anywhere and everywhere. With so much raw audio on her hands, she’s had to become adept at finding moments of value.
“I’ll drag a file into Ableton to see it visually,” she says. “I’m just looking for activity within the waveforms. Like, something happened here, because the signalling changed. There’s obviously a reason for that. I’m interested in that reason. Something is happening and I need to get it out. I guess that’s important to me.”
Rousay isn’t an archivist. Her compulsive field recording isn’t an exercise in nostalgia stockpiling. She won’t revisit these files in the future. In fact, she’s deleted more gigabytes of recordings than most musicians have ever made. It’s not about being able to access the past from the future. It’s about the present. It’s about getting in the fight. Getting the most in the moment. Not to be all sentimental about it, but these moments matter.
“I don’t expect that I’m going to live for a very long time,” says Claire. “I don’t know where that fear comes from. I don’t even know if it’s necessarily a fear. I think it’s just an intuitive thing. But something about recording and deleting things is maybe tied up in that – how things aren’t permanent but they are important.”
‘sentiment’ is released on Thrill Jockey on April 19
The post Fight musique: claire rousay is making — and recording — the most of every moment appeared first on MusicTech.

Win a Korg Wavestate MkII Korg are giving away two Wavestate MkII synthesizers to entrants in the UK.

Alphabet X’s Bellwether harnesses AI to help predict natural disastersThe world is on fire. Quite literally, much of the time. Predicting such disasters before they get out of hand — or better yet, before they happen — will be key to maintaining a reasonable quality of life for the coming century. It’s a big, global issue. It’s also one Alphabet believes it can help […]
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This Go-Kart Rides on a PalletMany beginner woodworkers, looking to offset the introductory costs of starting a hobby, will source their wood from pallets. Generally they’re easily found and can be low or no cost, but typically require a bit of work before they’re usable in a project. [Garage Avenger] is looking to do something a little outside of the box with his pallet project, though. He’s using raw pallets as a chassis for a four-speed go-kart, partially for the challenge and excitement and also to one-up a Pinterest post.
Almost immediately, though, the other major downside of working with pallets arose which is that they’re generally built out of low-grade pine which is soft and flexible. Flexibility is generally not a good thing to have in a vehicle frame so plenty of the important parts of this build were strengthened with steel tubing including the rear axle, steering mounts, and a few longitudinal supports to strengthen the overall frame. After working out some kinks with ordering a few of the wrong parts, and mounting the steering box backwards, it was time to test out the four-speed engine (and brakes) on the the go-kart, making it nearly ready for the road.
To complete the build, some tidying of wiring and fuel lines was done, along with improving some of the non-critical parts of the build like the bucket seat. Of course, adding pallet spoilers and body kit puts the finishing touches on the build and the go-kart is finally ready to tear up the local go-kart track and the less-inspiring Pinterest projects. [Garage Avenger] is no stranger to strange vehicle builds, either. Although it’s a bit out of season for most of our northern hemisphere readers now, his jet-powered street sled is still worth a view.

Volume.com Announces the 2024 BeachLife Music Festival FreeLivestream in Partnership with Music Gives To St. Jude KidsVolume.com and BeachLife Festival have announced the free livestream for the eagerly awaited 2024 BeachLife Music Festival, slated for May 3-5 in Redondo Beach, California. The free stream will be in partnership with Music Gives to St. Jude Kids. 

This year’s festival boasts a lineup featuring iconic artists such as Sting, Incubus, My Morning Jacket, Dirty Heads, DEVO, Trey Anastasio & Classic TAB, Seal, Local Natives, Fleet Foxes, and many others. For fans unable to attend in person, Volume.com provides a free and exclusive portal to experience BeachLife Music Festival live, offering a unique opportunity to enjoy the performances from anywhere. You can claim a ticket for this free event today to get a reminder and learn more about the Music Gives to St. Jude Kids Partner In Hope program. To discover other recent livestreams or to sign up for upcoming events, visit Volume.com. 

Fans of BeachLife 2024 are encouraged to pair their good vibes with a great cause—St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. Between incredible BeachLife acts, festival-goers and festival-viewers can become a St. Jude Partner in Hope. Contributions from St. Jude supporters ensure that families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food so they can focus on helping their children live. A Partner in Hope can give today by texting GIVE to 62-62-62 and, in return, will receive a Music Gives to St. Jude Kids t-shirt.

Volume is not just a platform; it's the destination for a thriving livestream ecosystem where artists can flourish and grow their businesses. Volume has been diligently expanding its library, attracting a growing roster of artist-users, podcasters, and venues to join its platform. Select streams are now available for on-demand viewing on Volume, offering audiences diverse performances and discussions. Among these are Andy Frasco’s World Saving Podcast, Chris Shiflett’s Shred with Shifty, with episodes featuring Blues extraordinaire Joe Bonamassa, Brent Mason, John Osborne, and more. Other events that have been featured on Volume include The BMG/BBR CMA Pre-Party featuring Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, and more; Warren Haynes Christmas Jam featuring Slash, Phil Lesh, Tyler Childers, Gov’t Mule, and others; and various in-studio streams from Lightning 100 featuring artists such as The War And Treaty, Grace Potter, Vera Bloom with BadCulture, The Foxies and a recent secret show with Sheryl Crow.

In the changing world of music, certain venues and festivals remain at the forefront by embracing Volume Livestreams—a modern approach to music broadcasting. Notable pioneers include BeachLife Music Festival, Nashville establishments 3rd & Lindsley, The Basement East,and venues like West Hollywood’s Troubadour, Charlotte’s Neighborhood Theatre, BurlingtonVermont’s Nectar’s, and NYC’s The Bitter End. These locations have adapted to the age to ensure that live music remains vibrant and accessible on a scale. 

For more information, visit www.volume.com.

Compiling and Running Turbo Pascal in the BrowserWhen a friend of [Lawrence Kesteloot] found a stack of 3.5″ floppy disks, they found that it contained Turbo Pascal code which the two of them had worked on back in the Summer of 1989. Amidst reminiscing about the High School days and watching movies on VHS, [Lawrence] sought a way to bring these graphical applications once more back to life. Not finding an easy way to compile Turbo Pascal code on Mac even back in 2013 when he started the project, he ended up writing a Turbo Pascal compiler in JavaScript, as any reasonable person would do in this situation.
SPIDER.PAS in its full glory. (Credit: Lawrence Kesteloot)
As noted by [Lawrence], the compiler doesn’t implement the full Turbo Pascal 5.5 language, but only the subset that was required to compile and run these applications which they had found on the floppy disks. These include ROSE.PAS and SPIDER.PAS along with three others, and can also be found in the GitHub repository. As can be seen in the online version of the compiler, it captures the feel of programming Pascal in 1989 on the command line.
Naturally, the software situation has changed somewhat over the last decade. We’ve recently seen some promising multi-platform Pascal compilers, and of course you could even run Turbo Pascal in DOSBox or similar. That might make this project seem irrelevant, but being able to write and run Pascal applications in more ways and on more platforms is never a bad thing.

Epidemic Sound’s royalty-free music is played 2.5bn times per day on YouTube and TikTok, but company still struggles to turn a profitThe company says there are now 26 million videos on YouTube and TikTok featuring its music
Source

Universal Music Group generated 51% of its 2023 recorded music revenues in North America… and 8 other things we learned from its new annual reportMBW takes a deep dive through Universal's latest in-depth financial report
Source

Omnisphere is “one of the most inspiring instruments,” says TouristTourist has commended the “inspiring” presets found on Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere plugin synth, hailing it as a solid “starting point for sounds”.

READ MORE: Mike Dean leaks a glimpse of Moog’s Muse, a forthcoming mystery synth

The British producer and Grammy-winning songwriter – real name William Edward Phillips – hailed Omnisphere in the latest episode of My Forever Studio. It’s a podcast on which artists, producers and musicians dream up a fantasy studio setup, picking a limited number of items.
In this episode, the award-winning plugin (Version 2.8 was launched in 2021) is named by Tourist as a key starting point when starting a new project. He also emphasises his desire to find instruments that “inspire him”.
“It’s one of the most inspiring instruments,” Tourist says of the plugin. “You open it and it’s like, you know, it’s such a good starting point for sounds.”
He also addresses the stigma surrounding the use of presets in music production, emphasising the importance of embracing inspiration in any form. He asserts, “If you find inspiration in a preset, don’t in any way judge yourself for thinking like that. You’re immediately pissing on your own fire of inspiration.”
“It’s so important that that inspiration is what carries you through the rest of the record because there’s nothing wrong with it, you know? That’s me embracing using presets. So much of my music is just Omnisphere presets, but that’s fine.”

At another point in the episode, Tourist discusses the preciousness around collecting treasured gear that doesn’t end up being used by its owners. He says, “Your studio is not a museum. You don’t want to feel intimidated by it. You want to feel like you can revel in its creativity. I’m not like ‘This one here…’ Like a fucking wine cellar.”
“The emotional value of something sometimes is what you create with it. To some extent, these things are tools and the tools allow you to make magic, and the magic is what you need to get from these tools.”
Listen to the episode below:

My Forever Studio invites guests, in the form of producers, musicians, songwriters and studio engineers, to dream up a fantasy studio they’ll make music in forever. This studio can be anywhere in the world, but there is a catch – each guest is only allowed to pick six studio items. Before you ask, no, these cannot be plugin bundles. *sounds the ‘no bundles’ klaxon*
Find all episodes of My Forever Studio via MusicTech.
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Plugin Boutique is offering its “lowest prices ever” on a range of Universal Audio UAD pluginsThere’s an age-old adage: you can never have too many plugins. Okay, that isn’t a thing, but it’s true, right? Until the end of this month (30 April), you can grab a number of killer savings on Universal Audio UAD plugins over at Plugin Boutique.
Universal Audio’s UAD plugins are some of the best in the biz, and you pick up a select number for as little as $29 apiece until the end of the month.

READ MORE: Get Excite Audio’s VISION 4X Lite or Audified’s U78 Saturator totally free with any purchase at Plugin Boutique

Up for grabs for $29 each are a selection of effects – Pure Plate Reverb, Studio D Chorus, Oxide Tape Recorder, Brigade Chorus Pedal, and Waterfall Rotary Speaker – while there are a number of other products with up to 80 percent discount applied, too.
They include the Manley Tube Preamp, which is available for $74 at a 50 percent discount, Verve Analogue Machines for $99 at a 50 percent discount, PolyMAX Synth for $39 at a whopping 80 percent off, Waterfall B3 Organ with a cool 75 percent off, and Ravel Grand Piano for $39, again with a huge 80 percent knocked off its price tag.
Universal Audio UAD plugins usually come with pretty high price tags – reflective of their demand and standing among professional producers – so now’s your chance to grab one or two – or even the whole lot – while saving an awful lot of money.
As we say, these deals are available until 30 April (less than two weeks to go), so act fast if you want to treat your in-the-box studio setup to a cheeky little upgrade.
For more info, head to Plugin Boutique.
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MPG Awards: Discounted balcony tickets The MPG are kindly offering the Sound On Sound community a 40% discount on balcony tickets for the upcoming MPG Awards 2024.