Apple is reportedly launching its new over-the-ear headphones this June. The information comes courtesy of leaker Jon Prosser, the same source who broke rumor’s of the 14-inch MacBook Pro’s supposed release in May 2020.
The tech analyst and Front Page Tech founder tweeted his findings about the new Apple headphones, whose internal codename is B515. Prosser shared that the headphones would bear similarities to the Bose 700 and retail for $350, launching at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. He also shared information about AirPods X’s release due for September or October.
According to Prosser, Apple’s foray into building its own headphones and earphones line has the end goal of phasing out Beats. He referenced a special employee discount for Beats as indications that the tech giant was in fact, trying to clear its inventory to pave the way for its own branded headphones.
You ready for this?
Apple Over-Ear Headphones Codename: B515 (Think Beats 700) $350 Aimed for WWDC
AirPods X Codename: B517 For sports/running (think Beats X) ~$200 Aimed for Sept/Oct
Probably what DigiTimes thought was “AirsPods Pro Lite”
Dexter’s Beat Laboratory is a weekly collection of songs from DA managing editor Robyn Dexter. With a taste that can only be described as eclectic—to say nothing of a name that lends itself to punnery—DA is happy to present a selection of tracks personally curated by Dexter for your listening pleasure.
Andromedik‘s latest on Liquicity Records is full of intensity and sensational builds. Its introductory notes usher in an otherworldly landscape as the Belgian producer crescendoes into dramatic vocals and an unexpected drop. A drum ‘n’ bass rhythm moves the tune along at a rapid pace, gathering momentum from each verse and sending the listener up farther into the clouds.
Hidden Face‘s newest release showcases his signature moody house atmosphere, lending itself perfectly to the name of the song, “Hazy.” He’s remixed Funky Fool and Fredrik Ferrier’s lighthearted pop tune into something much more introspective and contemplative, encouraging listeners to hit the dance floor of a dark and, well, hazy, nightclub.
Just a week removed from the release of their collaboration with Mat Zo, The Knocks have taken on MILCK’s “If I Ruled The World.” This groovy remix preserves MILCK’s empowering vocals but steps up the tempo and introduces a fresh, summer-ready beat. A jovial melody dances throughout the chorus, bringing a lighthearted touch as MILCK sings about her plans for an ideal world.
The Midnight released the stems for four of their songs at the end of March, giving producers the chance to mold their own takes on “Los Angeles,” “The Comeback Kid,” “River of Darkness,” and “Explorers.” StayLoose took the opportunity to craft his own rendition of “Los Angeles” and created a dreamy, trap-infused iteration that’s sure to thrill both fans of The Midnight and StayLoose.
TOKYO ROSE, PYLOT and Essenger—talk about a talented trio. The three have combined for an ’80s-fueled synthwave journey called “Out of Luck,” combining their skills for a dramatic and powerful soundscape. TOKYO ROSE noted that the tune marks his final synthwave effort, and what a way to go out.
And, we’re back ladies & gentlemen. While the world continues to search for the light at the end of the tunnel amid the COVID-19 crisis, artists and the music industry as a whole have done an incredible job developing livestream events and keeping people at home. So here we are, the fourth edition of our “lockdown livestream” roundup guide to provide a variety of dance entertainment options for the weekend and a review of some highlights from this past week.
The weekend of April 10, virtual ravers will not need to leave their living rooms as a full slate of festivals and individual sets are on deck. Major events include Nocturnal Wonderland‘s Rave-a-thon, MK performing a Mixmag Lab Home Session, Duke Dumont, and Destructo‘s Easter Sunrise Sermon. Check out the schedule below for upcoming streams and a roundup of the other virtual events that you may have missed this past week. Happy streaming!
Dirtybird Campout West Coast has announced the festival’s postponement until 2021, marking the first of fall festivals that have fallen victim to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. The festival was originally slated to return to the Modesto Reservoir Campgrounds for their annual event in October 2020, however recently organizers made the decision to return on October 8 – 10, 2021. After an unprecedented wave of summer festivals like EDC Las Vegas and Bonnaroo have been forced to postpone their events to the fall, the remainder of festivals that haven’t yet made a decision may fold this year due to the inevitable saturation of overlapping events that have moved to September and October.
Though the West Coast festival has parted ways with the possibility of a deferred date, the Dirtybird team including label boss Claude VonStroke have pointed to their brand new festival Dirtybird CampINN. The three-day festival is scheduled to take place during the September 4 – 6 weekend in Orlando, Florida.
April without Coachella doesn’t even really feel like April, does it?
In lieu of Coachella, originally set to kick off its first weekend of 2020 today (April 10), the legendary southern California affair is debuting its highly anticipated documentary film, Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert, examining the festival’s inimitable legacy.
Opening Coachella’s vault of footage for the first time, fans will get a rare inside look at some of the festival’s most iconic performances—from Daft Punk‘s groundbreaking Alive performance to Swedish House Mafia‘s 2012 headline, with footage of Kanye West, Madonna, Rage Against the Machine, and more in between.
Typically this weekend, fans across the world would be tuning into YouTube to experience Coachella from their living rooms. This year, Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert will have to suffice, and hopefully the nostalgic walk down memory lane is enough to hold fans over to Coachella’s rescheduled October 2020 dates. Watch the new documentary below.
“Love To The World” is Diplo’s first release on Higher Ground since his hit track with SIDEPIECE, “On My Mind.” It also marks Wax Motif’s first appearance on the recently minted label, and he clearly knows how to make an entrance. “Love To The World” carries an uplifting energy about it, perfect for sunny spring days. Disco-inspired guitar riffs and vocal chops come together with more contemporary dance elements, resulting an immediately infectious bop worth repeated playbacks. Hopefully Diplo has set aside enough time for more Higher Ground releases coming soon, because his latest is a must add into any feel-good house mix.
Deals and offers are all over the place, but what will actually help you get over creative block and make something? These free Ableton Live add-ons and an invaluable book make a great place to start.
Making Music: Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers is a written book – not a YouTube channel, not a device. But it was one of the more ambitious and influential music tech projects of recent years. It’s the work of Dennis DeSantis, who has a deep background in concert music. The book takes on how to start, strategies for creating new and varied ideas, ways of solving problems, and how to finish – all with a mixture of music theory and software practice. And maybe that’s the best way to describe the state of music making now anyway – theory and (electronic) tools are blurred. The Ableton touch is there, but it’s applicable to other tools, as well.
You’ll find it on a new page Ableton have compiled, free for download in .pdf, .mobi, and .epub format.
Don’t forget that Ableton Live itself is available now in the full Suite edition for a 90-day unlimited trial.
And speaking of that, this exceptional collection of Max for Live devices is also now available, a collaboration between Ableton and the wonderful Sonic Bloom and Max for Cats. They had me at the name:
MSE synth, looking very classic synth – Oberheim-ish.
A vintage-tinged, Oberheim Four Voice-influenced MSE synthesizer.
SEQ8 step sequencer (more traditional analog design).
ConChord – nice cure for the common step sequencer.
ConChord, a “pulse-based chord step sequencer” – so you can sequence full chords as well as steps, and look at those steps in terms of pulses, for more open-ended patterns.
Stochastic Delay, which eschews the usual repetitive quality of delays with variable unpredictability.
Weird reverb algorithm, made usable.
Verbotron – an elegant little reverb, drawing on an algorithm from Finland’s Juhana Sadeharju. (You’ll find other iterations of the underlying algorithm in the open source world – as GVerb. But think of this as a nerdy, unique esoteric reverb to get you out of the everything-sounds-the-same world of effects.)
Color.
Color is a “sound texture” device – so it’s a bunch of different retro sound models, mimicking the grit of vinyl, tape wow and flutter, drive, and EQ. Putting them all together gives you a nice console to shape your sound without overwhelming with controls or getting lost in a bunch of plug-ins. That last bit, I heard about a friend of a friend who made that mistake. Not me. I’m a professional. I would never get distracted by endlessly tweaking a bunch of plug-ins and then toggling them on and off over and over again. I mean, I just never get distracted in general. You’ll see that not happening right now. Wait, where was I?
SkramDelay is actually kind of the odd effect out here, in a good way – modulated dual-channel delay with more randomness.
And that seems like a nice, healthy diet balancing some bread-and-butter features with pretty esoteric and experimental stuff, in such a way that you could easily apply anything in between. If that’s not what Ableton has always been about, I don’t know what is.
Speaking of which, bonus – only because Robert Henke was sharing this on his social media this week – watch the Ableton co-founder product some synthetic sounds using Live as instrument. One of the first videos Ableton ever uploaded to the then-new YouTube service (CDM was in its second year):
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Despite the grainy video, this is actually just as relevant an approach to sound design and routing in Live in 2020 as it was in 2006.
Don’t forget that for more inspiration, you can check out some of the guides I’ve done recently for Riemann Kollektion:
Following the dissolution of Swedish House Mafia, it wasn’t long before the broken ranks reformed by Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso had already won their way back into hearts of millions. “Something New” and “On My Way” were both internationally certified smashes and the duo was piecing together a full-length album following their formal entrance at The Governors Ball 2014. Coming off an Ultra Music Festival high from just a month prior, they were well aware that it was only a mild precursor to one of live entertainment’s most prestigious honors—a headlining slot at Coachella in the spring of 2015. With the California festival’s 2020 anniversary on hiatus until October due to the global coronavirus pandemic, re-experiencing the full hour of Axwell Λ Ingrosso seemed only fitting as the Coachella blues are at an all-time high.
Coachella was the golden opportunity for the duo to officially reintroduce themselves to more than just the dance music market and they did just that on the biggest platform. The live additions made it all the more unforgettable as recent collaborators, Salem al Fakir and Vincent Pontare joined the duo on stage for renditions of the then-unreleased “More Than You Know” and “Sun Is Shining.” While it wasn’t the instinctive progressive house sound that was hailed in the early 2010s, Axwell Λ Ingrosso brought forth a more matured approach that still evoked the same exhilaration that the former Mafia’s catalog had induced in crowds around the world. From rinsing the “In My Mind” remix to “This Time” to the still-unreleased “Bliss,” the longtime friends had made a more than compelling case that they were perhaps at the top of their game at Coachella 2015.
Rumors have circulated about the festival in Rothbury, Michigan being moved from June 25-28 to the second weekend in September, but Insomniac Events had not addressed the specific rumors surrounding a date change of the 10th anniversary of Electric Forest. Although last November Electric Forest was approved for a 10-year extension by the council, their 2020 edition may be at stake.
Following the council meeting, Electric Forest released a statement confirming no future date for the 2020 festival has been set, but their exploring all options and will provide updates as they’re available. See the full statement from the festival below.
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Probably what DigiTimes thought was “AirsPods Pro Lite”
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