Several of Microsoft’s Azure-powered services experienced outages early this morning, impacting many of the core systems behind Microsoft’s biggest programs.
Science fiction is often several steps ahead of the real world when it comes to conjuring up new technologies. Back in 1991, ground breaking visual effects helped bring the shape-shifting liquid metal T-1000 robot to life in James Cameron’s Terminator 2, but 32 years later, shape-shifting robots now exist in real like…
Common viral infections may be having far-reaching effects on our brain health, new research suggests. The study found a link between dozens of different viral exposures and a later increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders. More research will be needed to untangle the true role, if any, these…
Most typical detective shows are all about “whodunit.” The lead character pieces together clues to ultimately unmask a person who committed a crime. The new Peacock show Poker Face, however, takes that inspiration and evolves it. Each story, confined to its own episode, shows you who committed the crime in the very…
Contestants on the upcoming Squid Game reality show reportedly faced hardships that even the contestants of the satirical hit Netflix series didn’t even have to face. Reports out of the UK where filming for Squid Game: The Challenge is taking place noted sub-zero temperatures early this week, and contestants…
One of the best-loved Nintendo 64 games is coming to Switch Online’s Expansion Pack this week. Back in September, Nintendo revealed that GoldenEye 007 was coming to the service and now that day is almost upon us. You’ll be able to start playing the game on your Nintendo Switch starting on January 27th. The game will be available on Xbox on the same date.
It’s unusual to see a licensed game arrive on Nintendo’s subscription service, but GoldenEye 007 is one that many fans have been looking forward to replaying (or even playing for the first time). It remains to be seen how well Rare’s classic first-person shooter will hold up almost 26 years after it debuted on the N64. Hopefully, Rare has improved the janky controls and awful framerate from the original game.
There are some new additions to the Switch Online version, though, including a widescreen mode and online multiplayer. So, you won’t necessarily need to cram around the same TV to take on your friends in a “slappers only” deathmatch.
Rare is also bringing a “recreated” version of GoldenEye 007 to Xbox consoles this Friday with dual analogue stick support, 4K resolution and “a consistent refresh rate.” Oddly, there’s no online multiplayer on the Xbox version, though there’s still four-player splitscreen support. You’ll be able to access it through Xbox Game Pass. Owners of the Rare Replay collection can download GoldenEye 007 to their Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S at no extra cost.
These days it’s not necessary to go to a giant studio with overpriced, pro-grade gear to record a Grammy-winning record. You can do it right from the comfort of your own bedroom in fact, using tools priced for even the most casual of hobbyists. It’s not news that the tools of creation or the avenues for distributing art are accessible to more people than ever. But the cultural institutions that have dominated popular music for so long can no longer ignore the bedroom producer or budding Soundcloud star.
Maybe you’ve been inspired to build your own home recording studio. And maybe, you’re not quite sure where to start. Well, an audio interface, a good mic and a decent set of headphones will get you pretty far. But the first thing you’ll need is probably staring you right in the face: a computer.
Justin DeLay, Director of Product and Category Marketing at Reverb, drives home just how important the computer is: “You can strip away everything else and as long as you have a computer you can still create music,” he told me. He suggests you “spend the money on a good computer and get other gear — such as audio interfaces, mics, headphones, etc. — used or at reasonable price points.”
But, truthfully, you can do quite a lot with whatever computer you have on hand. Joe Pecora, the engineer and producer at Red Room Studio, says your set up “could be as simple as an iPhone/iPad with Garage band.” (I know someone who recorded an entire album this way.) While he agrees that the most important part is your computer, he argues it doesn’t have to be super powerful. It doesn’t even have to be a desktop. JDilla famously created many of his beats on a Roland SP303, and you can basically recreate that experience with an iPad and the $4 Koala Sampler for iOS. And don’t forget that Gorillaz recorded an entire album on an iPad.
Which leads us to the next thing you’ll need: a DAW, or digital audio workstation. If you’re a Mac user, then you’re lucky enough to have access to Garage Band, a surprisingly capable free option. And upgrading to Logic Pro X is only a $200 investment. If you’re on Windows (or just don’t like Logic), I often recommend Ableton Live (starting at $99). But honestly there are plenty of great options out there, like FL Studio, BitWig and Cubase all of which start at $99. And often, stripped down versions come free as part of a software bundle when you buy music-making hardware like MIDI controllers and audio interfaces.
Assuming you already have a computer and you just need the accessories to get recording, you can pick up everything you need for under $500 new. But, if you’re patient, you could build a well equipped bedroom studio with used gear for as little as $250.
Speaking of which, one of the first additions to your studio should be a MIDI controller. DeLay says this is a piece of gear often overlooked by beginners. “It’s not just for playing keyboard sounds,” he explained, “it can be used to write drums and percussion, to control mixes and more. It’s the creative interface of music production, and you don’t have to play the piano in order to harness its power.”
We’ve covered plenty of affordable and portable options before. But if you don’t plan to make music on the go, I can’t recommend the Arturia MiniLab 3 enough. It punches well above its weight, and even the pros love this thing. And if you have the space, it’s not much more to upgrade to something like the Keylab Essential 49 ($269) or Novation Launchkey 49 ($229), which will give you a lot more controls to play with.
Unfortunately there’s no gear that will magically turn you into a breathy pop goddess, but a decent mic and audio interface can at least help you sound your best. Now, you could get a USB microphone, like Blue Microphones’ $130 Yeti, and it will certainly get the job done. Heck, that album I mentioned earlier was recorded using the wired headset that came with the iPhone.
But, honestly, your better bet is to get a regular XLR mic and an audio interface. Pecora specifically warns against splurging too much here. “People will look at their favorite artist and see that they use a certain mic or preamp or plugin and want to use the same thing thinking it will get them the same sound.” On early singles like “Ocean Eyes” Billie Eilish used an Audio-Technica AT2020 condenser mic, which costs just $100. And I’ve stuck almost exclusively with cheap Shure SM58s and 57s ($100 new, $50-$75 used) whether I was recording demos with my band in college or voice over for review videos at Engadget.
If you fancy yourself a future pop sensation and want to make sure your vocals are the star of the show, you could consider using a significant chunk of your budget on something like the Rode NT1-A ($229) or Shure SM7B ($390). You will get better results with more flexibility for post production, but you can clearly get excellent results with more affordable options.
As for the interface, there are tons of great options out there. Companies like Focusrite, Arturia and Tascam make excellent ones. But our new favorites in the budget interface space are Universal Audio’s Volt series. If your budget allows for it we strongly recommend the $299 Volt 276. Though, the $189 Volt 2 is also excellent, it just doesn’t standout from the crowd quite as much.
If you’re trying to save a few bucks, it’s hard to beat the Scarlett series from Focusrite (just make sure to get the second- or third-gen models). You can get the latest Scarlett 2i2 for around $130 used, but it’s just $180 new (and includes a huge bundle of very useful software).
The reason to opt for an audio interface instead of a simple USB mic is because it offers you a lot more flexibility and room to grow. For one, it offloads a lot of the audio processing from the CPU. Second, it will allow you to connect not just mics (and swap in different ones for different purposes), but also instruments, turntables or anything with an audio-out jack. An audio interface is also necessary if you plan to connect a pair of studio monitors.
This is an area that DeLay advises caution. While a good set of studio monitors will obviously be better than the speakers on your laptop and will result in a better mix, it’s too easy to get caught up in what he calls monitor envy. “The reality is that monitors at a $300 price point are going to work just fine in most spaces,” he says. Plus, your bedroom probably doesn’t have the space to really make the most of large, powerful monitors. So, save your money.
And if you’re just starting out, you’re probably better off getting a decent set of headphones. There’re tons of amazing and affordable studio quality headphones out there for under $200, like the $179 Beyerdynamic DT990PRO (currently down to just $179 on Amazon). But one of our favorites is an old workhorse from Sony, the MDR-7506. They’re well under $100 and actual pros have used them for decades to mix music.
One tip DeLay offers for novices: Double check your mixes in the real world. Headphones can over emphasize bass, while smaller studio monitors can have trouble delivering accurate bass response. So make sure to listen to your track on laptop speakers or in a car to get a sense of how it will sound in the wild.
And that’s really the key — have the patience to develop your skills and make the most of the gear you have. It’s really easy to catch a bad case of GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) when you’re first starting out — trust me, I know. But there’s no need to shell out thousands of dollars for high-end gear to start making music. You don’t even need to buy new gear. Pecora suggests the only thing you absolutely should buy new are headphones. And, presumably, that’s just because you don’t want to be wearing years worth of someone else’s sweat on your ears.
AstroForge has announced an ambitious commercial mission to observe a distant asteroid—an important step for the California startup as it strives to become the world’s first deep space mining company.
Poker Face isn’t the sort of show that can be spoiled, but have a warning anyway.
I always think there’s been a gulf between production-line TV and its prestige brethren, but that the internet helped demarcate its edges. NCIS was the most-watched drama series in the US from 2009 onwards, but you don’t see The Ringer giving an essay-length breakdown to every episode. These days, prestige drama in the peak-TV mold is pored over and chewed around by the internet sausage machine. Everything else is deemed disposable, despite the obvious and sustained success of the stuff most people are actually watching on broadcast networks. There’s a lot of snobbery there, but also I suspect the The Rookie audience isn’t too fussed about reading a 2,000-word breakdown by an underemployed Yale grad about last night’s Nathan Fillion fights crime action.
Poker Face, then, is an attempt by what I’ll only-slightly-sarcastically call “prestige TV people” into making production-line TV. Like when a stuffy gourmet chef wants to burnish their “down with the kids” credentials by making the sort of dirty burger you can only appreciate at 3am. Interesting then that, despite the fact its co-creator and star are both poster children for Netflix’s revolution, that the show was set up at Peacock. Created by Rian Johnson, fresh from the success of Glass Onion: A Benoit Blanc Mystery, and Russian Doll’s Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face is an unashamed homage to a lost age of TV. Or, you know, lost if you’re not paying attention to whatever CBS is showing on Thursday and Sunday nights.
Lyonne stars as Charlie Cale, a woman with a troubled past who has developed the miraculous ability to tell when someone is lying. After attempting to use her talent to get rich quickly on a lazy poker tour across the US, she’s caught by a Reno casino magnate. He offers her a hostess job, in exchange for not murdering her to death, making her promise not to use her talent again. When he retires, and his grabby son takes over, he opts to use her talent rather than keep it hidden, embroiling both of them in a murder mystery. Which eventually leads her taking a road trip in her Plymouth Barracuda, solving murders wherever she goes.
And, certainly, the show has leant into the idea that Poker Face is probably the closest thing we’re going to get to a millennial Columbo remake. Certainly, the creative team haven’t been shy about drawing the parallels between the ‘70s classic (and, uh 80/90s less classic) and this. It uses the same Inverted Detective Story structure, with the lead character absent in the first act while we see how the murder was committed and the attempts to build a watertight alibi. Not to mention the choice to title the show with boldface yellow text, complete with copyright date under the title card, and its overall ethos. You’ve got a streetwise, rough-around-the-edges New Yorker with a knack for solving crimes and a classic car. And, much like in its inspiration, Lyonne is going up against a series of A- and B-list guest stars, since the most famous guest star (or stars) is the one that did the murder.
The differences are mostly down to packaging, since Columbo was conceived as a series of movies-of-the-month. (Columbo was originally 90 minutes, but many episodes were “supersized” to two full hours, very commonly to their detriment.) Poker Face is set up as an “episodic” case-of-the-week show, with streaming’s runtime freedom meaning that some episodes run between 80 minutes and just 50 minutes, when the plot is slender enough to justify the trim. That’s good, because it rarely feels like any episode overstays its welcome, and they often skip along at a breezy old clip.
But this efficiency also robs us of one of the highlights that made classic Columbo as it could often be. Watching a short, scrappy, working-class cop square off against higher status opposition was always a delight. And the show would build up to these confrontations, parceling them out along the way toward the eventual denouement. Star Peter Falk was a great, if difficult, actor, and he would often be squaring off against one of his real-life friends, each one a superstar. And they would load each confrontation with depth, nuance and tension as Lt. Columbo sliced apart their “watertight” alibi with a razor blade. Watching Falk against John Cassavetes, Patrick McGoohan, Robert Culp or the amazing Jack Cassidy was electrifying television. And all of this is cast aside, because Charlie is apparently a human lie detector that knows whenever the guest star lies in her presence. (This is rather unsubtly demonstrated most of the time by Charlie reflexively coughing a naughty word describing male cow poops that we’re no longer allowed to write here.)
In its place, is the recurring twist (if it can be called that) that Charlie was actually present or somehow involved with the situation leading up to the murder. So while Lyonne is absent for the first act of the show, you then see an abbreviated version of those same events showing how Charlie came to be inveigled with the events (and has an emotional stake in solving the crime). In a way, you’ll start wondering how exactly we’ll see Charlie pop up and which scenes that we just saw was she lurking in the periphery of. It’s an elegant way of tying the character and the murder together without making her a shabby police officer in a beige raincoat.
But you don’t need to be a Columbo fan to enjoy Poker Face, and the ultimate litmus test was making my aggressively-Columbo-indifferent wife watch the screeners with me. She said that the show was fun, and it gives you the “joy of seeing how Charlie was there all along.” And that, much like another of her favorite detective shows, Jonathan Creek, you can play along at home, looking for the clues that will eventually point Charlie to solving the case. (The show does play fair, too, and gives you the chance to spot a clue that our hero won’t clock for another few minutes.)
The benefit of the episodic nature of the series is that you can dip in and out of it as you feel like it. I watched the six (of ten) episodes Peacock made available for review in dribs and drabs, watching one, then taking a day off, then the next, in a way that felt similar to how it’s intended to be seen. The only issue for would-be dippers is that you may not quite understand why, at the end of half the episodes, a character I won’t name pops up to glower at Lyonne. This is something the show has borrowed from older shows, where our hero was always on the move in order to stay out of the clutches of the overarching villain and keep the story going. But you’d be a fool not to at least watch the pilot episode, which was written and directed by Johnson. (The second episode, where he just directs, sags a little as it opts to restate its premise for anyone who decided to watch TV like a psychopath and not just start at the beginning.)
Tonally, Poker Face is breezy, despite its rough-around-the-edges world, and there’s often one killer joke in every episode. As much as some episodes might draw from a darker palette, none are even close to being described as “heavy.” It’s not afraid to be a little silly, either, but I’d spoil the fun in explaining how or why it is, so you’ll have to discover that bit for yourself. In fact, most of the fun of the show is just in the watching, so I can’t imagine anyone will be racing to write 2,000-word essay-length breakdowns about how each episode unfolded. Just repeat to yourself: It’s just a show, I should really just relax.
Poker Face debuts on Peacock on January 26th, 2023, with the first four episodes streaming at launch. A new episode will debut every following Thursday for the next six weeks.
Education Minister Jason Clare responded to media reports that Ye intends to visit the family of his new Australian partner, Bianca Censori, next week.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
