The Impossible Repair: Ribbon CablesIt’s problem which faces many a piece of older equipment, that ribbon cables of the type used on membrane keyboards start to fail as they become older. These cables are extremely difficult to repair as they can’t be soldered to, and since they are usually custom to the device in question. All is not lost though, as [Spare Time Repair] shows us with the cable on a Honeywell heating controller broken by a user attempting to remove the battery with a screwdriver.
The whole process can be seen in the video below the break, and it involves the use of a vinyl cutter to cut the pattern of tracks in aluminium tape stuck on a sheet of acetate. This makes a new piece of ribbon cable, however it’s still a step short of being part of the circuit. His challenge is to make a clip tight enough to attach it to the intact part of the broken cable and maintain contact, then to hope that the new piece of cable bent back on itself can make enough contact for the device to work.
At the end of it all he has a working Honeywell controller, though as he points out it’s a device he has little interest in. Instead this opens a window on an extremely useful technique that should be of relevance far beyond the world of heating. There’s one machine close to home for us that could use this technique, for example.

Getting It Done – Last Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music: Albini, .music & MoreLast week, our tips and advice for independent, do-it-yourselfers covered the legacy of Steve Albini, .MUSIC deadlines, songwriting splits, Kanye marketing lessons, some of the best mental health resources for. Continue reading
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Reflex Acoustics Releases FREE Reflex Spectrum Analyzer Plugin
Reflex Acoustics released the Reflex Spectrum Analyzer, a freeware audio analysis plugin for Mac and PC.  Reflex Acoustics describes the release as an analyzer designed for low-end detail. The plugin is available in VST3 for PC and VST3 and AU for Mac. The developer says support for AAX is “coming soon.”  The Reflex Spectrum Analyzer [...]
View post: Reflex Acoustics Releases FREE Reflex Spectrum Analyzer Plugin

REWIND – New Music Industry’s Week In Review: State of Live Music, TikTok & MoreIt was a busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception with an update on the state of live music, TikTok fighting its ban, more music. Continue reading
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IMSTA London 2024 IMSTA FESTA will be returning to SAE Institute London on 1 June 2024, offering music makers the chance to check out a range of panel talks, workshops, masterclasses, gear demonstrations and more. 

ClearBeats announces launch as derivative works clearance service from Music RightzAs the creator economy has exploded, so has the volume of derivative works; the covers, interpolations, remixes, mashups, DJ sets, samples, and alternate versions that have long captivated fans and bedeviled rights holders. Yet through all of the technological advances, the music industry continues to struggle with the millions of derivative versions pouring into music’s ecosystems weekly. Derivatives represent a massive asset category and untapped opportunity. Still, few labels and publishers implement a proactive catalog strategy that integrates the creation, clearance, and attribution of derivative works across their internal copyright, licensing, and collections organizations.

To address this, four music business leaders have come together to form ClearBeats, a licensing practice and tech company offering new approaches to today’s bespoke derivative rights clearance. The managing directors of ClearBeats, Nick Ditri and Bob Barbiere, have teamed up with Suzanne Coffman and Yolanda Ferraloro of Music Rightz, one of the industry’s oldest and largest (sync) licensing agencies. Together, they have the experience and approaches necessary to solve the challenges and turbulence associated with derivative music and smoothen the ride for both creators and rights owners. 

Tapping into Music Rightz’s size and volume, having cleared over 220,000 songs, ClearBeats is already taking cover, remix, interpolation, sample registration, and clearance to another level– collecting and sharing new and expanded information about the creator and their work while maintaining a strong commitment to transparency. The additional information ClearBeats provides to rights holders and administrators, particularly sync teams, is critical, as the velocity of creation and distribution of derivative works continues to outpace a label or publisher’s ability to ingest, track, and promote those assets for sync and placement deals. 

While labels and artists have some options to clear and license remixes, interpolations, and samples, they have been unable to do so at scale. They are frequently unable to track down rights owners and face inherent confusion in domestic and international compliance, even for traditional covers which can be digitally distributed under a compulsory mechanical license. This has led to dramatically different approaches to managing licenses across both labels and distributors.  

“As an artist and producer, I experience it firsthand daily, and it’s a common point of frustration in the industry,” says Ditri, best known for his work as part of the DJ duo Disco Fries and for more than 25 Billboard hits he’s been involved with. “Creators want to share information about their works. However, they fear that by doing so, their music will be taken down. When I spoke to Bob about this, he noted that labels and publishers are generally more interested in monetizing, in registering, tracking, and collecting royalties, than they are in taking music down. There’s definitely a disconnect between licensees and licensors, and we decided to innovate and bring the sides together.” 

This fresh approach to expanded communication, transparency and collaboration is working. Having just launched in 2024, the company is already having an immediate impact, filling holes in identifying copyright ownership while adding new categories of information and music links to the “traditional” cover, interpolation, and remix licensing process. “ClearBeats is already my go-to for sharing my favorite unreleased projects with the world. I’m thankful for their team’s ability to clear and monetize almost any record. In the past when I’ve created a sample or cover-based record, the rights owners had no idea. Now with ClearBeats, they’ve managed to register and clear the works helping leverage my new work for broader sync and other licensing opportunities,“ shares Domenico Randazzo, of Dom Did It and il Dottore Productions, songwriter and producer for artists including Chris Brown, Jason Derulo, and John Legend.

ClearBeats is tackling several pressing industry issues in parallel. In addition to the licensing team’s work, the company is developing catalog enrichment programs for labels and publishers and assisting creator platforms, such as Music.AI, in licensing catalogs for derivative creation and distribution. 

“We're excited Music.AI has the opportunity to offer its platform to Music Rightz to expand the licensing and revenue opportunities for its licensors,” says Matt Henninger, VP of Business Development and Sales at Music.AI. “Applying cutting-edge AI technology to the licensing frameworks of both Music Rightz and ClearBeats will allow content owners more control and greater revenue opportunities.”

In the ClearBeats lab, innovative tech and registry development is underway that will further close existing communication and value gaps, bringing creators into closer alignment with rights owners and administrators. And, along with tackling derivative registration and clearance shortcomings, ClearBeats has partnered with RoyaltyAmp to assist labels and publishers in finding the derivative works already on content platforms that have errors and omissions in their metadata, ensuring accurate attribution, tracking, and payments. 

“When I was building Dubset, I was told no one would solve the clearance challenges of derivative works at scale in our lifetime,” states Barbiere. “Yet once we built the music identification and attribution technology, we were able to clear the world’s catalog–over 55 million tracks across majors and indies, for use in DJ sets. We definitely opened eyes to what could be achieved with transparency and aligned incentives across creators and rights owners. Our mission with ClearBeats is to move derivative attribution to the point of inception, we want creators to create without fear and copyright owners to know when and how their catalog is being used before it is distributed. Our work is already having an immediate and sustainable impact on the industry and we are excited about what the future brings.”

Why is Solana (SOL) price down today?SOL price is down today as a wider crypto market correction takes place, and investors voice their displeasure with recent airdrops in the Solana ecosystem.

Hollywood & Mind Brings Together Top Mental Health Advocates and Entertainment HeavyweightsHollywood & Mind, a venture positioned at the intersection of the entertainment industry and the mental health sector, held its second annual Summit today on the UTA Campus in Beverly Hills, with a diverse group of thought leaders, artists, creatives, executives, and advocates united in their commitment to destigmatizing mental health challenges within the entertainment industry.

Singer-songwriter Mike Posner joined the event for a performance of his 2017 Grammy-nominated song “I Took A Pill in Ibiza” and a brand new song. He joined Hollywood & Mind founder Cathy Applefeld Olson for a thought-provoking conversation during which he shared his experience with self-exploration and discovery, including his epic walk across the United States in 2019. “Not all crazy ideas are great but all great ideas are crazy. I went on this journey and it changed my life. I’m not saying everyone here should walk across America, but sometimes there’s an internal walk we need to go on,” he said. 

In a panel with Joel Goldman of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, Angel Carter Conrad, Aaron Pearce, and Soleil Moon Frye, Frye talked about her experience making her 2021 documentary. “From my experience doing ‘KID 90’ I thought I was doing something very different, and in reliving my own childhood I had a lot of ghosts that came back and I had to process that and it was one of the true healing experiences of my life.”

Kevin Hines, storyteller, author, filmmaker, investor, and one of only a small number of survivors who attempted suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, shared, “Suicide does not take the pain away. It transfers it to everyone left behind and makes it wholly impossible for things to ever get better.” 

Through candid panel discussions, speakers encouraged attendees to address the stigma surrounding mental health struggles and shared personal strategies for effectively navigating the formidable pressures inherent within the industry. "Couples Therapy" Star Dr. Orna Guralnik, actor and singer Chyler Leigh, Maybelline Head of Brand Engagement Sarah Shaker, comedians Kevin Fredericks and Carmen Esposito, professional basketball player Imani McGee-Stafford, Indianapolis Colts vice chair/owner Kalen Jackson, “Bel Air” creator and showrunner Morgan Stevenson Cooper, model Emma Brooks, The NAACP’s Kyle Bowser, actor/singer Kevin Quinn, The Squeeze podcast co-host Tay Lautner, advocate and model Rose Montoya, Creators Capital/Empower GenZ founder Jaxon J Huffman, multi-Grammy-winning producer Aaron Pearce, were just a few of the notable speakers who offered attendees unique perspectives for managing mental health. Additional attendees included Vanderpump Rules star Rachel Leviss and actors James Haven and Gary Dourdan. 

This year's event marked the second Hollywood & Mind Summit. The inaugural Summit in 2023 featured a fireside chat between Cathy Applefeld Olson and Demi Lovato and conversations about mental health storytelling, the power of song, and partnerships among mental health organizations and creators among topics. With each gathering, Hollywood & Mind reinforces its commitment to fostering a culture of empathy, resilience, and support within the entertainment industry. As conversations continue beyond the summit, Hollywood & Mind remains steadfast in its mission to drive lasting change and elevate mental health awareness across industries. More information is available at www.hollywood-mind.com.

Pitch Deck Teardown: Cloudsmith’s $15M Series A deckThe deck included some redacted numbers, but there was still enough data to get a good picture.
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DIY Bimetallic Strip Dings for TeatimeDo you like your cup of tea to be cooled down to exactly 54 C, have a love for machining, and possess more than a little bit of a mad inventor bent? If so, then you have a lot in common with [Chronova Engineering]. In this video, we see him making a fully mechanical chime-ringing tea-temperature indicator – something we’d be tempted to do in silicon, but that’s admittedly pedestrian in comparison.
The (long) video starts off with making a DIY bimetallic strip out of titanium and brass, which it pretty fun. After some math, it is tested in a cup of hot water to ballpark the deflection. Fast-forward through twenty minutes of machining, and you get to the reveal: a tippy cup that drops a bearing onto a bell when the deflection backs off enough to indicate that the set temperature has been reached. Rube Goldberg would have been proud.
OK, so this is bonkers enough. But would you believe a bimetallic strip can be used as a voltage regulator? How many other wacky uses for this niche tech do you know?
Thanks [Itay] for the tip!

The 3D Printed Computer Space Takes ShapeA few weeks ago we brought you news of a project to recreate the flowing lines of the first computerised arcade game, Computer Space, as a full-size 3D printed replica. We left the project with all the parts put together to make a complete but unfinished shell that was very recognizable as a Computer Space cabinet but had neither finishing nor internals. Now we’re very pleased to bring you the conclusion of the project, as it moves from unfinished 3D print to playable cabinet.
The video below the break is a journey of print finishing to a very high standard with that lustrous blue glitter resin, but oddly it’s most interesting to find out about the manufacturing quirks of the original. How the rear door was imprecisely cut from plywood and fixed on with gate hinges, how the ventilation holes differ from cabinet to cabinet, and how the collection vessel for those quarters was an old tin. The monitor is a newer broadcast CRT in this version and the electronics are naturally  modern, but if you didn’t know, you’d be hard pressed to spot that you weren’t playing the real thing.
Finally we see the gameplay which is admittedly frustrating, and a little bit of punditry as to why this wasn’t the commercial success of the following Pong. It’s a fascinating look at the early computer game industry.
Have a look at our coverage of the first episode of this project.

From Downtown’s $500m credit agreement to Concord’s Hipgnosis bidding war exit… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days…
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Steve Albini: musician, producer and fierce music industry criticSteve Albini died this week at age 61. Best known as a musician and producer who made records with Nirvana, the Pixies, PJ Harvey, Robert Plant and hundreds more, he was also a biting critic of the music industry and a fierce advocate for artists.....
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UAD Triple Crown Compressor bundle is now available at 94% discount, saving you $1,120Universal Audio’s Triple Crown Compressor Bundle — which comprises three collections of plugins, each emulating a series of legendary compressors — is on sale with a 94 per cent discount. That’s a saving of $1,121.58. Yeah, you read that right.
The deal, available via Plugin Boutique, is running until 2 June 2024. So, if you’ve been eyeing up these plugins for a while, or just need some reliable compressors in your plugin folder, we suggest acting fast.
The UAD plugins run natively in your DAW, so you don’t need any external hardware from Universal Audio to get these up and running. Each collection is available in UAD Native formats (VST3, AU and AAX) but Apollo Realtime/UAD-2 are included in case you do want to use a UA interface for some DSP power.
So, what’s in the bundle?
In the UAD Triple Crown Compressor bundle, you’ll get the Teletronix LA-2A Leveler Collection, the 1176 Classic Limiter Collection and the Fairchild Tube Limiter Collection.
Teletronix LA-2A Leveler Collection
The Teletronix LA-2A Leveler Collection is based on three 1960s hardware compressors created by Teletronix’s Jim Lawrence. Teletronix’s original compressors have been studio staples for decades, favoured by some of the most revered producers and engineers in the scene. They’ve been used on records from Shakira to The White Stripes, and UA’s emulations are as faithful as you can get. Why? Because in 1967. the UA founder Bill Putnam bought the patent from Teletronix to continue manufacturing the LA-2A, right through into the digital age.
You’ll get the LA-2A Silver and Gray models, each with a distinct character for various cases, plus the Original LA-2A, which is ideal for vocal and legato performances.
1176 Classic Limiter Collection
Few compressors are as legendary as the 1176. The original hardware was made by Universal Audio in 1966 and was used on all the Michael Jackson vocals recorded by Bruce Swedien, among countless other hits by myriad producers. It’s beloved for the brightness and presence it imparts on any signal and ease of use.
The UAD 1176 collection on offer will give you three celebrated revisions: The Rev A, Rev E and Rev AE. Each one meticulously emulates the electronic path of the hardware — that includes the transformers and FET and transistor amplifiers. You’ll get all of the features and parameter configurations from the original hardware, plus a few more modern perks.
Fairchild Tube Limiter Collection
What do The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Motown and Pete Townshend have in common? The Fairchild 660 and 670 compressors.
Another hall-of-fame compressor, the Fairchild tube limiter is one you’ll want in your plugin folder. Originally created by Rein Narma on Les Paul’s kitchen table, it’s been available as a UA plugin since 2004 — and has been used by countless producers ever since.
In this bundle, you’ll get two variations — the 660 and 670 emulations — both primed for use on your full mixes, drum busses, and for bringing punch to pianos, bass and guitars. As Plugin Boutique says, this is perfect for injecting vibe and colour into your tracks or adding the final touch to your mixes.
Get the deal at Plugin Boutique.
Check out more music production deals. 
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Billie Eilish drops 49-second snippet of an unreleased song via FortniteBillie Eilish has dropped a 49-second snippet of Chihiro, the third track from her eagerly awaited third studio album Hit Me Hard and Soft, via a medium more and more artists are resorting to to spread the word about their releases: Fortnite.
It’s been confirmed that Chihiro will be included as a Jam Track in Fortnite Festival 3, the Fortnite spinoff that sees players play along with music from a host of different artists.

READ MORE: “If I record everything dry and put a bunch of plugins on it, I’ve made no decisions”: St. Vincent on the importance of “committing” to sonic ideas

The new 49-second snippet follows a shorter clip that was revealed recently on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music show, and features the pop star’s unmistakable vocals atop a mid-tempo synthwave line; evidence perhaps that the rest of Hit Me Hard and Soft will follow the same musical trajectory?
And for fans of both Billie Eilish and Fortnite, Eilish will be a playable skin via the Fortnite Festival shop. The skin sees Eilish in a basketball jersey adorned with the word “Billie”, and players can also use Flaming Hi-Hats Drums and a Red Guitar.
And if the 49-second snippet has you all excited, there’s not much longer to wait; Hit Me Hard and Soft arrives everywhere on 17 May.

Billie Eilish joins a host of other music stars who have become affiliated with Fortnite Festival in some way. Lady Gaga, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, and even Queens of the Stone Age and Weezer have all featured.
Elsewhere, Fortnite’s community experience continues to cross over into the music world. Back in March, heavy metal giants Avenged Sevenfold announced Season Pass, a Fortnite-style system that rewards fans for interacting with the band: streaming music, buying merch, attending shows, for example.
And speaking to MusicTech shortly after it was announced, lead singer M. Shadows discussed the band’s motives to create the new fan experience, employing the blockchain to do so. “We’re taking power away from corporate networks, and saying, ‘No, we’re gonna reward our fans, not you,’” he said.
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