Music
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Apple Music on Android catches up with iOS
Apple’s subscription streaming service, Apple Music, rolled out a major (ver. 2.0) release to Android users today, introducing a new design that largely brings the app to parity with its iOS counterpart. The update includes a visual makeover, which organizes content into a few main sections – Library, For You, Browse, and Radio – as on iOS. The Now Playing screen also… Read More
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For those about to tune, we salute you
The first Roadie tuner was a miracle in a plastic case. This little device connected to your phone and then turned the machine heads (the little tuning knobs) on your guitar to exactly the right position. It worked wonderfully. Now the Roadie 2 intends to tune your guitar all night and tune your guitar every day. The Roadie 2 and the Roadie Bass are standalone tuners with an app component… Read More
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Report: Free trials push Apple Music ahead of Pandora and Spotify on mobile usage
Spotify may be the reigning leader when it comes to the largest number of paid subscribers for a streaming music service, but it’s Apple that comes out on top when their respective audiences translate into monthly unique users, specifically on mobile. A report published this week from mobile analytics firm Verto has found that Apple Music attracted 40.7 million monthly unique users to… Read More
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Soundcloud confirms new $70M credit line, still closin $100M round
Soundcloud — the popular, but unprofitable platform that lets creators post and share music and other audio files — may have been unsuccessful (so far) in closing a new $100 million round of funding, but it’s not running out of money soon. The company has secured a $70 million round of debt funding from three new investors — Ares Capital, Kreos Capital, and… Read More
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Spotify and Waze partner to play music and navigate seamlessly
Driving in a car and listening to music go hand in hand, and now a new partnership between music streaming app Spotify and navigation app Waze hopes to make that experience more seamless in the connected age. The two have teamed up so that users of the Waze app can listen to Spotify playlists from within the app, and Spotify users can continue to get their Waze navigation instructions while in… Read More
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Pandora’s on-demand music service finally arrives
Pandora’s long-awaited alternative to Spotify has arrived today. The company this morning announced the debut of a new paid tier to its streaming service called Pandora Premium, which offers a combination of radio-like listening as well as the option to search and play any track and create your own playlists. Read More
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Music Audience Exchange wants to get musicians paid
In the late 1990s, Volkswagen approached the music label Rykodisc with a proposition. They wanted to take the music of a then-obscure singer-songwriter from the company’s catalog and use it as the soundtrack to an ad for their new Cabriolet. The artist was Nick Drake and, though I’m not sure how well the car sold, the ad (VW’s first online) became iconic and brought a… Read More
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Crunch Network
Snap may get music where Facebook and others failed
Music could be Snap’s next killer product, and help them take over the world. Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music
Amper, a startup that offers AI-powered music composition, is announcing that it has raised $4 million in funding. The round was led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from Foundry Group, Kiwi Venture Partners and Advancit Capital. Amper previously raised funding from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. You might not expect a film composer like Drew Silverstein (who founded the company with… Read More
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Google’s A.I. Duet experiment lets you jam with the machine
Google today launched a fun new machine learning experiment: A.I. Duet. This new web-based experiment lets you play melodies on your computer’s keyboard (or a supported MIDI keyboard you plug into your computer) and the computer will then try to play a duet with you. Here is how this works: you basically play a few notes and then wait for the program to come back with a response. What… Read More
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Pandora falls 4% on earnings news
Internet music giant Pandora fell 4 percent in initial after-hours trading after the company released its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings results. Pandora actually beat expectations, but this was already worked into the stock because the company announced last month that they would beat guidance. Investors were apparently looking for something better. The earnings per share loss came in at 13… Read More
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Sources: Spotify may delay IPO to 2018 as it rethinks licensing deals
Spotify — the music streaming company with over 100 million users (40 million of them paying) — has long been seen as one of the more likely candidates among larger tech startups to go public in 2017, but it looks like this plan may be shifting. TechCrunch has heard from multiple sources that the company is now weighing a plan to delay an IPO until 2018. The delay… Read More
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GoPro gives the Karma drone another try
The GoPro Karma drone is now available for purchase. The camera maker today announced the general availability of the drone and at writing, it’s available from GoPro.com, and other retailers like Best Buy, B&H Photo Video and Amazon. Buyers can opt for the Karma drone bundled with a GoPro Hero 5 for $1099 or $799 without a camera. This is GoPro’s second try at the Karma drone. Read More
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Eventbrite buys Ticketscript, a self-service ticket platform for music events
Eventbrite, the billion-dollar event-management platform that some tip for an imminent IPO, has made another acquisition in Europe to build out its presence here, and to move deeper into ticketing services. It has acquired Ticketscript, a startup based out of Amsterdam that offers a popular platform for event organisers to set up and sell tickets online for live events like music… Read More
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Sprint takes 33% stake in Tidal, plans streaming music for its 45M users
Here’s an interesting turn of events in the ongoing story of the streaming music industry. Today, Sprint, itself owned by Softbank, announced it would take a 33 percent stake in Tidal, the streaming music startup originally founded in Norway that was majority acquired by Jay Z and relaunched in 2015 as a platform to compete against the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, offering… Read More
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Crunch Network
For dramatic VR to succeed, music must become the director
The use of music — not as a background mood enhancer, but actually as a director of sorts — will be critical as VR and AR content creators struggle with how to direct the viewer’s gaze in 360 environments. Figuring out music’s role will be key to the mainstream adoption of VR dramatic content. But so far, music is still being relegated to a background mood feature. Read More
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SoundCloud co-founder takes product role, Yahoo alum steps in as CTO
On the heels of losses that appear to be growing faster than revenues, and reported acquisition interest from Google, the music streaming service SoundCloud today announced some executive movements. Eric Wahlforss, who co-founded the audio streaming startup with Alexander Ljung, is stepping away from the role of CTO and taking a new position as chief product officer. Meanwhile, SoundCloud… Read More
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Samsung rolls out new smart TV services for sports, music & video, plus an updated mobile app
Apple last month released a new TV app in an attempt to centralize all the streaming TV options available across Apple TV, iPhone and iPad. Now, Samsung is rolling out its own take on the matter, with the launch of a trio of new Smart TV services focused on sports, music and video on demand. The services are a part of Samsung’s Smart Hub platform, which offers customers a way to… Read More
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Wrist-mounted subwoofer Basslet announces pricing and shipping
Crowdfunded on Kickstarter last year, Lofelt’s wrist-mountable subwoofer is shipping to its backers as we speak. Basslet will be available to order on February 7 for $199. I tried it out at CES and am eager to share some first impressions. Read More
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