I’ve been using the TomTom app for iPhone as my GPS. It really does the job and it makes me feel safe especially when I am traveling for my day job. At CES Garmin added a feature to GPS units that I haven’t seen before that allows you to record your own voice for the Nav system. I know you can get celebrity voices on some GPS units already but being a DIY guy when it comes to audio the “Voice Studio” feature looks cool. It’s a novelty I know and I can already imagine being picked up at the airport by a promoter and on the way to an event every time he needs to make a left turn the intro to Nitzer Ebb’s Violent Playground plays (the song starts with Douglas McCarthy screaming “To the Left!”. Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJS847sh9RU. One can dream.
“Basically, it’s a PC-based app that lets you record your own nav instructions (which we’re guessing is going to result in some extraordinarily NC17-rated Nuvis). The company is saying it’ll take about 20 minutes to complete a set of commands.” – engadget.com
With the Apple Tablet all but imminent Apps like the Argon Synthesizer just make me drool with anticipation. The Argon is $2 and has some nice reviews going for it in the App store. iTunes link: click here
“ARGON consists of three Oscillator, one filter, one amplifier, one saturator and one Delay. High-quality 32bit floating point Synth-engine. Delay Effect. 16 Step Sequencer. 512 user preset. 64 factory preset.” – iphone.icegear.net/argon/
ReGen is a USA based EBM, Synthpop and Goth magazine. Since last October (2009) they have been putting out a free one hour mix of music. I like to grab it and scan through the audio to pick out a gem here and there. Where’s my black nail polish?
“An hour of the best in industrial, goth, EBM, synthpop and alternative and electronic music, downloadable every Monday provided by ReGen Magazine.” – regenmag.com
I am hoping future versions of my favorite iPhone app Synthpond will let me use my own samples. You can do so today by incorporating some intense geekery via PD (Pure Data) or Max. If you’re interested in learning about PD check out a great article by Jim Alkin over at O’Reilly Digital Media called “Make Your Own Music Software with Pure Data”: click here. There is also a good Wikipedia page for PD: click here.
“I’m using the synthpond PD patch to controle the FPC in FL studio. The sound generator nodes don’t have samples mapped (except for the hi-hats). Only the reactor nodes are mapped to a sample. that way it’s a bit easier to “sync” everything.” – isnie zot
Download Synthpond for iPhone (iTunes link): click here
ps. Zach Gage the developer also has created what I consider the best take on Tetris for the iPhone. It’s called Unify (iTunes link): click here
Every now and then I come across a vintage synthpop gem that I never heard before. I found today’s song via the Matrixsynth blog and it’s called Computer Games by a band called Mi-Sex. Apparently the song was a huge hit in Australia. I checked out other Mi-Sex songs on Amazon and discovered they are really a rock pop band and this was one of the few tracks they released that were synth heavy. Amazon link: Computer Games/Space Race
“Mi-Sex (also spelt ‘’MiSex’’) was a New Zealand / Australian new wave rock band active from 1978 to 1984. Led by Steve Gilpin as vocalist, they were best known for their singles “Computer Games” in 1979 and “People” in 1980. Their first single for CBS, “But You Don’t Care” / “Burning Up”, was released in Australia in June 1979 and their debut album, Graffiti Crimes was issued in July 1979 to coincide with their national tour as the support act for Talking Heads. The LP included their biggest hit, the synthesizer-driven “Computer Games”, a Burns/Stanton composition released in Australia on October 1, 1979. The single went to #1 in Australia, made the Top 5 in New Zealand, and also charted in 20 countries including Canada and South Africa.” – wikipedia.org/wiki/MiSex
I was born in 1970 and 2010 really feels like I am living in the future now. Am I wrong or has the human race’s vision of the future not gone much further than what we thought up in the 80s? It seems all we can come up with now is the end of the world. I hope we make it to The Singularity and deep outer space. For now my New Year’s resolution is to make more music. 2009 was definitely my lightest as far as finished songs but that was a bit by design. I feel fresh and ready for new things.
“A singularity is a point at which an otherwise continuous mathematical progression becomes infinite, implying that all continuous extrapolation breaks down beyond that point. Technological singularity refers to the idea that technological progress would reach such an infinite or extremely high value at a point in the near future. This idea is inspired by the observation of accelerating change in the development of wealth, technology, and humans’ capability for information processing. Extrapolating these capabilities to the future has led a number of thinkers to envisage the short-term emergence of a self-improving artificial intelligence or superintelligence[1] that is so much beyond humans’ present capabilities that it becomes impossible to understand it with present conceptions. Thus, the technological singularity can be seen as a metasystem transition or transcendence to a wholly new regime of mind, society and technology.” – Wikipedia.org
One of my most loved audio software tools is about to reach version 2. Harmony Navigator from Germany’s Cognitone software will get some nice new features. The developer will also release a stripped down version called HN2 LE for those who don’t need the advanced features. Be sure to check out my screencast showing a few of the features of the original Harmony Navigator: click here
“After more than a year, it’s now time to bring Harmony Navigator to the next level. During the past year we more and more noticed that the needs of our users largely fall into two categories. While purists and fans of electronic music could comfortably do without virtual accompaniment bands, others wished they had more possibilities for adding their own patterns and building songs. Therefore we decided to offer two separate products for everyone’s needs and budget: A compact and very affordable product for pure harmonic work, and a more comprehensive product for drafting prototypes of entire songs. We invested a lot of work in order to enhance the features of Harmony Navigator and make it more comfortable to draft of entire songs. The new song window is the most important achievement. It features multiple parts on a timeline, which also supports loop playback. You can now maintain your entire project in a single window.” – cognitone.com
It should be released next month (Feb 2010). Read the full press release: click here
Mr. Alias Pro is a broken screwed up synthesizer. Mr. Alias was designed that way and it’s a perfect soft synth for anyone into ciruit bending, noise or headaches. I actually think this synth is very useful when it comes to creating easy interesting intros or breaks. It has an Auto Randomizer so I am happy. Mac/PC, AU/VST plug-in or Standalone. It’s Donationware so any amount gets you the pro version.
“Mr. Alias Pro is a fully professional software synthesizer which exploits the properties of digital audio to achieve extremely bad sounds.” – thepiz.org
I was flipping through the latest issue of Sound on Sound and came across a cool looking hardware box called the Fucifer from Evolaudio. It’s a distortion synthesizer, mic-pre and EQ. I like what it does and how it looks but how it sounds will determine if it’s worth $2600. More and more I have been returning to hardware lately. Has anyone played with one of these?
“The Evol Fucifier is a distortion synthesizer & sound shaper, designed to give you many colors with which to create and shape your palette of sounds. Everything in the signal chain, from the Mic Pre, the Vintage Germanium Preamp, the Filter, and the inductors in the Equalizer to the output transformer, is designed to be overdriven, saturated, overloaded or distorted in a pleasing way. Mix & match the Vintage Germanium Preamp for a little warmth or overdrive, the Tape Saturation overdrive for a little compression and limiting or a bit of saturation, the Filter/Crossover (which in itself sounds great overdriven or even pushed into self oscillation with a sufficient amount of resonance), the Dual Band Distortion which allows you to mix many different kinds of distortion, and the vintage-style inductor based equalizer to shape the overall tone and color of the sound.” – evolaudio.com
Who doesn’t like bass? How about a lot of bass? A ton of bass? Check out some of these photos from an Italian room built with a giant subwoofer into it’s basement.
“Royal Device has on its own developped and built in Italy the biggest subwoofer of the world for an AUDIO/VIDEO room that can be also considered as the greatest AUDIO ROOM for private music listening of the world. The audio reproduction is focused on the speakers output capability more than electric power output of the amplifiers with no need of KWatts power supply lines, releasing more than 110 dB/1W/1 meter sensitivity starting from below 10 Hz focused on the listening position.” – curiousphotos.blogspot.com
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