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September 26, 2005
mi audio blues pro pedal
This just sounds amazing. MI Audio are a Sydney based company and they're making some nice gear. The sound sample is of their new Blues Pro pedal, which incidentally sports the biggest knob to pedal proportion - this year.
Anyway. It just sounds blistering and it holds tone so well, if you're into blues guitar check out the other samples this thing seems so cheap for what it is - a handmade boutique stompbox. Retails for $89.95USD - or $139.95 INC GST here in Australia.
MI Audio makin' some nice gear.
Posted by funnelbc at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2005
go for that real analogue err.. look?
Behringer make some reasonably priced gear and it stands up pretty well to musical use and the scrutiny of the budget driven but still quality conscious musician. Often you hear the cry of "how do they do it so cheap?" when every other mainstream brand costs much more.
Obviously some corners are cut, and also they just make an absolute shitload of gear and theres gotta be some economies of scale that come into play here. The article that spawned this line of thinking is over on David Mellor's Record Producer. Basically he pulled apart an Behringer ultragain mic pre to see 3 LEDs mounted behind the tube which slowly get brighter after you turn it on which is supposed to simulate valve glow. I feel this is a bit disingenuous, even if the valve is still wired in there. I was surpised but not disheartened, i mean after all this is Behringer, the cheapest of the cheap (which is not necessarily a bad thing).
What stunned me was the follow up posts where folks wrote in citing two examples of other high quality music brands indulging in the same practice. The examples listed were the Crate Blue Voodoo and the Korg Electribe EMX1.
Which frankly, shocked me. It's just a bit tawdry and silly, especially for products which stand on their own as good sounding gear. It's window dressing for products which don't need it, or alternatively they're marketing to folks who put more stock in how something looks rather than how it sounds and how it is to actually use.
Working (now part time thankfully) in a corporate business I can sadly see how this sort of thing gets through - design by committee, where the actual nuts and bolts essentials of the product (sound, usability) are just as important as packaging and the look of it. It's bloody disgusting and another sign that the end times are coming and you should send me all your gear as you won't need it during the apocralypse anyway ;-)
Record Producer.com article Will you ever buy behringer gear again after reading this? Answer: Probably, but i'll be thinking a little bit harder about its supposed features before i decide if it is the good buy it's supposed to be.
Thanks Terry for link!
Posted by funnelbc at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
traktor 3 released
Native Instruments have got the details up for Traktor 3 on their website. Amongst other things the new version comes packing 4 virtual turntables, built in accesss to Beatport online music store, inline strip (5 per channel) effects and lfo based filter called beat master. It also looks like the handling of live editing of waveforms has been improved and making realtime changes to upcoming sections of the songs has been made easier with improved interaction on the waveform displays.
As an added bonus it appears they've improved the user interface, making it fully modular meaning that you can minimize unused palettes and get extra screen realestate for what you're working on. This is good news for dual screen fans. You can also record a set with all your traktor program changes as a non destructive file. Excellent.
Traktor 3 - Native Instruments is looking nice.
Posted by funnelbc at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2005
tc electronics vintage pedal lineup
TC Electronics makers of quite sexy outboard gear have gone back to their guitar stompbox makin' roots and released a bucket of new pedals. Pictured on the right is the new overdrive pedal with with retro style and is described by like this:
The velvety yet crusty and crunchy sound that comes from the Vintage Overdrive will make your guitar sing. Normally you would have to use an old tube amp to acquire the balmy and poignant overdrive that this pedal delivers.
Velvety yet crusty? Balmy and poignant? Well. Okay then. Still they make nice gear so i'm going to have to take them on faith regarding the relative poignancy of the pedals. Still, is it just me or is there a big trend towards ganky 70's & 80's transistor styling?
TC Electronics dot com where you can check out the rest of the range, totalling 7 new pedals. Balminess guaranteed my friends. Guaranteed.
Posted by funnelbc at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2005
pathways to music video
Over on Get LoFi they have a rather nice video from 1972. It's an instructional slideshow with audio on the history of electronic music.
There's some fantastic potential for sampling the vocals to this, it's rather nicely narrated in that instructional video sort of way. It's also rather educational. Hurrah for education! Theres a 6mb and 40mb version, for the full experience I recommend the 40mb extravaganza.
Posted by funnelbc at 07:37 PM | Comments (0)
indyguitarist releases new pedal
Indy guitarist.com have released a new pedal called the Pinnacle.
It has two overdrive circuits in one pedal, and when both are on at the same time (depending on the pedal's settings) an aggressive distortion screams at you. OR - Keep on overdrive on at your rhythm volume, and use the other as a lead boost OR gain boost! Want crunch? Not a problem -- turn up the tone knob a hair -- it WILL NOT get brittle, but it will crunch like you wouldn't believe!
Stays crunchy - even in milk. 2 overdrive circuits. Sounds pretty nice. The guys over there also mod your exisiting pedals if you wanna hot up your ts9 they might just be good folks to talk to.
IndyGuitarist.com - Pinnacle Pedal via Harmony Central
Posted by funnelbc at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)
nakeddwarf.com.au music website goes national
I got an email from the nakeddwarf.com.au folks a while ago saying they'd jazzed up their website, and i filed it away in my brain and promptly got on with whatever it was I was up to at the time. Nakeddwarf previously covered all the musical happenings for Tasmania, and i'm still subscribed to their newsletter as I like to know what's going on down home.
At any rate I can very happily report that (and this is probably old news) but the dwarf is now national, with plenty of info for music lovers in capital cities all around Australia.
Nakeddwarf.com.au bookmark it and watch peoples eyebrows raise when they use your computer. A fine local music site that's been doing great work for years now. Check it out.
Posted by funnelbc at 05:38 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2005
ipod nano announced
Overnight in the states, Apple has announced a few new things. The RCKR iTunes music phone (nobody cares about that one), iTunes 5 (at least a few people care about that) and the ipod nano (which everyone cares about.) Basically it's replacing the ipod mini and it's teeny tiny, has a colour screen, flash based storage, uses the same connectors as the standard ipod (which means most accessories should work for it) and comes in capacities of 2 & 4gb. And glory be, it also comes in black. Thankyou apple.
14 hour battery life and a click wheel. Does most of the stuff that the ipod photo (or just ipod colour as they're called now) does in a teeny tiny package. One thing that all the other mp3 players are doing and I wish apple would add is a radio. I know its all like the future and stuff, but goddamn it, sometimes espescially on a limited capacity player you get sick of the music and want to listen to something different.
It looks pretty damn tiny, and I think as if anything they released wasn't going to sell its arse off, anyway, but this looks like its going to be a massive hit. Most of the nerd websites are crowing about how cool this is, and that's because it kinda is cool.
Posted by funnelbc at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2005
mbox 2 update - now without handle!
CDM has the scoop with fresh info on the Mbox2, including details on the new pre-amps in the new box and what happened to the 3/4" jacks and the gank-tastic handle.
Posted by funnelbc at 05:17 PM | Comments (0)
"the day music died" - sadly it didn't take hyperbole with with it.
Yesterday the ruling was passed down on the Kazaa folks, Sharman Networks. As part of the ruling:
"They also sponsored a Kazaa Revolution campaign attacking the record companies," he said. "To a young audience ... the effect of this web page would be to encourage visitors to think it cool to defy the record companies."
It is cool to defy the man. That is, let me check the usage instructions, yes what rock and or roll is about. I'm sure this has some fairly serious legal repercussions for online file sharing, or at least it's a precedent for the Australian legal system.
"Success in the Kazaa case is also likely to be huge boost for the global music industry, which has been hanging on by its fingernails, blaming music piracy for a huge drop in CD sales.
According to the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, peer-to-peer was partly to blame for a 25 per cent drop in record sales since 1999. In Australia, the value of record sales fell 6 per cent in 2004 to $607 million.
What would be a massive boost for the global music industry is to stop regurgitating the same filth onto the airwaves and television and get behind interesting and new music.
I think that even mainstream radio stations like Triple M (part of the Ausstereo network) here in Australia are feeling the pinch from a consumer who increasingly doesn't have to put up with not only a poor selection and variety of music, but a density of advertising that would make any hardened popular culture consumer turn off.
Music lovers (or at least musical epicurans), by and large don't listen to commercial radio, they purchase singles, and these days, can choose how they get their music. I think however, it's not that portion of the music purchasing audience that is stealing music online, i'm fairly convinced (and a quick search for any moderately popular pop act versus a moderately popular alternative act on Limewire will confirm this) its the younger people who formerly purchased singles and a top 40 compilation CDs that are especially getting into this market. If their total CD purchases for a year would be maybe 10 CDs for example and they download all those albums online that would hurt big music business much more than your avid music fan who not only downloads music online, but continues to purchase music instore, online, and attends live music.
I think that's why there is so much bitterness towards big music. The people who pour a disproportionate amount of money per capita into the industry are overlooked for the quick buck, short term money potential of artists like the Australian/Armenian/American Idol winners. If you take care of your core business - that is, your actual music lovers, then you can continue to dish saccharine slops to the teenage market, but I feel perhaps as consumers they'd also be more likely to become avid music purchasers if music had for them the same signifigance it does to a music affionado.
I got a bit worked up and confused there, but the crux of what i'm trying to get at is, music afficionados aren't hurting the music industry, they continue to be an advocate and avid purchaser of music products, but the top 40 music consumer is getting wiser I think. Why pay for the music when they can download it online - they certainly don't seem to get anything special from purchasing the CD and seem to have much less of an emotional attachement to any of these issues because music is like any other consumer product for them. The music industry treats it's biggest consumers like cattle and now the cattle has greener pastures to dine apon.
If p2p had a blow struck yesterday, it was only the aspect as it applies to commercial entities trying to operate legally and make a profit (and Sharman made quite a bit of money from Kazaa) from piracy. What's logical - and happening right now is piracy is facilitated by bittorrent and increasingly as time goes on, you will see anonymous torrent software allowing sharers to swap files in relative safety. Bandwidth available to consumers is ramping up, and what consumers can do with that facility is the big question. How quick can the record industry nail down each new method of piracy and how quickly can the users circumvent it again?
Posted by funnelbc at 03:39 PM | Comments (0)
equalizer watch
I don't know what's more embarassing - the fact that this watch with a built in equalizer exists, or that I want one. Probably the latter. Reading the website it's not exactly clear if the EQ actually works - they say "equalizer effect" so I'm taking that as meaning that it could just be blinged out. Regardless, it looks pretty cool, and I don't know of many music gadget type watches so it gets a post.
High Frequency by Tokyo Flash Via Gizmodo Price converts to about $210AUD - Tasty.
Posted by funnelbc at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)
d-lusion releases drumstation and rubberduck for free
D-lusion have released their Drumstation and Rubberduck software for free. Can't argue with that. Apparently pre-dating Rebirth - they're standalone TB303 (Rubberduck) and TR909 (Drumstation) style standalone programs. My download of Rebirth has finished so i'm going to fire up the nostalgia machine over here and have trip down amnesia lane, I shall have to give the Rubberduck and Drumstation a red hot and see which tickles my fancy.
The feature set of Rubberduck and Drumstation certainly seems very respectable - it's nice to see all this older stuff being re-released as free software. It might give for example, my K62-450 sitting in the corner a new lease on life.
Drumstation & Rubberduck Via Matrix Synth
Posted by funnelbc at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2005
gracenote - the cddb folks get predictive
From the year two thousand and five I bring you this Jetsons like newsflash from Gracenote, the makers of CDDB: "The new system “fingerprints” the user’s songs by analysing peaks and troughs in the audio of a digital file and uses this to build a profile of a user’s musical preferences.
A user’s PC will then listen to internet radio broadcasts, and compare new songs to the user’s music profile. If the music seems likely to appeal, the recorder saves the song to permanent memory for playback later."
Clever. Gracenote.com has a press release about it. Via the very fine and handcrafted Cubicle Chronicles
Posted by funnelbc at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
commodore 64 music = scary but also cool
Commodore 64 music blog - all commodore / SID music all the time. Reading the posts reminds me of reading the amiga mags just as amiga's were disappearing off the market.
I saw Casionova at something a while ago. They were quite good. I may have had a few drinks but I remember thinking... well. That I needed another drink. They get a mention over there because of their love for the c64.
At any rate. It's awesome and I endorse it. C64 Music Blog Via CDM
Posted by funnelbc at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)
free retro tape delay effects
The good ship CDM where the posts are frequent and the rum is ever flowing have some good news which I now bring to you dear reader. One of CDM's fans has kindly pointed out some free VST delay effects and for that, I think everyone should get a pat on the back.
CDM - Free Retro/Tape Delay Effects
Posted by funnelbc at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2005
updated! 6/9 torrent link for rebirth download
Now please excuse me if I'm on the wrong side of the law, but basically it did say as long as you weren't selling it you could re-distribute rebirth i'm pretty sure. At any rate, all it took in the end was a quick google when I knew what i was looking for.
And remember kids, sharing is caring, so save a swede a dollar on their bandwidth bill and demonstrate the value of distribution via torrents. See, business and fun can play happily together.
Official Rebirth Torrent (Mac)
(edited to update with the "official" offical link. The file is now also only 215mb)
Edit. The scandal continues at Music Thing wher you find out the majority of the massive download is, infact, copy protection. Heh. Gotta Laugh.
Posted by funnelbc at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
mbox 2 announced - industrial designer may have been drunk
Digidesign have announced the new and improved err new Mbox2. Apart from removing digital i/o apparently it also is limited to 2 tracks of simultaneous recording. Plus, it appears that Digi have taken a design lead from some of the more ganky m-audio gear.
CDM Cover it and they also as a bonus, don't use the words ganky, so bully for them!
Posted by funnelbc at 11:35 PM | Comments (2)
rip rebirth, long live the swedish software overlords
Rebirth. It's got a warm place in my heart and blew my mind the first time I used it - it was on the beginning of the end for hardware synthesis and hinted at how quickly the production of electronic music and music in general would shift to software. It was fun and easy to use and for those of use with nautical tendancies, reasonably easy to get a hold of.
Propellerhead have discontinued Rebirth, but in a move of fairly fabulous generosity on their part they've released it for free download online from their Rebirth museum. Right now, it's no longer even online - Because of the demand eating up basically all of Sweden's and Luxembourg's precious bandwidth (this may be a bit of an exaggeration - i'm sure Luxembourg will be just fine). At any rate. If you happen across the CD ISO (~500+ mb) file on one of the file sharing networks you can actually download it with an easy concience. I will post when it's back online at propellerheads hq, but this seems so much like the perfect example of bit-torrent swinging in and saving the company a dollar or two and making sure the only people paying for the bandwidth are those who would like the software. If you happen across a torrent for it please let me know and I'll link it and get sued! Hurrah!
Rebirth Museum for all your antiquated 303 and 909 needs. Oh did I mention they also put up the mods and extra utilities like the excellent pattern editors as well? Well i did now. Legal obligations are out of the way - let the hunt for a speedy download site begin!
Posted by funnelbc at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)