Music industry meltdown, iZotope Trash relaunch, Captain Monk artist spotlight
Studio Tool You Need 🎹
IZotope has reintroduced its popular distortion plugin, Trash. It returns with a complete redesign, new features, and support for AUv3 and is available as a free version called Trash Lite. The relaunch features over 60 distortion types, a reverb with over 600 impulse responses, an envelope follower, and a resonant scream filter. Read more about it here!
Production Sauce 🎵
Ableton 12’s new MIDI generators are super cool! These can be useful when you're in the mood to try something new! Among these generators are: “rhythm” for beats, ”seed” for Melodic midi, “shape” for counter-melodies, and “stacks” for chords. Check it out here.
News You Should Hear About ⚠️
Layoffs continue in the music industry, marking a period of uncertainty for artists and musicians. Warner, UMG, Spotify, and Youtube Music (which announced layoffs of all unionized department employees during an intense Austin City Council testimony last month) are among the culprits, letting go of thousands of employees this past year.
With pressure from stakeholders to remain profitable, a volatile economic market, new advancements in AI, labor rights demonstrations, and TikTok's grip on artist discovery (not to mention the possible ban of the platform in the U.S.), the entire industry experiencing an intense transition.
To read more on the topic, check out these articles from Billboard and Bloomberg.
An Industry Secret They Don't Want You To Know 🤫
A lot of our students perform as DJs; we want to make sure they're putting on their best performance possible! We found an article that illustrates common DJing mistakes you should avoid when you're playing out on the decks. Check it out here!
Artists We Love 🎤
Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jackson Allen is Captain Monk. Allen carefully crafts and performs every piece of sound in each of his songs, so you can't help but jam out whenever and wherever you're listening to him. The project is the vessel that allows Allen to combine all of his inspirations and talents into music that defies genre at every turn. Check out our favorites, "Worms" and "Doesn't Even Matter" on Spotify and Apple Music.
What's Happening at 343?
Thank you to all who came to our open house on Thursday! We enjoyed seeing some fresh faces!
We've got events every week, including Ableton User Groups, Community Feedback Sessions, Free Masterclasses, and more! Check out our upcoming events here!
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