#universal audio interface

[proaudioclinic]

Discover the Best Audio Interfaces and Studio Gear for Every Recording Setup

If you’re a music producer, sound engineer, podcaster, or content creator, having the right audio gear is essential to delivering high-quality sound. Whether you’re setting up a home studio or expanding a professional one, investing in the best audio interfaces can transform your recordings from average to studio-grade excellence.

At Pro Audio Clinic, we specialize in wholesale audio equipments and premium studio solutions, helping you gear up without breaking the bank. In this blog, we’ll explore the best audio interfaces, spotlight the Apollo Twin, and explain why a universal audio interface is an essential addition to your setup.

Why the Best Audio Interfaces Matter

An audio interface is the heart of any recording studio. Choosing the best audio interfaces can drastically improve clarity, reduce latency, and expand your input/output capabilities.

Key features to consider:

Preamp quality: Clean, noise-free amplification for mics and instruments.

Connectivity: USB, Thunderbolt, or PCIe to suit your workflow.

Conversion rates: High sample and bit rates for pristine audio capture.

Latency: Lower is better for live tracking and mixing.

Apollo Twin: A Game-Changer in Audio Gear

When it comes to premium audio interfaces, few names stand out like the Apollo Twin. This interface by Universal Audio is renowned for its elite sound quality, Unison mic preamps, and real-time UAD plugin processing.

Why professionals love the Apollo Twin:

Unison Technology: Models the sound of classic mic preamps and guitar amps.

Real-Time UAD Processing: Track with near-zero latency using analog-modeled plugins.

Studio-Grade A/D and D/A Conversion: High fidelity audio that meets pro standards.

Whether you're recording vocals, instruments, or mixing down tracks, the Apollo Twin delivers unparalleled control and sound.

Choosing a Universal Audio Interface: Flexibility for Any Studio

A universal audio interface refers to a unit compatible with various operating systems (Windows, macOS) and DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) like Pro Tools, Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Logic Pro. These interfaces provide plug-and-play convenience and seamless integration across platforms.

At Pro Audio Clinic, we recommend universal interfaces for beginners and pros alike. Not only do they simplify the setup, but they also ensure your studio remains future-proof.

Top benefits:

Cross-platform compatibility

Ease of installation and use

Wide range of I/O options

Scalability for growing studio needs

From USB-C to Thunderbolt interfaces, we stock a wide variety of universal models to meet every level of demand.

Building a Studio with Wholesale Audio Equipments

If you’re building or upgrading a recording studio, purchasing wholesale audio equipments is the smartest move. Buying gear in bulk not only lowers your per-unit cost but also ensures consistency in sound quality across multiple recording setups.

At Pro Audio Clinic, we provide:

Bulk discounts on the best audio interfaces

Mix-and-match bundles of studio essentials (monitors, microphones, cables)

Expert consultation for outfitting commercial studios, schools, and production houses

Access to top brands like Universal Audio, Focusrite, PreSonus, and more

Whether you’re setting up a music school, outfitting multiple booths in a professional studio, or launching a podcast network, our wholesale solutions can be tailored to your unique needs.

Tips for Selecting the Right Audio Interface

When shopping for an audio interface, keep these pointers in mind:

Assess Your I/O Needs: How many microphones, instruments, and monitors will you connect?

Consider Portability: Do you need a compact unit for mobile recording?

Budget Wisely: Opt for the best performance within your price range.

Look for Expandability: Can the interface grow with your studio?

Check Plugin Compatibility: Interfaces like the Apollo Twin include powerful DSP-based plugin suites.

Why Buy from Pro Audio Clinic?

Pro Audio Clinic isn’t just a retailer—we’re your audio gear partner.

Genuine, brand-new equipment

Competitive pricing on all gear, including Apollo Twin and other industry-leading models

Wholesale deals for bulk buyers

Expert support from engineers and technicians who understand your needs

Whether you're a home studio enthusiast or managing a full-scale recording facility, we're here to help you find the best audio interfaces and gear that deliver professional results.

Final Thoughts

Investing in high-quality audio gear is not a luxury—it's a necessity for anyone serious about sound. The right interface, such as the Apollo Twin, can dramatically elevate your production quality. And with access to universal audio interfaces and wholesale audio equipments at Pro Audio Clinic, building your dream studio is more affordable than ever.

Explore our collection today at Pro Audio Clinic and gear up with the best tools for your next audio masterpiece.

[itsapmseymour]

Hi PM! rookie voice actor here. I've gotten a few roles, but my shoddy-at-beat mic quality is starting to really hinder me. do you have any recommendations for someone who isn't exactly pro, but knows this is what they want to do for a living? (I'm not looking for a starter microphone, I'm looking fore something that has good sound quality and will hopefully last a while)

The old Budget friendly Reliable

Audio Technica AT2020 Microphone and Solid State Logic SSL2 USB Audio Interface, or the Universal Audio Volt 176~

The SSL2 is very future proof and I still use mine. That mic will definitely be upgradable down the line but hooked up to that interface will make ya sound sparkly

[impossiblesuitcase]

Since Cinder is able to lower and raise her audio interface, it's likely that her hearing is artificial and she was deafened from the fire. So I have a modern AU headcanon where Cinder is deafened by the fire and wears hearing aids as a child. But when they break, Adri won't pay to get news ones or have them repaired. So Cinder relies on lip reading and she and Peony start learning sign from the internet. After a few years Cinder begins learning mechanics and is able to fix her hearing aids. She now prefers sign as she uses it with her deaf friends so she often turns her hearing aids off or doesn't wear them.

Flash forward to when Cinder is at university on a mechanical engineering scholarship. Kai reads her name in the uni newsletter under the scholarship recipients and is super impressed to see all the engineering awards she won as at such a young age. He comes up behind her one day and starts speaking. She says nothing. He feels really awkward and walks away. Then later on he sees her across the lawn with a group of other deaf students signing.

He is so invested in getting to know her that he starts learning sign in between classes and studying. Then one day he 'happens' to be strolling by the route she frequents and 'accidentally' drops his book which she picks up. He signs 'thank you' and they start signing. He's slow and messes up a lot but she finds it cute.

A few months pass and they build a friendship through sign. Kai wants to ask her out but he's embarrassed that he only has the signing abilities of a toddler. Then one day he sees her at a party and is walking up to her when Thorne pops around the corner, yells "Hey Cinder!" and she waves and says, "Hey Thorne."

Kai bluescreens. He runs up to her and splutters out, "you can hear?!"

She parts the hair covering her ears to show off her hearing aids. "I speak more than I sign because of my classes. I thought you already knew."

Kai says he didn't, and asks why she never spoke to him since she could.

She shrugs. "I thought you were only hanging out with me because you wanted to practise your sign."

He gapes. "I was signing to you because I want to date you!"

Cinder is flustered; she already thought he was a cool guy, but to hear that he learnt sign specifically so he could communicate with her is touching.

Over the next few weeks they speak and she teaches him more sign. One day she teaches him a new sentence and he asks what it means. She tells him, "let's go on a date."

[emotionallyattachednerd]

Unforeseen Reunion | TP Ratchet x Drift/Deadlock | NSFW 18+

Word count: 7000+ 😲

Warnings: Smut ( valve and plug interfacing ), mentions of violence, near death experiance and angst. NSFW 18+.

Notes: So yeah, I lost complete control of myself. Holy crap, I'm impressed with myself. I decided I wanted to go with Prime universe as that's what my hyperfixation went with. I didn't completely focus on canon just so everyone is aware. I had way too much fun with this and I'm so obsessed with these two. Enjoy this work of art you beautiful sinners. 🥰

The crash landing was the sign that his luck had run out. Deadlock had been travelling for far too long, isolated in his barely hanging on ship without contact, that's until he managed to receive a transmission from decepticons. He should've been pleased, yet he didn't feel it, just emptiness.

It wasn't until he hit the earth's atmosphere that his ship decided it had enough, power shut off and he came plummeting towards the earth. He tried gaining control but that failed so he tried contacting the decepticons requesting assistance, but even that was a deadend. No help was coming for him.

Bracing for impact he thought he might have a chance but the rough landing was much harsher than expected, throwing him around and a sharp piece of metal punctured through him, slicing his fuel tank and severed a fuel line. Terrific.

Deadlock manages to get himself out of his piece of scrap ship and take a few steps forward, only to collapse onto the ground with a pained grunt and look down at his servo that held his wounded area to see a lot of energon was leaking from him. He can't help but let out a vented chuckle, convinced this was going to be it for him.

Only managing to get a short distance away from the crash site he couldn't walk anymore and slid his back down against a tree, venting out heavily as if a pressure was lifted from him. He knew though, his systems were struggling, warnings flashing before his optics, it won't be long before he shuts down and slowly offline from bleeding out. One more time he tried making contact but got nothing in return. Either his com links weren't working or they didn't care about him.

There used to be someone in his life who was very dear to him. He saved his life after getting himself hooked up on circuit boosters, gave him a chance, and he stayed with him. He loved him with all his spark, then the war started and that's where it all went wrong.

Eventually he would make choices and every choice has a price. Whether it was worth it or not, Deadlock never wanted to answer that himself.

He was one of Megatron's favourites. He's the one who gave him his new name and grew from that back on cybertron. He thought he was making the right choice, but he was wrong, and he's had to live with that all this time. He became emotionless, making him willing to kill when needed or ordered, leaving a trail of horrors behind which was enough to make any autobot and decepticon worst nightmare.

Now, he was dying, alone. Just as he deserved.

Leaning himself against the tree all he could do was observe his surroundings, take in what might be his last memories. Everything grew weaker, more burned out as his fuel tank pumped harshly to get energon through him, only for it to leak out.

His audios managed to pick up some sounds of a ground bridge. Had they finally decided to show pity and come for him? He onlines his hazy optics only to be met with the end of a blaster and an autobot symbol.

"Oh just my luck." Deadlock manages to say between harsh vents. "An autobot gets to watch me die in my final moments....or, you can take the shot, put me out of my misery?"

"Is that what you want?" Arcee keeps her guard up and weapons ready, not wanting to give him any chance to attack if he was faking.

"Does it matter what I want?"

"No, it doesn't." Bulkhead comes up behind, forcing Deadlock to move his helm up to look at him.

"Well you're a big one." He casually smirks through his pain. "So, what's it going to be? What's the...autobot thing to do?"

Arcee and Bulkhead had been sent to investigate the crash sight after it made impact. They knew it was a decepticon shuttle but weren't sure if it was occupied. Upon arrival it's confirmed. Neither wanted to let their guard down just in case he had any tricks or if the decepticons might show up.

"What do you think?" Bulkhead asks Arcee, unsure what they should do. Letting him die without them helping didn't seem right, but he was a con.

"Let's call Optimus, see what he has to say." Arcee answers.

Deadlock heard the autobot leader's name causing him to let out another vented chuckle. "Your big boss is here? Huh. Alright, call him, see if he has mercy on a filthy con." He was just talking, it's all he can do for his final moments.

While Bulkhead makes the call Arcee keeps her optics on him with her blaster still drawn. "You got a name?"

The big ask. "If I told you...you're going to wish you pulled the trigger." He decided to not say his name. If she found out, she might just pull the trigger on him without hesitation, not that he cared.

"I don't recognize you. You're not someone I've bumped into before, and I remember every bot I have. So who are you?"

"How about you tell me your name first?" Deadlock manages to tilt his helm to the side as he meets her optics, letting out a smirk when all she gives is silence, his pearly white dentas and sharp fangs pressing over his bottom lips. "Yeah...that's what I thought."

Deadlock notices Arcee say something else but it all goes deaf to his audios. He's lost a lot of energon and he knows he's in trouble as things in him start slowly shutting down. He manages to activate his audios again and this is when he hears more voices and steps coming closer. If he was to survive, he wasn't even sure what he'd do next, not anymore.

A part of him did want to be offline. It'll end everything for good, and perhaps give him some peace of mind, not that he deserved it.

"Hey, you still with us?" Bulkhead taps the top of his helm to bring him back, causing him to let out a groan and online again.

"Sort of..." Is his only honest answer.

"Well, today is your lucky day con. Our medic is going to come and patch you up. Try to remember this moment that we helped you." Bulkhead adds firmly for him to think about.

"I'm jumping with joy." Deadlock chuckles dryly, a little energon drops from his mouth as he tastes it flooding in his intake. Yeah, he felt it was too late.

"Drift?"

That voice.

He manages to move his helm back up and his amber optics flickered as he meets the gaze of the ghostly familiar figure standing before the ground. Ratchet. His Ratchet.

"You know him?" Arcee was surprised to hear Ratchet say the decepticons name. But Ratchet couldn't answer, he was frozen, as if he was petrified or enthralled by the very sight of what he thought he lost those years ago.

Deadlock, his given decepticon name, lets out a softly dry laugh that lingers longer with a smile, disbelief and sadness overwhelming his struggling processor. He finally found him.

"Perhaps I am lucky." He says with his wide smile, sharp dentas glittering in under the sunlight. "It's good to see you Ratty."

Under Optimus' orders Ratchet came to patch up the new decepticon before sending him on their way. He was a medic, he treated the wounded, but treating a decepticon was different. He's done it before of course, but not often. Ratchet felt his servos shake as he stood there. Hearing the old pet name made his vents hitch a little and his own emotions boiling up, completely deaf to Arcee as she questions him.

It's not until Deadlock slumps against the tree that Ratchet finally acted. Hurrying forward he came to his side and started to work on him. His wounds were bad, he knew this already just simply looking at him from afar.

"How do you know him?" Arcee repeats coming to the medics side.

"Later." Ratchet's focus was on him. "Let me work."

Neither Bulkhead or Arcee have ever seen Ratchet like this before. Sure, they've seen him sad, angry, annoyed, happy, but this is different.

When he feels his servos against his frame Deadlock lets out a shutter, both relief and pain. He tilts his helm up to get a better look at Ratchet and manages to hold a soft smile that feels foreign to him, he hasn't smiled like that in a very long time. There was a deep history there, and the two went through a lot together, right before he hurt his Ratty. He didn't deserve to be saved, or given a chance. Damage was done.

"Saving your life, again." Ratchet mutters mostly to himself, his own emotions rattled. "Reckless. Stupid. All this time and you're online, still. I'm out of my mind. I should hate you, no, I do hate you, but my spark is aching for you." His voice is low as if he's whispering to himself but Deadlock hears it. "Why did you....How could you...." His words break apart and that hits Deadlock hard.

"I'm sorry." Is all he can whisper, touching Ratchet's working servo and gaining his attention. "I'm sorry....I'm so sorry." Apologising won't fix the past or his choices, but it's the first time he's ever said it to him.

As much as Ratchet is hurting he knew he couldn't lose him again. Whatever happens next will be whether it was too late or not.

"Kids, stay back." Bulkhead hurries through the ground bridge first and warns the kids all hanging around the raised platform along with Agent Fowler and June.

"What's going on?" Raf asks curiously, noticing his worried expression.

"Optimus, he won't listen. Can you talk to him? This is crazy!" Arcee is next feeling enraged about Ratchet's decision.

Ratchet comes through next, carrying a badly wounded Deadlock in his arms with strength no one else had seen him with for a long time.

"You brought a Decepticon back here?" June raises her hand over Raf and makes sure the kids stay behind her. "Ratchet the kids are here!"

"Don't like it, find the door." Ratchet barks back, taking many of them off guard. He ignores everyone and places him on the medical berth, quickly gathering tools to start stabilising him.

Deadlock was hanging close over the edge, everything in him hurt and his processor was swimming wildly. He had no idea where he was, only that Ratchet was with him, and that's all that mattered.

"So cool." Miko comes closer to get a better view. Jack tries to stop her.

"Miko-"

"No way I want to watch!"

Optimus comes closer but stays out of Ratchet's way and stares at the decepticon brought in, his optics widening a little as if something clicked in his processor, and Arcee notices this.

"You know him too. Ratchet called him Drift. Who is that?"

Optimus is quiet before looking at his comrades. "Ratchet knows him. Let him work."

"But-"

"Please, Arcee." Optimus knew just how sensitive this would be for his old friend, and can't imagine but he must be feeling right now.

Arcee finally backs off but that doesn't mean she was alright with this. Most of everyone wasn't. Miko sits on the edge of the lower platform as she watches Ratchet do his magic on the decepticon, a fascination. June only manages to keep Jack and Raf away, still not liking that a decepticon was near the kids base.

"Prime, is this safe?" Agent Fowler questions him quietly. "I get that he's a friend of Ratchet's, but that doesn't change he's a decepticon."

"I understand your concern. But please, I'm asking you all to let Ratchet handle this." Optimus didn't want to explain everything in that moment, respecting Ratchet and hoping everyone will follow the same.

Deadlock was in and out of it for a bit, gold optics flashing repeatedly as Ratchet tried to stop the bleeding and keep him stable. Everything hurt through him, but not as bad as the ache in his spark that throbs with grief for his Ratty. He was saving his life yet again, trying to at least.

"Are you still with me?" Ratchet's tone is more gentle as he hovers over him once he manages to stop the bleeding.

"Ah huh..." He manages to say between heavy vents.

"I need to repair the damage and get energon running through you again. Try to keep still, you're at the start of a long road recovery."

Before he could say anything else, Ratchet had gone to get a few things. Deadlock tilts his helm a little to the side and through his flickering vision he spots something, or someone. The pink is what catches his attention first and gives himself a moment to adjust his vision before it clears up almost.

"Well, you're tiny." He manages to say softly through a short chuckle.

"I might be small, but I can rip your spark out." Miko doesn't hold back.

"I better...stay on your good side than. What are you?"

"What am I? I'm human. The names Miko. You've never seen a human before?"

"Nah, you're the first, Miko."

"What are your first impressions?"

"Well...you did threaten to rip my spark out...so I'm fearful of you." He only meant it as a joke and Miko knew this, and she gave a small smirk at him. She didn't like cons, but this one seems different.

Even Ratchet didn't seem bothered about his interaction with her. June slowly comes closer, Jack and Raf right behind her, still being careful.

"You're Drift, right?" Miko leans her chin against the railing feeling a bit more comfortable to stay.

"Yes." It's Ratchet that answers quickly before Deadlock could. He understood. Meeting his gaze there was that firm and serious blaze he knew all too well from his Ratty. It meant there was going to be no further mention about it.

"Yeah...I'm Drift." Saying the name again after so long felt weird, but guess he'll adjust to it again.

Suddenly, he jolts and groans in pain through clenched dentas as Ratchet wields something into place. It hurts a lot, but at least it doesn’t last too long.

"Could you give me a warning next time?" He vents once it stops.

"Nope." Ratchet answers simply.

He understands.

"How do you two know each other?" It's Raf that bravely asks, mainly both of them.

"We...go way back." Drift answers, optics shifting at the medic at his side. "Ain't that right Ratty?"

"Hm." Ratchet doesn't answer much after hearing his old nickname.

"Ratty?" Miko can't help but smirk at the medic.

"Only he is allowed to call me that." He tells her. No one else ever did.

"He hates it, but I get away with it." Drift smirks lightly before wincing again. "Frag..." Optics manage to cast over at the other autobots standing together outside the bay and staring, most of them looking not too happy causing him to vent out. "Stop."

Ratchet does but only because he's confused. "What?"

"Just...stop. Just...you shouldn't be helping, you know?"

"Do you want to be offline?" Ratchet hits his tool against the table causing the humans the jump and gives an intense stare at Drift. "Do you just want to give up?"

"Your friends don't want to waste resources on a filthy con...I don't deserve it. You...you shouldn't be helping me."

"Well, too bad. You don't get to have a say in what I do, we're well past that. Perhaps you're right about not deserving to be saved, but the only one that gets to decide your fate is me." Ratchet leans closer to Drift, optics burning, before he erupts. "The only way you will be offline is if I allow it, because I'm the only one who has every right to let you bleed out right now! You don't get to decide your fate! I do! Is that understood?!"

His outburst is heard by everyone. Even the humans shrink away a little, never seeing Ratchet this angry before. Something deep was there, but no one knew just how deep.

Drift doesn't flinch. He takes it, accepts Ratchet's rage. He's right, only he has the right to decide what happens next. All he can do is let him do what he wants, he is no longer in control of his fate.

"Understood."

Ratchet lets out a heavy vent and goes back to work on him, only to look up when he feels everyone staring. "What?" He snaps, bothered that everyone was just staring.

"Everyone, let's give them space." Optimus finally says. "Ratchet has work to do." He'll give that privacy to his old friend without distractions.

June leads the kids away and Miko follows to let Ratchet work. Only Optimus understands what Ratchet must be feeling, he knew what Drift meant to him, and knew just what they've both dealt with over the years. The others all had raising questions but at least they weren't hammering either him or Ratchet with them to get answers, and respected what Optimus had said.

It is a long recovery for Drift. Weeks go by, but he is doing better. Ratchet worked hard to repair the damage he received from the crash and make sure his fuel lines were pumping correctly. He worked his magic and did a good job on Drift, never giving up.

"Alright, follow my digit." Ratchet was doing simple tests, everyday he did them, and Drift obeys as his optics follow the moving digit in front of him, clearing and without struggle. "Good. Better today."

Drift was feeling better, both physically and mentally. After being by himself so long it was going to take time adjusting to have others around.

Not the autobots, mainly the humans kept him company. Drift was curious about these organics. Sure, he's come across them before, but not humans. He doesn't mind them.

"Does this mean I'm off bed rest?" Drift asks as he straightens his back. Ratchet shakes his helm with a short chuckle.

"Yeah right. You're clear when I say you're clear. Just because you look and feel better doesn't mean you're fit for duty."

"Duty?

Ratchet stops and looks at him, optics unreadable before venting softly. "You're staying, right?"

It hasn't been something they've talked about really. Drift had no idea what to do next honestly. Since finding Ratchet he didn't want to leave him behind, not again.

"You're here, so I'll stay. Don't think your friends are going to like that though." He didn't think they would welcome him into team prime. "Does that mean I've got to become an autobot?"

"Don't worry about them, I'll handle it. They don't know your decepticon name, yet. I don't want to hear that name ever again. And yes, you'll become an autobot, because I said so."

Drift understands. "Alright." He was willing to do whatever Ratchet wanted. All he wanted was to have him back in his life again, to not throw away his second chance.

"Good. Now, let's have a closer look."

Drift feels Ratchet's servos touch both sides of his cheek platings, examining him further and making sure he didn't miss anything. But Drift slowly leans into the touch, purring, and reaches up to touch them both under his own. The action gets Ratchet's attention and they both stare at one another, the fondness slowly growing as the medic's optics soften.

Ratchet does like the purrs Drift makes, he always did, and hearing it again makes his knees feel weak. Such a strange effect it gives, yet so addictive. It's been so long since he last heard them, causing his feelings to stir wildly. As much as he hated him for his choices, he never stopped loving him.

Neither did Drift. He has a lot of regrets, but the one he'll always carry is he hurt Ratchet. He'll always carry the weight of that.

Leaning closer, Drift presses the front of their helms together, savouring the moment for as long as he can as his optics shutter closed. Ratchet doesn't lean away and lets it happen.

Drift wants to kiss him, and he tries to do this by leaning closer towards his lips, but Ratchet stops him. The moment is gone.

"It's too soon." Ratchet can only whisper, trying to keep his emotions from pouring out. "You left a deep wound, one I could never repair."

Drift knew he deserved that.

"Your injuries aren't the only recovery you'll be going through. There's a lot....between us, that needs time to heal. Won't be simple, but I need time to adjust to this, to trust you again."

"So there's a chance?" Drift held onto that hope.

Ratchet vents softly and caresses his servo against his cheek plating again, running his digit under his optics gently. "I hope so."

That's all Drift needs. "Take your time then."

Optimus gathered everything, even the humans, so they can all listen to what Ratchet has to say. Drift was resting and took this moment to explain some details to his friends. They've all been very patient.

"How's he doing?" It's June that asks, the only one who was kind enough to ask about Drift.

"Doing better. Still recovering, but he's making good progress." Ratchet answers.

He looks up at everyone who stares at him, all focus and attention. His optics glance over at Optimus who was there for him through this. It's time to reveal it.

"Drift and I have a long history, all the way to the time before the war started on cybertron. He hasn't made the best choices in his life, which is why things are messy between us, but he wants to change, make better choices. I'm willing to give him that second chance."

"I understand your concerns." Optimus then jumps in and speaks to everyone. "We both do, but I trust Ratchet to take charge of him, and I believe there's hope for Drift, to become better."

"So he's becoming an autobot?" Jack asked curiously.

"He will. It's a lot to ask but it would be a great help if everyone treated him fairly, so he can settle into this life. He's been alone for a long time without contact, it has affected him, but with time he'll adjust and do better." Ratchet explains.

"Is he like your best friend?" Raf asks innocently.

The medic gives himself a moment before finally saying it. "Drift is my conjunx endura."

"What?' Arcee quirks quickly in surprise.

"You never said you had one!" Bulkhead is just as surprised while Bumblebee lets out a bunch of whirls and beeps along with them.

"Ah, sorry, humans are confused here." Agent Fowler raises his hand. "What's a...conjunx endura?"

"Well, for humans to understand, we're married." Ratchet clarifies.

"What?!"

Ratchet knew this was going to be a shock to everyone, and he'll silently admit he was trying to avoid this moment, but knew that wasn't going to last forever. They had a right to know what Drift meant to him, and what happened.

"Drift comes from a troubled life. He got himself addicted to circuit boosters, drugs for humans to understand, lost himself, and Optimus found him, or at the time he was Orion. He brought him to me where I had my own medical centre, doing what I could for those who were considered lower classes. I saved his life there, and I saw just how lost he looked, so I gave him a choice to stay and help me out, or he could leave. He got clean and stayed, few of the smart choices he's ever made. Over time we grew fond of one another and...well, we ended up together for a long while, fell in love, things were good and we were happy." Ratchet remembers those fond memories with him before he close his optics.

"Than the war started. Megatron approached me, offered me a position as his head medic officer, but I declined. I thought that was it, but I was very wrong. Megatron got to Drift, manipulated his mind, gave him false hope, and he fell for it. The next time I saw him he wore the Decepticon badge. He was already convinced I was going to join him, but I refused. I got angry, expressed my disappointment loudly. The Drift I grew to love left that day and he became stone cold. Megatron gave him the order to destroy the medical centre and he did it, leaving me in ruins. Megatron gives him a new name..." Ratchet went quiet. He couldn't say it, and looks at Optimus, who understands

"Deadlock."

The name rings through the autobots. They all knew that name all too well. The horrors they've heard, the carnage left behind by the same bot that was now in their base.

The humans all take notice of their reactions. "You've heard of that name?"

"The very name that a lot feared." Arcee says to them, voice full of dread. "I never bumped into him, only heard what he had done, and it's nothing good."

"Drift is Deadlock? The very con that Megatron favoured?" Bulkhead struggled to process this.

"Why did Megatron favour him?" Jack sounds worried.

"Because of his lack of emotion, no empathy, and did as he was told without hesitation." Ratchet adds through a shaky vent. "But...he's coming back around, the Drift I know. After what happened, I joined Optimus to try to do what I could for the autobots, all the while trying to silently mend the damage done to my spark. As much as I hated Drift, I never stopped loving him, and always held on some hope he might come back."

"And he did." June says softly, moved by the story he told everyone to have a better understanding of what just happened. Though they were concerned about his past with the decepticons, they understood what Ratchet must be feeling to get his lover back again after so long.

Ratchet lets out a shaky vent and looks at everyone. "I'm willing to forgive for his mistakes, because that's my choice. I need to ask you all to respect our privacy, our past, and for there to be no further questions about Drift's time with the decepticons. Please, don't shut him out, give him a chance, get to know him. He might not be the smartest, and he's made terrible choices, but there is good in him."

"I don't like cons, but he seems...different." Miko perks up, looking over at Bulkhead. "I've gotten to know him a little, he's not so bad. Just have to ignore that history part with the cons."

Bulkhead groaned in displeasement but knew there wasn't really going to be any other way around this. Drift was going to become one of them, so they might as well start opening up to him.

"We'll do that." Arcee then says through a soft vent. "For you Ratchet, we'll give him a chance."

Ratchet feels himself relax a little hearing this. He had a pretty good team here. "Thank you."

Drift is up and walking. He then finds himself facing the autobots and humans, all looking at him as Optimus and Ratchet approach. Least they didn't have weapons drawn on him, it's a start.

Optimus is first to speak. "Drift, we've all talked to one another and Ratchet has informed the others about your bondage with him. It is Ratchet's wish to give you a second chance, for you to leave behind your past with the decepticons and to become one of our own. I ask for you to have zero connections with any decepticon and to prove yourself among our team here."

Drift looks at Ratchet who gives a simple nod at him. This was his chance to fix what he tore apart between them, to show he could be something better. He wanted that.

"Thanks, Optimus. I'll do whatever Ratty says, I don't want to let him down again, or anyone for that matter."

"Ratty?" June can't help but repeat through a small smile.

"None of you are allowed to call me that." Ratchet points at everyone with a firm glare.

"Only I can." Drift sends him a smirk knowing he was right about that.

"I'm going to lay down a few things as well." Ratchet starts as he steps closer towards him. "You'll follow our rules, our ways, no arguments or whining about it. You'll treat everyone here with respect and you'll be treated the same in return. Everything is going to be stripped, your model, colours, nothing that will give any decepticon a hint who you used to be, a complete new look. Understood?"

Drift listens and doesn't hesitate to nod. Like he said, whatever his Ratty wanted. He was in his control now. "Sure, alright." He gives a smile, sharp denta's lightly exposed.

Ratchet stares before pointing. "I'm removing those modified dentas." Drift's smile slips and goes to say something but Ratchet raises his servo. "Nope! They're going. They look ridiculous on you."

Drift vents heavily. Complete new look. "Alright...whatever you want."

"Wow, who are you and what have you done with Drift?" Miko asks the completely new looking robot sitting in the medical bay. She had just arrived with the others. It seemed Ratchet was very serious.

Drift sends the girl a soft smirk, sharp dentas now back to their default model along with most of his amour, colours neutral grey, ready for a new scan and colour.

"Ratchet wasn't kidding." He answers through a gentle chuckle. "But hey, I think it will be good to have something different."

"Something calm." Ratchet points out as he sets up some programs for Drift to scan and choose from. "Soft, nice, you know? Nothing dramatic."

"Ugh, such a control freak." Miko comes up onto the ramp along with the others.

Drift can't help but snicker. He liked humans. They were different, had a lot of character, he grew to like them very quickly in his short time there.

"What colour, Ratty?" Drift asks as he looks through some models.

"That's for you to decide."

"I want what you want."

"I want you to pick yourself. I'm sure you can't mess up on that." Ratchet doesn't mean for that to sound harsh, but it did. Drift shifts his amber optics at him, looking like a wounded feline, and Ratchet vents softly, lowering his voice. "I didn't mean-"

"It's fine." Drift doesn't want him to apologise, so he forces a smile. "I'll pick myself." He says trying to sound positive.

Ratchet nods and leaves him to it.

"Ouch." Miko whispers while hanging over the railing.

"Are things alright between you two?" The youngest Raf asks kindly.

"It's not simple, but it's progress." Drift answers honestly.

For a moment he scans through the new designs before looking up at Ratchet talking with Optimus. His optics scan over him and he smiles. He's picked a colour. Adding the program he scans the new look, his armour shifting colour and shape right in front of the kids to watch, astonished by the change happening before it finishes.

Drift looks at his reflection and smiles more. He looks good, very good. He now holds a very similar colour matching with Ratchet.

"It's a good look." Jack praises.

"You and Ratchet got matching colours now. That's cute." Miko beams.

Drift shifts his optics at Ratchet who is looking at him now, a lingering enchantment holds in his optics as he stares at Drift. They both do indeed share the same colours, a similar design, with Drift only being more slender framed.

"It is cute." Drift sends Ratchet a wink.

Ratchet has to try to cool himself when he sees Drift. He wouldn't say it, but he feels himself heat up at the sight of his long lost mate looking like that. He likes the new look. Clearing his vocals, he nods simply. "Very nice."

Drift doesn't miss the pink hue at his white cheek plating.

Laying on his berth in his given room Drift finds himself staring at the ceiling and letting his processor run over everything that's happened. He was now an autobot, one of team prime. His servo runs over the new symbol over his chest and lets out a soft vent.

It's not that he was disgusted by it, but it does feel foreign still. All this was going to take time to adjust, to move on from his troubled past and do better for him and for Ratchet.

All that time ago, when he hurt him, he lost himself. He became something dark, horrible, one of Megatron's favourites because he did anything he was told. All those memories will forever haunt him, but he hopes he can move past all that and start over with Ratchet. It's all he wants.

The sudden knock at his door jolts him out of his thoughts and goes to open it. He stares at Ratchet who stands on the other side.

"Did I wake you?" Ratchet asks through a soft tone.

"No, recharge is...it's not easy these days." Drift admits.

Ratchet nods lightly. "Can I come in?"

Drift feels his spark thump rapidly as he nods, allowing him to enter and closing the door behind. He watches as Ratchet turns to face him, and there's that struggling look he held, when he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.

Drift comes closer, calmly stepping in front of him and trying to look into his optics. He can feel the heat radiating from his charris that he wants to touch, but holds back.

"I wanted to see you." Ratchet manages to say. "I...I just want to be with you." Hearing this makes Drift smile, only for it to slip away hearing his next words. "But I'm scared you're going to hurt me again."

"I know." Drift knows he hurt him badly, he'll never forget that. "And...I'm scared you're never going to stop hating me."

"I don't hate you. I'm just trying to trust you again."

"What can I do?" Drift doesn't know himself. "Tell me what to do."

"No." Ratchet shakes his helm, face hardening. "I want you to decide for yourself, not what I or anyone else tells you." On his own free will, not in control.

Drift gets it now. So, he does that. He touches his face plating, running his digits across and savouring the warm feeling, before closing the distance and kissing him gently.

The kiss is simple and short, but it's what Drift wants, what Ratchet wants. It's broken for just a mere moment before Drift dives in again, slowly deepening it as he slides his servos across Ratchet's shoulders and running behind his neck. Without holding back anymore ratchet consumes the kiss they share and backs him back against the berth, leaning over and pressing himself between his thighs as their lingering heated moans fill the room.

"I've missed you." Ratchet manages to whisper between kisses. "Primus...I've missed you so much."

"I'm here, I'm right here, and I'm never leaving you." Drift says before he retracts his panel, revealing his already soaking valve and the housing opens for his spike to throb out. "Please, Ratty, I need you inside me."

Climbing up over him, Ratchet retracts his panel and his throbbing spike emerges from its housing. He rubs himself against Drift, sliding between the lips of his valve, catching his sensitive node with each thrust. Drift throws his helm back against the berth and wraps his legs tightly around his waist, tugging him close and eager to get him inside.

Finally, Ratchet sinks in, groaning lowly as his spike fills Drift, feeling every ridge running against his inner walls, all the while Drift arches his back as he's filled so perfectly, mouth open as he mewls lowly. He missed this, he missed Ratchet.

Ratchet holds himself up as best he could over Drift before he sets a pace, thrusting his hips against Drift while grunting and venting heavily.

"Ratty, so good, so fragging good!" Drift chants as he holds onto him, clenching his valve around his thickness while running his servos along Ratchet's arms.

However, Ratchet makes a blunt noise, as if he's trying something but is struggling, right before he stops moving and lets out an annoyed heavy vent.

"What's wrong?" Drift vents densely as he feels Ratchet's hesitation and tries to avoid his lingering stare, removing himself from his valve as he backs up. "Hey, hey, Ratty, talk to me. D-did I do something wrong?" He touches his face plating and watches as Ratchet's optics shutter closes and leans into his touch.

"No, no, you did nothing wrong. It's me."

"What do you mean?" Drift shifts closer, placing his other servo over his shoulder and listening to whatever he might want to say.

"It's embarrassing." Ratchet rolls his helm a little. Though he knew Drift wasn't going to let this slide, the concern hanging over his face causing him to vent once more. "I'm old. My stamina isn't what it use to be."

Realization hits Drift. So that's it. He can't hold back a smile.

"Don't you dare laugh." Ratchet warns but this only causes Drift to giggle lightly. "It's not funny."

"I'm not laughing." Drift only fails as he continues to giggle.

"Stop that, you're still laughing."

"I'm not, I'm not." Drift forces himself to calm down and bit back his smile before caressing his face. "Ratty, it's alright. Don't worry about it." Leaning close he kisses him gently. "How about you let me on top? Let me take care of you."

Drift gently pushes Ratchet onto the berth and has him lay down before straddling his lap, thighs trapping against his waist while his exposed valve rubs along Ratchet's throbbing spike, causing soft moans to leave from both of them. Drift hovers closer towards Ratchet's face with a tender smile.

"You always took care of me, now it's my turn to take care of you." Leaning closer, Drift kisses him, letting it linger before gently pushing his glossa inside, coiling with Ratchet's.

Positioning himself he sinks back down onto Ratchet's thick spike and starts to ride him, rolling his hips slowly, rocking himself and riding his spike slowly.

Ratchet moves his servos to his waist, gripping his digits into his soft armour while keeping the kiss deep between them, letting out short moans and feeling more comfortable like this.

Drift vents softly into the kiss, letting out short muffled moans as he sucks at Ratchet's glossa, clenching in sync with his movements as he rides him. He moves his servo between them and he starts to stroke himself, rubbing his tip gently before pumping his servo over, arousal and pleasure quickly boiling between them.

"Drift...Primus....you're so tight." Ratchet gently praises between heated moans against his lips.

"Ratty, oh Ratty! I feel so full, filling me so good." Drift presses his forehead against Ratchet's, keeping close while riding his thick spike buried deep in his valve, rubbing against his ceiling node while Ratchet takes over to stroke Drift's cable then.

Moments like these were dreamed between the two over their time apart from each other. So much war, hate, and now reunited, lost in the moment as if nothing happened.

Drift holds a firmer grip, throwing his weight down over again more firmly, clenching around the perfectly ridged spike throbbing in his valve and rubbing against his inner walls. Moans grew more feral between the two as Ratchet kept his moving servo around Drift, feeling ever twitch and transfluid coating his digits and along the length, wet sounds growing more louder as fluids start to build and pool

Tossing his helm back, Drift lets out a louder mewl, crying out in bliss as he rides Ratchet's spike more densely. "Frag, Ratty, frag, I won't be able to hold it back!"

"Do it, let yourself go." Ratchet gives the all clear between heated vents, because he too wasn't too far off from overloading either. "Let's do it together, same time."

Drift beams warmly through the intense pleasure boiling through him as he grinds himself down over again, venting and gasping sharply, soon muffled as Ratchet kisses him firmly and feels his spike suddenly erupt deep within him, thick ropes of fluids coating his inner walls with some dripping out. Within a moment he bites his lips and gasps out sharply as his own transfluids coat between him and Ratchet, a pink glow covering over Ratchet's digits as well.

Taking his servo, Drift lifts it up to his mouth and sucks at his digits to clean to fluids, tasting himself and letting out a delightful hum around each of them. Ratchet is always heated and flushed, he didn't think it would be possible to be even more, but he was wrong when Drift did this.

"So beautiful." He whispers, allured by the delightful sight as his cooling fans kick in along with Drift's.

"You're just as pretty." Drift whispers through a luminous smile. "I love you, Ratty. I never stopped loving you. My spark will always belong to you, my beloved."

Ratchet feels his very spark jump at his words. "I love you too, Drift. Always have and always will. We'll make this work, I promise."

Drift ends up snuggled up against Ratchet, tangled under his embrace as he purrs gently against his charris. Ratchet missed that purr, a soothing vibration and sound he always cherished.

"We'll be alright, won't we?" Ratchet asks as he caresses the back of Drift's helm.

"I believe so." He hums lightly, giving him a gentle nuzzle. "You've never loosing me ever again."

"Good."

Neither will ever be apart again.

[hananoami]

📌Server Maintenance Notice on Feb. 10

The game will undergo maintenance from 4:50 AM to 10:00 AM on Feb. 10 (UTC+8). During this period, access to Linkon City will be temporarily unavailable. Please note that the server opening time may be adjusted according to the actual situation. Thank you for your understanding.

Update Details

💫[Tomorrow's Catch-22] 5-Star Limited Memories Rate Up! New pack series will be available. For more details, please check the in-game Notice and Shop page. 💫[Savage Overture] Coming Soon! 💫[New Outfit & Accessory] Universal Headwear [Heartbreak Mischief] and "My" new Outfit [Night's Companion] will be permanently available. 💫[Lanternet Gift] Messages & Mail Gifts 💫After the update, the [Festive Blessing] series 4-Star Memories will enter Galaxy Explorer. You may obtain them by exploring Silver Galaxy or Radiant Galaxy. 💫After the update, the 4-Star Memory [Caleb: Verified Rumor] will be added to Galaxy Explorer. You can obtain it in both Silver Galaxy and Radiant Galaxy. 💫After the update, the [Festive Blessing] event reward "My" Outfit, the [Special Inquiry] event reward Photo Pose, Portrait Background, "My" Outfits will be permanently available in Chocolate Shop. You can redeem them with Chocolates. 💫After the update, [His Letter*4] obtained in the event [Distant Journey, Heartfelt Letter] will be permanently available in the [Chocolate Shop]. You can use Chocolates to redeem it.

Bug Fixes and Optimizations

To enhance the gaming experience for all hunters, Linkon City Hall is committed to optimizing the game. 💫The love interests' Styling now includes a [Hairstyle] category, allowing you to change his hairstyle. 💫After the update, when there are insufficient materials for Memory Ascension, the material acquisition method will be displayed, and Hunters can quickly jump to obtain the materials. 💫Fixed the issue where anonymous friends couldn't be deleted. 💫Fixed the issue where damaged photos in the Album couldn't be deleted. 💫Fixed the issue where the model display was abnormal in the Photo Pose [Sylus: Power Play]. 💫Fixed the issue where the shadow of Caleb displayed abnormally during Styling and Outfits previews. 💫Fixed some audio errors in Caleb's main interface interactions. 💫Fixed some display issues. 💫Fixed some text errors. *More details can be checked in System Notice >> Optimization Notice.

Maintenance Compensation

After the maintenance, you can claim compensation rewards of [💫Diamond200, Empyrean Wish1] in your mailbox. Mail system will be unlocked after completing Main Story [Under Deepspace] 1-9. The compensation mail expires at 4:59 AM on Feb. 13 (server time).

[ronqueesha]

MANY years ago, a 40k fan created this audio soundscape of what an Imperial titan might sound like in a battle. But only recently did another fan add 3d animation to it.

Owlcat's engine is basically incapable of properly showcasing a titan in the Rogue Trader game, so they make zero appearances. Which makes me sad, because they're one of the coolest things in a setting full of cool things.

Titans are the Imperium's ultimate ground weapons, capable of wielding literally apocalyptic weapons on their giant bodies. They are walking cathedrals covered in symbols of worship of the God Emperor, often the result of thousands of years of constant additions and embellishments.

The most successful titans have been around for nearly ten thousand years, and participated in the Emperor's Great Crusade to unite the galaxy. Although the Imperium CAN build new ones, albeit very slowly. (The first space marine game deals with defending a planet that produces them)

Titan pilots, or princeps, bond with their war machines even more than a knight pilot does. It's much like pacific rim, a single human brain cannot control something so big and so violent. But instead of bonding with another person, a princeps' mind interfaces with the titan's own consciousness. And by interface, I mean that they must mentally battle the titan's mind and force it to submit.

Titans all have EXTREMELY powerful machine spirits, some of which are so full of rage and bloodlust that they continually kill their pilots out of the sheer strain it takes to keep them under control. (are machine spirits the remnants of ancient ai systems that humanity used to use in the dark age of technology? are they literal spirits as the 40k universe slowly turns into a dark fantasy? that's a subject for another post!)

Titans are sometimes called God Engines because of the awe they invoke as they stride over battlefields. The ultimate visual sign of the Emperor's wrath.

[mariacallous]

Like countless other people around the globe, I stream music, and like more than six hundred million of them I mainly use Spotify. Streaming currently accounts for about eighty per cent of the American recording industry’s revenue, and in recent years Spotify’s health is often consulted as a measure for the health of the music business over all. Last spring, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported global revenues of $28.6 billion, making for the ninth straight year of growth. All of this was unimaginable in the two-thousands, when the major record labels appeared poorly equipped to deal with piracy and the so-called death of physical media. On the consumer side, the story looks even rosier. Adjusted for inflation, a monthly subscription to an audio streaming service, allowing convenient access to a sizable chunk of the history of recorded music, costs much less than a single album once did. It can seem too good to be true.

Like considerably fewer people, I still buy a lot of CDs, records, and cassettes, mostly by independent artists, which is to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for how this immense reorganization in how we consume music has complicated the lives of artists trying to survive our on-demand, hyper-abundant present. Spotify divvies out some share of subscriber fees as royalties in proportion to an artist’s popularity on the platform. The service recently instituted a policy in which a track that registers fewer than a thousand streams in a twelve-month span earns no royalties at all. Some estimate that this applies to approximately two-thirds of its catalogue, or about sixty million songs. Meanwhile, during a twelve-month stretch from 2023 to 2024, Spotify announced new revenue highs, with estimates that the company is worth more than Universal and Warner combined. During the same period, its C.E.O., Daniel Ek, cashed out three hundred and forty million dollars in stock; his net worth, which fluctuates but is well into the billions, is thought to make him richer than any musician in history. Music has always been a perilous, impractical pursuit, and even sympathetic fans hope for the best value for their dollar. But if you think too deeply about what you’re paying for, and who benefits, the streaming economy can seem awfully crooked.

Although artists such as Taylor Swift and Neil Young have temporarily removed their music from Spotify—Swift pressed the company over its paltry royalty rates, while Young was protesting its nine-figure deal with the divisive podcaster Joe Rogan—defying the streamer comes with enormous risks. Spotify is a library, but it’s also a recommendation service, and its growth is fuelled by this second function, and by the company’s strategies for soundtracking the entirety of our days and nights. As a former Spotify employee once observed, the platform’s only real competitor is silence. In recent years, its attempts at studying and then adapting to our behavior have invited more than casual scrutiny among users: gripes about the constant tweaks and adjustments that make the interface more coldly opaque, stories about A.I.-generated songs and bots preying on the company’s algorithms, fatigue over “Spotify-core,” the shorthand for the limp, unobtrusive pop music that appears to be the service’s default aesthetic. Even Spotify’s popular Wrapped day, when users are given social-media-ready graphics detailing their listening habits from the past year, recently took its lumps. Where the previous year’s version assigned listeners a part of the world that most aligned with their favorites, the 2024 edition was highlighted by the introduction of personalized, A.I.-voiced recaps, striking some as the Spotify problem in a nutshell—a good thing that gets a little worse with all the desperate fine-tuning.

Just as we train Spotify’s algorithm with our likes and dislikes, the platform seems to be training us to become round-the-clock listeners. Most people don’t take issue with this—in fact, a major Spotify selling point is that it can offer you more of what you like. Liz Pelly’s new book, “Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist,” is a comprehensive look at how the company’s dominance has profoundly changed the way we listen and what we listen to. A contributing editor to The Baffler, Pelly has covered the ascent of Spotify for years, and she was an early critic of how the streaming economy relies less on delivering hit tunes than on keeping us within a narrow gradient of chill vibes. Her approach is aggressively moralistic: she is strongly influenced, she explains, by D.I.Y. spaces that attempt to bring about alternate forms of “collective culture,” rather than accept the world’s inequities as a given. She sympathizes with the plight of artists who feel adrift in the winner-take-all world of the Internet, contending with superstars like Adele or Coldplay for placement on career-making playlists and, consequently, a share of streaming revenue. But her greatest concerns are for listeners, with our expectations for newness and convenience. Pelly is a romantic, but her book isn’t an exercise in nostalgia. It’s about how we have come to view art and creativity, what it means to be an individual, and what we learn when we first hum along to a beloved pop song.

A great many people over forty retain some memory of the first time they witnessed the awesome possibilities of Internet piracy—the sense of wonder that you could go to class and return a couple of hours later to a Paul Oakenfold track playing from somewhere inside your computer. In 1999, two teen-agers named Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker launched the file-sharing application Napster, effectively torching the music industry as it had existed for nearly a century. There had always been piracy and bootlegging, but Napster introduced the free exchange of music at a global scale. Rather than maintain a publicly accessible archive of recordings—which was clearly illegal—Napster provided a peer-to-peer service that essentially allowed users to pool their music libraries. After a year, Fanning and Parker’s app had twenty million users.

At first, anti-Napster sentiment echoed the hysteria of the nineteen-seventies and eighties around the prospect of home taping killing the record industry. Yet online piracy was far more serious, moving at unprecedented speed. One label executive argued that Fanning and Parker belonged in jail, but there was no uniform response. For example, the media conglomerate Bertelsmann made plans to invest in Napster even as it was suing the company for copyright infringement. Some artists embraced Napster as a promotional tool. Chuck D, of Public Enemy, published a Times Op-Ed in which he praised Napster as “a new kind of radio.” The punk band the Offspring expressed its admiration by selling bootleg merchandise with the company’s logo. On the other side was the heavy-metal band Metallica, which sued the platform for “trafficking in stolen goods,” and thereby became seen—by many of their fellow-musicians as well as by listeners—as an establishment villain. Faced with too many legal challenges, Napster shut down in July, 2001. But the desire to break from traditional means of disseminating culture remained, as casual consumers began imagining an alternative to brick-and-mortar shopping and, with it, physical media. Just four months after Napster’s closure, Apple came out with the iPod.

In Sweden, where citizens had enjoyed high-speed Internet since the late nineties, piracy took on a political edge. In 2001, after a major anti-globalization protest in Gothenburg was violently put down by the police, activists formed online communities. In 2003, Rasmus Fleischer helped found Piratbyrån, or the Pirate Bureau, a group committed to flouting copyright laws. “We were trying to make something political from the already existing practice of file-sharing,” Fleischer explained to Pelly. “What are the alternative ways to think about power over networks? What counts as art and what counts as legitimate ways of using it? Or distributing money?” That year, a group of programmers associated with Piratbyrån launched the Pirate Bay, a file-sharing site that felt like a more evolved version of Napster, allowing users to swap not only music but movies, software, and video games.

Alongside Pirate Bay, file-sharing applications like LimeWire, Kazaa, and Grokster emerged to fill Napster’s void and were summarily targeted by the recording industry. Meanwhile, the music business marched forward, absorbing losses and deferring any hard decisions. So long as fans still thought of music in terms of ownership, there were still things to sell them—if not physical media, at least song files meant to be downloaded onto your hard drive. The most common model in the United States was the highly successful iTunes Store, which allowed listeners to purchase both albums and single tracks, abiding by a rough dollar-per-song value inherited from the age of LPs and CDs. “People want to own their music,” Steve Jobs said, in 2007, claiming he’d seen no evidence that consumers wanted a subscription model. “There’s definitely a hurdle with subscription because it’s not an exact replica of the model people are used to in the physical world,” Rob Williams, an executive at Rhapsody, one of the largest early-two-thousands music-subscription services, observed, in 2008.

Daniel Ek, Spotify’s C.E.O., taught himself programming as a teen-ager in Stockholm and was financially secure by his mid-twenties, when he began looking for a new project to work on. Like many, he credits Napster for providing him with a musical education. While some of his countrymen saw piracy as anarchist, a strike against big business, Ek sensed a more moderate path. He and Martin Lorentzon, both well versed in search engines and online advertising, founded Spotify, in 2006, in the hope of working with the music industry, not against it. Ek explained to a reporter, in 2010, that it was impossible to “legislate away from piracy.” The solution was making an alternative that was just as convenient, if not more. The year he and Lorentzon launched Spotify, the census showed that thirteen per cent of Sweden’s citizens already participated in file-sharing. “I’m just interested in building a company that doesn’t necessarily change lives but adapts people’s behavior,” Ek said.

Spotify benefitted from the emergence of smartphones and cheap data plans. When we are basically never offline, it no longer matters where our files are situated. “We’re punks,” Ek said. “Not the punks that are up to no good. The punks that are against the establishment. We want to bring music to every person on the face of the planet.” (Olof Dreijer, of the Swedish electronic pop group the Knife, griped to Pelly that the involvement of tech companies in music streaming represented the “gentrification” of piracy.)

Spotify made headway in Europe in the twenty-tens, capitalizing on the major labels’ seeming apathy toward committing to an online presence. It began offering plans to U.S. users in 2011—two paid tiers with no ads and a free one that, as an analyst told the Times that year, was “solidifying a perception that music should be free.” Ek sought partnerships with major labels, some of which still own Spotify stock. Around this time, a source who was then close to the company told Pelly, Spotify commissioned a study tracking the listening habits of a small subset of users and concluded that it could offer a qualitatively different experience than a marketplace like iTunes. By tracking what people wanted to hear at certain hours—from an aggro morning-workout mix to mellow soundscapes for the evening—the service began understanding how listeners used music throughout the day. People even streamed music while they were sleeping.

With all this information, Spotify might be able to guess your mood based on what time it was and what you had been listening to. Pelly argues, in fact, that its greatest innovation has been its grasp of affect, how we turned to music to hype us up or calm us down, help us focus on our homework or simply dissociate. Unlike a record label, a tech company doesn’t care whether we’re hooked on the same hit on repeat or lost in a three-hour ambient loop, so long as we’re listening to something. (This helps explain its ambitious entry into the world of podcasting, lavishing nine-figure deals on Joe Rogan and on the Ringer, Bill Simmons’s media company, as well as its recent investment in audiobooks.) Spotify just wants as much of our time and attention as possible, and a steady stream of melodic, unobtrusive sounds could be the best way to appeal to a passive listener. You get tired of the hit song after a while, whereas you might stop noticing the ambient background music altogether.

Last spring, a Swedish newspaper published a story about a little-known hitmaker named Johan Röhr, a specialist in tepid, soothing soundscapes. As of March, Röhr had used six hundred and fifty aliases (including Adelmar Borrego and Mingmei Hsueh) to release more than twenty-seven hundred songs on Spotify, where they had been streamed more than fifteen billion times. These numbers make him one of the most popular musicians in the world, even though he is not popular in any meaningful sense—it’s doubtful that many people who stream his music have any idea who he is. Spotify’s officially curated playlists seem to be a shortcut to success, akin to songs getting into heavy rotation on the radio or television. Röhr has benefitted from being featured on more than a hundred of them, with names like “Peaceful Piano” or “Stress Relief.” His ascent has raised a philosophical question about music in the streaming age: Does it even matter who is making this stuff? At least Röhr’s a real person. What about A.I.-generated music, which is increasingly popular on YouTube?

It’s tricky to make the argument that any of this is inherently bad for music fans; in our anti-élitist times, all taste is regarded as relative. Maybe Johan Röhr does, indeed, lower your stress levels. Who’s to say that A.I. Oasis is that much better or worse than the real thing? If you harbor no dreams of making money off your music, it’s never been easier to put your art out into the world. And even if we are constructing our playlists for friends under “data-tuned, ultra-surveilled” circumstances, feeding a machine data to more effectively sell things back to us, it’s a trade that most users don’t mind making. We’ve been conditioned to want hyper-personalization from our digital surroundings, with convenience and customizable environments the spoils of our age. For Pelly, it’s a problem less of taste than of autonomy—the question she asks is if we’re making actual decisions or simply letting the platform shape our behaviors. Decades ago, when you were listening to the radio or watching MTV, you might encounter something different and unknown, prompting some judgment as to whether you liked or loathed it. The collection of so much personalized data—around what time of day we turn to Sade or how many seconds of a NewJeans song we play—suggests a future without risk, one in which we will never be exposed to anything we may not want to hear.

Spotify recently projected that 2024 would be its first full year of profitability; one investment analyst told Axios that the company had “reached a level of scale and importance that we think the labels would be engaging in mutually-assured devastation if they tried to drive too hard a bargain.” Its success seems to have derived partly from cost-cutting measures: in December, 2023, it eliminated seventeen per cent of its employees, or about fifteen hundred jobs. Some music-industry groups also say that Spotify has found a way to pay less to rights holders by capitalizing on a 2022 ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board which allows services bundling different forms of content to pay lower rates.

I wonder if any of Pelly’s arguments will inspire readers to cancel their subscriptions. I remain on my family’s Spotify plan; it’s a necessary evil when part of your job involves listening to music. For all the service’s conveniences, one of my frustrations has always been the meagre amount of information displayed on each artist’s page, and Pelly’s criticisms made me think this might be by design—a way of rendering the labor of music-making invisible. Except for a brief biographical sketch, sounds float largely free of context or lineage. It’s harder than it should be to locate a piece of music in its original setting. Instead of a connection to history, we’re offered recommendations based on what other people listened to next. I’ve never heard so much music online as I have over the past few years yet felt so disconnected from its sources.

In 2020, Ek warned that “some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough.” Rather, he suggested, artists would have to adapt to the relentless rhythms of the streaming age. I’ve long been fascinated by musicians who explore the creative tension between their own vision and the demands of their corporate overlords, making music in playful, mocking resistance of the business. A personal favorite is R.A. the Rugged Man’s “Every Record Label Sucks Dick,” which has been streamed about a quarter of a million times. Although I’ve heard many artists lament Spotify’s effect on their livelihoods, it’s hard to imagine someone channelling that animosity into a diss track. For that matter, it’s a conversation I rarely hear on podcasts—the chances of finding an audience without being present on the world’s largest distributor are slim. Instead, artists make music about the constant pressures of fame, as Tyler, the Creator, did with 2024’s “Chromakopia.” Or they try in vain to protect themselves from it, as the singer Chappell Roan, known for her theatrical take on dance pop, did this past summer. One of the breakout stars of 2024, Roan had difficulty coping with the unyielding demands of her sudden superstardom, eventually posting a TikTok begging her fans to respect her personal boundaries. The targets within the industry were once varied and diffuse, but they were identifiable. Now the pressure comes from everywhere, leaving artists to exploit themselves.

Reading “Mood Machine,” I began to regard Spotify as an allegory for life this year—this feeling that everything has never been so convenient, or so utterly precarious. I’d seldom considered the speed at which food or merchandise is delivered to my house to be a problem that required a solution. But we acclimate to the new normal very quickly; that is why it’s hard to imagine an alternative to Spotify. Rival streaming services like Apple Music deliver slightly better royalties to artists, yet decamping from Spotify feels a bit like leaving Twitter for Bluesky in that you haven’t fully removed yourself from the problem. Digital marketplaces such as Bandcamp and Nina offer models for directly supporting artists, but their catalogues seem niche by comparison.

In the past few years, artists have been using the occasion of Spotify’s Wrapped to share how little they were paid for the year’s streams. The United Musicians and Allied Workers, a music-industry trade union, was formed in 2020 in part to lobby on behalf of those most affected by the large-scale changes of the past decade. Four years later, Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act, which would create a fund to pay artists a minimum of a penny per stream. With a royalty rate at around half a cent—slightly more than Spotify pays—it would take more than four hundred and eighty thousand streams per month to make the equivalent of a fifteen-dollar-an-hour job. But the bill hasn’t made any legislative playlists.

Earlier this year, responding to questions about Spotify’s effect on working musicians, Ek compared the music industry to professional sports: “If you take football, it’s played by hundreds of millions of people around the world. But there’s a very, very small number of people that can live off playing soccer full time.” The Internet was supposed to free artists from the monoculture, providing the conditions for music to circulate in a democratic, decentralized way. To some extent, this has happened: we have easy access to more novelty and obscure sounds than ever before. But we also have data-verified imperatives around song structure and how to keep listeners hooked, and that has created more pressure to craft aggressively catchy intros and to make songs with maximum “replay value.” Before, it was impossible to know how many times you listened to your favorite song; what mattered was that you’d chosen to buy it and bring it into your home. What we have now is a perverse, frictionless vision for art, where a song stays on repeat not because it’s our new favorite but because it’s just pleasant enough to ignore. The most meaningful songs of my life, though, aren’t always ones I can listen to over and over. They’re there when I need them.

Pelly writes of some artists, in search of viral fame, who surreptitiously use social media to effectively beta test melodies and motifs, basically putting together songs via crowdsourcing. Artists have always fretted about the pressure to conform, but the data-driven, music-as-content era feels different. “You are a Spotify employee at that point,” Daniel Lopatin, who makes abstract electronic music as Oneohtrix Point Never, told Pelly. “If your art practice is so ingrained in the brutal reality that Spotify has outlined for all of us, then what is the music that you’re not making? What does the music you’re not making sound like?” Listeners might wonder something similar. What does the music we’re not hearing sound like? 

[spandexual]

this probably won't gain any traction because I'm not a popular blogger who reblogs things with giant text and shouty language but ffs dudes and dudettes grow up and use ytdlp instead of relying on dodgy sites and ridiculously complex tumblr tutorials by people who think they're a lot smarter than they actually are. here's an interface that makes it super easy. you can download videos from basically any site with this. youtube. rutube. dailymotion. youku. niche japanese gay porn websites. probably not niche japanese pro wrestling livestreams? doesn't work on wrestle universe at least. fucking idk PRETTY much whatever you want. it does playlists and video>audio too. you copy the video url. you click where it says to paste the url. it downloads. that's it. you can make it more complex if you want. but I always believe in the sacred and just rule of K.I.S.S

[frociaggina97]

UNIVERSAL AUDIO HAS ITS 1176 FET COMPRESSOR FOR FREE UP UNTIL THE 28TH SO GO AHEAD AND DOWNLOAD IT WHILE YOU CAN!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

[deathstench]

Formed ten years ago, DEATHSTENCH released three albums and many eps.. The "Massed in Black Shadow" album was a great obscure and dangerous one..The crown of their sacrifice was their collaboration with Bon Masters Phurpa. John Paul Whetzel and Darea Plantin spells behind this interview.

“Blood Moon Divination” was your latest release. It was released in a limited amount of copies and only in Tape format. Why this choice?

We have always preferred analog releases. We view physical copies as something that should be appreciated.. Let's face it, it's the 21st century, and people do most of their listening through some sort of streaming service. If they like it, they most likely pirate it. We understand this; Our physical releases are intentionally designed for coveting.

We put a great deal of energy into each release. In our past special editions, we have included ritual accouterments that correspond with each album, such as shards of human bone and incense we made specifically for the intent to conjure with the dead.

You have released three albums. Please tell us the concept behind each one and the process of the recordings…Each release turns out to more noisy and dark forms..

To be precise it's four albums, and numerous collaborations and splits. Our releases are not in any sort of chronological order, from conception to the final product takes its own time dependant upon the haste of that particular record label. We record basically the same for each album, building upon a structured theme. Our music is built on layers of sounds from instruments, traditional and otherwise, that we record with either handheld devices or microphones connected to an audio interface which we use to record our percussion and amps.

Each track on "Blood Moon Divination" is an audial ritual recorded and released during each specific Blood Moon in the tetrad cycle of blood moon eclipses of 2014-2015. Through that span of time, these celestial vibrations were available as they were being released on several streaming platforms, including Black Metal and Brews and Repartiseraren. A tetrad of lunar eclipses is extremely uncommon. This was only the eighth of such cycles in over two thousand years. We compiled them together for a physical album that we chose to release during the first exclusive total solar eclipse the United States had seen in over two hundred years. Eclipses, both solar and lunar, are considered to be very inauspicious events throughout the world. As an omen of war, the Talmud regards "If the face of the moon is as red as blood it is a sign that the sword is coming to the world."

"N.O.X." is a transcendent four track journey that starts out violently with the lo-fi black metal track OXEX DAZIS SIATRIS, Enochian for "Vomiting The Head of Scorpions" and slowly transforms itself into a less chaotic discord that concludes with the meditative piece "Mysterivm Tremendvm". N.O.X. or "The Night of Pan", is a mystical state that represents the stage of ego-death in the process of spiritual attainment. The Greek word Pan also translates as All, as he is a symbol of the Universal, a personification of Nature; both Pangenetor, "all-begetter," and Panphage, "all-devourer". Pan is both the giver and the taker of life, and his Night is that time of symbolic death where the adept experiences unification with the All through the ecstatic destruction of the ego-self. In a more general sense, it is the state where one transcends all limitations and experiences oneness with the universe.

"Nekro Blood Ritual", our second album, was designed specifically for its cassette release and is broken into two sections: Conjuration Rites and Burial Evocation. This album focuses on conjuring the dead and the desecration of human remains. This is by far our most atmospheric album; most of the tracks are rely heavily on field recordings and stygian synthesizers to evoke the abject darkness. These songs are reminiscent to the "Incantations in Dead Tongues" era of our work. There are only two conventional (for use of a better term) songs on this album, "Nekrobloodritual" and "Desecrating The Host" the latter being a harsh black funeral doom dirge for the departed.

In our debut album, "Massed in Black Shadow" we utilize all of our influences through the years. Incorporating elements of death industrial, dark ambient, doom, and black metal, and hideously transforming and conjoining them into a writhing mass of absolute filth, a sound truly all our own. The final track, titled “Bastards of the Black Flame” can be considered a motto to us, as it is exactly who we are. The byproducts of an unholy union between some of the most violent forms of music, in both sound and ideologies.

DEATHSTENCH collaborated with Phurpa. How did this Union take form? Are you interested in the theory of empiricism in Bon Religion?

In 2012 Alexei Tegin had discovered our music from our debut album and contacted us. Both Phurpa and ourselves operate with the same meditative qualities regarding our music. Although our sound derives from different spectrums, they coalesce quite vividly. "Evoking Shadows of Death" fuses our ultrasonic vibrations and harsh atmospheres with the harmonious chants and deep, droning reverberations of their tantric voice. These two tracks are designed to help the chod practitioner tap the power of fear. This transformation does not fall spontaneously, as grace, upon the listener: the practitioner must engage in the process. One must take steps to transmute through the aural plane and, through a process in which they must actively participate, requiring utmost concentration and mental stamina. This mystical experience is achieved, not bestowed.

Empirical reasoning has no place in esoteric practices and the occult. These objects are neither phenomena (empiricism) nor human constructs imposed upon the phenomena (idealism), but real structures which endure and operate independently of our knowledge, our experience and the conditions which allow us access to them. Some things cannot be reduced down to empirical measurements.

Thanatology and satanism are your basic influences. How do you define satanism and how death in your personal path?

Deathlore has always intrigued the both of us. There is absolutely nothing more final than Death. Every single one of us will die, as Death does not discriminate. Dying, death and how human beings respond to the inevitability of their mortality and cope with the reality of loss can be viewed from a wide range of perspectives. Our intent has never been to elaborate on our practices or rituals to any audience. Even the altars we allow you to see are set up specifically for public viewing. While they are still symbolic of what we would normally produce for our own rituals, the intent isn't there. It's merely superficial. Our personal altars and rituals will always remain clandestine, as all witchcraft should be.

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” ― Lao Tzu

I would like to hear your thoughts and if you are into the systems of O.N.A & Temple of the Black Light in theory and praxis as Traditional satanic approach you unveil through your works . Satanism is such an elaborate construct; Atheistic, LaVeyan, theistic, there are so many paths. Satan has always been symbolic with the quest for Knowledge, of opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds. Our path cannot be defined by one simple ideology.

We have absolutely no affiliation with these groups.

Does DEATHSTENCH ever perform live?

We are very selective in our live performances. The last show was in Portland, Oregon way back in 2015 when we opened up for MGLA, Weregoat, and Sempiternal Dusk. Alan Dubin (of Gnaw, Khanate) and Billy Anderson, whom we have long collaborated with, did a sort of dueling vocals approach to our fifteen-minute audial assault on an beyond-capacity crowd. This show was recorded by Mateo from Greysun Records who also released it on his label in 2018.

Necromancy is an Old Art Like Time.Ancient Greece had deep roots also in this Subject. Are you familiar with the Ancient Greek Mysteries?

Yes, we are familiar with some of the Chthonic mysteries highlighting mortality and the briefness of life, and the spirits of the blessed dead. Though, like most true paths of esoteric knowledge, not much is truly known about the intricacies of these rituals, having been sworn to secrecy and then lost to the Sands of Time. It has been suggested that communicants would drink Kykeon infused with the psychotropic fungus ergot which helped the initiate to reach a fuller understanding of their purpose in life and to shed their fear of death and this, then, heightened the experience and helped transform the initiate. The same can be said of the Huichol in Mexico, who eat peyote at the completion of long arduous pilgrimages in order that they may experience in the journey of the soul of the dead to the underworld. Death worship and eschatology are celebrated by all cultures throughout time, most with the use of hallucinogens.

I would like to hear your thoughts on these words: “This being true for the ordinary Universe, that all sense-impressions are dependent on changes in the brain we must include illusions, which are after all sense-impressions as much as “realities” are, in the class of “phenomena dependent on brain-changes.”  ― S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Goetia the Lesser Key of Solomon the King: Lemegeton, Book 1 Clavicula Salomonis Regis

In contemporary education, the emphasis has been on the psychomotor and the cognitive, namely reading, writing, and arithmetic, at the expense of the affective, namely, the emotions, the sensual, the intuitive, and the imaginative. Priority has been assigned to the verbal-intellectual skills. Anything else tends to be shelved or boxed and put away as ephemeral, esoteric, or mystical, each of these terms being used in a pejorative sense.

Consider for a moment the human sensory system. To the scientific mind, the senses are perceived to act as a kind of data-reduction system. The problem with this concept of the senses is that we do not respond to all that is potential sensory input. Perception is quite a selective process, attending to only a small fraction of so-called reality.

To some extent, scientist or artist, everything we perceive is "illusory," since to perceive anything at all we must use our imaginative capacity for fantasy.

What can we expect from DEATHSTENCH in the near future?

We have a few albums waiting in the shadows including collaborations with Sektor 304 and LINEKRAFT, as well as another full-length album incorporating both Billy Anderson and Alan Dubin. Time is relative, and there are no promises as to when any of these releases will see the light of day.

[experimentik]

Experimentik #77 / 18.Sep.2024 / chirp crush / Kristina Warren

18. September 2024 / 20:30- (doors 20:00) *no entry during sets

duo: chirp crush Verena Barié - recorders, electronics Sjoerd Leijten - electric guitar, electronics

solo: Kristina Warren - electronics

FB event ---------------------------------

Das Konzert ist Teil des Monats der zeitgenössischen Musik Berlin der initiative neue musik e.V. / field notes berlin

title photo © Seiji Morimoto

----------

Das Ensemble chirp.crush - Verena Barié und Sjoerd Leijten - traf sich 2017 in Amsterdam (NL) und kreiert seitdem Klanglandschaften und experimentelle Narrative.

Ausgehend vom Atem als Tonerzeuger gestaltet chirp.crush - zusammen mit Markus Hennes/Stimme - abstrakte Narrative durch vielschichtige elektronische Prozesse und elektronisches Instrumentarium. chirp.crush verstehen sich als Grenzgänger zwischen experimentellem Hörspiel, Radio- und Klangkunst. Das Ensemble wurden durch zwei FEB-Ensemble Stipendien (2021 & 2022) des Musikfonds e.V. gefördert, sowie von der Kunststiftung NRW und dem NRW KULTUR-sekretariat im Rahmen von Aufführungen in LTS4 im Lichtturm Solingen.

Verena Barié (*1994) ist eine weltweit agierende Blockflötistin, Medienkünstlerin, Komponistin und Kuratorin. Nach einem klassischen Bachelorstudium mit Hauptfach Blockflöte absolvierte sie das Masterprogramm Live Electronics des Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Die Blockflöte hat Barié schon früh an die Schnittstellen von Musik, Neuen Medien und Performance-Kunst geführt. Seit Oktober 2019 lebt sie in Köln und ist als Co-Kuratorin am LTK4 – Klangbasierte Künste Köln tätig. Seit 2021 arbeitet Sie im Vorstand der Kölner Gesellschaft für Neue Musik e.V. und gestaltet das kulturelle Leben der Kölner Freien Szene durch musikalisch-künstlerische Veranstaltungen sowie kulturpolitisches Engagement mit. Mit ihrem Projektraum LTS4 in Solingen kreiert sie dialektische Projektreihen mit Medienkunst. Barié ist neben ihrer Solo-Tätigkeit u.a. seit 2017 im Renaissance Doppel-Sextett THE ROYAL WIND MUSIC (NL) und seit 2020 im klangkünstlerischen 1. DEUTSCHEN STROMORCHESTER (DE) zu hören.

Sjoerd Leijten (*1982) ist ein transdisziplinärer Künstler, Komponist und Radiomacher mit einem ausgeprägten Interesse an dissidenten Klängen und Politik. Er arbeitet häufig mit Elektromagnetismus, field recordings, noise, Echtzeitverarbeitung und Open-Source-Software und -Hardware. Seine Werke umfassen Performances, Konzerte, DIY-Instrumente, Installationen, Veröffentlichungen, Filme und Audio. Seine Musik für Kino und Videospiele wurde mehrfach ausgezeichnet. Sjoerd lebt in Antwerpen (BE) und ist Mitinitiator des von Künstler*innen geführten Veranstaltungsortes TOITOIDROME, situiert in Borgerhout. Beim lokalen Untergrundradiosender RADIO CENTRAAL 106.7 FM moderiert er die zweiwöchentliche Radiosendung TRASHKOT zusammen mit dem Künstler JO CAIMO: „Ein ranziges Gewebe aus Geräuschen, Gesprächen und Müll bildet eine wackelige Brücke zwischen Musik und Politik.”

https://www.instagram.com/chirp.crush/

photo © Vesna Faassen

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Kristina Warren (US, 1989) is a Providence-based sound artist whose live performances offer listeners a gentle, restorative environment. Slow analog cycles combine with detailed field grains and room-specific resonance, interweaving the fringes of attention with warm, present volumes. In Spring 2023, Warren was in residence at Vienna’s [AT] MuseumsQuartier/Q21, collaborating with TONSPUR Kunstverein Wien to present a new sound installation, Lavender Lauds, supported by the Fulbright Commission [US]. Warren’s work has previously received support from Interfaces/European University Cyprus, EMS Stockholm, Spektrum (Berlin), Signal Culture (New York/Colorado), the American Composers Forum, and Non-Event (Boston). Warren has collaborated with ensembles including Chartreuse, JACK Quartet, So Percussion, Talea, Yarn/ Wire, and the Merseyside Improvisers Orchestra. Also active as an organizer of new music performances, Warren was the 2022 Artist/Curator-in-Residence at Providence venue The Music Mansion. Recently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Electronic Music & Multimedia (Brown University, 2017-21), Warren holds a PhD in Composition & Computer Technologies (Uni. Virginia, 2017).

photo © James Lastowski

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Experimentik 2024  is supported by inm - initiative neue musik berlin / field notes

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

🎵 Disco Elysium, Pt 1

"Good morning."

Let's get the smallest things out of the way first.

Protorave

NOID - "Yo, man. What's on your mind?" He drops a bolt into his toolbox.

6. [Conceptualization - Godly 16] Internalize the hard core aesthetic. Don't just nod along, really *feel* it.

+1 Hardened up your ledger. +1 Necktie is on. +1 Analysed the beat. +1 Perikarnassianism is Love.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Godly: Failure] - Aggressive. Monotonous... but also somehow sacral. Primitive, yet futuristic, like a machine man. Nothing exists, but the here and now. All are one, one purpose... All you've managed is a list. The parts don't form a whole.

7. "Take care, Noid." [Leave.]

EGG HEAD - "Good morning, comrade! Yeaaaaaah!" He waves his hand in the air. "Harder core!" The words echo magnificently throughout the nave.

7. [Interfacing - Godly 16] The audio onslaught can be tamed. Connect the dots.

+1 Andre's compression algorithm. +1 Fiddled with some knobs.

INTERFACING [Godly: Success] - SIDE-CHAIN THE BEAT!

*Side-chain*? What does it even mean?

INTERFACING - Listen, you can use the compressor to select between which track it's compressing, either the auxiliary signal or the main input from the tape. Make it alternate between the signals.

The compressor controls the gain based on the level of the signal on the aux side-chain input. It will allow maintaining a loud sound without peaks that fill up all the headspace.

"Okay. Egg, you need to start side-chaining it." (Explain the concept to him.)

EGG HEAD - "Side-chaining it, you said?" He turns down the music, his hands moving deftly across the mixer, setting up the necessary controls...

The music stops.

Then he puts on his headphones and his eyes go wide, wider than they've ever gone on drugs. He starts jumping up and down with bliss, in total silence -- still listening to his headphones.

ACELE - "Hey..." Acele looks up from her microphone. "What did you do to Egg Head, cop-man? Did you *break* him?"

"I'm… not sure."

"Just wait and see." (Nod at Egg Head.)

EGG HEAD - "ARE YOU READY, POSSE?!"

NOID - Noid straightens his back, ready for the beat...

ANDRE - "I was born ready, Egg!"

Give him a thumbs up.

EGG HEAD - The audio assault is glorious. The speedfreak dances on the stage, intensely waving his hand in the air.

"THIS IS BEAUTY, THIS IS LIFE!"

🎵 Ecstatic Vibrations, Totally Transcendent

Task complete: Make van Eyck's jam harder core

+30 XP

ACELE - "What in the world is going on?" Acele looks on, amazed at the display. "The way melody and bass flow together... it's unnatural."

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Your body is taking a beating from the low frequencies crashing over you. It's making you feel... alive again.

"THIS ONE IS FOR THE ANODIC GENERATION!"

"We have... tamed the sound. Made it our own."

EGG HEAD - "INTRODUCING THE ULTIMATE SOUND!"

"We have... tamed the sound. Made it our own."

ANDRE - "God damn it," you hear Andre say to himself over the thumping beat, "this dance club idea might just work out."

EGG HEAD - "DOLORIAN CHURCH -- THE PLACE TO BE!" Egg's losing himself in the sound. "Pump it, pump it!"

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - This is it... this is a new era. The fabric of the world has been irrevocably altered.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - Who will be the innocence of hard-core anodic dance music?

7. "Alright. Goodbye, Egg Head." [Leave.]

As you might expect, finding the bassline is going to make it easier to dance. We're not *quite* ready for that yet, though. (Also that will almost certainly have to be another video.)

🎵 Polyhedrons

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Oh, it's you again. Are you looking for a die?"

"I came back to pick up my die."

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Very good. That will be seven reál for one custom die."

(Give her the money.) "Here you go."

"Actually, I don't have the money on me right now."

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "One universal die for *Wirrâl Untethered*," the dicemaker opens her desk drawer and hands you a die.

Item Gained: Standard Anti-Wirrâl Die

Task complete: Pick up dice from the Dicemaker

+10 XP

Look at it.

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - It feels icy. Just holding this die in your hand sends a jolt of cold down your spine. Through the dark resin, you can make out a nugget of bone hewn from an alligator's jaw.

2. "Can I order another die?"

NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "I'm sorry. I'm a bit overloaded just now so I can only produce one die per customer."

Thanks anyway, Neha.

6. [Leave.]

STANDARD ANTI-WIRRAL DIE

This standard 24-sided role-playing die can be used to get results for several dice. It's made of alligator jawbone cast in acrylic resin and embellished with frost motifs. Looks like a minuscule blizzard is stuck in there. NOTE! Look at the MAP tab in Journal to see which White Checks have opened.

[michaelgogins]

More Notes on the Computer Music Playpen

I have finished maintenance on the VST3 plugin opcodes for Csound, Csound for Android, and some other things, and am re-focusing in composition.

One thing that happened as I was cleaning up the VST3 opcodes is that I discovered a very important thing. There are computer music programs that function as VST3 plugins and that significantly exceed the quality or power what Csound has so far done on it own, just for examples that I am using or plan to use:

The Valhalla reverbs by Sean Costello -- I think these actually derive from a reverb design that Sean did in the 1990s when he and I both were attending the Woof meetings at Columbia University. Sean's reverb design was ported first to Csound orchestra code, and then to C as a built-in opcode. It's the best and most widely used reverb in Csound, but it's not as good as the Valhalla reverbs, partly because the Valhalla reverbs can do a good job of preserving stereo.

Cardinal -- This is a fairly complete port of the VCV Rack "virtual Eurorack" patchable modular synthesiser not only to a VST3 plugin, but also to a WebAssembly module. This is exactly like sticking a very good Eurorack synthesizer right into Csound.

plugdata -- This is most of Pure Data, but with a slightly different and somewhat smoother user interface, as a VST3 plugin.

I also discovered that some popular digital audio workstations (DAWs), the workhorses of the popular music production industry, can embed algorithmic composition code written in a scripting language. For example, Reaper can host scripts written in Lua or Python, both of which are entirely capable of sophisticated algorithmic composition, and both of which have Csound APIs. And of course any of these DAWs can host Csound in the form of a Cabbage plugin.

All of this raises for me the question: What's the playpen? What's the most productive environment for me to compose in? Is it a DAW that now embeds my algorithms and my Csound instruments, or is it just code?

Right now the answer is not simply code, but specifically HTML5 code. And here is my experience and my reasons for not jumping to a DAW.

I don't want my pieces to break. I want my pieces to run in 20 years (assuming I am still around) just as they run today. Both HTML5 and Csound are "versionless" in the sense that they intend, and mostly succeed, in preserving complete backwards compatibility. There are Csound pieces from before 1990 that run just fine today -- that's over 33 years. But DAWs, so far, don't have such a good record in this department. I think many people find they have to keep porting older pieces to keep then running in newer software.

I'm always using a lot of resources, a lot of software, a lot of libraries. The HTML5 environment just makes this a great deal easier. Any piece of software that either is written in JavaScript or WebAssembly, or provides a JavaScript interface, can be used in a piece with a little but of JavaScript glue code. That includes Csound itself, my algorithmic composition software CsoundAC, the live coding system Strudel, and now Cardinal.

The Web browser itself contains a fantastic panoply of software, notably WebGL and WebAudio, so it's very easy to do visual music in the HTML5 environment.

[mariacallous]

Recently, Zoom amended its terms of service to grant itself the right to use any assets—such as video recordings, audio transcripts, or shared files—either uploaded or generated by "users" or "customers." These assets could be used for lots of things, including training Zoom’s machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.

This policy change raises a slew of questions. What does this mean for user privacy? Why doesn't there seem to be any clearly marked opt-out option, let alone the chance to meaningfully consent and opt in? How does this square with Zoom's previous problems with HIPAA compliance, wherein the company allegedly didn’t provide the end-to-end encryption it had advertised to health care providers? What does this mean for US educators bound by FERPA laws, which protect the privacy of students and their records?

This recent change to Zoom’s ToS underscores the need for companies to give users the chance to meaningfully opt in before their data is used to train AI, or for any other purpose they might not be comfortable with. This is especially urgent when the company in question is so integral to how we live our lives and the data it is gathering is so all-encompassing and personal. Even people who might otherwise have been happy to help improve a tool they use all the time will balk when they do not have the opportunity to affirmatively consent. Anything less than this is coercion, and coerced consent is no consent at all.

As if on cue, this week Zoom released what many read as a panicked blog post "clarifying" what this change to its ToS means and highlighting the opt-in process for its AI-assisted features. Then, the company added to its terms of service that "notwithstanding the above, Zoom will not use audio, video, or chat Customer Content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent."

But these amendments didn’t assuage many of the concerns that people had raised. For one thing, the choice to opt in or out can only be set at the "customer" level—meaning that the company, corporation, university, or medical office that licenses Zoom makes that decision, not the individual users signed up through that license. (Though individuals signing up for free Zoom accounts would presumably be able to control that for themselves.) And the updated ToS still leaves open the possibility that Zoom might use the data it has collected for other purposes at some later date, should it so choose.

What’s more, neither Zoom's blog post nor its updated ToS contain any discussion of what happens if one organization opts out but a cohost joins the call through a different organization that has opted in. What data from that call would the company be permitted to use? What potentially confidential information might leak into Zoom’s ecosystem? And on a global stage, how do all of these questions about the new rights provisions in Zoom’s ToS square with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation?

Most of us were never directly asked if we wanted our calls to be used for testing and training Zoom's generative AI. We were told it was going to happen, and that if we didn't like it we should use something else. But when Zoom has such a firm monopoly on video calling—a necessary part of life in 2023—the existing alternatives aren’t exactly appealing. One could use a tool owned by Google or Microsoft, but both companies have had their own problems with training generative AI on user data without informed consent. The other option is to use an unfamiliar backend and interface with a steep learning curve. But parsing through and learning to use those tools will create a barrier to entry for many organizations, not to mention individuals, who have integrated Zoom into their daily lives. For people who are just trying to have a conversation with their coworkers, students, patients, or family members, that's not really a meaningful choice.

Zoom is populated by our faces, our voices, our hand gestures, our spoken, written, or signed language, our shared files, and our conversations and interactions. It has become inextricable from everyday life, sometimes directly due to its AI-enabled features. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people use its free captioning for easy access; patients use transcripts to refer back to after an appointment with a physician or therapist; and students may use the “Zoom IQ enhanced note-taking” feature to help them study or work on a group project. These tools make the app more accessible and user-friendly. But the way to build and improve upon them isn’t to try to gain as much access as possible to users’ data.

Instead, Zoom should provide customers and end users with a loudly announced warning and a clear explanation of exactly what it plans to do with user data. It should provide granular opt-in and -out options, and make it easy for people to rescind that permission while still retaining use of a base-level service. Every organization and its end users should be made aware of what Zoom wants to use these tools for, and they should have the chance to say, "Yes, I actively consent." And if they miss that email or news story or whatever other missive, for whatever reason, then the default position should be "No, that user does not consent, until they actively affirm otherwise."

Regardless of what happens next, Zoom fumbled hard on this attempt to engage the public and respond to a valid set of user concerns. This should be a lesson for other corporations that are looking to take liberties with their users’ consent: People are paying a lot more attention these days, and they are increasingly willing to work together to push against their lives being mined for data. While raising the alarm or even switching to unfamiliar tools might be a hassle, more and more people are beginning to understand that sometimes that hassle is necessary.

As generative AI proliferates, it’s crucial that every user has at least some measure of input over how their data is used. When tools are being developed that can appropriate our likenesses and (poorly) approximate our creative and intellectual endeavors, not at our own behest but at that of a corporation advancing its own agenda, pushing back hard and fast is the best way to prevent the loss of input, autonomy, and control.

[dekhocampus11]

Delhi Metropolitan Education—[DME], Noida

Introduction Delhi Metropolitan Education (DME), located in Noida, is one of the emerging institutions in the field of higher education in India. Affiliated with Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), Delhi, and approved by the Bar Council of India (BCI) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), DME offers quality professional education in the disciplines of Law, Management, and Journalism & Mass Communication. Since its establishment, DME has positioned itself as a hub for academic excellence, creativity, discipline, and holistic student development.

Campus and Infrastructure

DME is located in the heart of Noida’s educational and industrial zone, with a state-of-the-art urban campus that provides modern facilities for learning, research, and extracurricular engagement.

Key Infrastructure Features:

Smart classrooms with audio-visual aids

A well-stocked central library with physical and digital resources

Media studio and editing lab for journalism students

Legal aid clinic and moot courtrooms for law students

Computer labs, IT infrastructure, and high-speed internet

A fully air-conditioned auditorium for seminars and events

Cafeteria, medical room, common rooms, and recreational areas

DME provides an environment that supports both academic growth and co-curricular development.

Courses Offered

DME offers undergraduate professional programs under its three primary schools:

1. DME School of Law

BA LL.B. (Hons.) – 5-year integrated program

BBA LL.B. (Hons.) – 5-year integrated program

These programs are designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of legal principles, business administration, and social sciences with a special focus on mooting, internships, and case study methods.

2. DME School of Management

BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) – 3 years

This program blends theoretical knowledge and practical business skills. It emphasizes entrepreneurship, leadership, and industry interface.

3. DME School of Media and Communication

BA (Journalism and Mass Communication) – 3 years

It prepares students for careers in print, digital, and broadcast media, with hands-on training in news production, advertising, public relations, and film making.

All courses follow the GGSIPU curriculum with academic rigor, internal assessments, and industry internships.

Faculty and Teaching Pedagogy

DME has a strong faculty base with experienced academicians, practicing lawyers, journalists, and industry experts. The teaching approach is interactive, participative, and application-oriented.

Teaching Highlights:

Case-based and project-based learning

Guest lectures from eminent legal experts, media personalities, and business leaders

Real-time newsroom simulations and legal drafting workshops

Internships, court visits, newsroom exposure, and business case analysis

Focus on research, paper presentations, and academic writing

The institute supports individual student mentoring and soft skill development, ensuring well-rounded personal and professional grooming.

Research, Innovation, and Publications

DME actively promotes research through its academic cells and centers. The institution publishes several in-house journals and hosts national and international conferences, encouraging students and faculty to contribute to academic discourse.

DME Journal of Law, Journal of Management & Innovation, and Media Review

Legal Aid Clinic & Moot Court Society for practical legal training

Centers for Media Studies, Gender Sensitization, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation

Faculty and student participation in UGC-recognized journals and research papers

DME nurtures a culture of critical thinking, social responsibility, and ethical education.

Industry Interface and Internships

DME ensures that students are connected with the professional world through mandatory internships, training programs, and live projects. Each department has collaborations with industry bodies and professionals.

Law students intern with law firms, courts, NGOs, and legal departments

Media students intern with news channels, production houses, advertising agencies

Management students intern in corporate offices, startups, and consultancy firms

The Placement Cell and Internship & Training Cell support students in securing internships and building strong professional networks.

Placements and Career Development

While being a relatively young institution, DME is developing a strong placement record across its departments. The Training and Placement Cell (TPC) conducts regular activities to enhance employability.

Placement Support Includes:

Resume building workshops and aptitude tests

Mock interviews and GDs

Industry expert sessions and career counseling

On-campus recruitment drives

Students have received offers from firms like Barclays, NDTV, ABP News, Indian Express, Times of India, HT Media, Kotak Mahindra, and various law chambers. The placement cell works actively to increase corporate participation each year.

Student Life and Co-Curricular Activities

DME strongly believes in the holistic development of students. The institute promotes vibrant student participation through clubs, societies, and annual fests.

Notable Initiatives:

Moot Court Competitions and Model United Nations (MUNs)

Film Festivals, Debate Competitions, and Cultural Fests

Legal Aid Awareness Drives, Press Days, and Entrepreneurship Summits

Sports events and inter-college competitions

Student-run societies for drama, music, dance, photography, writing, and public speaking

The campus life at DME fosters creativity, leadership, and a sense of community.

Why Choose DME, Noida?

GGSIPU-affiliated and BCI/AICTE-approved

Located in Noida, a media and business hub near Delhi

Experienced faculty with real-world exposure

Strong focus on practical learning and internships

Active research, publication, and student innovation

Developing placement record with growing corporate connections

Affordable fees and access to quality education

Supportive and safe campus environment

Whether you are aspiring to become a lawyer, journalist, or business leader, DME provides the platform, guidance, and exposure required to succeed in your professional journey.

Conclusion

Delhi Metropolitan Education (DME), Noida, is fast emerging as a center of academic excellence with its commitment to holistic education, professionalism, and student empowerment. With a perfect blend of theory, practice, and personality development, DME prepares students not just for jobs but for leadership in their respective fields.

[proaudioclinic]

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