Ableton Live 9.1, innovations in grime, lawsuits and cancellations, and EZ interviews Todd Edwards about garage.
Ableton showcase Live 9.1. Dennis DeSantis gave a surprise demo of Live 9.1’s key features at the Ableton and Kompakt’s pop-up in Berlin. DeSantis showed attendees dual-monitor support for arrangement and session views, more functionality in Push and improved rendering when downsampling. Read more here.
Defected’s takeover of Booom! shuts early due to gas hazard. The Ibiza club was shut early following reports of either tear gas or a fire extinguisher and the offender has been arrested. Defected speculated on Twitter that the incident may have been part of a “continued dirty tricks campaign” against Booom this summer.
Jobs at Ableton. The Berlin-based music software company is advertising a bunch of vacancies including roles in development, HR, UX and visual design. Check them out here.
Ministry of Sound sues Spotify. Launched in the UK High Court on Monday, the proceedings are based on copyright infringement by users uploading playlists which copy Ministry’s compilation albums. Spotify has the licenses for individual songs, so the suit will focus on whether the compilation structure can be copyrighted, raising issues over the value of curation.
“It’s a lost city.” Dubspot contributor Mike Styels speaks to London producer and Lost Codes label boss Visionist about the grime revival, his concern that some of the scene’s big names are not from the city and his quest to challenge to British producers to innovate. Read it here.
Loopmasters launch hip hop sample imprint. Rawcutz, launched by Loopmasters and Equipped music, will provide organic hip hop samples using MPC, E-mu SP-1200, drum machines, vinyl and live instruments. Sign up here for a free samples pack.
Final day of Electric Zoo cancelled. Made Event and the New York City authorities agreed to shut down the final day of the city’s electronic music festival after two MDMA-related deaths and the hospitalisation of several others.
… and US musicians warn about Ecstasy. Kaskade A-Trak, apl.de.ap, Steve Aoki, Z-Trip and Tommie Sunshine star in a video advising on safety and drug-taking, or, they suggest, “You can choose to take nothing at all”.
Elektron announce new Elektronauts community. The Swedish music machine maker will launch the Elektronaut site as a meeting point for discussions around music production and Elektron gear in particular. The community launches on 9th September, sign up here.
Steinberg pull development and technical support for VST 2. Steinberg announced they will be focusing solely on the Software Development Kit of the newer VST 3 and will make the SDK for VST 2 unavailable by the end of this year. Interesting response from the Twitter community here.
The Black Dog launches Kickstarter campaign for new control surface. The Machinewerks CS X51 will be sourced and manufactured as much as possible in the UK and is based around intuitive design, durable quality and The Black Dog’s 30 years of production and DJing experience. Check out the campaign here.
“You don’t have foreplay after you have sex”. DJ EZ interviews Todd Edwards at SW4.