Everything I post, gathered into one email every ten posts or so.
This feels long overdue; an act specifically targeting things like the nefarious “dark patterns” design approach of games like Candy Crush that deliberately work to make a game harder before offering you paid means to resolve an entirely made-up challenge. Also, the mention of ticket sale and virtual queue practices certainly has me hopeful that certain companies may finally be forced to change their ways.
Broadly, I agree with what Alexis Ohanian is saying here. I simply don’t believe people are craving social media apps - or what we know as the current social media “experience” - at all these days. Ultimately it feels like we need the current incumbents to die right back, and only then can better things rise up in their place. That being said, as long as any massive app follows the “sell your data” angle to make money, it is likely doomed to the same outcome as Insta et al…
I really enjoyed this piece which I think reflects this wider view that where once we were glad to be rid of gatekeepers, we now feel that in reality they played a vital role.
A colleague (who shall remain anonymous) shared this track from Skepta’s new album that he said “sounds like there’s a smoke alarm that needs its battery replacing in the studio”.
Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it!
The M-Wave FM-1 has already ascended to the “totally sold out everywhere” pantheon, thanks entirely to its firmware being completely open source and available for anyone with Claude to customise.
My buddy Pete certainly went to town with this CULTBOX firmware he made, which combines an Elka drum machine, a Polivoks synth and his own custom dub siren, among other things.
Check it out:
Really though the point is that we’re moving to a state where people can basically create their own grooveboxes now. IMO this reinforces the point I made in an earlier post, i.e. that I’d imagine the future will be less about owning loads of hardware, and more about owning a select few pieces that can be rewritten to do whatever you want at the time.
I am seeing the same thing with my Polyend Tracker, which now has upgraded (and brilliant) firmware, but also other downloads that can turn it into a 4-track looper, a 303 and a vocoder, among other things.
Exciting times!
More than $2 trillion in market value is set to be wiped from the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 this month, as Big Tech earnings intensified investor scrutiny of whether the billions being poured into artificial intelligence can generate returns quickly enough.
The wipeout would amount to slightly more than SpaceX’s entire market value.
😬
Splice knows its market here - that is, beginners who just want to smash a tune out but won’t go as far as to just use Suno.
I think we’re going to see an increasing tension between seasoned music makers who like the hard work of learning a DAW etc, versus the people who just chat into apps or platforms like this and make whatever they like. Will that de-legitimise their efforts? Time will tell I guess…
Shouts to Oli at This Is Music for turning me on to this one. I am instantly down with anything that has masses of hissy ambience, dub touches and a ton of low end. This ticks all three boxes. Ironically it sounds relatively close to the music I make, heheh. Not sure about the name, mind 😆
It always bugged me that you cannot start typing any emoji by typing it’s name in - e.g. “:laughing:” - as you can on things like Slack or WhatsApp and Signal etc.
This free app, Mojito, fixes that by enabling that method whatever app you are using on your Mac. I’ve had it for a week now and it’s already indispensable, LOL
This caught my eye: https://edjefferson.com/localwiki/
You put in your location and it generates a more localised version of Wikipedia showing you interesting things nearby. Oddly fascinating!
As everybody is no doubt aware, there’s a million custom firmwares popping up for things. I’ve been tracking one in particular for my Polyend Tracker devices, not least because they had a long-standing bug where they didn’t export at exactly 44,100 Hz. That caused a load of clock drift issues when attempting to migrate stems into your DAW.
Anyway, whilst custom firmwares have abounded, I’ve not yet seen a company really respond officially to that. Today, though, Polyend have just sent an update out with what they’re calling a community firmware. It basically seems like it’s pinched all the best features from the community mods that they’ve seen and rolled it into one official update.
Crucially, as well as adding a couple more synths and direct SD card streaming, it also fixes the export bug that was principally the reason I’d abandoned using the devices. Also, though, I note that they have now made the firmware open source on GitHub, so that essentially anyone can do anything they want with it from here on.
I think it’s the smart response, and I suspect it will generate a whole new wave of interest in the Tracker devices. Curious to see how other companies respond as I’d imagine at this point it would be madness NOT to post the firmware, especially if the devices are no longer supported (as is the case with the OG Tracker and the Mini).
Back on the 16th of October I questioned whether Meta's new terms of business (that it announced it was automatically rolling out) would give it carte blanche to train on music or other IP hosted on any website.
Clearly I was not alone in that concern, as the Copyright Alliance, which comprises bodies like the RIAA and the NMPA, has now issued a statement calling the terms “unconscionable”.
Things have not turned legal yet, as Meta has pushed back its plans to roll out the new terms, but don't be shocked if it still goes that way…
I’d heard about this lost DJ mix that was only recently unearthed; I think there was a good amount of press covering the decision to post it up. Either way, I highly recommend it. This is a DJ set that is very much in that chaotic, live, play-whatever-you-want kind of mode, and it’s a true gem because of it.
Take a listen:
I will keep saying it: there was FAR too much music being released long before AI rocked up. Now though, it is just turbo-charging a shit machine such that more than 50% of all uploads to DSPs are AI slop.
Obviously Suno has now doubled down on this by launching an MCP so you can create even more dross from within Claude, OpenAI or your LLM of choice.
Urgh.
