The iPad’s touchscreen display is primarily designed for use with your fingers, but people have created other unique ways to interact with it— styluses, board game playing pieces, and now these adorable hand-cranked interactive music boxes created by design student Joelle Aeschlimann. More »
Ever since introducing the Google Music app in beta last year its developers have been hard at work trimming away the rougher edges and that’s never been more evident than in the new 4.3.606 version now available for download. While Google Play Music’s overall look hasn’t shifted significantly, the changelog and a quick spin using it reveal nearly every screen has had some slight change. As seen above, the recently played screen now features larger album art, while the action bar has been adjusted with different transport controls. In this version, users have the ability to adjust and reorder music in the Now Playing queue, while a refreshed widget shows off album art and allows for thumbs up without opening the app. The settings menu has a direct link to the Nexus Q control app (assuming you can run it, and have one), hit the Play store for the updated version to try it out yourself.
Filed under: Software
Google Play Music app update brings tweaks to Now Playing, Recent, playlists and widget originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 22:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Music isn’t all strings, strumming and brassy blowing these days: the average geek can now produce the sort of tracks that would’ve previously demanded an Amon Tobin or Mr. Scruff. So what musical gadget should be on the workbench of any aspiring digital musician? Check out our top three picks after the cut, and a sneaky bonus for those on a budget at the end.
In its third incarnation, the iPad has demonstrated its chops as a musician’s friend; apps like GarageBand are more than enough to create professional sounding music. What the iOS slate lacks is inputs, and that’s where Alesis steps in. Slide the iPad into place and the $299 iO Mix turns it into a 4-channel recorder ideal for studio work and live performances. It’s compatible with any Core Audio iOS music app.
Roland’s latest Jupiter synth may not, at $1,999, be an impulse purchase for most but, in distilling the same sound engine from the highly-esteemed Jupiter-80 but at $1,500 less, it manages to be something of a bargain. The multi-colored buttons of classic Roland drum machines like the TR-808 nustle with the company’s clever Behavior Modelling tech for mimicking real instruments, paired up with effects, USB connectivity for storage and hooking up your computer, and of course the awesome sounds that Roland is known for. If you want the benefits of a standalone workstation with the flexibility of integrating soft-synths and more, the Jupiter-50 has your back.
Twin music mangling gizmos small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, Korg’s touchpad pair are descended from the estimable Kaoss Pad adopted by Muse, Radiohead and more, but tailored for mobile musos. Each priced at $160, the Kaossilator 2 is a combo synth and recorder that doesn’t care if you don’t know the black notes from the white, letting you pair up your digital twiddlings with vocals and external instruments, while the mini KAOSS PAD 2 lets you drop the remix with its 100 effects and integrated MP3 player.
Propellerhead Figure ($0.99; iOS) – Making music generally isn’t something you do on the move, but iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users with idle fingers on the train or bus could be creating tracks in seconds with Propellerhead’s addictive Figure app. Borrowing the sounds from grown-up soft-synths like Reason with a pared-back UI and easily applied effects, it’s a musical scratchpad, ideas notebook and commute distraction all in one.
What are you favorite music geek toys? Let us know in the comments!
Covet: The Best Three Gadgets for Geek Musicians is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Amazon is giving away $2 of Amazon MP3 credit and if you really want to stretch those imaginary dollars, you could land 8 ridiculously popular, played out to oblivion songs for free right now. That’s right, Amazon is pretty much giving away music. More »
MartinLogan has just announced its new Mikros 70 reference in-ear headphones, said to be inspired by the company’s high-end electrostatic speakers. The headphones deliver a private listening room experience regardless of your location, with superior ambient noise isolation described to maintain the finest qualities of recorded sound.
The body of the Mikros 70 is made from black anodized solid aluminum and has been sealed with metallic hyperblack end caps for ambient noise isolation. Five different eartips come with the headphones for size variety and choice between bulb or flange tip.
There’s an in-line remote and microphone to compliment Apple devices, which can be used to control volume, press play or pause, and select tracks. A 90-degree gold-plated plug is also featured on the headphones, with a tangle-reducing cable slider and a black rubberized cord.
Hoping to really deliver on the “realism, richness, and purity of sound that MartinLogan’s discerning customers have come to expect,” the Mikros 70 is scheduled to ship at the end of July for$149.95.
MartinLogan announces Mikros 70 reference in-ear headphones is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
I spent money on iTunes for the first time in more than a year today. I had been streaming Frank Ocean’s new album, Channel Orange, ever since he posted it on his Tumblr earlier this week, so I decided I should buy it. There are just so many places to stream music for either free or a very small monthly free—Spotify, Rdio, Grooveshark, Mog, etc—that you can avoid opening your wallet each time you want to hear something new. So when was the last time you actually purchased something on iTunes? And where are you turning for your listening pleasure? More »
We died a little on the inside when Klipsch launched a set of purple, Lou Reed-endorsed headphones last year. Now, the company is continuing its colorful theme, but fortunately this time it’s ditched celebrity endorsement and gone rugged instead. More »
Last week’s discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle set the internet ablaze with discussion and debate, but as with most scientific discoveries, there are some who are having a hard time understanding what it all means. After all, not everyone has advanced degrees in physics. In an attempt to make the significance of the discovery easier for people to comprehend, a group of scientists have taken CERN’s preliminary ATLAS data that revealed this Higgs-like particle and set it to music.
The piece of music you see above is the end result of that sonification, a 12 second-long piano solo. See that trio of really high notes there in the second measure? That’s the particle itself, and when listening to the solo, it’s pretty easy to pick out (listen for it around 3.5 seconds into the recording). DANTE’s Domenico Vicinanza, one of the scientists responsible for the sonification, explained today why this process is important:
By using sonification we are able to make this breakthrough easier to understand by the general public, highlighting the depth and breadth of the enormous research efforts by the thousands of scientists around the world involved with the Large Hadron Collider. Neither the discovery of the particle or this sonification process would have been possible without the high speed research networks that connect scientists across the world, enabling them to collaborate, analyse data and share their results.
If you’re in the mood for something a little more substantial, the team also created a longer track that features bass, marimba, xylophone, and percussion alongside the piano part. Both versions are excellent, but then again, we’re just surprised that scientific data is capable of sounding so good to begin with.
[via GÉANT]
Higgs Boson put to music in an effort to make it easier to understand is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Les Horribles Cernettes got their photo published in an HTML page 20 years ago. It was the first photo in the history of the web, which makes them the first music band in the history of the web too. Here’s how their song Collider sounds. More »
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.
