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CarTunes

By Peter Drescher
November 16, 2009

Green Technologies and Interactive Audio are two fields not generally considered related, but a new trend may change that: "Generated Sounds for Electric Vehicles", aka "EV Audio", aka "CarTunes".

Apparently, The Implants ARE Removable ...

By Peter Drescher
October 31, 2009

A little over a year ago, I uprooted my life of practically 30 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and transplanted it to Seattle's Puget Sound (which, if you're an audio guy, has a nice ring to it) ...

Review: Kerchoonz K-box Portable Speaker

By David Battino
October 6, 2009

Does this iPod-size, battery-powered vibration speaker with the gooey bottom really deliver amazing bass? Gel, yes!

Using Windows 7 for Music Production

By David Battino
October 1, 2009

Cakewalk has been reprogramming PCs into music studios since the days of DOS. Today, CTO Noel Borthwick explained the deep, technical details of how the architectural changes in Windows 7 will help (and sometimes hinder) audio processing.

Time-Lapse Movie with iPhone Soundtrack

By David Battino
August 24, 2009

Former O'Reilly web producer Justin Watt just made a surprisingly cool video by combining still photos with a soundtrack made in Looptastic, a $5 iPhone app. Here's how he did it.

Web Video Hack: Many Movies, One Player

By David Battino
August 13, 2009

Here's a super-easy way to play multiple movies in the same area on a webpage. No JavaScript required, and it works on iPhone too.

New Tricks for the Zoom H2

By David Battino
July 25, 2009

Zoom packs a staggering number of features into its audio gear. Here are a few that were surprisingly useful when I had to record some magazine and radio demos.

Star Date 2387: Is This Thing On?

By David Battino
July 1, 2009

In an amusing press release, Blue Microphones reports that the new Star Trek movie is crawling with its Mouse microphones. Here's a photo of one apparently recording the young Captain Kirk. Somehow I imagined it would look different.

iTunes DJ AppleScript: Fade to Next Track

By David Battino
May 29, 2009

A radio DJ who runs her set from iTunes asked me if I could modify one of my fade-out AppleScripts. She wanted to end a song on demand and make iTunes crossfade into the next song on the playlist. I...

The Modern Way to Put out an Album: NYeT!

By David Battino
May 13, 2009

It would be cruel to cite this as another example of the increasing irrelevance of newspapers, but I was honestly stumped by this entry in today's New York Times crossword: Modern way to put out an album. "P2P" sure didn't fit.

A Hardware Music Keyboard for the iPhone

By David Battino
May 5, 2009

There are scads of piano-keyboard apps for the iPhone, but I find the lack of tactile feedback frustrating. With Apple opening the dock connector to outside developers in OS 3, couldn't someone create a true music keyboard?

The Virtual Instrument I'd Like to See

By David Battino
April 30, 2009

Reading about an audiophile who compared the crackling of vinyl to the coughing of old men at a concert, I started to imagine a virtual audience plugin. What controls would you add?

iPhone Web Audio Playlist Hack

By David Battino
April 23, 2009

Mobile Safari, the iPhone's web browser, has surprisingly weak audio support. But here's a hack I discovered to embed audio playlists.

Shippingness vs. Awesomeness

By David Battino
March 31, 2009

Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music posted this terrific graph yesterday, showing that the more appealing the promised product, the longer it will take to ship: The object of Peter's gear lust was the Teenage Engineering (even the company name...

20 Sounds that Must Live

By David Battino
March 30, 2009

Ted writes, "Enough with the Martian space-chime echoes! I just want five good bass sounds, five good keyboard sounds, five leads, and five pads that would sound good almost anywhere. If you could only have 20 synth sounds, what would they be?"

Is Print a Preference or a Habit?

By Andrew Savikas
March 16, 2009

Over on the O'Reilly Radar blog, Dale Dougherty posted on students increasingly prefering the sound of MP3 over higher quality music: [Jonathan Berger] has them listen to a variety...

Web Radio for Listeners

By David Battino
March 4, 2009

The visionary Lucas Gonze just launched Fresh Hot Radio.com, a smart new twist on Web radio. His mission is to connect mainstream listeners to Web-native music, so the site draws from band communities, musicians' own blogs, and bulletin boards where musicians go to get advice on their mixes. I like his choices.

Digital Music Discoveries at NAMM 2009

By David Battino
January 30, 2009

Once again, America's biggest musical instrument trade show was an amazing mix of futuristic technology, fabulous performances, and freaky products. Here are some of my favorites, starting with portable audio recorders.

Music on Computers, Circa 2013

By David Battino
January 22, 2009

For the past 13 years, I've traveled to Texas to join the "premier interactive audio think tank," Project Bar-B-Q. There, great minds from Dolby Labs, Karma Labs, Open Labs, Microsoft, Intel, DTS, Dell, and more plot the future of music on computers. Here's our latest report.

Apple removes DRM on iTunes & adds variable pricing

By Kelli Richards
January 21, 2009

At the recent MacWorld expo, Apple made some key announcements around iTunes that many of us have been anticipating for awhile. Namely, they are removing anticopying restrictions from iTunes, which will allow consumers to freely move the songs around between their PCs, mobile phones, and other digital devices. This is not a big surprise in that consumers have voiced anti-DRM...

Opt-In Complexity

By Chris Adamson
January 16, 2009

It's an interesting trait that the Mac and iPhone stacks work this way, opting in to complexity and keeping the higher-level APIs sparser and simpler, and you have to wonder whether it's a conscious design decision or a happy accident.

Audio Gear Highlights at Macworld Expo

By Jochen Wolters
January 15, 2009

Just like in previous years, those interested in making music would find lots of getting-started information at the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus and the Macworld Music Studio at Moscone. But there were also a few exhibitors who presented new products at Macworld Expo 2009 that were targeted at musicians and audiophiles. From what I saw at Moscone last week, these are my favorites.

Networked Printers and Speakers with AirPort WiFi

By Derrick Story
January 14, 2009

The current AirPort base station combined with iTunes, Apple TV, the iPhone, a handful of printers, and powered speakers have enabled me to configure an "upstairs/downstairs" network complete with printing and remote-controlled music streaming. Here's an overview.

Beatles Tech Online

By David Battino
January 14, 2009

Electronic Musician and Mix magazines just launched a wonderful little site compiling a bunch of articles about the Beatles and their pioneering use of music technology.

Now Do As You've Been Told!

By Darwin Grosse
January 8, 2009

This article is about my new collection of Korg Nano devices - or it was going to be until my hard drive died.

Bat Utility Belt #1: Save Your Ears for $20

By David Battino
January 2, 2009

Ya gotta love gadgets. As a tech reviewer, I get to check out quite a few, but in this new blog series, I'll highlight some of the gear I've bought — with my own money — that's performed especially well. Following a utility-belt theme, I'll focus on gadgets under $100. The first item in my list, though perhaps too big...

John Adams Interviewed on KQED

By Brad Fuller
December 23, 2008

Michael Krasny gabs with John Adams on KQED's Forum about his music, book and life. A must listen. And don't forget to enjoy his opera "Doctor Atomic" about Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb. Playing now on your local PBS station....

Pump Up Your Podcasting Voice

By David Battino
December 18, 2008

One of the most popular segments at my recent self-publishing workshop was about podcasting. Here are some of the production tips I shared, plus ones I didn't have time to mention.

The Right Toot for the Job

By David Battino
December 9, 2008

Rick Sammon's blog about photographing thousands of snow geese reminded me of an e-mail I got a while back from a world-champion duck caller. He was looking for a digital audio recorder. Here's what I suggested.

How Can Software Help You Create Music?

By Mark Walsen
December 4, 2008

You're invited by a whacko group of entrepreneurs, developers, and artists in the music industry to fill out a survey about music creativity software, with a chance to win a prize.

Retro Gear Revisited For Funky Game Music and Performance Art Fun, Part One

By David Javelosa
December 3, 2008

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a collector of old gear. I'm fascinated with the old stuff that still makes sound, and sound that you just can't get anymore, even with the hotest software and hybrid hardware. So I'm whipping through the piles of chassis, flight cases, wire clusters, patch chord racks; trying to remember what I had used to create...

Moldy but Good: Keyboard Performance Hacks

By David Battino
December 1, 2008

Watch Moldover deconstruct a toylike keyboard and reassemble it as an innovative musical performance controller.

Super Street Fighter II and OC Remix: Fans create soundtrack for game

By The Fat Man
November 30, 2008

Now that's what I call interactive music. The fans re-mixed the tunes from the old game, and they got put in the new version of the game. Can you dig it? It's right here:...

Borrowing Pitch and Time Correction Techniques from the Pros

By Mark Walsen
November 29, 2008

Suppose you are happy with a home recording of your voice or your acoustic instrument, except, rats, there were a couple of bad notes. What do you do? ... Although it is a tool well-suited for professional recording studio use, Melodyne is also quite friendly enough for everyday musicians.

Sounds of Crashing Hard Drives

By The Fat Man
November 22, 2008

That's all it is. Links to recordings of hard drives crashing. If I have to explain why that's cool, then I can't. If not, then I don't have to....

Tiny MIDI Keyboards for Your Laptop

By David Battino
November 19, 2008

Heading out the door to a laptop jam session today, I eyed my chunky little MIDI keyboard, but even it was too big to fit in my backpack. I ended up typing out melodies and chords on the computer keyboard itself. Not very expressive. What you really want is velocity-sensitive, piano-style keys along with pitch-bend and modulation controls.

How do _You_ Avoid The Muse? Let's make a list...

By The Fat Man
November 16, 2008

Twenty-five years ago, it was easy. We weren't rock stars because we didn't have the recording equipment. You couldn't say it was for lack of trying, either. Pretty much everybody out with whom I hung would have emphatically jumped through unthinkable flaming hoops to have access to a 24-track recording device and a microphone or two--it would have been like...living...

Yahoo Media Player 2.0 Released

By David Battino
November 13, 2008

What's probably the easiest, cheapest, and most flexible way to add an audio player to your site just got a whole lot better. Yahoo Media Player version 2 launched yesterday, adding a bevy of new features, including faster load time and support for several new audio formats beyond MP3.

Experiments in Sound Design

By Perry Norton
November 5, 2008

Creating an audio-only version of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" gave me a huge lesson in sound design - a process more analagous to songwriting than I realized...

Can Software Be a Substitute for Raw Musical Talent?

By Mark Walsen
November 5, 2008

Yes. Software can help a musician uncover talent he didn't realize he had.

Where Did My Great Guitar Riff Go?

By David Battino
November 5, 2008

It's the enduring creative mystery: You're noodling along on your instrument, stumble on an amazing lick or chord progression, and then something interrupts (phone, doorbell, power outage) and you forget your burst of genius. Where DO all the lost riffs and solos go? One of the cleverest new products I saw at AES last month meets that challenge head-on. The Line 6 BackTrack is a palm-size recorder that's always listening. The basic line-in model costs $99, and a model with a mic (see photo) costs $149.

When Linear Should be Not-So-Much

By Darwin Grosse
November 4, 2008

Please excuse this title, but I’m need to convey a point: sometimes, it is too easy to be “computer clean” when it would be better to be “humanly messy”. In this case, I’m talking about track automation, and the fact that most people depend on mouse-driven automation curves - even when they don’t do justice to the music.

When - should really be ~

By Darwin Grosse
November 3, 2008

Beatles Announce Interactive Game Deal

By Kelli Richards
November 3, 2008

Late last week Apple Corps Ltd (business entity for The Beatles) and MTV Networks announced that there will a new 'music-making game' based on the Beatles catalog released in the second half of 2009 -- and loosely based on the functionality of Rock Band. MTV owns Harmonix Music Systems, the company behind Rock Band. The new Beatles title will be...

'Want to start composing music? Try rearranging someone else's first.

By Mark Walsen
November 1, 2008

Learning to write good melodies is a great place to start. Let another composer provide the chord progressions and accompaniment for you, so that you can focus on nothing but a new melody.

A Ghoulish Deadline

By Darwin Grosse
October 31, 2008

A quick overview revealed the size of the task: I would have to produce about 4 hours of music, skit material and ambient sound to properly set the mood. In five days. With no wiggle room.

How Can a Programmer Help You Compose Music?

By Mark Walsen
October 31, 2008

This first O'Reilly Digital Media blog by a 14-year veteran developer of musician software invites you to meet the musicians hiding in your computer, ready to help you compose and arrange your own music.

Revenge of the 3D Pumpkin

By David Battino
October 29, 2008

It's Halloween again, and what better way to set the mood than with a new soundscape album from Mark Greenfield, aka Darwin Chamber? Thanks to intelligent, computer-aided composition, it's much more immersive than the standard serving of ghost moans, melodramatic laughter, and werewolf howls.

Micing a Yoga Session

By The Fat Man
October 29, 2008

My brother asked me how to record a yoga session...given that the instructor moves around a lot during the lesson. After several emails it turns out that there was no video. Which changes everything. So I writes back as follows: Wait a minute, no video? Get an H2, it has a little handle you attach to the bottom. Build a...

AES Moments: A Tasty Field Recorder

By David Battino
October 29, 2008

You can find some great stories at the Audio Engineering Society show. This one bordered on the legendary: A photographer snatches a $2,500 digital audio recorder from the jaws of death.

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