Instagram just announced , including a suite of interactive stickers. The music one is perhaps the most interesting, as it’s an extension of the . The Add Yours Music sticker lets users share their favorite songs, along with a prompt for followers to get in on the fun by sharing their own related tracks. Of course, the song has to already be in Instagram’s music library to work.
To that end, Instagram has partnered with Dua Lipa to promote her new album, Radical Optimism. Many of the songs from the album are available for use in this way, and the artist herself has been posting Stories with Add Your Music stickers.
Instagram
Another nifty sticker added today is called Reveal. Opting for this sticker blurs the visuals of a story post and the only way followers can see the content is to DM the person who shared it. Direct messages have become a key factor behind Instagram’s continued growth, with site head Adam Mosseri stating that teens actually spend more time in DMs than anywhere else on the platform.
He also says that “virtually all” engagement growth over the past few years has come from DMs and Stories, . So, yeah, this will most definitely be used as a hack by savvy creators looking to boost their engagement. The thirst traps will be thirstier and trappier than ever before.
Instagram
Instagram has also unveiled a sticker called Frames. This tool throws a Polaroid-esque overlay over a photo, turning it into an instant print image. To reveal the contents, followers will have to channel Andre 3000 and shake their phones like a Polaroid picture, though there’s also a button. Creators can add captions which are also revealed upon shaking. This feature was originally revealed at .
Instagram
Finally, there’s a feature called Cutouts. This tool turns any part of a video or photo in your camera roll into a sticker, which can then be applied to a story or reel. Once a cutout is created, it gets saved into an easily-accessible sticker tray for future uses. This also works with photos posted to Instagram, though the pictures have to be shared by public accounts.
This has been a big month of changes for Instagram. In addition to the aforementioned new sticker systems, the social media app to boost original content and deemphasize aggregator accounts. The company also changed the way Reels works to give smaller accounts a chance to expand their reach, though it remains unclear how this works. Instagram has also recently made , if you want some confident, yet absolutely wrong, answers to questions.
The first time I heard Taylor Swift’s Fortnight, a new song off the Tortured Poet’s Department featuring Post Malone, it was through an FM radio built into a 22-year-old Sony Walkman CD player, but even with the poor reception, the lyrics resonated with this almost forgotten technology:
“I was supposed to be sent away
But they forgot to come and get me”
Listening to Swift’s new blockbuster, the thirty-one-track-double album Tortured Poet’s Department, on vintage technology was, I admit, an accident.
I’d unexpectedly discovered the Sony Walkman model D-FS601 buried in a box in my basement while searching for a firewire cable for another aging piece of technology (a 2008 camcorder, but that’s another story).
Though yellowing, the player, which also includes an AM/FM radio, dedicated weather channels, and even TV channels, looked otherwise in decent shape. I forgot all about the Firewire and brought the classic Sony Walkman upstairs to my home office.
As the name suggests, Sony Walkman’s were meant to go where you go, which means battery operation (there’s also a DC-in port so I could plug it into the wall but then what’s the point?). With more than a little trepidation, I opened the battery compartment, which sits inside the device and under where you’d normally place a CD. I was praying that it wasn’t filled with a pair of exploded double AA batteries. To my surprise and relief, it was empty and clean as a whistle.
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(Image credit: Future)
Shake it off
Holding the Walkman in my hand, I was surprised at its heft. Though listed on Amazon as weighing 9.6 ounces, I’d contend it weighs at least a pound. Like the original Sony Walkman (circa 1979) the player’s shape was defined by its media. Whereas the first Walkman wrapped itself around a cassette tape, this 2002 model was mostly a circle. I say mostly because one side of the player is a big, grippable section.
The idea was to put all the controls within thumb or fingertip reach. A built-in band would slip over your palm and you could control the power, play, skip, and pause with just your thumb. You’d still need to use your other hand to press almost a dozen other button options on the Walkman, though.
(Image credit: Future)
There’s something very forward-looking and also retrograde about this design. Who wants to carry around a pound of gear in their hand while running? Oh, and yes, this was a CD player designed to withstand a splash of water and take the bumps of a runner’s road with what’s known as built-in “G” protection. \
This didn’t mean that the laser never skipped. Instead, the system cached 30-40 seconds of music (depending on the setting, I think) and would automatically cancel out missed bits of music. It was a smart idea that also ate up a little battery life.
A CD with style
(Image credit: Future)
I found some fresh batteries, put them in, and immediately discovered that the radio worked. It was still set to one of our favorite radio stations from 20 years ago: 95.5, which has since become an all-religion network.
Putting the Sony Walkman aside for a minute, I headed back to the basement to dig through my still extensive CD collection. With almost all the songs ever recorded available online on the best music streaming services, there’s probably no good reason to hold onto all these plastic bits of music memories. However, if you are, as I am, currently in between music services, they may not seem so obsolete after all.
I popped in a Mowtown: Jackson 5 Greatest Hits album and then went back to the box where I found the player to see if the originally wired headphones were still around. They were not but I found a pair with “MP3” printed on them, so I chose those and quickly wished I hadn’t. The cable was too short, the earbuds fit was basic, and the sound was abysmal. I soon found a newer pair from Samsung and the sound was lovely and rich. Of course, there’s a bass boost (three settings) on the Walkman, and I amped it to the mid-range. I won’t claim the audio was better than what I get from, say, Spotify or Apple Music on my iPhone but it was good.
These features were over now
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
Naturally, I would much rather use a Bluetooth headphone with the Walkman, but that wireless protocol was only a few years old in 2002 and not widely used in music players and stereo headphones. I could, if I wanted, spend $20 for a Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into the player’s 3.5mm headphone jack.
There’s a lot on this Walkman that is no longer useful. It has built-in TV audio receivers for a collection of local broadcast channels that no longer transmit in anything except digital. Plus there are those weather stations that now play nothing but static.
As I noted earlier, the radio, both AM and FM, still works. I started looking for a single station I could reliably pick up – and that’s when I found Z100 and Taylor Swift.
Founded in 1983, Z100 had been broadcasting top 40 hits to millions of listener’s ears six years before Taylor Swift was born but unlike some old stations that stuck with the music that brought them, Z100 changes with the times and is in step with what’s new, fresh, and undeniably hot. In today’s moment, that’s Taylor Swift and the Tortured Poet’s Department.
The mega music star launched her surprise dual album on April 19, coincidentally the same day I began playing with the vintage Sony Walkman CD Player.
Don’t blame me
(Image credit: Future)
As I tuned the radio to Z100, I heard familiar vocals. It was Taylor Swift, and not just any Taylor Swift, (say a banger from 1989 or Anti-Hero from Midnight). No, I could tell, this was one of Swift’s song-poems from the Tortured Poet’s Department. In quick succession, the station played Fortnight, I Can Do It with a Broken Heart, and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys. Suddenly, the album was in heavy rotation.
It also sounded terrible.
Not the songs. Even from the static-filled bits I could make out, this was some beautiful and tortured stuff. But no matter where I moved in my house, the reception and clarity were abysmal, far worse than even my car radio.
I quickly realized this was the wrong introduction to Swift’s last bit of unloading about yet another past relationship (and maybe her current one with football star Travis Kelce). After a few tracks, I gave up.
There is nothing wrong with using this yellowed CD player for physical media, especially the classics, but new tunes deserve the best mp3 player and best headphones you can buy. It’s Taylor Swift, she deserves no less and I offer apologies to all the Swifties I’ve offended.
You can queue songs in Apple Music so that the tracks you want to hear play automatically, one after another. You don’t need to wait for the song to end and manually play the next one.
I also have a pro tip for clearing the queue if you want to start over, because Apple Music doesn’t have an easy “clear” button on the iPhone.
Plus, you can let friends add songs to the queue from their own phones — even if they don’t have an Apple Music subscription.
The fastest way to add a single song to your Apple Music queue is with a swipe gesture. Swipe to the right on a song and you’ll see two buttons. The purple button is Play Next; the orange button is Play Later. Play Next will play the track after the current song is over, then go back to what was playing before. Play Last will add the song to the bottom of the queue. Keep swiping all the way to the right to Play Next.
Add a song or album to the queue from the ⋯ menu
Next to a song, you should see a ⋯ button. Tap it to bring up the menu, then tap either Play Next or Play Last. You can use this method to add an entire album, station or playlist to your Apple Music queue. From the list view, the ⋯ menu is in the upper right corner. You also can tap and hold on an album, station or playlist to add it to the queue without opening it first.
Queue music with SharePlay
New in iOS 17, you can use SharePlay to build a queue of music collaboratively. You don’t need to pass your unlocked iPhone around in the car; people can add songs from their own devices. (They don’t need an Apple Music subscription.) If your phone is plugged into a speaker, or connected to Bluetooth or CarPlay, you’ll see a SharePlay button on the Now Playing screen. To let other people to join, you can simply hold your phones together top-to-top. Alternatively, you can have them scan the QR code or your phone. They can add songs to the queue using the same swipe gestures or from the ⋯ menu.
Clear your song queue in Apple Music
Remove a single song or the whole queue. Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Now you know how easy it is to add songs to your Apple Music queue. But what if you want to remove songs? To do that, from the Now Playing screen, tap the Playing Next button in the bottom right. Swipe left on a song to remove it.
If you build up a long list of songs that you don’t end up finishing, there’s unfortunately no easy way to remove them all from your iPhone. On the Mac, you can click the Playing Next button on the right side of the toolbar and click Clear, but there’s no such button on the iPhone.
However, there is a Shortcut you can add called Clear Apple Music Queue. It does exactly what it says in the name — run the shortcut and your queue is emptied.
Download the Shortcut here. After you add it, you can ask Siri, “Clear Apple Music queue” to execute the command. Or you can run it from the Share menu or add a widget.
You also can reorder your Apple Music track list by dragging the ☰ up or down. The three buttons on top control the order of the playlist:
Shuffle will play the remaining songs in the queue in a random order.
Repeat will play the queue back from the beginning when it reaches the end.
Autoplay will continue playing songs similar to what you were playing before.
Music streaming service Tidal is introducing a great new feature to its desktop app, one we hope other platforms implement: universal links. Now, whenever a Tidal user shares a song with a friend, the recipient will be able to listen to the track “on their preferred streaming service.” They won’t be forced to install the app on their compute. As the company put it, your friends can enjoy “your latest musical obsession, regardless of where they listen.”
The platform itself didn’t make an official announcement. This update appears to have been discovered by a Reddit user on the Tidal subreddit who posted screenshots of the patch notes and the feature in action. We can confirm Tidal Version 2024.03.27 of the desktop app is indeed live and rolling out, as we received the patch on our computer.
Sharing music across platforms doesn’t require any extra steps on behalf of the sender. To begin, click the three dots next to a song’s title, then hover over Share. Select Copy Track Link and send your friend said link.
Here’s where things get different.
(Image credit: Future)
When the recipient opens the link, they will be taken to a special Tidal web page where they select how they want to listen to the track. Four other streaming services are currently supported at the time of this writing: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music. You won’t be able to listen right away as you’ll have to wait a few seconds for the Tidal to connect to the third-party app.
(Image credit: Future)
Once it’s done, pick whatever you want and it’ll open your choice on a web browser. It won’t open their respective desktop app. The patch notes state there are plans to expand support to other services – presumably Deezer is one those. But it’s unknown when that’ll happen.
Leading the charge
This tech isn’t anything new, as similar tools have existed for years now. Deezer, for example, has Shaker, which is an all-in-one playlist feature that allows people to grab songs from their preferred app and pool songs together seamlessly. Songlink is another option, but again you have to make a full playlist.
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What’s exciting about the Tidal update is that this is the first time a major music streaming service is incorporating universal links. It’s a level of flexibility rarely seen anywhere else. You don’t have to create a playlist. You’re free to share one song and just the one song. On top of all this, Tidal is bucking industry trends by becoming cheaper, too. We would love to see Spotify, Apple Music, and the like follow in its footsteps.
As much as we gush over universal links, we have several questions. Will the mobile app receive the same upgrade? The Reddit post specifically mentions receiving Version 2024.03.27 on their Mac and we got it on our PC. However, there’s no mention of Android or iOS anywhere. Same goes for its availability; it’s unknown if this is rolling out globally or not.
The landscape of music and video production is undergoing a significant transformation, thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). Artists and creators now have the ability to harness AI to bring their imaginative concepts to life in ways that were once thought to be impossible. This shift is opening doors to personalized and innovative content creation, making it simpler for anyone to produce music, write songs and create videos that resonate with their unique style and vision.
At the forefront of this shift is Suno, an AI-powered platform that specializes in creating music compositions and vocals that align with your personal taste. By providing Suno with details about your preferred genre and theme, the tool generates a distinctive piece of music that mirrors your creative intent. This bespoke soundtrack becomes the foundation for your project, setting the tone for the entire production.
Once the music is in place, the next step is to craft a visual narrative for your music video. This is where Playground AI comes into play. It’s a versatile tool that produces images ranging from abstract to realistic, depending on your vision. These images form the basis of your music video’s storyline, ensuring that the visuals are in harmony with the audio.
Bringing these images to life is where animation comes in, and platforms like Pika Labs, RunwayML, and Kaiber offer the tools needed to animate still pictures. These platforms are designed to be user-friendly, allowing creators to add movement and depth to their music videos without needing extensive technical knowledge.
How to write songs using AI
Here are some other articles you may find of interest on the subject of :
Editing a video to perfection is a complex task. It involves syncing lip movements with lyrics and blending animations seamlessly. This precision is crucial for creating a music video that captivates the audience and provides a seamless viewing experience.
To further improve the quality of your video, you might consider using upscaling tools. These applications can take footage of lower quality and enhance it to a crisp, high-definition standard, giving your music video a polished and professional appearance.
The album cover serves as the visual introduction to your music, and AI now enables you to design eye-catching covers without needing to be a graphic design expert. AI-generated artwork can capture the mood and style of your music, providing an attractive visual for your audience.
Another innovative tool is vocal isolation software. This technology allows you to separate vocals from the background music, enabling you to add new harmonies or layers to your songs, thus enriching the overall sound. It is a free online application that provides you with two tracks after processing a karaoke version of your song (no vocals) and acapella version (isolated vocals). Processing usually takes about 10 seconds.
Exploring the various AI tools available for music video styles and effects can lead to unique and captivating results. AI offers a wide range of creative possibilities, from vintage to modern aesthetics, allowing you to find the perfect match for your music’s tone.
The role of AI in music and video production is expanding the horizons for creative expression. From write songs using AI and generating music with Suno to animating images and refining videos, the tools discussed here offer a comprehensive approach to creating AI-generated songs and music videos. As you explore the diverse styles and effects that AI has to offer, embrace your creativity and discover the ideal combination to fulfill your artistic vision.
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