Music Production
Demo Submissions for Charlotte de Witte’s KNTXT Label Are Open
For one week only, techno queen Charlotte de Witte is opening up her KNTXT Music imprint for demo submissions for the first time in history. Providing an exciting opportunity for label support, electronic music producers can send music directly to de Witte’s ears via a submission form from March 15th to 21st. With only nine releases under its belt since 2019, KNTXT Music is an exclusive hub for forward-thinking techno music. Tracks by Monoloc, Alignment and ONYVAA were hand-picked by de Witte, making this call for new demos a unique way for rising producers to get their foot in the door. According to KNTXT, this initiative kicks off a commitment to accept submissions annually. “KNTXT stands for purity, strength and progression, within a vibrant and ever evolvin...
iZotope and Native Instruments Join Forces in Landmark Partnership
Prominent audio technology companies iZotope and Native Instruments have joined forces once again—this time, for good. The past has seen iZotope introduce Native Kontrol Standard into its Ozone 9 mastering plugin. That collaborative effort, among many others, sent Native Instruments CEO Constantin Koehncke and iZotope CEO Mark Ethier down the rabbit hole of ideas for future team-ups. However, the duo quickly realized that something much larger than a one-off collaboration was afoot. It became clear that a permanent partnership was inevitable. Now, iZotope and Native Instruments have banded together to form a super-sized music and audio creation group. So what does that partnership mean? No concrete details have been given out just yet, but iZotope...
Dirtybird’s Claude VonStroke Drops New Sample Pack, Announces Music Production Contest
Music producers can now glimpse into the weird and wonderful musical mind of Claude VonStroke, Dirtybird‘s papa bird, who has been pushing the envelope of house music for years with his unique approach to production. The famed producer and DJ dropped his new sample pack today, dubbed “Claude’s Construction Vol 1.” The bundle contains all the bells and whistles necessary for artists to craft their own twists on VonStroke’s quirky, forward-thinking sound. And that’s exactly what he wants. In addition the sample pack, he announced a special beat-making contest for music producers, who can win a free yearlong Birdfeed subscription for free, an official release on the Birdfeed subsidiary record label, and plays on DIRTYBIRD LIVE TV and the Birdh...
Serato and Splice Join Forces to Launch Arcade-Inspired Music Production Competition
The production grandmasters at Serato Studio and Splice are summoning all music producers for a beatmaking battle for the ages. Their joint competition, BeatFighter Slam Dunk, will pit producers against each other in a head-to-head competition for the chance to be crowned a beatmaking champion. To accept this challenge, producers must create a beat using sounds from the Splice BeatFighter sound pack. Beats must utilize at least one sound from the pack in order to be eligible. You’ll then need to screen-record your Serato studio session, upload the session to Instagram, and use the hashtag #SeratoBeatFighter to enter. If your entry impresses the judges you could land among the elite eight beat fighters, who will compete head-to-head until one winner is ultimately left stand...
Explore Eliminate’s Unique Sound With His Debut Splice Sample Pack
At long last, one of the brightest sound designers in electronic music has released his debut Splice sample pack. Music producers can now explore over 800 samples produced by Eliminate, the Los Angeles-based beatsmith and Disciple Recordings crown jewel pushing the envelope of trap and dubstep. With tracks like the RL Grime-supported “Mula” and the festival-dominating “Weeble Wobble,” Eliminate has emerged as one of the most promising artists in the game with his quirky, roaring twist on modern bass music. Fellow producers are now able to peruse and download the nasty, glitched-out sounds he used to create those tracks, which are among the most heavily supported in live DJ sets. Eliminate Eliminate has also emerged as one of the dance music scene’s most p...
Watch Diplo Make a Beat Using His Tesla
From self-driving to generating wet fart noises in “fart mode,” Teslas really can do it all. They can even be used to produce music. Diplo shared a video today in which he makes a beat from scratch—with his Tesla. Using nothing but his car’s dashboard, he recreated the beat of “New Love,” his new Silk City single with Mark Ronson and Ellie Goulding. What is this sorcery, you ask? It looks like Diplo used a program called TRAX, a digital audio workstation (DAW) offered by Tesla in one of the company’s recent vehicular software updates. The in-car music studio had been available to owners in late 2019, but it has now been enhanced with expanded capabilities. While TRAX is much more limited than industry-standard DAWs like Ableton a...
Roland’s Verselab MV-1 Allows Producers to Create Complete Songs Without a Laptop
Roland‘s latest offering is a game-changer for music production, a powerful instrument encompassing a groove box, vocal processor, and sampler in one device. Best of all, it enables music producers to create an entire song in under ten minutes—no laptop required. The architects of the iconic TR-808 drum machine have another cutting edge product on their hands, a standalone music studio that conveniently aims to do it all. The instrument arrives with 3,000 sounds preloaded, but an endless supply remains at producers’ fingertips via Roland Cloud. Melody writing is made easy with key quantization and variety is oftentimes a button push away, allowing producers to easily add arpeggiation, pitch bend, and much more. The device’s song mode keeps organization easy, al...
Secretive White Noise Spammers are Making a Killing on Spotify—Here’s How
Popular white noise “artists” on Spotify such as White Noise Baby Sleep and Smart Baby Lullaby have cracked the code on the elusive of concept of making money from streaming. And they’re hardly doing any work for it at all. White noise soundscapes are “truly brainless to produce,” said an anonymous former sound designer for UK-based company Ameritz in a statement to OneZero. The sound designer chose to remain anonymous to avoid potential repercussions of revealing this trick, but claimed he’d spent countless hours recording white noise such as computer and desk fans. Those recordings turn into the white noise tracks released on Spotify via a myriad of virtually anonymous sources, but many are tied to a shell “record label” ...
Here’s a Free Pack of 80’s-Inspired Synthwave Drum Samples
It’s no secret that synthwave has erupted in popularity in recent years. The genre has escaped the handcuffs of its confines in sci-fi soundtracks and video games, breaking into the mainstream with a synth-laden vengeance. To lend a hand to the growing number of electronic music producers taking on synthwave, BVKER has released an expansive sound pack of retro-inspired drum machine samples. The bundle is a goldmine for beatmakers looking for drums to level up their vaporwave jams and create that nostalgic 80s feel. It contains over 100 samples, including punchy kicks, reverbed snares, and toms to craft those classic fills. All of the samples in BVKER’s new “Aesthetic” pack are 24-bit, 44.1kHz and—most importantly—royalty-free so produce...
Stranger Things Composer Michael Stein Launches Music Production Tool Service
Music producers and fans of the dreamy, atmospheric synth work of the popular series Stranger Things will be delighted to learn that the mind behind its award-winning music, Michael Stein, has compiled his sounds into a new production service for the Ableton and Logic Pro digital workstations. The Protovault is a collaborative effort between Stein and producer Protovolt that was custom-designed from the musicians’ stunning vintage synths for use in music production. Three different series of The Protovault will be rotated on a monthly basis, with each collection only available for 30 days. Instead of genres of music, the series is centered around cinematic themes, the first of which focuses on classic action films of the 1980s. 25 multi-sampled instrume...
NOISIA’s Nik Roos Announces Upcoming Music Production Tutorials
Nik Roos of legendary drum & bass and breakbeat trio NOISIA has announced that he will be hosting twin music production tutorials before the end of December. Music producers who’d like a glimpse into the iconic group’s music production techniques should head over to their Patreon to unlock the tutorials. Roos will be dissecting the project file for NOISIA’s track “Running Blind,” which appeared on 2014’s Purpose EP. In his announcement shared via Twitter, he said he’ll be talking about the challenges of mixing the track’s drums and bass and promised “lots of EQ.” In the year after NOISIA’s shocking split, Roos has kept busy. He teamed up with Jeremy Glenn of The Upbeats to la...
Watch What So Not and San Holo Go Head-to-Head in Season Finale of “Beat Smash”
Ever since they debuted their “Beat Smash” series in October 2020, Brownies & Lemonade have served up unique music production content featuring many dance music stars. QUIX, Juelz, TYNAN, Blanke, and many others have graced the show’s virtual stage in a head-to-head battle of beats over the last couple months. To put a cherry on top of the series, they recently tapped two of the brightest music producers in EDM, What So Not and San Holo, for what proved to be the biggest episode of “Beat Smash” since its inception. Check out the final episode below, where the two future bass titans play old hits, remixes, unreleased tracks, and even create new music from scratch. Fans of San Holo and What So Not will surely remember “If You Only K...
