NewHelium

1. Producers use more chords and less studio chopping effects.

2. Singer-songwriters team up  with electronic music producers, best of both worlds.

3. The eighties revival will continue but ebb out.

4. (My yearly prediction.) An electronic music ‘Frank Zappa’ like artist will bubble up. Or more than one.

5. Producers don’t need to build DJ-specific tracks with timed build-ups/breakdowns as the new DJ tools makes it possible to DJs to build their own productions.

6. Dynamic music, non-heavily compressed, does a comeback.

1. Bitwig will release their product and actually it’s a very open-ended system with lots of tweaking features that will open up very new live music scenarios.

2. NI will introduce a similar live music application with Maschine and Traktor integration for live use (maybe they should purchase Bitwig…)

3. While Ableton will still get side-tracked with their DAW ambitions forgetting their roots.

4. Most audio SW companies will use online app stores, boxed material is out.

5. Plug-in prices will drop 50%, seen this trend already with year-round special deals…

6. Reaktor will create stand-alone plug-ins opening up a new venue to build plug-ins.

7. More studios and laptops will have Quad-Core or better systems so there will be even more analog-like emulations of nearly anything. However, the producers are asking for radical new instruments and effects, instead, being happy with the digital sound.

8. (I hope) some new lossy algorithm will show up with very little degradation but 70% compression rate, a compromise between best lossless and best lossy algorithms.

1. Guitar Center, bye bye.

2. Pono is a good idea but will only get a niche market.

3. Pandora, most likely bye bye, too.

4. And I still don’t know who uses eMusic.

5. EDM will collapse here in USA but as an offspring we will get good smaller clubs with more diverse dance music.

6. Royalty services will start looking into the podcast misuse of music.

7. This is a prediction I hope will happen: as part of getting into a loud music event, you get good/cheap ear plugs as part of the ticket price.

1. Podcasts now use music with no royalty payments. Either this will be stopped or just accepted, similar to YouTube.

2. Nobody has really come up with a streaming payment system that supports the artists. That is bad. The idea was go get rid of middlemen and they crawled back in forms of Pandora, Spotify et rest.

3. So many good new artists/bands, the problem is to remember and follow them all. It’s not fun being a new up and coming artist today.

4. Musicians should spend writing music and performing, not spending their days on social networking sites — even if the ‘industry pundits’ write same-kind blog entries week after week. There’s something special about being mystical, think of Prince.

5. DJ as a performer is now a fact and a good model for future musicians.

6. Beware of even more companies making money from musicians. At least they aim for the amateur market which makes sense.

1. Excessive compression side-chaining.

2. Deliberate adding of vinyl emulation, clicks/pops to make it sound old when it’s not.

3. Every singer sounds the same with auto-tune. Leave it out and you sound special.

4. Adaptive limiting where the output looks like a brick, destroying any nuances.

I’m afraid this won’t happen but one could always wish….

1. Some still moaning about sync/no sync? Let go.

2. Beatport overcharging for music, especially lossless files, but that’s been the case since early days.

3. Less DJs daring to take chances when playing live, rather playing top-40 EDM. 

4. Speak of anyone becoming a DJ, celebrities et rest.

1. Mixify.com — start your DJ show any time with a 15 minute setup time.

2. QuNeo — most fun controller.

3. NI Traktor integration between HW and SW, S4/S2, Z4 and so on.

Ableton - spent three years coming up with a version with very little whizz-bang. And their pricing model is horrible and expensive.

How many commercial sample web sites do we really need?

Big boo to any companies still using iLok, Slate et rest. Waves saw the light.

If ProTools is not 64-bit they should leave out the Pro from the name.

Guitar effect pedal manufacturers all chasing digital tools and iPads while what we guitar players want are good and affordable analog gear.

U-he - Diva, updates, customer service.

NI - new innovative products, good pricing, freebies, taking care of customers

Sugar Bytes and Sine Vibes - think different

Arturia - new concepts with drum plug-ins and controllers

QuNeo - best MIDI controller concept so far

http://www.xlr8r.com - if you want to know what the bleeding edge music sounds like

http://thedankles.com - ditto as above

http://www.musicradar.com - good reviews

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk - always interested to read about the history of DJ:ing