The Most Advanced Mobile Music Workstation?

This video is an overview of Intua’s BeatMaker 2, which they describe as ‘the most advanced mobile music workstation’.

I have had the successor to this version on my iPod Touch for quite some time now and can surely vouch it is impressive what they manage to pack into a $19.99 app.

Check out the details below – and let me know what you think of BeatMaker 2 - and the fact that it runs on a phone.

STUDIO

• Create multiple instruments with Drum Machine or Keyboard interface
• 10 effect units to choose from: Reverb, Compressor, Filter, Delay, EQ, Flanger, Chorus, AutoPan, BitCrusher, Overdrive.
• 3 effect slots for each instrument, unlimited global effect racks
• Customizable Cross Controller for all effects, to manipulate multiple parameters at once

DRUM MACHINE

• Up to 128 trigger pads: 16 pads over 8 different banks
• Chop Lab: Slice audio loops to automatically create new sound presets
• Control sound parameters on individual pad: volume, pan, mute, output bus, semitone, fine tune, reverse and autoscaling
• Low/high pass filter per pad with cutoff and resonance control
• Choose between various pad trigger modes: one-shot, hold & loop
• Customizable envelope (ADSR) control for each pad
• Exclusive groups and polyphony management
• “Live” modes: trigger, mute, reverse, velocity and tune spreading.

KEYBOARD SAMPLER

• 128 keys keyboard with pitch wheel with double keyboard mode, note display and zoom controls
• Easily create your own instruments from any sample combination with the keygroup editor
• Volume and filter ADSR envelopes
• Low/high pass filter with cutoff, resonance and key tracking
• 2 LFOs with customizable amplitude, offset and rate (synchronizable), controlling volume, pitch and filter parameters
• Polyphony control, with up to 32 voices per keyboard sampler
• Legato play mode with customizable glide
• Keygroup controls: volume, pan, semitones, fine-tune, reverse and one-shot, hold, hold & loop trigger modes

MULTI-TRACK SEQUENCER

• Create unlimited instrument and FX tracks
• Automations: Record, edit and replay instrument and effect parameters
• Record, draw, arrange and resize patterns along the timeline to build your song
• Compose and modify patterns with a piano-roll interface. Edit notes, parameters, and automations.
• Instrument and effect recording options: Quantize, take or partial undo, pre-roll, Overdub, note erasing.

WAVE EDITOR

• Full-fledged wave editor with intuitive pinch and selection for manipulating samples
• Basic edition tools: trim, cut, copy, paste, with 8 levels undo/redo
• High quality time-stretching and pitch-shifting algorithms
• Audio tools: normalize, silence, reverse, fade in and out, cross-fade
• Record new samples from device microphone or plugged instrument
• Loop points and tempo/signature editor

MIXER CONSOLE

• Realistic multi-track mixer with level meters
• Edit volume, pan, solo, mute and bus routing features for individual tracks

LARGE SOUNDBANK INCLUDED

• 68 Drum Machine presets from all genres
• 111 Keyboard Sampler presets, from synthesizers to realistic orchestral instruments.

SHARING & GLOBAL OPTIONS

• Export your songs to Audio or MIDI files
• Transfer and manage your files from your computer using the integrated FTP server
• Import any songs from your iPod library to create new remixes
• Upload your songs directly to your SoundCloud account
• Share audio content with more than 20 other music applications using the iOS pasteboard
• Supports BeatMaker 1 kits and projects
• Fully supports Retina display
• Native iPad version coming soon as a free update

Intua’s Beatmaker 2 is available now in the Apple App Store

Bibio Announces New Album

Mind Bokeh, the new album from the electronic pop wiz Bibio, arrives March 29 in the U.S. and April 4 in the rest of the world, via Warp Records. The follow-up to 2009′s Ambivalence Avenue takes its title from the Japanese word “bokeh”, which means the blurry, out-of-focus part of a photograph– a very specific term that nicely captures Bibio’s distinct brand of atmospheric haze.

In a press release, Bibio promises that the new album will continue the restless genre-hopping of Ambivalence Avenue, switching freely between acoustic folk and woozy beats.

Below is the tracklist to Mind Bokeh, as well as a video sampler that includes clips from many of the album’s tracks.

Mind Bokeh:

01 Excuses
02 Pretentious
03 Anything New
04 Wake Up!
05 Light Seep
06 Take Off Your Shirt
07 Artists’ Valley
08 K Is for Kelson
09 Mind Bokeh
10 More Excuses
11 Feminine Eye
12 Saint Christopher

Artemis vs. The City

In the world of electronic music we always see artists trying to innovate and create new sounds to reinvent the whole genre. Ranging from all the hot new instruments and programs that just hit the market to developing their own by combining new school ideas with old schools instruments like the timeless minimoog voyager. While the level of creativity grows with each new wave of artists, many or relying on loops and are triggering in those sounds to compose their work.

With Edison, the situation is exactly the opposite of that. The video above captures a live performance – all one shot sounds, no loops, on take live to camera. Don’t think you will be able to get your hands on his hardware either, he is working with two DIY monome controllers built by his own two hands.

The video above was a 4 camera 2 projector shoot all shot in 1080p. The flashing bulbs were controlled by MIDI through what he calls the lunchboxes…

Edison’s album, “People are Bad Animals” is out now on Kid Without Radio Records and can be purchased at www.kidwithoutradio.com.

For a complete view from overhead, check the video below:

How to Make Music from Wine Glasses, Whisky, & Panties

Mateusz Zdziebko‘s rather awesome music video, Sampled Room, is a clever demonstration of how, with a sampler, you can make music out of anything:

This is an example, how to use the basic stuff in your room in such creative and musician way. Just take some noisy and voiced objects and record them with any sampler. At the end use all this stuff to create any music u desire. Or… You even don’t need any sampler. Just use your friends, give them gadgets and transform your party into gizmo-jam-session. I can guarantee much fun. Enjoy!

 

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Sound Sources:

• 2 Wine Glases
• Panties
• Bottle Opener
• Drier
• Tape
• Tube Pack From Whiskey
• Spring
• Old Russian Camera
• Spanner
• Water

Tools:

• Canon EOS 5D mkII
• DitoGear™ CrankSlider
• Microphone Shure SM 48

Shots, Edit & Music – Mateusz Zdziebko

A preview of Konkreet Performer

 

This is a sneak preview for Konkreet Performer – a new “visual OSC controller and visualizer” for your DAW / Synth / Drum Machine / Sampler etc.

Developer Konkreet Labs hasn’t released much information on Konkreet Performer, but says it  ”aims to be used in the studio and on stage. it addresses digital music control and performance in whole new and unique way — be ready to explore multitouch to the extreme!”

This is the sort of thing that is exciting about the emergence of inexpensive multi-touch devices. It’s not a virtual fart piano – but the result of something treating new devices as a blank slate on which to create something new.

Particularly pay attention at about :30 where the beat gets going and the visualization really defines the sound being produced.

Interested in Konkreet Performer? Check it out and let me know what you think!

 

Tron: Legacy and Daft Punk Preview

One of the most highly anticipated films of the year, Tron: Legacy is coming close to it’s release! Anyone else as excited as I am? Not only will this movie be filled with visual effects that will transcend oneself into a totally different realm, but the music couldn’t be more fitting.

Daft Punk has been working over the past year to create the most powerful album they have made to this date. With a movie set to be released in iMax 3D, filled with action and led lights all over the place, what group could possibly be more suitable for this role. This clip gives a preview to the song “Derezzed” of their album set to hit stores, December 7, nearly a week before the movie launches. You even get to see the cameo performance by the french electronic masterminds.

My (current) top 5 favorite pictures on the internet

The Beatles

The Great Wave of Kanagawa

The Flaming Lips – Barton Hall at Cornell University

Falling Words

Visit Through the Water

We are Alexander Supertramp

If your anything like me, you love everything that even remotely relates to the Beastie Boys. There is something about those dj style hip-hop beats laced with whiny white mans voices that reel people in by the masses. The Wild Orchid Children are a modern day version of that epic trio. Spawning from the late Gatsby’s American Dream, Kirk Huffman and Kyle O’Quinn have finished their second album and first full length from this promising group. Encapsulating all the finest elements of the Beastie Boys and combining it with psychedelic rock, booming vocals, swirling piano line, and guitar riffs that will melt your face off, this album will be sure to show what that unique Northwest flavor is all about.

With their debut 4 song album, The Elephant EP, released back in January 2008, both Huffman and O’Quinn were finally able to show what they were really about and the music they were capable of creating all while receiving great success in the process. It was fabulous to see such a promising band with such a distinct style make the music they wanted without the say of those big, money hungry executives.For those of you not in the know of their other project, Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground, just stop whatever you had planned to do after reading this. Seriously, anyone who hasn’t listened to their self-titled album,  get on that immediately (no joke, one of my favorite albums EVER, seriously…..EVER).

So check out a teaser video below with a little inside look at what is to come for the new album. These guys work hard and make some of the best music around……please give all the support they deserve!!

So an apple, a dj, and a lemur walk into a club…

With all the buzz surrounding Apple’s new product, the iPad, i’m sure every single one of us is sick of hearing about it (and it hasn’t even been released yet!!!!!). With all the skeptics out there (including myself), we all seem to wonder the same thing about this, what’s the point of it??? I mean really, it just seems like an iPhone on some serious steroids that lacks the capabilities of any laptop. Well, with all that being said and out of the way, I will shed some light on some of the awesome features that this baby will bring, ESPECIALLY to the music scene.

With my lust for technology and my growing passion for all things DJing (software, hardware, live controllers, etc.) the iPad is going to be groundbreaking on many levels. For a few years now, several of the biggest names in the industry such as Daft Punk, Justice, and Bjork have been using what is called a Jazzmutant Lemur with their live shows. This is a mesmerizing product since it uses all multitouch to control everything from sequencing to lighting. Here check out this video and you will get the gist of it…

Now this is just one of the many user interfaces that can be used with the Lemur. I will post another video of a sequencing interface that can also be used with this…

Now you can possibly start to see what I am getting at with the iPad. Such major music companies like Korg have already jumped on board with Apple’s newest device and have created incredible applications that can be used. Many of you are probably thinking, well there are already a ton of music applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch, so of course there are applications like this for the iPad. Yes, well many artists have already been pushing these small devises to the limits with their live sets, but it will be nothing in comparison to the iPad. These programs are much more in depth, sequencing, synthesizers, beatmakers are all capable with endless possibilities in conjunction with the iPads multitouch.

So will the iPad kill off a lot of these other music controllers?? Lets break it down to pricing and you can just decide for yourselves. A jazzmutant Lemur is going to run you anywhere from $1,500 (which is the stripped down version called the Dexter) to about $3,000. While, as most of you already know, you can get your hands on an iPad for a base price of $499. Did I mention you can also surf the internet, read books, newspapers, watch movies, etc. But you already knew that……right??

There you have it everyone, love him or hate him (and for some hate that you love him), Steve Jobs has created another groundbreaking device for Apple. Now that I have offered my two cents on the iPad, decide for yourself, could you see yourself buying one? Personally, I can’t wait to see the kind of music people will come up with while using this. I will leave you with Korg’s iElectribe program they recently created for the iPad. Keep in mind people, this is only the beginning of applications that will be released for this device.

Big Echo

It’s not everyday you stumble upon an album you feel that deep connection with. Sometimes you don’t even know why you enjoy it so much, but when you here those chords that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you can never get enough of it. This is the effect “Big Echo” has given me. The Morning Benders are about to release this as their fourth full length album. Im completely addicted. I haven’t been able to stop listening to this for the past few days, literally. Set to officially hit shelves and all over the internet next week on March 9, this lp is surely going to be one of my favorites of 2010. Perfectly setting the right mood with their single and opening track “Excuses” will reel anyone in to make them want more.

This 4-piece group based out of Berkeley, California have already cranked out 2 official ep’s and 3 full lengths since they first evolved back in 2005. Showing fantastic promise for the future, there are not too many other bands in the scene that work as hard as these guys. Having the chance to tour with such notable acts as Grizzly Bear  and Death Cab for Cutie as well as playing a few shows with MGMT, white rabbits, and yeasayer, The Morning Benders are proving themselves to be in it for the long haul.

So be sure to check out the amazing studio performance below and give this group all the support you can. Great bands like this deserve all the attention they can get in the times we live in today. Also, if you like this track, you can head over to there website to download it for free as well as stream the rest of the album (posted a link at the bottom).

Now sit back, relax, and let TMB take you away to their own little world filled with smooth guitars, crisp drumming, elegant orchestration, and fantastic harmonies.

The Morning Benders (go here for free song download)