As a musician the word to describe how I feel about the new Apple Ping social network is: exhausted. Musicians have become the tech industries guinea pigs. Why not? We try anything and work cheap right? After creating and curating profiles on MySpace, Last.fm, Imeem, Facebook and then Facebook Fan Pages and on and on now it’s time for Ping. Of course most musicians I know won’t be able to create and artist page yet will they? At this point in time indie artists will have to create normal user profiles and watch the Lady Gaga’s get all the love. As an Apple fanboy I’ll download iTunes 10, create my profile, share it with the world and friend a bunch of people I don’t know. Let’s hope the new network really does help music discovery.
“Follow your favorite artists with a click and become part of their inner circle. Get in on the action with artist photos and status updates. Even add comments to join the conversation. Find out what music an artist likes and pick up a few recommendations. Ping is built into the iTunes app on iPhone and iPod touch. So you can see artist updates from anywhere.” – apple.com/itunes/ping/
Some of the Apps are iPhone Apps but because of screen size are much more fun on the iPad. There are a few music creation iPhone apps I have that I didn’t put on my iPad because they work fine on the smaller screen. Interesting the combined total price for all the Apps above if you bought them today is $137.74. I think that’s pretty good for all the touch screen sounds and creativity you get.
“The iPad has two internal speakers that push mono sound through two small sealed channels to the three audio ports carved into the bottom-right of the unit. A volume switch is on the right side of the unit. A 3.5-mm TRS connector audio-out jack on the top-left corner of the device provides stereo sound for headphones with or without microphones and/or volume controls. The iPad also contains a microphone that can be used for voice recording.” – Wikipedia
If you have any questions about any of these or want my own review just let me know.
This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on September 1, 2010 at 3:03 am, filed under apple, iPad and tagged Apps, iPad. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post. This post currently has 12 comments.
In the late 80s when I lived with my mother I learned the craft of making music in the basement. Mostly I just blasted endless loops of kick drums. I don’t know how she put up with it. To this day she says she still hears me down there.
“xkcd is a webcomic created by Randall Munroe. The comic’s tagline describes it as “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” It has been recognized in such mainstream media as The Guardian and The New York Times.” – Wikipedia
As a die hard all things classic DM fan the tweet above means something. Let’s hope the music is good. Guys please put your minds in a time machine for this one.
“If you just can’t get enough of early Depeche Mode, you’ll be happy to know that Vince Clarke & Martin Gore are working on a techno-ish track called Zaat.” – Synthtopia
The XILS Lab XILS 3 is a recreation of the EMS VCS synthesizer. It comes in two flavors. There is a LE version for $37 and a version with more features for $181. There is a demo. All versions including the demo require an iLok. There is an extended review of the XILS 3 in the August issue of Sound on Sound: click here. Basically they say it’s not a spot on emulation but a very interesting plug-in. Hardware lust and purism aside is the XILS 3 in the realm of the TimewARP 2600, UHE ACE and the Korg Legacy Collection?
“Given the DSP power available nowadays, you might think that it would be possible to emulate the VCS3 in software. You could imitate its unstable oscillators, model its unpredictable filter, recreate its loopy envelope generator and all its other facilities, iron out its idiosyncrasies, add a few enhancements, and then stick a pretty GUI on the front that forces players to approach it in the same way as the original. So, what is XILS 3? On the surface, it’s a soft synth designed to look, feel and sound like a VCS3. However, as we delve deeper, we’ll find that it’s much more than that.” – Sound on Sound
Multimedia designer Franz Keller has created an iPad app called Radarhead. It’s a rotary sequencer in which you can control the speed, direction and center point. The sounds are represented by colorful 8-bit alien images. It’s fun and well worth the .99 price: click here The video of the band using it below inspires me. This app reminds me of those 80′s puffy stickers mixed with a bit of synthpunk attitude.
“Kinduv a rotary beat sequencer. Looks weird (but cool) at first, but not hard to make interesting stuff if you play around with it for a bit. My fav thing to do is make several constellations of aliens and move the radar guy between them. You can also reverse or speed up the beams by dragging the arrows–don’t just tap on it!” – Milo Cantos (iTunes Review)
If your life really isn’t all that great just dance or play some invisible drums. If the guys in the videos below can be happy so can you. Anyone doing anything fun this weekend?
I love the ARP 2600 synthesizer. The mighty Macbeth M5 was a new incarnation (there were differences I know). Software-wise the closest you can get is the TimewARP 2600 from Way Out Ware. To play and hear one in person is to want one.
“The ARP 2600 is a semi-modular analog subtractive audio synthesizer, designed by Alan R. Pearlman (and Dennis Colin), and manufactured by his company, ARP Instruments, Inc. Unlike other modular systems of the time, which required modules to be purchased individually and wired by the user, the 2600 was semi-modular with a fixed selection of basic synthesizer components internally pre-wired. The 2600 was thus ideal for musicians new to synthesis due to its ability to be operated either with or without patchcords, and was, upon its initial release, heavily marketed to high schools, universities, and other educational facilities.” – Wikipedia
The best marriage between a specific synthesizer and artist has to be Vince Clarke and his Sequential Circuits Pro One. You hear layers of the Pro-One on the wonderful sounding Yaz albums. Vince has started what looks to what will be a series of videos called The Analogue Monologues talking about his toys. He starts with the Pro-One of course… I’m looking forward to more.
The Analogue Monologues is a new series of mini video documentaries. In each webisode Vince talks about one his analogue synths and explains where the on/off switch is. This series proves, once and for all, that he really doesn’t know much about anything (a must see!).” – vinceclarkemusic.com
The big upgrade to Propellerheads Reason and Record has just been released. The new Reason has the Kong Drum Designer, Dr. Octo Rex, Live Sampling, Blocks and more. The big new deal in Record is the Neptune pitch corrector and voice synthesizer. I’ve mentioned before I always have Reason ReWired into Ableton Live. There are several things I do with Reason that I really can’t acheive any other way. The best thing about Reason is it’s one of the most fun pieces of software to use.
“The name propellerhead comes from the pejorative term used to deprecate science fiction fans and other technophiles, who are stereotypically drawn wearing propeller beanies.” – Wikipedia
Propellerheads have a great YouTube channel: click here
Loading ...
Recent Comments