WMG’s Robert Kyncl expects more artist-centric streaming deals, and 2 other things we learned on the company’s latest earnings callWarner Music Group's CEO weighed in on YouTube's new AI tool that clones superstars' voices, and said he's talking to politicians about AI regulation.
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Steinberg release fresh Nuendo update with unique features for “immersive sound mixing”It doesn’t seem long since Steinberg launched Cubase 13, but now it’s released Nuendo 13 too.

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The new software includes a completely integrated workflow allowing you to authorise and mix content for the MPEG-H audio format, as well as some mouth-watering new features and improvements.
Plenty of features added to Cubase 13 have been added to the latest Nuendo update too. These include a revamped MixConsole, and a Channel Tab which will give you access to all of a channel’s important parameters. Headphones Match has also been updated with an extra five models, while there are more design tools than previously, too. Take the Steinberg Vocoder, which offers up to 24 filter bands, sidechain input, and in-depth control. And, the EQ-P1A and EQ-M5 equalisers and the Black Valve and VoxComp compressors are all-new, too.
There are some great dialogue editing and ADR tools, with new features that make it an improvement on its predecessors. Take, for example, the offline TonalMatch process, which allows you to analyse characteristics of audio recordings, and the VoiceSeparator plug-in, which is based on AI, and allows you to isolate dialogue.
Then there’s the new VocalChain plug-in, which includes dedicated modules for the various steps of voice processing – with a wide range of presets for post-production exclusively. And with ADR Script Reader, ADR takes will be displayed through your web browse, giving the voice talent a digital script, and giving the editor the means to both change it and add notes too.
You can use Nuendo 13 on Macs running at least macOS 12, and on PCs running at least Windows 10. It’s priced at £859, while there are various upgrade and crossgrade options available. Meanwhile, if you’ve activated an earlier version of Nuendo 12 from 18 October onwards, you’ll be eligible for a free update to the new version.
For more information, head to the Steinberg website, or check out the video below:

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Vicious Antelope Solar System: Floating - Pigments Solar System: Floating contains 106 sci-fi themed cinematic atmospheres for Arturia Pigments and Analog Lab V. The main characteristic of the soundbank is the slow rising sounds, the heavy... Read More

CreateSafe, the company behind Grimes AI, raises $4.6m in seed roundFunding round was led by Polychain Capital
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Soundtoys announces $53,640 donation to the International Rescue CommitteeSoundtoys has made a donation of $53,640 to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Sound On Sound has reported.

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In March 2022, the company announced that they’d be donating 100 per cent of sales revenue from the Radiator plug-in to not-for-profit organisations, so that their customers can help people in need.
And now, they’ve followed through with this donation to the IRC, which helps people in crisis around the world. Among the countries in which the IRC operate include Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On its website, Soundtoys has thanked its customers for their “support and willingness to get involved.”
Ken Bogdanowicz, founder of Soundtoys, said: “It can be disheartening to see so much division and violence in the world, but I’m always encouraged by the outpouring of support we get when we try to raise awareness and support for the causes that we believe in.
“We’re proud of the work the International Rescue Committee is doing, and we’re proud of our creative and caring community who continue to help us help others.”
Meanwhile, IRC has said, “The humanitarian imperative, and the principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence, and humanity which drive it forward have never been more needed.”
And Soundtoys has said that it’ll be continuing to donate revenue from sales of the Radiator plug-in to not-for-profit organisations. Next up will be Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, which provides medical care for people in places affected by natural disasters or conflict.
Other organisations Soundtoys has previously supported include World Central Kitchen, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Red Cross Society of Ukraine, and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS). Over the years, it’s raised over $780,000 for worthy causes.
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More than 50% of Grammy 2024 Nominations went to independentsMore than half of all 2024 Grammy nominations went to independent artists and labels according to A2IM (American Association of Independent Music). “A2IM offers its heartfelt congratulations to the independent. Continue reading
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Music Health Alliance offers healthcare help for musiciansMusic Industry 360 is our music industry podcast that aims to educate new and existing musicians about tools in the industry, while sharing knowledge to help artists take their careers. Continue reading
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QUICK HITS: Machin + Virgin • Brooklyn Basement expands • GoldState + Flexpoint Ford •Machin & Equinoccio Records have signed a worldwide agreement with Virgin Music Group.  The independent labels, founded by legendary Mexican singer, songwriter, and producer Pepe Aguilar, both focus on the Regional Mexican genre. • Brooklyn. Continue reading
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For the love of sound : How vintage hi-fi sound systems are driving boutique club nights forwardFor the at-home enthusiast, audio gear from the 70s and 80s is highly prized – and the price and rarity often reflect this. Older brands, such as Klipsch, Sansui, and Altec Lansing made consistently high-quality audio equipment, while today’s major brands, like Bose, Pioneer, JBL, and Sony had their moments of brilliance too.
READ MORE: Majority’s Teton Plus raises the bar for what an entry-level home AV system should aspire to
Using this vintage equipment in bars and clubs is a much trickier endeavour. The gear is far pricier and rarer, the speakers less efficient, and the amps less powerful. Yet, it is also this equipment, or designs and components used in this vintage gear, which is most sought after by some of the best-sounding bars, clubs, and speaker designers around.
To find out more, we hear from two legendary club nights and sound systems, London’s Beauty and the Beat and Leeds’ Cosmic Slop; head honcho of Rhythm section Bradley Zero and his excellent new bar Moko in London, Tottenham; custom speaker designer Friendly Pressure; and legendary London hi-fi store Audio Gold.
Beauty And The Beast setup
Why go vintage?
Some reasons for purchasing vintage gear are rational, others are emotional. On the latter point, a chrome face, power gauges, analogue dials, and the glowing valves of an old system are rewarding to feel and see. On the former, they often sound excellent. It’s hard to quantify, as the senses remain subjective, but older audio components are known for their relaxed, warm sound, thanks to the analogue circuitry. This is usually in contrast to the cleaner and more detailed characteristics of modern audio.
Custom speaker maker Friendly Pressure, based in London, plans and builds custom speakers for home or venue use. In the words of founder and owner Shivas Howard Brown, FP aims to combine the sound and component quality of vintage speakers with modern manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing – as shown below sitting nicely at Moko.
Friendly Pressure, Image: giftyphotographer
On the rational side of why and how, Shivas explains that older speakers use materials that are simply harder to come by nowadays – resistors and transistors, for example. Secondly, the majority of the audio market is focused on PAs for public venues rather than home sound systems. In addition, the ways we recreate and amplify sound – in all but the higher end of audio equipment – have swapped quality for efficiency, and so moved to digital from solid state or valve, for example.
A growing interest
Shivas says, however, that this increase in convenient, passive listening has caused an increase in active, dedicated listeners too: “They want a more emotional and sentimental connection to their music.”
Robin, one of the team members at Audio Gold, a three-decade-old audiophile Mecca in Muswell Hill, London, agrees. He says that the uptick in interest has been particularly driven by younger generations. For reference, the global home audio market is expected to grow at an aggregate rate of 11.4 per cent from 2022 to 2027, and for vinyl, 2022 marked the 17th consecutive year that the number sold rose.
There seem to be more bars and clubs using this vintage sound too. One to note is Moko in Tottenham – run by global oddities and house label Rhythm Section head honcho, Peckham legend, and all-round lovely guy, Bradley Zero.
Friendly Pressure. Image: giftyphotographer
Moko may not be quite a ‘listening bar’, but there is a similar attention to detail in the hardware used – if in a setting more appropriate to dancing. Friendly Pressure’s custom FP398s provide the sound, with custom monitors, a Technics 1210 turntable, an Acuphase amp, and a rotary E&S DJR400 turntable “for now,” says Zero.
The space is, however, is in desperate need of room treatment and soundproofing, with its concrete roof and subsequent resonance.
Bradley Zero speaks less about his bars and more about what should be an essential pilgrimage for anyone with two ears and two legs: Cosmic Slop in Leeds. This monthly club night is run by the people behind MAP, a charity that provides children less fortunate the opportunity to learn about music production and gain BTEC qualifications.
Cosmic Slop
To this writer, there is no better-sounding club, more beautiful a crowd, or more noble a cause.
The system in Cosmic Slop, located in Hope House just outside of Leeds city centre, is truly special. It’s so special, in fact, that the sound (and its charitable cause) brings DJs such as Floating Points, Coco Maria, and Bradley Zero himself, who all typically charge pretty hefty fees, to play for free. Furthermore, lineups are often left unannounced, which makes it even more rewarding when you see someone special in the booth.
Tom Smith, the founder and owner, is the custodian of the original blueprints from New York icon Paradise Garage. He went to New York and met some of the last people who worked on the system for Larry Levant and built it to Cosmic Slop’s spec. As Bradley Zero’s says, “when you play there, you feel you’re stepping back in time to this paragon of musical excellence.”
“Every note played gets powered up and comes out earthshaking,” he adds. “Last time I played, Tom ended on a blues song, and it had a room full of young people going crazy. Just the stomp of the foot was causing the room to shake.”
Tom also runs MAP Charity, an alternative education provider working with young people who are unable to access the mainstream school system.
Beauty and the Beat
Beauty and the Beat is a party in London with a similar focus on sound quality supplied by pricey vintage components.
They started with two stacks of Klipshorns, and over 18 years, built the system to where it stands today:
• Five Klipschorns (one of these is used as a mono channel)
• Two Tannoys (one York and one Majestic)
• Two Mark Levinson amps (27.5 and 334)
• One Music Fidelity XA50 mono amp
• One Sugden masterclass SPA-4 stereo amp
• Isonoe ISO420 mixer
• Two Technics 1210 turntables with upgraded tonearms (Jelco) + Isonoe isolation feet
• Audio Technica VM740 ML cartridges
BATB adds two more Klipshorns into the mix for a seven-point system in their current venue Hackney Wick Baths. One of the founders of Beauty and the Beat, Cyril Cornet, says that “being surrounded and immersed by music is pretty hard to beat…When dancing in the sweet spot, you forget where the sound comes from”. Plus, they add, there’s a social aspect to the setup – it means dancers don’t end up all facing the DJ at the front.
This is a truly special party, which sounds, feels, and looks excellent. You’re as likely to hear classics like Santana’s //Black Magic Woman// or Talking Heads’ Girlfriend is Better as you are hypnotic tabla solos and spiritual chanting – and all on wax.
It takes years to build such exquisite and priceless gifts to the human ear and heart, but you have to start somewhere. Hence, personal friends Fly Away Hearts, a new party in London, are building their own bespoke Klipschorn system, so they deserve a shout-out here too.
Dedicated to the cause
It’s not just the gear used that makes these places special. With this sound comes an ability for DJs to truly play whatever they like – as illustrated by Tom Smith’s closing tune. People playing here usually, and should, exploit this freedom to the fullest, dredging the bottom of their record bags and finding oddballs and gems.
Cosmic Slop is unashamedly fun and free, – and totally without pretension. Beauty and the Beat differs slightly. Its ethos is almost spiritual, much less anarchic, and verges on serious and sophisticated, with a focus on global, percussive, and psychedelic tunes.
The music played is, of course, the star of the show. After all, I’ve had more enthusiastic dances around a decent portable speaker than high-end vintage audio systems. However, the music is given new life when played through systems of this quality and becomes truly transcendental.
But it’s more than just sound quality. These sound systems are a mark of dedication. It may not be the most accessible of pursuits, but running these rigs shows a love for music that’s been built over a lifetime. Instead of hoarding such high-end (and expensive) equipment inside their living rooms, they share the love with a room full of dancers and trust no one pokes their key through a driver. Brave.
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Now-Again label head hits back at “baseless and libellous” MF DOOM lawsuitOne of MF DOOM‘s former collaborator’s attorneys has hit back at a lawsuit claiming that he stole dozens of the late rapper’s private notebooks, per Billboard.

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MF DOOM’s widow sued Eothen “Egon” Alapatt last month, claiming that Egon, the founder and president of Now-Again Records, took the notebooks while DOOM, real name Daniel Dumile, was in the UK before his 2020 death, and has refused to return them.
But Egon’s attorneys have called her case “baseless and libellous”, with attorney Kenneth Freundlich releasing a statement on Tuesday (14 November). He wrote, “Plaintiffs’ complaint is the continuation of a year-long smear campaign filled with baseless and libellous attacks on Alapatt’s integrity and character.”
DOOM travelled to the UK to perform in 2010, but due to immigration issues couldn’t return back to the US. He then died suddenly a decade later following rare complications relating to blood pressure medication.
His widow, Jasmine Dumile Thompson, sets out in the lawsuit that DOOM left behind 31 “rhyme books” in his Los Angeles studio, containing original lyrics to both released and unreleased songs, as well as song ideas. Her lawyers claim that Egon “took advantage of DOOM’s being out of the country” to buy the books from his landlord without his permission.
And it’s alleged that when DOOM asked for them back, Egon “delayed, obfuscated and deflected”, before refusing to return them. And Thompson claims that he’s demanded the notebooks be donated to an archive, going against her late husband’s wishes for them to stay “secret and confidential.”
Thompson’s lawyers wrote in their complaint, “Who is Alapatt to decide that the notebooks containing the personal and intellectual property of DOOM, the rights to which are plaintiffs’ alone, must be donated to an archive against the will of the deceased artist and his surviving family? Setting aside the fact that the notebooks were stolen, Alapatt’s arrogant paternalism and extreme tone-deafness in trying to dictate that the notebooks be donated is astonishing.”
Meanwhile, Egon’s lawyers have admitted that he took possession of the notebooks, but claimed that DOOM wasn’t their legal owner at the time of his death. Rather, the landlord was the owner because the notebooks had been left there, and there was unpaid rent on the studio.
They argued that, had Egon not bought them, the landlord “would have either sold or possibly destroyed the notebooks.”
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Steinberg unveil Nuendo 13 Nuendo 13 delivers a range of improvements to the built-in immersive audio capabilities, as well as kitting out sound designers, mixers, dialogue editors and ADR engineers with a whole host of helpful new tools and features.

David Guetta claims world no.1 DJ title in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs pollDavid Guetta has once again claimed the title of World’s No.1 DJ in DJ Mag’s annual Top 100 DJs poll.

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This is the fourth time the French producer-DJ has ranked top on the poll. Commenting on the win, Guetta says, “It’s incredible! It’s wonderful! It’s great because I feel like every time I’m on the top of the Top 100 DJs, it’s for a different reason.”
“You know, the two previous times were probably thanks to Future Rave. This time is probably thanks to I’m Good and those big crossover records. I love that I can express different feelings in different ways.”
Last year, Guetta’s longtime collaborator and friend Martin Garrix topped the poll. Both DJs are now the owners of four No. 1 titles, second only to Dutch trance legend Armin van Buuren, with his five No. 1s.
A luminary in the realm of electronic dance music (EDM), Guetta’s breakthrough came with the release of his 2009 album, One Love, which catapulted him to international fame. The French DJ’s prowess has also been acknowledged with multiple Grammy Awards, including Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for his work on Madonna’s Revolver and Best Dance Recording for When Love Takes Over with Kelly Rowland.

Within the last year alone, Guetta has partnered with artists such as Britney Spears, Zara Larsson, Bebe Rexha, Kim Petras, and BTS star Jung Kook.
A total of 1.3 million votes were counted from 237 countries in this year’s Top 100 DJs poll. Check out the full list at DJ Mag.
In related news, David Guetta has dismissed claims made by Deadmau5 that “[at] most major festivals, [DJs] have to play pre-recorded sets”.
“I was looking online at Deadmau5 who was saying every DJ, including me, is playing a pre-recorded set,” the Titanium producer said in a recent interview on The Daily Star’s Wired column [via NME].
“I won’t speak for other people, but I’ve never done that. You often see comments from people that I do this, but it’s not true. I love DJ-ing, and DJ-ing is about reading the crowd and connecting to them.”
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“I wouldn’t be surprised if George wanted to get back to his garden in all honesty”: Giles Martin says George Harrison didn’t love Now And Then when it was first recordedGiles Martin, the co-producer of the Beatles’ new song Now And Then, has shed some light on George Harrison’s lack of love for the track when they recorded it in the ’90s.

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Touted as the fab four’s “last”, Now And Then features sonic contributions from all four Beatles: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The song arrived earlier this month and is part of the newly remastered The Beatles 1962-66 (aka The Red Album) released last week along with The Beatles 1967-1970 (aka The Blue Album).
In addition to the cleaned-up audio sourced from a John Lennon demo tape dating back to the late 1970s, the song features guitar contributions from the late Harrison, who made no secret of his dislike of the song.
Asked if there were concerns about Harrison’s wishes being posthumously overruled with the release of Now and Then, Martin told MOJO magazine: “No, because of course this wouldn’t happen without [George’s widow] Olivia and [son] Dhani’s approval.”
“It wasn’t that George didn’t like the track,” the producer explains.
“It was that they’d done the other two and the quality [of the Now And Then demo] was so bad, I wouldn’t be surprised if George wanted to get back to his garden in all honesty.”

In related news, Giles Martin has clarified that AI software was only used to extract and clean up Lennon’s vocals on the demo track, saying, “It might have been easier if I used AI, but I didn’t.”
Of the song’s backing vocals in particular, Martin said: “No, it’s not artificial or intelligent. No, it’s the same process that I used, as you say so rightly, in Love.”
“I’m not using AI to recreate their voices in any way. I’m literally taking the multitrack tapes of Eleanor Rigby, some stuff from Because and Here, There, and Everywhere, just in the same way the Beatles are splicing that in.”
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Yamaha’s new HS3 and HS4 studio monitors are the brand’s lightest and most compact yetYamaha has announced the latest addition to its iconic HS Series with the HS3 and HS4 speakers. These new two-way bass reflex powered studio monitors feature a premium, compact design, delivering “faithful sound reproduction” for professionals and audiophiles who require a small, lightweight footprint.

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The HS3 and HS4 are said to “continue the design philosophy and know-how of previous Yamaha studio monitors”.
To start, their compact size was made possible thanks to the use of a highly efficient class-D amplifier. Using one amp for two speakers allows for a reduction in the weight of the speakers and simplifies the cable connections, making the HS3 and HS4 perfect for home studios or on-the-go use.
While they’re both pretty tiny by studio monitor standards — and certainly the smallest of the HS range, the HS4 does come with larger cone woofers and dome tweeters compared to the HS3. It also boasts a slightly wider frequency response of 60 Hz – 22 kHz (-10dB) versus the HS3’s 70 Hz – 22 kHz (-10dB).
The monitors feature Yamaha’s proprietary “Twisted Flare Port” technology which reduces air turbulence noise in the bass reflex port for clear and accurate bass. Users can enjoy outstanding resolution, sound image, and depth, with a flat response across all bandwidths and no colouring of the original sound.
In addition, the rear panels of the HS3 and HS4 are equipped with Room Control and High Trim functions so you can adjust the sound to suit your environment, like reducing the exaggerated low-end that may occur when speakers are placed next to walls.
Connections wise, we have XLR/TRS phone, RCA, and stereo mini-jacks, which should cover everything from computers and audio interfaces to audio mixers and electric instruments.
Both speakers are available in a sleek black or white finish. The HS3 is priced at $229.99 while the HS4 comes in at $249.99.

Learn more at Yamaha.
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Black Octopus Sound Futuretone – Slap House Delight Black Octopus Sound and Futuretone have released 'Slap House Delight', a collection of samples and presets ideal for Slap House and a variety of House and EDM music. What's... Read More