In its battle with online music streaming giant Spotify, Apple Music appears to have gotten the upper-hand this time around. After The New York Times reported Apple Music scored an exclusive deal with R&B singer Frank Ocean to distribute his highly-anticipated album, Boys Don’t Cry, exclusively through Apple Music for two weeks, Britney Spears took to Twitter yesterday to announce that her highly-anticipated album Glory will be made available. She tweeted:
“#Glory. My new album & the beginning of a new era. Available 8/26 on @AppleMusic. Pre-order tonight at midnight ET.”

While details are currently scarce, Spears later tweeted that those who pre-order Glory will get access to the first single Private Show instantly, with snippets now being available on YouTube, and more pirate-savvy users having access to the first single through illicit means.

posted by David Miller (via digitalmusicnews)

It’s an attractive, well-made device that adds an extra option for DJs looking to alter the way they perform. It may particularly appeal to DVS DJs who want waveform displays right there by their decks, and DJs who are sold on screens, but don’t want to replace an otherwise perfectly good controller. It does have its limitations though, especially in the library area, and for me the idea isn’t quite mature yet.

it’s a nicely built unit, in metal. It certainly looks and feels professional. It has a metal bracket base with rubber strip feet on it, and two bolts connecting this to the main part of the unit, which is about an inch thick and maybe 18″ long, with the three 4.7″ screens on top protected by a flexible plastic sheet. There are only two buttons on the top panel, those being a “Deck” button (for switching between primary and secondary decks in four-deck Serato set-ups) and a “View” button, for changing what’s shown on the screens, as well as changing some library functions (more on this later).
Around the back is a small central in/out panel, with a power on/off, a DC 12V in (a transformer is supplied), cable restraint, and two USB inputs (so you can connect an external hard drive or USB drive) as well as a PC USB socket.
The idea is you plug the Dashboard in between your laptop and controller. You perch it behind your controller and adjust it so you have the three screens right where you’d naturally glance when DJing. One niggle for me was that it was impossible to butt the unit up tightly against the back of the controller I tried it on (Denon DJ MC4000) because it needed to sit apart from it so the leads could plug in to the back of the Denon unit, the input / output part of the Dashboard gets in the way.

This is a niche product. To start with, you have to not want to have your laptop on display in the first place (personally I don’t mind that at all, and I prefer having Qwerty search for tracks, and superior library view, among other things). But if you really want to hide the laptop away, you then have to accept the Dashboard’s limitations, especially in the library area.
If you can, though, it’s an attractive, well-made device that adds an extra option for DJs looking to alter the way they perform, and the way their audiences perceive them to be performing. It may particularly appeal to DVS DJs who want waveform displays right there by their decks, and also as mentioned right at the start, to DJs who are sold on screens, but don’t want to replace an otherwise perfectly good controller. For me, though, this idea isn’t quite mature yet.

Posted by Phil Morse (via digitaldjtips)

When house legends Bad Boy Bill and Richard Vission decided to hit the road on a back-to-back all-vinyl North American tour, it sounded like a great idea. They were in need of a challenge, a little excitement, and the fact was most EDM fans 25 and younger had never even seen a vinyl DJ set before.

Together, they could hit the road, breathe excitement into the genre, and reclaim some of the respect and glory of the old days. There was just one problem – where the hell had their turntables gone?

“I lent one out to somebody, and I had no idea where it was,” Vission laughs. “I never thought I was going to be bringing turntables back in the house, setting them up – and there was a learning curve. When I got on the turntables and started practicing, that first half hour was the roughest half hour you will ever have heard.”

“Let’s be honest, Richard,” Bill teases, “there’s still a learning curve.”

With five shows below the belts, the guys have worked out the kinks, or at least most of them.

“There’s still mistakes, and that’s the fun of it,” Vission says. “You cold go see the best band in the world, but that drummer is not going to be on perfect time if you put on a metronome, but that’s what makes that band breathe. When we play, the music is breathing differently.”

To err is human and to remix records on the fly is divine. As it turned out, relearning how to analog beat match and pitch control was the least of their worries. It’s not just DJs who have unlearned the craft. Clubs, too, have shifted their set-ups to meet the demands of technology, and that presented Bill and Richard with a new set of problems they never could have imagined.

DJ booths have become smaller and more cramped. Most nightclubs have even outfitted the booth with noisy bass speakers, which is great if you’re using Serato, but not so great for sensitive wax and needle rigs. Bill spent two days experimenting with a booming system to find the right combination of vibration cancelling techniques. He settled on the very advanced combination of squash balls underneath a two-inch slab of concrete.

The pair are now five shows into a 20-date tour that will hit Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and Brooklyn the next night, with upcoming stops in Orlando, Atlanta and Los Angeles and more dates to be announced soon. That’s a lot more than they had originally anticipated. The guy’s figured they’d do six or so shows and call it a rest, but people are really embracing the idea. It’s like the fans were thirsty for something they didn’t know they wanted.

“This guy came up to us (at the first show in Cincinnati, Ohio),” Vission remembers. “He had tears in his eyes, and he was like ‘I’m sorry if I’m so emotional, but I didn’t think I’d ever see this in my lifetime again. I didn’t think I’d see DJs playing vinyl, and you guys are playing new music. This is jus one of the most amazing nights of my life.’ It’s heavy. We told him too, we didn’t think we’d be doing this two years ago either.”

Posted by David Miller (via billboard)

Sia’s “Cheap Thrills,” featuring Sean Paul, crowns the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Aug. 6), rising 3-1 to become Sia’s first Hot 100 No. 1 as an artist, while Paul earns his fourth topper and first in more than 10 years. The song unseats Drake’s “One Dance,” featuring WizKid and Kyla, which led the Hot 100 for 10 weeks, marking both the longest-leading No. 1 of 2016 and of Drake’s career.

“Thrills,” released on Monkey Puzzle/RCA Records, and from Sia’s album This Is Acting, becomes the 1,056th No. 1 in the Hot 100’s history (which dates to Aug. 4, 1958). While it’s Sia’s first No. 1 as an artist, she previously reigned as a writer, having co-written Rihanna’s “Diamonds,” which led for three weeks in 2012. “Thrills,” meanwhile, was intended to be recorded by Rihanna for her Anti album, but, as fortune would have it, Sia wound up recording it herself.

Posted by Gary Trust (via Billboard)

As the Vinyl resurgence continues to sweep the music industry, pressing plants are becoming more creative with vinyl record design. One company leading the charge is Gotta Groove Records, a Cleveland-based record press that’s pushing the limits of what can be done with the medium.

One customer asked if they could press coffee grounds into their release, and since no task is too ambitious for Gotta Groove Records, they obliged. “We were cleaning coffee out of our factory for two weeks after,” says the company’s VP of Sales and Marketing, Matt Earley.

The company, which opened in 2009, has quickly become known for carrying out strange requests. They’ve embedded records with glitter, leaves, pages from a 200-year-old book, and shredded cash, as Pitchfork reported. That being said, there are some things they just won’t do. As Early points out, “we had to draw the line somewhere; we don’t do blood.”

The experimental nature of Gotta Groove Records is what draws customers to the company, but it’s also the people behind the scenes that truly makes the operation special.

“Nobody in our company worked in vinyl manufacturing prior to this—everyone has learned it here,” Earley says. “We actually employ a lot of musicians, which makes us unique compared to our competitors. Because they’re musicians themselves, they want to put something out that would make them as proud as if it was their own record.”

Posted by David Miller (via magneticmag)

Ah, Snapchat – the social messaging platform millennials love that has everyone else scratching their heads. Formerly a messaging platform for teens, the number of Snapchat daily users exceeded Twitter’s just this June 2016, according to a survey by Bloomberg. Despite this, it’s still in its infancy: Wouldn’t you like a head start in building a following on the next big social media service where you can engage with and grow your fanbase?
Apart from connecting with followers through sending snaps to each other, you should also use it to promote yourself as a DJ: you can use it to share photos and videos of you DJing with your set-up, making mixtapes in your bedroom studio, or promoting your gigs, basically giving followers an authentic peek behind the curtains of the “reality show” that is your daily life.
so how do you begin? Here are four ways to get started on Snapchat right now.

1. Get the app and watch this basics tutorial
Snapchat is a smartphone application for Android and iOS – don’t expect a desktop or even a tablet counterpart anytime soon. Grab it on the App Store or Google Play (it’s a free download), and create your account.
Once that’s done, watch the tutorial below. It’s around 10 minutes long, but worth it for first-timers. If you’ve already got Snapchat but you’re still scratching your head (a common Snapchat user experience, I assure you), this is also a tutorial that’ll explain the fundamentals really well.

2. Use my “SC Rule Of Three” to start simple and snap regularly
One of the biggest problems Snapchat users have is choosing what to snap. Are people interested in my DJ gear? Do people want to hear my opinion on the latest Kanye West video? Will people care about what I had for breakfast?
There isn’t a definite answer to these because you still don’t have an audience, but the way you grow an audience is to consistently put out content on Snapchat: it could be a short 15-second video tour of your bedroom studio, a photo of what headphones you use, or even just a selfie using a Snapchat Lens filter (Lenses distort your face and give it cartoon-like animations).
To consistently put out snaps to my feed, I follow what I call the “SC Rule Of Three”: every day I snap at least three pieces of content, whether video or photo – one about work (writing news and reviews, behind the scenes for DDJT, opinion on gear), one about my personal life (food, watching movies, travel), and one about DJing (promoting my gigs and mixtapes/music, studio work, practice sessions). This mixes up my feed and allows me to come up with fresh content because my Snapchat basically touches all important aspects of daily living.

3. Follow DJs and producers on Snapchat
Get some ideas on what to snap by checking out the feed of other DJs on the platform. Wildly-popular Snapchat user DJ Khaled is a big name in hip-hop, but it was only when he started actively using Snapchat that he grew into a massive, international brand, even landing on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek.
If you look at his feed, you’ll just see him going about his day in a raw way: promoting his album or a sponsorship (work), enjoying a walk in his garden (personal), listening to music or snapping a gig (DJing), and so on.

Here’s a list of seven DJs and producers to get you started:
DJ Khaled – @djkhaled305
Dillon Francis – @dillonfrancis
DJ Chuckie – @clydenarain
Steve Aoki – @aokisteve
Calvin Harris – @calvinharris
A-Trak – @atrak
Zedd – @zedd

4. Engage with other DJs and fans by sending them snaps
You’ll notice later on that some followers may be sending you private snaps. This is one of the key engagement features of Snapchat, because followers can send you either a written message, a photo, or even a short video.
Snapchat isn’t a crowded space just yet, so it’s easier to get the attention of an audience simply because there just aren’t as much DJs on it at the moment compared to Twitter or Facebook. At the same time, it lets you reach out to other DJs and producers in a more personal way than, say a Facebook message or tweet.
You can set Snapchat to allow anyone to send you a private message or snap, and I encourage you to do so. I love getting snaps from DDJT readers, for example, which usually come in the form of short snap videos or messages. I reply to every one of them, and that’s the beginning of true engagement with your audience because it’s a back and forth between you and them, which makes it real (eg you’re not just some bot) and personal. Reach out to the DJs that you follow, and interact with those that follow you as well.

Posted By Joey Santos (via digitaldjtips)

A few years ago, Bandai Namco figured out the key to reviving the Pac-Man: just make the original top down dot-chomper faster, brighter and more competitive. Pac-Man Championship Edition and Championship Edition DX+ changed just enough of the classic game to make it fresh and exciting. Now, the company is going to try it one more time. Today Bandai Namco announced Pac-man Championship Edition 2, a remix that promises new rules, bigger ghosts and new direction in level design

Specifically, the new game seems to break out of the traditional Pac-man maze, but only sometimes. The trailer shows Pac-Man leaping out of levels to chase pixelaed 3D ghosts through the air, or dropping down to a hidden, second maze after completing a level. The majority of the gameplay still seems to happen on a traditional 2D plane, but a new “giant ghost” and special isomeric levels appear to break the tradition from time to time. We’ll know more when the game hits the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC this September — but either way, Pac-man Championship Edition 2 looks like a fun evolution of a classic game.

Posted by JD Live (via engadget)

Over the past few months, there’s been a lot of discussion — probably too much — over whether Kanye West obtained Taylor Swift’s permission to rap, “For all my Southside niggas that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that bitch famous.”

West probably didn’t need consent for mentioning Swift (or calling her a “bitch”) in his song, as best illustrated by a 2013 court ruling favoring Pitbull against Lindsay Lohan. The First Amendment protects such expression. Nevertheless, West spoke to Swift before “Famous” came out to run at least some of his lyrics by her. In doing so, he may have made a move that possibly did require consent: He recorded the conversation.

Now Kim Kardashian, West’s wife, has uploaded the video on her Snapchat channel. After that happened Sunday night, Swift tweeted and instagrammed her disapproval, writing, “That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet.”

This situation raises several potential legal issues. And unfortunately, many of them are dependent on facts that aren’t known for sure (or that are disputed). For instance, where

was West during this phone call? Where was Swift? The answers could have implications for the legality of West’s actions.

The issue of location probably would be the first one addressed in any legal case over a surreptitiously recorded phone conversation. Although federal law permits such recording whenever at least one party consents, eleven states require “two-party consent,” meaning both sides of a phone conversation must OK the recording. That includes California, where penalties for violations include up to a year in prison.

If Swift and West both participated in the call in California, that’s the worst case scenario for West. But even if only West was in California and Swift was elsewhere, that’s still bad for him because the state, unlike some others where “two-party consent” is required, doesn’t provide him any breaks if Swift herself wasn’t in the state during the time of the phone call, according to legal experts consulted by The Hollywood Reporter.

But the analysis doesn’t end there.

First of all, “two-party consent” has taken some judicial heat in recent years. For example, in Illinois (West’s home state), the state’s Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that a provision against recording conversations was unconstitutional as an impingement of the First Amendment. California’s own law also could undergo such an examination in the future.

Before that happens, though, if West were to find himself in court over his recording of Taylor Swift, there would likely be some quarrelling over whether there was an expectation of confidentiality. Even if Swift didn’t explicitly consent to a recording, if a reasonable person would have assumed others were listening in, Swift might not have a claim against him. On the other hand, celebrities are afforded at least some privacy. Ask Hulk Hogan, who successfully sued Gawker with claims of wiretapping and intrusion upon seclusion.

Both West and Swift are perhaps the most public of public figures. What’s more, West has appeared on his wife’s reality TV show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which is filmed by a documentary-style crew. If someone gets a call from a member of the Kardashian family, is it unreasonable to think nobody else is listening?

Posted by Eriq Gardner (via Billboard)

UPDATE: Shortly after the co-writing news broke, Calvin Harris went off on a mini Twitter rant about the “hurtful” way this revelation was made.

Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift may be over, but TSwift’s influence on his life continues in an unexpected fashion. While the jet-setting couple called it quits after almost a year, a rep for Swift confirmed to Billboard that she was the co-writer of Harris’ global smash with Rihanna, “This Is What You Came For,” which she penned under the pseudonym “Nils Sjöberg.”

TMZ reported that Swift wrote the song at a piano and made a demo on her iPhone, which she then sent to Harris, who reportedly “loved it.” An unnamed source close to Swift reportedly told the gossip site that the pair then went into a studio and did a full demo with Swift singing and Harris creating the beats.

According to TMZ, they felt it would be a smash but were afraid that having both their names on it would distract from the music, so Swift agreed to use the pseudonym, retaining the publishing rights to the track that has risen to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

On Wednesday (July 13), Harris confirmed the news, tweeting that although he wrote the music, produced the track and arranged it, Swift “initially” wanted to keep it a secret, “hence the pseudonym.” He also confirmed that Swift sings on “a little bit” of the finished product.

I wrote the music, produced the song, arranged it and cut the vocals though. And initially she wanted it kept secret, hence the pseudonym

— Calvin Harris (@CalvinHarris) July 13, 2016

And she sings on a little bit of it too

Chris Brown’s Las Vegas residency at Drai’s nightclub has been put on hold following his Instagram tirade against alleged “racist” employees.

The singer allegedly refused to apologize to the club’s owner after calling the Sin City hot spot a “racist” venue, in a letter sent to Brown’s attorney obtained by TMZ. In a now-deleted Instagram post, Brown wrote, “(Empty) Drais has some people working for them that always are on a power trip. Some racist —-. I pack this club out every single time my name is on the flyer. I keep the lights on in this place. I ain’t no slave or an employee of this establishment. So make sure you put some respek on my name!”

Drai’s nightclub responded with the following statement to Billboard:

“As one of Las Vegas’ leading nightclubs and the nation’s preeminent hip hop performance venue, Drai’s has always taken great pride in its relationships with our incredibly talented resident and guest artists, including a successful partnership with Chris Brown. However, recent events have raised concerns that will need to be addressed with Chris and his management before that relationship can continue to move forward. We have reached out accordingly and are waiting to hear back from his team. We remain open to sitting down with him to discuss the future.”

Reps for Brown were not immediately available for comment.

Earlier this month, Brown reportedly rented a villa in Ibiza and was accused of trashing the house before the landlord had the police escort him out. He also allegedly had recent fallouts with his former publicist, Nicole Perna, and manager, Mike G.

Posted by David Miller (via Billboard)

DJ Snake pleased fans July 11 by announcing the impending release date of his highly-anticipated debut album, Encore. Directly following this announcement, Snake has released the full tracklist for his 14-song album, revealing a number of previously unannounced collaborators.

Much of the information within Snake’s newest announcement is already well known. The inclusion of widely-circulated singles, such as “Middle,” “Propaganda,” and “Talk,” will come as no surprise to fans, nor will the news of his unreleased collaborations with Skrillex and Yellow Claw. What may surprise fans, however, is the diverse cast of collaborators whose involvement with Encore was hitherto unknown. Justin Bieber, Jeremih, Migos, and Travis Scott are among the album’s high profile vocal collaborators, while producer Swizz Beats and a plethora of rising talents have also been announced as part of Snake’s debut effort.

With the August 5 release date of Encore closely in sight, news of these noteworthy collaborations will only serve to increase the hype surrounding Encore’s release August 5.

Posted by David Miller (via DA)

Pokemon Go is the latest hotness in mobile gaming and Nintendo is basking in its glow — to the tune of $7.5 billion in additional market value. Nintendo stock closed up 25 percent on Monday, and by the end of last week, when Pokemon Go hit mobile devices across the US, Australia and New Zealand, the company’s stock was already up 9 percent. Nintendo added $7.5 billion to its market value on Friday and Monday alone, Reuters reports.

Nintendo didn’t directly develop or publish Pokémon Go, but it holds a stake in the series’ licensor, The Pokémon Company. Pokémon Go was developed and published by Niantic Labs, Google’s former AR division that was responsible for the Ingress mobile game. Nintendo and Google invested an estimated $30 million in Niantic while it was working on Pokémon Go.

The stock boost is great news for Nintendo, which has been struggling to save face and money since 2011. Its living room console, the Wii U, hit shelves in November 2012 and it didn’t sell nearly as well as the company expected or needed it to. Nintendo executives predicted they would move nearly 100 million Wii U consoles, but they’ve sold just 13 million since 2012. Nintendo lost money annually between fiscal years 2011 and 2014, largely banking on legacy titles like Mario, Animal Crossing and Super Smash Bros.

Of course, market value doesn’t translate directly to profit for Nintendo, but rising stock is a sign that investors still believe in the house that Mario built. Nintendo will need all the support it can get ahead of its next console launch, which we expect in March 2017.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pokémon Go will hit Europe, Japan and other Asian nations within a few days, citing people with knowledge of internal plans.

Posted By David Miller (via engadget)