Today as the United States celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is another opportunity worldwide to reflect on Black identity in music and BIPOC and marginalized roles in music generally. Here’s some reading, including the sometimes challenging relationship between Hip Hop and King.
Music
Interview: Michael Vincent Waller connects concert music and hip-hop
Music Stories December 26, 2024
Live radio from Gaza, Khan Younis and Bethlehem-Hebron choirs meet
Music December 24, 2024
Liz Pelly’s Spotify book reveals how company uses ghost content
Music Tech Web December 19, 2024
Lemur lives: iOS/Android app acquired by MIDI Kinetics
This endangered species of beloved multi-touch app – the one that (in hardware form) inspired all the rest – has a second lease on life. But you’ll have to wait a bit to see the Lemur in the wild on app stores again. Here are the details, just announced.
Autechre dropped a 5.5 hour mix to celebrate the re-release of Artificial Intelligence compilation
It’s been just over 30 years since Autechre released Artificial Intelligence on Warp. That’s getting a fresh re-release – and the duo are taking to Mixlr to celebrate. Got 330 minutes free?
West Coast chops continue to grow on macOS-iOS modular Audulus
You’ll need the latest iOS and macOS to run it, but the next-generation Audulus 4 continues to impress as a deep, accessible soft modular. And it gets more and more West Coast by the day – as we catch a first glimpse of the next “Buchaudulus” system.
Teenage Engineering OP-1 field review, not a review: in the field, on an album
Nothing defies trends quite like the Teenage Engineering OP-1. It’s small and lean, but priced alongside pro instruments. It’s a compact luxury synth. We bring back our resident expert on mobile production, Swedish gear, and multifunction compact goodness Andreas Roman to give us a review – or not. Swede anti-reviews Swede. Go. -Ed.
Teenage Engineering OP-1 field now has a vocoder, on top of velocity sensitivity update
Sweden’s Teenage Engineering keeps adding to the OP-1 field, successor to the original OP-1 candybar multi-function synth / micro workstation. The latest surprise – a vocoder – following up on November’s addition of velocity sensitivity.
Vocal techniques in Ableton Live, with superstar artist and teacher Claire Marie Lim, dolltr!ck
Vocalists wanting to get deeper into production – producers wanting to improve vocals – there’s always more to learn. So we consulted the multi-faceted music technologist and artist Claire Marie Lim. From Berklee teacher to her artistic project dolltr!ck, there are few people with more knowledge in more contexts. Let’s dive in. Tackling vocals in […]
Saffron’s 7 Days of Sound is online pay-what-you-can classes for female, non-binary folks
From Friday January 27 – Thursday February 2, the excellent Saffron music tech programming is offering seven days of online workshops, ranging from running a label to vocal production to mastering. It’s pay-what-you-will, exclusively for women, non-binary, and trans folks worldwide. And with this faculty, if you identify with one of those groups, you might want to check your calendar.
SOMA’s PULSAR-23 gets an epic free community patch book
How do you know analog and patch cords are really back? It’s the return of the patch book. The beloved SOMA PULSAR•23 just got an 80-odd-page tome full of patches for this unique “organismic” instrument, from community members and friends of SOMA.
ReBoard transforms melodic playing in Ableton Live with Samchillian layout
You’ve got piano keyboards, you’ve got various grids. But whole new worlds of melodic playing and rapid-fire melodies become possible when you go relative. ReBoard does just that, and it makes even playing from your QWERTY keyboard “awesomely simple” — and enjoyable.