You need to listen to Laurie Spiegel’s masterpiece of early ambient music
You need to listen to Laurie Spiegel’s masterpiece of early ambient music

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Laurie Spiegel for the site. As preparation for the interview, I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks revisiting Spiegel’s records, most notably The Expanding Universe, her 1980 masterpiece that blends synth experimentalism with early examples of what would eventually be called ambient music, […]

Arturia’s FX Collection 6 adds two new effects and a $99 intro version
Arturia’s FX Collection 6 adds two new effects and a $99 intro version

Arturia launched a new version of its flagship effects suite, FX Collection, which includes two new plug-ins, EFX Ambient and Pitch Shifter-910. FX Collection 6 also marks the introduction of an Intro version with a selection of six effects covering the basics for $99. That pales in comparison to the 39 effects in the full […]

Google’s new music tool, Lyria 3 is here
Google’s new music tool, Lyria 3 is here

Google’s announcement that its Gemini app now writes music for you isn’t just one of those “blowing my mind” product updates. It feels like a symbolic surrender to a long-standing refrain from Big Tech: creative work is now just another checkbox for a …

Laurie Spiegel on the difference between algorithmic music and ‘AI’
Laurie Spiegel on the difference between algorithmic music and ‘AI’

In 1986, electronic music pioneer Laurie Spiegel created Music Mouse, a way for those with a Mac, Atari, or Amiga computer to dabble in algorithmic music creation. Music Mouse is deceptively simple: Notes are arranged on an XY grid, and you play it by moving a mouse around. Back in 1986, the computer mouse was […]

Georgia Tech announced the finalists in its wild musical instrument competition
Georgia Tech announced the finalists in its wild musical instrument competition

Georgia Tech has announced the finalists in its annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. Every year, for the last 28 years, the school invites inventors from around the world to submit new instruments of their own design to compete for $10,000 in prizes. Past finalists have included founding members of Teenage Engineering, Artiphon, and Roli. And […]

Ableton Live is adding audio streaming for real-time musical collaboration
Ableton Live is adding audio streaming for real-time musical collaboration

Ableton is rolling out the Live 12.4 Beta with a number of new features, but the headliner is Link Audio, which enables real-time collaboration between devices on a local network. Having to be on the same network is a serious limitation and, as the name implies, Link Audio only supports streaming audio. That means your […]

An ice dance duo skated to AI music at the Olympics

Czech ice dancers Katerina Mrazkova and Daniel Mrazek are learning the hard way that LLMs sometimes spit out straight-up plagiarism.

Live Nation’s monopoly trial is reportedly fracturing Trump’s Justice Department
Live Nation’s monopoly trial is reportedly fracturing Trump’s Justice Department

Live Nation executives have reportedly sidestepped the Justice Department’s antitrust division to negotiate directly with more sympathetic senior officials in the hopes of avoiding a monopoly trial. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” Semafor reports that some talks have excluded antitrust chief Gail Slater, who has pushed for a trial to take place in March […]

YouTube Music starts putting lyrics behind a paywall
YouTube Music starts putting lyrics behind a paywall

Free YouTube Music accounts are now seeing their access to lyrics limited, according to multiple reports. Google started testing lyrics as an exclusive feature for Premium users in September, but it appears that it’s now receiving a wider rollout. It seems that free users will be limited to viewing lyrics for five songs per month, […]